Two years ago, Manslaughter exploded.
This debut novel of a newcomer director won 1.2 billion yuan at the box office, dominating the New Year's Eve file that year.
The perfect crime that Qin Feng had in mind in "Tang Detective" was realized by Li Weijie of "Manslaughter".
"We went to Natho on the 2nd, ate cream cake, watched boxing matches, and went home on the evening of the 3rd."
Tell ten people about it, and then let everyone remember it by knocking on the side.
So time was re-edited and the lie came true.
After the release of Manslaughter, one mainstream narrative was:
"Manslaughter" is a remake of the 2015 Hindu god "Manslaughter and Concealment".
Even the name of the male protagonist, Li Weijie, is directly taken from the Vijay of "Manslaughter and Concealment of Heaven".
"Manslaughter and Concealment of Heaven" Douban score 8.5
But in fact, "Manslaughter" is also a remake.
The story is based on the 2013 Indian film Contest.
Unfortunately, this film is in Malayalam, and its popularity is far less than Bollywood's "Manslaughter".
After eight years, "Contest" has a sequel. This time, it was seen by a wider audience.
Everyone also joked that the script of "Manslaughter 2" has -
Contest 2
Drishyam 2
The previous game, "Contest", was written and directed by Indian director Gitu Joseph.
The genius crime story that confused everyone was written by him.
If you want to make a sequel, the average person really can't fill this hole, only he can do it himself.
So "Contest 2" is still written and directed by Gitu Joseph, and even the actors are the same group.
Before the play begins, let's briefly review the story that happened in the previous game.
The male protagonist, George, is a movie lover who runs a cable TV operating company.
My biggest dream is to buy a movie theater of my own.
The originally peaceful life was broken by the sudden murder.
George's eldest daughter, Anjiao, was violated.
The striker was the son of the local police chief, Varun.
When Warren came to Anjiao's house to commit another assault, Anjiao lost his hand and beat him to death.
To protect the family, George drew inspiration from the many movies he had seen.
With montage thinking, come up with a plan:
He took his whole family on a trip and reconstructed the two days before and after the crime.
Not only did he create an alibi, but he also told everyone involved in the matter, so that they unconsciously made "perjury" -
"On the 2nd I went to the devotional, stayed in the hotel, ate Indian rice, and came back on the 3rd."
But the reality is that the family left on the 3rd and returned on the 4th.
George also buried Warren's body in a place unknown to anyone.
The most ingenious aspect of this plan is that even if the police reasoned everything, there was no evidence.
It was the power of family affection that eventually made the George family retreat and evade legal sanctions.
In the contest between love and law, the director chose to stand opposite the law and go black to the end.
A few years later, we came to the story of "Contest 2".
George's business grew bigger and bigger, and he bought a movie theater as he wished.
And I started my dream of directing, and the script has been in preparation for two or three years.
At the same time, the local police department never gave up the investigation of that case that year.
The first major variable in the case came from a witness that year.
He had witnessed George bury the body, but was suddenly imprisoned for murder.
Now that he has been released from prison, he has provided clues to the police -
George buried the body under the police station that was under construction at the time.
This is actually not a secret, and it has been hinted at many times in the previous game.
When the police station received the news, it immediately sealed it and dug inside.
Sure enough, a corpse was found.
According to the preliminary forensic identification, the age of the deceased was probably between 14 and 20 years old, and the skull had a crack, which should have been struck by a blunt object to death.
All the features are in line with Varun.
This gave the police great confidence to interrogate George again.
but.
Of course things will not be so simple.
The earth-shattering reversal begins.
The first reversal.
Before the results of the body's DNA test came out, George volunteered to confess everything to the police:
He confessed that he had killed Varun and buried him under the construction of the police station afterwards.
And the murder weapon used that year, Varun's clothes, these decisive evidences are hidden in one place.
In order to prove the innocence of the family when the police discover the truth in the future, they can take sole responsibility for the crime.
George was accused of going to court, awaiting trial.
The second reversal.
A well-known white-haired screenwriter suddenly visits the police station.
A few years ago, the screenwriter was hired by George to help revise the script and was paid a lot.
Because of George's arrest, the screenwriter felt compelled to tell the police the contents of the script.
Shockingly, the script is completely George's own story —
The male protagonist's child, who accidentally killed the legislator's son.
In order to protect the child, the male owner buried the body under the legislative council office building under construction.
The script writes that the male protagonist is also worried that one day the truth will be revealed, so he leaves evidence in advance to prove that he is the murderer in the future.
Since then, the life of the male protagonist's family has been even more fearful.
Years later, police received a tip-off to exhum a body beneath the legislator's office building.
The police arrested the man.
The script predicts what has happened to George so far.
And george had published the script into a book as early as half a year ago, "Manslaughter and Concealment".
