Text | Wang Dagen
I've never looked forward to a movie like I did to First Incense. I have tasted every poster of it, enjoyed every trailer of it, repeatedly played the small video it posted on Douyin, I know that its English name is Love After Love, love and love, the core slogan is called "love is deeper than deep love", fixed 21.10.22 means "love you shi love and can not"... I will buy the first movie ticket, even if I have to get up at six o'clock, take twenty subway stops, even if the rain is like a rain, or the sun is like fire, even if I have to do a nucleic acid test, come back to isolate... I also want to see the first "First Incense". I was expecting that.
After all, how could there be a comedy more amusing than that this year?
"First Furnace Incense" (we all affectionately call it "Furnace Steel", which is short for "First Furnace Steel") really did not live up to my expectations, as Ge Qiqiqiao repeatedly assured Ge Weilong: "I can give you happiness." "I also had a full harvest of quacking laughter. But when I saw the end, I still couldn't help but think: How could Xu Anhua shoot such a thing?
Peng Yuyan plays Qiao Qiqiao
"When is the Bright Moon" not highly rated, but I still like it; "Golden Age" I quite hate, but I also admit that it is valuable. And "The First Burning Incense", although it is not the crazy rottenness of "Buckwheat Crazy Long" and "August Weiyang", it is really just a "Xibao" with advanced music, photography and art!
I actually secretly have a trace of illusions, thinking that the extremely sinking promotion method of "First Incense" may be a kind of reverse marketing, which is to minimize everyone's expectations for this film (normal expectations, not my perverted expectations), and then look at the positive film: Hey, it's actually OK! Thus reaching a bottoming rally. It turns out I really thought a little too much.
It is not that I can't understand such a sinking marketing, to put it bluntly, how many people have actually read Zhang Ailing? This piece to return to the original, can only sink and sink, all the way "low to the dust", "Xibao" can sell 100 million, "The First Burning Incense" why not?
With the blessing of the production lineup including Xu Anhua, Wang Anyi, Du Kefeng, Sakamoto Ryuichi and others, "The First Burning Incense" is exquisite in form
But really not. The "lots, lots of money and lots of love" of "XiBao" is a very sinking thing in itself, and what "The First Incense" (at least the novel) expresses still has a certain threshold. The movie's hard-fought "love is a deeper love than deep love" sounds like a more puzzling Chinese than something that is not Chinese. Although this sentence comes from the poem of the Portuguese poet Camons, it sounds too much like the non-mainstream QQ signature of the beginning of the century, and it is the kind that Ma Sichun will definitely use.
"The First Incense" is not a love story, but it has been promoted as a love story, or it can be said to be a bitter love story: I have paid so much for him, but he still does not love me. I don't know why anyone thinks that such a narrative can reach the "sinking market", because if you look at the success stories, you know that what the so-called "sinking female audience" lacks is not "love", but "being loved", and those high-selling low-scoring romance films are all about "there is a boy who once loved me like that" and "we love each other so much but can't be together". The story of women blindly paying for men, in this era, there is no market, and female audiences cannot substitute for the heroine, but will only secretly send Wu Jing emojis in their hearts like watching popular posts: "Untouchable! ”
So when I watched "The First Incense", I had a big puzzle: who was this movie for? The audience of "Predecessor 3" and "Than Sad" simply cannot accept a story of selling scumbags; and the audience of Xu Anhua, Zhang Ailing, and Wang Anyi, first of all, saw the casting and dissuaded, and the remaining honest people, screened away all prejudices, tried to find some deeper expression in the movie, two and a half hours later (two and a half hours!). But I found that this film really just told the story of selling a scumbag, and there was nothing at all...
Wu Qianlian and Dawn, who starred in "Half Life" (1997), are recognized as compatible with Zhang Ailing's novels
Of course, casting is the biggest problem, and I think the key to Xu Anhua's version of "Half Life" is casting. Wu Qianlian and Mei Yanfang are recognized as similar, the natural Man Zhen and Man Lu, and Dawn, the most temperamental and boring dawn among Chinese film actors, is simply born to play Shen Shijun. And the three people of "The First Burning Incense", Ma Sichun, Peng Yuyan, Yu Feihong, the first two were spat on enough, Tiger Lady and Xiangzi, the revolutionary front, workshop workers, fitness instructors and students... In fact, Yu Feihong is not much better, I have always felt that Yu Feihong is fifty years old Gao Yuanyuan, her temperament itself is cold and hanging, acting up the social flowers are all floating on the surface of the eyebrow flying dance, do not see the slightest charm, not like a concubine, like the wife of the main room, taut.
