The romantic comedy movie "The Love I Loved" directed by Sandra Ng, and Zhang Tiantian, directed by He Miaoqi, was released nationwide on November 15. The film tells the story of Yu Xiaoqin (played by Sandra Ng), a high-tech female doctor worth hundreds of millions, who fell into silence after the death of her husband and started playing social software on a whim. Unexpectedly, behind the caring and gentle "uncle" vest, there was actually a whole professional team working for her. A carefully customized "love" trap...
The poster of "The Love I Loved"
was derived from real Internet fraud news. The protagonists in the story are wandering on the edge of falsehood and reality, engaging in and withdrawing from reality in a fake show. They have the lonely hearts in the city with nowhere to go, and also the understanding and freedom of female lovers who love themselves first.
This is director He Miaoqi's first film. Before this, she had been a film screenwriter for many years, and had participated in the creation of films such as "Human Comedy", " Eight Stars Embrace ", " Mermaid " and other films. With women's unique and keen insights, the film deeply explores the emotional needs of contemporary people and the complexity of human nature. In order to write this story well, He Miaoqi interviewed many women who had fallen into the sweet trap, and he also downloaded dating software and personally participated in the "scam".
starts from the basis of reality. The male and female protagonists each have their own loneliness and dilemma. Under the packaging of romantic comedy, there is no exaggerated comedy. The humor and absurd development make people smile knowingly. In the movie, 52-year-old Sandra Ng and 28-year-old Zhang Tiantian fall in love freely, from being cold and decisive to being as shy as a girl.
Stills from "The Love I Loved"
He Miaoqi is a person who likes to hide behind stories. He has played many stories in his mind about waiting silently but not seeing each other. He claims to have a "soft spot" for such stories. But when it comes to online love, Sandra Ng has no choice but to perform a one-man show with her mobile phone every day. There is no feedback from her opponents, and everything depends on her imagination.
He Miaoqi, who has always liked writing love stories, said frankly that this genre has not been favored in the market in recent years, so much so that she has not sold any books in three years and has been unable to start work. In desperation, she accepted the suggestion of producer Chen Qingjia to participate in Hong Kong's first feature film with a bonus of 8 million, and the result turned out to be a blockbuster. The film was the box office champion during the Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong this year and topped the single-day box office list for ten consecutive days during its release.
He Miaoqi admitted that she is actually pessimistic about love and human nature, but she also hopes to blow a short-term "pink bubble" in the movie. "If there are no such good things in reality, when I walk into the cinema, I can't even dream about it." Okay." Before the release of the
movie, He Miaoqi was interviewed by The Paper and talked about interesting things in the creation of the movie and his understanding of intimacy in contemporary society.
Director He Miaoqi
[Dialogue]
Why can a woman who has been deceived still be so happy?
The Paper: At the beginning of the movie, it was mentioned that emotional fraud cases are rampant in Hong Kong. What was the opportunity for you to pay attention to this kind of social news? What was the research process like to personally contact this group of people? Is there anything unexpected?
He Miaoqi: It’s hard not to notice these news. Because there are news about emotional fraud in Hong Kong from time to time every week, and the Hong Kong women in these news seem to be quite wealthy. In the first 10 months of 2022, Hong Kong women were defrauded of more than 200 million Hong Kong dollars.
A very interesting phenomenon is that when I tell my friends, including the creator of this movie, that I have such a story, everyone's reaction will tell me that they have such a deceived friend. . I myself have pretended to be a middle-aged woman and chatted with scammers on the app, but I have never met someone who is as careful as they are in our movie to deceive you. Several scammers I met were very anxious and started trying to defraud you of your money without even a few words of conversation.
Of course, some tricks are easy to see through. For example, he says he is very good at investing and asks you if you want to learn from him; another example is that he will lose contact occasionally, and then tell you that he is traveling with his mother. Some women will feel that he is traveling with his mother. A boy who travels will get extra points if he is filial.I used a dating app recommended by a friend. Later, my friend and I discovered that we were chatting with the same person of the opposite sex at the same time, and then we discovered that he spoke the same words to us.
