Bright Era of China Entertainment

Chapter 845: Sky Curtain: Enemy at the Gate (Part )
The first scene in the main film timeline is a high-altitude bird's-eye view, showing a mountain environment with flowers, grass, scattered trees, and gurgling streams.

Such an environment should have been like a paradise, but the gray grass, dim flowers, rotten trees, and black water seemed to be reflecting the half circle of the setting sun in the sky that had remained unchanged for more than three hundred years. Everything here, which seemed full of life, looked so gloomy, terrifying, and chilling.

The focus of the back shot is on Chenglong's back, where a tribal leader is sitting on a big rock and telling stories to a group of children.

The boys wore short silk trousers and the girls wore plain sleeves, giving a sense of déjà vu the clothing style of ordinary people in the late Ming and Qing dynasties, not too ancient, but not modern either.

Film critics and careful movie fans have pondered over why the characters and environment of the film are in such a state, but there are too few clues given so they cannot figure out the answer and continue watching.

As the camera zooms in from a high altitude, it moves toward Chenglong's back, advancing to the level of a close-up shot. Then, a smooth camera rotation and cutting shot is used as the connecting shot of this combination of camera movements to show Chenglong's face, so that the transition from the high-altitude shot to the close-up shot is not abrupt.

Seeing Chenglong's face, the audience felt a little strange.

The hair is medium-short and falls over the shoulders. There are some waves in the middle and ends of the hair, which are the natural curls that Chenglong has always had. These small natural curls seem to be a symbol, making people know that this is Chenglong at a glance.

The reason why we have to judge this person as Chenglong by his hair is because Chenglong's eyes are covered by a piece of black cloth, making him look like a blind man.

The character played by Cheng Long is a blind man? No way... Some audiences cannot accept it, as it damages Cheng Long's invincible image in previous films.

In the picture, a group of children urged Chenglong to tell the story of "Ancestor Grandpa". Chenglong kept a gentle smile and deliberately delayed time to let the children worry, creating a warm atmosphere of adults teasing children.

Just when the audience was doubting whether Chenglong was blind, and when Chenglong was about to continue telling stories to the children...

Chenglong's face became solemn. He glanced towards the void on the left with his blind eyes, then jumped off the big rock, picked up a long stick leaning against the rock, and continued to look to the left.

Long stick? Is this Cheng Long's weapon in this movie? ... The audience had a suspicion. As far as they were concerned, Cheng Long had never used a long stick as a weapon before. This brought some freshness.

Seeing Chenglong in such a state, nearby characters appear in the camera one after another.

The heroic Hui Yinghong holds an Aipai on her arm. Aipai is a shield used by the army in the Ming Dynasty to block thrown arrows. It is shaped like a flat round straw hat.

The iron-blooded and cold-blooded An Zhijie lowered his head and put on a pair of [brass knuckles] on his hands. The brass knuckles were black iron in color, similar to modern iron boxing gloves. The brass knuckles in the Ming Dynasty were mostly used by gangsters. If you punch with the brass knuckles on, the internal organs will be displaced. It looks very brave. Combined with An Zhijie's cold face, it gives people the feeling that he is ruthless and doesn't talk much.

Silent and cool Raymond Lam holds two crossbows, the star product of the Ming Dynasty [Bronze Dragon Crossbow]. This crossbow is not the bow-shaped one as most people imagine, but shaped like a dragon head. You need to put your hand through the "neck" to pull the trigger, and then shoot the arrow from the "dragon's mouth".

Chen Weiting, who looks unruly, holds a [long double-edged sword] in his hand. The front end is like a crescent-shaped knife, and the back end is like a red tasseled spear. It is a coastal defense military equipment in the Ming Dynasty. The spear head at the back can be used to pierce the armor of the Japanese pirates, and the crescent-shaped blade at the front can be used to cut their throats. There is a gap between the helmet and the armor, which cannot be broken by ordinary weapons. This double-edged spear is very powerful.

Audiences who don’t understand these things have a strange intuition. Why are there so many weird weapons in science fiction movies?

Movie fans and critics who have some understanding of the cultural connotation laughed. This is a cultural output!

