Knife in a Stranger and the Re-emergence of Martial Arts Types

Author: Zhao Weifang

Recently, Iqiyi launched the movie label of "Action Master Season" online, and launched four action-type films: Stop the Horse and Take the Knife, Arrogant 2, Stop Evil, and Strange Knife. It combines action, martial arts, suspense, comedy, drama and many other elements. Among them, As a pure martial arts genre in ancient costume, The Stranger’s Mad Knife describes an reclusive charcoal seller Tian Anye who was inadvertently involved in the court coup to usurp power. He joined forces with other chivalrous men such as Qin Gu, the former head of the Prince, to stand up and uphold justice for the prince’s widow Nie Linger and the oppressed people in distress, showing the chivalrous demeanor in China’s traditional ethics. This film is devoted to the genre creation of costume martial arts, especially in the aspect of genre narration and fighting action. On the basis of returning to the classic Chinese action genre film, it has achieved some transcendence.

Action types are the classic types in Chinese movies, among which the action types in Hong Kong movies are the epitome of Chinese action types. After more than half a century’s development, they reached the peak of aesthetics in the 1980s and 1990s. The chivalrous spirit led by China’s Confucianism, such as getting rid of violence, helping justice, once upon a time in america and forbearing practice, has become the subjective ideological output of these films; A series of action elements, which combine the performance of China North School and the actual combat of China South School, and are designed according to the specific characters’ personalities and performance space, have become another essence of Chinese action films. Therefore, Chinese action movies have a strong artistic vitality and are constantly advancing aesthetics; This kind of films not only have a wide audience in Chinese-speaking areas, but also helped China films to enter the world mainstream film market twice in the early 1970s and the early 21st century, thus realizing the effective international spread of China films.

Due to the shortage of talents, lack of innovation, capital flight and other reasons, this classic China film has shown less and less situation in the Chinese film market in recent years, and its performance in the cinema market is also very weak. However, judging from a series of data of online movies and online dramas in recent years, this content creation type with the most China characteristics still has a considerable number of potential audiences in China and other parts of the world, and the fundamentals of its audience have not changed fundamentally, but the broad audience, especially the cinema audience, has a strong demand for its innovation, and there is no way out to repeat the past. The film labels of "Stranger Knife" and "Action Master Season" launched by iQiyi are undoubtedly the response to this appeal.

The Stranger Knife follows the theme and genre narration of traditional martial arts films, but it adds new elements on this basis. First, the film does not set Tian Anye’s formulated chivalrous character, but focuses on the passivity of his participation in rescuing Nie Linger’s mother and son, and his chivalrous actions are gradually stimulated in this passivity, thus giving this character a more three-dimensional character and more growth arcs.

At the same time, the film also gives more folk and individual expression to Nie Linger’s feelings, and gives a rich display to Qin Gu’s behavior of being an enemy and a friend, and also gives a humorous portrayal to another key chivalrous man, Qiansun Zhao. This characterization not only increases the appreciation of the film, but also gives the film more humanistic value and modernity.

Secondly, on the specific narrative level, The Stranger’s Mad Knife did not follow the revenge routine of traditional martial arts films step by step, but expanded in the present. For example, when Tian Anye, Qiansun Zhao and Qin Gu took Nie Linger and his mother to break through, the film designed four barriers that they wanted to break through, and each barrier was animated in the film. Tian Anye and others’ breakthroughs in these four barriers were like the breakthrough in the game. This narrative setting makes the film more contemporary and can generate more empathy with the mainstream audience in the new media era.

The film’s innovative performance is also reflected in the action design and super weapon design. First of all, the film designs corresponding actions according to the characters’ personality and behavior characteristics, so as to better show the artistic charm of action types. For example, when Tian An Ye began to rescue Nie Linger’s mother and son, his identity was a charcoal seller, and the carbon element occupied the dominant position in the picture. The action design around Tian An Ye was also full of carbon element, especially in the scene where he defeated the Fei Fei army in the dark with a charcoal stick. The burning charcoal stick danced like fireworks in the night, which produced a strong visual impact. In the second half of the film, the audience knows Tian Anye’s true identity as the head coach of the Mo Dao Army, and his fighting action is no longer full of charcoal elements but the actual combat of Mo Dao.

For Zhang Xuqing, the leader of the anti-angle flying army, he was suppressed by the King of Qi, and threatened by Liu Bingfeng, the deputy leader. In this kind of crevice, the founder designed weapons with long and short knives for him, which highlighted his toughness in fighting. Qin Gu’s style in the film is a white hat with a black veil. She has a pure personality and a gray area that she is most reluctant to mention. She strives to solve the confrontation quickly. Therefore, the film designs her movements to highlight the characteristics of quickness. When she shoots, the knife will not be drawn, and she will win immediately, emphasizing "the martial arts in the world, only fast and unbreakable".

Secondly, the film highlights Tian Anye’s strange knife and its fighting. According to historical data, the film restores the strange knife used by Tian Anye according to the actual size, which is about 2.6 meters long and weighs dozens of kilograms. Such a super weapon has never appeared in previous martial arts shooting. The creative team also designed a new knife method according to the personality of the characters and the characteristics of this knife. This knife method was particularly fully displayed in the scene where Tian Anye fought Zhang Xuqing’s long and short knives with a strange knife at the end of the film. The two weapons formed a sharp contrast. The fighting tactics of the knife method and the rigidity and softness of your coming and going all reflected the bold innovation of the creative team in weapon design and action guidance, which further expanded the action type elements of domestic martial arts films.

As a martial arts film with an expanding mission, the film also has room for improvement. The first is the recurring camel phantom, which seems unnecessary in the play. Secondly, the four barriers of film design lack a sense of progressive upgrading, which reduces the sense of game entertainment of the film. However, at a time when the action genre, especially the martial arts genre, needs to be revived, the brand of "Action Master Season", especially "A Stranger’s Sword", is undoubtedly of great significance.

(The writer is the director of the Film and Television Research Institute of China Academy of Art and the vice president of China Film Criticism Society.)