"Decryption" interprets the heroic legend of the hidden front
2024-08-12
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Our reporter Yuan Yuner
Before the release of the movie "Decoding", the industry generally believed that Chen Sicheng was better at handling commercial films with strong genres, strong topics, and strong entertainment. For example, his most influential "Detective Chinatown" series combines reasoning with comedy, and each of them has extremely lively and gorgeous audio-visual effects and bizarre and tortuous cases. However, this time "Decoding" made people see a "work that is least like Chen Sicheng", because no matter in terms of subject matter, characters or image style, the film has become more stable, heavy and serious. Chen Sicheng began to calm down and film characters, history and emotions in a down-to-earth manner.
"Decoding" is adapted from Mai Jia's novel of the same name, telling the legendary story of Rong Jinzhen using his mathematical talent to crack codes and make great contributions to the country's covert front. Chen Sicheng combines elements such as spy war themes and character biographies, and adds the main theme of family and country narrative, using the current top domestic film industry production level to create a highly immersive and shocking audio-visual effect. The viewing experience it brings is indeed "subversive imagination" as the film's publicity says.
It is obvious that the film has a lot of references to Hollywood blockbusters: for example, the scene where Rong Jinzhen turns on and off the lights to confirm whether he is in a dream or reality reminds people of "Inception"; the fate of the characters is told in the turbulent historical torrent, which feels like "Oppenheimer"; the code maze and code abyss in Rong Jinzhen's dream have appeared in "Maze Runner"... This is not to criticize Chen Sicheng's "borrowing" approach. It is very common to learn from others in artistic creation. Borrowing and adapting are nothing. The key lies in whether it can be used well and whether the advantages of other works can be organically integrated into one's own work. Judging from this point alone, "Decryption" is quite successful in borrowing from Hollywood commercial blockbusters, which fully proves his talent.
From the perspective of spy war blockbusters, "Decryption" shows how the heroes of the hidden front in history used their skills to save the country from danger. In Mai Jia's original novel, Rong Jinzhen's genius and the secret agency 701 he later joined are both unfathomable, and the process of cracking the code is exciting, which is very suitable for being made into a movie. The film did achieve this effect. The opening uses Rong Jinzhen's tortuous life experience and Xiao Lili and Higgins's discovery and training of Rong Jinzhen to explain Rong Jinzhen's growth process. After Rong Jinzhen entered 701, the story became more exciting. What is the organizational structure of 701? What types of jobs do confidential personnel have and how do they work in normal times? What is their living condition? The film takes the audience to glimpse the truth in a revealing way. The female soldier did not let Rong Jinzhen climb the wall, reflecting the strict discipline of the confidential agency. Director Zheng’s last line before leaving the stage, “My surname is not Zheng,” tells the audience in a concise and concise way how deeply these unsung heroes are “hidden.”
Mai Jia vividly summarizes the work process of spy warfare as "listening to the wind", "catching the wind" and "watching the wind", and the movie shows all three aspects. "Listening to the wind" refers to searching for radio stations and information in the vast radio waves. In the film, Wang Baoqiang plays the listener "A Bing" in just one scene, but the effect is amazing. It is also the interaction between "Decryption" and "The Counterfeit" in the "Mai Jia Universe". "Catching the wind" focuses on actions such as transmitting intelligence and arresting spies. The movie restores the famous "Princess Kashmir" incident in history. "Watching the wind" refers to deciphering codes, which is the work of Rong Jinzhen. The movie pursues the restoration of history in costumes and props, and coupled with the outstanding performance of director of photography Cao Yu, the image is delicate and textured.
The process of deciphering the code is relatively abstract, so the film designed a "control group" character Higgins for Rong Jinzhen. This relationship between the two heroes greatly enhances the watchability. The friendship between the two as teachers, friends, and enemies is very touching. Higgins discovered and cultivated Rong Jinzhen and was his guide on the road of mathematics, but because the two were on different fronts, they were destined to become enemies. In the process of cracking the "Purple Code" and "Black Code", the two fought like a cat-and-mouse game, and the chess they often played became the key clue throughout. Although Rong Jinzhen was better than his teacher in the end, the two always appreciated each other and retained the most sincere friendship between them.
However, the "Ten Dreams" that Chen Sicheng is proud of, although full of formal sense, are not so brilliant. First of all, dreams should be hazy and obscure, but the film is too "real", which is like looking for fish in a tree. Secondly, the images that appear in these ten dreams, such as mazes, Ferris wheels, walruses, etc., are all modern and Western, which are relatively separated from the film's era background and character identity. More importantly, these dreams show that Rong Jinzhen relies on intuition and subconsciousness to crack the code, giving people a feeling that he has cracked the code by dreaming, which seems too mystical in narrative. Dreams should shape and enrich the character image and inner world of the protagonist, but Rong Jinzhen is ultimately still an image of a "paper man" who is out of touch with the world, and is somewhat flat and empty.
Of course, these are all flaws. Overall, "Decryption" is a breakthrough for Chen Sicheng and a leap forward for domestic blockbusters. The film has shown a mature level in the control of genre, overall tone, and audio-visual language.
(Source: Beijing Daily)
