"Get rid of the three evils in every week ". The box office of
exceeded 200 million, ranking first in the daily box office.
Such achievements are tantamount to a complete victory for a small-budget Taiwanese production that received almost no publicity during the cold period after the Spring Festival.
Everyone lamented that it had been a long time since they saw a movie on the big screen that was truly worth the price of admission, because of the script and the acting skills of the entire cast.
but the most mentioned one is still:
standard.
"Is this something I can watch?"
Cult, headshots, sexual fetishes... it can be called the largest domestic screen in recent years.
Even because of the overwhelming response from early screenings, the film was urgently re-released and underwent special processing, replacing the massacre scene in the Lingxiu Hall with a version with less visual impact.
Some people said, "Taiwanese films are so bold."
Someone else said:
"Wouldn't it still be released if it was filmed like this? If a mainland director can't film it, don't blame the censorship."
Three questions.
Is the scale of "Zhou Chu" really big?
sir's previous article has said that even if it is normal, it has been restrained compared to the director's previous film "Avengers Death".
is just larger in scale than previous domestic films, so it’s not that surprising when put on the world stage.
Is "Zhou Chu" so awesome?
Douban score once jumped to 8.4, but now it has dropped back to 8.1. It is estimated that it will drop slightly and return to a rational level.
sir does not deny that this is indeed an eye-catching revenge film, but everyone's unanimous praise for it comes more from the support of peers.
Since the scale is not large and it is not of a very high level, can a mainland director copy "Zhou Chu"?
sir gives the answer first and then the process.
01
When it comes to standards, you can’t just ask for a sword.
Don’t be dissatisfied.
Why does sir say it can't be photographed?
First of all, scale is not a constant. It does not mean that if others can take pictures, you can also take pictures. The scale of
will change as the specific environment changes.
The reason why the scale of "Zhou Chu" can appear on the screen is ultimately because it is set in Taiwan. When we watch the film, we will not directly connect it with reality, and by default it will be just a virtual image in a bubble.
But once the plot in the film is localized, it needs to be turned into a mainland version of the story.
Then problems that were not a problem with in have appeared:
Chen Guilin is a gangster, can our protagonist be a gangster?
He was deceived into a cult? Isn’t cult a sensitive word?
...
The movie "Zhou Chu" is released.
thinks that we can also shoot such a story, which is a bit too naive.
This is why domestic films have long developed a "Southeast Asian universe", bringing stories about gangs, corruption, drugs, and organ trading to Thailand and other places.
is a cliché. Because
has limitations, it cannot be photographed.
But what prevents us from filming "Zhou Chu" today is probably not the scale limit.
Rather, is the standard that grows in your mind.
02
Standards are restricted, not just areas outside the standards.
A common saying:
"Although ghosts, Korean-style political thrillers, boat dramas, underworld... can't be filmed, you can still film other things. Don't film them." Don’t you know how to make large-scale movies?”
Common example:
Iranian children’s film.
has so many restrictions. Just by making children's films, you can make master-level films such as " Little Shoes ", " White Balloon " and "Where is My Friend's Home".
but.
Does this really prove that no matter how stringent the standards are, they will not hinder the development of movies.
If yes, how many new Iranian films have you watched this year?
How many movies did you watch last year and the year before last?
let sir take a bold guess: 0, right.
If the Iranian movies you are familiar with are all about more than 20 years ago, it may explain how
's vigorous creative power was confined to the narrow category of children's films until it dried up.
Of course, Iran has also produced excellent films in recent years, but they have either been blocked or the directors have been jailed.
Okay, let’s go back to domestic films.
In fact, it is not that domestic film directors have never explored standards and often even break them.
htmlIn the 1990s, "underground movies" emerged.Zhang Yuan's "East Palace and West Palace", Jia Zhangke's "Platform", Lou Ye's "Suzhou River", Wang Chao's " Anyang Baby " and other series failed to pass the review, but began to be circulated through "piracy".
But now, what is the result of exploration?
is not that we have opened up a broader creative space.
has learned a truth:
The wall is always harder than your head.
Jia Zhangke, who switched from "underground" to "above ground" in "The World" in 2004, switched back again a few years later in "Destined".
Later, there were fewer rumors about underground movies. The new words replaced by
are: "technical reasons" .
In 2018, the screening of "中魔" was stopped due to "technical reasons". The opening screening of the
movie " 八百" at the Shanghai International Film Festival was canceled due to technical reasons.
It is undeniable that films such as "One Second" and "Eight Hundred" have all appeared on the big screen after solving "technical problems".
It seems that this is the same as "Zhou Chu". If there are any problems with
, deal with them, fix them, and then continue to show them.
Does this mean that mainland directors can shoot regardless of the scale, and if there are any areas that are overdone, they can just change them as required?
Sorry.
is the same as mentioned above, and the answer is no.
There is a problem here called trial and error cost .
For example, people often discuss on the Internet why children from well-off families dare to take risks, travel around the world during a gap year, and pursue their dreams wholeheartedly.
Children from ordinary families tend to follow the rules and can only choose the safest and conservative path?
Because you have family support, you can have many opportunities. If your dream does not come true, you will have to find another one.
But for you, there may only be one chance, and it will be over if you fail.
"Zhou Chu" is like this.
It can be its own thing first, and the cost can be recovered in the Taiwan market anyway. Whether it can be released in mainland China is just an additional question, just have the mentality of giving it a try.
But for mainland directors. Once
fails, everything is lost.
In such a situation, will you choose to take risks and test the edges of high-voltage lines, or will you choose to keep a safe distance and stay away?
so.
