[Shanghai literature and art review special project fund special publication]
In Pu Songling’s "Strange Stories from Liaozhai", there is a short story called "Promoting Weaving", which is meaningful and ironic.
The story was about during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Xuande liked to watch crickets fight. As the saying goes, "what is good on the top is very good on the bottom". For a while, the top and bottom were trying to find crickets, and finally the disaster fell on a person named Cheng.
In order to find a good cricket to offer, Fame was beaten to pieces, and his son committed suicide by jumping into a well. Finally, he found a cricket that could defeat a rooster, and Fame’s family was thus exchanged for prosperity and wealth.
As Pu Songling explained the story, "Therefore, every step of the Son of Heaven is related to the lives of the people and cannot be ignored."
"Embroidered Spring Knife: Asura Battlefield" (hereinafter referred to as "Embroidered Spring Knife 2") actually tells the story of such a fighting rooster. In the film, Shen Lian, played by Zhang Zhen, is thoughtful about a painting of a bug fighting a rooster, and in the character poster, Shen Lian is behind a cricket. (Note: The film says that the painting is a grasshopper. But the aggressive insect is a cricket, not a grasshopper…)
"Embroidery Spring Knife 2" was originally scheduled to be released in August, but was later moved to July 19.
Regardless of whether there is a cricket that can fight down a rooster, the world is often "a bear shakes a big tree, ridiculously overconfident".
First, the big trees
The story of "Embroidery Spring Blade 2" begins with an unofficial history. In "Jiashen Dynasty Events" there is an article "Wanzhong Stab Ship": "On May 18, the fifth year of the Xi Temple, on the altar of sacrifice to Fangze, that is, Xingxi Garden, I rode a boat with Baba, the upper body was from the stab boat, and an inner minister accompanied it, rippling with the waves, Fang looked at each other and laughed, as if he had ascended to immortality, suddenly the wind was steep, the boat was covered, and the upper body and the two inner ministers fell to the bottom of the water, and the two inner ministers on both sides exclaimed in shock, and the followers were all colorless. The inner official Tan Jing rushed into the water in a hurry, lost the emperor and came out, the second minister has died in the
According to the inference, maybe the Emperor of Heaven Awakening died because of this accident and falling into the water. If this inference holds true, then an interesting thing is that there were two emperors in the Ming Dynasty who died because of falling into the water. At the same time, neither of them had any children, so the inheritors were their younger brothers.
The death of Zhengde triggered a great ceremony in the Jiajing Dynasty, which directly affected the career of Jiajing for decades. The political landscape of the Ming Dynasty changed from then on, and civil officials began to officially enter the stage and become important figures.
The death of the apocalypse brought Chongzhen, "my brother is Yao Shun", a headstrong emperor who made repeated mistakes in the face of wars in the northwest and northeast, and finally lost the city of Beijing in his hands.
Of course, the question of who killed the Ming Dynasty is divided, and there is no conclusion so far. In the first part of "Embroidery Spring Knife", the answer is also given. The second part is not about the end of Ming Dynasty politics, but the political turmoil.
The background of the second part is that the Emperor of the Apocalypse fell into the water, which may be just a coincidence in history, but the story begins with this unofficial history and opens a conspiracy theory.
Analyze the situation at that time. Five years after the apocalypse, the emasculate arrested Yang Lian for taking bribes of 20,000 taels and let him die in prison. The day before, Zuo Guangdou had died. Subsequently, Yuan Huazhong, Wei Dazhong, Zhou Chaorui, Gu Dazhang and other six people were martyred, and the Donglin Party was suppressed by the emasculate. Six years after the apocalypse, Wei Zhongxian compiled the "Three Dynasties" and characterized the Donglin Party members as anti-party. From then on, Wei Zhongxian’s family was dominant and no one could control them.
However, Wei Zhongxian was a eunuch. In that era, although future generations often said that Wei Zhongxian wanted to usurp the throne, Wei Zhongxian himself must have known that he did not have the legitimacy to be an emperor. All his power came from the emperor himself rather than the system.
And history also proves this point. After Emperor Chongzhen came to power, he quickly eradicated Wei Zhongxian’s power. Such a story is told in the first part of "Embroidery Spring Knife".
So in such a time when Wei Zhongxian’s family was dominant, "Embroidery Spring Knife 2" launched a conspiracy theory, designing the apocalypse into the water as a conspiracy, a big conspiracy to change the dynasty.
Only Zhu Youxiao, Wei Zhongxian and Zhu Youjian were qualified to appear on the stage. As for Xu Xianchun beside Wei Zhongxian and Lu Wenzhao beside Zhu Youjian, they could only stand on the edge of the stage, thinking that they could appear on the stage.
Therefore, unlike Wei Zhongxian, who went crazy after losing power in the first "Embroidery Spring Knife", Wei Zhongxian here has always been the power-oriented and complacent No. 1 in the world. In this film, he is still played by Jin Shijie, but because the role does not have as many thoughts and changes as in the first one, he has lost his unique charm.
