emotion is the soul of art, the brilliance of humanity behind the movie "the sinking of the lisbon maru"
2024-09-19
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
"when a ship sinks to the bottom of the sea..." 10 years ago, what kind of thrilling story did the ship sung in the theme song of the movie "see you tomorrow" have? 10 years later, with the release of the highly rated and well-received film "the sinking of the lisbon maru", the truth about the ship surfaced.
in october 1942, the cargo ship lisbon maru, carrying 1,816 allied prisoners of war, set off from hong kong, china to japan. when passing through the waters of dongji island in zhoushan, it was hit by a torpedo fired by the u.s. military because the japanese army did not hang any flags or signs for transporting prisoners of war on the ship. as the ship sank, the japanese army sealed the hatches in an attempt to let the prisoners of war die with the ship. the prisoners of war broke through the cabin to escape, but were shot and killed by the japanese army. the chinese fishermen nearby risked their lives by rowing a small boat to the accident area to rescue them. in the end, 384 prisoners of war were rescued, and 828 prisoners of war were either killed by the japanese guns, swallowed by the waves, or sank with the ship, and finally rested on the bottom of the east china sea.
the true story and sincere narration have made this documentary film resonate with a wide range of people. according to the data from lighthouse professional edition, the box office of "the sinking of the lisbon maru" has reached 17.047 million yuan in the 13 days since its release. in terms of douban rating, nearly 40,000 people gave it a high score of 9.3, making it the highest-rated domestic cinema film so far this year.
8 years of "salvage"
puzzle-like restoration of vivid people in the historical context
in fact, just as the hull of the lisbon maru was sleeping on the seabed east of dongji island, the story about the lisbon maru did not attract attention for a long time.
in 2007, when ms. wu was traveling to dongji island, she saw an introduction to the lisbon maru. she read a few sentences and did not learn much about it, thinking it was just a small episode in her trip. "it was not until the release of this documentary that i was able to get a glimpse of that tear-jerking past in the long river of history," said ms. wu.
an awkward family photo before christmas, a letter written to a 5-year-old brother, a love story between a british soldier and a chinese girl, a brave and kind act of justice by a chinese fisherman... behind the overlapping of these touching and tear-jerking oral stories is director fang li's 8-year "salvage" of true feelings.
as the producer and producer of "see you tomorrow", fang li knew about the existence of the lisbon maru in 2014. in 2016, as a "science and engineering man" with a background in applied geophysics, fang li led his marine technology team to the waters of dongji island, zhoushan for the first time and accurately located the location of the sunken ship.
since then, the "salvage" of the shipwreck has been carried out step by step. of course, this is not salvage in the physical sense, but a three-dimensional picture of the real history is drawn through families and individuals. to this end, director fang li and his documentary team traveled to many places in the uk, canada, the united states, japan, and china, interviewed historians, visited museums, and visited the parties and their descendants, accumulating a lot of materials. the film also narrowed the distance between history and reality because of the abundant family and country feelings and humanistic expressions.
the capital chain was broken, he sold the house and borrowed money, and it was not until he was 71 years old that he brought this documentary film to the audience. what drove fang li to insist on shooting this film that did not seem to be "marketable"?
on september 12, when "the sinking of the lisbon maru" was on a roadshow in chongqing, fang li answered this question while communicating with young students at the small theater of the school of film and television of chongqing university. he said that after he learned the story behind the shipwreck and met the elderly eyewitnesses, he had a strong sense of mission and hoped to find the truth for hundreds of families through the filming of the film. he also hoped to convey peace and courage across time and space to the world through the film.
high score of 9.3
"tap water" wants to "revive" movies
in 2016, as a co-producer, fang li made many efforts to support the film "a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix". now, the release of "the sinking of the lisbon maru", which he spent many years and a lot of money to shoot, is also facing a bleak start. data shows that on the day of its release on september 6, the box office of the film was only 367,700 yuan, and until september 12, the single-day box office of the film did not exceed one million.
however, what is different is that this time the movie has more "tap water". because of their heartfelt love and appreciation, many people posted "small essays" on their social media to promote it to more people. on september 18, when xin chongqing-chongqing daily reporters looked through douban's short reviews, they found that there was almost no negative review among the nearly 20,000 reviews.
"of course the movie restored the truth of that period of history, but what was most touching was the director's eight-year pursuit." ms. wu, a citizen, was one of the people who posted a "short essay". in her opinion, movies are not just recorders of history, but also conveyers of emotions. like the story itself, the director's pursuit also touches the soul.
when "the sinking of the lisbon maru" came to chongqing for a road show, the lily chou film group organized more than 100 fans to go to the cinema to watch the film. "during the film watching process, i can feel the empathy of the creative team for life." zhou li, the founder of the lily chou film group, said that this is a very powerful "anti-war" film. its core is those people in the long river of history. the victims, perpetrators and saviors are connected together to form an immersive and empathetic story, and such a masterpiece should not "sink".
