When Levy was still shooting his own movie in China, what he didn't know was that on the other side of the ocean, the release of another movie had already shaken the whole United States.

In December of this year, there are quite a few good movies released. Whether it's The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, it's a very heartwarming movie. However, if you want to say which movie is the most eye-catching this winter, then you still have to recommend a foreign language film first: Director Zhang's Rabe's diary is the most sensational movie this winter.

This film, starring Kevin Spacey and shot entirely in China, caused a very strong response as soon as it was broadcast in North America. Since its release, its box office numbers have skyrocketed, and it is even thought that it may well surpass Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the record holder for the highest grossing foreign-language film.

And this is why this movie can have such a momentum, and the level of this movie is indeed inseparable, whether it is in terms of shooting or performance, this is a Hollywood-level movie.

It's not without reason to say this, first of all, in this movie, the setting of the character image can be said to be very 'mainstream'.

In the movie, John Rabe, played by Kevin Spacey, was a very committed Nazi at the beginning, convinced that the Germanic nation was the greatest people, had dissatisfaction with the Jews, worshipped the Führer, and believed that the war waged by his country was an act of revenge and justice - at the beginning, he was completely a German after the torture of defeat in World War I, and he behaved without any problems.

But what happened next gradually changed his mind. The brutal massacres of the Japanese began to disturb him, believing that an alliance with such a country was a disgrace to the Germanic people, and he began to write letters to the Führer, hoping that the Führer would pay attention to all this.

However, no one paid attention to these things, not to mention his head of state, even the governments of other countries that were enemies of Japan. Politics is politics. In a world war, who will affect the strategic deployment of their own country for the sake of the lives and deaths of the people of a weak country?

These circumstances finally made Rabe begin to collapse. He once considered himself a member of the most illustrious nation, but the cruelty of war taught him that all people are the same, that there is no distinction between high and low human life, and that no matter how lowly it seems, it is worthy of pity, and it is impossible for man to be indifferent in the face of life and death.

Therefore. Such scenes also began to make him more active in trying to rescue the refugees. With his Nazi status, he began to save the people.

When confronted by the Japanese, Rabe unfurled the swastika flag above his room. The camera first went to the angle of the Japanese soldiers, and saw the right-handed swastika, and then, the camera showed the eyes of the fleeing civilians, the flag was shot from the back, through the sunlight. The shot turns into a left-handed swastika.

The same flag, once used as a symbol of evil used by the Nazis, has become a symbol of good fortune in Buddhism.

A kind heart allowed Rabe to begin his own redemption, and his deeds succeeded. From the very beginning of the Nazis. Later, the Bodhisattva in the mouth of the people, he did everything he could in this catastrophe.

This kind of character transformation is a favorite mode of Hollywood movies. And Kevin Spacey's excellent performance makes this character extremely vivid, and also allows people to see a great soul in another corner of World War II. In this respect, it has also been extremely successful. And the fact that the story revolves around him also makes the story itself very mainstream.

However, such a story is not the reason why this movie is great. The bigger reason why this movie caused a sensation is the content of the film.

In the movie, the near-real reproduction of the massacre scene makes many people frightened. The movie truly shows the crazy atrocities of the Japanese army after entering the city, and the post-war atrocities that are completely unconcealed, which makes all the audience shudder.

Mountains of human heads, soldiers killed at will, aggressors engaged in murderous contests, sergeants raped indiscriminately in the security zone, indifferent Japanese elites, third-country people trembling in the massacre......

Ten minutes of scenes, all over the city, filmed these things, so that everyone who saw these scenes felt chills from the inside out.

Hollywood audiences are used to seeing all kinds of big scenes, but they still rarely see such scenes. They have seen a lot of war movies that simply depict one or two people, but movies like this kind of large group are rare.

Director Zhang's film does not depict any hidden human brilliance of the Japanese - Levy took his advice very well: a very important aspect of this film is anti-war, and he does not need to say that the Japanese have the brilliance of human nature, because war itself is something that destroys human nature.

The Japanese may be human, but in the brutal war, they have been turned into ghosts. Long-term militaristic education, repeated brainwashing teaching methods, the pressure of war, the collapse of morality, no matter how glorious human nature is, will be desensitized by the distortion and cruelty of war, these distortions and cruelty are the things that a war theme should pay attention to.

