Author | Jianjiao
Hu Jianlin, a senior fitter, was accidentally transferred to the HR department of the headquarters when the group was laying off employees. He was mistakenly thought to be a related person with "someone behind the scenes" and received preferential treatment in the company. Because he didn't understand the slang on the Internet, he used "optimization" as a positive word, but he reversely disintegrated the anti-layoff alliance, and got promotions and salary increases along the way...
This identity mismatch brought countless laughs, and also Let the annual meeting not stop! "has become a rare "workplace satire" comedy nowadays. In the 1980s and 1990s, Huang Jianxin's works such as "Black Cannon Incident" and "Back to Back, Face to Face" harshly criticized the bureaucracy of units within the system. However, after that, the workplace in domestic films moved towards "inspirational" and "love" "Two directions, but rarely delve into workplace relationships.
Judging from the current box office results, "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" "In the early stage, word-of-mouth failed to spread on a large scale through screenings. On the first day of its release, "Stealth" became the box office champion of the day with 48 million. "The Annual Party Can't Stop!" 》 ranked second with a higher proportion of films scheduled.
The reason is that the frequent slang and the background settings of major Internet companies will make many people think that this is a movie targeting white-collar audiences in first- and second-tier cities. The structural comedy based on character settings also makes it difficult for the trailer's editing to highlight the laughter brought about by identity dislocation.
But this does not prevent "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" from becoming an attempt for comedy to get out of the "safe zone". When offense and irony return again, the value of comedy should be re-emphasized.
"Reality is far more absurd than imagination"
During the creation process, the most shocking thing for the creators was: they originally thought they were creating a ridiculous story that did not exist in reality. However, during the interview, they discovered that the bizarre story they thought was, Not only is it true in reality, it's even more outrageous.
The absurd reality in the era of efficiency is the starting point that inspired director and screenwriter Dong Runnian to continue creating "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop". "In my observation and understanding, the major Internet companies are where the smartest and most powerful people in China gather, representing our most advanced productivity. But when we chatted with friends around us, we found that within such a rigorous system , many ridiculous things will also happen and many ridiculous mistakes will occur. This contrast is particularly interesting."
"But friends can only complain while continuing to work hard." Screenwriter Ying Luojia revealed that this kind of falling into "lying flat" The feeling of powerlessness between "involution" and "involution" is also one of the starting points of creation. They hope to create a film that can serve as a "mouth substitute" for beaten workers. "In recent years, I feel more and more that we need to laugh so much and vent our depression."
"The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" ! 》The script was written intermittently for five years. During this process, the creators of observed that social emotions and the environment were constantly changing. The overall story was overturned eight times, and the protagonist changed several rounds of . In an early version of
, the protagonist of the story was a character similar to Ma Jie, a part-time worker at a major Internet company, who presented the problem from an internal perspective.
Around 2020, Dong Runnian accidentally saw a piece of news: In a high-end office building in Wangjing, Beijing, a homeless man locked himself in an untouched storage room during the day. After the employees in the building got off work, he sneaked out to drink tea. Free food and drinks. He can even know which departments work overtime or not, and find a place where no one is around to sleep on a few chairs.
Dong Runnian found this story very interesting, so there was also a version of the script in which the protagonist was Zhuang Zhengzheng, who later joined the Zhonghe Group, and he came to seek justice for the laid-off factory.
But they soon realized that this story was not enough to constitute a complete "satirical comedy" and wanted to find a more absurd expression. At this time, the two screenwriters thought of Master Liu Baorui's stand-up comedy "Promoted to Three Levels in a Row", which tells the story of a rich man's son Zhang Haogu who was illiterate and took the imperial examination for reference. As a result, due to official corruption, he was promoted to three levels in a row by accident. , became a high official.
So in the final version, Hu Jianlin, a "connected person" who represented the old order, appeared, and he was promoted successively in a company full of formalities and bureaucracy, and he happened to be promoted three levels.
In order to make the "workplace" real, the creators conducted a lot of interviews during the creation period. The three protagonists in the film all work in the HR department, and one of the consultants who appears in the opening subtitles is a former HR of a major Internet company. Director. These interviews covered the detailed daily work of the HR department, as well as the jargon, ranks and rules of major Internet companies.
