Written by | Li Songlang
Edit | Gong Zheng
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Jia Ling's self-directed and self-starred "Hot and Hot" received a box office of 400 million, tied for first place with "Flying Life 2", with a Douban score of 7.8, and the public reputation is not bad. Jia Ling appeared in interviews and live broadcasts, and the "thin" Jia Ling, who had been covering for more than half a year, finally appeared, "Jia Ling gained 40 pounds for the role and lost 100 pounds", "Jia Ling, it's really shocking", "Hot and Hot" has more than a dozen hot searches, and the popularity value is also full.
Jia Ling is indeed quite inspirational, but I have to say that the selling point of "Hot and Hot" is that Jia Ling loses weight, and only Jia Ling loses weight. Jia Ling's own story is more exciting than the movie, and the movie is really average - both in terms of plot and core.
#01
A vulgar stalk that makes people "sweat".
When I first watched this movie and went all out to market Jia Ling to lose weight, I had a little ominous premonition, and sure enough, the first half made me feel like I was on pins and needles and sweating.
The first are stereotypes and vulgar jokes. For example, the TV station where the cousin played by Yang Zi helped the fat man find a job, pretending to be Maitreya and taking a photo with tourists, Jia Ling's mother looked at the photo and said, "Then I have to put on a bra for your sister", "Fat" is so bluntly equated with failure, incompetence, body and personality can be ridiculed. For example, women's fitness is all about "more contact" with coaches with abs. There are also all kinds of vulgar jokes, such as the scene where Jia Ling bumps into Lei Jiayin peeing on the street, which is portrayed as a joke, such as a psychologist and an emotion professor fighting on the scene of a variety show (unsurprisingly, they are a divorced couple, but this has little to do with the theme).
Then there's the lack of story appeal. My mother, a 60-year-old rural woman, said that after reading it, she scored 5 out of 10. When I asked her why she was so low, she replied: It doesn't mean anything to talk about such a thing. You see, a rural lady feels the thinness of the characters and the lack of attractiveness of the story. Of course, she also laughed at the well-arranged laughs, she also "tsk" at Jia Ling's transition from fat to thin, and she also wiped her tears in the highlight scene of Jia Ling's boxing match. But the whole story is still difficult to move people from a deeper level.
The main thing is the weakening of the kernel. As an adaptation of the film, the film's biggest local adaptation is "Vulgar Adaptation". I don't know if director Jia Ling is worried that the audience can't understand it, and deliberately "down-to-earth", or if he doesn't have the ability to control more advanced and complex expressions.
The movie gave "mourning" some more straightforward external forces, and gave Jia Ling's counterattack some intuitive "enemies" - overly obese appearance, pleasing personality, exaggerated and mean "villain" mother and sister, cousin who knows how to handle human nature before she graduates, the bloody plot of the dead friend and the object, the bridge section where the scumbag was pitted because of the love brain, and the heroine played by Jia Ling was forced into a desperate situation by various buffs, and she made up her mind to participate in the boxing match.
The movie also challenged Jia Ling's acting skills, and the movie made me realize that it was difficult to act "mourning". Jia Ling "sandwiched" her voice throughout the whole process, and it was useless, and she seemed deliberate. Even if she is 200 pounds, Jia Ling is still a fat girl full of collagen, and even when she walks on the road while eating marshmallows, she still exudes a kind of leisure and cuteness, without that kind of mental state of mud.
The first half of the foreshadowing was over, and the second half finally bottomed out, Jia Ling began to exercise and practice boxing, and finally ignited. This is also the advantage of the sports genre – turning inner resistance into action, into running, punching, pull-ups and weight-bearing training that constantly increases the amount of adrenaline. The most attractive gimmick is that Jia Ling, who has lost more than 100 pounds, finally flashed, which successfully caused exclamations at the scene.
Figure | Stills from "Hot and Hot".
But the success of weight loss as a publicity gimmick will not work, and it may also backfire on word of mouth, Douban spicy comment: "The title of the film was changed to "Jia Ling Lose Weight", it is estimated that it can deceive more", Jia Ling also began to guide in the live broadcast: "I hope the hot search word is to love yourself".
#02
Jia Ling can't play "mourning"
The social mourning of young people, the kind of heart that wants to stand up but can't be supported by the mud, the learned helplessness that wants to win but is always defeated by life, is the core of the original movie "100 Yuan Love", it can be seen from the comments that the audience accurately got what this movie wants to express: "The biggest opponent is actually life, and after failure, you have to pat each other's shoulders with life", "hungry, angry, painful - life is nothing more than these three things", " It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, but I want to exist, I want to exist, I want to exist."
The funeral of the heroine and the strangeness of all kinds of "weirdos" in the movie are also immersed in a Japanese-style "mourning" cultural background, which seems to be well-founded. As we all know, after the bursting of the bubble economy, Japan in the Heisei era ushered in a continuous and slow atmosphere of "mourning", and the phenomenon of young people not seeking to improve and gnawing at the old was common. Mourning is actually a passive resistance of people, especially young people, and behind it is a collective social emotion.
