Last night I revisited Akira Kurosawa's 1963 "Heaven and Hell". This is true of many of his works. I watched it again and again and again. Like a monumental painting, it does not lie in a story, nor in a moment of wonder or joy. Unforgettable memories, review the past and learn the new.

The story of the film is based on Edward Macburn's "Ginger's Ransom", and the ideas it conveys go beyond that. Kurosawa's shots are as full and deep as ever, with no irrelevant information. Scenery, objects, people, and every frame of composition present an insurmountable beauty. In particular, the control of the scenes in the group scenes is like a group portrait. The far, middle and close shots are well-proportioned, and the precise capture of everyone's expressions always makes me marvel.

The film is 143 minutes long and can be divided into three major acts. The first act depicts the characters with tension like a drama. The only scene is a high-altitude modern Western-style mansion. In a comfortable environment like heaven, you have to make choices that torture human nature; the second act is to return to the human world. The battle between justice and criminals is a true master-class detective film, full of suspense and extraordinary courage; in the third act, with the filthy smelly pond as the dividing line, with the background music of Schubert's "Trout", you are about to enter the world. to hell.

The middle-aged industrialist Gon Teng Jingo played by Toshiro Mifune is holding a board meeting on the national shoe industry in his mountaintop mansion to discuss the quality of new shoes.

Quan Teng’s statement was impassioned. He felt that we should not only focus on reducing costs and increasing profits, but ignore the quality of the shoes themselves. This statement was obviously very different from the other three people's philosophy of quick success, so they threatened to remove him from the board of directors and replace him with an obedient puppet.

Faced with threats and temptations, Quan Teng chose his conscience. Not only that, he also showed the ambitious side of a promising industrialist. He comforted his beautiful wife who was worried about him and his right-hand assistant who had been following him for many years. He confidently claimed that everything had been arranged secretly and was just waiting to complete the final five-dollar deal. By purchasing tens of millions of shares, you can become invincible. He took out the check and handed it to his assistant, who asked him to book a flight and prepare for the transaction.

A phone call that night awakened Quan Teng from his sweet dream. During the phone call, Quan Teng first heard that his son had been kidnapped and that the other party demanded a ransom of 30 million for the child's life. Soon he learned that the kidnapper had made a mistake. After Quan Teng's driver's son was kidnapped, when faced with the kidnapper's demand that he still pay the ransom, the contrast in Quan Teng's attitude made people understand and lament human nature.

How to choose between the life of someone else’s son, the career and wealth that I have worked hard for my whole life?

The plot enters into a scene full of suspense and moral struggle. The driver who is always anxious but helplessly bowing his head in silence in the corner of the camera, and his wife who is always opposite or beside Quan Teng trying to persuade him to make sacrifices to save his children. Quan Teng occupies the center of the camera. He is the one who controls the situation, his The decision concerns the fate of your children and your family. The police officer (played by Tatsuya Nakadai) who enters the camera from time to time to analyze the situation and answer questions always appears sympathetic, responsible, but helpless in this scene.

Indoor furnishings (such as clocks, phones, desk lamps, curtains, sofas...) that remain in the same position appear between the characters as the camera changes, metaphorizing the distance between them.

After experiencing a whole night of ideological struggle and the sudden betrayal of his assistant, Quan Teng finally decided to give up his career and good life the next day. So in Kurosawa's amazing deep shot, we see the police officer analyzing the phone recording in the foreground, the police officers racing against time to count the money in the medium shot, and Quan Teng sitting alone in the darkness sadly in the long shot.

On a fast-moving train, there is a drama about paying a ransom at the request of criminals. Under the camera, Quan Teng and holding the money bag with firm eyes are holding their breaths. The police, who were preparing to go, could only hear the noise of the train running on the track in the silence, and the tension was suffocating.

The train phone rang, and everyone in the carriage was alert and anxious, pressing toward the camera from far and near. After Quan Teng stuffed the money bag out of the car window, he had to sigh at the criminal's ingenious design in this link.

Then finally, Quan Teng lifted up the driver’s child in the sunshine. The policemen looked at this scene from a distance, and they must have admired and admired it as much as I did.

