laitimes

"Yixi" actors formed a group to break into the film circle, Fan Chengcheng and Jiang Long want to do a big vote?

Two eunuchs, one fat and one thin, carried lanterns and walked in the gloomy palace.

Looking around, under the vase, I found the legendary night pearl.

They picked it up, played with it beautifully, and suddenly...

A miserable white face appeared beside him, with long black hair half-covered, white clothes Shengxue, and sharp nails sticking out.

Actually, it was the dead Concubine!

The fat eunuch ran out of the painting with a "whoosh", while the thin eunuch shouted in fright, opened his teeth and danced his claws, and jumped around.

Bang!

The wall was torn down, and the camera and the shooting team appeared.

A middle-aged man with the appearance of a director pointed at the thin eunuch played by Jiang Long and yelled: What is the act?

Jiang Long faced the camera and explained: I call this acting through the wall.

Yes, it is Jiang Long, one of the champions of the first season of the "Annual Comedy Competition".

The whole movie is like watching a super long "Yixi" sketch!

This is the first feeling brought by the movie "Great Night" - in the film, Jiang Long + Jiang Yi + Jiang Shimeng + Meng Han (all contestants of the first season) and other "Yixi" actors appear one after another, and frequent rival scenes reinforce this cognition.

There is no doubt that this is the first time that the actors who came out of the "Yixi" stage held hands and "bravely entered the film circle".

How is it performing?

It's not that simple.

After winning the championship from Yixi, Jiang Long was the first protagonist

-1-

Of course, the undertone of "Great Night" is comedy.

But not all, mixed with thriller, suspense, inspirational, funny in one.

It belongs to the film with a variety of genres.

The film tells the story of the short video creator played by Fan Chengcheng, facing the dual pressure of company bankruptcy and debt, and his partners (played by Jiang Yi and Gan Yunchen) went to a Qing Palace thriller drama group to secretly shoot materials, hoping to become a hit.

The main core scene of this film is on the set.

And Jiang Long played the male number one in "Play within a Play" - the thin eunuch.

During this period, a series of horrors occurred.

First, the actress who played Concubine Li (played by Wang Zixuan) was accidentally "strangled" by Weiya, but the "ghost" actually appeared on the set... In the process of chasing, the character played by Jiang Yi was "cut off his head", but he came back to life in place...

A series of yin and yang mistakes made this crew with an "unreliable" atmosphere stage a scene of ridiculous "farce".

If you want to accurately label the genre of the film, "thriller comedy" is an appropriate label.

To be honest, this genre is relatively rare in China, as far as the eye can see, and few movies in recent years have grafted these two elements together.

The reason is simple:

Difficult to control.

"Great Night" has two main creators with their own characteristics - Yi Xiaoxing and Ma Kai.

Yi Xiaoxing is familiar to many netizens, the screen name is "called beast", known for his brain, with the "Never Expected" series of short dramas became popular on the Internet, able to enter the film and television circle.

The last film directed by Yi Xiaoxing was "The King of the Bath" in 2020, with a box office of nearly 500 million, and it is not easy to have such achievements during the epidemic.

It can be seen that the audience recognizes and trusts him in the comedy genre. In "The Great Night", he served as an executive producer.

The name Ma Kai may be relatively unfamiliar to most people, but when it comes to his debut film "Zhong Evil", fans should have heard of it.

In 2016, Ma Kai, who was originally a group actor in Hengdian, directed his first film "Zhongxie" with a handheld DV, which made a thriller unprecedented in mainland films in the form of a pseudo-documentary, and won the Best Art Exploration Award at the 10th FIRST Youth Film Festival.

"The Great Night" is his second film to direct.

At the beginning of this film, a scary "pseudo-documentary" bridge was created, which I think should echo his previous work "Zhong Evil".

From when a group actor began to pursue his dreams, to friends pooling money to make films, and now investing tens of millions to start shooting big-screen works (not much investment, but compared with the grass team of "Zhongxie", it is a world apart), Ma Kai is also one of the counterattack models in the entertainment industry. His story tells us that in this day and age, as long as there is talent, it will not be buried.

Therefore, a brain-opening comedy master as the producer, and a good at creating a sense of horror as the director, the two superimposed to create this "Great Night".

Undoubtedly, on the "double insurance".

From left to right: Fan Chengcheng, Yi Xiaoxing, Ma Kai

-2-

In the film, Jiang Long has many self-deprecating lines, such as the extreme desire to be popular - popular to the point of "hot".

He and director Ma Kai's grassroots counterattack, although different, but in the end the same way, both converged in the same play. The former played the first male lead in his life, and the latter directed his first big production.

In fact, before participating in the first season of "Annual Comedy Competition", Jiang Long had been tossing in the entertainment industry for a long time. 20 years ago, at the age of 8, he participated in his first drama "Growing Up", and later was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy and came from a class.

Jiang Long and Kong Lianshun

However, Jiang Long has been on the fringes of the entertainment industry after graduation.

