Lion On Films (Volume 10)

As the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece “Taxi Driver”, Paul Schrader was deeply influenced by Robert Bresson’s film “Pickpocket”. So it’s quite obviously to feel the closed treatment of character’s emotions. Similarly, “Xiao Wu”, Jia Zhangke’s first full-length film, also paid tribute to “Pickpocket”. Simple and plain filming style as well as sober and real story structure constituted into the success of the film.

Back to the film “American Gigolo”, which was both directed and written by Paul Schrader, this neo-noir film was almost the duplicate of “Pickpocket”. Pretty different from the latter, which was famous for its simplicity and plainness, inside “American Gigolo” was full of external experience and sensual pleasures. And these elements provided the director with a bigger dramaticism and a wider comparison. It’s hard to say whether this was a petty trick or not, but the salute ending had gained the same relief and redemption as the former without a doubt.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

保罗·施拉德作为马丁·斯科塞斯的代表作《出租车司机》的编剧，他在创作剧本时深受罗贝尔·布莱松的《扒手》的影响，因此在其中可以非常明显的体验到人物情感封闭性的处理；与之类似的，贾樟柯的首部长片《小武》也曾向《扒手》致敬，简约朴素的拍摄风格与冷静现实的故事架构成为了电影成功的关键所在。

再次回到保罗·施拉德自编自导的《美国舞男》，这部新黑色电影几乎是《扒手》的好莱坞式翻版。不同以往之处在于后者一改简约朴素之感，整部影片充斥这声色犬马的外在感官体验。这就给导演提供了一个更大的戏剧化与对比度，很难判断这是否是讨巧之举；然而，致敬性结局同样无疑获得了同样的救赎与释放。

Lion On Films (Volume 9)

When Nagisa Oshima’s second film “Cruel Story of Youth” was about to come to the end, a similar scenario like that in the film “The Graduate” appeared: Both the male and female characters were walking / sitting side by side, with no expression on their faces, towards to the unpredictable future which laying in front of them confusedly and helplessly. However, there was still an obvious difference. “The Graduate” ended with this mentioned scene, but the story continued in the film “Cruel Story of Youth”. The youth generation was acting their rebellion and disobedience against the fatuous and hopeless world. but the denouement that they achieved was only the cost of death.

Nagisa Oshima had showed the rebellious circumstances of two close generations in his film: the elder sister’s generation counted on staging protest marches to the unfair politics, in order to change the social status, which was a relatively positive endeavor. Otherwise, the younger sister’s generation regarded unruly sex and violence as the fatal power, so as to resistance the decadent world, which was a quite negative attempt. In contrast to the America after the Vietnam War, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Spirit, the Anti-War Complex and the Hippie’s Culture came into being naturally. And these facts had become the main elements of Thomas Pynchon’s famous novel “Inherent Vice”.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

大岛渚的《青春残酷物语》在临近结尾时出现了类似《毕业生》的场景：男女主人公面无表情的并行/坐着，迷茫无助地面对不可知的未来。不同的是，《毕》在此处戛然而止，而《青》却让故事继续下去了。年轻一代用反叛与忤逆来挑战这昏沉无望的世界，然而所能得到的最现实也是最绝望的结局还是死亡的代价。

大岛渚在电影中描述了相邻两代人的叛逆际遇：姐姐那代人寄望于游行来声援政治理想，以求改变社会现状，这是相对积极的努力；妹妹却用不羁性爱来抵抗这个陈腐世界，试图不被其所吞没，这是相对消极的尝试。反观越战后的美国，摇滚精神、反战情结与嬉皮文化应运而生，这也成为了品钦《性本恶》中的主题。

Lion On Films (Volume 8)

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “The Assassin” was originated from the classic “Legendary” created by Pei Xing lived in the Tang Dynasty. The language of the whole film is all written in ancient Classical Chinese (also known as “Literary Chinese”). Silent and beautiful images with artistic and recondite realms, which had kept the shifting long-shot cinematography that the director persists since his early works. Mark Lee Ping-Bing, holding a post as the cinematographer, shot the entire work with filmstrip (which is seldom used in today’s film industry, and normally replaced by digital technology). The narrative method was also adopted the conception of the Classical Chinese articles. The dialogue was compact but concise, the over description was superseded with the elegant landscape. This kind of traditional Chinese expression, which is at odds with the trend, can be found in the film history quite rarely.

