The author of this article is written by @槦昊
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It's Saturday again, Xiao Wan will have an "archaeology" for everyone as usual
After filming the high-reputation movie "Bullfighting" with Huang Bo, director Guan Hu returned to the field of TV series, and 2012's "Three Brothers in the Line of Fire" was one of them.
This anti-Japanese TV series gathers Liu Ye, Zhang Hanyu and Huang Bo.
The story is about three brothers of the Tian family from Shandong, one is a sharpshooter of the national army, one is a cook who can speak Japanese, and the other is a scoundrel - a servant who was pushed by fate into an anti-Japanese hero in the great era of the Japanese invasion of China.
When the series was about to finish filming, Guan Hu, who was suddenly interested, discussed with the three leading actors whether he could "save" a commercial movie with an anti-Japanese theme.
The four people hit it off immediately, sticking to the setting of the TV series, and made a "god film" with a similar appearance but a different theme, that is, "Cook Play Riffraff" (hereinafter referred to as "Kitchen Play Ruffian") released before the broadcast of "Three Brothers in the Line of Fire" in 2013.
After the film was released on March 29, 2013, word-of-mouth faced polarization and the box office was not ideal.
Many fans who had high expectations for Guan Hu criticized him for giving up his artistic pursuit, and actually filmed a "vulgar" and "vicious" anti-Japanese drama about a group of neurotic devils, just like "using high-quality ingredients to make a pot of stew".
Its box office eventually fell to 270 million, ranking only 27th in 2013, when Chinese films doubled at the box office.
This achievement cannot be described as "poor".
You know, it is a star-studded commercial blockbuster that gathers Liu Ye ("Lan Yu"), Zhang Hanyu ("Rally"), and Huang Bo ("Bullfighting").
However, watching the three powerful actors pretending and squeezing their eyebrows in the movie, coupled with the noisy plot, and the audience's boredom of fighting the Japanese drama at that time, "Kitchen Drama" was snubbed.
So much so that today, 10 years later, when it comes to Guan Hu's work, it will be as easy to automatically ignore as the same style and heterogeneous "Killing".
Today, we might as well take the opportunity of the 10th anniversary of the film's release to review the front and back of the scenes of "Kitchen Drama", and talk about how special this seemingly nondescript "anti-Japanese god film" is in the sequence of Guan Hu's works.
From "Tiger Liela" to "Kitchen Drama"
Guan Hu has been an "anti-Japanese fan" since he was a child, and his father also joined the army, as exemplified by the fact that he knew about the Shanghai Sihang Warehouse from middle school to the later filming of "Eight Hundred".
Before that, "Kitchen Drama" was no exception, and it was still a manifestation of his enthusiasm for anti-Japanese themes.
The difference is that some of the characters in "Eight Hundred" have prototypes, while "Kitchen Drama" only has a real story background, and the characters are all fictional - although the end of the film uses old photos to prove that it is also the artistic treatment of the film, which should not be true.
The real history on which the film is based takes place in Peiping in 1943.
In July of that year, the Japanese 1855 unit entered Peiping for half a month of training.
Although Unit 1855 is known externally as the "North China Dispatch Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department", it is the same as the notorious "Unit 731", and it is all about using Chinese to do germ experiments.
At that time, the research they did in Peiping was to cultivate cholera bacteria.
Two months after the training of the 1855 troops, a severe cholera outbreak broke out in Peiping.
According to a report by Xinmin Pao on September 5, 1943, a total of 2,136 patients infected with cholera were found in Quanbeiping, and the death toll was close to 2,000.
When Guan Hu conceived "Kitchen Drama", he thought of taking this evil deed of the Japanese army as the background of the story.
It is precisely for this reason that from the conception of the script to the completion of the film, the title that Guan Hu has always used is called "Tiger Liela", not "Cook Play Riffraff" when it was released.
Because in Japanese, cholera is pronounced "Toraera".
Three film emperors starred with zero pay
There are probably two reasons why it changed from "Tiger Liela" to "Kitchen Play".
Before this film, Guan Hu made a suspenseful and literary movie called "Killing".
Purely from the title, it is somewhat unclear, so the box office is very unsatisfactory.
In order to learn the lessons of the market, Huang Bo, Zhang Hanyu and Liu Ye changed the name of Guan Hu. The reason why the three actors can have such a big say is related to the business model of this movie.
Huang Bo, Zhang Hanyu and Liu Ye are all participating in the film with zero salary, they choose to use the salary to buy shares, directly participate in the box office share of the film, and the final income of the three depends on how much the movie is sold in the end.
The investment model of actors investing in shares with remuneration first emerged in the era of independent studios in Europe, and it is rare in China - even today, 10 years later.
Guan Hu felt at that time that if a play spent most of the money on actor salaries, it was unreasonable, and a lot of money should be spent on the production of movies.
This idea hit it off with the three actors. So there is a situation in "Kitchen Drama" in which Huang Bo, Zhang Hanyu and Liu Ye are both the starring actors and the bosses behind the scenes.
This means that from the beginning, the four people have the intention of going for commercial appeals, and the crucial title naturally considers the audience's acceptance.
Even if Guan Hu prefers the name "Tiger Liela" for personal reasons, the three leading actors feel that the audience probably does not understand what it means.
Simply from the title of the film to the end, with the image of the character renamed "cook play riffraff man".