Mrs. Liang, played by Yu Feihong, is a social flower who works in calculation and is willing to be a concubine of a rich merchant for money
To be fair, Ma Sichun's first half of the film is not particularly outrageous, she is an actor who lacks a sense of story, or her looks and temperament can only provide people with an imagination: a well-born but a little rebellious and well-behaved girl. Her relatively critically acclaimed film and television roles are all like this, and she continues to reinforce this image in variety shows and entertainment gossip. This image does have some commonalities with Ge Weilong in "The First Incense", just like Zhang Ailing's novel and Rao Xueman's novel can be regarded as romance novels in a broad sense...
Ma Sichun's temperament determines that she can't play too complicated roles, going up always seems a bit rustic, going down and not enough bottom, her acting skills are not enough to break through the limitations of temperament, acting in idol dramas is enough, and acting in a movie makes people shake their heads. But she has her rebellion, as soon as the whole network advises her to "run", she wants Us Against the World; the Golden Horse Film Queen has taken it, and her acting skills are still not recognized, so she is full of strength to play more complex roles, so she strives to become the worst stroke in "Stormy Clouds".
Ma Sichun's looks and temperament lack a sense of story
She is better at acting in TV dramas than in movies, and acting in commercial films is better than acting in literary films, and in general, it is better not to work hard than to work hard. She has several signature performances that can be seen in basically every literary film (including short films): stretching out, squinting her eyes slightly, swaying her body to the music, leaning back against the wall or dressing mirror, sticking clothes/books to her chest, smiling as if remembering something, laughing and laughing, shedding tears, and then laughing even more madly... The most iconic is this "laughter with tears", and the second half of "The First Burning Incense" is all this. We can only hate her for being a book model for too long, and when she laughs with tears, we can only think of youth pain literature, and even remember what the movie is about.
The inexhaustible shape earned the two protagonists the titles of Shoko and Tiger Girl
Worse is Peng Yuyan, but the performance is only the last link. Choosing Ma Sichun to play Ge Weilong, after all, there is still such a fine line of rationality, Peng Yuyan ... You are looking for Feng Xiaoyue and Qiu Ze, which are ten thousand times more reasonable than Peng Yuyan, right? We don't want to honor the dragon to come back, and we can get a Zhang Chao in "No Problem"! Even if this is not "The First Burning Incense", Peng Yuyan is not Qiao Qiqiao, and it is ridiculous to pull Ma Sichun and Peng Yuyan together to play a love drama. Because Peng Yuyan is also an actor who lacks a sense of story, when he was young, he was a simple big boy, and now he is a simple muscle man, and his love film masterpieces are all pure love stories of simple big boys, so how can there be a spark when the two people are put together?
Wang Anyi once said in an interview: "Zhang Ailing's Qiao Qi Qiao is a muscle man. ”
Actors with big boy temperament are suitable for mature women, such as "Tropical Past", and the best thing to watch (the only good look) is the delicate erotic scene between Peng Yuyan and Zhang Aijia. Muscle men should be played with feelings, not to play with other people's feelings, Peng Yuyan does not have the scum temperament that can make people moths put out fires, but the plot needs his scum: the first half of the night to climb over the wall to sleep Ge Weilong, the second half of the night to put away the guy Shi Shi went downstairs to sleep, physically touching. Later, I summed up, the female characters with names in this film, except for his sister, seemed to have slept for him, but I didn't think he was a playboy, why? - A good villain like Bond who can flirt is a playboy, right? Peng Yuyan's version of Georgie Qiao came every time with his pants, and said every day what "I can't control myself", this is not just ... Estrus Teddy?
