"Fighting the sword at the end of the world, the country is a thousand autumns" is the ultimate pursuit of the life of China's "jianghu" heroes, and this attitude is a contradictory and unified existence. On the one hand, it shows the dashing and uninhibited nature of their personality, and on the other hand, it also reveals their deep-rooted compassion for the heavens and the people, and the feelings of helping the country and the people. These two seem to be contradictory in reality, but at the level of spiritual value is unified, "Fighting Sword Heaven" represents the detachment of chivalry to the worldly values, and in the cause of "home and country", it is inevitable that chai rice oil and salt, human feelings are cold and warm, the departure of this realistic situation is unified at the spiritual level, and it is precisely because of this detachment that they are not tempted by the world from the depths of their hearts, and it is precisely because of this texture that they can better achieve a pure spiritual pursuit. Without being bound by worldly values and material desires.
In China's culture, "the distance of the rivers and lakes" and the "height of the temple" seem to be opposites, but in fact they are unified, as Fan Zhongyan said in his "Record of Yueyang Lou": "If you are far away from the rivers and lakes, you are worried about the king, and if you live in the temple, you are worried about the people." In this situation of "advancing and worrying, retreating and worrying", there is only "the worries of the world before the world, and the happiness of the world after the world". This kind of spiritual value pursuit of religious suffering is the ultimate life meaning of china's ancient loyal ministers and sages, chivalrous and good men, and it is also the literati sentiment of the "migrants and rioters" represented by Fan Zhongyan. However, between the "far away of the rivers and lakes" and the "height of the temple", between reality and ideals, and on the road of practicing ideals, there are too many uncertain possibilities.
When ideals are not understood, when rules are repeatedly self-denied by the dominant person, when individual values and collective values run counter to each other, that inner struggle of the self, exile on the spiritual level, is the truest inner portrayal of chivalry. Therefore, there is Liu Zongyuan's "fishing alone in the snow of the cold river", Li Bai's "laughing in the sky and going out", Tao Yuanming's "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence", and Su Dongpo's "big river east, the waves are exhausted". These poets and singers are actually the prototypes of chivalrous guests, they are either leisurely or spirited, but after returning to reality, they cannot escape the alienation of ideals and current situations. Therefore, when the chivalrous people in the process of realizing their self-worth, they will not go all the way, and even because of the changes in the external environment, they will alienate their own state of mind and become another kind of person.
For example, he wrote "Generous Song Yan City, calmly as a Prisoner of Chu." Lead the knife into a fast, live up to the head of the teenager. "The big man raped Wang Jingwei. This talented, learned and rich man in the modern history of our country, who once also promised the country's chivalrous figure, finally became a traitor he once despised the most under the action of various external environments. This kind of person is more like the villains who have gone mad because of their practice in martial arts novels, such as Lin Pingzhi and Yue Buqun in Jin Yong's novels. Some of these people are because of hatred, some because of the desire for power, and some because they want to become masters of the world, but they eventually turn their backs on the original intention of life. In Japan, there is a class that has almost the same situation and fate as the ancient chivalrous people in our country, and they are called "samurai". In fact, these people were professional soldiers in ancient Japan, but because of the special social attributes of ancient Japan, the samurai developed into a unique social class in society.
Unlike the warriors, the samurai had a more orthodox identity, in addition to which they had their own program of conduct, which eventually became the spiritual pillar of the samurai, known as "Bushido". The spirit of "Bushido" had a profound impact on Japanese culture and social development, and even in World War II, the spirit of "Bushido" became the main propaganda tool for Japan's mobilization to participate in the war. But what is "Bushido", and what is the meaning of life in this ultimate pursuit of the spirit? With the support of this spirit, how to treat the country, treat the family, treat yourself, treat the knife in your hand and the kendo that uses the sword? In 1966, Japan released an alternative samurai film, "Great Bodhisattva Ridge", in which the protagonist was Ryunosuke, played by Tatsuya Nakayo, in which he changed the image of the samurai in traditional samurai films. This image differs from Akira Kurosawa's compassion for the decline of the samurai class in The Seven Samurai, and from Masaki Kobayashi's understanding of the ordinary situation of samurai in "Belly Section". This film is more within the scope of Bushido, asking questions and questioning the spirit of Bushido.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by nakasato Sukeyama, a pioneer of Japanese popular literature, it is worth mentioning that this novel is called the world's longest historical novel, and the entire novel has been serialized for a total of 28 years, divided into 41 volumes and 1533 chapters, with a word count of 5.7 million words. Purely speaking, in terms of word count, this novel is about 2 times the word count of the four famous works in ancient China. The novel was eventually adapted into a 120-minute film, a very challenging task for the screenwriter. The screenwriter of this film is Shinobu Hashimoto, who is probably the best film screenwriter in the history of Japanese cinema, and after cutting down the complexity of this huge production, only three volumes of content were left, and it was the content of these three volumes that allowed him to find the original author's reflection on the spiritual values of the Japanese nation.
In order to ensure the viewing of the film and the vastness of the original at the same time, Hashimoto Shinobu cleverly made several blank spaces, and through the details of the original content, the plot in the script was more suitable for the expression of the film language. When Hashimoto had done the analysis and nesting of the script, the rest of the work was left to the director of the film, Kihachi Okamoto, and the lead actor Tatsuya Nakayo. Hashimoto Shinobi's ingenuity has given Kihachi Okamoto and Tatsuya Nakayo a lot of room to play, and after cutting out the complexity, the plot logic of the entire film is no longer simply focused on the development of the story, but from the inner alienation of the protagonist Ryunosuke to change.
