Monday, February 4, 2019

Shot Analysis and Contextualization


In this wide-rectangular (2.35:1) shot, we see a close-up of a man at an eye level shot that reveals his entire head and part of his torso. The man has dark hair with a cut akin to a bowl cut and a clean-shaven face. His eyes are slightly squinted, possibly from the sunlight since he is outside, as he views something off screen, just past the camera. Being outside, the man is flanked by green foliage that is out of focus, compared to our in-focus view of the man in the center-left part of the frame. The foliage seems to be part of trees, though any shape, including a top or bottom of these plants, is not readily discernible. The man wears a white shirt with a v-neck collar and some type of gray-blue coat or shirt is draped over his shoulder, obscuring half of his shirt on the right side of his torso. The man's right hand is also just barely visible, rising out of the frame in front of the gray-blue shirt over his chest. His fingers curl around a cracker held by his index finger and thumb and his mouth is cocked in a way that indicates that he is currently chewing the half-eaten cracker as he views whatever is off screen.

As for the context of the shot, we know that Bruce Lee's character, Cheng Chao-an, had just finished fighting a group of thugs sent by the Boss at the factory where he was previously working. At the factory, he discovered the bodies of his ill-fated family members, confirming his suspicion that his friends are not actually missing and that they were executed for meddling in the illicit affairs of the factory. After this discovery, the Boss's henchmen, including his son, try to eliminate Cheng, only to be vanquished. The next day, or later that same day, we now see Cheng approaching the Boss's mansion, where he hopes to avenge his fallen brethren, and rescue the woman who seems to be his love interest, Chiao Mei, who was previously captured by the Boss's men in a raid of Cheng's family home, where the rest of his cousins were slaughtered. In the imminent melee, Cheng hopes to defeat the Boss and his men and save Chiao Mei, and having defeated all prior threats sent his way, he approaches the compound with confidence, munching on a cracker, which seems to indicate a degree of cockiness in his demeanor.