text | Linghu Boguang
In the 2024 summer season, the current biggest winner is indeed Happy Twist-led, Shen Teng and Ma Li 's " Catch the Baby ". The box office in the first week of release has exceeded 1.7 billion, and the final prediction is that the box office will reach around 3.5 billion. Shen Teng and Ma Li are worthy of being the current kings of Chinese comedy films.
However, after the film was released, word-of-mouth controversy was still relatively large. It is good to watch, but the controversy among netizens was still relatively large. It's probably really funny, but the educational aspect behind it is so suffocating that it's like a horror movie.
Netizen's family of origin is very scary again. Netizens have started to educate themselves in Jiwazijuan again. Netizens contacted their own tragic childhood experiences and asked for Yuyu again.
I think "Catch a Baby" can be the best entertainment comedy in the past few years. It is a movie that truly perfectly interprets the tragedy at the core of comedy. Different from the happy ending of a certain Ling, "Catch a Baby" uses the child's embarrassment. Making everyone laugh with pain, it’s fun to see it from God’s perspective.
There are all kinds of embarrassing things and hilarious things in every stage, but for Ma Jiye, the funnier clips correspond to the deeper pain he feels. The pain of being bullied by classmates is real, and the embarrassment of lack of material in childhood is real. The worry about grandma's illness is real, the guilt and sadness of returning the tablet that got stuck are real, and the fatigue of picking up the bottles is real.
The fake funeral that made the biggest laugh was the death of a close relative for him. In the end, everything was fake. His life seemed to have been arranged by others, so for Ma Jiye, everything was fake. This was the only one. The pain along the way is real. When we switch the perspectives of the third party and Ma Jiye, we will find that sorrow and joy are interdependent.
The Chinese educational version of "The Truman Show" and "Catch a Baby" perfectly localized it and satirized many Chinese-style education problems of strong control over the years and parents imposing their will on their children. A child's hilarious tragedy.
Of course, this movie is indeed not a classic comedy that can go into film history, it is still just short of that.
Word-of-mouth and box office are soaring, is absurdity separated from reality? Shen Teng's new film is indeed a bit off.
Since the film is still in theaters, I won't spoil it here. Maybe my expectations are too high. The pace of the whole movie is quite good, but there are a few points that may be a bit unreasonable or a bit hasty. It is very unreasonable to mix a few nonsensical clips into an educational film, or mix in pure comedy that needs to be realistic and reasonable.
The overall feeling is that the movie's laughter is directly given to the audience, as if it is tailor-made, and it is shot directly from God's perspective. If I were to play the protagonist, I would even feel sad that it is not funny at all. Of course, this is a small part of my immaturity. senses. My biggest criticism was that I frowned the whole time when "Grandma" passed away. I simply didn't like that the laughter was based on the pain of a child losing a loved one compared to other people who knew the truth. Then I would I feel very sad and vulgar.
It may be true that the perspective is different, but I just feel ridiculous. Even death can be arranged. So what is real? Is what we the audience see real?
I was a bit confused about the whole movie, that is, whose perspective it wanted us to take on, and the narrative was somewhat fragmented. If you simply put the perspective of a child, it would not be a pure comedy. It would be a tragedy worse than The Truman Show. Even the simple poverty is just fake. If the perspective is viewed from the perspective of God, then it is indeed a complete joke. Watch the hilarious clips of life deception in the film about couples cheating on their children's love.
When will the audience stop laughing? It will be when the protagonist gradually discovers the unreasonableness, when he plans the entire plan to lure the tiger away from the mountain, and when he completely discovers that he has been deceived and concealed for 18 years of his life. I think this movie would be more successful if it were a suspense film.
"The boss is gone and sad" is really unbearable. "Grandma 'passed away'" is not funny at all. And the following sentence "Teacher Li" not only breaks "grandma"'s guard, He also silenced me. Do you think Lao Ma and his wife were born? I can't figure this out either.
You said it was good for the children, but they (especially Lao Ma) made Ma Jiye look down upon by his classmates since he was a child. He acted as a poor man even though his family was rich, just to make ends meet; but you said it was not good for the children, but Ma Jiye had a "hard time" here. "In this environment, he has become a talent, and he is ahead of his peers in learning, life, and doing things. Even if he does not rely on real wealth, his future life will not be too tiring.
But this cannot be compared with "The Truman Show". The two are different in nature. Truman's life is for business, but Ma Jiye's life is not only for the Ma family, but also for himself. It also revolves around One person switches, but the reasons are different.
Everything Truman saw was fake, and what Ma Jiye saw was both true and false. In Lao Ma, I can also see the shadow of some people, all referring to old almanacs from the past. I talked about my suffering back then, and at the same time I said how bad I was at living a life, not knowing how to do this or that.
