This year's summer season is a hot and cold one. The box office of the happy twist comedy "Catch Me" exceeded 3 billion, and the box office of the hit suspense film "Silent Kill" exceeded 1.3 billion. However, the box office of other domestic movies was not as expected, and did n

This year’s summer season is a world of ice and fire. The box office of the happy twist comedy "Catch a Baby" exceeded billion , and the hit suspense film "Silent Kill" exceeded 1.3 billion. However, the box office of other domestic movies was not as expected, and even failed to exceed it. 500 million.

As we enter mid-August, two more domestic films are released, the crime film written by Ma Yuke " Rebirth " and " Dream of the Red Mansions: A Good Marriage " directed by Hu Mei. , hope it can be opened situation, give another breath to domestic films.

However, currently "A Dream of Red Mansions" only received 1.5% of the film schedules, the attendance rate was only 3.8%, and the box office only exceeded 4 million; "Rebirth" received 16.4% of the film schedules, the attendance rate was 9.3%, and the box office exceeded 100 million in three days of release. , according to media predictions, it is expected to receive a box office of 300 million.

1. "Rebirth" was created by the original cast of "The Furious Tide". Director Ma Yuke's narrative ability has improved a lot.

Speaking of director Ma Yuke, netizens must be most impressed by the game in "Dragon". Frankly speaking, he became popular with this slightly wretched image back then, and subsequently performed brilliantly in more than a dozen film and television works. Until 2013, when he went south to develop in Hong Kong, he was also famous for his role as "Tsim Sha Tsui" in " Anti-drug " "Duan Kun" has become an "Internet emoticon".

After participating in a series of crime films such as "Wanted in the City", "Mystery City", " Bomb Disposal Expert 2", " Escape from Death ", Ma Yuke also starred in Chen Musheng, Chen Sicheng, Lin Lingdong, Liu Weiqiang These great directors have learned valuable directing experience.

As the saying goes, "Excellence in acting leads to directing." Ma Yuke has accumulated a lot of experience and launched " rage " in December last year. The film brings together three major male stars, Nick Cheung, Ethan Ruan, and Wang Dalu, about the battle of wits and courage with the "human traffickers" group. The story has a compact plot and intensive action scenes. It is a hormone-exploding action movie. It has a Douban score of 6.2 and a box office of 229 million.

"Rebirth" was shot immediately after "The Furious Tide" and was completed on July 20 last year. The three main actors, Nick Cheung, Ethan Ruan, and Chen Guokkun, were retained. The filming team was also the original cast of Ma Yuke.

This time Ma Yuke has a more mature control over the script, trying to omit unnecessary plots to make the story line more vivid and focus on the showdown between good and evil.

The film tells the story of a drug trafficking group headed by Mu Kun, a high-ranking police officer, An Pei (played by Gao Jie) in Mancheng, a large city in Southeast Asia.

Zhang Yao (played by Zhang Jiahui) lost his family due to his wife being involved in drugs. In order to take revenge, he cooperated with the anti-drug captain Andu (played by Ruan Jingtian) and pretended to be Mu Kun's long-lost son Shawang Break into the group.

Mu Kun's adopted son Herta (played by Chen Guokun) was originally defaulted to be the heir to the group. Zhang Yao's arrival pretending to be Shawang threatened his status, so a gang war soon broke out.

Zhang Yao deliberately provoked the relationship between An Pei and Mu Kun, which finally caused the Mu Group that had been entrenched in Mancheng for many years to collapse. Mu Kun, An Pei, Herta and others died tragically one after another.

However, Andu defeated Anpei and took power as the "Hero of Mancheng" in order to replace Mu's Group's monopoly on the drug market in Mancheng.

Fortunately, Zhang Yao saw through Andu's plot, and joined forces with Balai (played by Ma Yuke), Nancy (played by Zhang Rongrong), who were also family members of drug-related personnel, to secretly lay out the plan, and finally shattered Andu's plot. Crack down on drug criminal syndicates.

Compared with the previous work "Rage", "Rebirth" omits the overly complicated network of character relationships and simplifies the story line. Although it also has double reversals, the main line is not complicated and concise. The purpose of this is to focus more energy on the creation of action scenes in order to pursue a more enjoyable visual experience.

2. Double Best Actor Nick Cheung Ka Fai + Ethan Ethan both had breakthrough acting performances, and Ma Yuke was also very eye-catching in the male supporting role.

Although the story has become simpler, Nick Cheung and Ethan Ethan ’s acting skills were not wasted.

Nick Cheung's "fake Shawang" golden retriever look is extremely exaggerated. In order to highlight the character's arrogant and cruel personality, he put away the calmness he used to create characters in the past, and gave the same exaggerated and funny performance as when he starred in Wang Jing's movie. style.

Netizens who are familiar with Nick Cheung must know that when he first entered the film industry, he acted in Lee Xiuxian's police film "The Gang", and he was still a young boy at the time. Later, Wang Jing wanted to promote him as the "Successor of Stephen Chow" and successively arranged films such as "The Gambler 1999", "The Gambler vs. Las Vegas", " The King of Kings 2000", etc., but he couldn't make a splash at all. .

It wasn’t until 2005, when he played the role of the killer plane in Johnnie To’s “Underworld” that he truly made a successful transition. Later, he moved towards the road of muscular tough guy. With the two movies "witness" and "fierce battle", he won two Academy Award for Best Actor.

Although he no longer plays funny roles, his acting skills are still there. The "Fake Sawan" in this film is a character with perverse behavior and murderous face, but his actions are always funny.

