The Best Director

Chapter 166: Chapter 166 The Best Science Fiction Movie of This Summer

“Yes, yes, yes, this is an illegal construction, level it!” On the big screen, a barren and dirty plot of land, a giant bulldozer marked with the MNU logo can be seen rolling straight over a tin house, emitting a crunching metal sound as the house is slowly pushed and flattened.

Not far from there, a green adult prawn-like creature hops around in anxiety and pain, yelling something at Robert Downey Jr., who’s dressed as a supervisor, in an angry manner. His child stands beside him, holding a tattered teddy bear, staring blankly at the fallen tin house.

The MNU eviction team and the TV show crew members all stand to the side, laughing and talking spiritedly. Downey Jr. wears a smirk as if he’s enjoying the scene, and says to the camera with a smile, “That guy says this is his home, hahaha!” He turns to the prawn creature and yells loudly, “This is not your home, this planet, this land is not yours! Get out, out, out!”

He viciously swings his fist, pretending to charge forward and hit the prawn creature, who lets out a “woah” and raises both hands, showing he means no harm. Downey Jr. then turns back to the camera, laughing gleefully, “See, see? Some of them are so cowardly, it’s hilarious! If you hold a rock, they’ll even pee themselves.”

The crowd around them bursts into laughter, with only a few accompanying soldiers displaying mocking looks of disdain. At that moment, the green prawn creature lets out an intolerable scream and lunges towards Downey Jr., who is still twisting his body and saying, “Peeing everywhere.” A chorus of shocked “ohs” rises from the dimly lit theater.

Bang! With a gunshot, the prawn creature bends over in pain, his right knee shot to a bloody pulp. A bald colonel holding a pistol aims at the prawn creature, emitting a taunting, bloodthirsty chuckle, pulling the trigger again and again, firing into the prawn creature’s left knee, hands, stomach, chest, and other body parts.

Amidst Downey Jr. shouting, “Hey, this is illegal, don’t kill him!” the colonel moves the pistol and shoots the prawn creature in the head, lying on the ground and convulsing, blowing it open. The bald colonel looks at the alien child streaming with tears, with a heh heh laugh, saying, “What are you looking at, little bug? Why? Because you all deserve to die.” With that, he and his subordinates walk away laughing.

“Don’t film this!” Downey Jr. says with a somber look to the camera, then covers it with his hand and says, “Don’t film this, cut this part out later.”

The audience sits in silence, Evelyn feeling her heartbeat heavily, each thump seemingly requiring extra effort, while a creeping horror slowly rises within her, making the bucket of popcorn inedible. To her left and right, nearly everyone around her feels the same, abandoning their popcorn and drinks; Kelly Doyle frowns deeply, whispering, “It seems not at all funny.”

At the beginning, the audience was relaxed, even somewhat eagerly anticipating the spectacle. They felt no sympathy for the aliens’ segregation, exhibition, and “animal show” treatment, considering them nothing more than scum who enjoy killing and arson. However, after entering District 9, the audience’s mood became conflicted, as the MNU and humans did all sorts of inhumane things, and the aliens did not seem so bad.

“Adam, let’s go,” a girl with auburn hair tugged at her completely engrossed boyfriend, speaking disconsolately, “I can’t watch this; it’s too cruel.” Adam, without turning his head from the big screen, utterly absorbed, replied only after being tugged a few times, “Are you kidding? R-rated movies are like this, it’s great! Please, Lily, you’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time, right?”

Lily nodded, then sighed and said, “But this is Wang Yang’s movie!…” She looked at the screen, where Downey Jr. was eagerly about to burn the alien babies’ nursery, her brows shooting up in disbelief, “Wang Yang has gone mad.” She became absorbed herself and stopped mentioning leaving.

In the Snowland Theater, among the audience in the critics’ seating area, the silence and absorption were the same. Ben Mankiewicz from “At The Movies” magazine rubbed his chin, pondering as he watched, thinking that, from these first twenty or so minutes alone, this film was already no ordinary film, highly unique. The depiction of technologically advanced aliens becoming so destitute was surprising…

With elements like race segregation in District 9 and the ugliness of human nature, the film felt ambitious and was clearly not a typical midsummer commercial blockbuster; it was complex. Perhaps it could really be a contender for the Oscars? With this thought, Mankiewicz couldn’t help but smile, although he knew that these elements alone were still not enough.

“They like this…” Flames engulfed the nursery, emitting weird crackling sounds in the theater, and amidst the laughter of Wikus and others. Jessica felt as if something was stuck in her heart, gripping Wang Yang’s hand tightly, barely able to speak, “Oh my God, this is…”

“Yes, he’s about to pay the price,” Wang Yang said with a calm smile. This was just the beginning. Donning a suit and tie, Downey Jr. watched his screen self and thought of the series of events soon to befall him, chuckling and shaking his head, “Poor Wikus.”

