Poster for Let the Bullets Fly, photo credit listal.com
Please visit Let the Bullets Fly website and read the New York Times film review after watching the film. After our journey from Stage Sisters (1964) to The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (2006), how would you analyze Let the Bullets Fly beyond this website and this film review? What approach would you take? What in-class films come to mind, and how would your experience with those films enrich your analysis of this film? Due Monday December 9 by 8 pm for one extra credit.
Let the Bullets Fly is my favourite movie out of the movies that we have watched in this class. This movie tells us about the story of a group of brigands going in to a town and becoming the mayor of the town, it was an accident, because they meant to rob a train, and the guy who was suppose to be the mayor didnt want to die, so he promised the group of brigand that he will help them to get the money. However, when they actually got to the town, things did not go the way as they planned,the main purpose was to make money and leave, but there is a weathy guy called Huang lives in that town, and he is actually the guy who runs the town, because he has a lot of money and connections, and his arrogance makes the boss of the goup of brigand called Zhang very upset, so he decided to teach Huang a lesson, and a "fight" between the two groups began. it is a great movie, because a brigand finds out that the citizens in the twon are suffering from the absolutism, and the sence of justice inside of his mind leads him to a fight bewteen the justice and the evil, this is the reflection of humannity. And the other reason why I like this movie is, there are a lot of wonderful lines and movies scenes that I think are classic. first of all, when they just got into the twon, Zhang was talking about how to make a lot of money as a mayor with Ma(guy who suppose to be the mayor), and Ma told him to flatter Huang, and he refuse to do so, because he thinks that it is the same thing as begging for money, but not making money, and he explained the reason why he became a brigand at first, it shows the spirit he has, which is admirable. And the scene when one of the brigand kills himself, just to prove that he only had one bowl of the noodle, even it was sort of stupid to do that, but I think it shows the spirit of being a man as well.
The story of "Let the bullet fly" happened around 1920s in China. When Ma Bangdeand his wife going to Goose Town and get his position of governor, they were robbed by a group of bandits leaded by Zhang Mazi. However, Tang do not have money cause he spend all money to buy a governor. So he pretend like he is Counselor Tang and promise Zhang Mazi to give he money after he get the position. In the Goose Town, Zhang and Huang met each other and has a series of conflicts and fights. Finally Huang exploded the building and died.
The movie is directed by Jiang Wen. In my opinion, this film has its own identity. Jiang Wen is such a good directer and sometimes we can read out how he kept his dream and reflected it in the movie. The most important characteristic is "heroism." Zhang Mazi is the leader of a group of bandits. But in order to save the poor residents in Goose Town, he began to fight with Huang. We can also see this point in his film "In the heat of the sun." In addition, it is quite interesting to me that the beginning and ending of the movie almost have the same elements. But the feelings, people are quite different. This huge difference is shocking to me.
“Let the Bullets Fly” gossed 730 million Yuan in box office, and became the highest grossing domestic film in China’s cinematic history. The story staring with a train carrying new county governor Ma Bangde (Ge You) and his wife (Carina Lau) is hijacked by bandit Scarface Zhang (Jiang Wen). Ma, who bought his own government posting, drowns when the train crashes in a river; Zhang, who claims he just wants to make money, decides to pose as Ma and take up his posting in Goose Town, with Tang as his assistant. Arriving in Goose Town, Zhang finds it a lawless place ruled by Huang Silang (Chow Yun-fat), who is so paranoid he even has an idiot body double to protect himself from assassination.
This movie has a lot of points, which are worth to think about. Since this is not my first time to watch is, I am going to introduce something, which I think is interesting. It is just my personal idea. In the scene from 3:00 to 4:30, “a train is pulled by horses”. It is very rare in the history. But if you know some Chinese, you will find that “Horse and Train” is read as “Ma Lie” which means Marxism-Leninism in Chinese. Let the bullets break the rope has the meaning “let the horse free and give up the Marxism-Leninism”. Another interesting point is the name of the film “Let the Bullets Fly”. Don’t stop at the face value of the word. This title has a deeper meaning. I think it is the soul of this movie. This sentence always appears when “Ma Bandit” has no obvious advantages in the fighting. In fact, “Let the Bullets Fly is a kind of psychological suggestion. It expresses there is no effect will be immediate no matter in the live, work, or revolution.
