The movie "The Three Brigades" is produced by Chen Sicheng, directed by Dai Mo, written by Zhang Ji, and starring actors Zhang Yi, Li Chen, Wei Chen, Cao Bingkun, Wang Xiao, Zhang Zixian and others. Since its release, the film has received a box office of 450 million, with a Douban score of 7.9.
The movie is adapted from the non-fiction reportage story of NetEase Renjian Studio Deep Blue. It tells a story about justice, crime and punishment. The three teams led by the criminal investigation brigade captain Cheng Bing (played by Zhang Yi) led the three teams to solve a vicious case. One of the suspects died accidentally and was jailed. After he was released from prison, he still insisted on tracking fugitive suspects as an ordinary person... and the long and persistent pursuit of the murderer did not simply praise heroes, but showed a group of flesh-and-blood people.
"The Three Brigades" poster
Screenwriter Zhang Ji's biggest change is to make the lonely pursuit of murder in reality into a passionate journey of an idealistic team, although this journey is only half the journey. And this change based on fiction adds another layer of reality to the film from a more universal perspective. By empathizing with the persistence that ordinary people cannot achieve, the audience understands Cheng Bing's persistence that ordinary people cannot achieve and the preciousness of this spirit.
wants to interpret the story of a group of old friends who have a tacit understanding. Producer Chen Sicheng recruited his old friend for many years. Zhang Yi, Li Chen and Chen Sicheng have formed a deep relationship since "Soldiers Assault", and later they all participated in "Beijing Love Story" directed by Chen Sicheng. Director Dai Mo has been associated with the above-mentioned people since "Northern Love". At that time, he had just entered the industry. He had performed in some dramas after graduating from Chinese Opera. It was the first time he saw the size of the crew and everything was new and strange. He played a supporting role in the play and also served as an assistant director. Later, he learned and grew up in Chen Sicheng's team and directed the "The Name of the Rose" chapter in the "Detective Chinatown" web drama, the movie "Manslaughter 2" and other film and television works. Before Chen Sicheng gave the script of the movie "The Three Brigades" to Dai Mo, he had just finished filming the science fiction drama "Ball Lightning" adapted from Liu Cixin's novel of the same name.
After reading the script, Dai Mo, who originally planned to take a vacation, immediately booked a flight back to Beijing for a meeting with the team. He still remembers the feeling that he couldn't put it down after picking up the story, "I couldn't bear to miss this script, otherwise I would definitely regret missing it." It has created an important work."
Dai Mo, who is in Chen Sicheng's team, already has rich experience in crime themes, but the movie "Third Brigade" is a different attempt, abandoning the suspense rendering and sensational reversal that they are good at. It is rare for a calm and restrained realism style to appear in a movie "produced by Chen Sicheng". During the release of the
film, director Dai Mo accepted an exclusive interview with reporters from The Paper, telling how the adaptation of a "de-heroic" legend still has real and shocking power.
Director Dai Mo
[Dialogue]
The other members of the third team are Cheng Bing’s mirror
The Paper: What kind of opportunity did I receive this project? What first struck you about this story?
Dai Mo : I came into contact with this project last year. I had just returned to Hangzhou from Hengdian after filming "Ball Lightning". The project was shot in Hengdian for 4 months. I felt very tired and hard at the time. I originally wanted to go to Yunnan. I went on vacation and received this book from the producer. After reading this script, I immediately booked a ticket to go back to Beijing.
I really like it. First of all, it is a very nice and mature script. At the same time, I am also curious, does Cheng Bing really exist? Is it because the screenwriter created him too well? Then I saw Teacher Shenlan’s article and learned that it was based on a true story of a frontline criminal police officer. I sincerely admired this story and this group of people.
