There has never been a shortage of inspirational movies in the history of movies. The protagonists of these movies are often in a state of distress and frustration. With their strong will and unyielding fighting spirit, they go through many hardships and finally achieve remarkable achievements in a certain field. Add a glorious touch to your life. Moreover, these protagonists often complete their counterattack in life through a certain sport. This is probably because sports can vividly interpret the spirit of perseverance and hard work through visible movements, and provide the audience with images with great viewing pleasure and emotional impact. In addition, success in sports will have a large number of spectators present, which can easily create a warm and unrestrained atmosphere, making the protagonist's coronation moment shine. The film can also quickly push the audience's emotions to a high point through the lens language of the highlight moment. At the same time, the high willpower and indomitable ambition in sports can easily be transformed into a vigorous and promising attitude towards life, which warmly encourages countless audiences.
Specific to boxing, it presents the confrontation between individuals in the form of close combat. The competition is about strong strength, changeable skills and flexible pace. It can easily mobilize the audience's adrenaline and can be used in simple and clear ways. The method defines success and failure, and produces certain spiritual inspiration and life enlightenment for the audience in perceptual stimulation. There are many movies with boxing or free fighting as the theme, such as the "Rocky" series, "Raging Bull" (1980), "In the Name of Love" (1997), "The Iron Fist Man" (2005), "The Fighter" ( 2010), "Warrior" (2011), "The Fight" (2013), "Cardboard Boxer" (2016), etc. Most of these movies are inspirational movies, in which the protagonist uses boxing or free fighting to defeat an unsatisfactory life head-on. "Hot" is also a movie related to inspiration.
The characters are a little thin, but the action logic is more reasonable.
The biggest challenge in the narrative of "Hot and Spicy" is to explain why the protagonist Le Ying feels at ease at home for ten years, is indifferent to the loss of body management, and is finally willing to use extraordinary With his perseverance, he lost 100 pounds and participated in a boxing match.
Although, through the interview with the TV station, Le Ying vaguely explained that the reason why she stayed at home was that she was injured too much when interacting with people and had a social fear. However, the audience still wanted to know more, such as what she said in college. What major she studied, what happened to her in the workplace, why she became a pleaser, etc. After the film omits this information and only presents the results, the audience's understanding of the characters will stay on the surface, only seeing the characters' obesity and laziness, but knowing nothing about the characters' true personalities and inner states.
In order to make Le Ying glow with fighting spirit in life, the film arranged relevant incentive events to make the character's transformation believable and have a certain emotional appeal.
Among the injuries Leying suffered, the repeated trampling on her dignity and self-worth was the main reason that finally made her decide to change herself. When she was laughed at by her sister, disliked by Hao Kun, and despised by Dou Dou, Le Ying felt that she was not only a superfluous person in the world, but also constantly being ignored, played with, deceived, used, and ridiculed by others. When Le Ying was desperate and ready to commit suicide, because she had too much body fat, she jumped from the fourth floor without any injuries. This made Le Ying's heart collapse. She felt pain, but there were no visible wounds. It was like her heart was scarred but could not be found. Causes and treatment directions. Le Ying finally decided to participate in a boxing match, not only to win a victory in the arena, but also to fight for the dignity of life and to shine in a gloomy life.
Although the film reveals too little about the character's life history and personality, it does enough to pave the way for Le Ying's sudden awakening. When a character continues to suffer emotional setbacks, when a character's self-esteem is hit again and again, the character's heart will inevitably accumulate the determination to resist fate, thus completing a reasonable and natural psychological transformation. The film is also able to allow the character's spiritual transformation to have an extremely strong emotional appeal to the audience in a full emotional state.
Reflections in the Character Genealogy
Le Ying is surrounded by moral defaulters: her sister cheated on her during marriage, her ex-boyfriend was not devoted to her relationship, her best friend was full of scheming, the store manager was dirty, and Dou Dou was double-dealing. Compared with these people, although Le Ying has a lazy personality and lacks self-discipline, she has a simple mind. Just like Le Ying is whispering and weak most of the time, she lacks a kind of aggression towards others and appears to be frank and tolerant, like a heartless good person. For example, Le Ying knew that her sister was plotting against her house, and that her sister had been ridiculing her without scruples. After the two had a fight, Le Ying still signed the house transfer agreement angrily; when Hao Kun told others When she distanced herself from her relationship, Le Ying was just secretly sad and did not argue angrily.
Contrast on the moral level can not only complete character creation, but also create comedy effects. Haokun used to be upright and was unwilling to use despicable means to trick customers into applying for cards. Tianfu took advantage of his appearance to have an affair with female students, and even regarded boxing as a means of flirting. In the process of presenting these details, the film not only completes the perspective of social reality, but also effectively realizes the localization transformation of the original film "One Hundred Dollar Love".
