This year's Spring Festival file has a New Year film that has attracted much attention, and the black comedy "Surging Crowds".
The film is directed by Rao Xiaozhi, director of "The Unknown Generation", and starring Andy Lau, Xiao Yang and Wan Qian.
The story tells the story of Andy Lau's cold-blooded killer Zhou Quan and Xiao Yang's luoluo dragon set Chen Xiaomeng, who exchanged identities in an accident, and the amnesiac killer began to learn to do an ordinary group performance, and the fallen dragon set clumsily mediated with the gangsters, thus leading to a series of humorous stories of yin and yang.
The film continues the black absurd style of Rao Xiaozhi's work, and the story still takes the route of accident and contrast.
In the process of falling to the bottom, the killer re-examines love and life;
In the process of pretending to be a killer, the group performance completely reshaped the previous life of waste wood.
The plot setting of "Surging Crowds" is very pleasing, but the discerning people know at a glance that the film is not an original story, but is actually a remake of a Japanese movie "The Method of Stealing Keys", not only the plot setting is similar, but also from the previously exposed trailer, it can be seen that the film retains many details of the original version.
For example, the identities of the two leading actors are the same as the Japanese version, they are both cold elite killers and frustrated dragon set actors;
There was originally no intersection between the two, but because when bathing in the bathhouse, the killer accidentally stepped on the soap of the man who wasted firewood and fell, and after waking up, he lost his memory, and really responded to the phrase "soap slippery people"!
Therefore, this issue of the fan film Jun rushed to take everyone to understand the plot of the original Japanese version before the release of the movie.
The Japanese version of "The Way to Steal the Key" was scored 8.5 by 110,000 people on Douban, which was better than 95% of comedies.
It has also won many awards such as the Japan Academy Award, the Golden Jue Award of the Shanghai Film Festival, etc., which is definitely worth seeing!
"The Method of Stealing Keys"
Key of Life
The film was released in 2012, and director Kenji Uchida is known as a talented director in the Japanese film industry.
His style of work is somewhat similar to that of Ning Hao in China, he is good at small character black comedy, and his works are wonderful with big brains, good at complex narratives, and plot character construction, especially with a strong absurd comedy style.
His debut film "Strangers" tried multi-thread narrative, giving him the name of Oriental Gehrig, and his second work "After Class" fully used narrative tricks, also starting from a crime and a few small people, and finally the shocking truth unfolded like a cocoon.
The Method of Stealing Keys is the third work directed by Kenji Uchida, written and directed by himself, combining his own black humor with a multi-line narrative, and was a great success after its release. Later, Kenji Uchida was also invited to cooperate with the famous animation "Detective Conan" to produce the animation special "The Disappearance of Conan in Edogawa: The Worst Two Days in History".
In this work, director Kenji Uchida combines the plot of "The Way to Steal the Key" with the "Conan" animation, not only spoofing the classic scenes in the movie, such as the same "soap slip people" bridge section, but also the plot is related to each other.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the film was not only remade into the movie "Surging Crowds" by the domestic remake, but also the South Korean next door also remade a version of the movie "Lucky Key" in 2016, and the Korean version was also very popular, and even became the comedy film with an audience of more than 4 million viewers in the shortest time in the history of Korean cinema.
Having said all that, let's go back to the story of the film.
There are three protagonists in the film, and the director explains the identity background and personality characteristics of the three protagonists from the beginning.
The first is the heroine Sanae Mizushima (Ryoko Hiromi), an elegant and beautiful magazine female editor, an elite female white-collar worker in the office, accustomed to everything according to the plan, will list all the things in daily life into a table and strictly implement, now 34 years old, but still single.
However, at the beginning of the movie, Ms. Mizushima suddenly announces a shocking news in the office in front of all her colleagues: she plans to find a suitable marriage partner in a month and solve the marriage matter.
To this end, she decided to publish a marriage notice, and her subordinates asked her: What are the requirements for the other half?
Ms. Mizushima's request is simple: people who are healthy and self-motivated!
Immediately after, the second protagonist appears, a mysterious man in a suit and leather shoes, who is listening to classical music in a luxury car, and it is a dark and windy night when Mr. Kondo's car stops at the entrance of the alley, as if waiting for someone.
Seeing someone coming, Kondo immediately changed into a raincoat and pushed the car door with a knife, and when people approached, he took the knife in his hand, cleanly solved the target, and then quickly left the scene of the incident. Judging by his skilled technique, this is clearly a trained professional killer.