This film cannot be viewed purely as a comedy. It has jokes, but they are all jokes from hell.
Just laugh, don’t value it? "Catch a Baby" has made many netizens "blush"
I believe you have seen many comments on the Internet. Nowadays, comedies have to be valued. If it is not funny, it will end up making dumplings. There are no pure comedies anymore, but when a comedy like this comes out, we are scrambling to analyze the values, what is going on, and what are the metaphors that need to be analyzed.
"Catch a Baby" is such a movie. It has the shell of a comedy, but because the core is depressing, most of the various comedy elements are not easy to laugh at. Coupled with the forced reunion at the end, it did not give an outlet for the suppressed emotions. I couldn't laugh easily, and I couldn't express my suppressed emotions. It was very dislocated. Director
's criticism is almost invisible and not thought-provoking. Instead, due to the need to maintain the happy ending of the comedy, it will feel a bit fragmented in the end. However, many people now elevate the situation of movies to reality, and there is no need for education, values, guidance, or criticism.
I don’t agree with the concept of educating children in movies, but I have to say that their almost "terrifying" education methods have indeed cultivated Ma Jiye into a talent with excellent academic performance and excellent mobility. Not to mention his college entrance examination score of 705 points, he has also been cultivated into talents in other aspects.
knows how to find ways to solve difficulties on his own, can strengthen his heart when facing temptation, and can expose the truth through the experience he learned from his father. Even his hobby of long-distance running is because of his father. It only came about by asking him to run five kilometers every day.
In terms of results, can you say that this is a failed education? However, even when he grows up, his progress will be stopped by a water bottle thrown away while running (childhood suffering). Can you call this a successful education? I feel like it doesn't count... The difference from Ma Jiye is Ma Dajun, his brother. His father has a completely different type of education for his brother. He is obedient and has a free-range education. But has his brother become a talent? Is his brother living a good life?
Don't tell me that his brother's failure in life is because his father does not agree with him. Just like her father's evaluation of him in the movie, he can't even distinguish between a disciple and a walker. How can I agree with him? Could this be considered a correct educational method? It doesn't seem to be the case... And what's even more despairing is that many people think this family is terrifying, but the suppression and control are real. Are the love and tenderness fake?
"Grandma" screamed in pain at the funeral, my mother cared for her and took care of her again and again, and my father's encouragement, were they all fake? Many people think that the last sentence "Are you going home for dinner?" represents his father's control over him. I just think it reflects his father's concern and love for him. This plot just wants to tell you that he Does his father love him too?
So, this is where the movie is still divided, as his father said at the end: "Do you think I am the only one controlling you? In fact, you are also controlling me!"
Many people do not agree with this sentence, because true control Theirs is not their children, but themselves. What controls them is their own "responsibility", "love" or "desire for control". They hope to cultivate their children to become talents. Because of this, they are willing to lower themselves and spend a lot of their youth to cultivate their children, but they can only cultivate them based on their own experience.
Ma Chenggang attributed his success to the suffering he suffered when he was young, so he used suffering to temper his children. Can you say he is wrong? But that's how successful he is. He is just choosing the path he thinks is right for his children. Didn’t he adopt a free-range education? Wasn’t the big one already exhausted?
So, he spent a lot of resources, time and efforts to cultivate his children in what he thought was the right way, but it brought endless pain to the children. This is a very twisted love, but twisted love is also love, and twisted love also comes with a price.
It doesn’t matter whether you laugh or curse, or it doesn’t matter if it satirizes reality. After all, "Catch a Baby" is just a movie
I think the biggest problem with this movie is that it's not good enough, it's just not extreme enough. There are too many compromises for comedy and reality. This is also a problem with many current domestic movies. From a pure comedy point of view, it is not as good as the previous films of Happy Twist, although there are still many laughs to make people laugh.
But as long as the audience is connected to reality (education issues), the audience is connected to movie issues (logo and details issues).
Like the latter, there are many loopholes and doubts in the whole movie. For example, why did Ma Jiye realize the truth and resist on the day of the college entrance examination? Do you really think that life is scripted... and the ending is too hasty and a bit top-heavy. The audience held their breath for a long time waiting for Ma Jiye's reaction after knowing the truth, but in the end he just moved on and felt relieved?
The thing that puzzles me the most is that the funeral emcee Li Zongheng pronounced the "I" in "My Sun Jiye" with three tones, and I can't see that he wanted to use a typo here to show that the emcee was not good enough. During the filming of the movie, among the many people involved, wasn’t there a cultural person?
But I still recommend watching it. Only after watching it will you think about why some people dislike it, and will you think this movie is worth watching.
After all, this is just a movie.
