Text | Ling Hu Boguang
The 2023 Spring Festival file is coming soon, recently domestic dramas are quite rich, Bo Guangjun saw that there was an online horror film with a good reputation some time ago and took time to watch it, that is, "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" broadcast in Tao, if it can give about seven points from the perspective of domestic horror films.
The emergence of "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" and some online horror films proves that domestic horror films are becoming more and more formal, there are well-known actors entering, acting skills are no longer playing, the production level is getting higher and higher, and Chinese horror aesthetics are gradually established, while Chinese animation, domestic dramas and domestic movies have been criticized for a long time.
However, because of uncontrollable factors, it is still only a little bit worse. Like this "Paper Man Returns to the Soul", it is essentially a suspense film covered in horror film skin. The advantage is that the script is very complete, the narrative is compact, the actors do not play, and the sense of atmosphere is already first-class.
The disadvantage is that the language narrative is too straightforward, not that it is necessary to riddler, but this piece is completely unridiculous and greatly discounted in atmosphere, making people play, and at the same time losing the subtle beauty of Chinese folk horror. Personally, I think that it is also possible to appropriately add literary sentences and dialects to enhance the sense of substitution.
In addition, the script is mainly based on four stories, and the story itself is complete, but the storyteller actually has no motivation to say, they should have kept it secret, but they told the truth unclear. At the same time, the protagonist's investigation is omitted, and there is no foreshadowing at all. But this will reduce the sense of substitution, and at the same time greatly reduce the impact of the reversal.
Once it was launched, it was the first hot search, and the Chinese horror aesthetics were rejuvenated? Is "Paper Man Returns" good?
This film is similar to "Rashomon" storytelling in terms of narrative, exploring the truth layer by layer, and there will be no spoilers here. One is not a good spoiler, and the other is that this kind of film is not interesting if it is a spoiler.
It is probably the reporter Lu Xiaosheng, played by Han Dong, who went to a town called Baigui to investigate the truth of the tragic death of Xiao Nianqiao's family, and it was rumored that Qiao Yuanyuan, the daughter of the Qiao family, died twenty years ago and became a paper man, and as a result, Liu San, who was tied to paper, nodded his eyes when tying paper, causing the paper man to return to the soul and kill the whole Qiao family.
Lu Xiaosheng first went to Baigui Town to enter Qiao's house, and was frightened by the paper man and fainted, and the rescued uncle told the first story, probably explaining the reason for this haunted incident. Lu Xiaosheng did not believe that he went to find Liu San's descendants, and had moved to Fushui Town, where Liu San's disciple Nanchang sought the truth.
Nanchang told him a story again, and the second story was based on her, seeing the process of Master Liu San tying paper people to the eldest lady of the Qiao family, before and after, how to haunted, and finally to why the Qiao family died.
Lu Xiaosheng pointed out that the murderer in the story is also in the story, and Nanchang told the third story, in which the murderer had a relationship with Miss Qiao's mother, and as a result, he was forcibly robbed by Qiao's hometown, framed and caught by the warlord and sent to the battlefield for ten years. When he returned, he had already given birth to two children, and the murderer Lovesickness became a paper man like her, and finally killed passionately because of various changes.
But Lu Xiaosheng pointed out the loopholes in the story, and finally the fourth story revealed the truth of everything, so there will be no spoilers here.
Can you still make a good horror movie without ghosts? Domestic film and television dramas are all learned
This horror film is still quite exciting, the storyteller has prepared a triple story, the first for those who believe in ghost rumors, the second for those who will be satisfied if they know a little "truth", and the third for people who do not believe in the "truth" in the second story. Their triple story and three "truths" are all to protect the innermost "fourth story", but unexpectedly, they finally met people who did not believe that this was the truth after telling the third story.
Only the true owner of the fourth story will ask this point, only he is sure that there is still this fourth story, and he is asking more than the truth of the matter.
The film's palindromic plot design, Rashomon-like thinking, should be said to be attentive and effective, positive and negative narrative lines, rhythm sense is arranged very well, will not make people too brain-burning nor explain too quickly without plot progression is abrupt.
It can be said that the structure is good, rather than relying on the content alone, the relationship between the characters from antagonistic suspicion to with the truth layer by layer, and become close to the last somewhat unexpected "accident" recognition, the theme of the story is common and not novel, the main branch line is clearly ordered, not noisy, and has an internal logical relationship, effectively promotes the plot and suspense, there is foreshadowing, foreshadowing, repetition, details, the scene transition will not make people confused, but the scene and lines are used effectively, logically, not dragged rawly, Strong words make people play.
What surprised me the most was the arrangement of the ending, echoing from beginning to end to make the plot complete and reasonable, it can be said that from linear time narrative to interlocking, in which interpolated flashbacks, repeatedly narrating the same story from different angles and narrators, producing different results, but it will not contradict but self-consistent, nor will it cause confusion, but have a deeper impression and understanding of the plot, which can be said to reflect the level of this screenwriter.
Domestic horror films rise due to "big net"? Just a little closer
I don't know if you found it, in recent years, there have been many domestic online horror films that have come out of the circle with word-of-mouth quality, and unlike online comedies that rarely go out of the circle, most horror films are obviously "three nothing" state, no big investment, no big stars, no big publicity, but the result is very good, and even there is a trend of shooting better and better, beginning to promote the trend of domestic horror films.
At the beginning, domestic online horror films were the same as comedy films, classic IP films, popular film and television dramas, and online movies such as erotic edgeballs, and most of them were "three nothing" bad films.
