Thoughts after watching the film without spoilers

Zhang Yimou, the most representative figure in the Chinese Film Festival. At least that's how we used to describe him.

I don’t know since when, Zhang Yimou became the representative of bad movies. From the martial arts trilogy with each one worse than the last, to The Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling. to the release of Return. We once thought Zhang Yimou was back. Then he immediately gave us a Great Wall.

To be fair, The Great Wall works as a monster movie. The production is definitely considered excellent. However, what the audience cannot accept is that in order to conform to international standards, Matt Damon was forced to play the male lead. The background of the story is in Song Dynasty. The whole story suddenly became nondescript.

No matter how well-made it is, it is impossible for this movie to please the domestic audience.

At that time, I was a little disappointed with Zhang Yimou. I stopped paying attention to him after that. Until today, I saw the premiere of the movie.

Zhang Yimou's story, Zhang Yimou's martial arts, Zhang Yimou's ink paintings, Zhang Yimou's ancient music, Zhang Yimou's Chinese style. Let’s talk about color first.

Hero, bright red robe, silver sword, spear.

Ambush from all sides, full of green, bamboo forest, and silver flying knives.

The city is full of golden armor, eyes full of gold, and snow-white girls with big breasts.

Zhang Yimou's martial arts style always has a strong sense of color. It's just that those colors always have a bit of bright meaning in them.

To this day, Shadow. Black takes up 80% of the picture. A brief moment of whiteness, and eyes full of blood. Typical Zhang Yimou-like sense of color. Simple, yet strong.

The endless rain makes this already depressing story even darker.

King and minister, killing, betrayal, sacrifice. The sound of the piano is sometimes depressing and sometimes indulgent. Except for a few actors, their acting skills are basically above average.

All of this constitutes a Chinese-style conspiracy story. What makes me most satisfied is that the whole story is a pure Chinese fictional history with a martial arts style. I won’t spoil the details.

By the way, the whole story reflects a grudge between Soochow and Shu in the Three Kingdoms. Probably the section where Liu Bei borrowed Jingzhou.

Zhou Yu, Lu Su, Sun Quan, Gan Ning, Guan Yu, Guan Ping and other people can all find their prototypes in the movie.

To avoid spoilers, let’s talk about this for now. You can go and have a look when you have time.