Every reporter: Song Meilu Every editor: Dong Xingsheng
The first batch of summer movies has been released.
According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, as of 10:18 am on July 12, the box office of the 2024 summer movie has exceeded 3.4 billion yuan (including pre-sales). Among them, " silently kills " led the box office with over 600 million yuan, marking the first shot of the summer season.
Picture source: Screenshot of Maoyan Professional Edition
The film "Silent Kill", with the core theme of countering "silence", has not been "silent" in the public eye. Since its release, the film has sparked widespread discussion as it touches on multiple social issues such as school violence, domestic violence, and parent-child relationships. Related topics such as # Silent Kill School Bullying # and # Silent Killing the Dark Side of Human Nature continue to occupy hot searches. List. Some people praised the stimulating feeling brought by the film's layer-by-layer reversal, while others thought that the film contained too much information and needed to be digested.
Recently, Ke Wenli, the director of "Silent Kill", accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from "Daily Economic News". This post-85s director became famous with "Manslaughter" and now returns with "Manslaughter", becoming a new representative of the suspense film circuit. Faced with the discussion, Ke Wenli said: "This film is not intended to focus on a social issue, but to reflect the phenomenon of silence that exists widely in every corner."
Multi-perspective narration by Ke Wenli: Don't underestimate the audience
Released On the 10th day, "Silence" ranked among the top ten new films in 2024 with a box office of nearly 650 million yuan. Ke Wenli expressed satisfaction with the current results.
Picture source: Photo provided by the interviewee
Ke Wenli, who was born in 1985, directed the first short film "Free Man" which was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film; at the age of 34, he directed the first feature film "Manslaughter" , and won the Lunar New Year championship that year with a box office of over 1.3 billion yuan.
With the two films "Silent Kill" and "Manslaughter", Covinli has formed his own style, and there is also a saying in the market of "Covinli-style suspense films".
Faced with suspense films, a genre that requires extremely high logic, Ke Wenli said that it took seven years to create the script of "Silent Kill" and that he has enough confidence in this script. As a director and screenwriter, he believes that "a good director must understand screenwriting." The audio-visual language of a film must be closely connected with the story in order to touch people's hearts.
During the filming, "Silent Kill" adopted a multi-perspective narration method, gradually presenting it through different perspectives, and finally depicting the original appearance of the story. This is due to Ke Wenli's past experience in editing, burying clues in advance and echoing them later to create suspense. Until now, Ke Wenli still believes that editing is a very interesting thing. He prefers to tell stories through audio-visual language rather than long dialogues. "In the process of writing scripts and shooting, I will push back the materials that need to be shot according to the desired results, bury the lines, and then create some call back effects through editing. I hope that every prop and every item in the movie Every line can be used, and it has meaning."
After "Silent Kill" was released, the rich social issues involved in it attracted a lot of discussion. Some viewers were attracted by its compact plot and dense reversals, calling it extremely enjoyable; but others pointed out that the film tried to explore too many themes, making it not in-depth enough and difficult to digest.
Regarding this, Ke Wenli said that "diversity" is exactly what he wanted to express in this movie. Ke Wenli put a series of social events in the film. "This film does not want to focus on a social issue, but hopes to reflect the silence phenomenon that widely exists in every corner of society."
Picture source: Picture provided by the interviewee
This is also the reason why he chose Malaysia as the filming location. In Malaysia, the culture is relatively diverse, with people from various countries, languages, and cultures. During the filming, Ke Wenli blurred out the specific location. He did not want the audience to think that this was a small-scale incident in a small region, but hoped to break the geographical restrictions and make the film a global issue of universal significance.
"Don't underestimate our audience. The tastes of movie audiences are always changing. In the past, audiences may have preferred a single storyline, but now they can absorb more information. Our movies should keep pace with the times." Ke Wenli said.
"If reversal has no deterrent effect, it is just a show off"
In recent years, suspense films have suddenly emerged in the film market and occupied a place. Currently, seven of the top ten box office suspense films in mainland film history are produced after 2021.
Maoyan Professional Edition shows that " Azolla " (4.544 billion), " Detective Chinatown 3" (4.523 billion), " The Disappearing Her " (breaking 3 billion), " On the Cliff " (11.91 000 million), "无名" (931 million), the continuous box office success proves the strong appeal of this genre. This year is just over halfway, and 21 suspense films have been released. "Crossing the Angry Sea" and "The Three Evils Every Week" have become this year's most popular films.
Picture source: Screenshot of Maoyan Professional Edition
With the popularity of the suspense film market, more and more creators are favoring the suspense track. Ke Wenli believes that suspense films have certain advantages in expressing social issues. The appeal of
suspense films largely stems from its tense narrative rhythm and clever plot reversals. Hot search terms such as # Silent Kill Reversal, Reversal and Again #, # Silent Kill High-energy No-Urine Spots # also confirm the success of "Silent Kill". In Ke Wenli's view, a truly good suspense film should leave the audience with no "pee spots" (referring to the point when watching a movie when the plot is not worth holding back and you can go to the bathroom). In addition, In addition to entertainment and brain-burning, it should also include positive value output. He took "Silent Kill" as an example. At the end of the film, the mute girl Chen Yutong breaks the "silence" to reveal the truth, enhance the dramatic tension of the story, and at the same time deepen the theme of the film.
In order to enhance the drama, many suspense film creators continue to superimpose reversals in the film to increase the effect. However, Ke Wenli emphasized that reversal is not a pursuit of quantity, but needs to be shocking, able to directly touch the hearts of the audience, and at the same time closely consistent with the theme of the story. "If reversal does not have a shocking effect, it is just a show off skill."
From the high reputation of "Manslaughter", to the popularity of the " Chinatown Detective " series, to the box office success of "Manslaughter", Ke Wenli's name is closely linked to the suspense film representative Chen Sicheng. Now Ke Wenli It has also become a representative of commercial suspense films. Regarding external evaluations, Ke Wenli said that he does not pay too much attention to his own style. "The director's style comes from his personal growth background and life experience. These factors determine our aesthetic preferences and narrative methods when creating. , they are formed naturally and not deliberately.”
Director Ke Wenli Picture source: Photo provided by the interviewee
Regarding the future creative direction, Ke Wenli said that he will continue to delve into suspense crime themes and use this form to explore more social issues. However, he emphasized that suspense films are a genre that he is good at, but it does not mean that he limits himself to this. "If there is a story that arouses my creative impulse, I am also willing to try other themes."
Daily Economic News
