With the release of " Catch a Baby " starring Shen Teng and Ma Li , theaters have ushered in long-lost popularity and laughter. As of 19:00 on July 19, the film's box office has exceeded 1.024 billion yuan.
"Catch a Baby" is the first film in nine years after " Charlotte's Trouble " in which Shen Teng and Ma Li truly lead the starring roles and have equal roles. Previously, the two had collaborated on " Alone on the Moon ", but Ma Li did not have much screen time. The film took over 3.1 billion yuan in box office in the 2022 summer season, becoming the schedule champion.
Maoyan Professional Edition predicts that the total box office of the film in the Mainland will be approximately 3.709 billion yuan
From stage plays to Spring Festival Gala sketches to the big screen, Shen Teng and Ma Li's audience popularity is increasing day by day. This year's Spring Festival films starring the two have made outstanding achievements. score. Maoyan Professional Edition shows that the two actors ranked first among male and female actors in terms of total box office receipts of their respective films over the past few years. Therefore, "Catch a Baby" has attracted much attention before its release. It is produced by as many as 21 companies including Xihong Hutong, Wanda Film and Television, Maoyan Weiying, and Happy Twist. Judging from the film's current reputation and box office, the trend is stable.
"Catch a Baby" is directed by Yan Fei and Peng Damo, directors of "Charlotte Troubles" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City", and both belong to the "Xihong City" series. In 2015 and 2018, "Charlotte" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" ranked among the top five box office movies of that year with a performance of 1.438 billion yuan and 2.547 billion yuan respectively. Yan Fei and Peng Damo have been working together for many years since they started working on the Happy Twist stage play more than ten years ago, then created Spring Festival Gala sketches, directed theater movies, and then founded a film company. Although some works have caused considerable controversy, their ability to shake off baggage and create laughter has been recognized by the market.
This time, how many surprises can "Catch a Baby" bring to this slightly dull summer season? Maoyan Professional Edition predicts that its total box office in the mainland will be approximately 3.709 billion yuan. With the content controversy brought about by the hit movies and the arrival of more new films, there is suspense whether this number will increase or fall.
Chicken Baby Version of "The Truman Show"
From "Charlotte" to "The Richest Man in Xihong City" to "Catch a Baby", the three films are more or less related to the matter of "rich and poor". "Charlotte Troubles" tells a series of stories about middle-aged frustrated ordinary people who go back to the past and take advantage of the information gap to reach the top of their lives. "The Richest Man in Xihong City" tells the story of a goalkeeper who is at the bottom of his life and suddenly gets a windfall from the sky. , a story about being asked to spend it all within a limited time. Both stories focus on the torture of money and human nature, but the process of spending money like water satisfies ordinary people's fantasy of getting rich overnight and reversing their lives.
There are no sudden changes and ups and downs in life situations in "Catch a Baby". The protagonists Ma Chenggang and Chunlan appear as a wealthy couple with billions of dollars in wealth, but they have difficulties in educating their children. Ma Chenggang saw that his "rich" eldest son Ma Dajun was squandering his property and showing no knowledge or skills, so he decided to give his younger son Ma Jiye a "hard education". The two took the young Ma Jiye back to the old courtyard where Ma Chenggang grew up in his childhood. They concealed the fact that the family was extremely wealthy, and tried to cultivate the child's character of hard work and hard work, with a view to being admitted to a prestigious school and inheriting the family business in the future.
The actors who played Ma Jiye's childhood and adolescence gave richly layered performances
In fact, this is a "poor version" of immersive drama that has been built with a huge investment and is performed 24 hours a day. The neighbor who lives in the courtyard is both an actor and a teacher. This large teaching team develops detailed teaching courses for Ma Jiye's studies every day, and accurately plans his movement path from home to school. Even the foreign tourists who encounter him asking for directions on the way to school are specially arranged "foreign teachers." What's even more outrageous is that the leader of the entire teaching team, Teacher Li, pretended to be Ma Jiye's grandma and supervised his life and study in all aspects for more than ten years.