It not only allows the audience to know the basic appearance of the characters, but also allows the audience to have an understanding of the basic information of the story: that is, three people with different personalities staged a chaotic "farce".
It's not a comedy, it's a "farce"
When interviewed by the media, director Guan Hu rarely used "comedy" to describe "Kitchen Drama".
His usual word is "farce".
This kind of "trouble" seemed doomed from the beginning.
Because of the cooperation foundation of the TV series "Three Brothers in the Line of Fire", when the script was conceived, Guan Hu only took three days, and the shooting took only two months.
This kind of fiery noise, of course, also continues to the movie, first of all, the makeup and personality of the characters.
"The drama is yin, the cook is cheap, and the riffraff is lai" - Guan Hu described the three characters as follows.
What he wanted was the great contrast between the character and the actor.
Liu Ye's oriental cook, Huang Bo is dressed as a scoundrel, and Zhang Hanyu is wearing a costume almost from beginning to end, with a flower face on his face; There is also Liang Jing, who has so few lines that she can be ignored, who appears almost the whole time by relying on her stupid and stubborn appearance.
From the beginning of each character, his character sets the tone, and he has to go to the end of the extreme.
Emoji contributed by Huang Bo
Behind this extremely noisy appearance, there is actually a story with a bit of tragedy and tragedy: three brothers came forward during the great plague in Peiping, and around the antidote to the cholera virus, they disguised their identities and conducted an absurd interrogation of the Japanese army.
To what extent is it ridiculous?
Huang Bo borrowed Liang Jing's floral pants and improvised a "showy dance" of twisting his hips and throwing his crotch, so that all the staff on the set simply stopped working, and took out his mobile phone and camera to shoot wildly.
After Huang Bo finished jumping, he noticed that there were a hundred and ten shots pointing at his ass, and shouted out embarrassedly: Don't broadcast this shit, otherwise I will ruin it!
Of course, Guan Hu, who had to play, would not listen to Huang Bo, and all his brains were put in the feature film - Guan Hu said to Huang Bo afterwards: Anyway, make trouble, play.
Guan Hu's playful mentality is also reflected in the soundtrack of the movie.
The soundtrack of "Kitchen Play" is Dou Peng ("Suzhou River", "Peacock") who has collaborated with Lou Ye. After cooperating with "Killing", Dou Peng received a call from Guan Hu again. Dou Peng recalled that Guan Hu's style was four words, musical farce.
So when soundtracking, Dou Peng looked for various music mixes.
For example, when four people throw cholera bottles around, the tune used is "Blue Danube".
When the four of them calculated how much money they could share by selling antidotes, they used the tune "Hungarian Dance".
Zhang Hanyu's opening trial of the Japanese used the traditional Chinese song "Ambush on Ten Sides". In addition, there are large sections of the Peking Opera banhu and the taiko drum, a traditional Japanese percussion instrument.
When it comes to the ending song, it is Pu Shu's nostalgic version of "Farewell".
In Dou Peng's words: since you want to "musical farce", you must have any style that should be suitable for the situation.
The pains of transformation that cannot be escaped
Unfortunately, after the release of "Kitchen Drama", the audience did not buy it.
It should be said that Guan Hu somewhat predicted this result. Otherwise, when Huang Bo said 2 billion during the roadshow, he quickly fished back the words and said that Huang Bo's words had to be listened to.
Because Guan Hu knows very well in his heart that what he has filmed before is very artistic, from TV series to movies.
For example, "Black Hole" (2001), "Survival Migrant Worker" (2005), which are praised by many people as domestic divine dramas, as well as the later movie "Bullfighting" and the TV series "Foreigner", are all domestic masterpieces with particularly strong humanistic appeals.
But making entertaining commercial blockbusters, director Guan Hu ten years ago, is indeed a little less direct experience
In other words, Guan Hu in that period was in a transition period from humanistic appeals to commercial appeals, typical examples of which were "Killing" and "Kitchen Drama". This transformation comes at a price, from word of mouth to box office.
Fortunately, Guan Hu did not lose his uniqueness during the transition period.
After counting Guan Hu's film and television works, it is not difficult to find that his story always has the same theme, that is, "the grasshopper shakes the tree": a person or a group of people is fighting against an era, or an unchangeable destiny.
The reversal at the end of "Kitchen Drama" is still very tragic
"Migrant Workers of Survival" and "Foreigners" talk about how people at the bottom should deal with themselves in the current high development of society.
"Bullfighting" is about the powerlessness of absurd fate when imposed on individuals, "Killing" is a person fighting against an entire terrifying village, and "Old Cannon" is a backward person who has to twist with the torrent of the times.
"The Eight Hundred" is more direct: how a group of soldiers resisted the powerful offensive of the Japanese army at the critical moment of the nation's desperation.
Put "Kitchen Play" in this context, and you will realize that Guan Hu is also talking about this.
The difference is that Guan Hu, who is in the transition period, is still not sure what type of style is more suitable for packaging his appeal, so there will be a feeling that many people feel that "Kitchen Play" is "nondescript".
Fortunately, the two experiences of "Killing" and "Kitchen Drama" allowed Guan Hu to quickly grasp the commercial film creation methodology suitable for him, and only then did he have "Old Cannon" and "Eight Hundred" that were later accepted by more audiences.
Next, he also has the blockbuster "East Pole Island", which is also a war theme, and looks forward to new progress in the film