文|Linghu Boguang
The May Day period has passed, and the reputation is now very obvious. The Hong Kong action film " Kowloon Walled City " ranked first. It was hot and refreshing. Several other films were lackluster. "The Riot Squad", which ranked first at the box office, did not dare to score points. The romance film "Journey to the Moon", The quality of the suspense film "Nothing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" is quite satisfactory.
Finally, there is the comedy "Thelma and Louise ". The box office counterattacked to the first place in the second and third days, and is about to exceed 300 million. This proves that comedy is really a pressing need of the Chinese film market. But as for the movie itself, in addition to being a Chinese comedy that continues the name of a classic movie in addition to homophonic jokes, another type of Chinese comedy in recent years is probably a remake of a foreign IP.
"Thelma and Louise" has a Douban score of 6.4, which may eventually drop to around 6.0. It's probably a comedy that can be watched, but it's not that great. Since the movie is currently in theaters, I won’t spoil it here, and there’s nothing to spoil. I think many netizens guessed this movie issue when they first saw the trailer.
The protagonist said that he was terminally ill so he spent money everywhere. In the trailer, netizens speculated about the misdiagnosis, and finally the emotions were sublimated. As a result, the main film is really this routine, with various jokes and jokes mixed in. It is very routine in every aspect. Of course, watching a movie is a private matter, and you can feel free to find it funny.
I think it is exactly the same as " The Unfamiliar Life " released on May Day last year. There are several fatal problems in Chinese comedies now.
Chinese comedy movies, why can’t there be a second Stephen Chow? Not even Shen Teng
The first reason for the decline of Chinese comedy: that is, Chinese comedians are getting worse and worse.
On the surface, there are quite a lot of comedians, but if you look at the stage, the short videos are okay, but when it comes to the big stage, the comedy in film and television dramas becomes worse and worse. I think the most fundamental failure is that the roots of comedians are gone.
The older generation of comedians come from life, witness life, and learn from life. Therefore, their works can engage us and make us laugh sincerely. Good comedians have one thing in common: they come from ordinary people. Jia Bing, Stephen Chow, Song Dandan, Zhao Benshan, etc. all came from ordinary people, and they know what ordinary people's lives are like and where their joy and sorrow come from.
And those star "comedians" who have become a monk on the way can't perform this kind of feeling. Almost all comedians have said one thing, that is, they don't want to do comedy anymore, because comedy is too difficult. The reason is very simple, comedy must be grounded. Why do so many comedians start out very well, but then fail quickly?
Because it is too difficult to be down-to-earth, after Stephen Chow and Ng Meng-tat became famous and their living standards improved, they would break away from the down-to-earth attitude and go to the corner of the park to listen to the young lovers flirting. Listen to how ordinary people talk, what jokes they say, how they dress up, how they pretend to have money when they have no money, how they spend a dollar in half without looking downcast.
For example, if a third-rate singer in China goes to her home to record a video, and you see that the dressing room in her home is almost 100 square meters, you will know that she will never be an ordinary person. If she were to act, she would never be able to be down-to-earth.
Sandra Ng once said that when Stephen Chow was young, he often liked to squat on the street and watch the passers-by for the whole day. When I was a child, I often stood by the window at home and looked out, observing the daily lives of the neighbors next door. Why is the Pig Cage Walled City so vivid in " kung fu "? Because it is seen in this way, no matter how artistic it is.
However, with the development of the economy, there is more and more hot money and fast money in the entertainment industry. Creators have gradually separated from where they came from. Now that the fan economy and eyeball economy are so popular, it is really difficult for good authors to concentrate on polishing. A script.
It is even more difficult for the new generation of people in the entertainment industry to make good comedies. Even if there is a work like " Annual Comedy Competition ", it is just a flash in the pan. The quality of the second season is compared to the first. The direct drop was obvious in one season.Capital is like a hungry wolf, going crazy and biting. After the popularity of the good actors in the
comedy competition has passed, they seem to have fallen into the same vicious circle as before, with few more good works coming out.
Chinese comedies, can you stop making dumplings?
The second reason for the decline of Chinese comedies: Can Chinese comedies stop being valuable?
Because the comedies of Stephen Chow, Shen Teng, and Xu Zheng are not pure comedies; We have walked into a pit where the core of comedy is tragedy. We have to add depth to the comedy, as if it is not a comedy if we don't add depth. In this mode of thinking, comedy is like a shackled clown. No matter how hard domestic comedies try, they can’t surpass the successes of decades ago, or foreign comedy like Tom and Jerry, The White-Headed Detective, Stupid Girl, and Jiabai. A pure comedy like the fall of Li.
In the words of Emperor Yan in the Armored Warrior, righteousness is impure and evil energy is insufficient.
With this kind of ideological shackles, we will finish playing sooner or later. The core of comedy is tragedy. This tragedy is not meant to be sensational or to make the audience cry, but to make the audience feel happy and laugh loudly while watching it. After the laughter is over, think about it carefully. After savoring it, I found that this funny scene is everywhere in life. It is a social tragedy, a tragedy that makes people helpless and can only smile bitterly in the end.
Let me give you an example, a very classic Spring Festival Gala skit, the 2014 skit "To Help or Not to Help", starring Shen Teng and Ma Li. This skit is about a young man helping an old man who has fallen. It is very simple and very simple. It’s funny and very common, but why is it a classic? Because it directly points out the crisis of trust between people in today's society. A simple action contains countless intrigues.