Forcibly extolling the humanity of the slaughterer in a war movie is simply ignoring the brutality of war.

In the movie, Director Zhang did not mention the culture of the Japanese, but his shots were quite ironic.

Just after filming this, Director Zhang's camera turned to the music of the Japanese solemn victory ceremony and the soul drum - it's just that this sad music is not in harmony with the Japanese generals who are extremely indifferent to the massacre, on the one hand, the solemn ceremony, on the other hand, the crazy soldiers, these two are presented together, and what people can see is only the twisted soul under the solemn ceremony, and the ridiculousness of the so-called cultural ceremony.

Hoping to use the drums to evoke humanity in a war with countless casualties is child's play.

And these things have also caused a sensation in the film industry.

In the past, there were not no movies that reflected the cruelty of World War II, but because the filming of these wars in European and American countries was limited to the size of the movie, it was either like saving Private Ryan, who could only shoot one war scene, or it was like Schindler's list, filming life in concentration camps, and there were very few films that reflected post-war life on a large scale.

And some films that want to depict civilians are too small, at most they pick one or two people to depict the sorrow of war, such as the beautiful legend of Sicily. And like this movie, hundreds of people are killed in competitions, thousands of people are raped, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of people die, which has never appeared in a movie.

Such tragic stories are not unheard of in Europeans and Americans -- French women were raped in World War II as many as they did in Nazi Paris, where 2 million people were thrown into concentration camps and 100,000 women became prostitutes. But such a miserable life cannot be reflected in the scale of European and American films. The amount of investment in European and American films determines that their films are destined to reflect the harmfulness of war only in terms of points.

And Chinese movies are different, the scenes and scale in this movie are amazing. The harm caused by war to civilians is vividly exposed.

Compared with it, the movie pianist released in the same year is much worse. is also a World War II movie, and it also uses a calm tone, but it is still just a movie that reflects the whole drama with personal fate, whether it is the shooting technique or the shocking power of the movie, it is much worse.

Life and death are the most shocking things, and other things are not worth mentioning compared to life and death - if the question of the life of one or two people is still in doubt, then everything else seems insignificant in the face of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

It can be said that the scenes of this movie have created its greatness.

"This is the best movie of the year, absolutely not one of them."

After the movie was released, many media outlets have already given such comments. Although everyone knows that a Chinese film cannot be the best in the family, it is still highly respected.

Hollywood also has their reasons for commenting like this.

For Hollywood, anti-war, anti-Nazi, these things are basic manifestations of political correctness. In this film, the portrayal of the scene after the war has made people's resistance to the war unprecedented, which naturally caused unprecedented repercussions. And the anti-Nazi point can be said to be caused by the large number of Jews in Hollywood. In this film, the process of John Rabe, as a Nazi party, gradually disdaining the tenets of the Nazi party, can also be said to be very satisfying to the Jews, and it is naturally praised for this.

There are unique shooting techniques, in line with mainstream thinking, and the story and actors' performances are impeccable, and this is certainly a good movie. When Director Zhang uses his talent in the right place, the light of the film itself is also dazzling.

And this is actually a somewhat surprising thing: how can the movies made by the Chinese have such a good grasp of the mainstream ideas of the United States?

"Nick approached me and asked me to play it, and he was very familiar with the script and could tell that he had put a lot of effort into it. I asked him why you didn't shoot it, but he said that this kind of film is a memory of Rabe, and the Americans come to shoot it, it's just a story, and Chinese shoot it, it's a memory of a piece of history......"

Spacey's words explain people's doubts. Levy was born in political films, and it is normal for him to have attainments in this area. It's just that this also makes people feel a little regretful, maybe it would be better if Levy came to shoot this movie, right?

It's just a pity that he didn't shoot this one. People don't really understand Levy's memory of history, they just lament that the film could be better.

However, what is happy is that at least they know that even if Levy has no movies this year, he is not as talented as Jiang Lang, he still thinks and creates.

In this way, is the film he is shooting in China now also worth looking forward to? Will this movie be another amazing new peak? (To be continued......)