Domestic science fiction must have domestic characteristics. Just based on these weapons, the domestic attributes are maximized, and they are elements that the West cannot learn.

However, a filmmaker in the media who is very knowledgeable about history thought of something deeper: why did the background of the movie originate in the Ming Dynasty more than 300 years ago?

Seeing the elements of cultural output on these weapons, this question raises two more historical questions.

Why did the Renaissance begin in the West after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty?
Why did the Industrial Revolution occur in the West only after the Ming Dynasty fell?
Before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, there was no news of literature and art in the West. Later, when Zheng He sailed to the West for the purpose of cultural exchange, the so-called Renaissance came to Europe.

Before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the West was also in the agricultural era, and its agriculture was much weaker than that of the Ming Dynasty, let alone the so-called industry. But after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of books and classics that had been passed down for thousands of years were lost. Within a few years, the West suddenly went from the agricultural era to the industrial revolution, and its shipping system was able to directly build warships.

How did the West achieve such rapid progress? Anyway, Western history records all refer to “a long, long time ago”, without specifying the specific years and examples of the Renaissance and industrial inheritance. The main theme is that the West has divine authority and God is awesome.

Only a very small number of Chinese people have the truth in their hearts and know that their God is in the East.

So, this movie takes the late Ming Dynasty as its origin story, and the aliens kill indiscriminately and imitate humans. Is this the profound connotation of this movie? Are these aliens the Western bandits?

Then, after more than three hundred years of development, the West is now even more powerful, and its suppression of our country has become increasingly harsh, which is equivalent to using the stolen achievements of civilization to suppress the source of civilization.

In the movie, the story begins with a stolen time point at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and now uses Ming Dynasty weapons as the highlight of the movie, which seems to be intended to resist or counter the Western bandits and other "aliens".

With a slap, the media person patted his thigh and said with a smile: "This connotation is hidden deep enough. No wonder the story background originates from the late Ming Dynasty. Is it a reflection of this thing?"

However, this movie will be released overseas... But so what, can those people in Hollywood understand the meaning of this?
You keep brainwashing our audiences with culture, so won't we throw a boomerang back at you?

It doesn’t matter if the audience doesn’t understand it. Cultural things are subtle and when their cognition is improved, they will naturally understand everything and secretly agree with it without knowing it. This is the power of cultural output.

"Interesting." The media person felt amusement and gave a thumbs up for it.

As for the audience, their attention is only focused on the situation on the screen. All the characters seem to be on high alert. Is this a crisis coming?
However, there was nothing unusual happening in the picture, so how did Chenglong know that a crisis was coming?
Chenglong took off the black cloth, revealing his true eyes, which were pitch black without eyeballs, exactly the same as the state of the eyes of the "Chenglong ancestor" who remained immortal after being invaded by the evil light.

It's really creepy. No wonder they have to wear a black cloth. They probably don't want to scare the audience...

The audience imagined the situation on their own, and then acted horrified.

All that was seen was that Chenglong's black hole-like eyes had changed. A little blood red appeared from the center, and then the blood red slowly spread until the originally black eyeballs completely turned into blood red eyes, and two drops of blood tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.

There's even a close-up shot, it's so damn scary!

Before this emotion could spread, the special effects camera took them into Chenglong's red-eye world. The whole world was based on a light blood color, which was the same as the real world environment in the movie.

Just when the audience thought this shot was sophisticated, that the screenwriter had too much imagination, and were a little confused, a large number of birds appeared in the sky of the bloody world. They couldn't name them, but they should all be eagles.

The eagles in the sky were flying straight towards Chenglong. The children were all terrified. The women and children were panicking and protecting their children. The men took up weapons and followed Kara Hui, An Zhijie, Raymond Lam and Chen Weiting, who were like four generals and fought in four large groups.

Even if they were fully prepared, they could not defeat thousands of aggressive-looking eagles.

The audience's hearts were in their throats. The dense swarm of eagles was very oppressive, and they also wondered where these eagles came from.
When the two sides approached each other, the bodies of some eagles directly dissipated, and the foul light hidden in their bodies was exposed.

"What the hell!" Many viewers were surprised. It turned out that these eagles were transformed from evil light.