Throughout Hou’s numerous films, it can be divided into three theme forms: Local Type (such as “A Time to Live, A Time to Die”, “Dust in the Wind” and “Goodbye South, Goodbye”), Nostalgia Type (such as “Flowers of Shanghai” and “The Assassin”) and Youth Type (such as “Millennium Mambo”). Hou Hsiao-Hsien made a film called “Three Times” to summarize his temporary film career, interestingly recounting three love stories happened in three different periods, which were represented the three forms mentioned above exactly. It is able to feel sensitively during the development of the director’s creation, that with the accumulation of time, that kind of sharp impulse which once can be found in the film “A City of Sadness”, becomes solid and profound gradually.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

侯孝贤的《刺客聂隐娘》典出自唐人裴铏所撰《传奇》。全片通篇文言，映象静美，意境深邃，保持了导演一以贯之的长镜头移镜拍摄手法；李屏宾任摄影指导，用胶片拍摄而成。电影叙述手法也采用了古式文言概念，对白精简却显凝练，以清丽山水代替特写赘述。该异于潮流的传统中国式表达，在影史中甚为少见。

通观侯孝贤的众多电影，大致可分为三种题材类型：乡土（童年往事、恋恋风尘、南国再见）、怀旧（海上花、聂隐娘）与青春（千禧曼波）。《最好的时光》是他对自己电影生涯所作的一次总结，分别诉说了三段不同时代背景中的爱情故事。可以察觉，《悲情城市》中的那份冲动锐利，随着时间积淀为了深沉厚重。

Lion On Films (Volume 7)

“The choice when two lovers must change their current situation”, this was the definition of marriage that Edward Yang made in his film “Taipei Story”, and we can also find it in his private family life. However, when Slavoj Žižek was trying to construe Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut”, his opinion show that the two genders are always chasing the so called “self” that he/she imagines which himself/herself should to be in the other (gender)’s mind. But due to the existing differences of each (gender)’s ideology, the irreconcilable comes into being greatly, so the unbridgeable gap takes shape at final.

Ingmar Bergman take it one step further. In his film “Scenes from a Marriage”, he regarded this kind of almost fatal deviation as the key reason of the marriage failure. And he held the thought that love can not be reserved by the form of marriage toughly. After the release of this film, the rate of divorce in Sweden and Denmark increased substantially. However, the director felt very glad when learning the news. He thought that those who didn’t know whether to leave his/her current partner or not, finally made their mind to make a decision. Because of the possible happening of this circumstance, people were becoming more sincere to each others, and of course to themselves.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

“当双方需要改变目前的处境时的选择”，杨德昌在《青梅竹马》中给婚姻下的定义，从他自身的家庭生活中也能体现；而齐泽克在讲解库布里克的《大开眼界》时，他认为两性始终在幻想并追逐对方眼中的自己，但由于存在着各自思维模式的差异性，终致不可调合的南辕北辙，正因如此反而造就了无法跨越的鸿沟。

伯格曼在此基础上更近了一步，他在《婚姻生活》中将这种近乎必然性的背离关系视作婚姻失败的本质，他认为爱并不能硬性地以婚姻的形式长久保存。在他这部作品放映后，瑞典丹麦的离婚率大幅度上升；导演在获知后很高兴，他认为那些迟迟不知是否该离开对方的人终于有勇气下定决心，人们因而彼此更坦诚了。

Lion On Films (Volume 6)

Naturally, the topic turns to Tsai Ming-liang’s films. Tsai is one of the most unique “Second New Wave” film directors of Taiwanese Cinema. None of his films was permitted to release in Malaysia although he was born there. His astonishing longshots with fixed angle are peeping at the emotional demons of the human world thoroughly. The characters in his films were set as some hollow bodies with only desires, so the rational logic was isolated completely. And the gaze with an unbearable long time leaded to a forced thinking by the viewers.

