Who would have thought that the first thing that would happen in the film industry in 2024 would be that theater chains would be slapped in the face.
The eight-day Spring Festival period has accumulated a box office of 8 billion, indicating that the theater economy has fully recovered. Then the first hit movie turned out to be a movie that was released simultaneously on streaming media and theaters.
" Get Rid of Three Evils in One Week" was released on Netflix simultaneously on the day it was released in China. On the afternoon of the premiere day, piracy swept the entire Internet. In addition, Taiwanese movies were not accustomed to the local promotion and distribution, so the theater chain did not originally release this movie. Take it seriously. Although
has a high score of 8.4, "Three Evils" only had 8.9% of the films scheduled on its premiere day, less than half of " hot ".
But on its opening day, it took in a box office of 18.11 million, which is higher than "Hot and Spicy". The
theater chain was wildly slapped in the face. Immediately after the large-scale release of movies, the sales increased to 26%. And "Three Evils" lived up to expectations, easily surpassing 100 million in two and a half days, and the forecast has also increased from 200 million to 540 million today.
Piracy is everywhere here, and the box office there is 500 million.
"Three Evils" is undoubtedly a miracle. I believe that most of the "movie columns" that have recently been opened on the consulting platform have been slaughtered by this movie.
Of course, "Three Evils" scored very well and did well at the box office, but it was also controversial. Eight days after
was released, the movie's rating has dropped from 8.4 to 8.1.
In addition to some surreal plots that require the audience to reconcile themselves, the biggest problem is the female characters -
The portrayal of female characters is very thin.
Especially Xiaomei, the value of her existence is just to let the male protagonist perform a self-pleasure drama of a hero saving a beauty. The emotional line is also stiff and awkward, and it is even possible to delete the entire paragraph.
(the above is the integrated evaluation)
At first, De Ge still agreed with this evaluation.
But after three plays, I suddenly discovered the deep metaphor of the screenwriter. Their existence is indispensable, even more important than the villain.
Three men, three women, three evils, three eliminations
The English name of "Three Evils" is translated as "pig, snake, and dove", which respectively correspond to the three poisons of Buddhism: "ignorance, anger, and greed."
The short explanation of the three poisons is this -
Greed, when you are greedy for the smooth state, you have to get it, otherwise, the heart will be unwilling and the emotion will not be willing.
Anger, resentment towards the adverse state, losing temper when not getting what one wants, being irrational and motivated.
Idiots do not understand things, are unclear about right and wrong, do not distinguish between good and evil, take things upside down and make mistakes, and commit all kinds of evil deeds.
The Aberdeen in the film symbolizes "anger", the bull's head symbolizes "greed", and the protagonist Chen Guilin is the most serious "infatuation".
Regarding this point, I believe readers probably know it, so I won’t go into details.
But what many film reviews fail to mention is that "ignorance" is the first of the three poisons. Pigs can spit out snakes and pigeons; ignorance is also the source of greed and anger. It does not understand the cause and effect of good and evil, and lacks the wisdom to clearly understand the causes of life and death and to live a reasonable life. It will produce greed, desire, resentment, anger...
Chen Guilin can be said to be an integration of the three poisons.
In the two battles, he saved others as well as himself.
Therefore, Chen Guilin's battle with Hong Kong Aberdeen and Niu Tou is not just about subduing demons, but the deeper meaning is to get rid of his own inner demons.
The three female characters in the film also played a vital role in dealing with the three poisons, and even used martyrdom to enlighten the protagonist.
Besides the villain, there are three women in the movie.
Guiqing, a black market doctor, adopted daughter Xiaomei, and mother of the little fat man.
Let's talk about it one by one -
The first one, the role of the black market doctor "Guiqing"
runs through the whole film. From the perspective of the script structure, she plays the role of "connecting the previous and the following", prompting Chen Guilin to perform the task, and in the end Bringing out the reversal ensures the readability of the script.
is just the surface layer.
From the perspective of greed, hatred and ignorance, we can regard her as a key, which finally transformed Chen Guilin.
Brother Dei will not comment here for now, and let’s follow the plot and talk about her role in the ending.
The second adopted daughter Xiaomei
Xiaomei should be the most controversial character. After watching the movie, many people said that the narrative would be smoother if she was deleted.
is actually not the case.
Xiaomei's role is actually the biggest, and she is the first person to deviate from Chen Guilin's life trajectory.
At the beginning of the movie, Chen Guilin is portrayed as a gangster killer who has no law and resorts to violence.
If it were just this kind of character design, then the male protagonist would be a pure villain, and the audience would keep a certain distance from the character. Chen Guilin represents a state of chaos at this time.
The appearance of Xiaomei is to strip away this state.
First of all, Chen Guilin’s original driving force for ranking first and second was just to realize his self-worth.
This directly transcends material desires and consolidates the soul weight of the character.
