Film Name: 上海堡垒 / Shanghai Fortress
Even before its release, some viewers were not optimistic about Shanghai Fortress, and the actual feedback after yesterday’s screening seemed to confirm this.
I guess I had lowered my expectations when I saw the movie, but when I finished it, I found that the movie still had some redeeming qualities.
I haven’t read Jiang Nan’s novel of the same name, and I’m not a fan or a fan of Lu Han or Shu Qi, so I’m just going to talk about the movie Shanghai Fortress from the perspective of the movie itself.
Honestly, the viewing experience of Shanghai Fortress is not ideal – it’s easy to call it “bad”, but if we don’t dialectically find out the film’s strengths and weaknesses, summarize and analyze the lessons learned, then all the slogans are meaningless for this film and the future development of Chinese science fiction films. But if we don’t look at the film’s strengths and weaknesses dialectically, and summarize and analyze the lessons learned, then all of the watery voices are meaningless to this film and to the future development of domestic science fiction movies.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
This year has been dubbed by many viewers as “the first year of Chinese sci-fi movies”, and two sci-fi films with very different styles appeared on the same stage at the Spring Festival, The Wandering Earth and Crazy Alien: the former is “sci-fi + disaster”, making it China’s first sci-fi movie to be made in China. The former is “sci-fi + disaster” and has become China’s first modern heavy industrial sci-fi blockbuster, while the latter is “sci-fi + comedy” and uses “Ning Hao-style” black humor to the extreme.
Shanghai Fortress” fills another blank, ‘science fiction + war’.
Domestic sci-fi movies have never been rich in “genre”, and “sci-fi war movie” is something no one has ever done before. The creative team has made such a valuable attempt in the absence of experience, which is valuable subjectively and objectively.
Of course, Shanghai Fortress is a bit rough in the details, for example, the city of Shanghai, which is located in the front line of the battlefield, lacks the portrayal and feeling of being “at N level of war readiness”, and there are still too many daily activities of the citizens. ……
However, when the war starts, the apocalyptic scene of Shanghai is still quite a battlefield atmosphere, which also makes the movie’s genre elements have a minimum guarantee.
In addition to “war movie”, “Shanghai Fortress” actually has an additional attribute of “romance”, and there is a main and a secondary line: the main line is Jiang Yang’s adoration for Commander Lin Lan, and the secondary line is the “unsaid” regrettable romance between Lu Yi Yi and Pan Hantian. The main line is Jiang Yang’s adoration for Commander Lin Lan, and the secondary line is the regrettable romance between Yi Lu and Pan Hantian, which is “unspoken”.
It should be said that the movie’s love drama and war drama, as completed the basic narrative, and individual characters are also relatively full, but unfortunately in the theater arrangement is slightly unbalanced. While watching the main movie, I felt that Jiang Yang’s feelings for Lin Lan appeared to be too wishful thinking and there was a lack of interaction between the two of them, but when I saw the contents of the colorful egg (Lin Lan’s personal valuables were flowers sent by Jiang Yang), I instead felt a stronger sense of regret for them.
Considering my personal preference for the “sci-fi war” theme of the movie Shanghai Fortress, I’ll focus on this part of the movie below.
The movie builds a relatively complete battlefield system: the human beings holding the advanced energy substance “Xiantian” are the defending side, and Xiantian can build a “bubble defense system” similar to a shield while supplying energy to the city, and it can also charge the “Shanghai Cannon”, the ultimate weapon, to achieve counterattack; the alien invader Delta civilization that comes to seize Xiantian is the attacking side. The “Shanghai Cannon” can also be used as the ultimate weapon for counterattack; the alien invader Delta civilization, which came to seize the fairy vines, is the attacking party, and its invisible Delta mothership can destroy the bubble defense to a certain extent, and release a large number of “Predator” soldiers to enter the bubble to destroy the defense.
This creates an integrated battlefield of “space, sky, ground and underground”, and it is interesting to see how the attackers and defenders choose to play and arrange their troops.
The film gives the main camera to the Shanghai defenders secretly trained “Gray Eagle Team” – drone swarms are in addition to the Shanghai artillery, the most capable of causing mass casualties to the predator weapons, to win the right to control the air, less let a predator landing, will allow the defenders to more than one point of hope for victory. The most important thing is to win the air rights and let one less predator land on the ground.
Therefore, the Greyhawk team is the absolute core of the combatants – about this part of the “personal heroism” there are two small slots, but after seeing the film can be rounded back:
First, let a few inexperienced young people to play a major role, bully my Shanghai garrison no one? In fact, the Gray Eagle team has been only a replacement, in the command of the two consecutive attacks, the loss of drone pilots, they turned and participate in the actual battle;
Second, in order to save his team member Lu Yi Yi, Jiang Yang damaged his airplane and landed as an infantryman? Jiang Yang disregarded the duties of the captain, indirectly leading to a sudden increase in the pressure of the air war, this point did make a mistake, but fortunately after the incident, Lu Yi Yi drove the plane to the ground, in order to sacrifice their own way to help Jiang Yang to put this big mistake remedy back, is also considered acceptable.
Besides that, I was also confused about the number of personnel, the composition of soldiers, and the rank system of the UNDC (Earth Defense Force) …… However, fortunately, the spirit of the soldiers, who are willing to sacrifice their lives and die for the sake of justice, is still shown in Shanghai Fortress.
Compared to those mentioned earlier, the most praiseworthy part of the movie should be the high degree of completion of special effects and original settings.
Most of the shots in the film use special effects, and reflects the principle of “good steel on the knife edge”, Delta Mothership attacked by black clouds, covering the sky, bubble defense system seems to be, thousands of lights, Shanghai “land sinking” of the fragmentation, the end of the collapse, are all worthy of praise. All of them can be described as remarkable.
In particular, I was very impressed by the two sets of dynamic shots of the Predator falling from the sky and the Shanghai cannon surfacing from the sea, both fast and slow, with a high degree of fluidity and a good sense of localization and overall image, which is worthy of recognition.
As for the setting, the most outstanding design should be the alien soldier “Predator”: its tone is a strong sense of metal in the form of mecha, whether it is in the form of an orb or a six-limbed monster form, are rich in impact, combined with the actual performance of the film, it can be said that it is the shape of the “villain” image is very attentive. “The mech design has a small flaw, however.
However, there is a small flaw in the design of this mech, which, like most of the tightly wrapped human soldiers in the film, is adequate for war scenes – but it is cold and bloodless, and lacks the infectiousness that would allow the audience to feel more emotion.
Similarly, the quality of the movie would have been better if many of the details had been touched up and handled properly.
With many nods to sci-fi war movies Independence Day and Battle: Los Angeles, Shanghai Fortress is a small but solid step forward as a “later” student of the genre.
“The Wandering Earth opened the door to Chinese sci-fi, and Shanghai Fortress slammed it shut again.” Don’t take this as a joke, but don’t take it seriously. Chinese sci-fi won’t fall silent or even fail just because of a brand new attempt, Shanghai Fortress has brought a lot of achievements and experiences, even if they’re shortcomings and lessons learned – Next time, Chinese sci-fi will be the most important thing in China. Even the shortcomings and lessons learned are meaningful – next time, Chinese sci-fi will do better.
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