SS: 8/10 New, breath-taking, and touching, a brilliant and creative way of storytelling, bringing the war to the audience or another way around.

Having 7 nominated in Oscar, and won 3 of them, this fantastic war film 1917 is finally on the big screen in China. Although having Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 4K rescreening as its biggest rival which has earned 31 million dollars since the rescreening, 1917 has earned 9.7 million, a not bad grade.

Even though China is one of the victorious countries, the main battlefield was not taken place in China, this film may not raise any emotional feeling or appealing audience by using emotional feeling in China. But its talented and well-known cinematography and screenplay did the job.

Using long take is dangerous and difficult, which require many times of rehearsal in advance and all units, not only actors but also the lighting unit, camera unit, sounds and many others cooperating closely than ever. One tiny mistake could ruin the whole take and all unit need to reprepare the set for another take. So how about the whole film is a long take, no other takes, one take and one long take only? Of course, the film is not really a long take, it just looks like a long take, but still, it needs lots of long takes combining together, using few cameras and lightning tricks as the “glue” to glue up different parts, all of these are brilliant and brave. Thanks to the marvellous cinematography technique, the audience is like the third soldier in this “suicide-like” mission with other who, not as a watcher but more like a witness.

Back to the story itself, comparing to the technique, the story seems too simple, the audience may be surprised by the long take but when the film over, rethink the story, it’s hard to find a highlight in the story but all are talking about the technique. But the character building, especially some characters only have a few seconds scene, the writer and director know how to introduce a character in a very short time and did a very good job on this part.

Overall, 1917 could be a phenomenon film, calling it one of those films which can represent the industry in the past ten years would be quite fair.