The audience is now immune to the word "big scale", especially after watching "Removing the Three Evils Around the Week" in the first half of the year, the expectations for crime films have been raised, not only requiring a large scale, but also a lot of novelty. In contrast, the style of "Silent Killing" is still at the level of primitive violence, so it is not flattering.
Author | Dust
Edit | Horse back
Beginning in July, the summer season of the movie officially kicked off, and a battle began. The first to enter the battle was the crime film "Silent Killing", which broke the convention of being released on Friday and was released in full on Wednesday (July 3), just to seize the opportunity.
Whether the market can heat up or not, the beginning is very important, and "Silent Killing", which undertook this task, had a box office of over 100 million yuan in three days, and its performance was not bad. But the film's reputation is not good, and many viewers feel that it is tricky, messily piled up with criminal elements, only routines, and no innovation. Douban opened with a score of 6.9 points, and there is a downward trend.
"Silent Killing" Douban score
The director of the film, Ke Wenli, became famous 5 years ago with "Manslaughter", this remake of the crime suspense film won 1.333 billion yuan at the box office, Douban 7.5 points, better than 91% of suspense films, and set off the "Southeast Asia" creation model of domestic crime films.
With the same creator and the same style, many people have expectations for "Silent Killing", hoping that it can go further on the basis of "Manslaughter", but the actual feedback is not as good as before. The problem presented by "Silent Killing" is not isolated, and it is also common in domestic films, that is, it blindly pursues genre, while ignoring the expression of personality, resulting in serious routines.
No wonder some viewers say that this is a "short video movie", and what is even more terrifying is that now the popularity of short dramas has surpassed that of movies.
Routine stories
The main slogan of "Silent Killing" is: "It is recommended that underage audiences choose to watch carefully." But it also chose the summer file that is most convenient for minors to watch the movie, which contradicts itself, so the purpose of this sentence itself is still for marketing, emphasizing the scale of the film.
On the second day of the film's release, there was a Weibo topic #Silent Kill Cool Looked# briefly topped the top five on the hot search list, and viewers who didn't know what was going on may think that the film had a good texture, but then Douban opened its score, only 6.9 points.
From the perspective of story and plot, "Silent Killing" can be described as a hodgepodge of criminal elements, involving school bullying, domestic violence, child sexual assault, violent revenge, religious hypocrisy and many other content, giving people a sense of full plot. But the problem is that when there are too many elements, it is difficult to focus, and it is shallow at various points, with an empty skeleton and no flesh and blood.
The direct cause of the story is that the girl Xiaotong (played by Wang Shengdi) was bullied by her classmates, and the film intuitively recorded the vicious scene of glue sticking to her hair. School bullying is indeed a hot topic in recent years, and it also deserves widespread attention from the society, but when it is transformed into film and television works, except for "Young You" 5 years ago, other works are deeply trapped, and the same is true of "Silent Killing".
Wang Chuanjun's image in the film
Subsequently, several bullies were smashed to death by the men in black with hammers, which led to the suspense point of the story - who was the perpetrator? The film deliberately directs attention to Li Han (played by Zhang Junning) wearing the same raincoat, so that the audience thinks that she may be the murderer, but looking at her thin figure, and then thinking that the starring role of the film is Wang Chuanjun, it is not difficult to guess that the murderer must be Lin Zaifu (played by Wang Chuanjun).
Therefore, the suspense is quickly solved, and when Lin Jaefu's identity is revealed, the main line of the film turns to the conflict between Li Han and him - Li Han believes that he has kidnapped his daughter. One of the major characteristics of crime films is to provide an emotional outlet for the audience, and "Silent Killing" did have a cathartic effect by killing four bullies at the beginning, but then the plot became two low-level parents hurting each other, which weakened this coolness.
can be compared to "Manslaughter", its core villain is the inspector general, the protagonist has to use his own strategy to bring him down, the main line is clear, the goal is clear, and the audience's emotions are always in the atmosphere of the story. And "Silent Killing" failed to provide marginal people with resistance to power, and the appeal was weaker. The father of a bullying girl in the film is the principal, but the power collusion between him and the police is simply presented, and the interests behind it cannot be seen, and it is purely set up for the needs of the plot.
