Film Name: 长津湖之水门桥 / The Battle At Lake Changjin II / Watergate Bridge
The Battle At Lake Changjin II (hereinafter referred to as “Watergate Bridge”) deserves its status as the number one seed in the 2022 Chinese New Year box office, both in terms of pre-sales before the year and box office performance on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Watergate Bridge) deserves its status as the top seed.
Can the war scenes be elevated again? Does it circumvent some of the commonly cited slowdowns in The Battle at Lake Changjin? How will the story of the Seven Companies end?
After seeing the entire film in theaters the first time around, the film gave me answers that satisfied me.
Watergate Bridge” to a large extent carries out the policy of avoiding the shortcomings of its strengths, and further streamlines and focuses on the war scenes and literature, so that the core parts are more prominent, and although the group of characters has been compressed, the overall feeling of the film is better than that of ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’.
Regardless of where it ends up at the box office, Watergate Bridge will at least bring the movie to a successful conclusion.
[WARNING: Spoilers to follow]
More than 90% of the content of Watergate Bridge was shot by Tsui Hark, so much so that in the opening credits, Chen Kaige and Lin Chiu-hsien are only listed as “Producer”, but only Tsui Hark is listed as “Producer/Director”, so we can also see this movie as the work of Xu Laoqi. So we can also regard this movie as the work of Xu Laoqi.
The difference between The Battle at Lake Changjin and Tsui Hark can be seen in the actual performance of the movie: after the opening “big scene” of capturing the airfield, the movie quickly moves on to the bridge bombing mission of the 7th Company, where the secondary characters and the various subplots have been cut down to the point where the viewer is able to better focus on the plot of the bridge itself. Shui Men Bridge plot itself.
In this way, the main conflict of the movie “Volunteers blowing up/U.S. troops guarding the Shuimen Bridge” is very clear, and the combat objective and the main body of the combat are “changed from big to small”, which is good for everyone.
Unlike the real history of the war “eight days, three bombing and three repair”, the movie has dramatized this part of the history of the film, the actual only two bombing Shuimenqiao (the other through the completion of the narration), the two operations, a strong attack, a tricky, very different styles, detailed and appropriate, watchable excellent.
The highlight of the battle is naturally the joint battle between the remnants of the 7th and 9th companies in the middle section.
Both sides have their own battle plan, the attacking side has been divided into four to six ways, including the front and face up feints, as well as the north and side of the surprise attack, and the Pinghe lead hose side of the raid became a blasting point to open the situation, and then the seven companies of fighters according to the battlefield situation changes in the combined and divided, in turn, to complete their own tasks.
In this war, there is no side is able to win easily. The defense is also very strong, not to say that the straw man, but compared to our volunteers are better. This series of battle of wits and courage, to tactical tactics, to have a scene with a scene, tragic and tragic, fully mobilized the audience’s emotions, contributing to the rare war drama “famous scene”.
This time, the domestic war movie can really!
Compared to the previous bombing of the bridge, before the end of the second bombing of the bridge seems simple and heroic, after all, after a series of hard fighting and bombing, the attacking side of the people have very few people left, the defense has ushered in a sea of reinforcements, under the circumstances, can only be taken to the three small-scale feints, all the way to a surprise attack on the fighting tactics, unsuccessful or not.
In the process, Tsui Hark focus on visual performance features are often seen, I particularly like the film a few sections of varying lengths of sports footage, such as Wu Qianli from the snowy mountains sliding towards the U.S. military base in Shuimenqiao that section, the angle of change and focus, coherent and smooth, and finally Mei Sheng and Wu Qianli are determined to die rushed down the mountain of footage but also slowed down the speed, adding a point of majesty and aesthetics. This kind of slightly written approach, placed in the war film, more advanced, rare.
It is worth mentioning that “Watergate Bridge” also has a lot of inconspicuous but very useful small details, such as many times to give the close-up of Pinghe containing fingers, covering the fingers, which also makes his “sharpshooter” image more real and believable.