Stills from "My Love"
That fraud group was the evidence that we just saw the police smashing the fraud group, such as scripts, fake business cards, fake academic certificates, fake medical reports, etc., so I speculated on the operation of the fraud group. Patterns, plus your own imagination to create. Later, someone jokingly asked you if you were lurking in a fraud group.
What is surprising is that I have met some women. Some of them have changed, and some completely deny being cheated, but they all say that they still feel very happy when they think about the process. I want to know why these victims feel so happy when they are being scammed.
The Paper: Regarding the underlying logic of the movie, is it really the love of two people, or are two souls warming each other up because of loneliness, or is this a fraud? How do you define yourself as a creator?
He Miaoqi: I think love is a very subjective and emotional thing, just like the line in the movie, if you believe it is true, then it is true. The excitement, happiness, anxiety and other feelings experienced by the person in this scam are all real, so even if it turns out to be a scam, she is still in love.
Love is not necessarily the conventional ups and downs: meeting someone, establishing a relationship, starting to get along, and then breaking up or maintaining the relationship for a longer period of time is considered to be in love. I think love may be just a moment, a look, or a heartbeat.
Stills from "My Love"
The Paper: From a social and cultural perspective, what is unique about love and interpersonal relationships in the Hong Kong social context shown in the movie?
He Miaoqi: It’s not just Hong Kong. In fact, places with a relatively high degree of urbanization will have similar problems. In the process of urbanization, people are paying more attention to protecting themselves. Although we live in a dense space, our hearts are far apart and lonely. This kind of loneliness affects interpersonal relationships. People will use the Internet to get to know others, but they only see the side that the other person wants to show, and they will become even more lonely under such guard. Just like the characters in the movie, even if they have friends around them, they may not really understand each other. They will also be affected by this state in love. They long to find solace through the Internet, but face many unknown risks.
In the Internet age, love is easy to start but difficult to deepen. People can quickly choose to start a relationship, but they face more problems in real relationships. So just like the relationship between the male and female protagonists in the movie, they communicate with each other and develop feelings on the Internet, but the process of meeting and interacting in reality is full of uncertainties, such as worrying about whether the other person is real, and whether they can still be like the Internet after meeting. When we get along like this, we become even more cautious.
Stills from "The Love I Loved"
The Paper News: But for a woman like Yu Xiaoqin who is already such a successful woman with a net worth of hundreds of millions and a clear mind, is she really as helpless as she is in the movie because she is single and lonely?
He Miaoqi: Of course, I have a more "cunning" setting, which is that in her previous marriage, her husband inexplicably changed from separation to death. This trauma always made her heart seem to be empty. And the other person's personality from the beginning made her feel sympathetic to him.
In addition, this character is really similar to the girls we saw who were deceived. Many of them are very unhappy in their life situations, so they seek comfort in another false space. They may not have planned to meet from the beginning, and it doesn't even matter whether the other person is true or false, because what she wants is the romantic feelings she imagined. Really, a simple "good morning" and "good night" can impress them and make them happy. There is even a woman who is dating a "German" online. She knows that the other person is a liar, but she says that as long as the other person is willing to maintain this relationship, she is willing to give him money.Others cannot deceive her, but she can "deceive" herself.
Sandra Ng is an actor who has always been underestimated.
The Paper News: Sandra Ng's performance in the movie this time is very brilliant, but it is very different from her previous image of the "laughing aunt". Is it tailor-made for teacher Sandra Ng? How did you discover that she could perform such a delicate and heart-warming style?
He Miaoqi: was not intentionally tailored, but when I was writing the script, the image of Teacher Sandra Ng naturally came into my mind. This time she is really good. Everyone will think she is Sandra Ng, but she is a different Sandra Ng. She was acting in a comedy, but she didn't act in the same way as before.