For example, the reproduction of the "Lin Zhengying" zombie film that once caused a sensation, this is a typical type of success with classic movie feelings, and the "New Qiannu Ghost" that later came out of the circle again is the same, and even invited a new generation of stars.
2021 is a milestone year for domestic online horror films, this year classic IP, original horror films, and horror sequels have appeared good works, the quality of these three horror films are quite excellent, and even because of word of mouth. They are the IP horror film "Yellow Skin Tomb", the original online horror film "The Legend of the Hunter of Xing'anling" and the horror film sequel "Water Monster 2: Black Wood Forest".
These three horror films have a certain distance from foreign countries, even classic Hong Kong and Taiwan horror films. But the quality of their word-of-mouth is really good, and we can't say that they saved Chinese horror films, but they did lead Chinese horror films to the next stage.
In 2022, there will be "Weird Talk in Yin Yang Town", "Mountain Village Fox Wife" and this "Paper Man Returns to the Soul".
Now the audience has seen too many classic horror films, and everyone can still recognize these domestic horror films, in addition to "inclusive" scarce domestic horror films, the reason behind this is nothing more than these two.
First, they largely restore the "Chinese horror" that Chinese audiences want to see.
The investment in many domestic film and television dramas is very high, but the money is spent on "stars", these online movies are poor, but the money is spent on the blade. This is reflected in the production level of film and television dramas, horror films are art, actors' makeup, and then horror atmosphere.
This is the biggest attraction and selling point of online horror films, and these horror films have done a good job in this regard.
"Xing'anling Hunter" begins with villagers listening to plays, monkeys entering the village, folk culture and animals preying on humans encountered in deep mountains and old forests, etc.; In "Yellow Skin Tomb", the girl began to suffer from hysteria, the scene where the yellow skin turned into a person in the dungeon let the protagonist listen to the play, and the ghost wall incident encountered by the protagonist, etc.
The black foggy river in "Water Monster 2", the terrifying river monster eating people, and finally the atmosphere of paper man killing in the first half of this "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" is quite good.
These movies are obviously not highly invested, but the art and pictures are excellent, the actors' makeup is not glamorous, and the atmosphere of horror films is beginning to be really terrifying. The emergence of these online movies is not only a progress of domestic horror films, but even the entire domestic film.
The second is to restore the core of "Chinese horror", that is, the horror atmosphere of the story plot.
The core of "Chinese terror" has never been a simple strange force and chaos, but a tragedy based on the repressed to sick feudal society, which is not nothing, but real, and its story background can happen to everyone, with a strong sense of immersion.
The background of these horror films is two in the Republic of China, "Yellow Skin Tomb" is the young generation of knowledge. But they are all remote villages in China, poor and backward places with feudal remnants, ignorant villagers, folk legends handed down for thousands of years, supernatural events and behind-the-scenes intrigues that have become the core of the narrative.
This leads to the fact that the actors are not so important, because they are not as handsome and beautiful as the protagonists of "Qiannu Ghost", so the actors are not well-known actors, and the acting skills are enough. The plot of the movie is the most important, and the "Chinese horror" in the plot is the most important.
Many other horror films are mostly set in the Republic of China, which is both familiar and unfamiliar, both scientific progress and feudal superstition. In addition to circumventing the problem of review, there is more room for operation in the setting, characters and plot, and the most important thing is that the script is well completed, even stronger than many large-investment film and television dramas.
And although there are no big stars, Han Dong who made a cameo appearance in "Water Monster 2" and Wang Zhener starring. Han Dong of "Paper Man Returns to the Soul", Chen Zihan is the same. With the joining of some well-known actors, the actors' acting skills are not as spicy as before, and they can create wonderful characters. This combination of better and better production levels and good scripts actually makes domestic horror films gradually enter the mainstream threshold, although it is still a little close.
Nearly 10 films in 2 years? Domestic horror films, only one foot away from the door
"Paper Man Returns to the Soul" is well completed, watching many horror films from different countries, in fact, there are not many who can really make the plot wonderful reversal and recycle foreshadowing, and many ghost films are foreshadowed but not recycled. What surprised me was that this film actually recycled, and it was a good ending, with horror and warmth, although there were still no real ghosts, like the previous Taiwanese horror film "Little Girl in Red".
However, this domestic horror film has always been stuck in the neck because it cannot appear "ghosts".
"Strange Tales of Yin and Yang Town" and "Mountain Village Fox Wife" are several people's memories constantly reversed and finally came to a more realistic ending, and finally all boiled down to the living, which may be the reason for the limitation, at first it may be very amazing, because the horror meets the policy requirements.
"Paper Man Returns to the Soul" is also a reversal of memories, but the big reversal is that one person recalls different events several times, and another person analyzes, overthrows and then connects a story that is more in line with reality. Of course, it's not bad, the first two times of personal memories are still terrifying, it can be said that the sense of substitution is very strong, but his intermittent structure and the final ending.
Well, it's really good, after all, from relying on another way, the same is true of "Yellow Skin Tomb".
The problem is that in the end, you will find that the narrative structure of the big horror films on the domestic network is engaged in this way, and a fixed routine has been formed. The difference is that some are good and some are poor. So the question is, what about the number of works engaged in this way? Is that the end of the filming, domestic horror films have not yet entered the room.
Domestic horror films have not really started, they are facing the ceiling, and it is still quite a sigh.