Text/Golden Wrong Knife Channel
This year's Lunar New Year file killed two "dark horses":
Happy Twist's comedy film "This Killer Is Not Calm", and its lead actor, Wei Xiang.
On the 5th day of release, "The Killer" grossed 1 billion yuan, second only to "Watergate Bridge", which is the highest attendance movie in this year's Lunar New Year file.
Unexpectedly, not only did Shen Teng's face not appear in "The Killer", but even the familiar faces of Ellen and Chang Yuan did not participate, and the protagonist was the unknown Wei Xiang.
Starring Wei Xiang, there is no anti-heavenly appearance, no fist works, and even many people have not even heard his name.
But after watching "The Killer", many people found that Wei Xiang was the football coach in "The Richest Man in Xihong City", the giant Mao in "Joyful Secret Agent", and the famous scene of "eating a pig in three bites" was played by him.
According to the introduction of Happy Twist, the movie "Killer" was actually tailored for Wei Xiang.
How did a "thousand-year-old supporting role" who ran a dragon set for 24 years and even only "voice starred" in "Charlotte Troubles" become the "secret weapon" of the blockbuster movie?
The worst bad comedy,
Contracted the audience's laughter
This year's Spring Festival file, compared with other movies, "Killer" originally looked like there was no chance of winning.
The box office champion "Watergate Bridge", the goal is to break records.
After all, after "Chosin Lake" filmed a pixel-level real war scene, it was quite difficult to surpass it.
However, as soon as "Watergate Bridge" came out, there were three films "Super Family", "I Am a Tyrannosaurus Rex" and "Jurassic Paradise" that withdrew from the New Year file one after another and were "scared away".
Not only that, but other movies in the Lunar New Year file are also strong in their own strength.
"Miracle Stupid Child" is dominated by ghost producer Ning Hao, directed by Wen Muye, and starring Yi Yanqianxi, who is a powerful faction among the top students.
"Four Seas", which competed with "Miracle" for the second place, just asked Chen Xiaochun to pay tribute to the scene of "Head Text D", which earned enough audience popularity.
But "The Killer", since it was finalized in June last year, has not been optimistic.
The first reason was that there was no Shen Teng sitting.
The protagonist of "The Killer" is an actor who has only played a supporting role, and it is the first time to star.
Not only that, in recent years, the harmonic terrier movies that have been played by happy twists have not given people a good impression.
Rubbing the heat of "This Killer Is Not Too Cold", naturally did not win too much favor in the early stage.
Netizens who are good at spitting even made a joke and helped Happy Twist to book two huge works of "Scissorhands Love Andy Lau" and "Harry Potter".
In addition to the unpopularity in the actors and title, the bigger hard problem of "The Killer" is that the story is too vulgar:
The gangster boss looks at the movie star, the lowest dragon set actor hero saves the United States, and finally the fierce gangster boss actually has the heart to distribute this small actor.
No matter how you look at it, "Killer" seems to have no possibility of turning over.
Unexpectedly, it was such a "quasi-bad film" that was not optimistic, but it unexpectedly gained the audience's good feelings, and it got 200 million box office on the first day of release, and the theater scheduling rate also rose from 14.7% on the first day to 28%.
Today, "Killer" is second only to "Watergate Bridge" at the box office, and it also dumps the third place with a box office of nearly 500 million.
The main reason is that "Killer" meets the expectations of many viewers just right: to be extremely funny, but also to be funny without pressure.
For example, in the opening part of the story, the dragon set actor Wei successfully played a soldier who was shot in the head but was still smiling.
Explaining to the director, he said: "I played a soldier with a cerebral thrombosis, and the moment the bullet hit me, I recovered. ”
According to Wei Chenggong's reasoning, this is indeed reasonable.
The first meeting with the black boss Harvey, Wei Chenggong, who was kept in the dark, staged a scene of "knife tip licking blood".
And as long as Harvey said "Carl", Wei Chenggong thought it was a failed "Cut" and did it again.
The funny part was Harvey's reaction: "Since you like my pedicure so much, I'll give it to you." ”
From killing people like adding knives to adding pedicure knives, the protagonist is "played" again and again, and the audience's laughter points are poked again and again.
There is no difficulty in understanding, it is simply funny, and it can be logical and self-consistent.