Jin Shijie plays Wei Zhongxian
The opposite is Zhu Youjian. In this film, Zhu Youjian is just the younger brother of the apocalypse, Xin Wang. The young Xin Wang is played by the young actor Liu Duanduan. Liu Duanduan has starred in many high-quality plays such as "Escort", "Hey, Old Man" and "Young Marshal". Now he plays Zhu Youjian, which gives him a space to play – Zhu Youjian’s role in this film is not much, probably only three scenes, but each time there are different changes. One is the mastermind behind the strategy, the other is the weak and cowardly letter king who is afraid of death, and the other is the calm emperor Chongzhen.
Although there is a gap between such Zhu Youjian and the headstrong, bloody but desperate image of Chongzhen in history, it is deviated from the historical point of view, but in this film, as a letter king who only appeared a few times, he can stand as an artistic image in this film, and Liu Duanduan’s performance can also support such a three-time change of letter king – it can even be said that this actor is the biggest surprise in this film.
Faced with such a Zhu Youjian, Wei Zhongxian finally made mistakes and made mistakes step by step. Every step was buried by Zhu Youjian and then recruited, and finally failed miserably. On the poster of "Embroidery Spring Blade 2", Wei Zhongxian is represented by a yellow bird, while the picture behind Zhu Youjian is a snake.
The so-called "Mantis catches cicadas, the yellow sparrow is behind", Wei Zhongxian thought he was the last yellow sparrow, but what he never thought was that behind him, there was a snake staring at him.
In the familiar middle school text "The Tombstone of the Five", there is such a sentence: "The castral is also afraid of righteousness, and it is difficult to make a sudden plan. When the saint comes out, he will throw himself into the road: it can be said that it is not the power of the five!" The "castral" here is Wei Zhongxian, and the "saint" is Zhu Youjian.
The author of this article is Zhang Pu, the founder of Fushe, so this article discusses Wei Zhongxian and Emperor Chongzhen from the standpoint of the Donglin Party. However, after hundreds of years, people began to have different attitudes towards the Eunuch Party and the Donglin Party, and the different historical faces of the two factions were revealed from various historical materials. The historians also began to argue endlessly, which directly affected the film and television works.
In Hu Jinquan’s movie "Chivalrous Girl", there is a clear distinction between good and evil. The protagonist, Gu Shengzhai, and Yang Huizhen, the daughter of Yang Lian, together fought off Ouyang Nian, a thousand households in the East Factory, and Xu Xianchun, the president of Jinyiwei North Town. In that movie, the Donglin party members were completely persecuted and heroic and unyielding people, while the emasculated party members were the unyielding evildoers.
In the "Embroidery Spring Knife", the situation began to shift slightly.
In "Embroidery Spring Blade 2", they did not show that Donglin Party members and Zhu Youjian were completely good people. Because the biggest conspiracy in the whole film was started by them, which caused a series of things, and these people would also ignore the lives of the little people, and anyone could sacrifice when necessary, as long as it was for "righteousness".
From here, we can see that "Embroidery Spring Knife 2" did not deliberately express the political spectrum, nor did it stand between the emasculation and the Donglin Party. Therefore, Shen Lian is the first male protagonist of this series.
Second, the mayfly
Since the poster represented by Wei Zhongxian is the oriole, mantises and cicadas will naturally appear in this food chain.
Let’s talk about Shen Lian first, Shen Lian’s identity setting is very interesting. Only with this setting can he express the theme of the story that the main creator wants to express, that is, the ambition of the movie must be realized through such a character.
This is a historical film.
In the days of fierce partisanship in the late Ming Dynasty, the Donglin Party first prevailed, and the parties of Zhejiang, Qi, Chu, Xuan and Kun and the Donglin Party criticized each other. Later, during the Apocalypse period, the eunuchs led by Wei Zhongxian cleared all obstacles and stood at the top of the food chain. Then, during the Chongzhen period, the Donglin Party rose again, followed by the struggle between the Donglin Party, the Fushe Party and the remnants of the eunuchs during the Hongguang period, until the Wu-Chu partisanship in the final Yongli period. Some people say that it is not unreasonable for the Ming Dynasty to die in the partisanship. Even Huang Zongxi, a great scholar, would inevitably write such a clear-cut and emotional work on partisanship as "Records of Existence and Discernment".
Therefore, in order to truthfully demonstrate the partisan struggles of that era, it is necessary to choose an outsider’s perspective.
Zhang Zhen plays Shen Lian
Shen Lian is such an outsider. Whether it is the first or the second film, he is a small person who walks between various parties. In the first film, he is first sent by Zhao Jingzhong played by Nie Yuan, and then by Han Kuang (a member of the Donglin Party) played by Zhao Lixin. In this film, he is inadvertently involved in a shocking case, and then used by both sides. Both sides want to step on him as a stepping stone and climb to a higher position.
