There is no doubt that happy twist actors are the appealing box office guarantee of the current mainland film circle.
Since the beginning of this year, the Spring Festival file has Ma Li + Wei Xiang's "This Killer Is Not Calm", which has won 2.6 billion box office.
In the summer file, Shen Teng + Ma Li + Chang Yuan co-starred in "Lone Moon", and the box office reached the 3 billion mark.
This is not counting the achievements of Ma Li's previous starring works, such as "Charlotte Troubles", "Shy Iron Fist" and other works, according to Internet statistics, Ma Li's current personal starring works have exceeded 15 billion yuan at the cumulative box office, which is deservedly the highest-grossing actress in the mainland film industry.
To be fair, the works starring the happy twist actors may not be all good works, and many of them are disappointing bad works, but the reason for the success of the box office is that in the final analysis -
Comedy movies are just needed by the market, and the actors who are happy and twisted are indeed the most popular comedians at present.
This success is not accidental, and it proves the favor of the market and the needs of the audience. Therefore, whenever there is an important holiday period, the audience always looks forward to going to the theater to see a lively family comedy, and Shen Teng and Ma Li are the golden signs of comedy.
This week, the mainland ushered in the Mid-Autumn Festival, making the theater line lively for a long time, and many new films were screened, including many famous directors, such as Er Dongsheng's "The End of the Sea is the Grassland" and the star-studded "The World Has Her".
But as of now, the film with the highest pre-sale results, scheduling and attendance is still the comedy movie "Brother, Hello" starring Ma Li, Chang Yuan and Wei Xiang, which is the first box office on the first day of release, and the single-day box office exceeded 30 million, which is the hottest movie in recent times.
This issue of "New Film Detoxification" will talk about this movie, the advantages and disadvantages will be talked about -
"Hello Brother"
Give Me Five
This movie can have such a high popularity, inseparable from the audience's expectations.
The reason for the expectation is, first of all, that it is a rare family comedy in the mainland film market recently.
Sitting on the "domestic comedy king fried" lineup such as Ma Li, Wei Xiang and Chang Yuan, these actors casually appear in the movie, which is enough to amuse the audience. If the three can star together, then the comedic effect is bound to be guaranteed.
On the other hand, in addition to the genre attributes of comedy, this film is also a nostalgic and warm film with fantasy crossing elements.
The film tells a version of "parental love" that travels through time and space, and the creators contain a deep nostalgia for family and affection in the happy and funny plot section.
The director of this film, Zhang Luan, is a disciple of Deyun Society, and his stage name is Zhang Heluan.
In 2019, he took his master Yu Qian to make a nostalgic and warm movie "Teacher Good", and finally became a group of dark horses in the most deserted March slot in the mainland that year, winning 350 million at the box office, and also helped Master Yu Qian win a Macao Film Festival film emperor.
If you haven't seen this movie, it doesn't matter, you must have seen Wu Jing wearing a green dressed meme, and its original image source is this movie.
After three years, director Zhang Luan brought a new work "Brother, Hello", the original name of this film is "Xiaowu Brother", the story comes from the real experience of screenwriter Dong Tianyi, which is a fantasy comedy that travels through time and space.
The protagonist of the movie, Xiao Wu, is at odds with his single father Lao Wu all year round, and the father and son are full of contradictions, until the father Lao Wu suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and after amnesia, he often bizarrely calls his son Xiao Wu "brother".
Xiao Wu's mother died after she was born, so Xiao Wu has no memory of her mother, and her father, Lao Wu, never tells her the cause of her mother's death.
One day, his father Lao Wu accidentally fell into a coma, and when Xiao Wu went home to look for his father's savings, he accidentally found a notebook left by his mother and a handmade brass ring.
Curious, Xiao Wu put on the ring and began to look back at his mother's notes, and a miraculous thing happened, he actually followed the time node in the diary back to the eighties, that is, the young father and mother had not yet met.
Xiao Wu mistakenly returned to the time before his parents met, and accidentally stirred up the first encounter between his father Lao Wu and his mother Lu Chunli, causing his father Lao Wu to fall in love with someone else, and naturally there would be no later Xiao Wu.
In order to correct the mistakes of this time and space travel, he tried his best to return to the past again and again, encouraging his mother to chase after his father in the past conservative years, and finally wanted to rewrite his mother's tragic fate, and in the process gradually understood his parents' choices.
The whole film can be summed up in one sentence -
Travel back a few days and cure the mental infighting between the young Xiao Wu and his father Lao Wu.
At first glance at the plot setting, this film is easily reminiscent of Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying", which is a comedy through the theme, and the theme is to miss his parents.
But in fact, "Brother, Hello" has already started filming as early as 2020, when "Hello, Li Huanying" has not yet been released. In terms of the film's main story structure, the film is actually more like the "help my dad chase my mom" setting in the Hollywood science fiction movie "Back to the Future".
As is customary, let's start with the merits of the film.
The film portrays the image of the father Wu Hongqi and the son Wu Jialu, the "wronged father and son", the stubborn old father and the rebellious son who has achieved nothing, and the relationship between father and son has been frozen for half a lifetime. The son Xiao Wu did not understand why his father always hated his son.