You know that in a country like China with a population of 1.4 billion, it is too difficult to find a needle in a haystack without any help, by doing various professions, searching and investigating, and finding someone. And when he decided to go find Wang Eryong, he never thought that this would be something he could accomplish in 12 years. If a person knows that something has a time limit, he may also have an expectation, but in fact there is no time limit, so he really makes up his mind to spend his whole life to complete this thing.
is so good that I can’t bear to miss it. If I miss it, I feel that I have missed a very important work in my life.
The Paper : Compared with the experience of previous works, will the creation method and focus be different depending on the source of adaptation?
Dai Mo : My first film "Manslaughter 2" is a pure genre film. Many times you have to create the atmosphere of a genre film, including the shooting techniques and many scene selections and dramatic plots. It's made to be more extreme and may be a little exciting to watch.
later filmed the TV series "Ball Lightning", which is a big science fiction theme, and a very important point is that we need to work hard to establish a world view. Every play has a different way of working.
The movie "Team Three" is based on documentary literature and has a real background. When we, the producers, screenwriters and other main creatives met together at the beginning, we also discussed whether to lean more towards genre films or use a more realistic style. Finish. Then, we feel that a more realistic style may be more suitable for such a theme and story, which can reveal more of the characters’ inner thoughts and encounters in a semi-documentary and closer-to-life way, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in it. into this story. Our director of photography, Dong Jinsong, is good at documentary style and shoulder-mounted photography. The camera is very close to the actors. This is also our team's first attempt.
Stills of "The Third Brigade"
The Paper News : Comparing the original article, all kinds of work done by the members of the Third Brigade in the movie were actually done by Cheng Bing alone. Did the conception and design of other people also come from Looking for inspiration from Cheng Bing’s experience?
Dai Mo: The biggest change Ji Ge (screenwriter Zhang Ji) made to this matter is that his pursuit of the murderer became a matter of three brigades and one team. The most important thing about such an adjustment is that it weakens the heroic color of the individual. This de-heroic expression adds a sense of reality. It is precisely because there are too few people like Cheng Bing in our lives, and there may not be so much personal heroism around us. We know that many police officers are also protecting the safety of the people in obscurity.
As for everyone's division of labor, it is indeed based on the occupation written by Cheng Bing in the article. Let everyone go to find Wang Eryong together. What is the purpose of all these career settings? It's because they want to get in touch with more people. For example, late-night snack stalls, sanitation workers, Internet cafe cashiers, etc. are all because of the large flow of people. The reason why they go to the community to watch people is also because they can see people, and the reason why they go to drive taxis is also their ultimate line of action. They must be in the crowd. Looking for a person among them, he never loses these things when doing anything.
The Paper : It seems that except for Cheng Bing, everyone is realist. In the movie, giving up is as difficult as perseverance, and it is profound and worthy of respect. How to design and portray each time of giving up?
Dai Mo : We turn one person into a group of people. From a functional point of view, it seems that the group play can be richer than the search of one person. It will produce a lot of chemical effects of the play between brothers. One person If you follow it, it might make this movie boring.
But later we gradually discovered that maybe everyone's separation also had an even greater impact on Cheng Bing. For example, Xiao Xu does it for love, Cai Bin does it for his body, Ma Zhenkun does it for his family, and Liao Jian does it for his children. They all have their own reasons, because they are all human beings first, and people will encounter them in life. There are all kinds of problems, and there are all kinds of things that are difficult to let go of. We can't blame them harshly. These reasons can explain Cheng Bing's situation more specifically and tell the audience what Cheng Bing gave up for his persistence.
If everyone represents the same thing, Xiao Xu’s departure makes the audience realize that Cheng Bing gave up his love on the way to chase the murderer. Cai Bin represents health. He stopped but Cheng Bing did not. When he died, Cheng Bing actually gave up his own health. In addition, he gave up his home, his children, and the opportunity to make money... The other members of the Third Brigade were his mirror.
Zhang Yi plays Cheng Bing
At that moment, there are no machines or lights, they are the "Third Brigade"
The Paper News : "Three Brigades" has assembled a very good team of actors, and everyone is an actor who is very good at acting. As a director Is work very worry-free?