Participating in the bizarre work "Pure Heart, Chasing Dreams in the Entertainment Circle" also became his "life stain", and later on the stage of "Yixi", he also used this to make fun of himself.

From the presentation of the entire movie of "Great Night", Jiang Long completed his task. His comedy talent was vividly displayed and produced unexpected "laughing fruits".

In the film, Jiang Shimeng, who has a lot of rivalry with Jiang Long, plays the role of "executive director", and has become a "funny duo on the set" with the special singer Liang Long (played by the director).

Jiang Yi, who is famous for the theme of "Three Kingdoms" on the "Yixi" stage, plays Fan Chengcheng's brother "Monkey" in "Great Night", which has a more critical plot driving effect. In the movie, his face is basically heavily made up throughout, which is quite difficult.

Watching the play between them is completely a sense of déjà vu of the "Yixi" stage.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the first male protagonist Fan Chengcheng has a relatively big breakthrough in his style. After the film, an audience member looked at the cast and asked his partner next to him: Did Fan Chengcheng star?

Director Ma Kai also revealed in the post-screening exchange that one of his brothers had come to the crew to make a cameo appearance, and when he saw that the script said starring Fan Chengcheng, he asked: "Why didn't you see Fan Chengcheng?" Ma Kai pointed to the guy standing next to his brother and said, it's him!

The far left is Fan Chengcheng, who has a certain breakthrough in styling.

The entrepreneur played by Fan Chengcheng filmed an unsuccessful "whole trick and scary" video, in order to make money to pay off debts, when he turned shady at the beginning, he put out a cruel sentence - "Do a big vote". Under the bold words, the audience is also looking forward to what high-energy scenes.

As a result, I just went to the crew of "The Legend of Concubine Li" for "secret filming" - to be a "paparazzi".

Interestingly, as Fan Chengcheng, who has often been secretly photographed by paparazzi since he was a child, his identity has completely been reversed in and out of the play.

Just as his image in the film is in great contrast to himself, the image of "The Great Night" forms a wonderful "intertextuality" with reality.

In the film, Fan Chengcheng has a sticky beard and a rough face, playing this "lust-stricken" secretaire, the overall image subverts the past characters, and the appearance looks like a sloppy and failed loser.

This is a point that surprised almost all viewers.

It can be seen that he is trying to break out of the inherent stereotype of young traffic.

Liang Long, who starred in particular, has always been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people on the stage with the image of "snake essence disease rock godmother", and the "I want to blossom" has become an alternative ICON in the era of social media.

However, in "The Great Night"...

How to say it?

It is obviously different from the diplodocus in the past memory, and it is surprisingly "normal".

He plays an "alternative director" who brags from time to time, a mouth, that thick northeastern accent, makes people feel - oh hey, still inside.

Jiang Shimeng plays against Liang Long

-3-

Although it is the first big investment work directed by Ma Kai, "The Great Night" still has quite a lot of "ambitions" - the plot has been reversed many times, and there are play-within-a-play, game-in-game, trying to create a more complex suspense perception for the audience.

This kind of layout, if not well controlled, will be messy, or it may be more "bulky", but "Great Night" plays a "weightlifting" feeling. In addition to the diversity of types, the scenes and bridge settings refer to the popular script killing, escape room, spirit detection live broadcast and other multiple elements, making the overall viewing experience quite relaxed.

Most of the starring actors are post-90s, 95s, and even post-00s, which also makes the tone of the film itself fit the tastes of young people and break the barrier.

The protagonist played by Jiang Long in "Play within a Play" constantly breaks the "fourth wall", jumping out from time to time to "complain" or "self-mocking", in this setting, can resonate with the audience at the same frequency - producing a strong sense of interaction and immersion.

Director Ma Kai reviewed the film's shooting method in the post-premiere exchange session: "We tried to add a lot of dislocation and reversal designs to the story, injecting a natural sense of humor based on realistic logic, hoping to bring the audience a unique viewing experience." ”

In fact, compared to these dramatic elements, the climactic scene at the end is more tear-jerking.

Concubine Li, played by Wang Zixuan, at the end of the film, faced with the withdrawal of investors and the unsustainable crew of the film, when she couldn't make it for a while, there was a large monologue with tears, which was completely the "mouth replacement" of many young people in the dream entertainment industry, which was quite tearful.

At the end of the film, they all realized their dream of "making a movie".

In reality, the joys and sorrows of Ma Kai and Jiang Long's dreams in the film and television industry are also presented at the end of the film.

Many characters in "Great Night" are Ma Kai's partners during the group acting period (including the main actors who participated in "Zhong Evil"), after the subtitles came out, their interview videos appeared next to them, their faces were very ordinary, there was no actor halo, speaking in various local dialects, but there was only one sentence in the core:

I never thought I would appear on the big screen, but now, this dream has come true.

This also breaks the boundary between film and reality, and raises the play to a relatively high level.

That's where the "greatness" of "Great Night" lies.

Written by | Xiao Dong didn't understand much

Curated | Editorial Department of Entertainment Spring and Autumn

Read on