January 21, 2023 issue | Issue 3123
As the opening work of Station B's new "Chinese Strange Tan", "Summer of Little Goblins" can be regarded as an addition to "Journey to the West". Using the audience's familiar background to tell a story that the audience has not heard is exactly the material positioning of "Little Goblin".
"Journey to the West has been done rotten" is the consensus of the industry in recent years. Writing "Little Monster", avoiding the four masters and apprentices, Da Luo Immortal, the opening scene with the grassroots positioning of workers in Langlang Mountain, attracted the attention of the audience: Who dares to say that there is no experience of the little pig demon going to work and touching fish? In order to ensure quality and quantity, he contributed his body (and health) to his little friend Crow, but was completely denied by the leader Xiong Sect with a bitter criticism; In order to complete the performance of brushing the pot, the leader used the piglet demon as a steel wire ball to grind the dirt on the wall of the pot...
If the audience is a successful person, then he should understand that the opening of all inspirational films must be negative energy.
The "three turns and four shakes" technique of Chinese storytelling is skillfully used by "little monsters". After making arrows and brushing pots, the pig demon's task is to chop wood and buy condiments, and as the plot deepens, the character image is also established.
As the last character in a big king cave (company) who can't see the rostrum at meetings and wipe the armor of the big king, the little pig demon is not satisfied with daily scruples, and Zhu Bajie and Sun Wukong ignited its ideals with the deeds of taking scriptures and cultivation in the demon body; The bridge of buying buns to go home and being nagged by the pig mother gives it the ideal scene, and also implements its character positioning of "loving the family and being loved by the family"; At the same time, the crow's capture is a harbinger of precarious conditions.
The paving is steady, and the climactic drama comes as promised. The character climax is that the piglet demon decides to do good and put it into action; The climax of the plot is a life-threatening run, followed by a wolf chase, and life and death are unknown; The visual climax is the wolf master doppelganger, the heaven and the earth.
Lord Wolf's divine power is setting fire to firewood and a thread has been buried, and the escalation here is not obtrusive.
From the perspective of choreography strategy, the follow-up "Goose, Goose and Goose", "Linlin" and "Country Bus Takes Wang Children and Immortals" launched by "China Qitan" have climactic scenes. However, the plots of "Lin Lin" and "Country Bus Takes the King Child and the Immortals" are all one round, and the main theme of the two films is the childhood and hometown that cannot be returned, and the thoughts are long.
The plot of "Goose Goose Goose" also has "three turns and four shaking", but the climactic scene is in the heart of the male protagonist, without externalization, coupled with the Gothic eye circle shape, it will inevitably dissuade small audiences. "Summer of Little Goblins" as the opening scene, the form is more lively and eye-catching, and the content theme is more universal.
The superb narrative skills of the choreographer of "Little Goblin" are not only reflected in the structure of "three turns and four shaking", but the climactic scene has indeed achieved its goal. From the wolf falling off the cliff, hiding under the pig demon rock, to the little pig demon running in slow motion, the wolf master outflanking, and then the little pig demon rushing with tears, all emotions and hopes stopped abruptly with a stick from Goku.
The black mirror of the transition is short, but it is as long as a lifetime. When the four masters and apprentices walked indifferently past the fallen piggy demon, Xi Murong's poem seemed to come from the sky, interpreting the fate of the little monster: "Behind you there is a flow, friend, it is not the water in the gourd, it is my withering heart." ”
The voiceover sounded, and the villagers were thanking Tang Chang for eliminating harm to the people. The scene is the same as the opening, only the small broken gun and the gourd, and the sleeping pig demon is not seen. The picture of things being human and wrong is like offering a sacrifice to a social animal.
The voiceover not only briefly brings the process of removing the demon of Zhu Bajie, but also compares the strength of the Tang monk master and apprentice and the monster of Langlang Mountain with fictional reality. And the choreographer used most of the film to painstakingly construct the bottom-up social structure and power distribution genealogy from the pig demon, the cow thug, the bear godhead, to the wolf lord and the king, all of which collapsed in a faceless joke.
The biggest accident was not the lazy Zhu Bajie demonic demon, but Sun Dasheng's plan to reverse the fate of the little pig demon. Between the electric light and stone fire, Sun Wukong has already seen everything, and he has a bright future for the little monster. The reversal here is only voiceover, and no brightfield processing has allowed the plot and characters to rise layer by layer. It also draws a full arc and a complete end to the character development of the little pig demon and the theme of the whole film.
I'm afraid that the screenwriter of the West, seeing this, will also say that the "soul night" where the piglet demon was knocked down is too dark.
Where is there no darkness? The choreographer held it steadily.
"China Qitan" currently has only four changes, and "Little Goblin" is obviously a good trailblazer. Choosing high-profile traditional themes but innovating from small incisions and making depth; With mass positioning, dense plot and bright pace, it shows the friendliness of the genre to the audience; Highlight the Chinese progression, echo, and concealment, and use classic narratives to seek the end, visual enjoyment and psychological resonance.
Like "Goose, Goose and Goose", "Linlin" and "Country Bus Takes Away the King Child and the Immortals", "Summer of Little Monsters" is also a Chinese story; The difference is that the "little monster" prefers to give up his personal style in exchange for the maximum number of viewers and the repercussions inside and outside the industry, and to transform the new journey embarked on by himself and those who come after him. From content to form, from positioning to completion, one more point is too much, one less point is too little, just right.
【Text/Huaming】