2022 is nearing the end, and in previous years, this time is generally the most popular publicity window for the movie New Year. It's just that over the years, the New Year and Spring Festival movies have become "difficult to move an inch" in the face of the epidemic.
Recalling the past, since 1997, from Feng Xiaogang's "Party A and Party B", the film industry has a new form of film file: New Year films. Since then, Feng Xiaogang has opened the mode of one New Year film every year. And this time I want to talk about Feng Xiaogang's 2001 New Year film, "Big Shot".
The film continues the characteristics of Feng Xiaogang's Beijing-style sketches, and is still the black comedy theme he was best at that time, ironic and funny, absurd and realistic. The cast was placed in that year, and it was definitely worthy of the title.
The protagonist is Ge You, the image of the board inch beard in the film, Ge You at that time really can't call the word "uncle", and Ge You is partnered with Yingda, he was not fat at that time.
In addition, Feng Xiaogang also invited Guan Zhilin and American actor Donald Sutherland, who won the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 2018. There is also Li Chengru's friendship starring, and Faye Wong, who was also semi-retired that year, was also invited to sing the promotional song "Idiot" of the film.
At the beginning of the release of "Big Shot", the word-of-mouth evaluation was not particularly good, and even the score on Douban was only more than 6 points.
After 21 years of social change, the film currently has a rating of 7.9. The rise in the score, first, is a change in the audience's aesthetic of the film; Second, the film was still in the surreal category, and now that I look at it, the plot simply predicts the real world, and even reality is far more absurd than the film.
The movie is about international director Taylor (Donald Sutherland), who suffered a heart attack while filming in China and was dying, and he entrusted his funeral to You You (Ge You), a photographer who shot a documentary film, hoping to have a funeral.
You You found his old classmate Wang Xiaozhu (played by Yingda), Wang Xiaozhu wanted to make a fortune through the funeral, so he used the funeral as if he were looking for sponsors for the Olympics and advertised for bidding. Every program and link was placed with advertisements, and sponsors, title publishers and so on were poured in. From hearses, small contact lenses, and even advertisements for female breast enlargement: "It's good to be a woman."
To what extent is it exaggerated? For example, the hearse plastered with advertisements has to run around Beijing three times at the request of customers, and due to customer needs, it must not blind the right eye wearing contact lenses...
The funeral is like a large-scale marketing scene, countless stars join the scene, some are emcees, some open their mouths to sing, saying that this is the wedding scene atmosphere is enough. And the order of farewell of the remains is also particular, either in line with the coffee or in the relationship.
Who expected that Taylor's condition would improve and wake up. After learning the news, You You and Wang Xiaozhu went into a mental hospital together like a thunderbolt on a sunny day, and then You You visited Lucy (played by Guan Zhilin), saying that he was pretending to be crazy because he was afraid of advertisers chasing debts, but Wang Xiaozhu was really crazy.
Looking at it now, the plot that may have been considered very absurd at the time has now become a reality, even far more outrageous than the plot. The "God's prophecy" in it makes the irony even more poignant.
In the plot of the movie, there is a counterfeit brand advertiser who wants to squeeze out an advertising position, You You is puzzled why a fake and shoddy product has to invest so much money in advertising, and the other party replied: The advertisement is bigger, the more people know, the fake will become true.
Even if you want to criticize the impact of advertising and money on the lives and thoughts of modern people, the sponsor list at the end of the film happens to be the sponsors whose names appear in the plot of the film, which is simply the "textbook level" of the film's insertion of advertisements.
In his movie "Do Not Disturb 2" many years later, there are countless advertisements implanted, and a movie almost becomes an advertising blockbuster, or Feng Xiaogang can play.
The utility of PSAs is also understood. In the plot, the pirated VCD advertiser successfully won the bid, You You went on stage to disqualify the other party, and then shouted to the media camera, which was used for the release of public service advertisements free of charge.
The reporter asked, "Don't you think that using funeral advertisements and selling pirated VCDs are unethical acts?" You You answered seriously: "Funerals are genuine, they make money by selling themselves, and piracy makes money by selling others." ”
The most classic is the passage in the mental hospital, where people wear pajamas and rigorously discuss the future economic development trend, they mention that China's future will develop in the direction of the Internet, China's soaring housing prices, etc., as well as the wealth code of the audio-visual, Internet, and real estate industries are all fulfilled.
For example, if you want to make money from e-commerce, you are all fools. The website has to be smashed with money, and the child is reluctant to set the wolf.
First hire a few scolding gunmen with high salaries, and then find a few cultural celebrities as targets, and whoever fires will be extinguished.
What does the website rely on? Relying on the click rate, this click rate goes up, and the next family will follow.
How much money you smash in, add one zero, and sell it directly to the next family.
I also tell you that if someone talks about acquisition, they will immediately cash out, and you don't have to talk about stocks.
Be sure to choose the best prime location, hire a French designer, and build the highest grade apartments.
The elevator directly enters the house, and the minimum unit size is 400 square meters.
What broadband, optical cables, satellites, everything that can be connected to him is connected to him.
Garden upstairs and swimming pool upstairs.
Inside the building stood an English butler, the kind of gentleman with a wig.
As soon as the owner enters the door, even if there is nothing to do, he has to say: May i help U sir?
Build another aristocratic school in the community, and the teaching materials are Harvard, and the annual optical fee will cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Build another American clinic, 24 hours a day. It's a word, expensive ~ to see a cold, you have to spend 18,000.
You say, how much do you have to sell for a square meter of such an apartment?
$2,000? That's the cost! From $4,000. Don't be too expensive, it's not discounted.
You have to study the shopping psychology of the owner. Owners who are willing to pay two thousand dollars to buy a house do not care about paying two thousand more.
Do you know what a successful person is? Successful people buy everything, buy the most expensive, not the best.
Not only the highlights of the dialogue, Feng Xiaogang also worked the details.
On the wall of the psychiatric hospital hangs an oil painting of Raphael's "Academy of Athens", which is based on the anecdote of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato holding the Academy of Athens, bringing together cultural celebrities representing philosophy, mathematics, music, astronomy and other disciplines, representing the praise of human beings who pursue wisdom and truth, and also pinning on the yearning for a better future.
And this painting is placed in a psychiatric hospital.
Although cloaked in the shell of comedy, "Big Names" criticizes and satirizes social reality with a funeral farce, conveying a variety of cultural phenomena and the illusory diseases of the times: the proliferation and erosion of advertising, the strength and absolute dominance of capital, piracy and royalty issues, the moral decline of unlimited traffic...
At that time, I could never have imagined that the most absurd plot was a footnote to future life.
Unfortunately, now the New Year file is almost withered, and works like "Big Names" are even more impossible to find in the current context.
Even Feng Xiaogang himself is afraid that it will be difficult to do it anymore.
![The loss may exceed 1.5 billion, Ge Youyue Yunpeng did his best, and the biggest box office tragedy on New Year's Day was born[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)