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The collision of ideas and the echo of people's voices

Have character, conscience, depth and warmth

Stills from "Silent Killing" from the Internet

"Silent Killing" hits bullying hard, with twists and turns

It's heartbreaking and thought-provoking...

Text/Sichuan Meimei

Due to the high temperature in recent days, I hid in the cinema to cool off while watching a blockbuster. "Silent Killing", another assassination movie by Ke Wenli after "The Accidental Murder", has whetted the audience's appetite. It covers horrifying and sinful words such as sexual assault, bullying, domestic violence, and murder. It is very heartbreaking and suffocating to watch.

Frankly speaking, I don’t like such an evil tone. There are almost no good people among the cast. In the dark and humid rainy season with heavy rains, God is also doing evil, covering up the horrifying truth of "revenge" scene by scene.

To avoid spoilers, I will just give you a summary of my initial impressions.

1. The director's gimmick of bloody violence stimulates people's senses

The film is 119 minutes long and touches the heart of the school bullying issue. It is a very tense and eye-catching film story. However, the Douban score is only 6.9, which is low. The 2022 version (same subject) also has a score of 7.9. Why? I think the director used glass to cut the face, nails to pierce the hands, scissors to pierce the throat, and hammers to hit the head. These cruel and frightening close-up shots have created a bloody hit for the whole movie. The words "It is recommended that underage audiences choose to watch carefully" were printed on the movie poster, which highlighted the gimmick of the movie and reaped the box office success.

"Silent Killing" poster source network

It grossed over 800 million yuan in 12 days after its release, and the total box office is predicted to rise to over 1.5 billion yuan, which is indeed an impressive achievement in the summer movie market.

However, it is dark, violent, bloody and hypocritical, which makes the audience feel depressed and their emotions fluctuate greatly, is that okay?

2. The details reflect the creator’s good intentions

"The Silent Murderer" creates suspense by disrupting the story's timeline, highlighting the weirdness of the case. The plot of the assassination undoubtedly requires the laying out and stacking of details.

The doves of peace appear several times. The doves that crashed into the glass window at the beginning hinted at the tragic atmosphere of the whole movie. Huijun (Xu Jiao) was coerced and lured to the rooftop by several bullied little girls to protect the doves, but she fell to her death at her father's feet, which made Zaifu (Wang Chuanjun) heartbroken.

Xiao Yutong, who had been searched for by her mother everywhere, finally escaped by releasing pigeons on a truck, which meant that she was free, her best friend was vindicated, and her enemy was killed by her father.

At the beginning, there is a lonely boat in the sea, which indicates that this is the area where Southeast Asian residents live. Lin Zaifu imagines sailing in a boat with his daughter, singing and playing comfortably on the beach; the school organizes an activity of lighting lanterns to pray for the relatives who were killed by the tsunami; the scene of the same boat being burned by Lin Zaifu is the father's despair after his daughter was bullied to death, and he has embarked on the road of revenge since then.

The black and cold hammer, which flashed a bloody cold light on the movie poster, then wandered in a sea of ​​blood, was raised high by angry hands and chopped at the sinful girls one by one, showing the unstoppable force of assassination and also alluding to the "revenge" plot of justice.

"Silent Killing" poster source network

There are also the thousands of paper cranes that appear repeatedly in the film, forming a closed loop stained with blood, strangling the throats of the three leading actors, Li Han (played by Janine Chang), Lin Zai-fu, and Dai Guodong (played by Francis Ng), whose painful expressions are trapped in the various wildly circulating horror news.

Even the names of the characters carry ingenious secrets: the four bullies Gao Jingshu, Zhong Xiaoqing, An Qi, and Huang Wenling all have the same name as “high school bullying”. The name of the sneak photographer Wu Wang is a homophone for “hopeless”, and the photos he took are all desperate scenes in the movie, which is chilling. It also left evidence for solving the case later.

Lin Zaifu, who has no "blessing" and lost his daughter, and Chen Yutong, who cannot "speak", have already hinted at the holes in life.

