The first movie was blocked, and after 7 years, domestic horror films are finally waiting for this annual hit!

For a long time, domestic horror films have almost always been synonymous with "bad films".

Due to force majeure factors, the shooting of domestic horror films faces many creative restrictions.

No matter how weird and bizarre scary scenes there are in the story of mainland horror films, they will definitely not escape the truth of "no ghosts" at the end. Either someone pretends to be a ghost, or the protagonist suffers from mental illness and sleepwalking.

Coupled with the relatively low cost of horror films themselves, many producers have followed the trend to concoct many shoddy films for speculative purposes, resulting in domestic horror films becoming worse and worse in recent years.

But audiences familiar with mainland film history will surely remember that once upon a time, domestic horror films also had a glorious time.

From the late eighties to the early nineties, in the era of the barbaric growth of domestic films, there were domestic ancient horror films with bold stories such as "Lonely Soul of the Black Building", "The Mystery of St. Paul's Hospital", "Ghost Town Murderous Dream", "Murderous House Beauty's Head" and other themes.

These films prove that domestic filmmakers are not bad at making horror genres, and cost and technical limitations are not the primary factor.

And this week, there is a domestic alternative thriller comedy that I personally look forward to very much on "Great Night" released.

This film is written and directed by Ma Kai, a young director who once became famous with a low-cost horror film "Zhongxie", and is his first film to enter theaters. The latest novelty of the film is -

It is both a thriller horror film and a comedy movie.

In this issue of "Detoxification of Theater New Films", let's talk about this movie——

"Great Night"

To Be Continued

About this movie, we must start with director Ma Kai.

Speaking of which, this number also had a relationship with director Ma Kai, and the first long article I released on this issue was to write about director Ma Kai's debut film "Zhongxie", which was evaluated at that time: exorcism and witchcraft fighting in rural society.

Later, by chance, he also interviewed director Ma Kai in person, asking him about his plans for the next work, and his answer at that time was "only horror movies in the next five years".

Now seven years have passed, and his debut novel "Zhong Evil" has not been released, but he has waited for this "Great Night".

In 2016, director Ma Kai's "Zhong Evil" shined at the Xining FIRST Film Festival and won the Art Exploration Award personally awarded by the chairman of the jury, Wong Kar-wai.

The biggest feature of this movie is: poverty.

The filming cost of the film is only 70,000 yuan, and 20,000 of them are the medical expenses raised by the crew to treat the male protagonist who broke his waist.

The entire crew consists of 11 people, including 6 actors. These people are all Ma Kai's extra-actor friends in Hengdian and come to help for free. It took 18 days before and after filming – but only 14 days actually worked. Because the radio equipment malfunctioned in the previous 4 days, the sound was not recorded.

However, it is such a simple film that can no longer be simple, but with its pseudo-documentary-style shooting techniques and "down-to-earth" Chinese folk elements, it has become the most unique independent film in the Chinese film industry in recent years.

Because of the reputation of "Zhong Evil", it once made the audience look forward to this movie very much. Originally, the film was planned to be released in the Qingming schedule in 2018, but it was suddenly announced a few days before the release, and it has not been able to get the opportunity to meet the audience.

may also be because of the ending of the previous work that could not be released, so Ma Kai chose to change direction in his second work, not only to make a thriller horror film, but also to add a lot of comedy elements to create an alternative thriller comedy.

"Great Night" has more adequate financial support, and the front and back scenes are no longer grass teams.

The movie is still written and directed by Ma Kai, and the actors include traffic stars such as Fan Chengcheng, as well as comedians Jiang Long, Jiang Yi, Jiang Shimeng, who have attracted attention with "Annual Comedy Competition", and there are familiar faces such as Kong Lianshun and Liang Long, the lead singer of Secondhand Rose, and other familiar faces in supporting roles.

The story setting of the film is very clever, and the whole story revolves around a journey of screaming and laughing on the set.