Born into a traditional samurai family, Ryunosuke has been practicing the spirit of Bushido with his life as his ideal and pursuit in this life. But at the beginning of the film, in the instant that Ryunosuke appears, before the full picture of the Great Bodhisattva Ridge, Ryunosuke is destined to cease to be a samurai with pure pursuits. Because the perspective and composition of the whole film are biased towards the freehand style, it is difficult to glimpse the real situation of Ryunosuke from the content of the film, which is also the director's cleverness, because the director's treatment makes the whole film endowed with a charm of Buddha and demon, good and evil, and this charm is also the director's torture of history and the public through this 120-minute image.
From Ryunosuke's appearance, his aura runs through the entire film, until the end, leaving the audience with an uncertain ending. The charm of the protagonist Ryunosuke is not that he is unfathomable, but that he has left everything behind and still failed to reach the other side of his ideals in life. As a samurai, a swordsman, he possessed great skill, but at the same time had a tragic fate that was not commensurate with him. And this tragic fate in the film is also like the dragon's humanity domino was inadvertently torn down, out of control, and at the same time as the tragic fate evolved, it was Ryunosuke's struggle not to give up with the help of evil and cruel power. Ryunosuke is most proud of his swordsmanship, and at the beginning of the film he makes his attitude clear, swordplay to samurai is like chastity to women. But because of his father's persuasion, because of the subtle rules of society, Ryunosuke has the slightest hesitation between ideal and reality. The first proposition he faces is to be asked to cheat and lose to his opponent in a match in order to complete the family business of his opponent Wen Zhicheng.
This seemingly benevolent plea is the beginning of the disillusionment of the Dragon Assistant, the so-called Bushido spirit, which is to exclude all external interference and to be observed in all circumstances, which is higher than one's own life. In the face of the bushido spirit, failure is not terrible, what is terrible is divergence. And these put Ryunosuke in a dilemma, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn't stick to his inner self. Ryunosuke takes away Bunnosuke's wife's loyalty before competing with Bunnosuke, and he tries to counteract his deep desire to win. However, the change in the arena surprised him, and he killed Wen Zhicheng on the field. In presenting this plot, the director used the most objective perspective possible, and when watching the screen, the audience seemed to be watching Ryunosuke's competition and killing from a distance. This objective perspective allows the audience to more clearly glimpse the inner world of Ryunosuke.
Ryunosuke's inner alienation lies in the contradiction between his pursuit of the ultimate in life and his real situation. In terms of skill, cultivation, and faith, Ryunosuke is a superior samurai who possesses first-class swordsmanship, adheres to his behavior as a samurai, and equates the spirit of Bushido with his own life. However, reality dealt him a heavy blow, and even his father thought that his swordplay was too weird, too much to pursue the final victory. In his father's eyes, Ryunosuke is like those martial arts idiots in Jin Yong's martial arts novels who are practicing magic. But this is not entirely the case, because Ryunosuke was tempted by the jealousy, coercion, and coercion of everyone to take the road of no return, and he accidentally killed Wen Zhicheng in the arena, and on the sidelines he killed other samurai who came to take revenge on him. In this situation, Ryunosuke had to go away.
He and Wen Zhicheng's wife married in a foreign land and hid their names. However, due to his stubborn pursuit of kendo, Ryunosuke still made a living from swords, but at this time he could no longer participate in the operation as an orthodox samurai, so he had become a ronin by this time. Ronin is like a samurai who has lost his sense of belonging and home, they wander outside the normal social system, often doing illegal things. At this moment, Ryunosuke still has some legitimate pursuit of life, until one day he overheard his father's "care" for him when he was dying, and he finally could no longer keep his inner demons.
In stark contrast to Ryunosuke in the film, another kendo master, Toranosuke Shimada, played by Toshiro Mifune. In a snowy night assassination operation, Shimada bluntly said that the samurai should have a sword soul, a samurai who has lost his soul, is not worthy to hold the sword in his hand, and if he wants to cultivate in swordsmanship, he must first know how to behave. At this moment, Ryunosuke has been forced into a corner by the real world, the orthodox family represented by his father has denied him, the samurai class has abandoned him, and even when he is suffering from soul torture, his partner still has to abandon him. Under various pressures, Ryunosuke's humanity has been further degraded.
He killed his nominal wife and children and ended up on an absolutely lonely path in life. At this moment, he is already full of confusion about life, but the director still has not let him go, and this atmosphere has not yet reached the director's appeal. It could have allowed the film to have a quick revenge bridge, but the director and screenwriter cleverly avoided it, and in this film, Ryunosuke's swordplay has always been an undefeated myth. This ingenious design reflects the theme that the director wants to deepen in this film, that is, Ryunosuke's "sword demon" road.
Ryunosuke originally had the ability to win the championship and make a difference in the orthodox society, but he was gradually alienated and finally his heart was opened. Everyone has a Buddha and a demon living inside them, and who can have the upper hand between the two, in addition to the inner cultivation, lies in the interaction of the external environment. Just like Wang Jingwei at that time, no one could confirm how under pressure he had gone down the path of treason. The same is true of Ryunosuke, they are also talented and capable, but because they are not born at the right time, their inner inflated abilities cannot be exerted, and finally under the interaction and confrontation between themselves and the outside world, they are on a road of no return that is opened by demons. And all this stems from the double standards of Bushido, and in the end, Ryunosuke completely sinks his humanity into the final crazy sword dance after a big killing ring. Nakayo Tatsuya's textbook-level performances, Kihachi Okamoto's long-term artistic vision, and Hashimoto's ingenious screenwriter make this film an alternative classic in Japanese samurai movies, in which everyone can find the Buddha in our hearts, and the one that is born in opposition to it, in the shadows, not big or small!