By shooting how the whole theater zone is set up, one can analyze how the theater composed a believable virtual space in the reality world. From the screen in the very front all the way to the projector backstage; as the curtains lowered and blocked the sunlight outside the building, the bright theater connected to the external world soon became dark, and the “black box” is formed perfectly. Even the equipment in the theater are accomplices—accomplices who played the video contents. The projector being placed in the far end is no coincidence; it is a method to construct the internal materialistic space so the audience could without noticing, devote their whole consciousness into the contents shown on the screen.
The event didn’t happen in the city of Shang Hai; it is the theater that had turned into the Shang Hai alleged in the movie. The story isn’t meant to be for the watching audience, but for the residents of Shang Hai confronting enormous danger in the theater; bombs were not dropped by Japanese aircraft, but created by the screen and surrounding sound system. In fact, movies don’t even need a plot; merely the controlling the lights and shadows is enough to make the audience temporarily forget the other world, falling into the manually edited universe.
The film deliberately ended at an illogical spot, because the ending of a normal movie won’t bring the audience back to reality; a name list of actors and staff only remind the audience that they are in the same time and space as the movie, enhancing the connection between one and the contents. The connection might not even exist, as the movie has already become one of the audience.