Stills from "My Love"
She knew it was a comedy after reading the script, but it was not the kind of comedy she had always done before, so she came to me to discuss how to perform it. I told her that I wanted to try a kind of comedy that was a little different from our traditional Hong Kong comedy. It might not have so many laughs, and it wouldn't require exaggerated body language to make it funny. I said that I hope she can make her sense of life more delicate and restrained, so you will see that every detailed performance of hers is interesting. I think this is quite difficult. At the beginning, everyone will explore the level of performance. She will perform according to her own understanding, and then we will adjust to find a suitable state.
Sandra Ng has always been an underrated actress who can do serious dramas. She has a movie called "Juliet and Liang Shanbo". It is a really tragic drama, and I have always been deeply impressed by it. Of course she is good in comedies, but she has been stereotyped because she often plays comedies. Maybe directors will not consider her when considering actresses for dramas. But because I write comedy myself, I always feel that comedy is actually more difficult. Actors who can act in comedy can usually handle drama very well. Moreover, her personality is also so fierce, but I don’t know why she really became the character Yu Xiaoqin I was creating in my mind. An independent woman of the era, a little picky, a little tempered, and with good artistic taste.
Stills from "The Love I Loved"
The Paper: What kind of sparks were there at the scene? Does the movie have more improvisational elements?
He Miaoqi: She often half-jokes that her biggest opponent this time is the mobile phone, and she always plays against the mobile phone. It is easier for an actor to arouse emotions when he has a real opponent, but my subject is really performed with a mobile phone, which tests the imagination. I think she did a good job and really showed how to fall in love with an online lover. The reactions are not exaggerated, they are all very delicate and thoughtful.
I particularly like the scene where she reminisced in the izakaya. I wrote that she put down the glass after taking a sip and then picked it up to drink. However, her performance was that she did not put down the glass and kept chasing the memories while drinking. This kind of performance was better than mine. Better to imagine. There were some improvisations on the scene. For example, when she was very happy and elated, she would amplify the selfless state in love to make the performance more contrasting.
The Paper: The two people in the movie are actually very lonely and have a tragic undertone, but the story also has the intention of leaning towards comedy. How to grasp the balance of sadness and joy?
He Miaoqi: Writing the script this time was more natural. We want the humor in the comedy to be the kind that makes people smile and create a relaxed atmosphere. We often talk about comedy. Tragedy is tragedy to the extreme. Tragedy to a ridiculous level is a good comedy. Therefore, the hero and heroine are set as two lonely people. Because the Internet creates a subtle relationship, this kind of transition from loneliness to the Internet The change in relationship may seem absurd to outsiders, but this sense of absurdity actually brings a sense of relaxation.
Stills from "The Love I Loved"
The Paper: In terms of emotional communication and expression, a mature woman like Sandra Ng's online dating state is particularly "pure love". How do you think about it?
He Miaoqi: Maybe I have always had a lot of "look at it last" kind of stories in my mind about not meeting each other. I have a soft spot for this kind of stories. It may also be because as the author myself, in real life I don’t really want to communicate with others. And I think people have a feeling of "rejuvenation" when they fall in love and become as happy as a child.
The Paper: In today’s terms, Sandra Ng is a “love brain” in the movie. What do you think of the term “love brain”?
He Miaoqi: I don’t quite understand why this word has become a bit derogatory now. I think falling in love is a very happy thing. If you haven't met someone who makes you "love brain", you may feel that you shouldn't fall in love, but if you meet someone, you won't think so. This is a matter of fate.
The Paper: In several recent love movies, women have become more emotionally autonomous. What are your observations of this change?
He Miaoqi: It may be that women’s status in society has become more equal, their academic qualifications are getting better, and there are more job opportunities. These have made the relationship between the sexes more equal, and also made women feel that they can have more than before. right to speak. But I don’t actually start from the perspective of feminism. I believe more in individualism. How do I make myself happy? In the category of love, you define your own love. You can look at this love from a very subjective perspective.
