Chen Sicheng's new film is 10 "Tang Detective" | disappearing logic than A San next door
At the end of March, the Indian movie "Hidden Heavenly Tribulation" was broadcast on the Internet, and after it was transmitted to the mainland, a popular high-praise short comment on the Douban page wrote:
"Not bad, I feel that I will be copied by Chen Sicheng."
Although it is a joke, it reveals the fact that Chen Sicheng, who has established the leading position of suspense films through "Detective Chinatown", has a common feature in his works:
Always borrowing from other films.
Since the first part of "Tang Detective", the suspicion of plagiarism has not been broken. When it comes to "Manslaughter", simply carry the Indian film copyright.
"Mozart in Outer Space", released in July 2022, was miserable, and the box office failed in word of mouth - this is an original script!
During this year's Dragon Boat Festival, Chen Sicheng's "Disappearing Her" was released, which is the same as "Manslaughter", which is a remake.
At present, the film ranks first at the box office of the schedule (as of the morning of June 24, the box office exceeded 400 million), and the Douban score fell from 7.5 to 7.0 - it is judged that it will continue to decline.
Why?
In our opinion, many logical problems have caused this film to "lay out the big picture", but "spread a small pie".
-What is the original story-
Judging from the title, many people think that "Gone Her" is a remake of David Fincher's "Gone Lover", but it is not.
The rights to "Disappearing Her" were purchased from the former Soviet film "The Trap for the Bachelor" (released in 1990), which takes place in a small French town, the heroine is married for only a week, the heroine mysteriously disappears, and a strange woman claims to be the wife of the male protagonist.
In fact, the story was made into the movie Vanishing Act in 1986.
The same source for both films comes from the 1960 drama Trap for a Lonely Man, written by Robert Thomas. Robert Thomas was born in France in 1927 and died in 1989, at the age of 33, it was with the play "The Lonely Man's Trap" that he became an overnight success in Paris and became popular.
The play "The Lonely Man's Trap" established Thomas's status as a psychological crime playwright with a unique style. In the same year, film master Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the play and wanted to start adaptation, but it was unsuccessful.
However, the later "Missing Mystery" is also inextricably linked to Hitchcock, and the screenwriter of this film, Richard Levinson, was the screenwriter of Hitchcock's one of the few TV series, "Hitchcock's Feature-length Stories".
The 1986 film "The Mystery of the Disappearance".
In 1961, Robert Thomas wrote and directed "Eight Women", which was better known 40 years later by French director François Aujon adapted into the film "Eight Beautiful Pictures".
It can be seen that "Disappearing Her" comes from a classic play, and the story foundation is still thick.
However, Chen Sicheng made an adaptation of "keeping pace with the times" and added many elements that adapt to the present.
But some netizens ridiculed that it was "stitching" -
The title of the film is suspected of rubbing "Disappearing Lover", all of which tell the mystery of his wife's disappearance, and the audience who does not know it may be misunderstood; And the character setting (especially the role of Ni Ni) refers to the Spanish suspense film "The Invisible Guest" - directed by Oriol Paul, remade in many countries.
"Disappearing Her" is not directed by Chen Sicheng, the directors are Cui Rui and Liu Xiang (not the sports star). Cui Rui has traveled to the United States, participated in many Hollywood projects, and is also the director of the online drama "Detective Chinatown: Young Detective Group" (broadcast in 2024); Liu Xiang has directed "Uninvited Guest" starring Fan Weidou Xiao Zhang Songwen and others in 2021, and the evaluation is acceptable.
They are also the signed directors of Chen Sicheng's company Yitong Legend.
Although Chen Sicheng did not direct it himself, Chen's style can be seen everywhere (such as this like many movies), and the first producer is also him, and the leading master has not run.
There is nothing to say about the production of "Disappearing Her", and the story framework is based on the adaptation of classic plays, so it is no problem to reach the passing line.
But it must be said that this is a decent popcorn-style commercial film, and it is even difficult to say "masterpiece".
-Basic logic does not work-
For a suspense movie, logic is extremely important, even if there are minor problems, it will fall into a catastrophe.
And the logical problems of "Disappearing Her" are not only "subtle", it can be described by the title -
Disappearing logic.
From the layout of the plot, the IQ of the character, the details of the crime and many other levels, there are certain logical deficiencies.
What are the specific problems? (There are serious spoilers below, please be sure to skip if you haven't seen it)
(1) The place of the crime
A person died in a diving resort, and was covered by an iron cage, and no one found it for more than half a month...
In the movie, this island is a Southeast Asian diving destination (otherwise the male protagonist as a diving coach would not propose to come here to see the starry sky under the sea), the seaside is full of shops that rent diving equipment everywhere, and it is the tourist season (the police said), there must be many people who want to dive; Moreover, that place is where you can see the "starry sky under the sea", so don't other diving enthusiasts come to see it? Zhu Yilong's wife is not a diving master, and she definitely can't dive deep, so, more than half a month has passed, why haven't others found it?
Some netizens said that this place is under a lighthouse in disrepair, too dangerous, many people do not want to come - on the contrary, diving enthusiasts, like extreme challenge adventures, dangerous sea areas are their favorite, this relatively safe place is not a big deal.
(2) Modus operandi
If you want to kill your wife for money, isn't it okay to create an accidental death in diving?
According to data, the accidental mortality rate of recreational diving is 1/500, which is still quite high. In the film, it is late at night to see the "starry sky under the sea", in the case of tight vision, is the danger factor more increased? In the 1986 version of "The Mystery of Disappearance", the death method of the male protagonist's wife was accidental death in a car accident, which is much smoother.