This movie was originally to be released in September 2010 but was pushed back to December. “Marxism-Leninism” and “Revolution” are the reason why it was checked by a few months before releasing. As a whole, this is a very successful movie.
The film of “Let the bullets fly” is an absurd technology movie, many ideas is absolutely fresh for most people not always to see world movie. Of course some small detail of JiangWen is very clever in the film. Some Chinese directors general are warmhearted, but lack of imagination. I think the JiangWen is a leader in this regard, he not only with imagination but also have the powerful and unconstrained style. The plot is closely, ingenious and incomparable, it have rare scene but it is fascinating, no places are procrastination. Especially in the retaliation and counter retaliation, those are make me don't feel boring and repetitive, in addition the dialogue is also exaggeration and humor in the film. After watching "let the bullets fly", it make me feel blood boils with indignation from beginning to end. In Jiang Wen's view of the world, the hero is the first. The hero can change society and creating history. But the greatest tragedy is no hero. So Zhang Mazi took the money is not enough, he would get rid of Huang SiLang, he want to give fair to people of Goose town. Beyond that in Jiang Wen’s movies, a hero can make the thing of ordinary people can not do it. But when Jiang advocates heroism, he also clear knows heroism weakness at the same time.
One the other hand the film of “Let the bullets fly” color tone is very elegant; from the character costumes to a table and a chair are carefully designed. The main color tone of the film is gray, such as the yellow light, brown wall and black dress. All of this makes the audience gloomy when they saw this film. But if the film color is bright, I think the audience will do not feel natural, we can see the good intentions of the creative staff, so that the design is suit for the era backgrounds. Fit the story, it is complements each other.
I have been thinking about pulse and meteorological these two words . The beginning of a movie , bandits horse jumping mountains, beautiful sunlight that group move the lens , only Kurosawa 's films have . The final climax, the mountains fighting, but a few people , but feel there is a mighty force . Lee said , the film has several elements , thoughts, feelings , luck , technology , and finally the personality. Jiang Wen's movie full of personality. How can a man so overbearing narcissism , narcissistic so overbearing , and people loved it so narcissistic and overbearing ? Since the depths of his personality is light and spacious and simple.
Those things he believed in , long and romantic , like men should Zuiwo beauty knee awake a knife to cut the hands of the enemy head snow Fiat allies and enemies , such as man knees with gold should stand to earn money to spend nothing worth standing knees , such as the money should be better not to loose , scattered to the people? Scattered to be poor people in the world . These things we have seen in the old days of the novel , in the legendary story read , a child is also our blood boil over , that for granted . At that time the hero is wearing a dark cloak of dignity Beard , is like gold sincere man , but then , this is no longer fun some who do not know when , the hero becomes dim, obscure , come down and dirty , how it identity ambiguous feelings become complicated face stubble and hapless middleman out? In class the teacher said , echoing the spirit of the times , the hero of mortal humane . But I just think , anyway it too much to force it !
Let the bullet fly is a comedy. Zhang Mazi disguised as county magistrate， then he and his group wen to e city. his son was died, and he wanted to revenge. in fact, the main reason why they went to e city, because they wanted to get money. and then they knew that they had to let the Huang go out of the city. in fact, i think Jiang wen is a good director, and also he is a good actor. i like to watch comedy, but this movie, "Let the bullets fly", there are so many blood in this movie. i think it is bloodiness. even i had watch this movie for more than 2 times, i can not said that i like this movie, i hope there are no bloodiness things in the le the bullet fly2.
I thought that this film "Let the Bullets Fly" was a very funny, light-hearted movie. It had lots of comical moments that kept it from turning into a drama. At first when i saw how bad the cgi was when they flipped the train over by nailing 2 axes into the tracks, i thought, great, this movie probably wont be that good. I was wrong however, i soon realized that it had a less serious tone to it and began to enjoy it.
This film is basically a full on comedic version of the killers. It was so over the top to the point that it was funny. The over exaggeration such as the train scene even if the physics don't add up only makes the film more hilarious.