Just after Wu Hongqi suffered from Alzheimer's disease, Xiao Wu helped his father find the lost "memory" through a wonderful journey, witnessed and matched the love of his parents, and also re-understood and recognized his parents in the process.
The first half of the film is more like a nostalgic comedy, the use of fantasy crossing elements in this film belongs to the point to the end, the director uses vivid and vivid details to restore the warm and positive life of the factory compound in the 1980s, and the whole film is full of a strong nostalgic atmosphere.
At the same time, the choreographer cleverly uses the protagonist's crossing skills to create a lot of witty and humorous baggage and jokes, such as parents calling their son XiaoWu a brother, Xiaowu enthusiastically helping parents match love, creating opportunities for a pedantic father to confess his love, helping a pregnant mother to elaborately make up a wedding, and so on.
Between his son Xiao Wu and his young parents, the dislocation and contrast of identities has formed a strong sense of humor.
The film revolves around Xiao Wu's journey back to his parents' youth, witnessing his parents' love experience from the perspective of an adult, overlapping memory with reality, and finally completing the redemption of the mother, father and son.
But the above can only be regarded as the "bright line" of the film, and the film is more importantly hidden under the dark line under the cloak of crossing comedy.
The "time and space travel" section in the film is more like the director's fantasy setting to recall and trace the long-term memories that only exist in the minds of the previous generation, and memory is the key to open the door to all emotions in the world.
Every time Xiao Wu crosses the time node, it is the most memorable life node in his father's heart: accidental encounter, brave love, hand in hand into marriage, knowing each other after marriage, and even the most painful moment of life and death. Father Wu Hongqi has never forgotten these memories of his wife, and even if he gradually loses his memory later, he still keeps repeating the sentence "Miss you" in his notebook.
Because behind these memories is the "love" that he is unwilling to give up all his life.
The choreographer does not have too deliberate emotional catharsis, just let the audience follow the perspective of the protagonist Xiao Wu, to witness the fragments of life of this ordinary couple, which is enough to make the audience resonate.
And this is where the film most impressed the audience -
It is shaped with the most simple and unpretentious plot, allowing us to see the best love of the previous generation.
The two parents portrayed by Ma Li and Wei Xiang are quite representative, and Lao Wu and Senior Are probably just the most common parents in many traditional Chinese families. Many of the previous generation came this way - although they were in a social environment that was not rich, they were always kind and optimistic, honest and brave, industrious and down-to-earth, even if they were just ordinary workers, they could still dedicate their lives to hard work. Even if there is no rich material life, it does not prevent them from having a sweet and romantic love and marriage.
In addition, the film is not only the love of parents, but also the bondage between father and son, and the mother's maternal love for her son that is great beyond life and death.
The estrangement and conflict between Xiao Wu and his father is estimated to make many post-80s and post-90s audiences feel empathy. The father-son relationship in the traditional family is often implicit and introverted, and the differences in concepts, ideas, and values between the two generations often create incomprehension between the two sides.
Just like Lao Wu and Xiao Wu, both father and son are neglected to express, Xiao Wu does not understand why his father has abandoned him all his life, and Lao Wu does not understand what his son really wants. Through this crossing, the son understands the pure and beautiful love between his parents in the past, and also understands that the father is just trapped in the memories and pains of the past.
The estrangement between father and son is because of love, and it is eventually resolved by love. Therefore, at the son's wedding, the father's apology that was many years late was so touching.
The delicate emotional portrayal is the key to how this film can touch people's hearts so much.
Director Zhang Luan, following the previous work "Teacher Good", once again conquered the audience with delicate character shaping and emotional portrayal, but the difference is that "Brother, Hello" is closer to a comedy with tears in laughter, seemingly absurd and joyful comedy plot, but it can directly hit the softest place in the audience's heart.
Having said the advantages, let's talk about the flaws of the movie.
As a cross-over movie, the story logic of this film is not very self-justifying, the ring's traversal ability is like a BUG existence, the screenwriter wants to say how to say it, after the first crossing accidentally prevented the parents from meeting, at least there is a certain account of the future time and space, resulting in the disappearance of the text on the notes, but in the follow-up story, the ring can be abused casually, regardless of whether the follow-up will have an impact on the future.
Speaking of plot, the balance between the comedy genre and the warm theme of this film is not good enough, obviously some subvert the audience's expectations, thinking that it is a hilarious comedy, and as a result, there are not many comedy plots in the movie, and the warm space is too large, which seems too late.
There is also the problem of narrative rhythm, the first third of the narrative of the film is more protracted, in order to increase the burden of comedy and ignore the character shaping, the most critical point is the lack of parental character shaping, there is no way to understand why the mother sixth year will like the engineer Wu Hongqi, and later Wu Hongqi lost love with the help of Xiao Wu to actively pursue the sixth year, the relationship between the two changed so quickly that the audience was caught off guard, and it was difficult to convince the audience.
There is also the biggest problem is the final conservative value transmission of the film, I believe that in the past there was indeed this phenomenon of "big or small", but it is 2022, and the screenwriter still writes such a plot does not feel that it is a problem?
Overall, "Hello Brother" is a family comedy with obvious advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the story is sincere and emotional, and the disadvantage is that the plot is slightly messy, and there is still room for improvement at the script level, so it is only recommended for audiences who like this type of movie.