"Epic" is a kind of folk narrative poetry, and it is a long poem praising historical themes. It is developed on the basis of short stories such as folk songs, myths and legends.
I dare not say that Hollywood is the best place to make epic movies in the world, but even if there are mistakes, I'm afraid it won't go too far, because since the birth of "The Birth of a Nation", it marks a leap from street peep shows to art halls. This film spread the magnificent picture of the American Civil War and laid the foundation for epic movies.
In fact, it is not easy to accurately locate epic movies in this era. For example, some people are willing to list Moggi's passion of the christ as an epic film, which seems to ignore the indispensable epic features of the film in this particular category:
There are too many roles, especially the walk-on, to remember;
There are magnificent war scenes; The story is set for a long time, preferably during the Roman Empire.
If the scene is spectacular, it will obviously cost a lot of money;
If music can swallow mountains and rivers, it is ideal that symphony and opera choir are together;
As for the length of the film, it is best to exceed two hours (the audience goes to the toilet at least once. If there is only one and a half hours of typical Hollywood movies, it seems to be sorry for the audience.
Epic movies need heroes.
The best epic film in recent years is The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in which amateurs watch the excitement and experts watch the doorway. Magic has entered a higher realm, so the elves, soldiers, tree spirits and so on in the play are all qualified to be "heroes" Boldly speaking, there are similarities between epic films and action films, at least these two films are barriers that cross national borders and cultures (epic films are more popular with judges than literary films); Audiences are willing to pay for epic movies. The huge scenes and towering peaks alone are worth the ticket price (even if the film is not good, the audience will not complain too much, because the director has no credit and hard work).
However, epic is a national legend and a hero's legend; Epic describes the fate of mankind, carrying a heavy history, rolling dust flying all over the sky. If the protagonist in the play is too thin to "prop up" the epic momentum of taking history as a mirror and poetry as a mirror, it will not be "called" an epic hero.
Absence of Asian epic heroes
Lawrence of Arabia 1962, Ben Xu 1959, Ten Commandments 1956, Warriors 2000, 200 1 to 2003. As for China with an ancient civilization, it seems difficult to find other wonderful epic movies except Farewell My Concubine. In fact, there are quite a few epic movies in Japan and South Korea (Korean brothers and samurai have been shown locally), but compared with the just-full emotions of Hollywood epic heroes, the heroes in Japan and South Korea are too delicate and often overwhelmed by the background of the great era, leaving some regrets.