"Turandot: The Origin of the Spell": Guan Xiaotong draws a beauty string of scenes, Jiang Wen combs his braids to watch the play, Hu Jun plays with his belly, this movie is real. Magic
In the opera world, "Turandot" can be regarded as a heavyweight IP, especially after Zhang Yimou directed the Bird's Nest version, which became more famous in China and became a good memory in the minds of many people.
Compared with the original opera, the film version of "Turandot: The Origin of the Spell" has made a drastic adaptation of the story content, except for retaining the original male and female protagonist settings and three riddles, the rest are basically torn down and restarted.
In fact, the story of the original opera is originally weak, the emotional transformation of the male and female protagonists is extremely abrupt, if it is directly made into a movie, it can not support enough time, the film as an artistic recreation, the appropriate increase in characters and content is not to blame, but unfortunately, all the adaptations of this film can only be described by the word "failure".
First of all, the style of the film is weird like a hodgepodge.
I don't know when, domestic costume movies began to be popular Chinese and foreign co-productions, such as Liu Yifei's "Desperate Escape", Jackie Chan's "Mystery of the Dragon Card", etc., the common features of these films, all like to use ancient China as a background, and then mix and match foreign characters, through the cultural conflict between the East and the West to create selling points, but the result is without exception neither applause nor popularity.
The main reason for the analysis is that the film is extremely simple and rude when mixing cultural connotations, often only intercepting a small number of their respective ethnic element symbols, and does not carry out more deep integration of the two cultures, thus becoming a freak who is not in the middle of the world. "Turandot: The Origin of the Spell" also makes the same mistake, although the background of this film is set in the Chinese Yuan Dynasty, but there is always a strong flavor of the Western world in the bones.
The male protagonist, Karaf, was originally a Prince of Malvia, who followed his master Zhou Da to China because the country was invaded by the Mongols and his parents died, thus becoming acquainted with the Princess Turandot of the Yuan Dynasty. The idea that the Prince of the West and the Princess of the East meet and collide with a poignant love story is a good idea, but it is extremely incongruous to put them together.
The original intention of the film was to show the universal values that only love can break through everything through the individual struggle under the hatred of two countries and nationalities, but unfortunately it is obviously unsatisfactory.
Because the concept of the country and nation it creates, there is no trace of the grandeur of the East, but like the castle of the extremely medieval Europe, its pattern is so small that it seriously wastes the huge worldview setting of this film across Eurasia.
The scale of the war between countries is cold, there is no position of the war to destroy the country, it is not too much to say that it is two small city-states fighting for land, the capital of the Tangtang Yuan Dynasty, let alone see any grace and luxury, the street set is like a remote county, how can it not be related to the yangyang big country, not to mention the characters in the play wearing modern improved Hanfu, standing in the yuan dynasty palace and saying lines that are not lip-synch, how embarrassing it is.
Secondly, the plot is far-fetched, and there are so many hard injuries that they completely disregard logic.
The main story of the film is not complicated, but the screenwriter prefers to complicate simple issues, using various so-called misunderstandings and unsympathetic fights to fill in the weak plot, resulting in the audience not knowing what the plot really wants to express.
The most common way in the film is to make things that can be said clearly in two sentences, but like to hide them, causing misunderstandings between the characters. For example, when Carraf enters the palace on the night of the full moon to visit Turandot and encounters the other party who is bound by a rope to prepare for rescue, the heroine knows that she is trapped because she is afraid of not being able to control the innocent, but when Calaf cuts the rope, she says all kinds of insignificant words, resulting in the first violent escape.
Such examples abound, the film's plot development is not to use suspense or careful reasoning to promote, but to rely on the character's various tricks to tell the story, which not only reflects the clumsiness of the screenwriter's level, but also exposes the lack of sincerity of the film.
At the same time, the film also made many idol drama mistakes in the process of telling, the male and female protagonists at the critical moment of life and death, a large number of slow-motion displays let the audience have the impulse to press the shortcut key, to be honest, the audience paid money into the cinema to make the body and mind relax or happy, rather than wasting time to watch the two protagonists who have no sense of CP in that performance of a large MTV show.