In this regard, a netizen commented: "Chinese this year has been too bitter, watch too many crying films, please come to more such comedy lines?" ”
Just the right amount of "funny" is just one of the killer tricks.
The key to "Killer" counter-killing:
100% "Xiang Xiang"!
The success of "Killer", many people feel, is because of the right choice of starring, Wei Xiang.
Netizen commented: "Wei Xiang is a man with his own laughter and BGM. ”
Even Shen Teng said, "I don't dare to share the stage with Wei Xiang, he is too funny, I am afraid of laughing." ”
Acting is only the result, when playing a supporting role, Wei Xiang is ready to be the protagonist.
1, crazy delving into characters, giving roles as "inner tanks"
Those who have seen Wei Xiang will find that no matter how small the role is, he can perform the "god" of the role.
In "The Richest Man in Xihong", Wei Xiang starred as the team's head coach Ma Daxiang.
Because he was afraid that he would not be able to match Ma Daxiang in age, Wei Xiang took the initiative to propose to the stylist to make a bald "Mediterranean" shape, and his beard was also messy, and the feeling of middle-aged greasiness immediately came up.
Wei Xiang not only works the image of the character, but also is good at figuring out the inner world of the character.
For example, Ma Daxiang's character setting: he wants to be a good person, but he does not want to take responsibility; he wants to perform, but he is afraid of being ugly. On the surface, it is instigated, but in fact it is bad.
The coach frantically warmed up to play when he lost, but before he could run a few steps, he fell on the pitch and was carried away on a stretcher.
In order to perform this scene well, Wei Xiang stepped on a mineral water bottle, and the soft tissue of his right arm was contused, and it took half a month to recover.
In another scene, Wang Duoyu wrapped up the entire hotel to invite his teammates to dinner, and the head coach Ma Daxiang, played by Wei Xiang, was still mocking Wang Duoyu a second ago: "Upstart mentality, inferiority!" After a second, he opened his mobile phone to perform "three mouths and a pig" for the fans, an ugly look of a villain, and only used his eyes to pinch the laughter of the audience.
2, acting professional, "stealing drama" is more expert
Nowadays, many people think that Wei Xiang is born with a comedic face, and there is a heaven chasing and feeding.
But in the early days, Wei Xiang almost couldn't enter the door of the film school because of his ugliness.
In 2003, Wei Xiang reported to the film school, and the security guard came to him and said, "Classmate this is the acting department, you are in the wrong line." ”
Wei Xiang said: "Because the security guards think I don't look like the acting department." ”
Wei Xiang acted in comedy because the teacher of that year took special care of them, so that the few people who were least dominant in their class could have a mouthful to eat.
But Wei Xiang is not afraid, he dares to act anything, even if it is a small role, he can grab the aura of the protagonist on himself.
The most stealing scene was that he starred in Guangliang in "The Living Buddha's Ascension to the Throne", and even Guo Degang's protagonist JiGong was eclipsed.
Some netizens commented: "Wei Xiang's performance of Guangliang, a fart is so charming." ”
Wei Xiang does have a talent for comedy, and even the cross-talk actors are willing to bow to the wind.
In one of Guo Degang's "Guo's Shows", Wei Xiang and Allen showed tongue twisters on the same stage, and Wei Xiang said that "the grapes of Turpan" can not only make the tongue roll, but also perform while speaking, directly frightening Yue Yunpeng to dare not speak out.
After watching "Killer", even Shen Teng sighed: "Wei Xiang made me feel the real threat. In the future, the viewing standard of twist flowers is no longer 'containing teng', but 'containing xiang'. ”
In this regard, Wei Xiang responded with the classic line in "The Shawshank Redemption": "Success and unsuccessful are a persistence." ”
Inseparable from Shen Teng's happy twist,
Why did you win this time?
In today's domestic comedy market, there are not many opponents of Happy Twist.
Whether it is Jia Ling's big bowl entertainment or Xu Zheng's true music, it has lost to Happy Twist in box office and influence.
At its peak, Happy Twist's "Charlotte Troubles" became a hit at the box office of 1.4 billion.
In the next few years, with Shen Teng's creativity and box office influence, the box office of "Shy Iron Fist" and "The Richest Man in Xihong" exceeded the 2 billion mark.
