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director wu bai previously became famous in the online drama "psychological crime》《draw bad people in jianghu" series, and later filmed the hit "anti-gangster storm》. in addition to "the road to fire" this year, the movie "never give up" was also released. it is good at hard-core action movies that combine rivers and lakes battles and psychological games. it has spectacle, darkness, and realistic cruelty and human touch.

i have to say that as a theme of anti-trafficking, the shooting angles and character settings of "road to fire" are very fresh. it is not an anti-trafficking film that is purely realistic and overemphasizes family ties.the movie gives the heavy subject matter the double sense of a revenge movie + a road movie. there are no absolute good guys in the movie, but grudges are rewarded, good and evil are rewarded, and the cycle of cause and effect gives the audience an outlet to vent their emotions against evil.

xiao yang、zhao liying、liu yeit also forms a "turning triangle" that is rich in chemical reactions. no matter how the cp is used, it makes sense, giving netizens enough room for second creation. these greatly reduce the pain inherent in the original subject matter.

at the same time, the movie also tries its best to show the despair, fear and anger of parents who lost their only child. "behind every missing child, there is a pair of parents who live like ghosts."people who have lost their children will not only be afraid, but they will also be afraid for their own children."behind these lines are the indescribable blood and tears of individuals, and they are the victims' painful complaints against the evil industrial chain of abducting women and children."

but putting aside the theme of "anti-trafficking" and looking at the content, "road to fire" has some routines that cannot be ignored.

for example, the scenes and visual impact of violent aesthetics, the pure friendship between fellow travelers, and the violence and kindness of human nature have all been seen many times in hong kong movies in the 1990s. the core selling points of these male pleasure films are in "bath" in "path of fire", old wine is once again put in new bottles;

the film is innovative in its portrayal of female characters, but it still fails to get rid of the old model. women are still dominated and subordinated in the competition between pros and cons. there are too many expressions and mixed elements, but it must also give people hope on the basis of reality. , the ending will inevitably lead to madness and absurdity.

if it were about ordinary people whose children were abducted and forced to embark on the road of anti-trafficking, it would be another story that is more likely to trigger serious discussions in society. but the three protagonists in "the road to fire" are anything but ordinary.

the story begins in lancheng in 1997. cui dalu (played by xiao yang), who had just been released from prison, failed to sleep on the train and went to a nightclub to collect debts. his behavior can still vaguely show the traces of a sloppy social brother; the erratic zhao zishan (played by liu ye) lives alone and has a clear goal. , with a lone wolf-like ferocity in his eyes, his appearance unexpectedly blocked cui dalu’s suicide behavior;

li hongying (played by zhao liying), who has a strong personality and beautiful face, is even more depressed. she has not fallen into prostitution but lives in embarrassment. after cui dalu was released from prison, li hongying chose to return to his old business with him and set up a "immortal jump". the two of them once wandered on the edge of the law.

the atmosphere in the first half of the story is wild and numb, with a strong western style of "all villains", multiple close-quarters fighting action scenes, and gangsters' plots to harm each other, which fully stimulates adrenaline.the gray characters ignore the rules and their rampant animal nature is clearly revealed.

among them, the shot of cui dalu holding an ax in one hand and kicking open the door of li hongying's room with a camera in the other hand best highlights the ultimate character and local ecology.

the three of them each had their own agendas when they first met, and the biggest driving force for them to form a small group was to find children. the movie also starts with how parents who lost their only child "live like ghosts". when there is no soul in their eyes and they are tightly surrounded by fear, terror, and hatred, in despair they have to turn into tigers or wolves in order to fight and fight with the evil people.

"the road to the fire" was originally called "the road to the tiger and the wolf". tiger refers to cui dalu, who appears to be arrogant and fearless, but actually hides his inner fear while on the road.

before he was imprisoned, cui dalu was a social eldest brother with a gangster spirit and a naughty child's nature. caught kuaishou hu (feng delun ), he would squeeze mustard into a plastic bag and violently torture drug dealers; when interacting with his son and getting along with li hongying, he sometimes seems childish, but he attaches great importance to friendship. he has many bad qualities, such as gambling, stealing, and immortality, but he can always recover at critical moments and turn things around.

when he took off his guard in the bathhouse, cui dalu was exposed by zhao zishan. his eyes had a chaotic feeling as if he had lost a child. the only way to cover up this kind of eyes that could be seen through by human traffickers was through disguise.

xiao yang is a leader in singer-turned-actor. he is good at using micro-expressions to express emotions and impress the audience. in "manslaughter" he is a calm and reserved father, while cui dalu in "the road to fire" is obviously more open-minded.

when performing this role, it can be seen that xiao yang is fully mobilizing the "wild" and "bandit" side in his body. whether he is holding on in front of his former younger brother, roaring wildly during the villagers' bonfire party, or standing in front of li hongying to confront zhao zishan at the critical moment, it can be seen that xiao yang is trying to play this intense role well.

but perhaps due to his appearance, or perhaps because he has stepped out of his comfort zone, xiao yang found it a little difficult to play such a role, and liu ye, who is used to the "tough guy" track, was not convincing enough. but this image of a father who works hard for his children must be him.