3. The darkness of human nature is terrifying when you think about it carefully

In the first half of the movie, Li Han went to the principal timidly and begged him to put her daughter in the special education class. The principal's condescending and indifferent attitude and the obscene tone of his words really disgusted people. Li Han turned around and looked for her daughter in a panic. Finally, she saw her daughter tied to the wall in the old classroom where few people went. Her mouth and head were covered with glue. The four evil girls who had just bullied her daughter ran away in a panic and she ran into them. She didn't dare to attack. It reminds people of the experience of the bullied girl played by Song Hye Kyo in "Dark Glory". It seems that school bullying exists all over the world.

After his daughter got into trouble, Lin Zaifu handed out flyers at the school gate, hoping to find some clues, but no one paid attention. Zhong Xiaoqing was one of the bullies, and her mother pulled her daughter away coldly. The group mentality of "it's none of my business" makes people feel cold.

The retribution came quickly. The next day, Zhong Xiaoqing disappeared. Her mother also handed out flyers in the heavy rain, but no one paid attention. This behavior of turning a blind eye to "evil" is defined by German-American writer Hannah Arendt as "the banality of evil," and is an "accomplice."

In the film, Yutong's mother, Li Han, had no sympathy when she saw Huijun being bullied by a wicked girl. She really lost her maternal instinct. Little Yutong (played by Wang Shengdi) took out a pair of scissors and wanted to bravely rescue her best friend, but was forcibly pulled away by her mother, causing Huijun to fall to her death on the shaky rooftop. Yutong hated the wicked girl who bullied her, and she also hated her mother. The goodness in her heart was trapped by her mother's bug.

"Silent Killing" poster source network

Later, she was very smart. She gave her mobile phone to Lin Zaifu and secretly filmed the process of Huijun being bullied. She asked the father who had lost his beloved daughter to severely punish the bullying girls, including the principal's daughter Anqi, who was fearless, and made them all buried with Huijun.

The movie has a great visual impact. After watching it, I kept recalling the past. This movie reminded me of Yukiho in Keigo Higashino's famous novel "White Night Walk". Her long road of revenge lasted for many years. She sent her mother and stepfather to heaven with the help of others.

It's just that Yutong was 9 years old when she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather in "Silent Killing". Five years later, she was only 13 years old. She probably didn't have the superpower to plan such a meticulous revenge plan against a bullied girl. However, it makes sense that everything that happened later in the movie was done by Lin Zaifu.

4. The two leading actors gave amazing acting skills

The heroine of "Silent Killing" Zhang Junning plays Yutong's mother. She is good-looking and originally had a decent job as an accountant, but for her daughter, she would rather be a cleaner at Jingmu Girls' School. Her beloved daughter was sexually assaulted by her husband at the age of 9. This is a pain that she cannot tell in her life. She did not protect her daughter well. How deeply she regretted her mistake. So her later life revolved around her beloved daughter, and she tried her best to protect her, but she was almost pathological. She often beat her daughter at home behind closed doors. She said it was for your own good, so that you would remember not to meddle in other people's business and get yourself into trouble. She mistakenly transferred part of the responsibility for her husband's evil expansion of human nature and the violation of her daughter's body to her daughter. The child was only 9 years old, what could she do.

It is really sad to think that Nobel Prize winner Munro encountered the same evil problem during her lifetime, and she could still tolerate her husband to continue living with him until that scumbag passed away. The name of the movie "Silent Killing" may also mean "silence". The ugliness of the "stepfather" in this world may seem like a family scandal, but in fact it is about the self-defense of women's rights, the respect for women, including the defense of bodily sovereignty, which will never be outdated.

I want to give a thumbs up to Director Ke Wenli. This grand stroke reflects a global social problem. If you have a daughter, please be cautious about remarrying. It is still the classic saying of Keigo Higashino: "Evil thoughts are deep in the human heart, but most people choose to hide them in the darkness."