This is followed by the third protagonist, describing takeshi Sakurai (Masato Sakai), a scruffy and impoverished middle-aged man. He is 35 years old this year, a dragon set actor who works in a small theater, who has been in the industry for many years but has no achievements, not only is he poor and in debt, but also his future is bleak, and he lives in torment every day, and can only live in a dirty and messy rental house.
Sakurai's life can be said to be hopeless, even the once beloved girlfriend is going to marry someone else, and the decadent Sakurai is determined to commit suicide. Just as the so-called people are unlucky to drink cold water and plug their teeth, they did not expect that the rope used for hanging was aged and broken, so that he did not die.
Sakurai, who had failed even committing suicide, could not find a cigarette all over his body, but accidentally found a bathing scroll in the bathhouse. Thinking that he could not waste it and that he could also die a cleaner death when he committed suicide, Sakurai decided to go to the bathhouse to take a bath.
At the same time, the killer Kondo, who had just completed the task of killing, also decided to take a bath because he found that his clothes were also stained with blood. Yes, he and Sakurai went to the same bathroom, and more coincidentally, the locker where the two of them changed clothes was still next to each other.
When taking a bath, Sakurai wanted to secretly take someone else's soap to use, but unexpectedly, his hand slipped and the soap slipped out. Just so coincidentally, the soap slipped to the soles of Kondo's feet as he was walking, and Kondo fell to the ground before he could react, falling into a coma, and the locker key in his hand flew right in front of Sakurai.
Seeing that the other party was unconscious, Sakurai quickly and quietly exchanged his keys with them, and then took the money and car keys from Kondo's locker. After that, he changed into Kondo's designer suit and drove a luxury car to use other people's money to pay off his own debts.
Sakurai, who had finished paying back the money, felt guilty and wanted to go to the hospital to visit Kondo and apologize for his mistake, but unexpectedly found out that -
Kondo actually lost his memory!
The amnesiac Kondo finds Sakurai's belongings from a locker and therefore thinks that he is Sakurai himself, which becomes the starting point for Sakurai and Kondo to exchange identities.
From then on, Sakurai lived in his mansion and lived a life of a rich man under the identity of Kondo.
The amnesiac Kondo considers himself a dragon suit actor, and the former cold killer is forced to become a down-and-out little actor who runs dragon sets on the set.
The passage where two people exchange identities can be said to be the most joyful place in the whole film.
Sakurai, who was originally depressed and decadent, had to force the underworld, and kondo, who was cold, became Uncle Moe.
But at the same time, the process of exchanging identities has also brought great changes to the lives of the two.
For the legendary killer Kondo, despite his amnesia now, his personality and attitude are the same. He thinks that the life of sakurai himself in the past is too decadent, so he wants to change his current situation, and he even lists detailed plans and needs for this purpose.
In the face of the hopeless future, Kondo showed a positive attitude, not only reading a lot of books to enrich and improve his acting skills, but also always maintaining a positive and optimistic attitude towards life. Who would have thought that a high-profile killer would also become a hot-blooded worker?
It was also at this time that Kondo accidentally met Ms. Mizushima, the heroine who was eager to get married. Mizushima finds the amnesiac Kondo more like an iron man, but he maintains a positive and hard-working attitude, especially his attitude of executing everything makes Mizushima resonate strongly and decides to help him start his life again.
The reason why Ms. Mizushima is so anxious to get married is because her father is terminally ill, and now her biggest wish is to see her daughter get married, so Mizushima is anxious to send out a marriage revelation and intends to complete the marriage within a month.
In this way, the relationship between Kanae and Kondo slowly became closer, they ate together, watched plays together, and exchanged their living conditions, Kondo also continued to explore the skills of being an actor, and life also had a new improvement. From this point of view -
Positive and optimistic people can live well no matter what circumstances they fall into.
Unlike Kondo, who is actively restarting his life, Sakurai, although he is now living in good clothes, his negative and decadent attitude towards life has not changed much. Although he lived a life of a local tycoon, Sakurai still lost his family wealth with his speed of spending money at the speed of light.
At this moment, Sakurai discovered Kondo's true identity, and he was actually a professional killer. What's more troublesome is that Kondo, as a professional killer, has never appeared in front of anyone, so those Kondo's former customers all think that Sakurai is now the killer Kondo.
At this time, a big brother of the underworld came to the door and asked Sakurai for help. It turned out that the man Kondo had killed before still had a large amount of money in his lover's hands, and the underworld brother threatened him to find the money. Otherwise, Sakurai will disappear.
Sakurai almost wanted to cry without tears in his heart, and originally only wanted to eat and wait for death against the identity of others, but he did not expect to be involved in the underworld dispute.