Then he fought with Aberdeen for 300 rounds, from rented houses to run-down factories. After finishing Aberdeen, Chen Guilin staggered back to the room despite being seriously injured, and even helped Xiaomei sort out her clothes while avoiding his eyes. Get out of the trap of water and fire.
Some people say that this is just a standard hero saving a beauty scene and is dispensable.
This statement is obviously without any composure.
The first purpose of letting Chen Guilin save Xiaomei is of course to tell the audience that "Chen Guilin is not a pure bad guy" and to shape the character, but usually, some local directors will let Chen Guilin look at Xiaomei without changing his expression. , thus showing that Chen Guilin is "cool".
In this film, Chen Guilin deliberately turned his eyes away from Xiaomei, and even moved a little clumsily.
This proves that Chen Guilin is still a mortal controlled by seven emotions and six desires, but he is working hard to fight against this state.
This action adds a lot to the character, and even reverses the character's villain image, making him more grounded and more in tune with the audience.
As for the deeper reasons, Aberdeen corresponds to "anger" and violence, and the adopted daughter is also the product of the worship of violence.
After Chen Guilin used extreme violence to solve the problem of Aberdeen, the adopted daughter who was rescued finally realized the awakening of self-awareness and broke free from the Stockholm that inherited her mother.
Chen Guilin gave Xiaomei freedom.
This sense of accomplishment was stronger than the head-on confrontation with Aberdeen, which made Chen Guilin realize that the power of salvation is far more powerful than violence.
From then on, the harm of "anger" was eliminated.
The third one is the little fat man’s mother (hereinafter referred to as the fat mother)
The fat mother is a Protestant in the spiritual garden. Her son was deceived into lying in bed. The fat mother’s spiritual world was crushed, and she surrendered everything and jumped into the pit of fire.
At this time, Chen Guilin was also brainwashed and even planted a gun with his own hands, which meant that he put down violence and did not react even if he was hit in the mouth.
Chen Guilin put it down, but it seemed that he put it down too much.
He thought he had let go of "greed", but in fact he wanted more.
After a brief hypnosis, he finally realized that this was a scam through the fat mother's belongings, and rushed into the venue angrily.
But at this moment, because he had given up violence and was easily controlled, he seemed to be a completely different person.
At this time, the "Niu Tou" used the topic to make the fat mother kill Chen Guilin, hoping to witness the fall of the fat mother through blood and sacrifice, and to prove her strong control ability in front of the believers.
But Fat Mom doesn’t have it.
Under the instigation of everyone, the fat mother would rather kill herself than hurt Chen Guilin.
This kind of impact made Chen Guilin realize -
Sometimes the world needs violence. Just like the end of the law is also high walls and bullets, violence also has a meaning.
At this point, the biggest controversy occurred in the plot. Can Chen Guilin, who was seriously injured and buried alive, crawl out unharmed?
must be "over-interpreted" here.
Since greed, anger and ignorance are involved, the movie already has a surreal foundation, and Chen Guilin and the fat mother are locked in a coffin, the metaphor is even more obvious -
resurrecting the corpse.
Chen Guilin is indeed "dead", but it is the brainwashed Chen Guilin who died, or who walked into a dead end, and the former Chen Guilin came back to life with the help of the fat mother's death.
So we saw that after he broke out, the cult believer dressed in white and smiling, turned around and turned into Chen Guilin, who was all black and stern.
After the baptism and transformation of violence, the gun has also been given the symbolic meaning of judging the world. When
got stuck and launched, Chen Guilin thought it was destiny.
The bull head, which symbolized "greed", was freed under Chen Guilin's trial.
Finally, let’s go back to Doctor Guiqing.
has broken through anger and greed, and it's time for Chen Guilin's own "insanity" to be resolved.
After killing Aberdeen and Niu Tou, Chen Guilin did not forget to shout Gaosheng in front of the camera:
"I am Chen Guilin!"
This was Chen Guilin's last "madness".
He became a killer to earn money for his grandmother, but he did not visit her for four years. His motive for killing was to become famous before his death, but he had a huge impact on society.
Chen Guilin's karma is that he cannot distinguish between right and wrong, is stubborn and acts recklessly.
After being imprisoned, Chen Guilin learned that he had never had lung cancer, that the patient was the doctor Guiqing instead, and that everything he had done was just a lie.
The price of this lie is your life.
Faced with the martyrs who used their lives to practice the truth, Chen Guilin finally realized that he was wrong.
He gave the most expensive watch to his little sister, which symbolized letting go of obsession, eliminating the three poisons, truly becoming a "reborn person", feeling guilty about what he had done, and happily accepting death.
put down the butcher's knife and died as a martyr.
Therefore, the three female characters respectively represent the three stages of Chen Guilin's eradication of inner demons, either rescue or annihilation. They are all in exchange for Chen Guilin's purification with their lives, and they are indispensable.
Of course, having said that, this cannot cover up the fact that female characters are instrumental. This is a matter of opinion.
——Full text complete.