After a film premier during an international film festival, a foreign viewer asked Tsai Ming-liang directly: “What is the internal meaning of the water in your film?” However the director didn’t answer definitely. We drink water once feel thirsty. “Water”, such a normal element that we always ignore in our daily life, is defined as the critical expression method throughout his films. It may represent desire, lust or anything else, self-cycling endlessly and eternally, glutting in every creature’s body and even the whole world.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

这么一来话题又转移到了蔡明亮的电影。蔡明亮是台湾新浪潮中最独特的一位导演，出生于马来西亚的他竟没有一部作品能够在本国上映。他用惊人的固定视角长镜头，洞彻窥视着人类世界的情感魔障；他的电影中的人，仅是被注入欲望的躯体，彻底隔绝了理性逻辑；长时间的凝视与舞台化的表达导致于强迫性思考。

在某次国际影展的放映环节后，一个外国观众直截了当地问蔡明亮：“您作品中的水代表着什么？”他并没有给出明确的答案。正如人渴了就要喝水，“水”这个普通到被忽略的常态元素，在蔡明亮的电影中却被定义为了表达手段：它可以是渴望、情欲或任何东西，它无穷尽循环往复，充斥在每具身体乃至整个世界。

Lion On Films (Volume 5)

“Like Someone in Love”, the 2012 Cannes Palme d’Or nominated film directed by Abbas Kiarostami, is trying to express the quite similar thought as Tsai Ming-liang’s “Vive L’Amour”: That no one was able to achieve the real love in the so-called “emotional relationship”. Tsai showed this idea with the entangled struggle within one woman and two men in a roomspace which belonged to none of them. And so did Abbas, however he was emphasizing on both the disparity and difference to characterize the deceptive and lamentable “owned/ownership” during the film-making.

“Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami”, as once Jean Luc Godard had defined. Abbas Kiarostami is succeed to cancel the separating boundary between the film art and the real life. The normal daily-routines with nothing extraordinary are repesented vividly in all of his films, but he manages dealing this kind of mundane things with his outstanding intelligent. The expanse and depth of thinking are retained for the viewers through his ingenious arrangement back to basics completely.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

阿巴斯的近作《如沐爱河》在一定程度上与蔡明亮的《爱情万岁》所要传达的是非常相似的思考：在所谓的情感关系中，其实并没有人能够获得真正的爱情。蔡明亮用两男一女在不属于他们中任何人的空间中纠缠不休来表现；而阿巴斯也是类似，然而他将差距感与差异性作为了主旨来刻画这虚幻可笑的占有与被占有。

戈达尔曾经如此评述到：“电影开始于格里菲斯，结束于基亚罗斯塔米”，阿巴斯把原本横亘在电影艺术与现实生活之间的分界线彻底抹去了。在他的电影中所表现的是近乎平凡的日常生活即景，然而他却用智慧去处理这些极易被忽略的场面，通过其返璞归真的编排处理，从而将思考的空间与深度完全保留给了观者。

Lion On Films (Volume 4)

The recent film “Blue Jasmine” directed by Woody Allen is always regarded as the modern version of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, which was adapted by Tennessee Williams’s famous play with the same name. Both of the two films are trying to analyze the subordination position of women to men. With the rapid development through the time, the realistic circumstance remains the same yet. As it was mentioned, the last shot stopped at the scene of the shabby group-renting apartment, which symbolized the inescapable inner-desire and piteous self-limitation that can be found from the bunch of women in the living manifestly.