The turning point in the story takes place at the funeral of Mizushima's father.
Hitting Mizushima inadvertently plays Kondo's favorite classical music while sorting out his father's discs, causing Kondo to remember everything about his identity. Back at his home, Kondo found Sakurai, who had just returned.
The plot of the film begins to reverse here, and the fates of the three people are entangled.
Sakurai, who was supposed to go to the mistress for money, was supposed to ask for money, but he didn't dare to kill anyone at all, but he ran to explain everything to his mistress and asked her to escape. Unexpectedly, all this was eavesdropped by the underworld big brother. Annoyed and angry, the underworld brother thinks that he has been tricked, so he decides to hunt him down.
Kondo, who has regained his memory, has no time to blame Sakurai for causing himself so much trouble, and he must find a way to deal with the underworld big brother, because he is not a real killer, at best a liar. In his own words: He is just a person who helps people fulfill their wishes.
The biggest crisis that the two have to face now is how to deal with the pursuit and killing of the underworld big brother?
Desperate, Kondo and Sakurai come up with a bold plan: the two plan to co-perform a drama and design the killer Sakurai to fake death in order to deceive the underworld big brother. Here, the director uses a very absurd and hilarious comedy technique to show the two people's busy rehearsal process, and also conveys the key theme of the film, attitude determines life.
The play that Kondo and Sakurai are going to play is very simple, that is, Sakurai, who is standing next to the car smoking a cigarette, is assassinated by the killer brother Kondo who suddenly appears from behind. But Sakurai, as an actor who has run a dragon set for many years, his acting skills are extremely exaggerated and contrived, very dramatic, and even not as good as Kondo, who has just been an actor for a long time.
Unconvinced, Sakurai opened his mouth and said that his performance system was influenced by the genre of a certain foreign performing master, and you mortals did not understand it at all. As a result, Kondo punched his face on the spot: you boy is really useless, and if you want to learn, you just buy the book and read it for two or three pages and then give up.
This sentence broke the reason for Sakurai's failure in the first half of his life, obviously he had not tried, but he was not willing to be down-to-earth.
After a rehearsal of chicken flying dog jumping, Kondo and Sakurai arrived at the agreed meeting place, but unexpectedly bumped into Ms. Mizushima, who had been uneasy about Kondo, so she quietly followed. At this moment, the underworld brother killed him, and the three of them drove away in a hurry, and Water Island was also involved in this crisis.
The climax of the film is that Sakurai, Kondo and Mizushima were finally discovered by the underworld big brother, and in the chaos, Sakurai's acting skills broke out, trying to deceive the underworld big brother, but did not expect that the strange trick was discovered.
Then Mizushima also exerted his knowledge as a magazine editor, using various theoretical knowledge to fool the underworld big brother into a stunned, never expected that the killer Kondo was afraid of the underworld big brother, actually ate the loss of no culture!
As for the end of the story, the crisis is resolved by the three people, the lives of Kondo and Sakurai return to their respective tracks, Kondo gains precious love, Sakurai gains the courage to live, and this adventure of exchanging lives has changed the fate of both of them dramatically.
Some people say: character determines destiny, attitude determines life.
The "Method of Stealing the Key" is undoubtedly the best example of this view, and the director explores a simple but profound topic through the comedic setting of the identity exchange between the elite and the waste wood actors: each of us may not be able to decide our own fate, but at least we can change our own lives.
The name of the movie is called "The Method of Stealing the Key", in fact, this "key" that opens the right door of life is in the hands of everyone themselves, that is, the attitude towards life. For example, the protagonist Kondo, most of the time is calm, unhurried to show his way of life, do not directly tell you how to do better, there is almost no such preaching and encouragement, he calmly faces various problems, so even if you change your identity and change the environment, you may still succeed.
The film does not have cheap preaching, nor does it have a deliberately funny sense of pompous farce, the director just uses a lot of subtle details to construct the absurd temperament of the film, but the contrast in the characters forms a natural sense of joy.
The fierce-looking Teruyuki Kagawa plays the cute middle-aged uncle, and the comedic Masato Sakai wants to subvert himself and try to play a cold killer, the difference between the temperament of the actor himself and the setting of the role is already very funny, coupled with the seriousness of their efforts to replace each other's lives, it adds a lot of laughter to the movie.
The film peels off the cocoon in the absurdity and carefully cooks a thick chicken soup, which is the warm charm of Japanese movies. The Way to Steal the Keys is both a black comedy and an inspirational film, a film that conveys an extremely positive and exuberant value:
Only those who take life seriously deserve a better life.