Although I thought this movie was a bit too long, it is one of the most entertaining movies we’ve seen in my opinion. The style of the movie is very unique, as I am still unable to define its genre after viewing. All three of the main characters did exceptionally well in portraying their characters, especially Ge You, the actor who played “Ma Bangde”, the original governor. The back-and-forth testing and tactics to bring each other down was very interesting because they were funny yet unpredictable. The best scene to illustrate that is Zhang Mazi’s first encounter with Master Huang, at Huang’s dinner table (14:00). The whole time they were trying to get information out of each other through conversations, testing each other’s character and trying to manipulate each other. The comedic dialogue also makes the movie very enjoyable, which leaves me to wonder how the movie would’ve been if it was filmed in a serious way, as most of the scenes would be fairly intense.
The first movie that comes to mind after watching this movie is “The Killer”, and then “The Post-modern Life of My aunt.” because of Chow Yun-Fat. He plays a very powerful man like most of his roles, but this time he was the antagonist. From all the movies I’ve seen that he is in, he is always able to play the role extremely well, and he did not disappoint this time. The way he switches between being serious and not serious was fun to watch, and I thought the best scene in terms of his acting was the last scene when he was finally defeated by Zhang Mazi. You can see from his facial expression that he has been thoroughly defeated, and is really upset by it. Another good scene was when he thought that he had defeated Zhang Mazi and his crew, and the change of reaction he had once Zhang Mazi walks up to him, well and alive, and Master Huang realized that he has been tricked.
The most interesting thing about watching Let the Bullets Fly was how often it parallels Devils on the Doorstep, the only other Jiang Wen film I've scene. I would take the auteristic approach wit ha focus on inter textual self referencing, like the decapitation scene. I was reminded of the atmosphere of Blind Shaft, where the idea of extorting others for money is blase, and as a result, the characters approach things with a fairly open and easy attitude.
Another thing that I kept thinking about was Jiang Wen's repeated themes of translation, identity confusion and political subversion, which I found to be just as present here if not more than in Devils on the Doorstep. One has to ask, Who here could be an allegory for China? I don't think Jiang Wen would want to answer.
Your blog is very useful for me,Thanks for your sharing. You can see more articles about film and movie world, entertainment at my website under the link below.
Let the Bullets Fly is my favourite movie out of the movies that we have watched in this class. This movie tells us about the story of a group of brigands going in to a town and becoming the mayor of the town, it was an accident, because they meant to rob a train, and the guy who was suppose to be the mayor didnt want to die, so he promised the group of brigand that he will help them to get the money. However, when they actually got to the town, things did not go the way as they planned,the main purpose was to make money and leave, but there is a weathy guy called Huang lives in that town, and he is actually the guy who runs the town, because he has a lot of money and connections, and his arrogance makes the boss of the goup of brigand called Zhang very upset, so he decided to teach Huang a lesson, and a "fight" between the two groups began.
ReplyDeleteit is a great movie, because a brigand finds out that the citizens in the twon are suffering from the absolutism, and the sence of justice inside of his mind leads him to a fight bewteen the justice and the evil, this is the reflection of humannity.
And the other reason why I like this movie is, there are a lot of wonderful lines and movies scenes that I think are classic. first of all, when they just got into the twon, Zhang was talking about how to make a lot of money as a mayor with Ma(guy who suppose to be the mayor), and Ma told him to flatter Huang, and he refuse to do so, because he thinks that it is the same thing as begging for money, but not making money, and he explained the reason why he became a brigand at first, it shows the spirit he has, which is admirable. And the scene when one of the brigand kills himself, just to prove that he only had one bowl of the noodle, even it was sort of stupid to do that, but I think it shows the spirit of being a man as well.
The story of "Let the bullet fly" happened around 1920s in China. When Ma Bangdeand his wife going to Goose Town and get his position of governor, they were robbed by a group of bandits leaded by Zhang Mazi. However, Tang do not have money cause he spend all money to buy a governor. So he pretend like he is Counselor Tang and promise Zhang Mazi to give he money after he get the position. In the Goose Town, Zhang and Huang met each other and has a series of conflicts and fights. Finally Huang exploded the building and died.