Dai Mo : Of course, it is more worry-free, because these actors are so good, and they have worked with each other before, which creates a tacit understanding that goes without saying, and everyone is very professional and dedicated. They are all very suitable for their respective roles, so there is no need to deliberately "shape" them. The first scene on our first day was when a late-night snack stall came out of the crime scene. The Third Brigade and the Second Brigade had a "cross-talk". In just a few words, the relationship between the characters was fully understood. These are new people. These two It's a relationship between smokers, some are jokesters, and some teachers protect the newbies. The relationship and personality of the characters are clearly established.
My job may be more about dealing with the relationship between the group scenes. For example, the positions must be determined first. For example, if Cheng Bing sits here, the master should sit next to him, Ma Zhenkun and Liao Jian should sit together, Cai Bin and Xiao Xu should sit together. Sitting together, why is it this way of sitting and not another way of sitting? This kind of relationship between the characters in the play serves the dramatic effect. It can be seen from the seat relationship that Lao Cai has been protecting Xiao Xu. Liao Jian and Ma Zhenkun will bully Xiao Xu, thinking that he has just graduated and learned everything from books.
The Paper : The singing scene was very touching. How many times did you take it during the filming? What was it like?
Dai Mo : This scene is an important scene. I originally wanted to shoot it twice more, but I couldn't. Li Chen, who had already finished filming, knew that there was such an important scene and insisted on leaving a day late. There was a table inside the play where they were drinking, and we also set up a table outside the play to warm them up and add to the fun.
On that day, producer Chen Sicheng and Brother Chen and I drank to warm up the scene. We drank, chatted and cultivated our relationship. When we got to the point, I said, "Let's go! Come in." As a result, after filming one scene, the drinking in the scene I couldn't control my strength. At first, everyone said, "Come more, let's feel it." But later they had to persuade me, "Come less, it won't work anymore."
It was a scene that cannot be copied. Many of them were impromptu performances. For example, Ma Zhenkun suddenly stood up and kissed his wife aggressively, while others outside gave a dumbfounded thumbs up. This particularly vivid performance was preserved in our final editing.
Brother, these group dramas, I am very moved every time I watch them. There are some moments, you will feel that they are combined with the three teams into one. It is very subtle and cannot be explained. This thing is quite magical. , very metaphysical. The moment
sang, I was at the scene and believed that it was the Third Brigade who suddenly traveled from parallel time and space to this place. They grew up like this and encountered this incident, eating, drinking and chatting here.
There is no machine, no lighting, no filming or performance. They are not actors, not Zhang Yi, Wei Chen, Cao Bingkun, Wang Xiao, Zhang Zixian, no, they are Cheng Bing, Cai Bin, Ma Zhenkun, Liao Jian, Xiao Xu. At that moment, At that moment I felt like they just became one.
Behind-the-scenes photos of "The Three Brigades"
The Paper News : How did your own educational background and early experience as an actor affect your creative concepts and on-set working habits?
Dai Mo : I graduated from China National Opera, and I worked as a drama actor for a few years after graduation. Those years on the drama stage, I think, were quite helpful for me to be a director now.Although we were also actors at that time, we were working together with the director in the rehearsal room at the same time. We also felt that we had a lot of creative desires. During the rehearsal process, we learned a lot of scheduling techniques.
is like my first movie "Manslaughter 2". It is a relatively single-scenario incident. It is actually a bit like a drama. There is a group of onlookers outside, and there is a hijacking scene inside, with more than a dozen people in the same closed space. , how to rehearse and schedule, and there must be a prescribed situation that makes people feel that there is always danger. That kind of handling large prescribed situations, and arranging the scheduling and the relationship between characters on the spot, these things are what I accumulated from studying drama and Chinese opera.
