"This group of captured Chinese revolutionary soldiers is extremely important. Send them back to the headquarters in Beiping and make sure to get useful clues from them."
In the Japanese consulate, a man in the uniform of the invaders wiped his long sword and ordered his men:
"Be careful, their people may send out a rescue operation. We must not let these people be rescued by the revolutionary army."
At the beginning of the film, these few short sentences already fit the theme.
Jiang Se originally thought that Zhang Jing'an's "Rescue Operation" referred to rescuing this group of arrested Chinese revolutionary soldiers, but Zhang Jing'an is still Zhang Jing'an, and he does not play by the rules.
As the story progresses, Jiang Se's guess is overturned.
This group of revolutionary troops was transported to a Japanese man named Zhou Mingchong and placed under strict surveillance.
Zhou Mingchong was an early businessman who entered China with the invading army. He has lived in China for several years and opened a Japanese restaurant, providing hometown meals for Japanese soldiers who miss home.
Because the captured revolutionary army was extremely important, the Japanese invaders wanted to use Zhou Mingchong to secretly take this group of people out of the city and send them to Peiping to prevent any rescue of the revolutionary army.
The male protagonist Liu Ye was also severely tortured among this group of arrested revolutionary troops.
When Zhou Mingchong took over the revolutionary army, he felt pity for these revolutionary soldiers who were severely tortured after being arrested.
He believed that the Japanese invaders' actions were brutal and against their nature, and he could not tolerate the outrageous cruelty of his fellow countrymen, so he suddenly turned against them and changed his mind from helping his compatriots to joining the revolutionary army.
Zhou Mingchong risked his life to secretly treat the injuries and recuperation of several revolutionary soldiers who had been tortured, while actively trying to contact their compatriots and rescue them from the area occupied by the Japanese invaders.
In the end, Zhou Mingchong relied on his special Japanese identity to let the captured revolutionary soldiers go, but put himself in an extremely dangerous environment.
The plot of the movie is compact and interlocking. On a rainy night, Zhou Mingchong personally drove several revolutionary soldiers out of the city. Under the heavy inspection of the Japanese army, he drove to the city gate with difficulty.
"Eguchi-san, you're going out so late?"
Zhou Mingchong was just Jiangkou's alias in China. He opened a restaurant in China. Many Japanese soldiers sometimes missed the food in their hometown and would often go to his restaurant for meals. They were not strangers to him.
At this moment, there were still a few revolutionary soldiers lying in the back of the car whose injuries had not yet fully recovered. The actor who played Zhou Mingchong in the movie was a veteran actor who had been in the circle for many years. His every move and every expression in his eyes and eyebrows were full of drama.
After he was stopped, cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
The camera gave a close-up of his face here, his cheek muscles twitching and worry in his eyes.
Through the lens, the audience can vaguely see some shadows in the back seat. Even if they don’t see anything, these few shadows alone are enough to make people imagine.
Zhang Jing'an is very good at using these subtle details in his layout. He neither uses the elements he loved to use in previous movies to capture the tension of the revolutionary army hiding in the car, nor does he use the old-fashioned approach of having them show up at the critical moment. Instead, he uses this little bit of swaying shadows to grab people's hearts.
At this moment, the audience seemed to be infected by his nervousness, and began to worry about the characters in the movie unconsciously.
His nervousness was too obvious, his body was tense and his body language showed fear.
Jiang Se was attracted by the plot and couldn't help but reach out to pull Pei Yi's hand, leaning his head on Pei Yi's arm, but his eyes were still fixed on the screen.
Pei Yi looked back at her, held her hand tightly, and tilted his head to rub his chin against the top of her head.
It was raining heavily in the movie. In order to prevent others from seeing the cold sweat on his head, Zhou Mingchong opened the car door and jumped out of the car. The rain wet his hair and clothes, and also washed away the sweat on his head.
"It's raining so hard, you must be working hard."
He seemed not to care about the car in the rain and chatted quietly with the soldier guarding the post. His Japanese identity did not make the soldiers suspicious of him.
After a conversation, he made up an excuse that he wanted to leave the city and was easily allowed to pass.
After the car drove out of the city, Zhou Mingchong released several revolutionary soldiers and asked them to flee quickly.
His action was tantamount to treason to the Japanese invaders. If he was caught, he would surely be killed.
Zhou Mingchong urged Liu Ye and others to hurry up. Liu Ye asked hesitantly:
"And you?"
After spending some time together, Liu Ye has come to know Zhou Mingchong well. He still has a conscience and is very just. He sympathizes with the plight of Liu Ye and others, so he risks his life to get them out of danger.
"Me? I want to go back."
Zhou Mingchong showed helplessness on his face:
"There are many servants in the Zhou family. They should not bear the responsibility for my actions. The responsibility that should be borne by me should be borne by myself."
He advised Liu Ye and others to escape quickly, and he also drove back to the city.
He knew that this was a dead end, but he couldn't just watch others suffer because of him.
In order to prevent the Japanese invaders from catching up and capturing the men again, Zhou Mingchong sent them far away. When he was ready to return to the city, the sun had already risen.
At this time, Zhou's family had been controlled by the Japanese invaders.
Last night, when the Japanese army headquarters wanted to interrogate the revolutionaries, they found that the place where the revolutionaries were detained was deserted.
These people were hiding in Zhou's house, but now they disappeared. The people above investigated those who left the city last night and easily found Zhou Mingchong.
The Japanese army surrounded the Zhou family and captured all of the family's servants.
After the movie had been going on for sixty minutes, it was finally time for Jiang Se to appear.
The Zhou family's servants were tied up and pushed to the riverside. Many Japanese invaders with guns pointed at these people.
The maid played by Jiang Se also had her hands tied behind her back, but she stood straight and looked coldly at Gao Rong, who had a gloomy expression opposite her, with hatred in her eyes.
"Zhou Mingchong stole important documents and is now missing. If anyone knows where he is, the Imperial Army will reward him handsomely."
He had a bayonet on his waist and walked back and forth with the handle pressed down. The clattering sound of his military boots on the ground caused great psychological pressure on people.
Jiang Se looked at herself on the screen. She was wearing a tattered jacket, her hair was disheveled, and she looked dishevelled. Her body was still trembling under the camera.
When filming that day, she was thinking of 'Feng Nan'. When filming this scene, she simply substituted her angry and unwilling mood into the play. At that time, she had just been reborn not long ago. She originally joined the crew for the first time to make money, but suddenly heard news about 'Feng Nan' in the crew.
In addition, she had fallen into the water several times before, and due to some coincidences, when she faced Gao Rong, she was not suppressed by Gao Rong's aura like the extra who was replaced by Zhang Jingan himself. (To be continued)