In the first half of "Catch a Baby", the dislocation between real wealth and pretended poverty is used to create intensive laughter in the plot of concealing the truth, revealing secrets and solving flaws. The tacit cooperation and acting skills of Shen Teng and Ma Li bring a comedy color to the film that is higher than the text. Sarina , who plays Teacher Li, has created many classic roles in dramas over the years. This time she plays an old man who seems to be frail and needs a wheelchair to travel, but is actually a gold medal teacher with a strong figure and can play basketball. She brings a lot to the film. An unexpected joke. The actors who played Ma Jiye's childhood and teenage years also gave richly layered performances.
Teaching team leader Teacher Li pretended to be Ma Jiye's grandmother
The turning point of the story happened when Ma Jiye argued with the teacher in an open class and was kicked home early by the teacher for breaking the established process of the open class. As a result, a major flaw appeared in this daily drama. On the way home, he saw his "grandma" who had been on crutches for more than ten years playing basketball on the basketball court. The rescue method found by Ma Chenggang and the entire teaching and research team was to let "grandma" pretend to be dead, so that Ma Jiye believed that this was "grandma"'s comeback. Even though it was so absurd, Ma Jiye accepted this fact.
At the memorial service prepared for "grandma", the relationship between Ma Jiye and "grandma" is a very ironic climax. After getting along day and night for more than ten years, Teacher Li also regarded Ma Jiye as his own child. When he found out that Ma Jiye was crying bitterly over her "death", he could no longer control his emotions and his body trembled and twitched. He even got up and called Ma Jiye, doubling the comedy effect. At this moment, the sense of absurdity reached its peak. The audience was moved by the "fake drama" and felt pain for Ma Jiye, who had been kept in the dark for more than ten years.
In the second half of the film, when the illusion that had been painstakingly cultivated for more than ten years was exposed, the tone of the film also took a sharp turn. Ma Jiye finally discovered that his life for the past ten years turned out to be a huge lie. His every move was under surveillance without any privacy. He was a tool for his parents to realize their ideals. He taught him that "no one has any rights." If you believe, you will not be established." The grandmother is fake. He pushed open the door to the real world, and outside was a group of children playing in the water. It was a childhood that should have belonged to him but was lost forever. This scene is easily reminiscent of the infinitely shocking ending in the classic movie "The Truman Show". Even if the real world is cruel, it is more worth experiencing than living forever in a bubble constructed by lies.
Comedy sugar-coated with bitter core
For many viewers, the purpose of going to the theater to watch comedy movies is to decompress and relax, so "Catch a Baby" is successful on this level. Most of the film is packed with laughs to amuse the audience, and the actors' own comic qualities and acting skills amplify the film's overall comedic effect.
On the other hand, the core of "Catch a Baby" is more serious than "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and "Charlotte Trouble". It puts the real behavior of parents controlling their children's lives in the name of love into extreme situations to highlight the horror of this panoramic surveillance and kidnapping education to the extreme, and to reflect on the deliberately created "frustration education" Does "hardship education" really help children grow?
The film uses comedic sugar coating to wrap the bitter core. Only by careful study can you understand the deep meaning behind it, and find that most of the laughs are based on deceiving children. At the end of the film, Ma Jiye generously forgives his parents, just as he has been "sensible" and "perfect" for more than ten years. When he regained his childhood sports dream and returned to his beloved track, he realized that the shadow of his childhood would hinder his pursuit of dreams at any time. It is difficult not to smell a trace of it in that seemingly sunny and healthy smile. The smell of insanity.
's wealthy eldest son is also a victim of this family. He enjoys a prosperous material life, but because he failed to meet his father's expectations, he never received recognition and attention. He was never spiritually satisfied and turned to extreme sports to find himself. When both their eldest and younger sons deviated from the so-called perfect life track, Ma Chenggang and his wife even thought of having another son and starting over.
This is a movie that makes your spine shiver after you laugh after watching it. It has a satirical intention, but it does not carry it out to the end. Therefore, many viewers, based on their own experiences, proposed that watching a movie goes from laughter to calmness, and then to silence. Painful, cruel process.
"Catch a Baby" gave the family a seemingly happy "dumpling-making" ending. Ma Chenggang and Chunlan still lived happily. Ma Jiye grew up into a young man with both good morals and academics in the secular sense, but he lived a childhood of lies. There's no chance of a repeat of boyhood, so who's responsible? Ma Chenggang, who was essentially the villain in the film, was not punished and did not even receive a sincere apology.
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