The camera went to the streets and the police station, and the case entered the investigation phase. I especially admire the seriousness and responsibility of the police in handling the case in the film, and they do everything down to the smallest detail. Heat is always used by black directors to symbolize the anguish of the human world. In the film, during the police's more than ten-minute case analysis meeting, I saw the dedicated mortals reporting the investigation progress of each team while dripping with sweat, and I couldn't help but feel comforted. .

The criminal is undoubtedly very cunning and the case is not solved smoothly. The police combined a large number of visits and investigations, and with the help of the driver and children, they finally arrived at the crime scene, only to find that the criminal's two accomplices had been killed by the main criminal with drugs in a remote hut.

The astute police officer discovered that the main criminal did not take away the stolen money shared by the two deceased people, and judged that he should not know the exact result that the two people were dead. So the United Media released false news.

Schubert's cheerful and flowing A major piano quintet famous song "Trout" is playing in the background, and the close-up picture of the camera is a There is a filthy and smelly pond with all kinds of garbage floating in it. Next to the pond is the shabby wooden house that looks like a doghouse for the impoverished young intern doctor Takeuchi.

Looking from the window of Takeuchi's house, one can clearly see the lofty mansion of the Quan Teng family. Previously, Takeuchi monitored the activities of the Quan Teng family from here.

At this moment, Takeuchi was angrily staring at a news article in the newspaper "Dirty money was found on the market." The news photo was of a unique money bag like that of Quan Teng. Takeuchi hurriedly took out his money bag, put it into an old cardboard box, and hurried out the door.

The police officer came to visit Quan Teng, who was about to move out of the mansion. When the two fell into a helpless silence, through the large floor-to-ceiling windows of the mansion, they saw the rising mountains not far away from the foot of the mountain. There is pink smoke (a special potion was put into the leather purse before the ransom was paid), which is the only color in the entire black and white film.

It turns out that heaven and hell are not far away, they can be seen. Subsequently, the police followed the clues and captured the young intern doctor when Takeuchi sneaked back to the house of two accomplices in an attempt to attack again.

During this process, the police disguised themselves as a relay and followed Takeuchi, who was about to deal drugs, to a bar, where American soldiers looking for fun could be seen everywhere. The crowded, noisy and chaotic bar scene makes people feel uncomfortable.

Takeuchi once walked through the bustling crowd and came to the beach. This young man committed a heinous crime. At this moment, he was blowing the sea breeze and looking at the distant sea. What was he thinking?

Takeuchi has also been to dark alleys, where drug-addicted people are lying and wandering, looking as ugly as zombies. One of the women scratched at the iron bars like crazy, her eyes full of greed and lust.

In order to facilitate Takeuchi's death penalty, the police here did not arrest him in advance, which directly resulted in a drug-addicted woman becoming a victim of Takeuchi's experimental drug dosage (in order to use drugs to kill him who mistakenly thought she had betrayed him) two accomplices). Apart from a brief close-up of the woman dying with a ferocious face, there is no further explanation of her death, it is just brushed off without any sound.

By the way, Takeuchi once bumped into Quan Teng who didn't recognize him on the street. This man who had lost all his money was actually choosing gifts for his family outside the shop window with great interest. Takeuchi stared at Quan Teng for a while, then walked up to him and asked him to lend him a fire to light a cigarette. Two men from different "classes" faced each other for the first time. The flames briefly lit up and then went out, and Quan Teng turned around and left.

At the end of the story, Takeuchi, who was sentenced to death, only asked to meet Quan Teng. In the prison, through the glass wall, their reflections overlapped. Opposite the former capitalist, Takeuchi crossed his legs and smiled unnaturally.

Quan Teng, who relied on his wife's dowry and half-life struggle to change his destiny, no longer bears grudge against the criminal in front of him who made it all come to nothing.

"Trout" was originally a poem by the German poet Schubart in the 18th century. Schubart was imprisoned for political reasons and wrote this poem out of his desire for freedom in prison. The moral is that kindness and simplicity are often harmed by deceit and evil. Finally, he clearly warns young people who are new to society not to become naive and innocent trout.