Peng Yuyan's appearance was complained about by netizens like a wedding celebrant
Obviously, it is no longer the problem of the actors here, but the problem of the script. Let's take ten thousand steps back and say, even if this movie is just a "love but can't" persecution story, a story of a good family girl sinking for the gentleness of the playboy moment, then you must at least shoot a momentary heartbeat for me, right? This point is no problem, women can be doomed for a moment's heartbeat, "Color Ring" is not this kind of story to tell?
So what is the momentary heartbeat of "The First Burning Incense"? Don't know, don't, don't exist. The hard thing to say is that Shoko sat on the trunk of the tree and recited the Portuguese version of "love is deeper than deep love"... Now the online chat is not happy about this kind of good.
Both Xu Anhua and Wang Anyi seem to lack imagination about love, and even feel a little anti-erotic (but if the Chinese old lady in their 140s combined makes a very erotic scene, it seems a little subtle). The bed scene in "The First Incense" can be called the most terrible bed scene I have seen in recent years, especially in the second scene, Ge Weilong took the initiative to sacrifice the first night to Georgie Joe, and Ma Sichun fell on the bed, almost like a revolutionary female martyr heroic and righteous.
Anyway, at the end of the movie, almost no one can understand where Ge Weilong's love for Ge Qiqiqiao comes from, it seems that it is such a physical advantage, but I see that you are not cool when you engage with him... There are two words that are almost about to be blurted out, and this is not it - is it a slut?
I reasonably suspect that this is exactly what Wang Anyi thinks of Ge Weilong. As we all know, Wang Anyi did not like Zhang Ailing, after writing "Long Hate Song", everyone compared her with Zhang Ailing, and she also expressed her dissatisfaction with this comparison many times. She dismisses Zhang Ailing as passive, nihilistic, petty, and overly indulgent in hedonism—it sounds like our parents' criticism of our generation.
Wang Anyi does not approve of the background of Zhang Ailing's novel
This adaptation is like a long-planned revenge on Zhang Ailing by Wang Anyi, and the subtle things in Zhang Ailing's novels are all roughly processed by Wang Anyi: hedonism is equal to crazy sex, Ge Weilong can't turn back because she has become a petite miss and can no longer live a hard life, and once a woman provides for a man, she will become her husband's mother... As if to spread out his hands and say, "Look, how tacky is Zhang Ailing's story!" ”
Closer to Zhang Ailing's values are, of course, the generations that have grown up after the reform and opening up. When we are exposed to her novels in adolescence, it is easy to be attracted by her gorgeous writing, re-read them as adults, and once again marvel at her genius and modernity. Among Chinese writers who can withstand this test, the only ones in my reading experience are Lu Xun and Zhang Ailing. Writers such as Mo Yan and Jia Pingwa, at least we female readers are no longer blessed. It is almost impossible for these generations of female authors not to be influenced by Zhang Ailing, and it is a very simple fact: Zhang Ailing is the best.
The generation gap between Wang Anyi and Zhang Ailing is exactly the generation gap between our generation and Wang Anyi, and perhaps looking for Wang Anyi to adapt Zhang Ailing is really even more wrong than looking for Ma Sichun to play Ge Weilong.
Originally, after watching a film of this level, I would definitely vigorously insult the director, but because it was Xu Anhua, I still put away my teeth. After watching "Make a Good Movie", everything can be forgiven: it is not difficult to be respectable and fearful, and cuteness is the most difficult. I have studied the food in her films with relish: the brine beef tongue of "Sister Peach", the braised mushrooms of "The Day and Night of Tin Shui Wai", the small ribs of "When the Moon Is" and the meatball soup of "Golden Age"...
Xu Anhua's films usually have a lot of depictions of life details. /Tuyuan "Sister Peach"
"The First Burning Incense" does not appear in Cantonese or Shanghai at all (Shanghai woman Ge Weilong, even pronounced "lane hall" as "nòngtang"), and the whole story seems to fall into an overhead city, an overhead era, not Zhang Ailing's Hong Kong, nor Xu Anhua's Hong Kong. There is only one scene, Ge Weilong carries the suitcase to her aunt's house, and the beard sends her a plate of shrimp dumplings and a plate of roast to sell, Ge Weilong's eyes lit up, happy to eat. Ma Sichun at this moment is also a little cute, and in these two plates, there seems to be a little Xu Anhua that I want to see.