ReplyDeleteThe movie is directed by Jiang Wen. In my opinion, this film has its own identity. Jiang Wen is such a good directer and sometimes we can read out how he kept his dream and reflected it in the movie. The most important characteristic is "heroism." Zhang Mazi is the leader of a group of bandits. But in order to save the poor residents in Goose Town, he began to fight with Huang. We can also see this point in his film "In the heat of the sun." In addition, it is quite interesting to me that the beginning and ending of the movie almost have the same elements. But the feelings, people are quite different. This huge difference is shocking to me.
“Let the Bullets Fly” gossed 730 million Yuan in box office, and became the highest grossing domestic film in China’s cinematic history. The story staring with a train carrying new county governor Ma Bangde (Ge You) and his wife (Carina Lau) is hijacked by bandit Scarface Zhang (Jiang Wen). Ma, who bought his own government posting, drowns when the train crashes in a river; Zhang, who claims he just wants to make money, decides to pose as Ma and take up his posting in Goose Town, with Tang as his assistant. Arriving in Goose Town, Zhang finds it a lawless place ruled by Huang Silang (Chow Yun-fat), who is so paranoid he even has an idiot body double to protect himself from assassination.
ReplyDeleteThis movie has a lot of points, which are worth to think about. Since this is not my first time to watch is, I am going to introduce something, which I think is interesting. It is just my personal idea. In the scene from 3:00 to 4:30, “a train is pulled by horses”. It is very rare in the history. But if you know some Chinese, you will find that “Horse and Train” is read as “Ma Lie” which means Marxism-Leninism in Chinese. Let the bullets break the rope has the meaning “let the horse free and give up the Marxism-Leninism”. Another interesting point is the name of the film “Let the Bullets Fly”. Don’t stop at the face value of the word. This title has a deeper meaning. I think it is the soul of this movie. This sentence always appears when “Ma Bandit” has no obvious advantages in the fighting. In fact, “Let the Bullets Fly is a kind of psychological suggestion. It expresses there is no effect will be immediate no matter in the live, work, or revolution.
This movie was originally to be released in September 2010 but was pushed back to December. “Marxism-Leninism” and “Revolution” are the reason why it was checked by a few months before releasing. As a whole, this is a very successful movie.
The film of “Let the bullets fly” is an absurd technology movie, many ideas is absolutely fresh for most people not always to see world movie. Of course some small detail of JiangWen is very clever in the film. Some Chinese directors general are warmhearted, but lack of imagination. I think the JiangWen is a leader in this regard, he not only with imagination but also have the powerful and unconstrained style. The plot is closely, ingenious and incomparable, it have rare scene but it is fascinating, no places are procrastination. Especially in the retaliation and counter retaliation, those are make me don't feel boring and repetitive, in addition the dialogue is also exaggeration and humor in the film. After watching "let the bullets fly", it make me feel blood boils with indignation from beginning to end. In Jiang Wen's view of the world, the hero is the first. The hero can change society and creating history. But the greatest tragedy is no hero. So Zhang Mazi took the money is not enough, he would get rid of Huang SiLang, he want to give fair to people of Goose town. Beyond that in Jiang Wen’s movies, a hero can make the thing of ordinary people can not do it. But when Jiang advocates heroism, he also clear knows heroism weakness at the same time.
ReplyDeleteOne the other hand the film of “Let the bullets fly” color tone is very elegant; from the character costumes to a table and a chair are carefully designed. The main color tone of the film is gray, such as the yellow light, brown wall and black dress. All of this makes the audience gloomy when they saw this film. But if the film color is bright, I think the audience will do not feel natural, we can see the good intentions of the creative staff, so that the design is suit for the era backgrounds. Fit the story, it is complements each other.
I have been thinking about pulse and meteorological these two words . The beginning of a movie , bandits horse jumping mountains, beautiful sunlight that group move the lens , only Kurosawa 's films have . The final climax, the mountains fighting, but a few people , but feel there is a mighty force . Lee said , the film has several elements , thoughts, feelings , luck , technology , and finally the personality. Jiang Wen's movie full of personality. How can a man so overbearing narcissism , narcissistic so overbearing , and people loved it so narcissistic and overbearing ? Since the depths of his personality is light and spacious and simple.