Soon enough, Wikus, while searching a house, got sprayed with the energy fluid that Christopher Foersten had been collecting for 20 years. Then, after a bout of discomfort, when he wrapped up his work for the day and returned to the company, he began to show early signs of transformation, with black nosebleed, fingernails falling out, and loose teeth. He returned home in fear.

“The Metamorphosis!” In a movie theater in San Francisco, a blonde girl in the audience, stunned and exclaiming in disbelief, shouted, “The Metamorphosis, Kafka, he… Wikus is going to become an alien.” Her outburst drew some annoyed looks from around her, while another person, finding her words convincing, asked in confusion, “What transformation?”

She blinked her eyes, seemingly in response and seemingly muttering to herself, “District 9 is a prison. It’s the story of transformation, abandonment by the whole world, and dying in despair.”

Sure enough, when Downey, playing Wikus, collapsed and was taken to the hospital, the doctor cut open the bandage on his left hand, only to see that the hand had transformed into that of a prawn-like alien. Wikus instantly panicked, jumping up and screaming uncontrollably, “Ahhhhhh—ahhh—what is this!! Ahhh—”

“Oh—!” Seeing Wikus transforming into an alien, 3550 theaters and the Snowy Orchid Theater were engulfed in a chorus of gasps. Thanks to the good job done on confidentiality, it was only now that they found out… Transformation!? What happened? Evelyn shrank back involuntarily, her forehead covered in sweat from nervousness; Clair’s eyes widened as she leaned forward, humans turning into beetle-like aliens? She exclaimed, “Cool!”

“It’s like The Metamorphosis.” “Using this idea is great!” Aflash of excitement crossed the faces of the film critics, sitting up straight unconsciously. They already smelled the scent of a “classic movie”!

The Hollywood Reporter film critic Kirk Honeycutt couldn’t help but take a deep breath, glancing towards the front rows, that young man is incredible! The setting is fresh and distinctive, the transformative plot twist suddenly clarifies the story, the abject plight of the alien prawns stirring outrage, with Wikus originally being a persecutor, but now he is to become one of the prawn- like aliens. What follows, one can imagine, will be quite amazing!

“If you guys want to miss out on a classic movie?” Natalie stuffed popcorn into her mouth, looking at the brunette next to her, she mumbled indistinctly, “Hmm, then you guys, hmm, might as well leave early!” Adam and Lily both turned to look at her; in the dim light, only her silhouette was clear, they looked back at the big screen, unconcerned.

The footage projected onto the film made more and more people lose their appetite for popcorn, not just that, it also induced waves of nausea, while cult movie fans were thrilled. Inside the film, Wikus, in MNU’s secret lab, was the subject of research, then after a round of dehumanizing experiments, his father-in-law and other high-level MNU executives decided on a dissection plan.

Then, Wikus fought with all his might, grabbing an alien gun to shoot the MNU guards and escaping the dissection room. Then in the scenes of the main laboratory, even many fans accustomed to bloody cult films felt somewhat overwhelmed. Because it’s not just visual violence and bloodiness, it also has an undeniably eerie and oppressive atmosphere. Corpses hung on the walls, skins stacked upon tables, plates filled with eyeballs, and one listless and pitiful alien child.

“Damn crazy, they didn’t end up with an NC-17 rating?” As a seasoned CULT fan, Andrew couldn’t help but shiver, his eyes admiring the screen as if looking at gems, thinking to himself: “My God, the special effects are freaking awesome, high-budget cult films are so cool… those bodies those muscles look so real, if only Hollywood had more miraculous Wang Yangs…”

But film critics saw more than just the corpses of aliens; the walls of the laboratory were adorned with the MNU company logo, next to which hung a depiction of Earth, representing all of humanity. They knew that the oppressive ambiance of this scene stemmed from this silent indictment. Perhaps every human being, to some extent, identified with the belief that “humans are not good creatures”: dolphins, furs… how many animals have been killed and skinned like the prawn people, because of human greed and interests? Where is the bottom line of humanity?

However, as ordinary viewers, they wouldn’t think too much into it, watching movies first for the story, and leaving the rest for later discussion. In each of the 3550 theater auditoriums, there was a deathly silence, punctuated only by the film’s soundtrack and audio. It wasn’t because there were no spectators, but because everyone was exceptionally tense. The authenticity built by the viral marketing campaign during the promotion phase, combined with the flawless special effects and pseudo-documentary techniques, made them involuntarily immerse themselves, unwilling to miss a single shot.