However, since the foul light can simulate human form, it is not so strange that it can simulate an eagle.

Moreover, more than three hundred years have passed, and who knows what capabilities this imaginative evil light setting has.

"Boom...Boom...Boom...Boom..." Frightening sounds rang out one after another. Evil rays of light penetrated the bodies of children, women, and men, causing the deaths of people one after another.

The audience swallowed their saliva. Is this the rhythm that the protagonist group will be destroyed at the beginning?
At this moment, the bloody world on the screen disappeared, returning to the normal "sinking world" at sunset.

At the same time, the foul lights and the eagles all disappeared, and those who were obviously dead were all still alive, and the women and children were not protecting the children, the four major supporting characters did not move at all, and the children all had innocent faces, as if nothing had happened.

"This..." The audience was stunned and a little confused.

It wasn't until a flock of eagles appeared in the sky, exactly the same species as the one in the bloody world flying from the same direction, that some viewers seemed to understand something.

"Fortune-telling??"

When they heard the sound, the audience who didn't understand suddenly understood, and some even said "Oh~" to indicate that they understood.

Everything that happens in the bloody world will happen in reality in the next step. Isn’t this predicting the future?
"Awesome." You Chenglong's fans were excited. This is a super power.

Cheng Long has played countless awesome roles, but this is the first time he has played a character with super powers, which is very fresh.

Seeing the flock of eagles swooping down again like in the bloody world, the audience felt nervous again. Even though they knew that Chenglong, who could predict the future, would definitely fight back, the visual impact brought by the flock of eagles still made people nervous.

What makes people more curious under such tension is how Chenglong will deal with this crisis?
"Gen."

"shock."

"..."

Just as a foul light emerged from the eagle, trying to take the first life of a child like in the bloody world, a few words came out of Chenglong's mouth slightly abruptly.

The reason why it is abrupt is that the audience does not understand the specific expressions of the so-called "Gen" and "Zhen".

But as soon as Chenglong finished speaking, a round shield like a straw hat came spinning from the back that could not be seen on the screen, heading straight for the "Gen" direction, which is the northeast direction.

As the shield broke through the air, a halo suddenly appeared on the edge, which was the same grayish-white color as the foul light.

Before I could be amazed at this magical scene, I saw the glowing shield and the oncoming foul light collide in the air diagonally above the child who would have been killed in the bloody world.

The camera shows the child looking up in panic, and sees the glowing shield smashing the foul light into pieces. The small area turns into gray-white airflow that scatters in all directions before completely disappearing and being annihilated.

The shield continued to draw an arc and spin in the air, followed by a series of "chi...chi..." sounds like a knife cutting flesh. Then, a dozen evil lights and eagles turned into explosive gray-white airflows in the air and then disappeared.

The shield began to return to its original trajectory in mid-air and swirled towards the audience in front of the screen, causing many viewers to subconsciously lean back. Then Kara Hui entered the camera and retracted the shield into her arm, coming in front of the child.

From the appearance of the shield, to the killing of a group of foul lights, to Kara Hui's smooth retraction of it, these scenes only took about four or five seconds, leaving the audience no time to think, but they were all amazed in their hearts.

Before he could express his surprise, Lin Feng raised his hands, and the dragon-headed crossbow in his hands continuously fired tiny arrows with a "swish, swish, swish". Each arrow emitted a faint gray-white flame, and after piercing through a beam of foul light, it continued to pierce through multiple beams of foul light and eagles, and all the foul lights and eagles pierced by the arrows were completely annihilated.

There was a foul light that was not extinguished in time and attacked, and Lin Feng raised his left hand to block it. The foul light hit the dragon head crossbow with a "clang" sound and was bounced back into the air, and then Lin Feng raised his right hand and shot an arrow to extinguish it.

Afterwards, Chen Weiting used his long weapon in great skill. Whether it was a horizontal sweep or a diagonal slash, it would bring with it a wave of foul light, causing an explosion in the air that annihilated the foul light.

An Zhijie's fist can take out one enemy with one punch, which is a bit tiring compared to the group damage of Kara Hui, Raymond Lam and William Chan, but the hard punches look very cool, and the "bang bang bang" feeling of the impact sounds very comfortable.

