Rebirth of India: Superior

Originally, Shakru thought that his film "Bandit Queen", which had been shortlisted for Italy's David Award, would definitely win the best foreign language film at this Changchun Film Festival. With China's current status in the international film industry, those good films would not bother to come. To be honest, if you are not Chinese, you would not be able to come. However, after arriving at the hotel, Shakru was shocked to find that the competition for the best foreign language film this time is still very fierce. △♦

Although no films from European and American countries came to participate, only films from socialist countries came, but the films participating this time are all very strong. In earlier times, Chinese people had a jingle about movies from various countries: "Chinese movies, news bulletins; Vietnamese movies, airplanes and cannons; Korean movies, crying and laughing; Romania, hugs and hugs; Albania, inexplicable; Japanese movies, internal Selling tickets..." However, several foreign films this time have broken through everyone's thinking.

The first one is "Pyongyang Monster" from North Korea. Don’t think that monster movies are a patent of Japan or the United States. North Korea, the country of Juche ideology, also has them. This movie about a monster called "Pulgasa Day" comes from North Korea and was produced in 1985. The movie originated from Jin Erpang's hobby. There were rumors that the director of this film was Kim Erpang, but this rumor was not true. The director was actually Korean Shin Sang-ok. For his own hobby (or to put it more nicely, "for the development of North Korea's film industry"), Kim Erpang sent agents to kidnap director Shin Sang-ok and his actor ex-wife in Hong Kong and transport them to North Korea on merchant ships. Of course, Juche said that they came to North Korea voluntarily. After arriving in North Korea, the two got married again.

The story of the movie is relatively simple. In ancient Korea, a group of farmers revolted because they were dissatisfied with the government's tyranny, and the old blacksmith was brutally murdered. The little monster he made with rice before his death came to life after accidentally encountering a drop of blood from the blacksmith's daughter. The little monster slowly grew up by eating iron, and grew into a giant monster with great strength, and eventually helped the farmers overthrow the government. But the iron-eating monster continued to eat iron, which would make it impossible for farmers to work and live. The blacksmith's daughter had to feed the beast with her body to destroy the iron-eating monster.

Although the story is simple. But the whole movie is not simple at all. Judging from the technical level at the time, this monster movie is by no means inferior to Japan's Godzilla and the United States' King Kong. This also shows another unique feature of North Korea from the side. The well-known strength is animation production. It may be difficult for everyone to imagine that famous animations such as "The Lion King", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "A Day in Pompeii", and "Gladiator" are all outsourced orders from SeK Company way to participate in the production.

Another movie is "Song of Chance" from Poland, which was a very bold and avant-garde movie at the time. The film tells the story of Witek, a young medical intern in Poland in the 1980s, who is eager to take a train to another city. When he arrived at the station, the train had already started. Whittaker struggled to catch up. Destiny thus forked into three branches, each taking him into a different social environment.

One way is that he caught up with the bus, met a member of the Communist Party, and was encouraged to join the ruling party; the other way took him to the completely opposite road. He bumped into a guard while chasing the car, was detained, sentenced, and followed a Being locked up together, he also became an "enemy agent". The third way is that he failed to catch the train. And by chance, he met a female classmate from the past, and then naturally got married, started working as a doctor, and got into a plane crash while traveling abroad on business...

Is life accidental or inevitable? Can chance change the trajectory of life and break inevitability? Or should we ignore many accidents? In the end, life has only one ruthless necessity? These are the transcendent expressions of "Song of Opportunity", and they are also related to a series of political, religious, and moral tortures, forming speculations on the value of life and the beliefs that people rely on.

Although the box office of this movie is not very good, Shakru likes both the plot of the movie itself and the thoughts expressed. He feels that his "Bandit Queen" will be defeated by any of these two movies. Everything on hand is acceptable. But when he was having dinner with Lao Mouzi. I was surprised to find that there were actually two strong opponents who had not appeared.

One is the Russian movie "Cheka". This movie is not that people are unwilling to come, but it did not pass the review by the organizing committee. Speaking of which, you can't blame the organizing committee, because the movie is too real and realistic. bloody. The whole movie only lasts about eighty minutes, but an hour is devoted to the execution of prisoners.

In the basement of a detention center, a group of men, women, and children were brought here from the prison, then took off their clothes, walked naked to the door, and stood with their faces facing the door; it was the same five executioners each time, with their hands and feet They shot at them neatly; the body of the policeman was hung head-down on the ground, then thrown on a cart and pulled out of the city. The whole process was extremely standardized, just like a slaughterhouse.

Cheka is the abbreviation of the Counterrevolutionary Committee established at the beginning of the Soviet Union. It is an organization that Lenin relied heavily on. It is an organization that "uses extraordinary means to fight against all counter-revolutionaries" (Lenin said). For the newly born Soviets, it was indeed a killing spree. The name Cheka actually only existed for more than four years, but the terror caused by this name lingers in human history like a ghost. This film "Cheka" shot in Russia shows the audience bloody pictures through the eyes of a local leader in Cheka. The film is indeed quite bloody, with gunshots and corpses torturing your nerves and testing the limits of your patience.

The other one was that the organizing committee wanted to invite the contestant, but the contestant was unwilling to come. Maybe not many people have seen this movie, but many people should have seen the original novel, and they all left a very deep impression, and even brought reference and inspiration to many companies. This famous "A Bowl of Soba Noodles", when the Asian financial crisis occurred, Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee called on all 45,000 employees to learn the perseverance in "A Bowl of Soba Noodles".

Therefore, the organizing committee felt that this movie was very educational and wanted to invite it to participate in this Changchun Film Festival, but the director Katsumi Nishikawa declined. It was also because of this incident that the organizing committee issued a task requirement to Zhang Yimou that must be completed.

ps: I still have some feelings about "Cheka", I will post it in the work related.