Dong Runnian recalled that the content of the lines in the script was relatively certain, but during the actual interpretation process, the two protagonists Dapeng and Baike also gave many surprises. For example, when Hu Jianlin met Ma Jie for the first time in the company, Ma Jie said, "You will be my subordinate from now on" while bending down, lower than his "subordinate". Hu Jianlin immediately gave an immediate reaction, These are the results of on-site co-creation.
In addition, the actors in the movie also have rich working experience in major companies: Dapeng was an employee of Sohu before, and Baike also has experience working in a TV station. Many supporting actors are talk show and sketch actors, but most of them also have their own Job.
"These actors themselves have provided us with a lot of realistic support at the level of the drama, and they will also have a strong sense of belief when acting."
Why no one makes workplace movies anymore?
The bitter satire on the workplace in "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" is easily reminiscent of a series of Huang Jianxin's works in the 1980s and 1990s. Dong Runnian revealed that "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" also has corresponding tribute scenes : During the meeting in "The Black Cannon Incident", there is a huge analog clock behind the leader, while in "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop", the background of the conference room It is a huge LED clock wall.
Stills of "Black Cannon Incident"
"Black Cannon Incident" tells the story of Engineer Zhao, who was looking for a "black cannon" lost in chess and sent a telegram "Lost Black Cannon 301 Looking for Zhao" to the hotel, but he was suspected He was transferred from his post because of the confidential information, and a tourism translator who was not familiar with the project installation took over his job. The story reflects the absurd reality within the system that "laymen govern insiders, and political consciousness is greater than professionalism." Subsequently, "Dislocation" and "Back to Back, Face to Face" also continued this theme of satirizing workplace bureaucracy, criticizing and exposing the problems that occurred in units within the system at that time.
After Huang Jianxin, such films that satirized workplace bureaucracy gradually became less common. Workplace movies turned to the two themes of "love" and "inspirational" . The former is represented by the 2010 "Du Lala's Promotion", It tells the love story of Du Lala and her boss Wang Wei. The latter is exemplified by the 2013 "Chinese Partner", which is based on the entrepreneurial story of New Oriental.
The workplace dramas that have appeared frequently in recent years have also been accused of "talking about love under the guise of workplace dramas." The suspension of workplace content and the predominance of love lines make it difficult for workplace themes to resonate with audiences. In addition, there are few excellent works that delve deeply into workplace relationships among workplace dramas focusing on a specific profession such as lawyers, real estate agents, and doctors.
Around 2017, Dong Runnian observed that there were continuous workplace-themed works in the drama field, but there were gaps and gaps in the film field. Dong Runnian was born in a dual-income family. When his parents came home from get off work, the most talked about at the dinner table were their work and colleagues. When he grew up, his friends often complained to him about the workplace. "Working occupies the daily lives of most Chinese people, but it is rarely reflected in movies," Dong Runnian said.
Why do workplace movies go out of style? From a creative perspective, on the one hand, most screenwriters in lack a working life, and they need a lot of interviews to support when making original scripts. In addition, Dong Runnian also believes that although the workplace theme is a rich mine, it is very difficult to come up with a clear clue: "There are so many people and things that can be talked about and themes that can be expressed. Because it is actually equivalent to A microcosm of society.From what angle should I approach this? I think it’s actually quite difficult. Especially if it has to be condensed into two hours of the movie, it’s actually a very headache-inducing challenge in terms of creation. "
Satirizing authority in a larger external environment also faces audit risks. In the 1980s, Northeastern crosstalk actors Yang Zhenhua and Jin Bingchang's "Fake Sky" series directly learned someone's accent and gestures , the effect was very good, but was banned for many years.
The emergence of "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" allows us to see a return to the previous workplace satirical comedy, but there are also many controversies.
In the current Douban short comments, many viewers think , the "happy ending" at the end is too idealistic: corruption at the middle level is ultimately saved by higher-level leaders within the system, rather than directly pointing to the problems of the system itself.