They completely forgot the time, forgot they were watching a movie, as if it were really happening, as if they themselves were Wikus.

“Don’t give up on me, baby, please don’t…” A whisper of light, sorrowful murmurs mingled with the music, and beneath the night sky, Downey sat amidst the wasteland of rubbish, tears streaming down his face, his voice both firm and pleading as he spoke into the phone, “Believe me, I haven’t had sex with those bugs, I love you, don’t give up on me…” His wife’s voice came through sobbing, “Wikus, I want to believe you, but you… let me go.”

Doot doot doot—Clutching the phone tightly, Downey whimpered softly, his eyes filled with despair. After crying for several seconds, he suddenly let out an enraged roar, “Ah,” throwing the phone away violently, and began tearing at the skin peeling off his own body, ripping off a large bloody chunk, immediately falling to the ground, crying, his face covered in black mucus and tears.

“Jesus…” Viewers in the theater could almost feel the pain, being abandoned by everyone, about to become a prawn person themselves… Below the big screen, Evelyn wiped away the tears swirling in her eyes, her heart aching as if crushed by a large stone; Lily’s right hand grasped her boyfriend Adam’s tightly, her left hand wiping away her own tears; Clair cried out softly, pressing her reddened nose, softly cursing, “Damn Wang Yang, why film it like this…”

The hearts of countless viewers ached, and many women’s eyes uncontrollably brimmed with tears; while the cast of The Hangover were filled with disbelief. Which person was Wang Yang? Was it the director of this oppressive film that drove people mad with despair and darkness, or the young director who was humorous and funny, playing pranks on set and practicing Kung Fu?

“Did I make the wrong choice?” Charlize Theron, wearing a red low-cut evening gown, suddenly felt some worry. Were Wang Yang’s comedy films really funny? Although the scripts and the shots filmed on set were hilarious; this film on the screen was really frightening. She looked towards Wang Yang, who was affectionately saying something to a distressed-looking Jessica.

In the back row of the guest seats, Joshua exhaled deeply, now understanding why Yang wanted to make a comedy, and what he meant by “I want to have a real good time!” He’s always been a rough and cool man, but he never expected to feel so distressed watching this movie! If he didn’t let himself run wild and have a good time, he thought he might go crazy.

In Toronto, within a dimly lit theater, Rachel frowned, her heart aching for Wikus; and for that guy, during the days he spent in jail, he must have been lonely and in pain, right? In New York, Natalie silently nibbled on popcorn, glancing around at the other viewers, with emotional girls crying everywhere; she wiped her tearless eyes, muttering, “My tear ducts are underdeveloped.”

The story on the big screen continued as Wikus decided to team up with Christopher Foersten to raid the MNU headquarters and retrieve the energy liquid. They gathered a few intelligent prawn aliens and went to the heavily guarded MNU headquarters, where they killed fiercely until only Wikus and Foersten survived. They successfully grabbed the energy liquid and sped back to District 9 to return to the mothership.

When Wikus heard that the energy liquid could either restart the ship to return home to Foersten’s planet or cure his transformation, he knocked out Foersten and chose the latter. By then, MNU had also dispatched a mass of land and air forces to enter District 9 for a comprehensive manhunt. The final battle of the movie was about to commence.

“Hmm,” Evelyn curled up with her right hand supporting her forehead, her eyes unblinking as she stared at the screen, fighting the nausea. The handheld shaky camera work, especially during the large segment of combat with all its shaking, explosions, and blood, excited and tensed her on one hand, making her wish she could personally kill all those detestable humans. On the other hand, it made her dizzy and wanting to vomit.

“Three years, I promise you! I will come back in three years!” Amidst a hail of bullets, Christopher Foersten solemnly promised Wikus, who was operating a mech, “My friend, goodbye!” With that, he crawled into an overturned armored vehicle. The insect-like mech withstood the “ding ding dong dong” of bullets, its mechanical arms flipping the armored vehicle upright, and Foersten immediately drove toward the small ship that had crashed to the ground.

Inside the mech, Downey revealed a smile mixed with a myriad of emotions. The mech slowly turned around to face a massive army. They were lying on the ground, hiding beside corrugated metal huts, and firing bullets at him continuously from behind the smoky, fallen armored vehicles. Abruptly, the mech charged toward them, raising its two mechanical arms to aim at them.

Downey, whose eyes, forehead, and lips had all transformed, roared, “You people, you all deserve to die!” Countless large bullets sprayed from the Gatling-like arms, shooting toward their locked targets!

