Film Name: 封神第一部：朝歌风云 / Creation of the Gods Ⅰ: Kingdom of Storms / Creation of the Gods Ⅰ
Not having much time last week, I missed out on several consecutive days of on-demand screenings, resulting in a number of people having seen Creation of the Gods Ⅰ: Kingdom of Storms (hereinafter referred to as Creation of the Gods 1) before I could watch it, which for me could be considered ” Behind schedule”. Because of this, I was also exposed to a lot of reviews about this film in advance, and interestingly enough, unlike in the past when people’s feedback would have a roughly defined range, this time the reviews for Creation of the Gods 1 spanned a wide range, and were even more polarized than expected……. After watching it, I more or less got it: it’s a magical epic blockbuster with real substance, but it shouldn’t be particularly popular.
Creation of the Gods 1″ story theme is highly condensed, is about the relationship between father and son under various conditions such as the ruler and the subject, blood and other conditions, without running out of the subject or escape, the spirit of the kernel is also very rich and full, based on this point, the film is certainly not bad, the other lines, special effects, casting, choice of viewpoints and other aspects of the controversy are not a problem. But the problem is, this set of things is too bitter and bloody, all the diners arranged in the kitchen near the meal is certainly not a very pleasant thing …… At the same time, as the first part of the “sealing of the gods trilogy”, some of the necessary padding and branch line to be divided out, which This makes some of the problems that could have been ignored surfaced again, more or less make the movie viewing a bit of a discount.
(Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below.)
I’m not familiar with “The Feudal Deities”, and accordingly I don’t have any “adaptation complex” baggage, so there’s a simple criterion for evaluating works on the subject of the Feudal Deities: whether they’re good or not. Creation of the Gods 1 is a top-notch production from all perspectives, and its high production standard is not bragging; the costumes are as exquisite as the eye can see, the actors are eye-catching, and their basic skills are solid; take the special effects scenes for example, the military formation attacking the city of Jizhou in the freezing snow, the square and neat weather of the Chaogai where ten thousand people come to congratulate the emperor, the sun-shadowing construction of the towering Deer Terrace, the laborers, the Taotie incarnation chasing after the gods. Labor, Taotie in the form of chasing more than the barbaric atmosphere, etc., are considered the domestic first-class technical achievements (I personally feel that the close-up view is better than the distant view, dynamic and stronger than static).
However, there is one thing that I can’t help but mutter – Creation of the Gods 1 has several action scenes that are really too much like Game of Thrones Season and The Lord of the Rings, for example, the chaos of the battlefield after Jifa’s fall from her horse is very much like the “Battle of the Bastards” in Season 6, and the war scenes also have the same feel as the battle of the White Walkers and the Battle of the Valley of the Helmets. The Lord of the Rings”, for example, the chaos of the battlefield after the fall of Jifa, very much the meaning of the sixth season of the tour of the ‘bastard battle’, the war scenes of the sub-scenes, scenes, transport mirror, etc., also some of the ghosts of the siege of the city and the Battle of the Valley of the Sacred Helmets, the back of the Jifa fell off a cliff into the river and then mounted the horse scene, and the Two Towers, in the Aragon group of footage can not be said to be exactly the same, but at least it is also much the same. We are not saying that we can not pay homage, but still should play more subjective creativity it …… However, taking into account the film’s creative team in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and other places in the big take, this kind of “foreign” borrowing does not seem to be strange, the whole calculation, or The benefits outweigh the limitations. I didn’t really look at the promotional materials for Creation of the Gods 1 before, because there were too many of them, and I didn’t feel like I could find my way around, so I thought I’d wait to see the effects directly when I watched the movie, but now that I’ve watched it, I should say that the scale of the production and the effects of the film stand up to the title of “domestic fantasy blockbuster”. But those hardware things are relatively minor, the audience tends to pay more attention to the comprehensive feeling of watching the movie, the movie storytelling is the key.
Although Creation of the Gods 1 is responsible for laying the groundwork for a trilogy of films, it is fine to single it out as a chapter on its own, because the film’s story has a very clear and unifying theme of the typical father-son relationship in all its forms. The most striking set of contrasts is between a father-son relationship based on the relationship between a ruler and a subject and a father-son relationship based on blood. Creation of the Gods 1 puts the setting of “hostage” in a very conspicuous position: 800 vassals in the four directions of the Shang dynasty, each of whom has to send a son to Chaoguo as a hostage. They are both hostages and subjects, and this natural contradiction constitutes the main dramatic conflict of the movie. On top of this conflict, Creation of the Gods 1 superimposes the “patricide complex” inherent in human beings under the patriarchal system, and materializes this emotion into a real patricide, which maximizes the dramatic tension.