"Silent Killing" poster source network

Zhang Junning's mother's regret for losing her virginity almost made her life out of control. She wanted to tie her daughter to her waistband and not let her out of her sight for a second, which led to her daughter's unparalleled yearning for freedom. Xiao Yutong's preference for pigeons and paper cranes is exactly the shortcoming of her life. It is true that the scars of childhood need a lifetime to heal.

The male lead Wang Chuanjun plays Huijun's father Lin Zaifu, who loves his daughter so much, but his daughter died in the school where he worked. He was heartbroken. He hated those bullies, and he also took out his anger on Teacher Fang, who was full of religious enlightenment. Why was he silent? ! As long as it wasn't his own family members who died, that kind of "silence" that was generous to others was also a murderer, so he kidnapped Fang Juezhong (played by Jin Shijie). He tore off the veil of hypocritical humanity with his own hands, and he wanted to "fight violence with violence" to avenge his daughter. A father's anger, he could risk his life, and finally he jumped off the rooftop and met his daughter. He completed his redemption, and the audience was so sad to see this scene.

5. The script is not polished enough and the logic seems far-fetched

"Silent Murder" has a strong Ke Wenli filter, the overall tone is dark, and the story is told in a wet gray scene of rain, creating a sense of grief and anger. The rhythm is mature and the suspense is gripping. These are all indispensable elements for "murder" type films to create an atmosphere. However, the audience will also pay special attention to the self-consistency and rationality of certain logical details.

"Silent Killing" poster source network

For example, 9-year-old Yutong was sexually assaulted by her stepfather. She was so young and panicked and scared that she didn’t even have time to cry. How could she be so calm and turn around and stab her stepfather to death with a pair of scissors even though the stepfather was several times taller and more powerful than her?

After seeing her daughter kill her husband, Yutong's mother dragged the body of a grown man upstairs to bury the scum. She also calmly cleaned up the murder scene and planted kumquats. This weak woman is really strong and unconvincing.

In addition, the principal should know that his daughter bullied Huijun, Zaifu's daughter, and Huijun died. Her father must have investigated the cause of death. Why did he stay in Fu's school and continue to work, and let Zaifu repair the broken skylight? Isn't that courting death? Either the principal didn't know the specific details, or no one dared to tell him.

By the way, the fat security guard didn’t appear for long. He saw a few girls bullying their classmates, but he didn’t even try to stop them. Isn’t that too unreasonable? Maybe he didn’t dare to say anything because he saw the principal’s daughter was involved, fearing that his job would be ruined.

Also, when Li Han found out that her daughter was missing, she went to look for her anxiously. When she finally found the classroom and saw her daughter's head and face covered in glue, she was too calm, wasn't she? She hugged her daughter and cried, and cut off her glued hair. Shouldn't she have dragged her daughter to the principal's office and reported it? Why did she just accept it? This is hard to understand.

Finally, the principal, who is a father, was rehearsing in the school hall. When he pulled down the rope, he found that it was his daughter's body. He just stared at it as if he was looking at a monster. He was too calm, obviously inhuman. Shouldn't he change his tone of voice in shock and surprise and quickly check if the person was still alive?

These details are inconsistent with each other, logically far-fetched and unrealistic, which makes the serial murder case in this movie full of flaws. It may also have affected the rating, which did not even get 7 points.

Although these flaws have caused "Silent Killing" to be criticized, director Ke Wenli and his creative team have touched on the themes of school bullying, sexual assault, domestic violence, indifference, and the banality of evil, and have performed the story of the evil of human nature so thrillingly and excitingly, inciting the audience's empathy, which is worthy of recognition. The movie is worth watching.

I will be giving a “Shape of the Heart” sharing session at the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center at 10:30am on Sunday, August 11th. I hope to see you there!

About the Author

Sichuan girl: native to eastern Sichuan, currently living in Shanghai. A retired middle school teacher, she is a lifelong literary youth who likes beautiful articles and writing. She believes in not doing evil, no matter how small it is, and not refraining from doing good, no matter how small it is.

All original articles on the platform are authorized by the authors to be first published on WeChat. The articles only represent the authors’ views and have nothing to do with this platform.

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