It took the sacrifice of many lives for Nameless (Wuming) to get this far. He was about to succeed, but was stopped at the last minute by Broken Sword (Canjian).
Furious, Nameless demanded:
"Broken Sword! Are you a man of Zhao?"
"Yes!"
"Is the Qin state going to destroy Zhao?"
"Yes!"
"Then isn't the King of Qin an enemy of Zhao?"
"Yes!"
"So who are you protecting? How can you call yourself a man of Zhao?"
"I'm fighting for the people of the world," Broken Sword replied.
"The people of the world?"
"Since the decline of the Zhou royal family, princes have fought each other for hundreds of years. How many people have been separated from their families? It has to end," Broken Sword stated.
"And you chose the King of Qin to end this chaos?" Nameless asked.
"It's not that I chose the King of Qin, but that I haven't seen anyone else who can end the chaos but him," Broken Sword said.
"Then your path and mine are ultimately different." Nameless's eyes were filled with murderous intent.
"Let the sword in my hand decide the affairs of the world!"
With both sides having their own stance, the only way to determine the path for the world was through the blade.
The film's ultimate climax had arrived.
Broken Sword and Nameless faced off in the great hall of the Qin palace in a duel to the death that would decide the fate of the world.
This Grade B difficulty action sequence, which gave Li Renjie a lot of trouble during filming, was finally presented to the audience.
"Oh! I can't believe my eyes, that was absolutely breathtaking!"
"Oh my God! After watching this duel, every other fight I see is going to feel boring."
"Unbelievable, just unthinkable!"
"It was so fast! My eyes couldn't keep up at all!"
"Is it over? Can I watch it again? No, I need to watch it ten more times!"
During the earlier fight scenes, the audience was interested and could still critique, saying they liked a certain sword move or a particular spear thrust.
They loved Nameless piercing out with his sword, precisely splitting the single white writing brush among countless falling black ones.
They loved Flying Snow (Feixue) spinning in the air, creating a swirl of golden leaves.
They loved Sky (Chang Kong) attacking with his spear like a dragon, kicking up countless raindrops.
...
These incredible moments could be clearly perceived and accurately described.
But when it came to this final, ultimate duel, the audience could only gasp, maybe offering the abstract feeling that it was "too fast."
They literally couldn't critique it.
How can you evaluate something if you can't even see the swordplay clearly?
The rapid, continuous sword moves Broken Sword executed on screen were completely dazzling and overwhelming.
"Cling!"
"Cling!"
"Cling!"
In a flash of lightning-speed sparks, Broken Sword's relentless attacks generated a continuous stream of flashes.
The audience could only feel a deadly beauty within the blur of blades, but they couldn't offer any precise critique.
All you got was a subjective feeling; you couldn't analyze the movements.
Even though it was hard to see, that actually made it more thrilling.
"What an amazing fight! I wonder how they filmed that!"
"It looks like someone dancing at three times speed, no, four times! How did they even remember the moves? How did they coordinate two people's actions?"
"Did they maybe shoot it in slow motion first and then speed it up?"
"No way, that would look weird. And didn't you notice the candle flames in the hall were flickering at a normal speed?"
"Stop guessing; the making-of footage is coming up."
At the end of this brutal duel, Broken Sword and Nameless both ended up dying, each on the path they were trying to defend.
After eliminating the deadly threat of the assassin, the King of Qin swept across the land and established the first unified feudal empire in history.
He standardized the writing system, the axle-length of carriages, and unified weights and measures, for the first time firmly fusing the land of Huaxia together.
From then on, this land would always reunite after being divided. Any regime that only sought to occupy a small area or retreat to a safe corner was inherently illegitimate.
The movie ended, but the audience didn't leave.
Everyone knew there were exciting bloopers, and they quietly waited in their seats to watch.
The first person to appear on screen was the action choreographer, Bob .
"I know him! That's the guy who ate 'crap' in the Jurassic Park 3 bloopers!" said the woman next to Luke.
"Yeah, I remember! That guy is hilarious!" the man next to her agreed.
On screen, Bob was crouching down, pointing at some dried, dark-red spots on the ground, and said, "Guess what this is?"
The next moment, he answered his own question: "It's the blood of a prairie wolf!"
"Did they get attacked by a wolf pack while filming the movie?" the man next to Luke wondered aloud.
On the screen, Bob smiled and said, "Luke was attacked by a wolf pack while he was out last night, but he drove them off all by himself. How do you think he did it?"
This time, Bob didn't continue but just looked at the camera quietly, as if waiting for the audience to guess.
"I saw the wolves bleeding. Luke is a master swordsman, so he must have used his sword, right?" the woman next to Luke said.
"When you're surrounded by wolves, it's dangerous even if you have a rifle," the man told her.
"The answer is... coins!" Bob opened his palm, where a few one-yuan coins were resting.
"Luke threw coins like bullets, hitting the wild wolves and driving them away," Bob announced the answer.
Standing beside him, Gao Yuanyuan raised her hand and said, "I was there, I can confirm it's true!"
The movie theater erupted at this revelation.
"Is that for real? Can someone actually do that?"
"Ever since Luke defeated Mike Tyson with one kick, I've believed there's nothing he can't do!"
"I'm not saying it's impossible, I just really need to see it to believe it."
"If that's true, isn't Luke like a walking, talking handgun?"
On screen, Bob grinned cheekily and said, "I bet you guys are skeptical, so how about I have Luke give you a demonstration? Didn't that just make your movie ticket worth every penny?"
"Hahaha! You totally get us!"
"If it's true, I'm buying a ticket to see this movie a second time!"
"You already said you were gonna see it again after the Poplar Forest duel, so if this is true, you owe us three viewings!"
On screen, Luke stood under the golden poplar trees, and a short distance away, Bob had an apple balanced on his head.
Luke looked at the camera and smiled, saying, "This guy's kind of a jerk, isn't he?"
"Hahaha! Yes, he is!"
"He's been messing with us this whole time! Teach him a lesson!"
"I support you intentionally missing the apple! Hit him instead!"
The audience members were all making good-natured jokes.
Seeing the audience's reaction, Luke, who was observing the scene, finally felt relieved.
Typically, blooper reels are just a one-way street, where the crew shows funny or dangerous moments from filming.
But this time, Luke suggested to Director Zhang Mou that they introduce an interactive element. Even though they couldn't truly talk back and forth, by guessing what the audience would be interested in and what their likely reaction would be, they could have a kind of conversation across the screen.
So far, it seemed to be working out pretty well.
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