And another topic, when talking about the films with some similar plots, the lawsuit between the two famous directors — Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa had to be mentioned here. ” Here is the brief story: Sergio Leone’s bestseller “A Fistful of Dollars” was remade from the film “Yojimbo”, which was created by Akira Kurosawa. “He did a great job”, Akira said after seeing the Sergio’s work-piece, “but this is my film”, however he also added offendedly. So obviously, the lawsuit was inevitable… After that, Akira Kurosawa didn’t froget to show his gratitude to Sergio Leone’s “recreation”, because the money that he earned from the lawsuit had already exceeded the box-office earnings of his shooting of “Yojimbo” numerously.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

伍迪·艾伦的《蓝色茉莉》常被认作为现代版的《欲望号街车》，后者改编自田纳西·威廉斯的著名剧作。两部影片都旨在探讨两性关系中女性之于男性的从属地位。迅速发展的时代，近乎相似的情节。正如在《欲》片的最后，镜头被定格在那栋破旧的群租公寓，象征着像那群女人一般永远逃脱不出的欲望与自身局限。

再要说起故事情节相类似的电影，就不得不提到赛尔乔·莱昂内与黑泽明的官司。《荒野大镖客》翻拍自《用心棒》，黑泽明看过以后也表示“拍的不错”，但表示“不过这是我的电影”；事后，黑泽明也不忘感谢赛尔乔·莱翁的“翻拍”，因为他从这部电影里得到的金钱远远超过了他自己拍摄《用心棒》赚得的票房。

What’s On Your Wall? (Episode 2)

Shush! No crap! Just watching this!

The video is made by a famous youtuber named Joe Sugg (aka ThatcherJoe). What have you seen on his bedroom wall? If you were not aware of this important detail, I suggest you to replay the youtube video again until you find it out.

Here it is! It turns to be a copy of a painting. But in fact, it is not a painting, it’s a graffiti on the wall of a pubilc building. “Another damage by an idle teenage!” Are you complaining the bad behavior of these kind of rebellious kids?  “Lack of discipline?” “Uneducated?” “Unruly?”…That’s quite enough! What you regard as a “vandalism” is actually a great artpiece. “Wait, what are you talking about? You see it’s a…” Shush again! Calm yourself down, let me tell you the real meaning behind this unusual graffiti:

The graffiti “Flower Thrower” was made by Banksy at West Bank, Palestine in 2005.  Here is some essential knowledge for you to undersand the background of the graffiti:

Palestine has been occupied by the Israeli army since 1967. In 2002 the Israeli government began building a wall separating the occupied territories from Israel, much of it not authorized by international law. This is also known as the “Segregation Wall” in certain circles. (Quoted from “Banksy who? Who Is Banksy?”)

Painting this wall with satirical graffiti in 2005, many of the pieces illustrating life on the other side, was one of the stunts which Banksy received most media attention for.

Secretive “guerrilla” artist Banksy has decorated Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. The nine paintings were created on the Palestinian side of the barrier. (Quoted from the BBC NEWS Report “Art prankster sprays Israeli wall”)

Balabalabala….We needed the fact of one artpiece was maded, it is so-called “art history”. But if you are not a professional student of art, will you able to understand an art painting? I think the answer should be “yes”. All of us have our personal feelings, and of course the artists also do, try to find out the thought hiding in the lines and colours, realize what he/she wanted to express to the viewers, both you and the artist have the same feelings on the equal level. Then, Wahla! You got it!

And now back to the topic of Banksy’s graffiti “Flower Thrower”, it use a satirical trick (replacing the oncendiary,  grenade, stone or somthing else with a brunch of flower in the protester’s hand) to expess the rationality counterwork against the dictatorship of government. Sometimes such a slient pledge is more powerful than a real revolt.

When you see a graffiti on a street corner, remember to have a think what the kid want to say other than complaining his/her misbehavior. This will be my little suggestion for you.