The screen suddenly showed a close-up of a soldier, one after another… Their faces, either shocked or too slow to react, rotated quickly, dazing the highly attentive audience for a few seconds. The scene froze on a burly soldier lying on the ground, his mouth agape in a bewildered expression, uttering a “FUCK.” Bang! All bullets hit the targets and caused energy explosions, instantly turning all the soldiers in the area to minced meat! The screen abruptly slowed down, a second of slow-motion allowed a clear view of blood and flesh scattering into the air, then plopping onto the muddy ground, coloring the corrugated huts, armored vehicles, and more in red.

“That’s right, kill them all!” In 3550 theaters and the Xuelan Theater, the audience became excited, thrilled by the grisly deaths of the scum, and the screening room erupted with rare noise for the evening: “Kill them all!” “More, more!”

“Oh, oh…” Evelyn finally couldn’t hold back anymore. The excitement and revulsion mixed in her nerves and suddenly gave rise to an overwhelming, uncontrollable urge to vomit. She leaned forward abruptly and with a retching sound, ejected the entirety of her dinner and popcorn—the digested contents— until a large puddle formed on the floor.

“Whoa!” Sitting on either side of her, Kelly Doyle and a light brown-haired young Caucasian man instantly jumped to their feet as if by reflex, but they were still splashed quite a bit; meanwhile, the surrounding audience turned their gazes upon them, murmuring conversations buzzing about. The young man, with a look of shock, noticed his shoes were smeared with vomit and blurted out, “What the hell is this?!”

Evelyn’s face was ashen, and she leaned miserably against the chair, saying, “I’m very sorry, oh, I’m very sorry…” Seeing her appear as if she were about to collapse, Kelly asked anxiously, “Evelyn, are you okay? Oh, God, don’t scare me!” Evelyn waved her hands dismissively with embarrassment, saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine, just feeling very dizzy and tight-chested.”

The viewers around her were chattering with various comments: “She looks so pitiful, like a little mouse.” “Quit it, I’m starting to feel nauseous too…” “I understand her, the movie Wang Yang made this time is too gory…” The young man ruffled his hair in a speechless manner, sighing, “Beauty, isn’t your reaction a bit over the top?” Kelly rolled her eyes and shrugged-as far as she was concerned, compared to the time she nearly died of fright while watching Paranormal Activity, was this vomiting incident really such a big deal?

“I’m really sorry, so sorry…” Evelyn’s embarrassment turned her face red, ear tips burning. Damn it, why couldn’t she have held it in? This was so humiliating! Kelly Doyle, standing beside her with a hand on her hip, said resignedly, “Evelyn, you shouldn’t watch Wang Yang’s movies, they’re too much for you. So, what now?”

The young man panted heavily as he sat back down in his seat, ignoring the vomit and the stench, and returned his focus to the big screen. The movie was nearing its thrilling conclusion, and he would not let this awful incident disrupt him!

In the midst of an intense battle, the massive ship was finally activated by Christopher Foersten and his son, causing all of Los Angeles to tremble. Skyscrapers and vehicle windows cracked while the military, on edge, deployed numerous fighter jets. However, the massive ship wasn’t looking for a fight; it merely ascended into the sky and left. In District 9, after Wikus had frantically slaughtered a host of soldiers, the mech suit also completely broke apart.

“What are you trying to do?!” The remaining bald colonel, holding a handgun, mockingly intended to kill Wikus when, all of a sudden, a swarm of prawn­aliens emerged from the surrounding metal shacks. They launched themselves at him, indifferent to bullets, tearing into the colonel: “Ahhhh—” Amidst his screams, his legs were tom off and thrown aside, his blood spraying wildly; then his arms, and after that, his torso was ripped apart, his intestines spilling out onto the ground; and finally, his head too was torn off.

After the big screen went black for a second, images from television programs and news reports appeared. On the NBC channel, the male presenter, with a grave face, said, “In this operation to capture Wikus, we lost many outstanding individuals. Countless families lost sons, husbands, fathers, who are enduring unbearable grief.” He paused momentarily, his voice filled with sorrow, “Let us observe a moment of silence for them.”

Then, unexpectedly, the screen showed a clip of the bald colonel playing cheerfully with his children on the lawn, his face brimming with fatherly love, his hearty laughter echoing that of a big child.

“He was a real man, very caring for his family, his death is truly regrettable, a white female neighbor said to the camera, looking very upset; then a middle- aged man said, “He was the best person I knew, even though he sometimes had a temper, but he was a good man.”

“Daddy, where is Daddy…” the bald colonel’s young daughter sobbed and wailed, with tears all over her tender face, while the colonel’s wife silently wept, holding her daughter’s head; in the little girl’s hands, she clenched a brand-new, clean teddy bear toy.