the wolf-like man zhao zishan is liu ye's most charming role in recent years.as a former police academy instructor, zhao zishan's professionally trained skills supported more than half of the action scenes in the film. his persistence and using violence to fight violence are to eliminate evil, and he himself oscillates between a good man and a "devil".

the scene of zhao zishan slitting the throat of his enemy under the reclining buddha reminds people of the "eliminate three evils"chen guilin (ethan ruan ), the hearty church murder scene. there is a strong contrast between good and evil, mercy and killing. after resolving his hatred, the plot followed him like a shadow: with one blow, he would not survive the end.

but unlike chen guilin, zhao zishan's "removing harm for the people" is not to stay aloof, but to suffer the piercing pain of his wife and children. he claims that he is only a thin line away from real madness, and he has no choice but to "be on the road." .

li hongying is the representative of "rabbit" in the movie. in the legend of the indian tribe, the rabbit led the animals to take shelter on the driftwood during the flood. in the end, the rabbit caused the sand to split and expand, turning into new land, symbolizing the rebirth of the world.

rabbits appear twice in the film, both of which are related to "rebirth" and also echo the title of the film "road to fire." once, when the three of them were walking to a desperate situation and needed water to survive, a rabbit fell from the sky. li hongying found out that it was a pregnant rabbit, saved it from zhao zishan's knife, and saved the lives of three people with rabbit milk;

another time was when li hongying committed suicide for the second time. when she sank into the water, a group of running rabbits appeared in front of her eyes. this surging appeal of life once again saved li hongying in despair. in the end, xiao yezi was rescued and mother and daughter were reunited.

from an image point of view, zhao liying, who has a round face and big eyes, looks like a "little white rabbit" when she smiles; but she also has a strong willpower that can withstand rain, snow, wind and frost. , the image is also more varied.

sakurako is by no means a weak rabbit, nor is she a helpless mother who can only cry in traditional anti-trafficking movies. according to wu san (played by wang xun), when she was asked to be the foreman, she dismissed the ladies under her; when she was asked to accompany the wine, she drank better than the guests; when the guests took advantage of her, she shot the guests' heads. anyway, she was definitely a master who was not easy to mess with. later, li hongying drove away the villagers and took the trafficker's son hostage, which also gave the three of them more room to fight back.

liu ye used the word "pure" when evaluating zhao liying. when people are pure and their hearts are clean, what comes out will be more powerful. wearing sunglasses, li hongying shed tears and became zhao liying's new "life lens".

returning to the topic of "rebirth", this has become a common feature of zhao liying's roles in recent years. after "the road to fire" was released, "zhao liying's domestic entertainment legal education track" became a hot search topic. ""who is the murderer""the wind blowing pinellia" she was breaking the law, ""happiness comes to ten thousands of families" and "article 20" she was defending her rights, and ""the road to the fire" she was breaking the law while defending her rights. "

one thought becomes a buddha, one thought becomes a demon. "road to the fire" can be seen everywhere in the torture of the good and evil of the three people's human nature, and the right and wrong choices, and the "circulation of cause and effect" can be seen everywhere. this is a universal value and can also be regarded as a legitimate and refreshing narrative.

at the beginning, cui dalu fell into the trap of "a flower in the tractor factory" played by xu dongdong and lost his child. this was the result of a lustful obsession. later, he also fatefully started to engage in the immortal dance; cui dalu and li hongying, who were confused and confused, both thought about giving up and committing suicide. it was zhao zishan's persistence in fighting abduction that brought them back to reality;

li hongying's maternal nature makes her more concerned about the reincarnation of cause and effect. she worships the bodhisattva and has compassion for pregnant rabbits. after rescuing the rabbit, the three's "luck" began to improve, and they had hope of survival; the traffickers forced cui dalu to kill zhao zishan so that they could take away the child, but cui dalu chose to jump into the pit, advance and retreat with zhao zishan, and finally walked out. a vicious cycle.

"can't good people be scary?" the film tends to: yes. but at the same time, it is constantly emphasized that once you choose to stare into the abyss, you must be prepared to become a member of the abyss. if you want to cut off the cycle of evil, you must first eliminate the evil thoughts in your heart.

overall, if compared to "the three evils", "road to the fire" cannot be "satisfying" to the end due to the constraints of its heavy themes. the narrative in the early stage was not concise and clear enough, and the amount of information was overloaded. as a result, there were too many buttons to solve in the later stage, so the ending was completely absurd, with the villain committing suicide and being struck by lightning. the sense of rhythm has also fallen behind, but fortunately the narrative and artistic expression are relatively complete; the actors' acting skills are online and their chemical reactions are strong, which makes up for the shortcomings.

love and hate are inseparable, and people at this stage need cool movies to "relieve their hatred." "the road to fire" allows people to see that anti-trafficking themes can be shot in ways other than bitterness and warmth.

from this point of view, it is not completely impossible for "road to fire" to achieve a box office counterattack.

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