Plot points discussions...

Before you read this, please note that this article contains spoilers of major plot points in the movie “wuxia”. If you do not wish to be spoiled, go watch the movie first. This is a discussion on several plot points in the film and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

It’s been a while since I had last written anything over anyone or even anything in general.

Today, I went to watch wuxia with my friends. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to get from the film. From the poster, I had expected a ipman-esque fight movie where you watch martial arts exponents spar on screen for the entertainment of the audience.

To be honest, the movie does feature many scenes of great martial arts fighting, but what I didn’t expect from the film was a great philosophical debate about life, justice, righteousness and possibly most important of all, redemption.

The film starts innocently enough where we are introduced to the daily life of our hero: 刘金喜。He works as a paper makers and seems to have a happy life with his wife and two kids. However, everything changes when two wanted robbers turned up in his village and attempted to rob and murder the owners of the general store in the village. After an initial reluctance, he made up his mind to engage the robbers in combat, albeit with a lack of skills, and somehow managed to kill the two most wanted robbers in the whole of China.

A coroner was called in and this is when we are introduced to our other protagonist, and this is when we are introduced to our other protagonist, 百九. He starts questioning how can 金喜，a lowly unskilled worker kill the two most wanted robbers in China, who has broke out of jail by overpowering the guards?
We’ll leave the rest of the details of the plot to spoilers, but what I’m going to do here is to go through a few thoughts that popped up in my head as I watched the film.

Throughout most of the film, we are presented with 百九insistence to ensure that justice is served, going as low as to bring his wife’s father to justice. His insistence serves to show the difference in which law and the world works. In the human world, many things are morally ambiguous, grey, so to speak. Take the scenario presented in “heavy rain” the PS3 visual novel as an example.

In one of the task that our protagonist in heavy rain had to do, he was told to kill a person to save his son. We know that that person is a good-for-nothing who sells drugs to other people for a living. Yet, is it right for us to take his life? In the scenario presented, we learn that he has a family too, that he has children and that he cares deeply for them too and perhaps, he has been driven to sell drugs because he has no other way out. Then, does he still deserve to die? However, we cannot choose grey (to kill, and not kill him at the same time) and we are left with the options black and white. Isn’t that the same way justice and law is being served in society? In law, there is only black and white. We can point to mitigation and leniency, but in the end, the law still clearly denotes who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

At the same time, we also see 金喜history. By this point, you should have been able to guess that he isn’t as simple as he has made out to be. This raises the second issue of being given a 2nd chance in life. More often than not, when someone commits a mistake, he is marked for life and no matter how much he may choose to repent, society may no longer be able to accept him, or in this case, the law tries to get to him again. It’s a basic repetition of “the yellow ribbon project” which I feel we do not really need to go into.

One statement that really stood out in this film was when one of the constables remarked “they’re saying prayers to the Earth Deity, because when they till the soil, they will inevitably hurt other small living organisms in the soil”

It seems like a simple statement at first glance talking about the farmers as they till the soil, but let’s take a moment to think about what it is actually referring to. Think about this, there is an aim that you are trying to achieve, but on the journey to reach that goal, other people may be hurt. Are those “hurt” that you commit negligible? Do we really need to care about them when we are achieving our goal? In the film, 百九insistence on serving justice ultimately leads to 金喜identity being revealed to be that of a murderer, shattering his wife’s heart and at the same time endangering the lives of the villagers and his family. Are those consequences less important than bringing justice to a person who has committed murder 10 years ago? If they are indeed less important, have they become the necessary sacrifice for the greater good?

What is the greater good then? Who defines what we should perceive and take as the greater good? Law? Government? Society? Moral Values?

Similarly, when government adopts any policies, what you are looking at is a trade-off, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. But is it really true that it is always for the greater good? What the government perceives as the greater good may not really be the greater good for everyone in society.

Another important aspect of this film is the fact that 百九，has two personalities side by side. One of them is where he is forgiving and trusts in the good nature of people while the other side is the side that feels that all humans are scum, that they are beings that will do things for their own selfish gain, and that only law and justice is absolute.

Essentially, grey, black and white in a single character. At the end of the film, 百九helped 金喜to defeat the final boss at the cost of his own life. At this part, we can see his alter ego standing slightly away, holding an umbrella as a single tear slowly rolled down his cheek their eyes connected.

Throughout the film, we see how 百九insistence that justice must be served slowly give way to the trust that he feels that this murderer has really seen the errors of his ways and want to repent from his past mistakes. Many times, the murderer has chosen to let him live even though he could have easily killed him to prevent him from being arrested by the coroner.

That trust finally culminated in the final fight of the movie where he risk his life to save 金喜。The tear on the cheek as he is dying symbolizes firstly maybe, the side that believe in the law pity at this sorry sad state. Because he choose to let his “human” side take over, he ends up dying, unable even to save his own self, let alone bring justice to the world.

Secondly, it symbolizes how this side of him realized that the world isn’t just black and white, and it is at this moment that he agrees with the course of action this his “human” side, which he has tried to buried throughout his entire life, has taken. He drops a tear to the acknowledgement of perhaps a greater meaning of the moral ambiguity that we see in life.

To put it in a greater perspective, you can see it as a contrast between two types of people in this world, the idealist and the realist. The idealist seeks to put ideals in front of realistic situations, they perhaps believe in the good side of human nature or that it is necessary to protect people like women and children. They feel the sacrifice of oneself is nothing compared to the fulfillment of idealistic values.

Meanwhile the realist would feel that the idealist is foolish and incapable of rationale thoughts. The realist would seek the thing that would benefit them, whether or not it would serve good to the society is a thought that does not really concern them. A realist would then see the world as black and white, as a list of things that would benefit or hurt them.

The world needs both types of people, you need the idealist and the realist to coexist, but many times, is that really possible?

These are just some of the thoughts in my head as I watched the film. However, I felt that the director was not sure about what he wanted from the film. It was like he was distracted, like “should I make a mental philosophical film or should I do a fighting, heart pumping, film…hmm?” As such, not all the ideas presented was adequately addressed and the fighting scene ended with bewilderment (not to be a spoiler, but seriously, a lightning bolt?!!?!) I would have appreciated if the film had stick to the philosophical part and addressed it fully.

Overall, it’s been awhile since I sat down to think like that and the above are all discussions and ranting, thus, no obvious conclusions are reached. It is meant for us to think and discuss, similar to how life is grey and never black and white.

Discmon