LET THE BULLETS FLY, DIR. WEN JIANG (2010)
Kaiping Diaolou, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province
The Kaiping Diaolou is a building complex of watchtowers, renowned for its distinctive vernacular structure characterized by a multi-story tower design. It incorporates Western and Chinese art, as well as defense and habitation. A majority of watchtowers were built in the early twentieth century, about 100 years ago. The movie Let the Bullets Fly was exactly filmed in the village where the building complex located. It depicts a dramatizing conflict between a county magistrate, who is impersonated by a bandit, Zhang, and the local wealthy gentry with power, living in the Kaiping Diaolou, Huang.
In this film, Kaiping Diaolou is to be the symbolic of wealth and power, attributed to its sophisticated structure. “The mansion of master Huang, surrounded by bamboo forests and towering tower, is easy to defend while difficult to attack”, saying by Tang, the advisor of Zhang. The highly appraising words reveals the dominant features in Huang’s mansion, which indicate the external factors of his supreme power to control the whole village, deter the previous county magistrate, who had been his puppets in the end. There is a scene, which pictures Huang voyeurs Zhang with a binocular on the top balcony of the watchtower, that appears twice in the whole film. The first time could be understood as observation and judgement, when Zhang first comes to the village. Huang does not pay much attention to him because Huang might regards Zhang purely as a bullying county magistrate as those previous individuals. Whereas, when he voyeurs for the second time, things has changed since he found that Zhang has ambitious and ability to shake his position, power and wealth. Thus, for this time, he voyeurs with some sense of fear, even though the complicated structure of the Kaiping Diaobao could perfectly hide him and allow him to voyeur the whole village at the same time. To conclude, Kaiping Diaobao plays a significant role in defense in this film.
bamboo forests of the mansion watchtowers of the mansion
the first time Huang voyeurs
It shows a major similarity of the function of those Diaobao between film and reality. To be specific, the ancestors had built the complex watchtowers contributed to defending the chaos and robberies which frequently took place centuries before. Indeed, the similarity is transparent, the contrast could not be ignored either. For one thing, in the history, Kaiping Diaobao intended to protect villagers instead of the wealth and power of certain wealthy gentry. For another, it has been listed on the world intangible cultural heritage and become a widely known tourist attraction. People merely live in the watchtowers since they have been in an era of peace and safety. Thus, wether experiencing the peaceful life could be the most significant difference between film and the reality.
At the end of the film, Huang detonates a bomb set on the top balcony of Kaiping Diaobao and dies. The magnificent building also dies together with Huang. From the beginning to the end, this building protects Huang and his wealth as a loyal guardian, the mysterious structure and design make a great contribution to help Huang hide himself and defeat others. Moreover, the building itself could be a signifier of local capitalism and wealthy gentry who exploits common people and commits various evil acts and finally hides those deeds in the evil shelter. Those capitalists are purely the same as the stable and sophisticated building, resplendent and flowery outside while dirty and tenebrous inside. This metaphor leads to a more attractive story and better comprehension about how powerful the wealthy gentry was in that period of time and how difficult could common people realize that they were under exploitation and regain their own power.
Huang detonates the bomb
—Zhang Mengxuan 3035898793
Reference:
1.Wen Jiang, Let the Bullets Fly, 2010
https://movie.douban.com/subject/3742360/
I appreciate how you weaved the historical perspective surrounding the diaolous with observations of their architectural features in order to discuss the film’s plot and themes. Perhaps you can compare how the space differs in reality and in the film more specifically by comparing particular scenes. Overall, you could have conducted more virtual fieldwork to support your analysis. You can also further explore how visual techniques were deployed in the film. Finally, you are also reminded to cite any references in the proper format.