The opening of the film is clearly a self-tribute to director Ma Kai, which opens in a pseudo-documentary-style thriller:

Several customers walked into a streetside restaurant, but unexpectedly the hotel was empty, when the customer became suspicious, a demon suddenly appeared in the hotel, scaring the guests out of control, and the surveillance camera in the hotel just captured this scene!

This opening scene is a tribute to the director's "Good and Evil", but immediately after the story switches perspectives, it turns out that the horror scene just now is just a "haunted prank" short video directed and acted by the protagonist Brother Leopard, played by Fan Chengcheng.

Leopards (played by Fan Chengcheng) is a short video blogger who wants to become popular overnight, and 2 friends Dog Zi (played by Gan Yunchen) and Monkey (played by Jiang Yi) have opened a self-media company that is not in the flow.

Usually make a living by shooting funny and scary spoof videos, maybe it's following the wrong outlet, maybe it's a crooked skill point, a toss down, not to mention the popularity, not even a black and red mix, leaving only a company that is about to go bankrupt and a bunch of mess of victims blocking the door to compensate.

Because the company was facing bankruptcy, the brothers who shared happiness and hardship also threatened to part ways, and the leopard temporarily took on a big job of 200,000 yuan in order to save the precarious cause, and proposed to do the "last vote" with the brothers.

Unexpectedly, the last fight before the three brothers of leopard, dog, and monkey broke up, but because of a series of accidents, they were involved in a frightening night of game within a game and a play within a play.

In the local film and television city, a small crew is filming a costume horror film "The Legend of Concubine Li".

The male number one of the crew is the third-rate actor Xiaoshan (played by Jiang Long), who is a young actor who cherishes the dream of being a movie actor all day, but his acting skills are very embarrassing.

During the filming on the set, he was unable to enter the scene, which caused the director (played by Liang Long) on the scene to be furious, thanks to the executive director (played by Jiang Shimeng) who followed the director to mediate from it, but because of Xiaoshan's absence, the filming progress was slow.

Oyama decided to hype himself in order to become famous, so he paid for Leopard's self-media company, let the three brothers quietly blend into the set, and directed and acted in haunted events, wanting to create a topic to hype himself.

But I never expected that during the filming of the crew, the actor who was originally responsible for playing the female ghost had an accident while hanging Weiya during the filming because of his fear of heights, resulting in a bizarre murder on the set.

The crew hurriedly sent the actress to the hospital for rescue, but soon bad news came, but what everyone didn't expect was that the heroine who originally thought was dead returned unexpectedly-

The "fake concubine female ghost" on the set turned out to be a "real female ghost"!

In front is the fleeing actors, behind is the haunted Concubine Li, the crew fell into a gradually out of control thriller journey, after a chicken flying dog jump, began a night chase.

It is not an overstatement to describe this "Great Night" as a "surprise movie of the year".

This film is a thriller comedy, such themes are relatively rare in the field of Chinese-language films, Hong Kong films often have this genre in the past, but in mainland films are quite rare, dare to try such themes is already worth encouraging.

The biggest impression that the whole movie gave me was the word "surprise".

"Shock" is the starting point of the genre creation of the film, using the fright bridge that is constantly reversed and reversed to attract the attention of the audience, making people maintain a high degree of concentration throughout the process, and they can't guess the end without seeing the end, creating a very strong sense of plot immersion for the film.

"Hi" is the biggest surprise that the movie brings to the audience, the film has a strong black humor temperament from beginning to end, the director uses funny and absurd comedy plots to constantly break and subvert the audience's expectations, one second stimulates tension, the next second suddenly bursts into laughter, bringing the audience a roller coaster viewing experience.

In the play, the protagonist was scared and cried on the set, but the audience laughed until tears in the cinema.

This "screaming" film style is undoubtedly the most unique and successful part of the film.