Among them, "Shy Iron Fist" suppressed "Hong Kong 囧", making Happy Twist a more powerful producer than Xu Zheng's True Music Dao culture.
"The Richest Man in Xihong City" also made the brainwashing divine comedy "Calorie" popular all over the country.
However, with the development of time, happy twist has appeared to be a routine aging, and only Shen Teng is left as a box office guarantee, and he has gone farther and farther on the road of bottomless rubbing Shen Teng's heat, and his reputation is getting worse and worse.
In 2017, "Shy Iron Fist", Douban score 6.8; in 2018, "Li Cha's Aunt", scored 4.6;
Even if Wu Junru was invited to star in "Demon Bell", the Douban score was only 4.2, which became a real bad film.
Of the three movies mentioned above, Shen Teng's face is revealed in the time: 5 minutes, 3 minutes, and 94 seconds.
The lower the "tenam" content, the worse the rating.
The most outrageous one, in the movie "The Sun Never Sets" with a Douban score of only 3.0, the crew put up a poster of Shen Teng - "Containing Teng" is zero.
The audience was full of condemnation, saying that "Happy Twist used Shen Teng to 'cheat'", forcing the filmmaker to issue an apology letter.
This has led people in the industry to reach a consensus: there is not necessarily a shen teng, and there must be no shen teng.
The reverse operation of "hanging sheep's head and selling dog meat" made Happy Twist lose its good feelings and suffered a big loss.
The crisis of happy twist does not stop there.
"Li Mao plays the prince" released on New Year's Day, more than 90% of netizens gave 3 stars or less bad reviews, and was complained by netizens as "the first bad film of the year".
Many viewers reflected that the movie picture is rough, the costumes and props are not exquisite, and even the actor's title of the parents-in-law can be replaced by the current "dad" and "mother", treating the audience as a fool and letting people play in minutes.
This year's "Killer", which is out of the siege, is actually not perfect.
For example, the background of the movie is overhead, and Ma Li is really not suitable for playing a beautiful superstar.
However, the audience's eyes are shining, and "Killer" has the genes for success.
The most important point is that Happy Twist learns from the lessons of many years and begins to return to the audience and respect the audience.
People with a little film foundation will find that "Killer" has achieved pixel-level restoration in terms of details.
For example, there are no less than 20 Easter eggs in "Killer" that pay tribute to the classic.
These include Wei Chenggong's stylistic reproductions of "Shanghai Beach", "Pulp Comedy", and "Golden Three Darts".
He dances in the rain and restores "Song in the Rain".
In tribute to "The Godfather", Wei Chenggong also held up a cat.
Not only is the classic a seamless reproduction, there are many bridges in "Killer", all of which are from Wei Xiang's real experience.
For example, practicing tongue twisters in the mirror in the middle of the night, writing biographies for characters, practicing dancing against mops, and so on.
Even the other actors in "The Killer" were forced to do the details solidly.
In a behind-the-scenes footage, Wei Xiang proposed: When you are beaten, every blow must be struck, and the details are real.
He even grabbed the back of the other person's hand and hit it hard so that the other party knew how much force should be used.
Changing the usual opportunistic trick, this time the "Killer", happy twist gave enough sincerity, and even attracted many netizens to stand: "The movie is not good, I stew myself in an iron pot." ”
It can be seen that actors are not a tool for movies to earn box office, and they are not the only criterion for judging whether movies are good or bad.
Blindly using the participation of well-known actors to fool the audience is the biggest detour.
epilogue:
In an interview, Wei Xiang said: "It is difficult to do comedy, and the memes that have been used before can no longer be used in the future." ”
Similar words, Zhao Benshan and Guo Degang also said.
Wang Jing, the director who is best at comedy, once proposed in "Director Please Advise": "No one dares to make comedy!" ”
Because shooting comedy is the most tiring, even he himself, when he is old, does not dare to make comedy.
When filming "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang" that year, Zhou Xingchi set himself the requirement that everyone on the scene should laugh, and if one person did not laugh, then start again.
This year's "Killer", the preliminary preparation took 3 years, and even Wei Xiang, who was the least afraid to wait, almost gave up.
But after the box office counterattack, everyone thinks that it is worth it.
Comedy doesn't need to be tall, the basic skills are solid enough.
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The author of this article | JingXu