One of the best scenes in the movie is when Yin Shou strongly accuses the four Marquis of plotting to rebel and asks the four hostages to kill their fathers with their own hands and then take their place: Chong Yingbiao, the son of Chong Houhu, the Northern Marquis, has the greatest ambition and has long since been domesticated by Yin Shou, who takes the initiative to kill him after bidding farewell to his biological father; E Shun, the son of E Chongyu, the Southern Marquis, is as upright as his biological father, who is chaste and filial as he draws a sword to fight against the order to be killed in return; and Jiang Wenhuan, the son of Jiang Huanchu, the Eastern Marquis, is in a dilemma, Jiang Wenhuan, the son of Dongbo Hou Jiang Huanchu, was in a dilemma, not knowing what to do, relying on his biological father’s initiative to send to his death to get by; only Ji Fa, the son of Xi Bo Hou Ji Chang, came up with a two-way strategy to delay, temporarily preserving the loyalty of the courtier and the son of the ethics. The protagonists in Creation of the Gods 1 are destined to commit patricide, because they are at the center of the power struggle, and they have been shackled with the yoke of “ruler, subject, father, son” since their birth, and they can only fight with their “father” to get rid of being ruled and controlled. Only by struggling with their “father” and getting rid of the position of being ruled and dominated can they fight for the right to independence and freedom, and then seize all the initiative. Yin Shou, a man who killed his father and brother, Yin Jiao, a disillusioned man, and Ji Fa, a determined man, all embarked on similar but different paths of patricide.
In addition, Creation of the Gods 1 also provides several other typical templates of “being a son”, such as Bo Yi Kao, who puts his father and brother first and never intends to go back alive, symbolizing filial piety and righteousness, and Lei Zhenzi, who was saved by Ji Chang and sent to Kunlun to learn the Dharma, and who saved Ji Chang’s life when he became successful, symbolizing the bond of love and righteousness. Another example is Lei Zhenzi, who was rescued by Ji Chang and sent to Kunlun to learn the Dharma, and saved Ji Chang’s life when he became successful, symbolizing the bond of love and righteousness. Although the treatment of these images and the relationship between father and son is a bit superficial, which makes the thickness of the main characters weakened, it is a great enrichment to the interpretation of the story theme. But as the saying goes, “Creation of the Gods 1’s” richness in the genres of patricide and father-son relationships also means that the movie’s atmosphere is impure. Let’s take the two “Ne Zha” movies, which are derived from the “Creation of the Gods” IP, as an example.
In the 1979 version of Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, Nezha cuts his own throat with his sword drawn, cutting his father’s bones and his mother’s flesh, rebelling against his father’s power with the most decisive rebellion, leaving behind an eye-piercing splash of red loneliness and brokenness that will never fade away; 40 years later in Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child, the story goes in a different direction, as Li Jing Forty years later, Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child takes a different approach, with Li Jing voluntarily enduring a heavenly calamity on behalf of his son, and impressing the world with his loving fatherly image of being cold on the outside and warm on the inside, as well as his more modern family bonding to embrace and dissolve the frost. The father-son relationship in these two Nezha films is (perhaps) not the centerpiece of the narrative, but it’s certainly the punchline, and the key to this is that when you get it right, you hit it hard, and it always works. By contrast, Creation of the Gods 1 is a bit of an unclear priority, which should theoretically prioritize Ji Fa’s struggles and growth, but then often adds drama for the all-volunteer Yin Jiao, and at the end of the day has Yin Shou show a handful of treasonous acts …… Except that, if you look at the original text of the Three Outlines –The king is the program of the minister, the king is not correct, the minister cast other countries. The state is the people’s program, the state is not correct, the people rise to attack. The father is the program of the son; if the father is not kind, the son will run away to another country. The son is the father’s program; if the son is not right, the people will attack him.” –The tumultuous killings and betrayals in the movie are all in evidence again.
But from the audience’s point of view to say, “Creation of the Gods 1” a moment in the “most ruthless imperial family”, a moment and suspected of playing the Oedipus effect, regardless of the Chinese style Western style, this is filled with the king of the father, father and son, patricide and kill the son of the play is still too ancient, too bloody and cruel a bit. “The gentleman is far from the kitchen” is reasonable, it means that distance produces beauty and out of sight, out of mind …… as if the people who really like to drink black coffee will always be in the minority. In fact, according to the story of Creation of the Gods 1, concentrate on the direction of the tragedy to shoot may be better, get an ancient drama or half of Shakespeare, on the whole bitterness of the drama, perhaps also complete …… Unfortunately, it is easy to say and do difficult, in the end, it is still a commercial blockbusters to take the mainstream road, and the world’s most important thing is that it is not a good thing to do. In the end, it’s still a commercial blockbuster that’s going to go mainstream, and the tone of misery and the uplifting melody are to a certain extent contrary to each other (if the three movies were to come out together, it might improve a lot). Therefore, Creation of the Gods 1 has some problems that could have been ignored, such as the lack of portrayal of Jiang Ziya and other characters, the dispersion of viewpoints, the interpretation of the two religions, and the lack of big scenes (because they are all crammed into the last two films). And so on.
To sum up, I’ve already said everything I most wanted to say about Creation of the Gods 1. Considering the production, story, and subject matter on the level of production, it all qualifies as a fine blockbuster, with the sole exception that it will be more divergent in terms of its viewing experience – so I’m guessing that the film will have a small wave of success after its official release, but it won’t be Too sell out, at least its expected small one to two billion target is difficult to reach …… also do not know whether I will be hit in the face.
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