The movie "hothot" will undoubtedly be the box office champion of this Spring Festival movie. More importantly, it triggered a series of topics: being a better self, living for yourself, and fighting against the hardships and injustices of life. etc. - Various iconic elements aroused heated discussions among the audience, especially the freshness and shock brought by the changes in appearance and temperament of the director and starring Jia Ling, which added recognition and emotional value support to the film .
A very important aspect of cross-cultural adaptation and remake is whether localization can be successful. The Japanese "sports movie" " Hundred Yuan Love " that is currently being broadcast online is a relatively excellent predecessor. The difficulty of remaking it lies first in the shaping of the boxing sport itself and the characteristics of the actors, and secondly in whether it is easier to find some Chinese people. Narrative strategies and emotional value of resonance.
On the previous point, compared with Sakura Ando (the heroine of "100 Yuan Love") who has excellent acting skills and delicate uniqueness, Jia Ling in "Hot and Spicy" has a more obvious physical contrast between the front and back. This is used The external force of character creation can feed back the deficiencies in internal skills. It is also one of the localization strategies that Jia Ling found based on her own characteristics: not only retaining the contrast between the front and back of the character, but also further amplifying this contrast through appearance, that is, gaining 40 kilograms of weight. Then lose another 100 pounds to support narrative suspense and accumulate emotional value. Issues such as body anxiety among plus-size girls are common in Chinese society, and at the same time are deliberately downplayed in the changing context. In addition, stories about female boxers fighting and competing are also conducive to superimposing a layer of meaning to fight against negative forces, thus forming a social type. sports inspirational film.
This localization strategy of adaptation is successful. The female characters are inspirational and strong, and the elements of sports movies and comedy movies are the same: in space, supermarkets, barbecue restaurants, boxing gyms, TV stations, etc. create the fireworks of China today; in the plot In terms of structure, the film touches on elements such as family distortion, media distortion, love dislocation, and the road to shaping. In terms of structure, the use of film techniques of blank space and reversal pushes the emotional value of the audience to a climax; and a series of boxing training The game scenes, especially the use of real long shots in the game, also give the character the aura of down-to-earth heroines in inspirational sports boxing movies such as " million dollar baby " and "Keiko's Gaze".
Because of Jia Ling, the wall-breaking effect of "Hot and Spicy" is obvious. The movie breaks the boundaries between characters and actors, reading experience and life experience, reality and fiction. Amid the changes, "Fortunately, the dimples are still there" connects the inside and outside of the movie. It may be said that this is a special reality show movie. Because of its positive star effect, it has successfully completed the previously unclear exploration of this dimension in Chinese films, which has formed a good support for market response and word-of-mouth effect.
Confidence and sincerity are powerful tools for breaking down walls, whether it is the sweat and tears in weight loss and body shaping boxing training, or the sense of history and poetry formed through the accumulation of time from summer to cold. In the movie, the heroine is an introvert and a pleaser in the "fat house era" where she has no self. She has pain but no trauma. And when she becomes a sassy amateur boxer, although she cannot win a match with a professional boxer, she can Winning inner peace, confidence and self-identity, "depending on your mood" is the feeling of winning. While the audience witnessed the changes in the characters, they also witnessed the changes in the actors. The training logs and behind-the-scenes images created an "offline atmosphere" where the story has been told and the curtain slowly fell but the audience was not willing to leave. This is also a wall-breaking Performance.
One thing is very interesting. There is a potential intertextual relationship between Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Hot and Spicy", which is not only reflected in the text, but also the creative team and The overlap in the cast is more about breaking the wall, such as Jia Ling’s promise after the release of "Hello, Li Huanying" that "the box office exceeded 3 billion, I will lose weight like a lightning bolt", or the weight loss in "Hot and Spicy" Later, Du Leying appeared, with a commemorative message such as "This is Li Huanying's daughter" written in English on her boxing vest.Moreover, after the Hollywood remake of "Hello, Li Huanying", Sony bought the global distribution rights of "Hot and Spicy". This may also be said to be the intertext between the two in the field of "Chinese movies going global". With the foundation of "Breaking the Wall", we may be able to further see the performance of "Breaking the Circle" in movies in the future.
We can guess, when, where and under what opportunity did Jia Ling strengthen her determination to gain weight first and then lose weight while filming this movie? This is an adventure out of the comfort zone, with strict requirements on the execution of the creative plan, and even "confidentiality" considerations. More importantly, such a shooting plan will test the self-cultivation of female directors and actors. Just like the growth process of Du Leying in the movie, Jia Ling outside the movie also saw the rainbow through storms, but "you only live once", don't care about that. If you do more, you’re done.
Such a strategy has proven successful. The text of the movie matches the publicity. In front of the work, the so-called "lose weight for a movie, or make a movie to lose weight" is basically a pseudo question. The movie is sunny and sincere, and it also evokes a very positive and contagious "burning emotion". It is true that the type and market strategy of a movie need to be planned before taking action. When playing a "big game", one must also be prepared as early as possible to take a long-term approach to catch the big fish. There is a thinking and planning that is not eager to show off, and there is also a brave effort to put it into practice. It is believed that Compared with the habitual "gangsters" and "keyboard warriors", or "conspiracy theorists" with ulterior motives, "Hot and Spicy" is a "career under the sun" from planning and filming to release, and the various combinations surrounding the movie The planning can also be described as "conspiracy". Although the work is not perfect, the audience will still be moved by the sincerity and willingly pay for it.
(The author of this article is professor and deputy dean of Shanghai Film Academy, Shanghai University, and executive dean of Shanghai Vancouver Film Academy)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-