It's not like in some dramas or movies where there's a lot of hesitation before a fight.

It all happened very quickly, or rather, the rhythm of the battle was very tight. Without any dialogue between the characters, a large-scale sci-fi and magical special effects battle scene came to the fore.

The audience was overwhelmed by the show and felt very refreshed!

I also understood that the Bagua words such as "Gen" and "Zhen" said by Chenglong represented directions, and then each supporting character made attacks based on this direction.

This is a coordinated battle.

Why cooperate?

Why does Chenglong give directions?
Because Chenglong can predict the future, because Chenglong knows where the crisis will occur at the next moment.

This is not something that can be achieved by reaction ability, it requires 100% prediction in advance.

Under Chenglong's prediction, the four major supporting characters and a large group of men, women and children cooperated in a rhythmic, organized and disciplined manner to protect the children without any injuries.

Although the number of the foul lights and eagles was huge, they were unable to defeat the combat group led by Chenglong who had a cheat.

However, Chenglong has a limited number of people, and even if they can predict that they will still encounter a crisis if they lack manpower for defense.

I saw a group of foul lights passing through the fierce fighting group and taking advantage of the gap in the center to move towards Chenglong and the children.

"Cheng Xiong!" Hui Yinghong shouted. It was also the first time that Cheng Xiong's name was called out, which made it clear who the protagonist was at the beginning of the feature film.

Chenglong understood, holding the long stick in his right hand and stretching his left hand back.

Without any lines, a child naturally held his hand, and then the children spontaneously held hands one by one.

Just when the audience was unaware of what was happening, Chenglong's eyes changed again.

The originally blood-red eyes began to glow purple from the center, and the purple quickly spread until it completely covered the eyes.

Before the audience could observe this change, they saw a group of foul lights approaching Chenglong. With a "whoosh" sound, Chenglong and a group of children retreated at lightning speed as if traveling through time and space.

When the special effects on the screen disappeared, Chenglong and a group of children had appeared under a tree far away from the battle group.

"Fuck, teleport!"

The audience was amazed and their eyes were wide open with shock and surprise.

First, the predicted future in the bloody world broke their imagination and gave them a concrete picture of how to predict the future.

Then, all kinds of strange weapons appeared like magical weapons, breaking their understanding of weapons and giving them powerful attack methods for their respective weapons.

All of this was very fresh in the first place, and the special effects of the battle made them very happy. They thought the battle would end in this way, but they didn't expect that a magical element would pop up.

Predicting the future is already amazing, but teleporting? That's invincible!

At this moment, the battlefield on the screen changed again.

The target of those foul lights and eagles seemed to be Chenglong. Seeing that Chenglong was far away from the battlefield, they stopped fighting with the combatants and all of them took off into the air and rushed towards the tree where Chenglong was.

Hui Yinghong, An Zhijie and others turned around at the same time, but did not move.

With so many foul lights attacking Chenglong, what do these people mean? Are they just standing there watching?

Many viewers were confused, but in the close-up shot they saw Chenglong's eyes began to change.

White began to appear from the center of the purple eyes, quickly spreading across the eyeballs, and Chenglong's eyes also turned white.

At the same time, Chenglong stomped the long stick on the ground. Although there was no wind, the nearby grass tilted in the opposite direction with the stick as the center. It looked like a strong wind, but it was more like an invisible energy spreading in all directions.

When the camera was raised, all the foul lights and eagles rushing towards them were seen suspended in mid-air, as if the time and space in front of them were frozen.

The camera cuts to Hui Yinghong, who sees that all the enemy troops have been frozen in mid-air by time and space. She raises her hand and the shield in her hand immediately spins away, cutting and destroying the immobilized enemy troops one by one like beheading stupid puppets.

"Fuck!"

"That's awesome!"

“This is invincible!”

From the enemy attack, the start of the battle, all kinds of magical powers, to the end of the battle in front of us, it only took about two minutes.

The audience was breathless, mainly because of the wave after wave of freshness and excitement. The excitement built up layer by layer in these short two minutes until it reached its climax when the super power of "time and space stillness" was exposed.