Stills from "The Love I Loved Me"
The screenwriter who was hiding behind the story was forced to "switch careers" to become a director
The Paper: When did have the idea of becoming a director? From screenwriter to director, what is the biggest challenge for you?
He Miaoqi: I really enjoy being a screenwriter. I am not studying film. I have never made a film. I have never thought about being a director. I think it is too difficult to be a director. I became a director purely because I haven’t started working in three years. Then one day the producer told me that there was a competition for the first feature film in Hong Kong. It was a government-funded competition for new directors who had never made a film before. The winner would receive a prize of 8 million. The producer said that since there was such an opportunity and I was qualified to apply for the competition, I might as well give it a try and wrote a script to participate in the competition. The reason is really very simple. It is a very practical reason. I want to start work and have a project that can be implemented.
Because I am quite an introvert myself, one of the reasons why I like to be a screenwriter is that there are not many people to communicate with, only the director and the producer, and then you can just hide at home and write the script. But now as a director, you have to face the entire team. But it’s not that difficult to shoot on location because the whole team is so nice, but I often joke these days that the hardest thing for me is to keep taking photos during promotions.
The Paper: Judging from your resume, in your early creative resume, there were films with a feminist flavor such as " Underwear Girl ", but the situation and expression of women at that time should be quite different from now, right?
"Girl in Underwear" poster
He Miaoqi: "Girl in Underwear" was an opportunity for me to enter this industry. Before "Girl in Underwear", I had not participated in the creation of scripts.
At that time, the crew wanted to recruit a creative writer to help organize materials and write some things. It happened that I was studying costume in college, and one of the courses was about underwear design, so I applied for this part-time job. That was the first time I learned about film creation.
One thing that was quite popular in Hong Kong at that time was to turn released youth movies into novels, publish them, and sell them in conjunction with the promotion of the movies. The producer at the time, Chen Qingjia, asked me if I would be interested in turning this script into a novel.I was already interested in writing stories and had already found a job as a designer, but I decided to finish the novel first. As a result, I gave myself a month off. After writing the novel, I lost my job because I couldn't find a job. After failing to work as a designer, Chen Qingjia came to ask me if I was interested in becoming a screenwriter, so I entered the industry and wrote my first movie "Human Comedy".
I think my life is quite passive. I couldn’t do my job as a designer, so I became a screenwriter. When the screenwriter lost his job, he became a director again. Every transition is due to the loss of the previous job.
The Paper: Why is facing the situation of no work for three years?
He Miaoqi: The scripts we wrote in the past few years have never been sold. The producer and I both like to write this type of romantic comedy, but it has been difficult to find investment in this genre in the past few years, so no one bought ours. script.
The Paper: There are very few female directors in Hong Kong, especially in genre films. This story touches on a lot of reality, but in the end your story still reaches a more "fairy tale" ending. Is this related to the fact that you have been growing up in this commercial genre film training system?
He Miaoqi: may also be related to the training of being a commercial film screenwriter for so many years. It is natural to write it like this. In fact, I don’t know how to make very realistic things. I always hope to hide my views on life and many things behind the creation, and secretly put some of my own values in the story. This way for me It feels more secure.
When I wrote the script with the producer, I discovered that we are both pessimistic about love and even human nature, but the way we digest pessimism is to make it humorous and use kind-hearted humor to turn it into comedy. For example, if we think there may be many false things in love, then we use a false scam to ask what true love is. Directly writing pessimism into the plot to expose the ugliness of human nature is not what I am good at. Of course, reason will know that reality may be ugly, but as a director, I still want to put some human goodness in the movie. If there is no such good thing in reality, when you walk into the cinema, whether it is a dream or a fantasy, you can briefly feel the beauty at that moment.
