Historic saga eyes foreign market

冯小刚出品一直是商业化的成功案例。而这次，他在新片《一九四二》中，完全抛弃了植入广告，重归历史题材，并放眼国际市场，力求交上一份满意答卷。

Feng Xiaogang is perhaps China’s most clever commercial movie director. He hasn’t directed one movie that failed to make a handsome profit in recent years, including Assembly in 2007, If You Are the One in 2008 and Aftershock in 2010.

冯小刚也许是中国最精明的商业片导演了。近年来他所执导的影片步步卖座，从未失手，包括2007年的《集结号》、2008年的《非诚勿扰》以及2010年的《唐山大地震》。

For some, Feng may be too commercial at times product placement in his movies is often conspicuous and has even become a laughing stock.

对于一些人而言，冯小刚有时太过商业化了 他影片中的植入广告往往十分显眼，甚至这已经成为了一个笑柄。

But with his new epic Back to 1942, Feng might avoid such criticism.

而凭借最新史诗巨制《一九四二》，冯小刚导演或许可以摆脱这些骂名。

Based on a novel by Liu Zhenyun, Back to 1942 tells the true story of the devastating Henan province famine that claimed more than 3 million lives in 1942, a time when China was engaged in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).

该片根据刘震云小说改编而成，讲述了一个真实的故事 1942年正值中国人民的抗日战争（1937-1945年），河南省遭遇严重饥荒，超过300万人丧生。

This historic background provides the perfect material to create a blockbuster movie. And Feng is no stranger to using exciting elements, such as devastating natural disasters (as seen in Aftershock) and thrilling battle scenes (as seen in Assembly).

这一历史背景为炮制大片提供了绝佳的题材。而冯小刚在调动这些激动人心的元素上已经是位老手了，如《唐山大地震》中毁灭性的自然灾害以及《集结号》中那些惊心动魄的战争场景。

Combined with a strong cast, which includes Xu Fan, Zhang Guoli, Chen Daoming and Zhang Hanyu, it is almost certain that these elements will ensure the movie becomes a major box office hit, at least in China.

加上徐帆、张国立、陈道明以及张涵予这些超强的演员阵容，可以断定的是，这几大要素必保本片票房大卖，至少在国内绝对。

But this time, Feng seems to have set his eyes on the international market as well. Joining the strong Chinese cast are two big names from Hollywood: Tim Robbins (who plays a Catholic priest) and Adrien Brody (who plays American journalist Theodore White).

而这一回，冯小刚似乎将目光同时投向了国际市场。除了一种华语演员外，他还力邀了好莱坞双雄的加盟：扮演天主教神父的蒂姆 罗宾斯以及饰演美国记者白修德的亚德里安 布劳迪。

Many of the movie’s scenes, like the ones showing the bombing attacks by the Japanese army, are very Hollywood-style, both in terms of their scale and technical level.

片中，包括日军轰炸场面在内的有许多镜头，就规模及技术层面而言，都是十足的好莱坞范。

But somehow, despite the cast mostly bearing up to the challenge of delivering their roles, the movie, like many of its kind, such as White Deer Plain, falls short on generating an emotional impact. It seems to confirm the old saying “one man dying is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic figure”.

但不知为何，尽管应付起这些富有挑战性的角色来，演员们大都驾轻就熟。同《白鹿原》等同类型影片一样，该片却无法打造出情感上的震撼。这似乎也印证了那句老话：“死一个人，是个悲剧；死一百万人，那就不过是个统计数据罢了。”

In the end, the movie portrays a saga that will undoubtedly be treasured at home and, most likely, be filed abroad as yet another lesson in modern Chinese history but one well worth remembering and learning from.

说到底，该片成功描述了一部长篇历史故事，这个故事毫无疑问将受到国人的重视，并且很可能被西方整理成中国近代史的又一课 而这个故事也记得人们铭记并从中学到些什么。