If you help, you may be blackmailed or praised; if you don't help, you may be scolded for being ruthless, scolded for not respecting the elderly and caring for the young, and for not knowing how to lend a helping hand to others. Or nothing may happen. A small original Isn't it sad that even though it's a legitimate behavior, it's being manipulated by someone with good intentions, and you have to think twice before even helping others?
The core of comedy is tragedy. This tragedy is a tragedy in life, a disease of society. While it makes people laugh, it also arouses people's deep thinking. It uncovers the bloody scab of peace and uses itself as a person to open up the world. The beauty shots allow people to see the bloody scene under the light.
A sketch can either be mindless and simply laugh out loud, or it can expose the ills of society, alert people, make people think deeply, and then change. Even if there are countless crows in the world, you must be one. White dove. The core of comedy is tragedy, not touching, sad and tearful, let alone sensationalism.
Because comedy is like hell jokes, they have to be contrasted to be funny, but this thing is difficult to grasp, and you can also go all the way and just make vulgar jokes, be like family guys or south park. But in the final analysis, there still needs to be something unexpected by the audience. Being able to be cued is a victory.
Just like what the talk show said a few years ago, the so-called "art of offending", when you can't offend, or when you can't break the rules, then it won't be funny. The value on
, making dumplings? Why Chinese comedies are not good to watch
The third reason for the decline of Chinese comedies: Chinese comedies do indeed dance with shackles
This point must be said to be very important. In the end, we must turn to values. Reconciliation is not necessarily what the comedians want, it is what the creators want , but it’s impossible not to do it. Why can't you laugh? Because Chinese comedy has too many rules and regulations. Take a look at our comedy works in the past, whether they are film and television dramas or cross talk sketches.
Various poignant satires and reflections based on real-life plots, the audience will understand it tacitly, and will smile knowingly after watching it. If you add some baggage that is either hilarious or touching, the audience will certainly find it beautiful and exciting. The current works Woolen cloth? It is empty and exaggerated, has nothing to say, and is a castle in the air. It just barely makes you laugh and cry. Only if the audience can buy this kind of work will it be interesting.
This is not to say that there are deliberate restrictions. When it comes to the subject of comedy, "It is extremely difficult to shoot elegant happiness. It requires a good script. A good screenwriter can easily create a funny joke, but if you want to do it in a work It’s so hard to come up with a lot of elegant and funny memes.”
Secondly, come back to the essence. Comedy is often relatively vulgar. If you don’t use some scenes of pretending to be crazy and acting foolishly to make people funny (for example, the movie Hands Up), then you will inevitably use reality as the theme to ridicule some people, and It's what is called watching other people's jokes, and the people being laughed at may be you or him, and they are not very friendly.
For example, Zhao Benshan's sketch "Selling Kidnappings" is very unfriendly to people who have experienced being defrauded in life. If your relatives have been defrauded, can you laugh while watching this sketch as a family?
Thirdly, comedy requires talent. The interpretation of an excellent comedy is too hard for all actors. The leading actor must be talented and must be able to shoulder the responsibility of comedy. The character actor must cooperate fully. If he is a little careless or Lack of talent makes it appear abrupt.
Shen Teng's temperament gives people a sense of "serious nonsense". Huang Bo is very funny, ugly but not annoying, has high emotional intelligence and very humorous words and deeds. Xu Zheng's comedy is positioned as a frustrated middle-aged man in China. Now Lei Jiayin also seems to have that position.
Stephen Chow is a tragedy, or the core of truth, goodness and beauty. He uses realistic interpretations to seriously perform pitiful and ridiculous tragedies, making you laugh at his character and feel that you are laughing at yourself at the same time. But in today's comedies, the actors are performing awkward jokes, and there are many restrictions on making dumplings. The scripts are either remakes or random old jokes found on the Internet. It is just like the Spring Festival Gala every year, and it is really hard to laugh.
Chinese comedy movies are not dead yet? But it’s almost gone
In the current Chinese movie category classification, there are many movies labeled comedy movies, but in fact they are not comedies at all. Take this Spring Festival season as an example. Except for " Mr. Red Carpet ", which has the worst box office, which is considered a satirical comedy, others include "Shake the Sun", " Article 20 ", " Hot and Spicy " and " Speeding Life 2".
Which one is a comedy? In fact, they are all commercial films with comedy elements, promoting comedy to attract audiences and sell money.
On the contrary, "Thelma and Louise" can be regarded as a pure comedy, but it is becoming increasingly rare. Nowadays, comedy is just an element in a commercial movie, but some movies deliberately expand this element and become so-called "comedy movies."
A sense of humor really needs to be given by actors, and screenwriters and directors only need to It can give you situations that can show humor. However, putting all the advantages and disadvantages of a film on the actors is doomed to failure. A good director can create good contrasting humorous situations and find people who have a strong sense of humor. Actors, this may achieve a humorous effect, that is, a comedy effect.
The director is not good, and the script is not good. Just relying on the actors to cover their own embarrassing situations is essentially a false proposition.
The label of Chinese comedy movies is now. Like the acting skills of popular stars, they have never existed in the category of film history. Therefore, although Chinese comedy movies are not dead yet, they are indeed approaching
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