Who likes the Ex series?
Is "Predecessor 4" a blockbuster achieved by luck, or a masterpiece that directly hits the emotional pain points of the post-80s and post-90s?
"Predecessor 4" broke 200 million at the box office, and as the fourth work of an IP, it is already a miracle.
The sequel is not as good as the previous work, and it is almost the norm for a series of movies to be inferior to once, and it is rare to shoot a fourth part of the same IP in domestic entertainment, and it is rare that the data is still so beautiful.
Whether it will be filmed in the future or not, "Predecessor 4" is already one of the most worthy topics in the history of domestic entertainment films.
1. The story core of "Predecessor 4"
No matter how many films have been filmed in the "Predecessor" series, there is only one core, that is, to miss it, and what is missed may be love or life.
Meng Yun, played by Han Geng, and Yu Fei, played by Zheng Kai, yearn for love, and also have a prodigal mentality, both wanting to keep the people around them and reluctant to spend the world.
Repeatedly jumping between affection and thin affection, although they will cry bitterly after losing, but young people do not admit defeat, shed blood and tears, can not lower their heads, "Predecessor 3" and before, the focus is on missing love.
When I was young, I thought "I should be decent to break up" and say goodbye, and I thought "if only we had been less stubborn at that time".
This regret is also the most moving part of "Predecessor 3" and previous series.
By "The Predecessor 4", this regret and missed changed from feelings to life.
Meng Yun's business was successfully blessed, Lin Jia divorced with children, they reunited, the past is vivid, the two still have concerns in their hearts, but they can't go back.
Yu Fei and Ding Dian tried to get married like a joke, crying, laughing, breaking up and reconciling, but no one thought about how to go in the future.
The love of the first few films is only about feelings, and the feelings of "The Predecessor 4" are about life.
Meng Yun longs for love, but also enjoys loneliness, and after staying alone for a long time, he no longer knows how to break his comfort zone and establish intimate relationships with others.
Going on a blind date is no longer about whether you like it or not, but whether it is suitable for marriage, whether you can have children in time, whether your health is good, how is the economic foundation, whether everyone's social status matches, people are becoming more and more realistic, and feelings have changed from the focus of life to dispensable embellishments.
Yu Fei wants to be stable, but he is also measuring that marriage is "tired or not", and he has long lost the courage to give everything for love.
These things are nothing special, but almost everyone has experienced them, maybe they didn't realize it at the time, but when they look back, they will have some emotion, these former vicissitudes of the sea, strung together by the "Predecessor" series.
It's not so much a movie as a large-scale youth memory scene.
After watching "The Ex 3", many people walked out of the cinema crying, and every seemingly bland plot in the movie accurately hit the hearts of the "ex".
They were in underground garages, crying from movie theater seats, and some even made the news.
No one is in love forever, but there are always people who fall out of love, and after watching "The Predecessor 4", some people cry, remember the people and times they missed, and walk out of the cinema.
But unlike other works, as many people like the "Ex" series, as many people scoff at it, not only "Ex 4", but also the previous "Ex 1" to "Ex 3" word-of-mouth is showing a very polarizing situation.
2. Who likes the "Predecessor" series
"Predecessor 4" Douban 6.7 points, this not high score is already the peak of the "Predecessor" series.
"Predecessor 3", which created a box office of 2 billion and Han Geng played the supreme treasure, Yu Wenwen ate mangoes and other famous scenes, only 5.5 points.
According to statistics, the audience of "Predecessor 3" is 20-24 years old, and the audience in third-tier cities accounts for nearly 40%, plus a larger share of fourth-tier cities and below, constituting the main audience of "Predecessor 3", of which more than 60% are women.
In other words, the audience of the "Predecessor" series is young people in third- and fourth-tier cities.
Unlike urban youth on Douban who like to discuss genres, techniques, and meanings, they care more about whether the movie is intuitive and good-looking and whether it can impress them.
It doesn't matter which of the clips pay tribute to a certain master and what technique is used, in other words, they are the ones who are really watching the movie itself.
Most of Douban users are from second-tier cities or above
This is still the case this year, and so far, second-, third- and fourth-tier cities are still the main box office of "Predecessor 4".
Compared with Douban, when many users turn watching movies into their own competition with the choreographer and director, and use habitual criticism to show their taste and style, these "second- and third-tier city youths" who purely watch movies often have the most objective evaluation of their works.
They affirmed the value of the "Predecessor" series with the box office.
3. High-end ingredients often only need the simplest cooking method
There is one comment that agrees with Douban the most about "Predecessor 3", which is what it says.
It is another mediocre film, with a single dramatic means. The whole story is eating, drinking, chatting, filmed like an indoor sitcom, and there is no life.
