OPINION> Columnist
Lifelike above all?
By Li Hongmei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-12-04 09:08

A handsome military dog, German Shepherd and seemingly well-trained, rushed downhill, tied to it a smoking explosive package, the one as usually seen in any Chinese war movie, but suddenly with a loud explosion, the dog was bombed into shreds. This is the last shot shown in a movie-- King of Dogs, and recounted by the director, who was bragging about what he had done to produce the lifelike effects when he turned out the movie 15 years ago in a recent TV talk show program.

In the program, he highlighted the importance of real effects in artistic expression. ‘Keeping true to life is essential to any form of arts, well, movies should first of all turn out to be real both visually and physically,’ he said, and added the soldier, who had been assigned to raising and training the dog, almost dropped in faint when he witnessed the scene. Immediately after the talk show was aired, people from all across the country began to fire criticism at the TV station in question finger pointing the program was in a very bad taste. Many cursed the director and called him ‘cold blood butcher,’ and some netizens even called for a trawl through the net to trace down the ‘murderer.’

The director’s plausible explanation for the sake of real artistic effects again unleashed a barrage of condemns. People protesting the practice hurled a poignant query at the director concerned, ‘if you intended to produce a movie about Nanking Massacre, would you really do manslaughters?’ As a reminder of the intolerable movie shots in which animals are brutally mutilated, the movie, though not so popular and long after its running season, has also triggered a new wave of indignation amid animal lovers across China.

With time, the online discussion on ‘artistic realism’ has gone far beyond animal rights and animal protection in recent days. The netizens also listed many films as the ‘culture killer,’ as countless damages on cultural sites and relics have been caused in the directors’ reckless pursuit of ‘artistic realness,’ and artificial mistakes like this are mostly the ones which cannot be atoned for, leaving the everlasting perdition to the Chinese culture.

The movie,The Promise, for instance, had reduced many historic sites of the Shaolinsi Temples to ruins when it enjoyed a pleasant box-office value in 2005.

Perhaps, a movie’s artistic attainments could be based on the criteria such as lifelike effects and appalling realism, but can this be the decisive factors to a movie’s success or not? Or so to speak, is it possible to use real bloodshed in order to interpret a movie showing killing scenes? More over, the modern movie shooting skills backed up by advanced machinery and up-to-date photographic and cartoon technology can help a lot to replicate the scenes without any discount. This is also a commonplace practice by many Hollywood directors.

After all, whether it be documentary or fiction, realistic or not, a popular movie must be, first and foremost, environment-friendly and in a good taste; and if it intends to go in-depth to touch the audience and become a real hit in the market, it must display some humanitarian concerns featuring the basic formula of love and care.