This time the movie "The Three Brigades" has more group scenes. Because we want to pursue a real feeling this time, many scenes are shot in real scenes. This brings about a problem: the shooting space will It’s very small. For example, in our house where the first crime scene took place, there were so many policemen in the fortress, and after adding in the space where the bodies were placed, there wasn’t even room for cameras and lights. In that small space, arranging the actors' performance positions so that everyone can have their own space at the same time, I think it has something to do with my many years of experience on the drama stage.
Stills of "The Third Brigade"
The process of chasing the murderer is also the pursuit of self
The Paper News : I saw you mentioned in an interview that you were careful not to be moved by yourself, but the original story is that you are easily moved. How to control it during filming This degree?
Daimo : It is really easy to be moved, so we can’t add many techniques to render the moved. When I communicated with Brother Yi, we also reached a consensus that we should not move ourselves first, but let the emotions happen naturally through characters, dramatic plots and stories.
was relatively restrained throughout the entire shooting, and was relatively calm in his lens selection. He did not do too much pushing, pulling, panning, or anything like that, as if he wanted to emphasize certain emotions, or use music to underline and exaggerate too much. None of these were present.
We made a lot of subtractions, and the producer even mentioned that there would be no music at all this time. Later, we felt that it was too experimental and too experimental. Although we wanted to pursue realism, it is still a commercial film, and we still have to consider the audience's acceptance. The amount of the entire music this time is much less than in other works of our team.
But no matter how much you try to restrain yourself, sometimes when you get to that point, your emotions still have to be expressed. For example, in the scene where Brother Yi suddenly "can't find it" in the park, he said he didn't want to cry, but when he arrived at the scene, at the moment he was acting, the script was to send a text message to his ex-wife, and he suddenly felt that he was sending a text message to his ex-wife. There might be something wrong with the ex-wife, and she couldn't think of anyone suitable to send it to, so he turned over it there.
prop teacher based on the fact that Cheng Bing probably didn’t have much social contact, and he didn’t have many people in his address book. He ended up scrolling through it, and then he kept scrolling there. Suddenly I noticed that his mood had changed, so I said, "Hurry up and move the camera up!" I wanted to take a close-up shot, but I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to capture it, so I quickly asked the photographer to capture his mood, and I caught him in a state of collapse. That scene. Later, he said, "Why did this happen all of a sudden?" Even he was surprised.
The Paper : At the same time, in that scene, you also used sound processing to explain the turbulence in his heart. There was a transition from silence to sound, which was also very exciting.
Dai Mo : Yes, I want to inject the atmosphere of the people next to him into his world through sound. In that scene, he came out of the detention center after identifying the suspect. He didn't see the face he wanted to see, but when he came out he saw his "broken" self. He began to ask himself why he had experienced this for so many years. I also killed an innocent person, was it really worth it for me? Azhe's death may be the last straw for him.
He suddenly walked to a park, and I input the sound from the outside world into his ears. Suddenly a bubble floated in front of his eyes, and he looked to the side.He suddenly opened up from his own world and heard everyone's laughter, the sound of dancing music, and the sound of children playing. The word "life" suddenly entered his eyes, making him realize It turns out that life around me is like this, so where is my life? At that moment, I felt that he should ask himself a lot of questions. I quite like this approach myself.
The Paper : How do you understand the character Cheng Bing and the "self-grasping" mentioned many times in the film?
Dai Mo : There is a scene where Cheng Bing comes to the road and sees himself in many mirrors. There are many mirrors in the mirrors, and many of the mirrors are broken, just like his life, except for this one Apart from the incident, many aspects of him were broken. In the eyes of others, his life was a failure. His marriage failed, his career was gone, and his relationship with his daughter was not well handled. Only in this matter (chasing the murderer) did he want to succeed, so he I chose to devote 12 years.