Don't think that if "Zhou Chu" is released smoothly, similar movies will appear everywhere.
Even with this successful precedent, Sir can be sure that next time there is a script similar to "Zhou Chu", our director will still go around it.
someone said. The
standard just doesn't allow you to shoot erotica, violence, and politics.
Apart from this, you are free to choose the rest.
however. The
standard does not just isolate the outside world.
Internally, it is bound to continue to shrink.
No one even tells you what you can’t shoot, and you’ve learned to cut yourself out.
Lou Ye still received the deletion notice 41 days before the release of "Mystery in the Floating City". After 17 days of negotiations, not a single shot was changed. At the same time, he also gave up his right to be credited as the director.
He did not agree that the number of hits with a hammer should only be kept twice.
Because the level of violence has changed, the nature of the incident and the character's heart are completely different.
When it comes to "Wind and Rain", faced with too many twists and turns, he can only say:
This is a work that many people have put in a lot of work.
I hope it will be released safely.
All the attitudes I want to express are The film has been very clearly presented
including all traces of deletions in the film
This is what I hope the audience will understand
From now on
I will remain silent
Zhang Yimou showed his consciousness as a "national teacher".
is the "one step" that saves the most time and energy.
Our director actually has a pair of scissors hidden in his head.
We know those standards well, so for some difficult stories, we won’t shoot them at all, otherwise, everything may be wasted.
comes from the heart of the creator.
has rejected a certain type of story from the beginning, rejecting the truest expression of oneself.
So what are we left with?
03
second-rate
This is what Lou Ye mentioned again.
His words in the behind-the-scenes documentary of "Wind and Rain":
Second-rate viewers, there is no curse here.
is to say that no matter the creator, the work or the audience, they are all "second-rate".
because we also exclude "first nature" . The story shot by director
is not the original intention, but the result of clearing out the "minefield".
Our movies are not original, and their growth is all a reflection of restrictions and pruning.
The movies we, the audience, see are what remains after specific content has been blocked from the broad perspective of the world.
cannot be "first".
can only do the rest after "first". Isn't
second-rate?
This is also the reason why "Zhou Chu" has caused such a big response today.
because it is not necessarily that awesome.
But at least it's a "top" movie.
is a movie that puts oneself first, rather than hiding oneself behind censorship, worries, and taboos.
Why do everyone feel like “I haven’t seen you in such a long time”. Is it just the scale that
hasn't seen before? More than
.
It has been too long since we have seen bright, weird, frank, wanton, high-spirited, and carefree indifference.
Because we have been trained to think this is a taboo.
taboos come from the official, from the private sector, and even from the "imaginary enemy of public opinion" that every creator cannot escape.
Chen Zheyi, the director of last year's "Burning Winter" from Malaysia, said in an interview that one thing he found "cute" was that the staff often asked: "Director, can this be filmed? Are you sure this can be filmed?"
in " Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" On the set of "", Bai Ke specifically asked the director: "We are a person who satirizes the workplace. Isn't this dangerous?"
I said that the central idea of working overtime is not to complete the work
but to show attitude
Isn’t this a satire on the workplace?
Isn’t it dangerous?
Director Dong Runnian thought for a while.
"Yes", but then changed his mind: "I don't know."
This year's most un-Spring Festival movie: " Mr. Red Carpet " also wants to take the satirical comedy route.
Its texture is most like a movie, but the content is embarrassing, just like the line in the movie-swallowing Chinese medicine with warm water will not taste the taste.
Looking at the whole film, what did Ning Hao dare to satirize?
satirizes stars' hidden marriages, alluding to Andy Lau, but we have known this in Gossip Weekly more than ten years ago;
satirizes celebrities who specialize in "big cotton-padded jacket" peasant themes in order to receive awards; satirizes actors who do not work hard enough to protect animals. ...
Seeing him complaining about "employment" is more like a flirtatious tickle.
In the ensuing fight between management and celebrities, the director even stayed away.
He dared to judge sharply:
was also the most innocuous.
"Movies need stories, and film festivals also need stories."
And do we really envy "Zhou Chu"?
It is obvious that Ning Hao's "Crazy Racing" back then could also have Taiwanese gangsters, white powder sellers and cold chain frozen corpses:
At that time, did we think it was particularly large-scale?
was just commonplace at the time.
Today's "Mr. Red Carpet" is also in line with Ning Hao's fundamentals of "maintaining stability" in this era.
Ning Hao has already said in a previous interview:
"For him now, the biggest starting point for creating and writing things is not whether he can shoot them, but to understand what a thing is through writing things. He is A way to understand the world."
This sentence sounds very lofty, but it doesn't even have a chance to create freely.
How to understand the world. What kind of world does
know?
This kind of self-censorship makes us viewers feel depressed and powerless in the face of great movies that we are looking forward to.
was not completely released and carnivaled until the movie "Zhou Chu".
said this.
There may be many people who want to persuade sir to shut up.
Even sometimes, Sir will often fall into this kind of self-censorship, "Writing like this, will it..."
But Sir also believes that we still have directors who have always stood here and insisted on self-expression. .
We don’t lack directors and scripts that hit the mark, and we don’t lack good authors and works either.
Even, we can find the joy of free creation in the gaps and gaps that have not been touched by the review.
As Xu Jizhou, the director of "Crazy" said, there are 11 departments to review the decent plot, while the villains can play freely.
So, we have such a "real" Gao Qiqiang and a "symbolized" An Xin.
was secretly happy.
But it is melancholy that cannot be let go.
Humble, too humble.
movie It is not like this, nor should it be like this.
The pictures in this article come from the Internet
Editorial Assistant: Oda won’t let you cut