At the same time, the police detective played by Wu Zhenyu is not very involved in the story, there is not much room for play, and his image is thin. In order to solve this problem, the film forcibly sets him and the candid photographer as father and son, but it is self-defeating and too deliberate.
Zhang Junning plays her mother Li Han in the film
In the second half, the story gets even more caught up in a routine plot when trying to expose deeper evils. It turned out that Li Han's perverted performance was because she had suffered domestic violence before, but the shaping of her husband's image was very "face-like", only showing the violence itself, without seeing through the human evil behind the violence, and she was still a tool man.
Here, the film once again sets up a reversal, making the daughter the murderer of the man. And this kind of plot of juvenile murder and parents covering up the crime has been staged in too many films, and there is nothing new about it, and it is not difficult to guess. Therefore, "Silent Killing" seems to be a big game of chess, but many places make people feel familiar, and it is not a novel story.
On the whole, the suspense of "Silent Killing" is not strong, and those fierce and straightforward violent scenes are more like covering up the paleness of the plot, which cannot bring a refreshing sense of intellectuality.
The formation of the "Southeast Asian criminal universe".
The creative path of "Silent Killing" director Ke Wenli and the commercial temperament of the film are all related to Chen Sicheng.
A Malaysian from Fujian, Ko Boon Lee moved to Taiwan at the age of 21 to study communication and advertising, during which time he shot the short film "Free Man", which was nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Short Film. It happened that Chen Sicheng went to Taiwan to look for a young director for the online drama "Detective Chinatown", and found that Ke Wenli had the potential to shoot commercial genre films, so he started to cooperate.
In 2019, "Manslaughter" directed by Ke Wenli was released, with Chen Sicheng as the producer. After the commercial success of "Manslaughter", Chen Sicheng operated it as a suspense IP, and then launched "Manslaughter 2", but it was replaced by another young director, Dai Mo, to direct. Although the film's reputation is not as good as the first one, it still won 1.121 billion yuan at the box office. In the summer of 2023, newcomer directors Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, who were also discovered by Chen Sicheng, co-directed "Disappearing Her" with a box office of 3.5 billion yuan.
"Manslaughter" directed by Ke Wenli was well received
It can be seen that the group of young directors discovered by Chen Sicheng constitute a youth army for the creation of domestic crime films, which are completely created in accordance with the genre model. This type of film has some common characteristics, such as adopting a remake model, buying the copyright of a suspense film with a good reputation abroad, and then integrating and grafting it with localized topics. The narrative focuses on gamification and creates a sense of intellectual refreshment, and the revenge trap in "Gone Her" is exactly the same as the layout of the protagonist in "Manslaughter".
At the same time, this kind of film mostly sets the story scene in Southeast Asia, in order to increase the narrative space and scale, and the audience jokingly calls it "Southeast Asian crime universe". But there may be surprises in the first few films, and filming too much also produces aesthetic fatigue, which is almost an assembly line work. This time, some netizens commented under "Silent Killing": "What do you have to do to let Southeast Asia go?" ”
In this team, Ke Wenli is a director with his own creative style. In fact, before meeting Chen Sicheng in 2018, he filmed the Taiwanese version of "Silent Killing", which was his feature film debut in the true sense. After that, because he directed "Manslaughter" and the online drama "Detective Chinatown", he did not do the later stage of "Silent Killing" until the end of 2022. In June 2023, the Taiwanese version of "Silent Killing" will be screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival, with a score of 7.9 on Douban, with a good reputation, even surpassing "Manslaughter".
Taiwanese version of "默杀"
Unfortunately, a few days later, the lead actor Huang Jianwei was caught in a "sexual assault" scandal, which caused the film to be unable to be released. After that, Ke Wenli filmed a new lineup of "Silent Killing", which can be said to be "his own remake of himself". The reason why Wang Chuanjun was invited to star is likely to be because his performance in "All or Nothing" has been widely recognized by the audience, and he has successfully transformed and is at the peak of his career. The role of Li Han is played by Ke Wenli's girlfriend Zhang Junning, and there are many scenes.