I feel so...good!

There are no invisible brain holes, only unexpected brain holes. In these two minutes, they are given completely unexpected surprises again and again, which are also things that have not been seen in other movies.

Let’s not talk about the various weapons for now, and just talk about Chenglong’s abilities.

Red Eye, predicting the future.

Purple eyes, teleportation.

Roll of eyes, space freezes.

How did you imagine this setting?
They were also convinced and could only use the word "WTF" to describe it.

At the same time, the audience also discovered the theme element of this movie - superheroes.

Look at the character Chenglong, Chengxiong, who has three superpowers: predicting the future, teleportation, and space solidification. Isn't this a setting only for superheroes? He is comparable to Marvel's Iron Man, the Autobots in Transformers, and superpowers like "Star-Lord" in the Star Trek series.

Looking at the movie's strange but retro environment, the characters' clothing is all in Chinese style, and the weapons they use are all ancient Chinese products. Under the feeling brought by these elements, the superpowers embodied by Cheng Long are Chinese-style superpowers, and Cheng Xiong, played by Cheng Long, is a Chinese-style superhero.

The feeling is very strong, which not only feasts the eyes of the audience, but also makes science fiction fans very excited. This is a genuine Chinese science fiction blockbuster!

Several film critics also felt relieved and excited.

Before coming to the cinema, no one knew what the style of "Skyfall: Enemy at the Gates" would be, but most people had a roughly similar imagination.

Future world? Future robots?

The kind with advanced technology? Or the kind with interstellar navigation?
The Cthulhu mythology? Or something like that?
That’s pretty much all the systematic speculation about this movie.

Why can we only think of these categories? Because these are the only systems of science fiction in the West.

Not only that, even science fiction novels on the Internet are of the types mentioned above, and they cannot escape the thinking brainwashed and dominated by Western films and television.

However, all this was broken by "Skyfall: Enemy at the Gates".

The science fiction elements reflected in these two minutes are not any of the above. If it has to be named, it would be called Chinese science fiction!
"Cough cough..." A cough made the audience and film critics put away their enthusiasm.

Seeing that Chenglong looked very weak, it seemed as if his super powers were overloaded.

Hui Yinghong and others came forward with concern, and Chenglong waved his hand to indicate that it was okay: "Pack up and go back. Next time, it won't be a small team coming."

A small group? ... The audience was surprised. Were all those filthy lights and eagles a small group? What would the size of the large group be?
Also, back? This is home? In other words, this is not their base camp?

As some information is interpreted from the fragmentary words, more information follows to make the audience understand something.

"You'd better use your abilities less. If you really die one day, we'll all be finished." Hui Yinghong said.

The audience interpreted the message that Cheng Xiong's superpowers cannot be used too often. From the context, it seems that the more he uses them, the weaker his body will become.

"Hong, I will only die after you." Chenglong said half jokingly and half seriously.

Hui Yinghong shrugged: "You see through the future, I believe you, then I feel relieved."

"The future?" Lin Feng walked over slowly. "You said that in the future there will be two people who will be our saviors and the nemesis of those alien creatures that even you can't do anything about. I doubt it. I'm not questioning you, but I don't believe there will be anyone more powerful than you."

Chenglong put on the black cloth to cover his eyes, which had recovered their black holes, and turned to look at the sky that looked like the Milky Way falling from the sky. Although the black cloth covered his eyes, under the forward-moving camera, it seemed as if Chenglong could see through the world on the other side: "Look, they are coming."

As soon as the words fell, the camera moved forward rapidly, aiming directly at the world on the other side of the sky.

The audience laughed. Will these two people be the saviors of Chenglong and his friends? Or will they be the ones who can stop the aliens?

This is very obvious, these two people must be Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei!

The story has a great rhythm. After a big thrill at the beginning, a few words serve as a transition, and then it immediately turns to a curious suspense.

What superpowers will Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei have?

How can they help Chenglong and others in the other world?
Also, what does the world on the other side look like? Is it the same as the sky here where it is always sunset and dusk?

As the camera got closer and closer to the sky, the audience was filled with anticipation.

(End of this chapter)