First of all, Peach wishes everyone a happy Chinese New Year's Eve, a happy Year of the Dog, and a prosperous new year!
Next, it was up to my old friend, Tate. Bring you a new issue of special cold doors. This issue, we have introduced, is another particularly interesting genre. Also, it's very informative.
Recently, Netflix has released a new comedy called "When We First Met", which is generally well received, but the plot is interesting.
The film tells that the male protagonist spent a good night with the goddess in his dream at the first encounter, but because the protagonist was too "honest" to seize the opportunity, he was tragically issued a "good man card" by the goddess, and the two eventually just became friends
。 For the next three years, the protagonist ponders what went wrong, and an unexpected opportunity allows him to return to that night three years ago, and he does not hesitate to try to capture the goddess's heart.
"Return to the Night of First Encounter"
Is this story familiar? The protagonist is trapped in a time loop, repeating the day over and over again. That's right, the "One Day Prisoner" movie
This concept of "one-day prison" has become a narrative strategy often used in today's film genre films, including the newly released American thriller "Happy Death Day".
If you don't start with "Groundhog Day", this article will not be able to expand at all. After all, the film has long been considered an important text of the "prisoner of the day" narrative.
Groundhog Day
The story tells the story of Phil, a world-weary weather announcer, who travels to a border town every February 2 to cover the local Groundhog Day celebrations.
He scoffed at the holiday and grew weary of work. When he finished his routine report, he was delayed by a sudden snowstorm.
When he wakes up the next day, Phil finds that time is still stuck on Groundhog Day, and he is trapped in this day and this town, starting every morning at six o'clock in a circle, constantly looping.
Tomorrow after tomorrow, how many tomorrows? Phil tries and changes in his day-to-day Loop. He learned a lot of skills, but of all his accomplishments, the most important was how to be a good guy (and love, of course).
The success of the film is to portray Phil as a mean little person, and through the baptism of time, this little person begins to re-examine himself and understand the true meaning of life.
Bill Murray's performance was just right. The film is warm and touching, more in line with the spirit of traditional American Christmas movies, such as "How Beautiful Life is" and "Christmas Carol".
In the limited screen time, it presents the audience with about 38 "groundhog days", or partial or full day, and the number of actual loops of the protagonist is certainly higher than this, according to the director himself, about ten years.
After the film was released in 1993, it quickly attracted the attention of religious groups and meditation masters, because it aroused people's thinking about time, philosophy and existence, which the creators did not expect.
However, several novelists were impatient, saying that the film plagiarized their ideas. Science fiction writer Richard Lupoff says it's a clip from his short story "12:01 p.m.
Novel "12:01 p.m.
The novel was adapted into the TV movie Twelve o'Clock 12:01 (12:01) in the same year (1993) of Groundhog Day, and it was actually broadcast before Groundhog Day.
The story tells the story of an accident in a scientific experiment that bounces back in time, leaving people living on April 27, a day in which, ironically, people trapped in the vortex of time don't know it. Barry was an exception to these people, who also used it to find the murderer of his colleague, the female scientist Lisa.
"Twelve o'clock and one o'clock"
The story is like Back to the Future + Groundhog Day, which restarts at 12:01, just like the latter's concept of restarting every 6:00. Barry uses this not only to get to know his favorite female scientist colleagues better, but also to figure out the truth behind the time bounce.
"Twelve o'clock and one minutes" and "Groundhog Day" do not have plagiarism, they are just similar in concept, because it is a TV movie, its investment scale is not large, just a very ordinary science fiction film, several crossings are very cheesy, the ending is also self-justified, so it was quickly forgotten.
Another writer, Ken Grimwood, also said the film plagiarized his novel Replay. The novel is not a subject of "one-day prisoner", but a "return to eighteen", and the author apparently believes that "Groundhog Day" steals the concept of the protagonist in his book to avoid making mistakes with future cognition.
The book tells the story of Jeff, 43, who is trapped in a tepid marriage and a job with no future, waiting for him to be truly happy, when he dies.
When he woke up, he found himself back at 18 years old, and all his memories of the next 25 years were intact. He could live again, avoid making mistakes, make money from his knowledge of the future, and pursue happiness.
Novel "Replay"
However, Danny Rubin, the screenwriter who wrote the outline of "Groundhog Day," said the script's only inspiration was William Dean Howells' short story "Christmas Every Day," which had been published as early as 1892.
Novel "Every Day is Christmas"
The novel describes an American girl who makes a wish to spend Christmas every day, and then she really cycles through Christmas until she realizes the true meaning of the holiday.
So it's no surprise that Groundhog Day fits into the spirit of Christmas movies.
The story was adapted to the screen as early as 1954 and aired in Theater 57.
Every decade in 1986, 1996 and 2006, it was remade into a TV movie three times, and the 2006 edition was called "Christmas Do-Over." The concept of the story is timeless and is often adapted, including disney's animated short Donald Duck: Stuck on Christmas (1999).
Every Day is Christmas, 1986 edition
Similar novels actually include Leon Arden's One Fine Day, published in 1981, but the writer did not stand up and question it.