It’s hard not to be reminded of Tsui Hark’s 2014 remake of The Taking of Tiger Mountain, but Watergate Bridge is much more solemn and solemn than that film’s nimble, bright martial arts legacy.
Most notably, the movie doesn’t shy away from depicting all kinds of deaths, including those who are shot, blown up, burned, and so on, which is a far cry from The Battle at Lake Changjin, and many of them are truly skeletal (so if you’re going to watch this, I suggest you pay attention to your self-grading as well).
It’s fair to say that Watergate Bridge’s war sequences/action sequences are smartly shot and effective, so what about the rest of it? After all, it’s true that for Tsui Hark (in recent years), the written scenes are a relative weakness.
As far as I’m concerned, the movie’s literary scenes are not bad, not bad at all, thanks in part to the fact that The Battle at Lake Changjin is a good movie – I watched it again on New Year’s Eve, and the main thing I saw was the group of seven companies that were in the movie. I watched “The Battle at Lake Changjin” again on New Year’s Eve, mainly to see the group scenes of the seven companies, and as long as it can be more securely accounted for the end of their deaths and injuries, “Watergate Bridge” is considered to have accomplished its mission.
Further, it’s all about the point and manner of the soldiers’ sacrifice, and whether the characters can be accounted for before the sacrifice is made.
In the film has sacrificed a few named soldiers of the seven companies, in the intention of the building: the old company commander Tan Zi for the contribution of his leadership and the spirit of the military, Pinghe opened the knot in the heart of the generous sacrifice, Yu from the Rong carry out his “big brother”-like guardianship and valor, Mei Sheng practiced his family and country of one’s feelings.
Only in the specific execution, “Watergate Bridge” is still slightly rushed, not for the specific characters to make more space for image building out, so that the effect of the presentation of high and low.
Fortunately, the film’s protagonists, brothers Wu Qianli and Wu Wanli, don’t fall off the wagon, and their changes are visualized well enough. Wu Wanli from “kill enough 20 enemies to be considered a hero” to the number of kills does not matter, from the intention to shoot the wounded officer to the U.S. wounded soldiers covered with cotton, “in the war to learn about the war” can be described as significant progress, and Wu Qianli gradually learned to let go of his younger brother! …… Of course, the movie will still appear Wu Wanli impulsive recklessness and Wu Qianli “brother control strict” bridge, not to let their growth line is too thin.
In order to make up for the lack of interaction between the brothers, the movie also puts some thought into the smallest details, such as the brother pinching the face of a bun at his brother in response to the inconvenience of talking to each other during the march, and the brother shaking his goggles, all of which are small details that can make the audience smile.
In addition to the above-mentioned merits and characteristics, the deepest impression Watergate Bridge left on me is the moderate sensationalism – in a movie based on the theme of anti-U.S. support for North Korea, this kind of emotion full of family and national feelings is almost inevitable, it is not difficult to have, but it is difficult to make the audience generally acceptable to the right proportion.
Although Watergate Bridge lacks the highlights of The Battle at Lake Changjin when you pull open the train door and see the Great Wall, there are a few emotional moments that are well chosen, such as when the seven companies are fixing themselves up and before the attack when they are looking in the direction of the motherland, as well as when Mei Sheng is thinking of his wife and daughter while charging to the death with a sense of openness and satisfaction.
But what really makes me break the defense is the scene at the end of the movie when the companies return to report the number, when Wu Wanli shouted out “the seventh interpolation company, should be one hundred and fifty-seven people, the actual arrival of a person”, my memory about the steel company’s emotions were once again touched:
A thunderbolt and a sword, a group of fierce tigers steel seven companies;
Iron will steel man, iron blood for the country to protect the homeland;
The sound of killing scares the enemy’s guts, and the reputation of winning a hundred battles is spread;
Attacking and defending will be firm, step on the enemy’s bones and sing triumph!
Watergate Bridge may still have room for streamlining and optimization, but as a ray of echo connecting the two years of the Tiger, 1950 and 2022, I think it is the most ingenious gift dedicated to this Year of the Tiger.
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