Zhang Yimou is old.

Zhang Yimou is old, Zhang Yimou is really old, born in 1950, Zhang Yimou is now 70 years old, this is not a vigorous age, but it does not prevent people of this age to miss the vigor.

Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Quentin’s “Hollywood Past” essentially declared that they had succumbed to the times, and as their own era slowly died out, they too gradually withdrew from the stage of history. At this moment, although Zhang Yimou has never given in to defeat, he is still no match for the pace of time.

The story of “One Second” is not bad at all, because it is made by Zou Jingzhi, and Zhang Yimou combines his previous experiences to make it even richer. We always remember our previous glory, just like we never forget our first love, and we always like to give it a beautiful, hazy, unobtainable beauty to create an illusory dream. The existence of this dream indicates that we still have something to look forward to, and because we can’t go back, the beauty of everything is so exhilarating. Naturally, Zhang Yimou knew this.

Between 1968 and 1978, Zhang Yimou first joined the army and then worked as a laborer. This was the most glorious moment in his life. The youthful Zhang Yimou’s love for photography was unmistakable, and he even sold his blood for a rare Seagull camera at the time. His ex-wife Xiaohua even sewed a cloth bag to maintain it carefully. During this period, Zhang Yimou had a heartfelt love for images, and this love was a young man’s best hope for the future. Embodied in One Second, we can see the almost paranoid love people had for movies.

Movies were still a rarity for people at that time, not because of the movies themselves, but because the promotion of the medium lagged behind in the remote areas of the Midwest. Even the radio was magical to the older generation at first, and they always thought there was someone standing there talking. Movies, on the other hand, brought not only sound but also images, which were much more impressive at that time.

The reason why I chose movies was because during Zhang Yimou’s youth, movies were something that gave me hope. In his time, he was just in time for the rise of cinema, which was more of a rarity, that’s all. Of course, in the case of audio or semiconductors, the properties of the medium would not have been fundamentally different. However, Zhang Yimou was more exposed to movies in his youth, so the core of this film is the manifestation of people’s desire and pursuit of new things in the context of the big time. The essence of the film is that the art form just happened to catch up with the times, and it doesn’t mean much else.

Many people will be disappointed by this. Because the promotional focus of the film is a bit off the mark, the core of the film will be skewed. If it doesn’t do well at the box office, it will be mainly because of the publicity. In all fairness, is One Second primarily about the movie? No, it’s not. It’s talking about the movie and it’s not the movie at the same time, it’s talking about the father and it’s not the father at the same time. It speaks of the times, and it is not the times at the same time. It is not Zhang Yimou’s best work in recent years, but it is a testament to his nostalgia for his youthful vigor.

The theme of One Second is cinema, yet you will find that replacing the film with an audio tape, a photograph or a book in this story does not affect the core of the story. The choice of film is simply due to the fact that it was a fitting part of Zhang Yimou’s life during his youth. Is One Second a father? Yes and no, the three fathers and the hidden fatherhood in the film are just the background of the times.

We always think of the past as our own, but if you look at the liberal movements of the 1960s, youth have always been very radical in almost every corner of the globe. The hippies in the United States, the Maystorms in France, etc., were all part of the times, not unique to us. And Zhang Yimou just happened to experience this era. It is not so much an era as it is the youth of Zhang Yimou, who had no choice but to be born.

When you examine the film in light of the film’s proclamation, you realize that it is not the same thing as the proclamation. The film’s position in this film is a mere novelty that emerges out of reality without much significance, and the era to which the proclamation refers is not the focus of the film. It seems that the press release was just a deliberate attempt to create a flashpoint, and they did not have a deeper understanding of Zhang Yimou’s youth. They have not had a deeper understanding of director Zhang Yimou’s youth, so they can only focus on the minor details. This is a failure of propaganda.

Prohibition itself is forbidden, and at the same time it is overstated. The film’s distribution takes advantage of this to make a very large deviation of public opinion for the film. As if the film had no meaning other than the selling point of its particular era, this is bad publicity. It is also bad for understanding the true meaning of the film.

Zhang Yimou is getting old, so don’t expect any more horrifying works from him in the future. Zhang Yimou’s old age is like the constant rise of the conspiracy girls, not to give a replacement, and Zhang Yimou is really sorry, he experienced the embarrassment of being snatched by others, and this is also the “retribution”.

……

Hello and goodbye.