The protagonist of the book is Robinson, a 34-year-old bachelor, who is stopped until midnight on March 15. Robinson tries to get back to normal times by doing good deeds, and his multiple Loops allow him to predict the future of the day.
Novel "One Fine Day"
More recent novels of the same kind include Japanese writer Yasuhiko Nishizawa's "The Man Who Died Seven Times" (七回死んだ男) and Chinese writer Liu Wenyang's "One Day Prisoner".
In terms of film, the most closely related to "Groundhog Day" is the Italian comedy "È già ieri" (2004), because it was a remake, but the location was changed to Italy.
An Italian TV star made a nature documentary about local storks in Tenarif. However, his ferry failed to leave the island, and he found himself repeating the day repeatedly.
Stork Day
Although the Italian version has its own advantages, it has not reached the height of the original version. The choreographer wanted to improve some of the original problems, but it was half the work. Most remakes have this problem, because the original film has its own unintentional willow that conforms to the times and national conditions.
Although the director of Stork Day has been careful to follow the original structure, he has given a clear philosophical and existential meaning in depth, and wants to deepen the theme, but you will feel that his reflection on time is useless. And the day-to-day choices on the island are also random, losing some of the causal relationships before and after.
In recent years, the narrative mode of "One Day Prisoner" has been developed by various genre films. Such as the police drama "Day Break" (2006), the remake of the Swedish comedy "Premarital Sex" "Naked Wedding Joy" (Naken, 2017) and so on.
"Breaking the Sun"
The most famous of these are Source Code (2011) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
Source Code is the second directorial feature film by Moon director Duncan Jones.
It tells the story of Captain Cott Stevens, a U.S. Air Force pilot, who suddenly wakes up on a train and finds himself a different person, which has been attacked by terror and killed all of them. After each attack, Colt wakes up and re-experiences the short time on the train, and he has to keep looping to find the bomber.
The film adds a new twist to the theme of "One Day Prisoner", focusing on terrorist attacks, wrapped in the framework of a dead man's memory, with the meaning of virtual reality. In the source code of virtual reality, the protagonist can embed the short-term memory of the last 8 minutes of matching passengers in a real train terrorist attack, entering in virtual reality, after many iterations to find the bomber.
《Source Code》
Source Code is reminiscent of the Cause and Effect episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode aired exactly a year before The Groundhog Day was released, and the Enterprise was trapped in a time loop until the crew learned how to avoid tragedy.
It's a cyclical story with nuances in details and clues, and the truth is in the details. It's a cleverly conceived and well-executed sci-fi story.
Cause and Effect of Star Trek: The Next Generation
This episode is also reminiscent of the second season of Time Squared, which is also a time loop story, but it further shows how the time loop behaves differently across multiple iterations, and as the story progresses, the team members' perception of the loop becomes clearer.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Time Square
Source Code repeats the train for eight minutes in a similar way, before being destroyed by a terrorist explosion.
Looking at this film from a science fiction perspective, it is contrary to common sense. It discusses capturing the "afterglow" of the deceased's brain activity to enter as virtual reality. It's an interesting idea, but how can a simulated experience of the memory of the dead be created?
The concept is obviously untenable, because short-term storage of memories cannot simulate every corner of the scene, let alone places that passengers have not been to (such as outside the train).
However, let's not talk about the irrationality of science fiction here, only about "one-day prison", after all, most of these movies do not give a very convincing reason for how the protagonist gets caught in the loop. It's just that Source Code wants to make itself more "sci-fi".
The audience follows the protagonist through the last eight minutes before the train explodes, where 90% of the running time takes place. In a fast-paced Hitchcock-style suspense film, the audience fully enjoys the process. Every eight minutes bring more plot, the suspense is superimposed, the clues are clear, and the characters become more three-dimensional.
A similar situation is true for Atang's Edge of Tomorrow, which is based on the Japanese best-selling novel What You Need is To Kill. The concept of "Groundhog Day" was also adopted, and it was transplanted into the genre of alien invasion.
The future world is in a panic of alien invasion, and Major Cage dies on the battlefield on the first day of the battle. Unexpectedly, this death gave him the ability to cycle time and space, and he would continue to wake up on this day, and the only person who believed him was the female warrior Rita.
The two begin a space-time loop battle, while training Cage, they discover the mystery of controlling time, and the way to win is to keep Cage dying and restarting.
Edge of Tomorrow
The idea of an "alien invasion" is clearly not very satisfying to the audience in this day and age, because it is already a subject of abuse. However, in this case, Edge of Tomorrow was cleverly adapted. According to the information interviewed by the creator, the film combines the concepts of "Galaxy Team" and "Groundhog Day" into one.
Edge of Tomorrow is fueled by the theme and sense of humor of "Prisoner of the Day", like an infinitely replayable computer game, where repeating levels bring the accumulation of experience points and a game guide for the whole level. Although the story was still a bit weak later on, it was still a commercial blockbuster that met expectations.
Another Netflix movie, "Time-Lapse Transmission" (ARQ), is more like a low-budget "Edge of Tomorrow." Usually, Netflix movies are not as good as dramas, and this one is an exception.