Dong Runnian responded that the current ending is the result of many deductions The results are more realistic. First, the chairman emphasized in his words that "people who should not have lost their jobs" should come back. Who are these people? The right to interpret is still in his hands. Second, the end of the movie ends at the end of the annual meeting. In the next few days, the three protagonists were in a better situation than before. "The current problem seems to be solved, but six months and a year later, will everyone still have a happy ending? "
"In real life, layoffs are definitely not a happy event, it is sad, painful and scary. But comedy can express the things that scare us in a playful way and dismantle this fear, so I hope to give everyone a powerful ending. This is my belief in comedy. Dong Runnian said.
Another controversy lies in the audience of the film. The large number of workplace slangs in the trailer and the obvious background of a large company made many viewers think that this is a movie for white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities. The box office on the first day The failure to surpass "Stealth", which was released on the same day, seems to indicate that the early screenings failed to fully spread the word of mouth.
Will the high density of workplace slang limit the threshold for viewing? Dong Runnian believes that "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" !" is a structural comedy. All the laughs are based on the mismatch of character characteristics and identities. In fact, the main exporters of slang are only a few people, and this absurdity in the daily life of the workplace is the majority of people. Everyone can understand it. But this kind of structural comedy also objectively limits the possibility of short video promotion, because the real laughter comes from when the audience from an omniscient perspective begins to accept and understand each character. The sense of absurdity and poor information are difficult to fully reveal in one minute.
focuses on the workplace, which means focusing on whether young people’s upward channels are smooth and transparent. This is actually a very acute social issue. More than 30 years ago , Huang Jianxin chose to focus his lens on the system, and now Dong Runnian has set the stage in a major Internet company. Both are the first choice destinations for young people in the current era to devote their youth.
Thirty years have passed, efficiency has soared, but the absurdity remains, Satirical comedy cannot be absent.
Comedy needs to get out of the "safe zone"
Looking at this year's film market, the performance of comedy films is not satisfactory. "Exchange Life", which has a poor reputation during the Spring Festival, only has a box office of less than 400 million, and the summer season is far lower "Super Family", which exceeded box office expectations, has made the audience less and less confident in Happy Twist's comedy. On the other hand, realism themes are booming in the market. "The Lost Girl" and "Desperate" both rely on social topics Marketing has achieved high box office.
Dong Runnian believes that previous domestic comedies were more influenced by Stephen Chow, and most of them deconstructed authority. However, under the trend of fragmentation, everyone rarely has a unified goal, and few can be deconstructed in a unified way. Object. Comedy may have reached the stage of "reconstruction", and it needs to find real issues that can arouse the audience's empathy at the moment. "The annual meeting can't stop" "complaining about the workplace" is this starting point. This year's "Keep You Safe" is in the cold It has a box office of RMB 700 million during the schedule, which is precisely because it has grasped the real problem of "Internet rumors".
After graduating from the directing department, Dong Runnian first entered the industry as a screenwriter, and collaborated with Ning Hao on "Beautiful Heart" and "Crazy Alien". When he made his directorial debut, he found that it was getting more and more difficult to create comedy. He even posted on Weibo: "The world today is no longer a world where humor is allowed."
Another three years have passed, and Dong Runnian feels that this phenomenon is getting more and more serious: everyone has changed their viewing habits due to short video clips, and they only like short-term stimulation. Humor is becoming less and less allowed nowadays, and people who are offended have a chance to speak out and raise objections.
Offence and irony, these expressions that were originally common in comedy gradually disappeared, and comedy also retreated into its own "safe zone", using the violation of expectations to create "jokes" in an imaginary environment, and no longer played its role in reflecting on reality. .
"The Annual Party Can't Stop" is one of the rare comedy movies nowadays that focuses on real issues. It tells the common but absurd facts in everyone's lives from a "small incision", so that every migrant worker can be involved in it. But do these problems only exist in modern enterprises?
Just one week before the release of "The Annual Party Can't Stop", the new drama "Unpleasant Courage" directed by Dong Runnian was completed. Dong Runnian told Mr. Hegu that this is a comedy based on a talk show. The story still contains the Zhonghe Group, and there will also be a lot of satire on the workplace. He wants to express the unfinished parts of "Annual Meeting". Completed in the episode.
brings back satire and offense and brings comedy out of the safe zone, "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" 》is just a starting point.
