Creation Of The Effect Of "Visual Highlighting Aesthetics"

Chinese swordsmen film is not only one type of movies the common people have been enjoying the most for almost a hundred years, but also a type of commercial movies characterized the most, being developed the most maturely and being the most competitive in China. The "Tiger" ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") directed by Ang Lee, the "Hero" and "Ambush on All Sides" by Zhang Yimou coming out at the end of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st century have aroused a keen interest of Chinese people in swordsmen film of which the effect of "Visual Highlighting Aesthetics" is the distinguishing feature. These movies mentioned above impress the audiences first and foremost as being very interesting, delightful and poetic.Ang Lee, as a director born in Taiwan and enjoying a higher reputation internationally nowadays, has formed his artistic style with the characterization in a Chinese-and-Western-combined manner, the unique means for narration and the outstanding movie techniques. His film creation reflects a perfect integration of commercial quality with artistic quality. What Ang Lee expressed in the "Tiger" is not a historical play but more an inharmoniousness of the inward with the outward of human being, only to which he needs to express in a visual language belonging. The visual sense got from the "Tiger" is no longer kept to playback the history or to design a land in mind but, what's more, to show to the world the Chinese civilization of long standing as well as the space of thinking and emotion the Chinese people have specifically. Visually speaking, the "Tiger" is a classical swordsmen film produced in a meticulous way and as having more humane disposition.The "Tiger", full of beautiful frames, is permeated with the style of Ang Lee being like a scholar. The light colors used in freehand brushwork and the gracefulness like landscape painting become the classics in the "Tiger". The frames possess the poetry of Chinese traditional culture with the beautiful and lovely waterfront village in the south of the Yangtze River, the vast desert enveloped in yellow sands, the secluded grove of bamboo with shady green and the Wudang Mountain laden with white smoke. Ang Lee arranges for those scenes of dust-up that are the most important to take place in the moonlight and those scenes of pursuing, with less contest, to take place from the mansion house to the green bamboo grove, in which the clear and secluded colors, the Chinese courtyard's outline in shadow and the gauze curtain waving in the breeze show a mysterious and romantic Oriental charm, a deep, quiet and abstruse color, a vicissitude of life, a depression and sentimentalism, all which bring the audience an experience of complete freshness of the legendary fascination of swordsmen world.The "Tiger" may be rated as a top piece of work in the connection of acrobatic fighting scenes, in which the excellence of the combination of art with acrobatic fighting lies in the fluctuation happened unexpectedly. While Yu Jiaolong, sleepless in the quiet of the night, musing over the past memories, the shot is shifted suddenly from the boudoir at night to the northern frontier under the sun shining brightly. What appears suddenly on the screen is the scene of desolation in the Gobi Desert, the scene of confused fighting and the shot of Luo Xiaohu galloping ahead with sword drawn. The northern-frontier scene and the appearance of national minority unfolded before the audience's eyes should attribute the success to Ye Jintian, the artistic director, and Bao Dejia, the photographic director. What is more attracted toward is the horseback riding pursuit between Yu Jiaolong and Luo Xiaohu. Yu Jiaolong seemingly delicate, unexpectedly, mounts a horse, shoots with the bow and arrow and brandishes the spear from time to time. The horseback riding pursuit and fighting turned to a new page the legend of Chinese swordsmen film.Zhang Yimou, as a director having won the most prizes and being followed with the most interest worldwide and also a pioneer of Chinese cinematographic art in the new period, is symbolized with the unique film moldings and the poignant contrast of colors. The "Hero", through the transition of Wu Ming, an assassin from the State of Zhao, from deciding to assassinate the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty to giving up to do so, not only shows such a life realm to keep the entire world in mind and to die for a cause but also publicizes the ideal and conviction to keep the country being at peace. In the respect of artistic expression, what the director pursues is the charm of acrobatic skills and swordsmanship, the beauty and the maximization thereof, for which is presented an artistic conception as being spacious, illusory, obscure and indescribably wonderful. In the "Hero", the power of movies is shown by these natural scenery in different regions of China such as the clear water of a lake in the Jiuzhai Valley, the golden diversiform-leaved poplar trees in the Inner Mongolia, the sun setting in the wild west-wind in the desert in Dunhuang, the acrobatic fighting action elegant and graceful (contest in the Chess House), the scenes showing the magnificence, powerfulness, desolation or boundlessness, the splendid colors, beautiful dress, the house with courtyard and winding corridor, the calligraphy made by vigorous strokes as well as the music that, composed by Tan Dun, won high praises for its "being simple and unadorned, bold and rough, resounding and desolate". It cannot be denied that this movie is very interesting, delightful and poetic.In the "Hero", Zhang Yimou displays his talent, at its maximum, in photography and colors. He, by using respectively red, blue, white and green as the dominant hue, tells a story about Can Jian and Fei Xue in four different versions. He displays the colors of the scenes in the "Hero" in full colors and with a tremendous momentum embodying the lute-playing and acrobatic contest in the chess house, cleaving the water and passing through in rain, the golden falling leaves, while Fei Xue killed Ru Yue, fluctuating into the boundless heart-stirring red color suddenly discharging all over the sky, the arrows flying like locusts as well as the green curtain floating from the ceiling in the palace of Qin Dynasty.It stands to reason that Zhang Yimou, with his experience from the "Hero" and for the visual scenes' effect of his "Ambush on All Sides", won the award for the outstanding artistic directors in 2004 which, as a technical award, is given by the US NBR. In the sense of colors, Zhang Yimou lays more stress on extensiveness and naturalness, the improvement by the association of scenes with stories and also characters with the nature. For doing the "Ambush on All Sides", Zhang Yimou has traveled varies of larger scenery locations at home and abroad and finally chosen the Ukraine that is as beautiful as a painting. While doing the film abroad with his team, he still shows the mountains, waters and bamboo groves with the shot effects, as brilliant as before, for music workshops, costumes, swords and so on, and even spends 20 and more minutes in arranging a single color. Zhang Yimou has created a special visual effect by an Oriental shot.The stress laid to visual stimulus in the "Ambush on All Sides" goes even farther than that in the "Hero". In the film are also applied respectively black, green, yellow and white as the under-painting, by which the purity of color has again produced a full visual effect. The director provides the audience enduring memories with the golden sea of flowers and the mountains covered with white-gleaming snow in Ukraine. The special effected scenes of acrobatic fighting and prosperous downtown also shock the hearts of the people. What in the film are acclaimed as the acmes of perfection are the three characters displaying their talents for the first time in the magnificent Peony Hall; the head constable named Liu scattering beans to show the way valiantly and naturally; the little sister beating, with her long sleeves, the drum while preserving her gentle, lovely but vigorous bearing; the unique skill of throwing displayed in the sea of flowers as well as the "sticking bamboos into the ground to restrict the activities to the designated area" in the grove of green bamboo. Moreover, none are unmoved by the dueling done for affection and life at the moment of "decisive fighting on the snow".From the swordsmen film produced at the beginning of the new century and represented by the "Tiger", "Hero" and "Ambush on All Sides", the "Visual Highlighting Aesthetics" is unexceptionally applied as the ace in the hole for the swordsmen film these directors have created, by which both elaborately ornate scenes and brilliant special effects have electrified the audience visually and from which the audience have received visual pleasant or satisfaction. In these movies, the meticulous design for the highlighting colors and acrobatic fighting scene has disclosed these directors' aesthetically consistent pursuit.