Ruan Jingtian’s word-of-mouth ＂reversal＂ work, ＂Removing the Three Evils in the Week＂, is worth a look!
1905 movie network feature The high-scoring suspense action movie starring the director, screenwriter,,,,, was released nationwide on March 1.
The film was widely praised during its premiere. Douban’s score rose all the way to 8.4 points, making it the highest-scoring film released in the mainland in 2024. Some media even said that "The Three Evils in the Week" is expected to become the first box office black horse after the Spring Festival in 2024. So what’s the point of this movie?
With allusions, profound connotations
The title of the movie "Removal of the Three Harmies in Zhou Chu" is cleverly adapted from the allusions of the same name found in "Shishuo Xinyu" and "Jin Shu · Zhouchu Biography". According to the literature, the young man Zhou Chu was burly and powerful, but he ran rampant in the countryside and was hated by his neighbors. After Zhou Chu killed the tiger and the dragon alone, he himself turned his prodigal son back and corrected his evil, so far all three evils have been eliminated.
The gangster Chen Guilin (Ruan Jingtian, played) in the movie is determined to imitate Zhou Shu, one person to eliminate the three gangsters, and remove the top two on the wanted list one by one, until the curtain call of his life of self-redemption is completed. It can be described as the contemporary "Zhou Chu eliminates the three evils".
The historical allusion is a legend of killing people, while the film focuses on the stranger life of a killer, who attempts to use killing to find the value of life. Chen Guilin’s motivation is to "leave his name behind", but during the journey he gradually found his true self and realized spiritual freedom.
The film explores the reaction of "greed, hatred and delusion" from the perspective of absurd self-salvation, which not only brings a sense of genre film, but also has a strong social warning significance.
Heavy metaphor, detailed and in-depth
Among the hot words mentioned in the public opinion comments on the whole network of "Zhouzhou Removal of the Three Harmful", there was also a hot movie last year. Compared with the straightforward "malicious" of "All-in-One", "Zhouzhou Removal of the Three Harmful" has more metaphors in the film.
The English title of the film is "The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon", which literally translates to pigs, snakes and pigeons. These three animals are also symbols of the three poisons of ignorance, hatred and greed mentioned in Buddhist texts. In the film, pigs, snakes and pigeons are also used to represent the three most wanted criminals.
The so-called "pig" refers to the movie’s protagonist, Chen Guilin, who always wears a watch in the image of a pig, representing ignorance and a dark and unintelligent heart. At the beginning of the movie, he is arrogant after the murder, and it is not until he is told that he is terminally ill and has less than half a year to live that he begins to reflect on "what kind of life to choose." Chen Guilin’s evil is his obsession, his obsession with finding and proving the meaning of his existence.
The image represented by the snake is the character of the second evil "Aberdeen" Xu Weiqiang in the movie. He has a tattoo about the snake on his body, which symbolizes hatred, intolerance and fierce violence. In the first appearance of the film, through the contrast of a smile and a rage, a short scene created a very full image of Xu Weiqiang.
The pigeon represented Lin Luhe, the third evil in the movie, and there was a pigeon tattoo on his back, which referred to unbridled greed. In the movie, he didn’t just do evil alone, but organized a criminal gang, established an organization "New Mind House" to play tricks, cheat everywhere, and play with the common people.
What kind of grievances and entanglements exist between these three wanted criminals, how will Chen Guilin’s pursuit story unfold, and how will the strong confrontation end?
Mixed styles, unique types
In terms of film style, "Removing the Three Evils in a Week" combines three styles: film noir, Hong Kong-style gangster film, and desktop grotesque film. The director’s mastery blends together a variety of styles and types, forming a distinct feature of this film.
Themes, "Zhou Zhuan get rid of the three evils" from the Hong Kong crime theme developed, from the root of it with a certain Chinese traditional martial arts color, Chen Guilin in the film is like a walking rivers and lakes knight, get rid of violence and good, for the people;
But at the same time, the movie also pays tribute to the classic Westerns. People like Chen Guilin are also criminals who have committed heinous crimes and will eventually face the fate of punishment. Just like the cowboys in Westerns, although they use violence to suppress violence and eliminate criminals by violent means, civilized towns cannot tolerate violence, so they are doomed to be exiled to the more barbaric and distant west.
Under the aesthetics of violence, "Removing the Three Evils in a Week" tells a story about the values of the outlook on life. Killing is not for profit or revenge, but out of the obsession of outlaws with their own value, with a strong fatalism.
"Removing the Three Evils in a Week" takes a character in the mud as the protagonist of the film, respects his motives, and gives him the opportunity to be "reborn". I believe that after watching this movie, the audience will not feel gloomy, but can get full and high-spirited strength.