905 Movie Network special article suspense crime film "Silent Kill" summer release "not silent"! On the one hand, the film had previously been a hit, winning the daily box office crown for nine consecutive days. So far, the total box office has exceeded 1.2 billion yuan!
On the other hand, word-of-mouth has ushered in polarized controversy. Some people commented that the movie has interlocking social topics, all the members are ruthless, it is full of excitement, and the plot twists are unexpected.
Some viewers also complained about these aspects: stacking of elements, excessive scale, reversal for reversal, and a script generated by AI.
The blockbuster elements of the suspenseful crime film "Silent Kill" not only attract audiences into the theater, but also become the focus of complaints. This phenomenon appears many times in the movie, which shows that the creator is walking a "balance beam."
For example, the pursuit of social topics, including the "all ruthless people" in "Silence" is actually a very conducive to attracting the attention of the movie. But at the same time, cool film narratives can also produce a "refrigerator" phenomenon. It means that when the audience watches the movie, they will find it very enjoyable and enjoyable. When the audience gets home and opens the refrigerator to drink a bottle of Coke, they will suddenly think, "No, the movie I just watched had this or that problem."
Therefore, "Silent Kill" can arouse heated discussions among the audience, which shows that it satisfies the audience's emotional consumption and achieves the display of the wonders of human nature. Therefore, the current results of "Silent Kill" are actually expected.
Interpretation of netizen evaluations
Next, let’s look at typical netizen evaluations.
Netizen 1 left a message saying: "Actually, the story is okay, but everything is too full. There is no need to repeatedly reproduce the massacre and bloodshed in order to show the evil and tragedy."
In this regard, screenwriter Song Fangjin said that it is not necessary to show the evil and misery. Tragic and bloody plot. For example, in the movie, wearing a crown of thorns on the head is a kind of criminal spectacle, including some scenes where nails are pierced in the face, which are shown through fighting between the two parties.
But if it is to advance the plot and show the emotions of the characters, appropriately tragic scenes are allowed. But if the creator wants to arouse the audience's emotions while watching the movie, the bloody display method will be over the top.
The second netizen said, "If you feed keywords such as novelty, crime, suspense, Southeast Asia, murder, bullying, domestic violence, and sexual assault to the AI, what will come out will probably look like this video. I can't wait to see it. All the topic elements were crammed in, but nothing was said.”
Song Fangjin particularly agreed with this. The elements summarized by this netizen, in fact, just one or two of them are enough to constitute a movie.
For example, "She Disappeared" combined the incident of a Chinese pregnant woman being pushed off a cliff in Thailand, and expanded it with the help of gender issues and social topics triggered by real events. "Desperate" focuses on the social issue of telecommunications fraud in recent years. In addition, if themes such as campus bullying, sexual assault, and domestic violence can be juxtaposed with them, they can further form a spectacle of humanity.
However, these human wonders do not form a character relationship that can withstand scrutiny in the eyes of the audience, nor do they form a dramatic and exquisite integration. Therefore, what the second netizen said will appear, especially if we feed some keywords to the AI, it is relatively mechanized.
Another netizen said that the film suddenly had a reversal during the acting, as if it was shot by AI, which was illogical.
As a screenwriter, Song Fangjin also feels the same way. There are indeed many plots in the movie. When there is no reversal, the creators create reversals.
Except for the movie "Silent Kill", similar crime suspense films in recent years are actually reversals for the sake of reversals. For example, if you tell the AI that I want three reversals in this 90-minute movie, the AI will forcefully create one reversal for you. However, most of these reversals are very mechanical and physical, and lack aesthetic ability and emotional expression.
After the rapid explosion of domestic suspense films in recent years, domestic suspense films have gradually entered the dilemma of "template production". From many films, it seems that "remakes of foreign scripts, dramatic endings, and rising themes of family love" can be seen. These three major tricks.
However, among the remakes of suspense films, there are still some original masterpieces, such as last year's summer hit "All or Nothing" and the currently being screened "Silent Kill", especially "Silent Kill", although the overseas version is early was released in the mainland version, but it still made new attempts in the narrative structure of the entire film, using more clever narrative techniques to give the audience a more immersive suspenseful atmosphere.
When it comes to reversal, it is actually a storytelling method that cannot be avoided in suspense films. It brings unexpected surprises to the audience through the overlapping and flipping of the plot. However, in recent years, reversals in suspense films have increasingly relied on The external performance of the actors and the explicit presentation of the plot.
For example, the favorite thing to appear in the film is sweating. It even focuses on the sweat beads on the actors’ foreheads in close-up, as well as breathing heavily and heartbeats. They all try to use these preset methods to make the audience realize their accumulated expectations little by little. Reversal, but in fact, this explicit suspense technique will destroy the audience's immersion and make the audience's reverse transformation "natural".
Let’s talk about the theme of family affection. This is actually the emotional element that distinguishes Chinese audiences from foreign audiences. It flows in the “blood” and is most likely to resonate. Appropriate expressions of family affection in the film can awaken the audience's empathy, and also leave the whole film with an "emotional climax" that the audience will remember most deeply.
But everything must be done in a degree, and over-reliance on the theme of family love can also cause trouble - in "Silent Killing", the mother's love for the little girl is distorted into sadistic protection, and even produces many "spectacles of family love", They are all over-exploiting the audience’s empathy.
After all, the current domestic suspense films will fall into such a routine process, which is essentially path dependence in the film industry.
From the explosion of the "Manslaughter" series to the continued popularity of hit suspense films in 2023 such as "The Disappearance of Her", full scenes, constant reversals, and human wonders seem to have become essential elements for hit suspense films, but this year's " With the popularity of similar suspense films like "Crossing the Sky" cooling down, it should be time to give the market and industry a shot of "calm". The
market is inseparable from these "selling factors", but these factors are by no means a silver spoon. They can become the hit artifacts of the film, or they can also become the "bad eggs" that destroy the audience's expectations.
Therefore, starting from the creator's point of view, we must first put aside all the pre-settings of suspense film routines, observe social issues from scratch, think about the needs of the audience, and write the most complete story with the most authentic writing.
In the creative process, we must refuse to suspend human nature to form a "criminal spectacle", tell society and life from an original perspective, and make good use of the brush of suspense to paint the Chinese suspense story that the audience is most looking forward to.