Seeing this scene, a large portion of the audience in thousands of theaters suddenly felt a tightness in their hearts, as if they had been struck by something. Why was this? Lily said with a look of astonishment, “At the beginning, that little alien was also holding that teddy bear, oh heavens…” Adam frowned next to her, a flicker of insight crossing his face as he questioned, “They are all dead, but their children are so pitiful, who deserves to die?”

In the critic’s section of the Xuelan Theater, the film critics’ minds were churning, each reflecting on the significance of this pair of scenes. The bald colonel brutally killed the green prawn-like creatures, and he, in the end, was also brutally torn apart; the tears and toys of the two children… Ben Mankiewicz was breathing a little heavily; whenever he saw those iconic scenes, it was always like this. He thought, “Is there no absolute good and evil in human nature? Anti-war? Peace?”

Wang Yang’s ambition was a bit too grand, but… it was very well done, this movie suddenly had a lot to ponder and savor. Kirk Honeycutt of Hollywood Reporter couldn’t help but admire, after these scenes, the bald colonel was no longer the previous one-dimensional image of brutality; he became a living person, a person with complex humanity.

What about Wikus? He looked at the big screen, where a mockumentary shot appeared, his father said with a stern face, “I don’t know the truth, I want someone to tell me.” Wikus’s mother, her face a mixture of anger and sorrow, with red eyes said, “He killed many innocent people. Ever since he did that shameful thing, I have regarded him as already dead.”

After some family and friends, suddenly Wikus appeared on camera, sitting at his desk, holding his wife’s bridal veil photo, laughing heartily, “Everyone says his wife is an angel, but she is the real angel.”

“I can’t believe he would do such a thing, he was that kind of best man, I still miss him every day…” Wikus’s wife said with a face full of tender memories, her eyes slowly reddening, “I often think, why didn’t he call me then? What problem couldn’t be solved?”

Oh! A gasp rose in the theater, the audience looked at each other in shock. The person who took Wikus’s phone call before was completely controlled by MNU simulating the voice? Instantly, many girls and some boys felt a surge of heat coming up, their eyes moistening, feeling distressed, oppressed, frantic, having a desperate urge to smash something. Damn Wang Yang! How could this be?!

The big screen flew over the shanties on the beach, displaying some follow-up information of the story: “After the completion of the alien resettlement, District 9 has been demolished. Currently, 3 million aliens are isolated in District 10, with the population continuing to grow…”

In the sound of desolate and solitary music, a green prawn-like creature sat amid a pile of debris in a wasteland, with dilapidated tin houses in the distance. He fiddled with a small trinket in his hand, then looked toward the direction of the camera. He examined the completed bamboo dragonfly in his hand, suddenly rubbing his hands together, and the bamboo dragonfly immediately flew towards the sky. He looked up as it flew higher and higher, the camera gradually rising, under the blue sky, a desolate wasteland, the swaying bamboo dragonfly flying higher and higher…

“Director: Young-Wang, Producers: Young-Wang, Stephen-McCawm,

Starring: Robert Downey Jr…”

Oh! The film critics all exclaimed in surprise, the screen rolling with the cast list seemed to still display the scenes just now. Ben Mankiewicz swallowed, his heart beating fast, that shot was like releasing all the pent-up emotions and despair of the whole movie, giving people a glimmer of warmth, but the chill went deep into their hearts. The bamboo dragonfly represented freedom, beauty, hope; it flew towards the sky, wanting to escape from the isolation, filth, and despair of District 10…

But could it escape? Alone, Wikus looked at the sky. Was he waiting for the sudden return of Christopher Foersten? Or was he missing his wife?

Human nature, racial prejudice, freedom, good and evil, anti-war… Wang Yang’s ambition was vast, but he did it well. Ben Mankiewicz wiped his forehead awkwardly, unable to believe that a 22-year-old young man made this film, because he had already thought of his one-sentence review for “District 9”: “This is a great movie, the best science fiction film of this summer.”

Even the best movie of 2002. He shook his head in amazement, it was incredible, truly incredible! Nominated for an Oscar? Absolutely deserved, it went above and beyond.

“Wang Yang, I hate him…” Lily wiped the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing from her eyes, still staring intently at the screen, hoping that after the credits, suddenly there would be some happy scene. The crowd around her, the packed theater, was still devoid of any noise, everyone seemed to be reflecting, thinking; or perhaps waiting for an after-credits scene to appear.

Natalie stared blankly at the big screen, the bucket of popcorn in her arms long empty. She suddenly took a deep breath, “FUCK.”