✦Elzary
Cinema·6 min read·👀 Watched 2022.09.15

Let the Bullets Fly

Every line is a gem — funny and thought-provoking at once. A film packed with historical allegory that I could chew on again and again.

2010 · Adapted from Ma Shitu's novel, directed by Jiang Wen · Netflix

What I loved

The dialogue. Every line is a gem — funny and yet reflective, and even the pure conversation scenes are never boring. So many lines made me hit pause just to write them down. Surprisingly, some of the set phrases made me feel the depth and beauty of Chinese all over again — like xiá dǎn róu qíng ("a chivalrous heart, tender feeling") and shā rén zhū xīn ("to kill a person, destroy the heart"). Especially the latter: it means that rather than destroying someone's body, it's better to destroy that person's image in everyone's mind. So exquisitely written, screenwriter ♡

Dollar. The advisor: "Still going on about the knife." It made me laugh out loud.

The ending. Zhang Mazi asks Huang Silang: "You tell me — is the money more important to me, or are you?" In the end Zhang says: "Neither you nor the money is important to me. You — being gone — that's what's important to me." A line that really moved me too.

All the allegory. The part where Huang Silang has his men frame Sixth Son got me thinking about the mastery of emotion and the importance of education. From his earlier exchange with Zhang Mazi, you can tell his education was probably low, and his temperament blunt and stubborn; it's a pity he never got to study abroad. It reminded me of what Zhang told him: "Once you've studied abroad, you'll understand everything." That warmest scene, followed by this ending — you can't help feeling deep regret.

And when Sixth Son dies at the end, the crowd scatters in an instant — what is that supposed to mean?! So heartless! Turns out what they wanted wasn't the truth, but only to "see blood run in rivers." It made me think of keyboard warriors online — maybe it's the same logic?

Closing thoughts

After watching a film analysis, I did come away with so many more reasons to love this movie — the veiled references to the June Fourth incident, the rise of Communist power. That a two-hour-plus film can hide so much historical allegory really wins me over. Absolutely, absolutely a film worth chewing over a second time.

A few of the lines I keep coming back to:

"Flowers bloom again; a person is never young twice."

"If you live, sooner or later you'll die. If you die, you live forever."

"Today I finally understand why I went up the mountain to be a bandit in the first place — because I couldn't play this game with these people. And now, for your sake, I have to play it. And I have to win."

"But brother, you've got no pockmarks on your face — does Huang Silang have a 'four' on his?"

— "No movement at all!" — "Let the bullets fly a while!"

There was never a road in this world; where legs go, a road appears. (Really: the earth had no roads to begin with — enough people walked, and a road came to be.)

The classic lines in Let the Bullets Fly are just too many, especially those. In the moment my heart surged, and long after there's still an aftertaste... lines you can pull out and mull over again and again. (And sneaking in a funny one too — it really does make you laugh.)

  • Don't rush to a conclusion about anything.
  • Zhang Mazi doesn't necessarily have pockmarks on his face — just like a "sun cake" has no sun, and a "wife cake" has no wife.
  • (Profound meaning; work it out yourself 🤣)
  • I think it just means YOLO — You only live once!

"We truly can't break past our own limits; we can only face birth, aging, sickness, death.

There's a line in Big Fish & Begonia: why not be a little bold — love someone, climb a mountain, chase a dream."

I think that line captures it too.

— Excerpted from a Kknews piece, "What is time — is it linear? Can it flow?"

#movie#china#satire#drama
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