Domestic suspense ceiling? What is the point of "Disappearing Her"

Under the overwhelming publicity of major media platforms, I walked into the cinema on the first day of the release of "Disappearing Her" and watched Chen Sicheng's latest masterpiece with countless long-awaited fans, but when I finished watching this movie, I just want to say that this movie can be popular for Chinese films is definitely a disaster, and the source of this disaster is undoubtedly Chen Sicheng.

For the name Chen Sicheng, I think many audiences must be familiar with it, from the impressive actor in "Soldier Assault" to the creator of the "Detective Chinatown" series, Chen Sicheng can be called a legend in the Chinese film industry, he is both a successful actor and a successful director, and with this "Disappearing Her", I have to admit that he is also a successful businessman.

If "Detective Chinatown" showed the audience Chen Sicheng's talent as a new director, then with the success of "Detective Chinatown 2", Chen Sicheng's ambition began to gradually reveal.

Before and after the release of "Detective Chinatown 2", in the face of media interviews, Chen Sicheng publicly stated that in the future, the "Tang Detective" series will be built into a "cinematic universe" similar to the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" through sequels and derivative works.

But with the broadcast of the "Detective Chinatown" online drama and the extreme contrast between the box office and word of mouth of "Detective Chinatown 3", for Chen Sicheng's statement that he launched the "Tang Detective Movie Universe", it is obviously appropriate to summarize it with "the human heart is not enough to swallow the elephant".

From the compromise of capital in the last four episodes of the "Detective Chinatown" online drama to the banality that cannot be concealed in the family atmosphere of the stars of "Detective Chinatown 3", Chen Sicheng proved with proof that his talent and ability are far from the point of creating a cinematic universe.

And the next "manslaughter" series made many people see clearly the mediocre arrogance and ignorant ambition in Chen Sicheng.

Both "Manslaughter" series are produced by Chen Sicheng, and both are also remakes, "Manslaughter 1" is a remake of India's "Manslaughter and Concealment", and "Manslaughter 2" is a remake of Hollywood's "Imminent".

Previously, the "Tang Detective" series was actually still in the "borrowing" stage for the same type of film and television works - after the "Tang Detective" series became popular, some fans pointed out that the series trilogy had many similarities with many film and television works in terms of plot settings.

By the time of the "Manslaughter" series, Chen Sicheng, who had retreated behind the scenes, began to directly say in an interview that he had purchased the original film copyright and legally remade it. The "Manslaughter" series uses new directors, which is to cultivate new talents in film and television and contribute to Chinese films.

It's not that remakes of film works are bad, after all, even Hollywood often remakes and adapts classic film and television works in the early years, but remakes cannot replace the importance of originality after all.

It is rare for an entire film series like Chen Sicheng to be remakes, and even the first and second parts of the series have remade film works from different countries respectively.

Many fans even ridiculed whether the third part of the "Manslaughter" series would go on to remake Korean movies, and the entire trilogy would come together for a "global film culture appreciation".

If Chinese filmmakers are like Chen Sicheng to make big remakes in order to take shortcuts, it is difficult to imagine when Chen Sicheng's "weak Chinese films" will really stand up. And now in front of people's eyes, although the "Disappearing Her" has been carefully packaged by Chen Sicheng, it still cannot change the shadow of the Soviet film "The Trap for the Bachelor" in this movie. And compared to "The Trap for the Bachelor", the "Disappearing Her" in front of you is really full of slots.

Before officially entering this film, I think there is something I have to talk to the audience first, that is, the "disappeared him" behind "Disappearing Her". Viewers who have seen the pre-promotional video of "Disappearing Her" estimate that nine out of ten people will think that the director of this film is Chen Sicheng, because he is teaching Wen Yongshan to act in the video, and he puts forward various requirements for the film set. But in fact, the final director of the film is Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, and Chen Sicheng only signs as the producer and screenwriter of the film.

I have to say that Chen Sicheng's operation is very wise. As an executive producer, he can control the overall situation of the shooting, but at the same time do not have to do everything himself, and even avoid being scolded when the film's reputation plummets. Of course, what Chen Sicheng did not calculate was that the early publicity of the film had clearly and unmistakably let the audience see that he was the real director of the film.

As a suspense movie, "Disappearing Her" mainly played brain-burning cards in the pre-publicity and trial screening, and Chen Sicheng's friend Wang Baoqiang specially posted on Weibo after participating in the film's preview meeting, calling the film "a ceiling in suspense". But what does the actual performance of the film look like?

Let's go back to the beginning of the film, a husband who is anxious because his wife is missing is helplessly asking for help at the police station, and just when he thinks that no one will help him, a police officer suddenly appears in front of him, giving him a glimmer of hope, which is already on the verge of despair.

