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©️Mirror Entertainment

Text丨Gu Zhenguan

The following contains spoilers.

It would be fatal for any film if it could not successfully establish a character in its 156-minute running time, and "The Decryption" is no exception.

As a main theme film, the connotation and extension of "Decryption" are broader than any of Chen Sicheng's previous films, but neither the personal line of the male protagonist nor the line of family and country, the line of family affection, and the line of love are moving.

What the audience sees is an abstract genius rather than a concrete individual; what they see is the war years but not the profound thinking hidden beneath the tide of the times; what they see is family affection but not the inseparable bond between family members.

With the dazzling special effects, "The Decryption" is like an exquisite model room. It looks bright and beautiful at first glance, but when you walk into it, you will touch nothingness.

It may be unfair to call "The Decryptor" a bad movie, but given the uncomfortable viewing experience, it is difficult for us to classify it as a good movie.

It can only be said that the outcome of Chen Sicheng's self-breakthrough this time was not ideal. His strength did not support his ambition. On the road to transforming from an "excellent product manager" to a "good director", Chen Sicheng still has a long way to go.

All staff tools

In the two and a half hours of the film, "Decryption" failed to establish a single character, not even the male lead Rong Jinzhen. The fundamental reason for this problem is the "tool-like" nature of the supporting characters and the "abstractness of the protagonist" in the film's narrative.

The appearance of Xiao Lili, Xi Yisi, Lao Zheng, Xiaomei and others have changed Rong Jinzhen's life trajectory to varying degrees, but the impression they left on the audience is vague.

For example, Rong Jinzhen's mentor, Xi Yis, who is both his enemy and friend, lifts the veil of labels such as genius, conceited, and crazy. It is still difficult for the audience to see into his inner world and understand how mathematics, war, politics, etc. have influenced and changed him.

The other supporting characters are portrayed in a more stereotyped manner. If Xiyis still maintains a certain degree of independent personality, then the axis of Xiao Lili, Lao Zheng, Xiaomei and others is all on Rong Jinzhen. Without Rong Jinzhen, they are left with only vague and shriveled outlines.

The fact that all the supporting characters are used as tools has led to two major problems. First, the film's personal heroism is extremely enhanced. In Chen Sicheng's view, Rong Jinzhen and his comrades are the gathering and embodiment of countless heroes on the secret front, but the film gives the audience a completely opposite impression, because Rong Jinzhen is not just a gear in a huge decryption system, but the whole system.

If "The Decoded" decoupled the life of the fictional character Rong Jinzhen from real history, the personal heroism in the film might not have brought such a strong sense of dissonance, forming a cognitive conflict with the collectivist values ​​and people's historical perspective generally recognized by the public.

Secondly, it greatly increases the difficulty of portraying Rong Jinzhen. As the absolute focus of the narrative, he must be extremely flesh and blood in order to bring the audience into the story. Unfortunately, in "The Decryption", the image of Rong Jinzhen is abstract rather than concrete.

Rong Jinzhen does fit the outside world's stereotype of genius. His loneliness, paranoia, neurosis, unsociability, and lack of communication skills are also classic routines in genius narratives. The same is true of Turing in the movie "The Imitation Game".

But in The Imitation Game, Turing's narrative pressure is not as heavy as Rong Jinzhen's, because Hugh, Joan and others set up three-dimensional supporting roles that are enough to carry the expression of some issues. At the same time, in the conflict and reconciliation between Hugh, Joan and others and Turing, The Imitation Game also pulled Turing out of the vacuum context, allowing the audience to see his true emotions and thoughts.

Back to "The Decoded", the protagonist Rong Jinzhen is almost in a vacuum environment throughout the whole process. It is difficult for the audience to see the marks left on him by conflicts and contradictions, his cognition and thinking about his identity as a genius, and his thinking about science, country, war, and politics, and his understanding of family and love. This causes Rong Jinzhen's image to be out of focus and his growth is almost stagnant.

Objectively speaking, Chen Sicheng did construct ten visually impactful dreams to weave Rong Jinzhen's spiritual world, including his desire for sex, his emphasis on the people he cherishes in his life, his fear of being unable to defeat computers, etc., but these cannot make Rong Jinzhen a concrete and unique individual, because they are applicable to most geniuses.

The film chose to create a non-existent fictional character in the form of a biographical film, which may be the source of all the problems. Throughout the film, Rong Jinzhen's out-of-focus infinitely distanced him from the audience, and also made the film's highlight, "Everyone is a unique code, and this life is the process of decryption," hang in the air.

The separation of technology and content

For the audience, evaluating "The Decryption" is not an easy task. It is difficult to simply and crudely classify it as a bad movie, but it is also difficult to easily give it a good review.

It is like an exquisite model room, decorated with top technology, high-level aesthetics, and remarkable soundtrack. It looks quite delicious, but when you peel off the surface, you will find a long and boring story inside.

The length of "Decryption" is due to the plot structure. The film revolves around the hero Rong Jinzhen's conquest of the "Purple Secret" and the "Black Secret" in the middle and later stages. There are indeed some differences between the two decryptions. The former is more inclined to a technical battle, while the latter is a psychological battle under "technical downgrade", but the expression methods of the two decryptions are almost the same, both of which use dreams to interpret the process of Rong Jinzhen breaking through difficulties and shackles, which leads to a strong sense of repetition in large sections of the plot.

The disorder, superficiality and similarity of the ten dreams is another factor that makes "The Decryption" long and boring.