Here comes the more exciting part:
In court, George's lawyer defended him, accusing the police of causing secondary harm to George.
Because the police's words are exactly the same as those written in the book published half a year ago.
It's just a joke, can you solve a case by reading too much detective novel?
Seeing this, it is not difficult to find that George is in the next big banner.
Voluntary surrender is the first step, throwing out the script is the second step, and then the third step -
Dna tests on the corpse showed that the deceased was not Warren.
This result left Warren's parents and the police completely broken.
All the plausible reasoning that had been there collapsed in an instant, and George was acquitted again.
The biggest suspense of the whole movie comes:
Since it is not Varun, who is the corpse?
The truth is still hidden in George's script.
Like the screenwriter said, he's been helping George revise the script.
George's predetermined ending is that the male protagonist is safe and has escaped justice.
Under this premise, every time George proposed a possibility, he worked with the screenwriter to deliberate.
It wasn't until the script was flawless that he gave up.
As everyone knows, George staged the script in real life.
The screenwriter unknowingly became an "accomplice", and it was he who helped George design a complete set of exoneration procedures.
The ending of "Contest 2" is more brutal than that of "Contest".
Without reasoning, the truth is clearly in front of you, but the police are still helpless.
After all, this is just a script, and who will take it seriously?
As for the ending written in the script and the truth of George's innocence, Uncle Fish will not spoil it.
What can be revealed is that the screenwriter said, "This ending is too terrible, so I came to the police station to confess everything."
Anyway, George won another round again from the police.
Seeing this, you will probably feel that the reversals one after the other are wonderful enough.
But the problem with "Contest 2" is precisely here:
Reverse for the sake of reversal, and in the end only the reversal remains.
Compared with the previous work, it loses the profundity of the theme; only as a "suspenseful film", the rhythm is slightly delayed.
No wonder the audience did not buy it, and the Douban score dropped to 7 points.
If there is really a domestic "Manslaughter 2", should it be filmed like this?
Uncle Yu felt that it was better not to shoot.
First of all, as far as the ending of "Contest 2" is concerned, it is known that it is difficult to pass the review.
And that's not all.
The reason why the previous work is wonderful is that it uses the theme of good and evil of human nature to package a story of self-redemption.
First let the audience empathize with George, and even morally support his act of protecting his family.
Through the intervention of multiple characters such as the police and Warren's parents, a struggle between emotion and law, human nature and animal nature was staged.
However, these were not retained in Contest 2.
George's original intention in dealing with the police was to protect his family and let the family live a stable life.
But the sequel clearly deviates from this original intent.
He wrote the script on a low-budget basis, carefully choreographed for several years, and did not see the responsibility for the family, but more like it was for intellectual pleasure.
Although he was also freed from the police in the end, it plunged the whole family into a day of fear.
Anjiao, in particular, often has nightmares and is nervous as soon as she sees the police.
This contradicts everything that George planned to do.
The kernel of repentance and introspection disappeared and was replaced by the thrill of confronting the police.
He was supposed to protect his family, but in order to win the war, he pushed his family into the bottomless abyss.
The image of the protagonist George also collapsed.
He was originally a controversial figure of the "lone hero", with the responsibility of a father, the wisdom of a detective, and the cunning of a criminal.
But now all that remains is dry cunning and a hint of selfishness.
Even the crucial reasoning part of the series is a bit of a stretch.
The most ingenious part of the previous game is to make "objective time" deceptive.
George took his family out to play, reconstructing the timing of those two days, during which the audience did not know.
It is not until the later stage of reasoning, echoing the previous plot, that people suddenly realize that there is a sense of participation in reasoning.
The reasoning part of the sequel is handled rather sloppily.
The truth is revealed in the last strands of brain and disk, and there is no foreshadowing in front of it, as if it is fed to the audience with a head.
What is even more intolerable is that the whole process is also full of loopholes.
There is a new role for an undercover couple, completely redundant and useless.
There is also the lawyer who defended George, why is she trustworthy, and didn't the police think of finding new clues from this lawyer?
None of them were accounted for.
And the screenwriter, he never doubted George's identity.
It is reasonable to say that with his keen sense of smell as a screenwriter, George asked him to deliberate on the details again and again to ensure that the male protagonist in the script was innocent, and he could not fail to detect the difference.
To sum up the problem of Contest 2 in one sentence, that is:
The advantages of the previous game are castrated and the shortcomings are magnified.
In principle, Varun's body has not been found, the murderer has not been brought to justice, and the story can continue to be filmed.
But it seems that this is no longer necessary.
Because the soft and reflective part of the story is all left in the first part.
The further you go, the more you deviate from the original intent of the story.
If it is like this, "Manslaughter 2", don't shoot it.