《一九四二》:馮小剛的成與敗

Feng Xiaogang is perhaps China’s most clever commercial movie director. He hasn’t directed one movie that failed to make a handsome profit in recent years, including Assembly in 2007, If You Are the One in 2008 and Aftershock in 2010.
馮小剛也許是中國最精明的商業片導演了。近年來他所執導的影片步步賣座，從未失手，包括2007年的《集結號》、2008年的《非誠勿擾》以及2010年的《唐山大地震》。

For some, Feng may be too commercial at times – product placement in his movies is often conspicuous and has even become a laughing stock.
對於一些人而言，馮小剛有時太過商業化了——他影片中的植入廣告往往十分顯眼，甚至這已經成爲了一個笑柄。

But with his new epic Back to 1942, Feng might avoid such criticism.
而憑藉最新史詩鉅製《一九四二》，馮小剛導演或許可以擺脫這些罵名。

Based on a novel by Liu Zhenyun, Back to 1942 tells the true story of the devastating Henan province famine that claimed more than 3 million lives in 1942, a time when China was engaged in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).
該片根據劉震雲小說改編而成，講述了一個真實的故事——1942年正值中國人民的抗日戰爭（1937-1945年），河南省遭遇嚴重饑荒，超過300萬人喪生。

This historic background provides the perfect material to create a blockbuster movie. And Feng is no stranger to using exciting elements, such as devastating natural disasters (as seen in Aftershock) and thrilling battle scenes (as seen in Assembly).
這一歷史背景爲炮製大片提供了絕佳的題材。而馮小剛在調動這些激動人心的元素上已經是位老手了，如《唐山大地震》中毀滅性的自然災害以及《集結號》中那些驚心動魄的戰爭場景。

Combined with a strong cast, which includes Xu Fan, Zhang Guoli, Chen Daoming and Zhang Hanyu, it is almost certain that these elements will ensure the movie becomes a major box office hit, at least in China.
加上徐帆、張國立、陳道明以及張涵予這些超強的演員陣容，可以斷定的是，這幾大要素必保本片票房大賣，至少在國內絕對。

But this time, Feng seems to have set his eyes on the international market as well. Joining the strong Chinese cast are two big names from Hollywood: Tim Robbins (who plays a Catholic priest) and Adrien Brody (who plays American journalist Theodore White).
而這一回，馮小剛似乎將目光同時投向了國際市場。除了一種華語演員外，他還力邀了好萊塢雙雄的加盟：扮演天主教神父的蒂姆•羅賓斯以及飾演美國記者白修德的亞德里安•布勞迪。

Many of the movie’s scenes, like the ones showing the bombing attacks by the Japanese army, are very Hollywood-style, both in terms of their scale and technical level.
片中，包括日軍轟炸場面在內的有許多鏡頭，就規模及技術層面而言，都是十足的好萊塢範。

But somehow, despite the cast mostly bearing up to the challenge of delivering their roles, the movie, like many of its kind, such as White Deer Plain, falls short on generating an emotional impact. It seems to confirm the old saying “one man dying is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic figure”.
但不知爲何，儘管應付起這些富有挑戰性的角色來，演員們大都駕輕就熟。同《白鹿原》等同類型影片一樣，該片卻無法打造出情感上的震撼。這似乎也印證了那句老話：“死一個人，是個悲劇；死一百萬人，那就不過是個統計數據罷了。”

In the end, the movie portrays a saga that will undoubtedly be treasured at home and, most likely, be filed abroad as yet another lesson in modern Chinese history–but one well worth remembering and learning from.
說到底，該片成功描述了一部長篇歷史故事，這個故事毫無疑問將受到國人的重視，並且很可能被西方整理成中國近代史的又一課——而這個故事也記得人們銘記並從中學到些什麼。