ReplyDeleteThose things he believed in , long and romantic , like men should Zuiwo beauty knee awake a knife to cut the hands of the enemy head snow Fiat allies and enemies , such as man knees with gold should stand to earn money to spend nothing worth standing knees , such as the money should be better not to loose , scattered to the people? Scattered to be poor people in the world . These things we have seen in the old days of the novel , in the legendary story read , a child is also our blood boil over , that for granted . At that time the hero is wearing a dark cloak of dignity Beard , is like gold sincere man , but then , this is no longer fun some who do not know when , the hero becomes dim, obscure , come down and dirty , how it identity ambiguous feelings become complicated face stubble and hapless middleman out? In class the teacher said , echoing the spirit of the times , the hero of mortal humane . But I just think , anyway it too much to force it !
Let the bullet fly is a comedy. Zhang Mazi disguised as county magistrate， then he and his group wen to e city. his son was died, and he wanted to revenge. in fact, the main reason why they went to e city, because they wanted to get money. and then they knew that they had to let the Huang go out of the city.
ReplyDeletein fact, i think Jiang wen is a good director, and also he is a good actor. i like to watch comedy, but this movie, "Let the bullets fly", there are so many blood in this movie. i think it is bloodiness. even i had watch this movie for more than 2 times, i can not said that i like this movie, i hope there are no bloodiness things in the le the bullet fly2.
I thought that this film "Let the Bullets Fly" was a very funny, light-hearted movie. It had lots of comical moments that kept it from turning into a drama. At first when i saw how bad the cgi was when they flipped the train over by nailing 2 axes into the tracks, i thought, great, this movie probably wont be that good. I was wrong however, i soon realized that it had a less serious tone to it and began to enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteThis film is basically a full on comedic version of the killers. It was so over the top to the point that it was funny. The over exaggeration such as the train scene even if the physics don't add up only makes the film more hilarious.
Although I thought this movie was a bit too long, it is one of the most entertaining movies we’ve seen in my opinion. The style of the movie is very unique, as I am still unable to define its genre after viewing. All three of the main characters did exceptionally well in portraying their characters, especially Ge You, the actor who played “Ma Bangde”, the original governor. The back-and-forth testing and tactics to bring each other down was very interesting because they were funny yet unpredictable. The best scene to illustrate that is Zhang Mazi’s first encounter with Master Huang, at Huang’s dinner table (14:00). The whole time they were trying to get information out of each other through conversations, testing each other’s character and trying to manipulate each other. The comedic dialogue also makes the movie very enjoyable, which leaves me to wonder how the movie would’ve been if it was filmed in a serious way, as most of the scenes would be fairly intense.
ReplyDeleteThe first movie that comes to mind after watching this movie is “The Killer”, and then “The Post-modern Life of My aunt.” because of Chow Yun-Fat. He plays a very powerful man like most of his roles, but this time he was the antagonist. From all the movies I’ve seen that he is in, he is always able to play the role extremely well, and he did not disappoint this time. The way he switches between being serious and not serious was fun to watch, and I thought the best scene in terms of his acting was the last scene when he was finally defeated by Zhang Mazi. You can see from his facial expression that he has been thoroughly defeated, and is really upset by it. Another good scene was when he thought that he had defeated Zhang Mazi and his crew, and the change of reaction he had once Zhang Mazi walks up to him, well and alive, and Master Huang realized that he has been tricked.
The most interesting thing about watching Let the Bullets Fly was how often it parallels Devils on the Doorstep, the only other Jiang Wen film I've scene. I would take the auteristic approach wit ha focus on inter textual self referencing, like the decapitation scene. I was reminded of the atmosphere of Blind Shaft, where the idea of extorting others for money is blase, and as a result, the characters approach things with a fairly open and easy attitude.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I kept thinking about was Jiang Wen's repeated themes of translation, identity confusion and political subversion, which I found to be just as present here if not more than in Devils on the Doorstep. One has to ask, Who here could be an allegory for China? I don't think Jiang Wen would want to answer.
Your blog is very useful for me,Thanks for your sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou can see more articles about film and movie world, entertainment at my website under the link below.
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