Therefore, only in this perspective can the audience see the essence of the struggle.
At the same time, this is still a martial arts movie.
In the "Chivalrous Girl" mentioned above, the heroes are in the rivers and lakes, and they are chivalrous and always have a hard time with the "eagle and dog" in the court; in "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness", the heroes are in the temple, such as Nan Xia Zhan Zhao, who was named "Imperial Cat" by the emperor and entered the official orthodox discourse system.
When choosing a faction, the problem is always not true. "Embroidery Spring Blade" is a martial arts story with a historical theme, so if the protagonist is a person in the rivers and lakes, he can only watch the fire from the shore, and if he is in the temple, it is easy to "not know the true face of Mount Lu, only because he is in this mountain".
But Shen Lian was different. He was an ordinary person who wandered between rivers and lakes and temples. Although he was a well-dressed guard, his actions were not entirely based on obeying orders.
Therefore, in this perspective, as a person in a gray area, he has the potential to become a protagonist.
This was the reason why the main creator chose Shen Lian, and it was also Shen Lian’s tragedy. Because Shen Lian was always a chess piece and a mayfly. Anyone could kill him, and no one wanted to kill him.
From a thematic point of view, this was the same as the first one. In Embroidery Spring Blade 2, Shen Lian was in troubled times and couldn’t help himself. He was asked to set fire to the file warehouse, was asked to take the "Treasure Ship Supervision Minutes" in exchange for glory and wealth, and was asked… All of this was helplessly moved by the actions of others, just because he was moved by compassion at the beginning.
Because Shen Lian’s compassion saved a human performers of virtual idols, he was forced to be involved in all the troubles and became everyone’s pawn. Of course, it is not only Zhu Youjian and Wei Zhongxian who use Shen Lian as pawns (even the two of them have not looked at Shen Lian in the eye), but also Lu Wenzhao and Pei Lun who think they are chess players.
Lu Wenzhao and Wei Zhongxian
Lu Wenzhao is played by Zhang Yi, who is a good actor. As his first costume performance, his performance this time is not bad, and the acting is quite good, but it can be seen from his portrayal of Lu Wenzhao’s role that he rarely shoots costume films. Because his style of reading lines and his limbs are relatively modern, if it is a costume stage drama, he may be more suitable, but in film and television works, his style is a bit abrupt.
He thought he would be the victorious chess player, but he didn’t expect that he would still be the meat on the chopping board, at the mercy of others.
The same goes for Pei Lun, played by Lei Jiayin. This year is a bumper year for Lei Jiayin. He just played Lu Zhaopeng in the "White Deer Plain", and then starred in the hit drama "The First Half of My Life". Then he played a very likable (no less than Ding Xiu in the first) character Pei Lun in "Embroidery Spring Knife 2".
Pei Lun’s character poster is a spider, which is even more interesting. He thinks he can network everything and become the final big winner, but he doesn’t know that he is still a bug, no matter how powerful he is in the food chain, he can’t beat the yellow bird, let alone… what about snakes?
In the first one, there were only a series of characters. Everyone knew their position very well, but these two were not clear about their position. They thought they would be chess players, but in fact, they were still the same chess pieces, but they were responsible for eating the other pieces.
In short, they were all mayflies. Wanting to climb up and shake the big tree was laughable.
This was the theme of Embroidery Blade of Spring, and it was also the common theme of the first and second installments. If one had to rate it, then the second installment might be slightly lower than the first, because the main creator did not go deeper into the discussion, but replicated the depths that could be dug on the basis of the first installment, and the protagonist was also forced to get involved, the story changed, and the core remained the same.
In addition, there are some logical problems in this film. For example, Zhu Youjian’s character in history, such as why the people of Dongchang did not take the "Minutes of Treasure Ship Supervision" in advance, such as why did they not escape together when they escaped to the bridge and then cut the bridge? Some such problems show that "Embroidery Spring Blade 2" is not perfect, there are still many logical vulnerabilities, and the story turns in many places are slightly deliberate, but this is still flawed. The martial arts drama is more exciting than the first one, and the core can still exude despair and hope. From this point of view, this movie is quite good, and the success of two consecutive films is enough to make the audience look forward to whether the third film can show greater ambition.
Back to compassion above. Yes, what can compassion change? The apocalypse is still dead, Zhu Youjian is still on the throne, Wei Zhongxian is still notorious, and…
And the Ming Dynasty eventually died.
No matter whether there was Shen Lian in history, whether there was Shen Lian to catch Beizhai, or whether there was Shen Lian’s compassion at the moment of catching Beizhai, the final result did not change. All historical trends were not determined by Shen Lian, he was just a small person.
But remember, compassion at least changed Hokusai’s fate.
Yang Mi plays Hokusai
[Author Kong Li, WeChat official account "Shulinzhai" (WeChat: Kongli 1996), Weibo @Kong Li]