Those who have watched the previous version, and then look at the new version, will still find some differences, and feel that the strength is a little weakened. For example, Xiao Tong in the original "Silent Killing" has a more complex and mysterious temperament, and her sense of guilt conflicts greatly with the identity of the little girl. The original version is also more direct in its presentation of religious content, and the criticism of the master's hypocrisy is more harsh, while the new version has a certain degree of restraint. The overhead story background also makes the characters' behaviors less grounded.
Besides, the audience is now immune to the word "big scale", especially after watching "Removing the Three Evils Around the Week" in the first half of the year, the expectations for crime films have been raised, not only requiring a large scale, but also requiring great novelty. In contrast, the style of "Silent Killing" is still at the level of primitive violence, so it is not flattering.
If the film doesn't meet expectations at the box office, will it change the creative boom of the "Southeast Asian crime universe"? And where is the exit for the next crime film? These are all phenomena worth observing.
Skits are going to surpass movies?
A few days ago, the total box office of the film in the first half of 2024 was announced, which was 23.902 billion yuan. Compared with 26.23 billion yuan in the first half of 2023, there has been a significant decline. Many viewers also feel that there will be no high-popularity films after the Spring Festival this year. Therefore, if you want this year's box office performance to be comparable to last year's, or even improve, the performance of the summer file is very important.
Due to the fact that the highly anticipated "Fengshen 2" could not be released in the summer, the film list was slightly weak, and there was a lack of blockbuster films, and the competition between several confirmed films became fierce, which was important for the choice of specific dates. "Silent Killing" was only announced on June 21, and it was originally scheduled to be released on July 4, but it was later advanced by one day, just to seize time and earn one more day.
At present, the theater schedule in early July is basically the world of "Silent Killing", and there are almost no rivals, so "Wild Child" starring Wang Junkai chose to withdraw. According to Beacon data, the predicted box office of "Silent Killing" is 600 million-1.1 billion yuan, which is weaker than the performance of "Manslaughter" 5 years ago.
The creator of "Silent Kill" at the premiere event
Its biggest problem is that it relies too much on genre narrative routines, stacking many elements together, only pursuing superficial "more", and forgetting that a good story needs room to breathe. In this case, it is also difficult for the actor to exert the charm of the performance, and can only serve the character design, and the words and deeds are inevitably exaggerated. For example, Wang Chuanjun's performance in the film lacks a sense of layering.
At the same time, "Silent Killing", like many domestic films, deliberately adds comedy elements to create dispensable laughs. The film invited sketch actor Cai Ming to play Xu's mother, and her image and performance mode were in two tracks with other actors, causing the plot to lose focus. But ironically, Cai Ming is a very good presence in the film, because her sense of comedy alleviates the heaviness of violence.
It can be said that there are common problems in domestic films in recent years - too many elements, too much force, and too much sensationalism. Take the currently released "There is a Commissary by the Clouds" as an example, at the end, the bitter scenes of the lover's injury, the death of a loved one, and the departure of the lover are continuously set up, pushing the emotions to the extreme, but the plot is not reasonably foreshadowed, and there are tears. The film only has a score of 5.1 on Douban.
Corresponding to the weak performance of the movie box office is the high popularity of the short drama market. In 2023, the size of China's micro-short drama market has reached 37.39 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan in 2024. If the movie does not take off in the second half of the year, the market size of the short drama may exceed that of the movie, which is an embarrassing thing.
Stills from "Silent Killing".
Nearly 130 years after its birth, cinema has always been regarded as the best form of media that combines commerce and culture, and those classic films that have left a name in film history have not only created economic benefits, but also are valuable spiritual assets of mankind. Although short dramas have a wide audience, they are considered to be a fast-decaying product that lacks spiritual value, and it is not a good thing for social development to surpass movies.
Faced with this situation, filmmakers need to reflect on their creative ideas. If the movie is also like a short drama, with a lot of lively and curious elements, why don't the audience just watch the short drama? Therefore, the most important thing in film creation is to return to its own characteristics and seize its own differentiated advantages - visual image texture, complete and logical story, and performance that can stand up to scrutiny.
There are still many people who like movies, but movies should provide the audience with motivation to enter the theater, less routines, and more sincerity, which is more useful than marketing.