In 2009, Japan released a series of acclaimed dramas-"Late Night Canteen". The current Douban score is 9.2. It is full of color, fragrance, and rhythm. It gradually calms the audience's impetuous hearts and pays attention to the subtle and beautiful things in life. The show is currently in four seasons and has a broad fan base in China. The fifth season is currently being broadcast.
In 2017, Huang Lei starred in the Chinese version of "Late Night Canteen". The drama had a great response at the time, and netizens said that it was obviously a fake model of Japanese people eating in the commercial, which was so embarrassing. Two years have passed, and the Douban score of this drama has remained strong at 2.8...Many netizens complained that we would not even know what we usually eat supper.
The IP of "Late Night Canteen" in 2019 is here again. This time it is presented in the form of a movie version. It is directed and performed by Liang Jiahui, and brings together stars such as Wei Chen, Jiao Junyan, Liu Tao, Yang Youning, Zheng Xinyi. The story puts the background down in an inconspicuous alley in Shanghai. The uncle played by Liang Jiahui runs a "late night canteen" on his own. He will make different foods for the guests according to their mood and state. The dishes have also been localized. Sugared lotus root, fried clams, and won stew are much more complicated than the Japanese version, and they are more localized in China.
Although the dishes have spent time, the story is still flawed. The impression of the movie is to remake several stories from the Japanese drama version of "Late Night Canteen". The characters are the characters of the drama series. The three sisters of Chapaofan are changed to two women and one man who often work overtime. The love of a boxer and a single mother, a singer who is terminally ill and dreams of singing, these plots are basically reproduced in the movie version. The rewriting of the plot also seems a little thin, combining the two stories of mother and son saving lives with a dish and boxer love, and also making some connections between several characters. The characters in the stories are interspersed with each other, and then some unsystematic related plots are derived, and a small human relationship society centered on the "late night canteen" is constructed. This structure is also convenient for various stars to "friendship guest appearances", creating a situation where stars gather. Think about it carefully, the film and the previous "The Ferryman" by Zhang Jiajia and Wong Kar-wai are similar in temperament and standard, except that the bar is replaced with a restaurant. In the first story of
, the central character should be the "clam" metaphor of mother-child relationship, with boxing, friendship and love elements added. Due to the time limit, the story cannot be unfolded. Jin Shijia's boxer has basically become a waste character, and the boxing story is neither touching nor passionate because of the lack of any training and hardening. The descriptions of boxers focused on the daily trivial matter of eating and drinking, but did not further describe the characteristics of the characters themselves. The motivation is not enough to support the result of the outbreak, and it is difficult to cause emotional resonance. The second and third stories fully show how the movie is now learning and selling domestic love TV drama routines. It must rain soon if you are broken in love. When you are happy in life, you will naturally be exempt from terminal illness. The lines are more blunt. The actor's performance appropriately concealed the embarrassment. But at the fourth story, the longest, the whole movie finally couldn't support the crumbling structure and began to collapse. Looking at the whole story, I always feel that the screenwriter has neither been in love nor watched a live webcast, and lacks a basic understanding of the social ecology of the mainland. Wei Chen worked hard, acting hoarse, his eyes were red, and he called his girlfriend's live broadcast career the crime of selling private life and begging online. He used a longing for a dull life to conceal his lack of aggressiveness, strong desire for control, and poor emotional management. In essence, a love story that should have been clean turned out to be extremely foul. The story of
has its most suitable way of telling. The domestic transplant of foreign stories, the roots may be unacceptable. Small restaurants like "Late Night Canteen" are not the most resonant Chinese "Late Night Canteen". The Japanese flavor is awkward no matter how you copy it. There is no izakaya culture in China. Relatively speaking, there are very few prosperous night markets. Most of the cities are already dark at 9:10pm. The stories of those late nights may only exist in street barbecue stalls, bars, KTV, and 24 hours. An open convenience store. Everyone has a story, but for the sake of sensationalism and storytelling, it is really unnecessary.
The core of the "Late Night Canteen" series is not entirely about eating. Food is a tool for connecting stories. In layman's terms, it is the fetters of food and people, but emotions are important. The Japanese version of the dish is very simple, cut the sausage and fried sausage, the egg is made into a thick egg stew, only rice and butter, bibimbap, etc. It is not a complicated dish.formula. Eating as a "medicine introduction" leads people to confide the truth and tell their inner stories in a small canteen that they don't know each other in the middle of the night. This is the essence of the late night canteen that shows the full range of life. Has Leung Ka-fai's movie version of "Late Night Canteen" worked hard? Used it, at least not the Huang Lei version casually took out the Laotan Sauerkraut Beef Noodles. Although there are many complaints, Douban 5.5 points also reflect many problems, but the local transplantation of foreign popular IP itself is a matter of courage. In the development of steady progress step by step, domestic film and television will eventually find their own A road with Chinese characteristics.