Not only that, the movie reflects ingenuity everywhere in the script, the story is parallel, the foreshadowing buried in the first half is reversed later, the crew who shot the horror film and the three brothers of the "leopard dog monkey" who made a short video intersected on the set because of a series of unexpected events, and then launched one after another "funny and scary" bizarre encounters.

The whole story is a "play within a play", and the director is constantly breaking the "fourth wall" between reality and drama, around the three "concubines" before and after identity dislocation, which can be called "matryoshka limit reversal", creating a dramatic conflict and comedy baggage with laughter, making the narrative of the entire film very compact.

Director Ma Kai cleverly integrates two seemingly incompatible genre film elements, and the story is even more layer-by-layer reversal and hilarious laughter, and the novelty and boldness of the theme and the creator's skillful control of the genre film creation techniques make the film have a high degree of completion and freshness.

In addition, what is more touching about this film is that director Ma Kai did not lose the small person-like social observation perspective shown in the previous work while comprehensively upgrading the production and cost, and "Great Night" is still a "down-to-earth and warm" comedy film in his bones.

This film is not only a love letter written by director Ma Kai to the filmmakers, but also a hymn to many strugglers on the road to chasing dreams.

When everyone revealed the truth of the "haunted on the set" and this absurd farce was about to end, the bad news of divestment came from the gold lord's side, and all calculations and dreams were in vain.

But the movie has sublimated the theme so far, whether it is the crew or the brothers who made the video hype, they completed the final shooting with their last persistence, making this ordinary night remarkable.

The three main groups of characters in the film are all stuck on the set because of their own ideals. Whether it is the actors and stuntmen in the crew, the directors, photographers and other staff behind the scenes, or the three brothers of the "leopard dog monkey" who make videos to make a living, they are actually small people who religiously pursue their ideals and are willing to make all efforts for them.

It is precisely because of this that they understand each other's desire to "chase dreams".

After experiencing a ridiculous on-set crisis, everyone saw the truth in trouble, mixed with brotherly friendship, encouragement between friends, support between colleagues, etc., and finally worked together to complete the shooting task, and each little person bloomed their own light on this set night.

Let the audience be funny in shock, moved in funny, and the emotions in the whole story are overdone and presented naturally, and from this point alone, the film is quite advanced at the level of the play. When you watch the whole film and then look at the Easter egg at the end, you will be more moved by the sincere attitude expressed by the director in this story.

Finally, let's talk about the actor's performance. Jiang Long, Jiang Yi and Jiang Shimeng are all comedians I like very much, and their performances in the film are also very good. Especially Xiaoshan, played by Jiang Long, can be said to be a role tailored for him.

Xiaoshan in the play is a small actor who has been chasing dreams in the entertainment industry for many years but has been taught by the director all day, struggling in the crew to make a lot of jokes, this role coincides with Jiang Long's own experience, he not only shows his comedy funny talent in the film, but also has to switch back and forth between the two states of being frightened and funny, but Jiang Long's performance is very relaxed, supporting the laughter and baggage of the entire movie.

In addition, it is also emphasized that Fan Chengcheng as the starring actor not only gained 30 pounds for the role in the play, but also dared to unload the burden of idols, subverting the previous impression in the hearts of the public. Although his acting skills are relatively young, it will not affect the look and feel of the entire movie, and as the first time to star in a movie as the protagonist, it has completed the task.

However, the movie is not without shortcomings, the end sublimation of the final third act is still more deliberately forced, and no matter how the film designs the reversal in the haunted plot and how it creates a frightening effect, the audience has long expected that the ending will definitely be a false alarm.

However, the above two points are not actually a problem of the movie, but the creator's "last resort" to ensure the release of the film. So as a lover of domestic horror movies, I would think that the collapse of the third act of the movie is excusable.

In general, "Great Night" is a movie that surprises the audience, and on the domestic big screen over the years, it has almost never existed, and domestic horror movies do need fresh blood.

From this point of view, director Ma Kai has indeed made a great movie!