Whether you call him paranoid or whatever, he is just that kind of person. I think he has lost so many worldly things on the road to chasing the murderer, and he must also be looking for his own self. There must be many reasons for him to choose to pursue the murderer. It can be said that it is for the victim lying in the freezer, it can also be said that it is for the father of the victim who gave him tea eggs, for his master, and for the people of the Third Brigade. Honor, for the promise he made at that time, and at the same time, he also wanted to find himself. He kept asking "Who am I" repeatedly in prison. So after completing this mission, maybe he can truly reconcile with himself.
I have recently seen many viewers giving various interpretations on the Internet, and many of them are very good. There are a thousand Hamlets in the hearts of a thousand viewers, and some interpretation directions coincide with the creative ideas. This is a kind of dialogue and tacit understanding with the audience. The audience can understand the creator's expression, which is also very gratifying for the creator. thing.
Working photos of "The Third Brigade"
Use suspense crime stories to explore people in the era
The Paper News : I started working with Chen Sicheng, Zhang Yi, and Li Chen from "Northern Love". Let's see what they have become over the years. The change?
Dai Mo: "Beijing Love Story" was the first TV series I participated in. I had just entered the industry at that time and didn't understand anything. It was the first time I met the crew. For the first time, I discovered that there were so many people working together on the film crew. At that time, there were not that many people arranging the drama. Watching the lighting track and other things felt fresh. Watching my brothers perform, I felt that they were really awesome. At that time, I didn't have many scenes opposite the three of them, and I only did some assistant director work. Over the years it's probably been, "They watched me grow up and I watched them grow old" hahaha.
Translator has a lot of gray hair this time, but he has always been a very serious and persistent person in his acting. Up to now, I feel that he has become "lost" in his performance, and his understanding of the characters is particularly thorough. This time, I think he His performance can win a very high-level award in the performance category. Brother Chen, I think his acting skills have become more refined, and his drinking ability has also become more refined.
Of course, the one who has changed the most is director Chen Sicheng. Over the years, I have watched him change from an actor to a director, to a producer, to an investor in movies, and to what the outside world calls a "product manager." I think he is a very big person. The creator of emotions. Many people watch the "Detective Chinatown" series and think it is a purely commercial film, a noisy family comedy. In fact, he has always hidden a profound spirit in his works, including "Detective Chinatown", in every movie There is a paragraph in front of it, which is related to spiritual thoughts. Many viewers don't pay much attention to what it hides. In fact, it has great feelings. In addition, I think the biggest change in him is that he has become more mature and gentle after becoming a father.
The Paper : How did you decide to engage in this industry? Are you switching from actor to director again?
Dai Mo : When I was in middle school, my grades were not very good. At that time, teachers would even send us students with poor grades some admission brochures for technical schools such as beauty salons or Lanxiang excavators. There was a time when I didn’t know what I should do in the future, and I was very confused. But I have always been fond of literature and art, and organized various literary and artistic activities in the class, so I later participated in the admissions process of an art school and found that I was particularly interested in acting, so I took the Chinese Opera exam.
After I graduated, I didn’t have many opportunities to become an actor because I wasn’t particularly handsome and my acting skills weren’t particularly good. I happened to have the opportunity to study with Director Chen Sicheng. He felt that I also studied directing in college and should learn more. Own. In fact, my choice from actor to director was relatively "passive" at the beginning. I was "prompted" by Director Chen Sicheng. He encouraged me to be an assistant director, help on set, and asked me to learn editing. Through these Training to enter the path of director creation.
The Paper : You have also participated in the creation of TV dramas with more serious cases and genres such as "Tang Detective". Both movies are also related to crime themes. I am curious whether this is your own interest and strength, or because you happened to meet Chen Sicheng. ?
Dai Mo : I have always liked suspense crime stories. What I want to discuss more is people. In fact, in more cases, sometimes the person behind it is worth discussing. But we use suspense and crime stories. To reflect crime themes. Including daily life, I will pay special attention to social and legal news. Some news events will reflect special individuals or groups in an era, and I will care about how they think about issues.