His arrogant behavior stems from Zhang Yao's inner hatred and contempt for the dark forces. Therefore, while his face is full of disdain, there is always a shuddering coldness in his eyes.

Nick Cheung does not blindly copy his funny image in Wong Jing's movies, but expresses the depth and connotation of the character with his eyes. His performance is delicate and layered, and he is truly an actor-level actor.

Let’s look at Ethan Juan . This year’s most popular movie “ eliminates three evils in a week ” has already allowed us to see his extraordinary acting skills. In this film, the role of the anti-narcotics captain Andu is relatively "aggrieved". He is the follower of An Pei, the top leader of the police force. He was brought up by An Pei, but he was treated like a dog. He suffered humiliation and accumulated many years of abuse. of resentment.

Therefore, Andu is full of ambitions. He not only wants to eradicate the collaborating forces of An Pei and Mu Kun in one fell swoop, but also wants to replace them and control the underground order of the entire city.

As the potential villain of the movie, Andu's image is also very three-dimensional, while Ethan Ruan's performance is relatively restrained, and his acting skills are all focused on facial expressions, which is in sharp contrast to Nick Cheung's performance.

These two people actually represent the two different performance styles of Hong Kong and Taiwan actors - Hong Kong movies are about excitement and excitement, and dramatic conflicts are often very intense, which requires actors to be as extroverted as possible in their performances; Taiwanese movies pay more attention to the brewing of emotions. , so the performances of Taiwanese actors are relatively simple and unpretentious, with rich connotations and depth.

Director Ma Yuke also stars in the film as the supporting actor Balai. Although he does not play much, he is an extremely important figure in promoting the plot. In the game between Zhang Yao and Andu, Balai played a key role in the end.

Ma Yuke is not only a screenwriter and director, but also plays a role in the film. The workload is very heavy, which also reflects his persistent pursuit and love for movies.

3. The gunfight action scenes are hot, similar to "Scarface", and pay homage to "Bleeding Heroes"

Compared with "The Fury", there are many and hot action scenes, the duration of the action scenes in "Rebirth" has been significantly reduced, and it seems More restrained. But less does not mean worse. This is Ma Yuke's more mature grasp of movie scenes.

Action scenes should serve the plot. Just like Johnnie To's "Dark War", there are very few action scenes, but it can still create a tense atmosphere; when Lau Wai-keung and Mak Siu-fai were filming "Infernal Affairs", they ignored the requirements of investors. , insisted on deleting an important action scene in the film, but instead became a classic.

The action scenes in this film are not as intensive as in "The Tide", but they are placed in necessary places, and the pace is fast, full of expressiveness and enjoyment, making the audience feel very comfortable.

The most impressive one is the scene where Zhang Yao, Andu and Balai join forces to confront the drug cartel after Mu Kun's death.

The movie first carefully laid the groundwork with a series of shots. Anpei was ambushed and assassinated by Balai; Mu Kun was critically ill, and his adopted son Herta and the leaders gathered in the hall outside the ward to wait for Mu Kun's death; At that time, "Fake Shawang" Zhang Yao appeared. After inheriting Mu Kun's 2 billion inheritance, he revealed his true identity to Mu Kun and dealt a fatal blow to the dying Mu Kun.

Then Mu Kun’s lawyer announced his will in the hall, and he wanted to hand over the drug trafficking group to the "Fake Shawang". Before he could finish his words, Hertha, who couldn't bear to listen, shot him in the head.

As the lawyer fell to the ground, an indoor close-range gun battle was about to break out. Zhang Yao and Andu, who were in the hall, were immediately covered by the firepower of Hertha and his subordinates.

Zhang Yao is wearing a white suit, while Andu is wearing a black police uniform. This black and white combination is obviously a tribute to John Woo's " ".

The double-layer structure of the hall and the heavy machine gun fire are reminiscent of Al Pacino's "Scarface".

With Balai’s firepower assistance at the critical moment, a 3-on-3 situation formed in the hall. The originally unfavorable situation for Zhang Yao and Andu was gradually reversed.

Ma Yuke completely abandoned the lengthy martial arts scenes in "The Rage" and instead used gunfight scenes to show the showdown between good and evil, making the action scenes smoother and more explosive, which is a clear improvement.

4. The plot is too simple, the theme of the ending is not sublimated, and the layout is small, which will have an impact on the box office

From the above advantages, we can see Ma Yuke’s progress in creation, but after all, he is a new director, and in terms of script creation There are still obvious shortcomings, which is why the film failed to attract a wider audience.

First of all, the story of "family members of drug-related personnel teaming up to eliminate drug trafficking groups" has a sense of unreality, not to mention how these ordinary people sneaked into the drug trafficking group and how to assemble such a group of people so that they can achieve the same goal. Devotion is a difficult problem to solve.

Secondly, Ma Yuke still can't get rid of the problem of using too many straightforward editing shots to explain the plot during the narrative process, which makes the movie look cheap, and the rough picture also weakens the movie's blockbuster temperament.

Finally, it is the grasp of the plot. The above-mentioned "good and evil showdown" action scene is the climax of the movie. Afterwards, the plot of Andu's darkening and the "two heroes showdown" with Zhang Yao clearly makes people feel "one breath after another". Not on”. It lacks the excitement and excitement of the previous one, and the ending of both good and evil is even more ridiculous.

In summary, it can be seen that "Rebirth" has a small pattern and fails to refine and sublimate profound themes. This is the reason why its box office performance cannot go further, and it is also a regret.

"Rebirth" is the second work of Ma Yuke's "Revenge Trilogy". He will also direct the third work next, so we look forward to him delivering a better answer.

(Movie Rotten Tomatoes Editorial Department: Hot Blooded Heart)