Looking back at "Thunder Tiger" from "Bomb Disposer 2", the constant Andy Lau and the changing screen tough guy——
The defense of order replaced individualistic courage
■Reporter Liu Qing
Less than half a month after the release of "Bomb Disposer 2", the film’s box office and word-of-mouth wins, one of which is because it has long been absent from the film market because of the smooth, tough, and strong local characteristics of the police and gangster film; the second is due to the lead actor Andy Lau The performance of "Desperate Liu Lang" is 60 years old, still able to withstand high-intensity action scenes, and also played an "atypical policeman" convincingly.
Pan Chengfeng, a bomb disposal expert who has experienced the turbulent life trajectory of "hero-patient-saint", was created by Andy Lau after the "Thunder Tiger" of "The Story of Five Billion Detective Lei Luo" and Liu Jianming of "Infernal Affairs" Another will become a classic police detective role.
Andy Lau is known as the "industry model worker", which makes his films good and bad. However, several tough screen guys with different temperaments he has played in the past 30 years, especially a few famous police roles, have all become involved. The image of Chinese film history.
This also outlines the ups and downs and intriguing curves of Hong Kong police and criminal genre films in the past thirty years.
Sunshine is handsome, police and bandit "Thunder Tiger"
In 1991, Andy Lau starred in "The Story of 500 Million Inspector Lei Luo", playing the legendary Inspector Lei Luo on Hong Kong Island at the end of British colonization.
From the 1950s to the 1960s, the British in Hong Kong were lazy and corrupt. They left the Kowloon Walled City freely, and the people at the bottom were complaining.
Lei Luo came from a humble background. He was originally a small police detective who was suppressed by the colonial government.
Young and ambitious, he understands that his class has also used the folk stubbornness. He grew up in the Kowloon Walled City, exquisitely active in black and white, and united a group of lower-level brothers with justice. He is based on the two systems of gang love and clan blood. In the previous period, a set of cooperative protection fee mechanism for police and bandit was established and perfected, and personal wealth exceeded 500 million yuan, known as "Thunder Tiger."
The title of "Five Million Detective Lei Luo Biography" is clear at a glance, but as a popular entertainment film, and with Andy Lau's handsome appearance at the time, "Lei Luo" is still defined as "police" rather than "bandit."
The film does not evade that he will eventually become a territorial emperor, but it still emphasizes how a young man who has nothing to achieve a class jump courageously and courageously. During the counterattack, his hands are inevitably stained with blood, but his heart is still open and dense. In the drama conflict, the affection between individuals conceals the gears of money and power.
Wang Jing, who is the producer of "The Story of Detective Inspector Lei Luo of 500 Million", directed "Chasing the Dragon" in 2017, and Andy Lau still starred in Inspector Lei Luo. After nearly 30 years, the young and old Lei Luo is in Intertextualization completes the core of this image.
Lei Luo's persona is a typical green forest man in popular narratives. As a policeman, Robin Hood is acting. At the same time, he is an opportunist in the special historical context of Hong Kong, China facing the collision of old and new.
However, the king of good and evil is an embarrassing existence after all. It is the Independent Commission Against Corruption that was established after the British moved to the truth that destroyed the underground kingdom of Lei Luo. At a deeper level, the desire for evil and the realization of evil will eventually engulf individuals and point to them. Nothingness-the word "chasing the dragon" means illusion in the Hong Kong dialect. The dragon chaser is the follower of the illusion.
Tragedy, fake police split in the cracks
In the legend at the end of the century, Lei Luo was a police officer who worked with the bandits to build together. In the early this century, "Infernal Affairs", Andy Lau played Liu Jianming, a police officer who wanted to wash away the black history of the bandits at all costs.
When "Infernal Affairs" was filmed, the mixed Kowloon Walled City was a thing of the past. After it was demolished, it became a legendary landscape.
During the filming, the director Liu Weiqiang moved the camera away from the hustle and bustle of the city and turned to the skyline of Hong Kong's cement forest. Standing on the rooftop of a high-rise building, the characters see the sea and the sky, and the city is like a floating enclave without roots.
This is also Liu Jianming's situation.
He was born as a bandit and wanted to be a policeman, be a good man, and run a decent life.
He tried to cut the relationship with the native community, but time and time again, when he tried to gain the power of his own destiny and actively bid farewell to the past, the memory of his old identity was haunted by ghosts.
Liu Jianming wants to change from a "fake policeman of an undercover gang" to a "real policeman who is a good man". This is his desire for a fixed identity and his desire for a new social identity.
However, the tragedy of "Infinite Destiny" is that it is impossible to return to Nirvana between the white and the underworld where you die or die.
At the end of the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy, Liu Jianming broke the law. Yang Jinrong, played by Liming, said to his mainland counterparts played by Chen Daoming, “Some things always have to be done.” What police officer Yang said, in a narrow sense, is Identifying criminals and pursuing justice for their sacrificed colleagues is a pursuit of order in a broader perspective of time.
Individuals unable to return to the system and bitter self-salvation
Ten years after "Infernal Affairs" was released, in 2012's "Chill", Andy Lau played the role of security chief Lu Minghua, but said the most important line of the film: "Can you understand the legal system and the spirit of the rule of law in Hong Kong," This is a core value that Hong Kong can become the safest city in Asia." So far, the concepts of legal system, rule of law, safety, and core values have replaced the pre-modern clan community identity.
The world is far away, and the establishment of order and the maintenance of order have replaced individualism.
"Bomb Disposal Expert 2" is a reconfirmation of this mixed position.
In the opening chapter of "Bomb Disposal Expert 2," Andy Lau plays Pan Chengfeng as a traditional hero of Gao Daquan. He is a dedicated, professional and sacrificial bomb disposal policeman. In an orderly system, he is an existing one. A staunch defender of order.
Even after a tragic accident caused him to lose a leg, he still recovered to a state of "better than a healthy person" with extraordinary perseverance, eager to re-make the most secure screw in the system.
However, he was still regarded as a "patient" and "handicapped", being squeezed out of the order he once belonged to.
In Pan Chengfeng's story, when the separation between individual and order progressed to an irreparable point, the screenwriter and director created a "traumatic amnesia".
The direction of the second half of the film is not so much the reconciliation between Pan Chengfeng and the system that abandoned him, but rather that he was in the void of consciousness, the body itself chose the previous professional ethics and beliefs-to be a protection The bomb disposal expert of others.
The blown up Qingma Bridge became a metaphor of sadness. Pan Chengfeng could not return to the police system. He became a kind-hearted lonely ghost. Self-redemption eventually became a bleak gesture of embracing death, a saintly lonely voice. There is still value, so it is to restore the destroyed order.