Lion On Films (Volume 3)

Regarding as the leading character of the fifth generation of Chinese director, Zhang Yimou’s visual language in the early years was full of impact power: “Red Sorghum” was ended up with a scene of thoroughly red, “Ju Dou” was ended up with a scene of buring fire, “The Story of Qiu Ju” was ended up with a scene of fatuous face. There all seem to be shouting at the film viewer with the reprimand “Just have a good look! What you have seen are the Chinese People from the real life!” But by now, he is start to pursue the ostensible beauty of form (in represented of “The Flowers of War”)  and the sentiment of past (in represented of “Under the Hawthorn Tree” and “Coming Home”) overly.

In contast with Zhang Yimou’s profundity and straightforwardness, Gu Changwei, who had served as Zhang’s cinematographer for several times, his films tend to be more humane. At the end of “Peacock”, the peacock, which was the imagery symbol of the film, serenely spreaded its tail and displaying the beautiful feathers after the leaving of the rowdy family members. And when the film “And the Spring Comes” was about to over, there appeared a fantasy scene of Wang Cailing, the poor film character suffering a tragic fate, indulging in her singing performance on the stage of the National Theatre. Such arrangement of these detail plots reflects that: although Gu shows the harsh reality and unfair fate, apart from these, he also keeps the visible hope for the people in his films.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

作为中国第五代导演的领军人物，早年的张艺谋的镜头语言充满冲击性力量：《红高粱》最后的一片红、《菊豆》最后的一场火、《秋菊打官司》最后的一脸愣，仿佛冲着观众叫嚷着“好好瞧瞧！这就是现实中的中国人！”现在他则开始过度追求形式美（《金陵十三钗》）与时代情怀（《山楂树之恋》、《归来》）。

相较于张艺谋的直接深刻，多次担任其摄影的顾长卫则“更近乎于人情”。在《孔雀》结尾，一众人咋咋呼呼地走后孔雀独在原处欣然开屏；于《立春》未了，更是有意安排了王彩玲登上国家大剧院的舞台纵声放歌的幻想情景…他所展现的是无情的现实与不公的命运，然而除此之外，他却给人们保留下可见的希望。

Lion On Films (Volume 2)

Once upon a time, I was checking the customer reviews on the movie discs “Fanny and Alexander”  (The Criterion Collection Version) in Amazon randomly. And I have seen “the most helpful critical review” published by an professor of economics who came from Ingmar Bergman’s hometown – Sweden, which said: “it was impossible to find any information about the region until you opened the package, and found out that there was a mismatch of regions.” And the following replies all told him the obvious fact such as “I’m surprised you didn’t know as the region A coding is common knowledge with Criterion. You should have kept it and bought either a m/r player or spare Region A machine.” Besides this interesting “worst” review, there was even a customer complaining that: “IT IS NOT A CHRISTMAS MOVIE!”…

Surely, what Ingmar Bergman wanted to represent in this almost 3-hour masterpiece was not only the festive occasion of the during the big family’s Christmas reunion. Continuing his early film “Wild Strawberries”, to express the open and pluralistic thinking of life through the experience from external events. This kind of internal discussion had run through his entire film career. Especially in his representative work “The Seventh Seal”, the searching for the meaning of life was embodied by a nearly mythologized way.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

闲着没事在美亚上看CC版的《芬妮与亚历山大》客户评价，其中最多人点赞的差评是一位来自伯格曼故乡的经济学博士：抱怨说花大钱买了碟后设备无法播放，评论下面众人都一致告知他说CC版蓝光碟本来就是锁A区。要不换台全区播放器要不就电脑上下个破解补丁；还有顾客大呼“这竟然不是一部圣诞专题电影！”…

在这部片长3个多小时的巨作中，伯格曼想要表现的当然不止圣诞佳节大家族团聚其乐融融的欢快场景。沿袭其早期的《野草莓》，透过外在事件传达出身处生命的开放性思考；这种内在探讨一直贯穿着他的整个电影生涯。特别是在其代表作《第七封印》中，对于生命意义的追寻被以一种近乎神话化的方式予以展现。