But when he returned to the hotel and fell asleep, he could not have imagined that a strange woman would sleep next to him the next morning and claim to be his wife... So, with the question "Who is the real wife?" Who is the mysterious strange woman? The audience follows the footsteps of the protagonist and begins to explore the truth.

Such a story opening is actually quite qualified for a suspense type movie, if the film goes on in such a narrative style and rhythm, I think even if it is not a good work, it can be regarded as a qualified commercial movie, but the film's subsequent plot reversal and character shaping completely wear out the good feeling brought by the creation of the opening atmosphere of the film, and make the whole movie like a train out of control and derailment, with repeated forced reversals and the so-called theme sublimation at the end and fall into the abyss.

Judging from the introduction of events and atmosphere creation in the opening scene, Chen Sicheng obviously wants to create a desperate and difficult to save himself in the first half of the film, this good husband originally came to vacation abroad with his wife to celebrate his wedding anniversary, but accidentally encountered such bizarre events as his wife's disappearance and the mysterious woman claiming to be his wife.

But even with this background, the first half of the film has never been able to turn the role of the husband into a real and credible character that the audience can empathize with.

The reason why the plot reversal in classic suspense films can attract the audience's attention is that most of the main success secrets are to establish the successful foreshadowing of the early plot details, so that the audience can empathize with the characters and plots. Then, on this basis, it suddenly subverts the audience's deep expectations for the further development of the beautiful plot, so that the characters suddenly fall into trouble or change the identity and role of the characters in the film.

Simply put, successful plot reversal is often based on common feelings, take the "Disappearing Her" in front of you, the movie can be interspersed with the bits and pieces of the male and female protagonists falling in love after the scene of the male protagonist interceding at the police station, through the description of beautiful love and the helplessness of the husband unable to find his missing wife to inspire the audience's sympathy for the protagonist, and subtly bring itself into the movie story, and then lead to the scene of the mysterious woman suddenly appearing in the life of the male protagonist.

But how does the film do it? So mysterious and thinking that he cleverly retained his wife's true face in the first half of the film, and after hastily explaining the characters and the background of the event at the beginning of the film, he impatiently introduced the role of "wife" played by Wen Yongshan.

The movie probably wants to let the audience judge whether the husband or the mysterious "wife" is lying with questions, and this leads to a series of reversals, including the photos of the wife in the male protagonist's mobile phone all become strange "wives" in front of him, and the woman wearing his wife's clothes in the bookstore has also become Wen Yongshan. But what Chen Sicheng didn't realize was that any successful film reversal first needs to be based on the audience's empathy for the early stage of the film, and even the protagonist's words and deeds.

Just a clip of making a big fuss in the police station obviously does not allow the audience to quickly obtain key information while reaching empathy with the protagonist, and it is difficult to shock the strange woman who quickly appears next, because the audience really does not know anything about the wife in the husband's mouth.

And a series of reversals after the film is the same feeling, the reversal of the story plot back and forth, and the continuous subversion of the character image not only failed to immerse the audience in the so-called "suspense story atmosphere" of Chen Sicheng, but made people feel that every character in the movie was like a face-changing puppet who was arbitrarily pulled by the screenwriter, whether it was the husband played by Zhu Yilong, the lawyer played by Yan Ni, and the mysterious "wife" played by Wen Yongshan.

"Disappearing Her" is also a disaster in character shaping, and the plot of the meeting of the male and female protagonists, acquaintance and love is simply not too bloody.

As a diving instructor, Zhu Yilong and his wife played by Huang Ziqi met for the first time because the latter almost drowned in the pool because he couldn't swim.

It's understandable that two people began to become friends because they also liked Van Gogh, but what is the logic of getting married quickly because they accidentally suffered a car accident? And before and after the marriage, the wife learned that the character played by Zhu Yilong was actually carrying huge gambling debts, and the first thing she thought of was not how to quickly get rid of this unrealistic dream in front of her, but actually took out a bank card and thought about how to help the male protagonist pay off the debt.

After the two got married, the wife actually left the family business left by her parents to her husband without thinking. As far as the growth process of the wife played by Huang Zishan shown in the film, as a rich girl was sent abroad to study abroad to live alone, in such a family background and growth environment, it is really difficult to accept that she can easily fall into the trap of the male protagonist's seemingly delicate but actually crude. In fact, not only the wife, but also from the performance of several female characters in the film, it is not difficult to see that Chen Sicheng wants to show female power on the one hand, but on the other hand, he is unable to get out of his usual lustful thinking.

In general, "Disappearing Her" as a long-awaited domestic suspense masterpiece its box office performance in the Dragon Boat Festival, needless to say, but the decline in audience reputation after the film's release really shows that the film has a lot of problems in plot content, character shaping and many other aspects, and the film, as the latest masterpiece among Chen Sicheng's many remakes, also makes people have to start thinking about when will the road to the remake of domestic films come to an end?