Let the bullet fly is a gang story film directed by Jiang Wen and premiered in 2010 in mainland China. It is one of the most popular films in recent years. And it rates a high score in Douban, which is a well-known Movie Review Website. This essay will shed light on the movie’s plot and the relationship between architecture and narrative.
In this scene(1）, the relation between the storyline and building is closely associated. The building that we saw in the picture is a watchtower in Kaiping, Guang Dong province. Initially, it is used to defend against bandit outside the town. But now, it becomes the home of Huang SiLang, who is the local tyrant in Goose city. The protagonist Zhuang MaZi is a bandit leader who robbed the incoming county magistrate’s train and took his place. This scene occurs after Zhang MaZi comes to town, he and Huang SiLang meet for the first time, they are far away. Huang Silang stood on the tower and observed Zhang, who had just entered the city, with a telescope. The geographical location between the two shows the social status between the two. The commanding perspective suggested that Huang Silang’s power and status were much higher than that of the county magistrate. The interesting thing is that at this moment in the movie, Huang Silang does not know the identity of Zhang MaZi originally is a bandit. He stands on the tower that was initially used to defend the bandits and had the first confrontation with Zhang Mazi, this conflict enhances the drama of the film and the irony of the story.
This scene(2) appears in Zhang Ma Zi’s son was framed before, he and the master rode a horse to the noodle shop. We can see that in the film picture, The square where they galloped was surrounded by buildings. Two open iron doors in front frame the main body like a picture frame. Such architectural structures are also closely related to the narrative of the story. The surrounding building and the iron gate symbolize the cage of the trap. The protagonists enter it after the iron gate is opened, which also echoes and foreshadows the effect of their being framed in the movie story.
From the above two examples, we can see that in this film, the building’s structure echoes the narrative of the story. The use of different lens languages and geographical locations of buildings by directors and photographers is not only conducive to the expression of the story but also to better show the ideas behind their films. This also made me realize that I should pay more attention to the implied meaning of architecture in the future movie-watching process
Fang Wenbo
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You analyzed how the spatial setting helps to tell the story. What is the space like in reality? How did the director adjust the site in his film to help narrate the film? Also, it would be great if you use a theoretical lens to understand the use of the site. For instance, talking about ‘space’ and ‘place’ concepts would definitely be useful to discuss the square and the watchtower.