What are we expecting in addition to the joyful "just need"?

Author: Huang Qizhe

As the only comedy in the true sense of the Word in this year's Spring Festival, the adapted IP film "This Killer Is Not Calm" has won more than 1.6 billion yuan at the box office, ranking second in the recent film box office list. The biggest surprise of the film is the wonderful performance of the male number one Wei Xiang. He was previously known for his participation in many blockbuster movies, and it was not until the age of 42 that he ushered in his first starry film. For a time, he was crowned with the titles of "Shen Teng Second" and "Male Version zhang Xiaofei". It can be said that Wei Xiang's acting career outside the drama and the successful experience of Wei Xiang, the "crazy dragon set" played by himself in the film, constitute a set of intertextualities full of dramatic tension.

The stories of "Dragon Set Counterattack" and "Box Office Dark Horse" are certainly moving, but there are also regrets. "It really made me laugh, but after the laughter, nothing was left." A netizen's comments were recognized by thousands of likes from the audience. In the face of the festival and holiday schedule, the comedy category is indeed the big screen "just need", but on the basis of meeting the "just need", how to get rid of the path dependence of eating the sketch stage drama "old book" and adapting overseas mature IP, and respond to the higher expectations of local audiences, is the next topic that all comedians need to explore.

Inside and outside the play, he is continuing to write the story of the dragon set

In a sense, the story of "This Killer Is Not Calm" is too absurd. In the fictional time and space, the female star Milan is blackmailed by the gangster gangster, in order to protect herself, she finds the dragon set actor Wei Chenggong, on the pretext of tricking him into starring in an improvised movie, pretending to be a cold-blooded killer who attempted to assassinate the big guy. However, it is so inconspicuous, leading to a series of jokes, allowing people to temporarily put aside the obsession of "true and false" and immerse themselves in the carnival of dream-making.

Until the end of the subtitle, The picture of Wei Xiang holding flowers appeared. "This is the first male number one in my life!" When he said this sentence with tears in his eyes outside the play, all the absurd acts and exaggerated performances of Wei Chenggong in the play suddenly came to an end. It turns out that inside and outside the play, he is a drama idiot who has been working hard and waiting.

Acting is brutal, especially comedy. In terms of appearance, Wei Xiang's disadvantages are obvious - compared to Liang, he is not tall and handsome enough to form a contrasting effect; playing ugly, he has less of a "natural advantage" that can make people laugh when he appears. He was so ordinary. But his ordinary, unexpectedly fit perfectly with this role. "As a mass actor for many years, I don't even have the opportunity to show my face, and I try my best to face any opportunity to appear on camera." Playing the male lead is a thousand years for him, can he not play hard? This is Wei Xiang's psychological speculation on Wei Chenggong's role, why is this not his voice?

Compared with Shen Teng, the old partner of the "Happy Twist" who was also born in 1979, Wei Xiang is really bumpy. After retiring from the cultural troupe, in order to pursue his dream of acting, at the age of 24, he became an "advanced" art student. Since then, although shen teng has been introduced to join the "happy twist" and participate in a number of blockbuster movies and Spring Festival Gala sketches, compared to his companions who have already become popular, he seems to be like Wu Mengda around Zhou Xingchi. Even he himself said that before filming "This Killer Is Not Calm", he was "ready to be a supporting role for a lifetime."

Because of this, given the opportunity to play the male number one, Wei Xiang did his best. Sometimes his performances are clumsy but sincere, and the effort is not too strong. It is particularly worth mentioning that in the film, he pays tribute to the classic song and dance film "Song in the Rain" by Gene Kelly in the rain, which deviates from the "happy twist" style at that moment, leaving a touch of freshness and simplicity.

A careful adaptation, a flattering localization

In the eyes of some people in the industry, the commercial success of "This Killer Is Not Calm" is inseparable from the story foundation laid by the high score original. The original was the 2008 Japanese film Magic Moment, written and directed by Yuki Mitani. With 39. With a box office performance of 200 million yen, it was among the top ten in the Japanese domestic box office that year.

However, comparing the two films, you can still feel the intention of the adaptation of "This Killer Is Not Calm". For example, the structure is simplified, the side characters are abandoned, and the core conflict of how the dragon set actor plays the "killer" is further focused, making the rhythm more compact and the jokes more concentrated. In terms of character shaping, because Wei Xiang's image is different from the handsome vicissitudes of the Japanese version of Hiroshi Sato, in addition to retaining the plot of the "killer" appearance, some localization plots and performance methods have also been specially designed to create a generous personality.

It is a pity that such an adaptation only stops at "flattering" and fails to achieve the effect of "blue out of blue". Yuki Mitani is wrapped in this absurd story not only the little people's pursuit of dreams, but also the heart of the fictional art of film. And this is the meaning of the original title "Magic Moment" - the original refers to the beautiful moment when the film and television shooting waited for dusk and sunset. In the Japanese version of the film, there is not only one protagonist of the dragon set, but all the ordinary people involved in it are fascinated by the dreams and beauty brought by the movie. Perhaps it is the pursuit of making the audience laugh, and the "cut complexity and simplicity" of "This Killer Is Not Calm" also deletes this deep meaning. And this is why after watching the movie, the audience will have a sense of emptiness of "nothing left".

After this Spring Festival campaign, the track of New Year comedy may be fierce again in the future. Before there is the Feng comedy of "Party A and Party B", and then there is the "Detective Chinatown" series that adds reasoning elements to bring new ideas, comedy creators must realize that the audience is no longer satisfied with laughing in the cinema, leaving an aftertaste may be able to transform the immediate laughter into a sustainable endogenous driving force for comedy consumption. (Huang Qizhe)

Source: Wen Wei Po