After answering the three riddles and knowing The true identity of Carraf, the plot of the later stages of the film directly collapsed, the high priest was killed in order to say two words to the hostage and then quickly take the bento, the fireworks master unpredictably laid the mat for half a day, it turned out that he was really only responsible for playing soy sauce, and the villain Po Yan directly tore his face and started to fight without the appearance of the city government, it is really difficult to believe that this level can deceive the emperor's trust for so many years.
The most speechless place, the defeat of the rebels is not the royal troops, nor the protagonist's sudden rampage, but the fireworks in the sky, this kind of brain-hole setting, without a little dead pig is not afraid of boiling water courage can not really think.
Third, the character building is inexplicable, and the emotional transformation is like going to the wrong set.
Despite the glamorous cloak of legend, history, and magic, the film is actually telling a dog-blood love story between a prince and a princess. Feud identity, the heroine is cursed, want to love and can not love, is nothing more than adding a little seasoning, but unfortunately because the main dish is really unpalatable, no matter how many gimmicks do not make people interested.
From acquaintance to acquaintance, to love, from the beginning to the end, it seems to be engraved with four words - inexplicably.
Leaving aside the fact that Calaf could approach Princess Turandot at will as a commoner, the casual gathering and dispersion between the two was enough to confuse the audience.
As a result, the film presents a situation like this: Carraf and the princess are together, Caraf and the princess are separated, Caraf and the princess are together again, Caraf and the princess are separated from each other, and all the above emotional transitions are like PPT, artificially divided into different pictures, but the most important connection element is missing - motivation. Since all love and hate lack sufficient emotional support, the so-called sensationalism can only be reduced to the self-forgetful self-deprecation of the characters in the play!
In addition, the screenwriter may feel that the male and female protagonists are not lively enough, so they forcibly join the female number two Liu'er, let her unilaterally love Carraf, but the role of this Miss Liu'er in the film, in addition to showing her own brutal and wayward big miss temper, there are only a variety of good intentions to do bad things, encouraging the father, friends to send to death, fortunately, the style of the film determines that this will not be a complete tragedy, otherwise this Miss Liu'er should have received the bento in advance!
Fourth, the language of the camera is vulgar and low-level, and the special effects action is useless.
Analyzing the whole movie, we can classify it as a large-scale fireworks show prepared for the audience, or a personal dress-up and makeup show that belongs to Guan Xiaotong, or a thriller horror performance summarized as a heavy taste of Ling Chi cutting meat and oil pot, but we do not see the texture and charm of the lens language that a movie should have.
Lan Xiaolong's understanding of the film is extremely superficial, thinking that adding a little filter to make the background into a bright Chinese painting style, adding some special effects to make the fireworks like a naked-eye 3D dazzling, the audience will be created by the false picture created shocked beyond measure, as everyone knows, the scenery without a soul is beautiful, but it is just like a bubble, the wind blows away, leaving no half mark.
And his bad taste is far more than that, General Po Yan wears a pair of crotch pants, and the whole film actually gives two long close-ups from the neck of the foot to the top of the head, except for letting the audience appreciate Hu Jun's increasingly blessed belly, I really can't see any beauty.
The film's fight is extremely stupid, full of overwhelming traces of hanging Weia, one to one stroke is powerless, saying that dancing has desecrated the art of dance, it is difficult to imagine, since they have invited Zou Zhaolong, an action star with deep martial arts skills, but they are not willing to spend more energy and more time to conceive a real fight scene, even if Zou Zhaolong comes to a personal solo, it is far better than now.
Although Jiang Wen has very few roles, it can be seen that he still wants to act seriously, and this time his fatherly image and the domineering exposure in previous works are in great contrast, which is a relatively complete portrayal of the role of the emperor (Great Khan), and other actors are obviously perfunctory, especially the male and female protagonists, who basically wear a poker face throughout the whole process, in addition to posing, there is only the appearance of the sun.
"Turandot: The Origin of the Spell" once again refreshed the bottom line of domestic magic films, and under his background, works such as "Asura" and "The Mystery of the Dragon Card" that were targeted at the shame column of word of mouth were able to find their own highlights. The film's word-of-mouth and box office double punch street once again proves that today's film market is no longer only relying on IP, star stacking, or special effects can be successful, do not sink down to tell a good story, insult the audience intelligence, then the audience can only ruthlessly abandon it.