The mirroring relationship between the characters in the film is also reflected in the characters' different attitudes towards their dreams. Hao Kun also had a boxing dream at one time and believed that every person has to fight once in life. However, when he received 30,000 yuan from his opponent, he immediately compromised and felt that survival was more real than his dream. In contrast, once her goal was clear, Le Ying showed a touching persistence. There are two contrasting scenes in the film: at first, Le Ying, who was wandering on the street with nothing to do, felt deep envy and inferiority when she saw Hao Kun sweating profusely in the boxing gym; when Le Ying began to pursue her life goals At that time, she was practicing intensively in the boxing gym. Outside, a downcast and slovenly Hao Kun passed by with a complicated expression. At this moment, we realize that what really makes people shine is not their appearance, but a vigorous and promising attitude in life; what really makes people feel ashamed is never their body shape, but their negative and decadent mentality towards life.
In the last game, Le Ying was clearly inferior to the professional players and was beaten constantly. In this regard, my sister seemed extremely confused: I am sick and can't win at all. Why do I keep fighting? My sister couldn't understand that what Le Ying faced was not just a competition, but also an ultimate game of her own. What she needed to defeat was not her opponent, but herself. It was her own inferiority, negativity, depravity, and her own inadequacy in life. , the numbness of doing nothing. At this time, Leying and her sister had completely different understandings of failure and success.
The film shows a rich spectrum of characters. Some people are frivolous and careless about life, some people do whatever it takes to pursue desires, and some people even choose to give up their dreams and principles of life for the sake of life. Against the background of these characters, Le Ying has persistence and struggle. She believes that even if the music of life is not beautiful enough, it must be composed by herself, otherwise there will be only silence and emptiness in her life. This is the core value position of the film.
Improper narrative rhythm and superficial theme strategy
The film uses a large amount of space to unfold Leying's decadent life state and her life experience of constant frustration. It wasn't until about 50 minutes that Le Ying entered the boxing gym. In other words, the film takes 50 minutes to complete the setup, introduce the character’s background, personality, and the character’s living environment. In the view of classic screenwriting methods, this kind of processing seems too lengthy, causing the plot rhythm to be delayed and the narrative rhythm to be seriously out of control.
After Le Ying entered the boxing gym, the development of the plot actually stopped, because Le Ying was generally satisfied with this kind of life. With Hao Kun by her side, Quan practiced boxing as a way to lose weight. It was not until around 90 minutes that Le Ying decided to fight. Game, at this time, there are only more than 30 minutes left before the end of the film. In a typical film, it takes about 25 minutes to basically establish the character's behavioral motivations, and then develop the plot around the motivations and obstacles, building increasingly intense dramatic conflicts, leading the plot to a climax, and finally ushering in a beautiful ending.
The narrative rhythm of "Hot and Spicy" is improper. As a result, the core confrontation stage does not show how Le Ying fights against her laziness and frustration in the process of preparing for the game, and how she gets into discord with the people around her. It is even less visible. After she quit her job as a waitress at a barbecue restaurant, how she paid for renting a house and practicing boxing. Of course, we can't see how much pressure she endured while losing 100 pounds, or even how she went from being an amateur to becoming a boxer. A boxer. In this regard, the film had no choice but to use MV-style fast-editing clips with passionate music to show the details of Leying's weight loss and boxing practice, creating a passionate atmosphere, supplemented by intensive picture bombardment, leaving the audience with no time to think. Completely attracted by a perceptual emotion, and then ignored the unreasonable plot arrangement.
Since the film fails to show the dramatic tension of the characters overcoming obstacles bit by bit during the confrontation stage, the film focuses entirely on the changes in the characters' body shapes. In contrast, "One Hundred Dollars of Love" does not write about the actor's miracle of losing weight, but delicately shows the changes in the character's mental outlook and inner world caused by boxing, and explores the infinite power contained in each person. In "It's Hot", when Le Ying resisted the store manager's harassment, she didn't really become a boxer, she just punched back without any structure. If this detail could be handled better, it could profoundly affect the characterization and plot appeal.
The movie "Hot and Spicy" is wonderful, but it lacks the rich flavor of life and the in-depth exploration of the character's psychology. It only shows the character's only boxing match on a visible level, rather than a complete paragraph of the character. life course. Although "Hot and Hot" uses an anti-climactic way to allow Le Ying to complete her epiphany and growth about life, it is still a bit light. It is unwilling or unable to show the sadness of the impermanence of the world, or the calmness and helplessness of having experienced all the vicissitudes of life. Instead, it repeatedly renders it on a passionate and inspirational level, rarely touching the characters' inner struggles and soul cries. This makes "Hot and Spicy" a momentary touch and inspiration for the audience, and does not pursue more profound and lasting enlightenment and reflection. Many viewers will even regard the film as an inspirational film for weight loss. Perhaps, this is a kind of consideration reflected in artistic creation after the changes of the times, under the coercion of traffic economy, limiting the audience's satisfaction and pleasure to a short viewing period, and limiting the audience's touching to a superficial level. Visually shocking and emotionally touching. (Author: Gong Jinping, Professor of Art Education Center of Fudan University)