Although it is a small pattern, there are a few points that are quite well done. Loop's setting is convincing, confined space, story structure, plot design and logic can all stand up, and the audience is not treated as a fool. And the two unknown protagonists have also proved their acting skills. Its contribution to this narrative strategy is to allow multiple people to reboot, with the loop having a limited scope.
"Time-lapse Transmission"
The most essential difference between "Source Code", "Edge of Tomorrow" and even "Timeless Transmission" and "Groundhog Day" is that the ultimate purpose of bill Murray, the protagonist of "Earth", is to break this time law and enter the normal life track of the next day of Groundhog Day.
The protagonists of the subsequent sci-fi films are on a mission (finding the bomber, getting Omega out, not letting the time machine fall into the wrong hands), and "waking up" is not important to them. From this point of view, the audience is easily attracted by this suspenseful concept of time.
The same is true of "Happy Death Day," which has just been released domestically, about a female college student trapped in a time loop where a masked killer eventually murders her. She had to be killed again and again to find out who the killer was.
"Happy Death Day"
The film actually has a lot of bugs, but on the bright side, it adds a common reversal to horror films and reveals them through a time loop narrative. While reversals themselves have no particular effect, how they interact with circular narratives elevate otherwise mundane stories to a more engaging level.
Last year, there was also a film based on the novel, "Before I Fall" (2017), which is also the basic deduction of "Groundhog Day".
The girl wakes up every day to hear the same bell, and she has to spend the rest of her time correcting the mistakes of this pattern. She's not the kind of mean girl who needs to learn a lesson, just careless, goes with the flow, and doesn't understand why her actions harm the interests of others.
On her last Loop, she glowed with a calm confidence. The repetition of the cycle has become a gift that inspires her to get to know her family and friends more deeply.
"Seven Days of Suddenness"
In fact, there are such one-day prisoners in China, the earliest can be traced back to Zhang Guoguo's 1999 film "Good Boy", also known as "Boys and Girls With", "Rogue Student" and "The Emperor of Truancy", which is also the childhood memory of many people.
The tramp Awu is forced by life to be a movie martial artist and lives with a wandering child and a ghost. Ah Wu is arrogant and arrogant, not good with people, since knowing the popular star Kiki, the heart is fascinated, but because of the disparity in social status, Ah Wu's pursuit has been repeatedly frustrated. Once, Awu was attacked by a bad guy, injured his head, and kept Loop.
"Good Boy"
In the face of repeated events, Ah Wu made the choice of seeing righteousness and courage as a kind, winning Kiki's understanding and goodwill, and finally igniting the spark of love.
Director Zhang Guoli seems to use Zhu Yanping's team, a lineup of Taiwanese youth films, which is quite surprising. The screenwriter is Wu Houxin, and the plot takes half the time to lay the groundwork and establish the relationship between the characters, and the second half enters the theme of the cycle.
The reason is based on the premise that Wu was injured in the head, in short, this kind of film can not delve into the premise of the protagonist entering the loop, and once deeply investigated, it will seem untenable.
"Good Boy" sets the cycle time at Christmas, presumably in homage to William Dean Howells' novel Every Day is Christmas. It is not clear whether the creator's motivation was inspired by the novel or "Groundhog Day".
Of course, there are also last year's "Endless Day" starring Zheng Kai and Fan Wei's theatrical film "There is No End", the latter cleverly changed the date of the loop to April 1 April Fool's Day (the fool of the loop). The setting of April Fool's Day becomes more ironic in our context, and this fool is like a joke made by God.
"There's No End"
There are no marmots in the film, but there is a small hamster trapped in a cage that never stops, and there is also a metaphor for "prison". Meanwhile, April Fool's Day happens to be the protagonist's birthday. Since You have chosen April Fool's Day, you must make good use of the characteristics of this festival to serve the plot.
However, the film's use of April Fool's Day is still not enough, the biggest April Fool's Day setting, should be that God made a big joke on Fan Wei, so that Fan Wei's protagonist Fan Wei entered a dead cycle and could not get out. He even won a jackpot lottery ticket. But as soon as the clock passed and the time returned to April 1, the lottery was gone. He felt fooled without knowing it, and the people at the lottery center also felt that he was fooling everyone.
Unfortunately, the functionality of April Fool's Day is so good that the festival has not been used to make a fuss later.
Today, the concept of "one-day prison" has become more and more intense. The popularity of this narrative mode stems from the audience's familiarity and novelty with the structure of the story, with the protagonist first accepting the setting of a certain supernatural phenomenon and then accepting it in an interesting way.
It provides an escape for the character, in which case he or she is placed in these situations, developing different possibilities, and reveling in the opportunity to correct past mistakes and make up for regrets.
This time constraint also stimulates the creative talent of the screenwriter - because the plot also limits the scenes that the characters can go to, challenging to create new story developments in each loop. Similar films will definitely appear next, so let's hope they will develop new possibilities.
And, do you want to imprison yourself in Chinese New Year's Eve night and never go out again?