Moreover, to create a disappearance, it is better to "destroy the corpse and evaporate in the world", why should it be placed in an iron cage, in addition to having some kind of metaphorical effect visually - this is pure self-hi - will only increase the chance of the body being found. Some people say that it was deliberately found - if found, they knew that it must be homicide (because only others put her in a cage), not an accident, and they knew that it was her husband who did it when they checked it (renting diving equipment has been recorded).
(3) Setting questions
After the hero's wife disappeared, a strange woman came to pretend to be his wife, but he couldn't find any way to falsify it? At the moment of "cloud intelligence", there is no photo of a real wife? It seems that many mobile phones have a cloud storage function, which will automatically upload photos to the cloud account of the same name.
Even if there is no cloud storage, after a year of marriage, the male protagonist's relatives and friends do not have any photos? Haven't taken wedding photos? No friends or family at the wedding? The friend of the male protagonist, who is also a diving coach, has long met his real wife, as evidenced by a video call! What's more, his wife is a large company, and she used to be in the newspaper when her parents died, is it difficult to check it on the Internet?
(4) Motive purpose
There is only one motive - the male protagonist in order to obtain property. However, the wife's main property is company shares (billions of dollars inherited due to the death of parents), if a company is very large, it will be quite formal, there are professional managers, there are old ministers who follow their fathers, how can outsiders interfere? Not to mention the death of the boss's whole family, even if the boss is still there, the company's executives can treat the boss's immediate family as nothing (see the recently concluded American drama "The War of Succession"), if the boss's family is dead, can you put a son-in-law in the eyes? How can I withdraw large amounts of money at will?
Even if the wife has a large amount of cash property left by the family in her account, and should have a dedicated financial adviser (or have the parents' relatives and friends to help supervise it), even if the disappearance can be filed, how can they dispose of these properties at will? Not to mention, it is difficult to inherit - according to the mainland "Civil Code", if the missing person cannot confirm the death, the spouse cannot inherit the property, but if the death is confirmed, it means that the body in the cage is found, directly pointing to homicide, and the male protagonist's conspiracy is exposed, and the inheritance is also impossible. Lo and behold, this creates a stupid "closed loop."
If there are so many obvious obstacles to acquiring property (it's hard to cash out), why risk killing? To be honest, it's better to be solid than the old routine of "cheating insurance"!
The above 4 angles are the logical big problems that shake the foundation of this film, and if it is not handled well, it will be difficult for this movie to stand.
In terms of the finished film, it is not solid, and even if there is a classic story framework, it is poorly adapted and cannot be tasted in detail.
Of course, there are other more detailed bugs, but these small problems have different interpretations, do not affect the overall situation, and are right to be skipped.
In terms of performance, it's honestly okay, it's remarkable, whether it's Zhu Yilong or Ni Ni, they have completed the task well - as a commercial popcorn film, how high can it be for acting skills?
-Big gap with India-
You may ask, do you recommend going to the cinema to watch "Disappearing Her"? If you don't have requirements for the logic of suspense films, you can also watch it.
To say that it is highly recommended, the Indian movie "Hidden Heavenly Tribulation" mentioned at the beginning is more recommended to watch (just download it).
This new Indian film is also similar to "Disappearing Her" to some extent, both acting in a play, and the protagonist is strongly reversed at the end, focusing on the point: "Hidden Heavenly Tribulation" has a smoother logic and is extremely entertaining. In fact, the originality alone can kill "Disappearing Her" in seconds.
Speaking of which, we have to mention our "next door Asan" exploration in the suspense film genre.
From "Unknown Death" 15 years ago, to "Contest" 10 years ago (released in 2013, it was the original version of "Manslaughter", which is in different languages in India), to "Tuner" 5 years ago (released in 2018), to last year's "Nemesis", and this year's "Hidden Heavenly Tribulation", there are many excellent works, and many classics have emerged.
In addition, India's list of thriller and suspense films can also be listed, such as:
"Trail", "Fearless", "Butterfly", "Ugly", "26 Special Robbers", "Sin", "Hotel Mumbai", "Tabbad", "Omnipotent", "White Tiger", "One Thursday"...
Indian classic suspense movie "The Tuner".
The above nearly 20 Indian suspense genre movies, all of which have Douban scores higher than 7 points (many are above 8 points), and are basically original works.
On the other hand, Chinese mainland, how many thriller and suspense movies with more than 7 points? And how much is original?
In terms of society, China must crush India in all aspects, whether it is the economy (GDP far exceeds it), or customs and people (India is much behind), especially in terms of security... It's not comparable at all.
However, India has one thing that is stronger than China - suspense genre movies. It is inferior to us everywhere, but it has given birth to such a bullish genre movie, and even become a classic of film history (such as "Tuner" and "Contest").
Of course, this is not just Chen Sicheng's problem.
In fact, Chen Sicheng is already enterprising, each setting the story overseas (to obtain the greatest policy advantage), but from "Manslaughter" to this "Disappearing Her", it is not only difficult to show people with an original face, but also picks up people's teeth - "Manslaughter 2" even has only 5.2 points (the Indian version of "Manslaughter 2" also has 7.3 points).
Some netizens said that to encourage the creation of domestic suspense films like "Disappearing Her", please, just a remake (and no blue) is kind enough to encourage?
On the whole, mainland suspense films, compared with India, may be 10 "Detective Chinatown" in the middle.
How far this distance is, depends on how good "Detective Chinatown" is.