Here in "Predecessor 4", the director's shooting techniques and expressions are still exactly the same, as always, he still eats and chats, and even the scenes are not as many as "Predecessor 3", but the film still breaks 100 million in 2 days, and the score has risen.
This shows that many people have begun to realize that as a form of artistic expression, rich connotation is far more important than cool expression.
Because "high-end ingredients often only need the most simple way of cooking." ”
From the first "Ex" about the relationship in his 20s to the current "Ex 4" narrator to the confusion of middle age, the theme of the entire film is to grow with the director.
From the beginning, this series does not pursue a particularly profound way of expression, and borrows the style of youth comedies such as "BJ's Single Diary" and "American Pie" in terms of artistic techniques, and the main feature is the expression of life.
And eating, drinking, and chatting, which seem to be unskillful, happens to be the form of a deliberate "pseudo-documentary" film.
The director himself is very knowledgeable about sensationalism, the most typical is the scene in "Predecessor 3", Meng Yun and Lin Jia broke up, a mango allergy but desperately eating mangoes in the house, painful.
One at the time of the breakup, despite everyone's obstruction, shouted the loudest "I love you." ”
Even today, such a fierce expression still has its touching place, and the helplessness, unwillingness and having to break up contained in "Love Parting" have been reached to the extreme by this plot table.
It is also for this reason that some people have great expectations for the reunion of Meng Yun and Lin Jia in "Predecessor 4".
But here in "Predecessor 4", the director's style has changed.
His lens does not use any technique, nor does he actively increase the trending music, background or conflict, that is, simply record the normal communication, communication, and contradiction of men and women in love.
Even the lines are a little familiar, as if they were only said by friends and family members who chatted with him just now.
The whole film does not guide, only let the audience feel these emotions themselves, and in many cases, in order to reduce the guidance of the audience, the film even decomposes many sensational scenes into the form of light comedy.
For example, the clip after Meng Yun and Lin Jia reunited, in terms of text and plot, is very powerful and moving enough, but the film only gave Lin Jia a few scenes of smoking, and it was faintly brought over.
In the middle, there is also a funny plot of Yu Fei and Ding Dian wanting Xuelinjia's child's hair in the restaurant.
There is a feeling that the audience is forced to hold back their tears and calmly think about "how to say goodbye to the people you loved".
The same is true of the scene where Yu Fei and Ding Dian quarrel and break up, the plot that could have been rendered in large quantities, but the rhythm was broken to pieces with the plot of carrying luggage.
Even in the end, Liu Liu and Meng Yun were separated from each other, and the director was so restrained that he refused to even see the two.
The expression of "Predecessor 4" has been doing subtraction, which is more subtle and advanced than sensationalism.
This calm, scalpel-like way of deconstructing the essence of things to the audience, is not flattering in the feature film.
In the past, most of these "pseudo-documentaries" were the favorites of avant-garde directors and literary films.
In 1964, British director Richard Lester made a pseudo-documentary "One Night Carnival" about the Beatles, in the form of follow-up, but the content is extremely exaggerated, with documentary footage and feature film narrative, telling the director's imagination of the Beatles.
By the time of Woody Allen's "The Legend of Xili" in 1984, this form had a mature path.
Among domestic directors, Jia Zhangke was involved in such films earlier, and his "Tale of Twenty-Four Cities" is a relatively successful work.
"Space Exploration Editorial Department" is the leader of this type of film in China in recent years.
The use of "pseudo-documentaries" in literary and genre films has a huge advantage, that is, they can not pursue the ups and downs of the plot, and can work the sense of atmosphere, history and even black humor to highlight the theme.
But a feature film like "Predecessor 4" is still a work of a romance film in a narrow sense, and it takes courage to walk the flow of life, and the director's confidence lies in believing that he can resonate with the audience.
Some people say that "The Predecessor" is a director of the 80s, an actor of the 80s, telling the concept of love of the 80s and 90s.
Compared with the tradition of the post-70s generation and the freeness of the post-00s, the 80s and 90s are both wanting to live for a long time, but also emphasizing themselves, always in the collision of two values, and the same is true in love, they intermittently dare to love and hate, and stage hesitation.
The story can only be exciting, and only when it evokes the original feelings in the heart, can it be moved, which is the reason why the "Predecessor" series is popular, because in the story, we see ourselves at every stage.
The director uses materials that are very close to life, some of which are even said to be "vulgar", strung together the needs and dazedness of this generation in their emotions, precisely because these stories are grounded enough, the shooting techniques are not fancy, and sometimes people have an illusion, "This is a movie without skill." ”
But it is precisely this kind of "no skill" that allows people to focus on the content of the film itself, get rid of those deliberate reversals, and look thrilling bridges, in order to truly show the moving regret, and can really hit the audience's heart.
Did you go to see "The Predecessor 4"? Crying? Who comes to mind?