In Xiyis's dream, the red beach, the giant walrus, and the disappearing footprints were interpreted by Rong Jinzhen as "Xiyis's fear of the disappearance of talent." Dreams are manifestations of the subconscious, which refers more to the part of human psychological activities that is constrained by reason and difficult to perceive easily. Therefore, the presentation logic of reality and dreams should be a progressive narrative. Obviously, the dream of the red beach conforms to this logic.

In contrast, Rong Jinzhen's dreams during the process of cracking the "black code" are mostly superficial and superficial. In the middle and late stages, out of a deep fear that the human brain may not be able to defeat the computer, Rong Jinzhen becomes more and more neurotic in reality, but the corresponding dreams are not progressive narratives.

In the dream, Rong Jinzhen was imprisoned by blood-red IV tubes, surrounded by a maze of narrow walls, and attacked by Cthulhu-like monsters, essentially reinforcing his fears over and over again.

A momentary display of skill brings a sense of surprise, but repeated display of skill will only make the audience aesthetically fatigued. Dreams should have broken the limitations of time and space and injected deeper philosophical speculation and value core into "The Decryption", but the reality is that the disorder, superficiality and similarity of the ten dreams have aggravated the inherent paleness of the film and destroyed the coherence of the plot development.

Ultimately, the narrative function of the ten dreams is more focused on stimulating the audience’s senses. If these ten dreams are removed, the story of “Decoding” would be no different from a cup of plain water.

Some people think that the reason why the movie is not well received is that it "wants everything". The director is too ambitious, which leads to the lack of success in the country and family lines, the family line, and the love line.

For example, the family and country line in the film is like an empty symbol, like a thin background board connected by major historical events, and Rong Jinzhen's family and country feelings are as stiff as a composition, appearing only when the topic needs to be raised.

But there is nothing wrong with a biographical film having "both". The country and family line, the family line, and the love line are all important components of a biographical film.

If Chen Sicheng was not obsessed with piecing together and piling up dream wonders, and paid more attention to the text than the visuals, then the family and country lines, the family lines, and the love lines would have more room for expression. In the final analysis, the problem is still the separation and imbalance between technology and text.

In the summer season, the problems of "Under Humans" and "Decoded" are exactly the same. Chen Sicheng tried to prove to the market that "Oppenheimer" could also be made in China, while Wuershan aimed at Marvel superhero movies. In the film promotion, the two directors also emphasized the localization of Hollywood blockbusters.

"Under Humanity" and "Decoded" may be on the same level as Hollywood blockbusters in terms of technology, but that is limited to technology.

Willing but unable

Chen Sicheng is obviously satisfied with "Decryption". The film poster has the slogan "Director Chen Sicheng's new masterpiece after ten years", and Chen Sicheng also appears in the film's easter egg.

When facing the doubts that Decryption imitated Hollywood blockbusters such as Oppenheimer, Inception and The Imitation Game, Chen Sicheng expressed his firm attitude: "Don't think of dreams as Hollywood. We can't always belittle ourselves. I don't think I am deliberately imitating anyone. I have the responsibility to do something for Chinese films."

It is true that as a director, Chen Sicheng once faced controversy for being too commercial, but objectively speaking, the setting and narrative framework of "Decoding" basically follow Mai Jia's original work of the same name, and "genius narrative" and "dream interpretation" are not the patents of any one director. Prejudiced labels such as "imitation" and "copycatism" will make us lose our rational position in judging the film.

Compared with "Detective Chinatown 3" and "Mozart from Outer Space", "Decoded" carries Chen Sicheng's ambition to break through himself in serious themes and explore innovations in main-theme film genres, but judging from the content of "Decoded", neither of these two points can be called a success.

As early as in our preview of the summer season, we expressed our concerns about "Decoding": although the original work is well-known, its reputation is somewhat different from "The Whistleblower", which is also part of the "Mai Jia Trilogy". The controversy over the original work mainly focuses on the vagueness of the decryption process, the thin character creation, and the hollow core. This puts very high demands on Chen Sicheng's adaptation skills.

However, these problems appeared almost intact in the film. This also indirectly reflects that Chen Sicheng's skills are indeed improving on the technical level, but his thinking is stagnant.

Unlike "Detective Chinatown 3" and "Mozart from Outer Space", "Decoded", which is labeled as a grand narrative, magnifies Chen Sicheng's long-standing weaknesses. It is difficult for the audience to see Chen Sicheng's in-depth thinking about the tide of the times and individual destiny in "Decoded", and it is difficult to see the depth of this story as it should be.

In exploring the possibility of innovation in the main theme film genre, "The Decryption" superimposes fantasy and suspense elements, and reconstructs the main theme through a narrative technique that combines the real and the imaginary. This direction is worthy of recognition.

Today, main-theme themes have become an important part of domestic films, but at the same time, the homogeneity of main-theme creations is an indisputable fact. Finding more innovative forms of content expression is an issue that the entire industry must face.

In the past few decades, Hollywood has produced a variety of American-themed films, with Forrest Gump, Green Book, Bridge of Spies, and Argo being typical examples. The most well-known Forrest Gump is a rare example of a low-IQ protagonist who has become the embodiment of the orthodox American spirit. Today, the film's creative approach is still unique and advanced.

For Chen Sicheng, wanting to change is a good thing, but the final quality of "Decryption" is not ideal, or there is still a lot of room for improvement, which may also break Chen Sicheng's box office myth.

"Decryption" is not as extremely market-pleasing as Chen Sicheng's previous films. As a commercial blockbuster, it lacks a hearty and refreshing feeling. Compared with serious themes of the same type, it has too many flaws. As a main theme blockbuster, the probability of arousing empathy from the whole nation is not high.

This time, whether Chen Sicheng can play the role of "excellent product manager" is probably a question mark.

Original by Mirror Entertainment (ID: jingxiangyuler)

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