Film sequence- Only God Forgives

The film sequence I am explaining is the fight scene between Julian and Chang in Only God Forgives. The theme of this sequence is death and loss. The mood of the sequence is dark, dangerous and there is great tension between the two characters. The sequence starts with a long tracking shot of Julian and his girlfriend walking towards a red chair. They are both walking slowly, almost in slow motion. I believe they are walking slowly because they are scared of Chang, and Julian thinks that he could lose. We then see a long shot of Chang in the centre of the stage. He isn’t getting warmed up for the fight, instead he is staring at Julian. Chang is ready to fight Julian and he is waiting for him. If you look at Julian’s girlfriend, she is clearly scared of Chang. This is because she knows how good a Thai fighter he is, and she is worried for Julian in case he loses.  We then see Chang’s friends who are the complete opposite. They are both seating back, confident that Chang will win and they are not worrying. Next, we get a long shot of Chang waiting for Julian. In this shot, we can talk about the mise-en-scene. Behind Chang is a big dragon. I believe this is there to show Thai/Chinese culture. On the other hand, because it’s behind Chang, it could be a metaphor for Chang’s fighting ability. Chang could be as quite, powerful and dangerous as a tiger is. In this shot we can also a lot of red. I think this is warning us of danger and death, one of these characters will die soon. On the other hand, others think this could be love. If Julian beats Chang, his mother will finally love him because he has avenged his brother’s death. After all, throughout the film he wants his mum to love him as much as she loved his brother. We can also boxer statue, but I will talk about this later on. As Julian is walking into the shot music suddenly plays. This is non-diegetic sound. This is being played because it gives the beat and tempo of the fight. The music is also warning us that the fight is about to begin.

 

The camera then pans around Chang. There is no emotion on him, he is unfazed by Julian and he is ready to fight. Throughout the shot, Julian doesn’t even move, he just stands there staring at Julian, trying to make him feel scared. This then cuts to a tracking medium shot of Julian walking, undoing his clifflings. Although Julian also does show any emotion, you can tell he is scared of Chang, hence why he is moving around instead of standing still. We get a eye-level medium-close up shot of Chang. There is low key lighting used, indicating danger, darkness and mystery. After we see them staring at each other, we get a birds-eye angle looking down on them both. This is done for a number of reasons. Firstly, to give us a view on both of them before they fight. Secondly, and most importantly, it’s like God is looking down on them both. He’s watching the fight. This is a clear link to the title of the film, Only God Forgives. We see the fight on a long shot. This is to show how both characters are fighting, we can see their techniques. If they used a close up shaky cam shot, this would be bad because we couldn’t see what is happening. Throughout the fight, Julian lands no punches on Chang. It cuts to Julian’s girlfriend who looks shocked, showing she didn’t know how good Chang. It then cuts to Chang’s friends who look the exact same. They knew that Chang would win, so they aren’t shocked. When Julian falls to the ground, it cuts to a long shot of Julian’s mum walking towards the camera. Once again, she is also emotionless. When it cuts back to the fight, Chang is heavily beating Julian and there is nothing Julian can do. After kicking him down several times, it shows Julian’s mum. Instead of looking concerned for her son, she doesn’t care. It almost looks like she wants it to happen to Julian, as she doesn’t love him. The camera then zooms into Chang. He then pulls a stance which Julian similarly used earlier.  It then cuts to the boxer statue which uses the same stance which Chang is using. This is used symbolically. It’s clear that Julian wants to be a good fighter like the statue, hence why he uses the same stance as him. However, he isn’t a good fighter. Whereas, Chang is and he uses the same stance correctly. When Julian gets back up, the music dies down, so you can the diegetic sounds as well as the soundtrack in the background. You can hear Julian’s heavy breathing meaning he’s hurt and can’t fight much longer. It then cuts back up to the birds-eye shot again, where we can see Julian missing all of his punches. Once again, this shows us that God is watching and he is forgiving Julian yet. As Chang beats more and more into Julian, it shows the statue again. This is again showing us the boxer Julian wants to be, but isn’t because of how good Chang is. When Julian is finally down, we see both his mum and his girlfriend walk away. This is surprising because you would have thought they want to look after him and be concerned about him, but they aren’t. Or, it could be because they are scared of Chang that they have to leave quickly. When Julian’s girlfriend walks away to the door, it’s almost like she is walking out of his life for good. She will never see her again. The sequence ends with a defeated Julian on the floor. Clearly, after taking a beating, God has finally forgave Julian. In many ways, Chang is God, beating him up and taking revenge from Julian. He could be God and now he is forgive.