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。
A×R×T 