Under the Light

The film is laughably cliche and unbelievable. The main character always manages to arrive one second too late to move the plot forward. The cops always show up just at the right time to save the day. It apparently took Zhang Yimou 5 years of back and forth with the censors for this film to finally come out. I don't know how much the censors are to blame, but the characters are laughably cliche, there's no complexity in their personalities, they're either total villains who are ultimately punished by the law or are complete heros with no moral qualms. A Disney movie has more complexity. The female characters are sad, there's only one real female character, the others are just there to talk about the men. The film does not pass the Bechdel test.

The previous movie by the director is pretty good so just hope that this one can be better. Some actors are the same but the plot is straightforward. The main theme is the conflict between police and the gangsters. Who can have more black evidence and then he can conquer the others and this is how black eat black. The main actor is a policeman who is hot blooded and want to arrest the bad guys. However, after the hardworking and sacrifice of his ex girlfriend, what he can get is that he is the adopted son of his policeman father. All the bad guys are caught and Imprisoned and that is what the title means to him.

I think different people will take different things from this movie. On one level, it's just a good thriller with twists and turns. On another level, it's a commentary on corruption with a bit of not-too-intrusive propaganda that it's being fought by the Chinese government and the Communist Party. But for me, the characters make the movie. And even with the characters, some reviews focus on the vice mayor and the businessman and dismiss the police lead. But I disagree. We all bring our life experiences to whatever we're reading or watching. Jianming and his two other bespectacled partners in the police, his wanting to be a "true policeman for the people," that's the role model of the kind of society of I want to live in. I'm a nerdy guy with glasses myself. I don't need Hollywood's macho police, the police force that breaks rules, or a bunch of violence and guns, although this movie has a gun at the end and some violence. I also related to the importance of family ties in the movie. I'm a little hazy on the timeline of the murder victim, and think a repeat viewing at some point would improve my understanding. A welcome movie set in modern-day China from Zhang Yimou. Loved it.

The biggest criticism of the entire film is that the portrayal of female characters is too one-sided as well as stereotypes, the only time Mrs. Zheng Gang in the film to create a hint of a less one-sided image or based on the reality of patriarchal social oppression is given, and finally oriented to the image is not enough to have a real female liberation strength, and even for this love and loyalty to the relationship all of a sudden lost. Shooting techniques simply let people think Zhang Yimou is not AI instead. From beginning to end is Hollywood positive and negative, character facial close-up dialog, let a person in the film sleepy. Lens color and lens construction completely did not inherit Zhang Yimou's previous imitation of Kurosawa Akira regressed tremendously. Suspense story in front of the storytelling is okay, but the more to the back of the more is the same old trick, a prediction of the outcome of the overturning of the emergence of a new result, the whole set of formulas. Not a very good storytelling technique. Finally, when it comes to politics, the intentions of this movie are clear, aimed at the 00's needless to say, want to all rely on peers to set off is it hahahahahaha.