But in "Hot and Hot", I can't feel this kind of pain and empathy. The heroine's predicament seems suspended and individualized, and the supporting roles are also very "bad" - she was asked in a variety show why she hadn't looked for a job for ten years, but she was only on point, and she was deviated by the gags of the experts on the scene. The movie tries to give some reasons: she has a pleasing personality, is not good at defending herself, and is particularly obese, while the "perpetrators" around her are more like "normal people" in society, as if she is only in such a predicament because she is not "normal".
Fortunately, the movie hasn't poured too much inspirational chicken soup, retaining the theme of the original version of "I just want to win once", and has made some adaptations to the ending, the heroine who lost in the boxing ring finally won some "self", and is no longer so "pleasing personality", the first time I said no to the scumbag who wanted to eat back grass, and the first half of the dog blood was pulled back.
The performance of some supporting roles also has highlights, such as Yang Zi's role as the "little white rabbit" in the rainy night to deceive Jia Ling's sympathy, which is quite pitiful, and the little girl at the front desk of the gym is also quite natural and funny in the design of Lei Jiayin's little action.
But overall, this is a movie that netizens called full of "commercial calculations", but Jia Ling's sincerity makes people want to scold but can't speak.
So what is the gap between this tailor-made "Chinese New Year film" and the Japanese version that won the best film at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival?
How does the Japanese version express mourning? Waste firewood that shakes his legs and smokes at home will also entertain customers with a clip sound in the bento shop. The housegirl who does not dare to go out is also "in the nest" at home, and the mother who is chattering in the face of hard work will skillfully retort, and when she and her sister hurt each other, the nephew skillfully dodge, and the father hides outside the door. The heroine is wandering the streets in pajamas in the middle of the night, and her eyes are blank and she is buying snacks at a convenience store, so that many people can see herself, and the barrage comments are "like ghosts", "This is the state now, I don't know what to do every day", "If you're tired, it's okay to rest for a while". You see, if you don't get 200 pounds of weight, the audience can get it, who hasn't been a waste of firewood.
Figure | Stills from "100 Yuan Love".
After being raped by a colleague, he "calmly" called the police, and after being dumped by a scumbag, he didn't cry so much that he wanted to jump off the building, which is a numb feeling of being beaten by life. But the change is already slowly happening within. From punching and running again and again, to taking the initiative to sign up for the competition. The owner of the boxing gym complained while eating ramen, don't think that boxing is something that can realize yourself, I have seen many people like you before.
Carry out the anti-chicken soup to the end.
#03
After losing 100 pounds, what else can Director Jia Ling come up with?
Jia Ling's first film "Hello, Li Huanying" received 5.414 billion yuan, and Jia Ling was also successfully promoted from a comedian to a high-grossing commercial film director.
This fantasy movie about family affection was born out of sketches and Jia Ling's own story, full of warmth, successfully earned enough tears, and became a phenomenal dark horse in the 2021 Spring Festival stalls that lack blockbusters. But "Hello, Li Huanying" has the factor of the right time, place and people. Jia Ling seems to be trying to replicate the success elements in it, such as women's topics, warm inspirational comedy, and investing herself as the largest IP in creation and marketing, which seems to be effective so far.
The Spring Festival stalls in 2024 seem to be very good for Jia Ling's "Little Year", different from last year's blockbuster scenes, this year's several Chinese New Year stalls focus on various types of small and beautiful, "Hot and Hot" is currently the most popular one, and whether the box office can finally surpass "Hello, Li Huanying" still needs to be verified.
Jia Ling is inspirational, but there is still a long way to go from a national comedian to a mature commercial film director.
After losing more than 100 pounds, what other big tricks can Jia Ling have? Whether the dark horse can become a thousand miles depends on the real strength, and the clumsy sincerity will eventually move towards mature creation.
Especially for commercial films, whether the audience buys it or not, what they ultimately see is the maturity of the work. Whether the director can continue to resonate ultimately depends on his deep insight into social emotions and his skillful grasp of the film's narrative.
Last year's Spring Festival let us see that genre films can also be made with more respect for IQ, rather than catering to patchwork to make quick money. "The Wandering Earth 2" kicked off the prelude to China's heavy industry science fiction films, respecting fans and the industry.
Genre films can also record the times, gain a good reputation, and win film awards.
"100 Yuan Love" and "Keiko, Gaze" represent the theme of the Japanese anti-routine movement, showing a new trend: no longer recording the "failure" of the successful, and beginning to focus on the "failure" of real losers and ordinary people, after a counterattack, they may still not win, life is still as usual, but some changes have finally occurred in their hearts.
"Dreams" and inspirational chicken soup can no longer inspire contemporary young people, the story of Diaosi's counterattack is too far away from them, those stories that bear the friction of life while trying to punch back a little bit, can move them a little, bring them healing and encouragement.
In "100 Yuan Love", the heroine said at the beginning of the game with her nephew: "There is nothing fair in life". At the end of the movie, the heroine asks her nephew if he is still being bullied after playing the game again to defeat him, and then lightly teaches him to practice boxing, "practice 500 times a day and then resist", but that's it.