Just when there was a lack of a hit in the second half of the summer file, Xu Zheng came.
For the development of the Chinese film box office in the past ten years, the name Xu Zheng cannot be bypassed, because he has become the founder of the dark horse of the Chinese film box office twice.
2012's "Thai Embarrassment" became the first domestic film in history to break through the box office of 1 billion, and the domestic comedy box office has grown by leaps and bounds.
2018's "I Am Not the God of Medicine" won 3.1 billion box office, and the adaptation of realistic themes and real events has since become a market dividend.
After hibernation for a long time, Xu Zheng finally came back with a new film-
"Retrograde Life", which was screened yesterday.
This is a realistic comedy, and it is also a film genre that is rarely seen in domestic films today.
For the summer film market, which has always been out of breath, it is like a life-saving straw in a hurry.
So far, except for "Catching the Doll" box office exceeding 2.6 billion, and "Silent Killing" winning 1.289 billion, the box office of many other blockbusters has not met market expectations.
Compared with last year's "Disappearing Her", "Fengshen Part 1", "In the Octagon Cage" and "All or Nothing" relay detonated the summer file, this year's summer file needs new surprises too much.
Xu Zheng, who is good at creating box office miracles, is it good this time?
At least after the opening of "Retrograde Life", the popularity and reputation are really good.
Attendance, number one.
In the first wave of comments from netizens after the screening, they were full of praise for the film:
"A good film doesn't necessarily solve a problem, it can also ask a problem. Retrograde Life is such a movie. ”
"Xu Zheng's eyes can see ordinary people."
"I'm only going to have a better attitude towards delivery people in the future."
rushed to watch the film for the first time, and the biggest feeling about this movie was: realistic comedy, finally breaking the game.
Combined with the audience's word-of-mouth evaluation, I want to expand it in depth in four words, and talk about this very unusual "retrograde" movie.
The first word: joy
The reaction of the audience at the scene can't deceive people, I believe that friends who have watched the movie "Retrograde Life" will have such an idea:
I didn't expect this movie to be so joyful.
After all, the movie focuses on the group of "delivery people" who are closest to our lives.
A "retrograde", you can see that the movie shows the ups and downs of the lives of the people at the bottom through the depiction of several characters with different fates.
Such a hard career will always touch some tears, in fact, there are not many heart-wrenching plots in the movie, such as the part where the male protagonist who had a stroke wanted to write a suicide note for the whole family to "reduce the burden", which was so heavy that it was suffocating.
But Xu Zheng is still the familiar Xu Zheng, since "I Am Not the God of Medicine", he has been good at telling a powerful realistic story in a humorous way, the tone is bitter, and the laughter is real.
The so-called realistic comedy, no matter how realistic it is, must first be funny.
And the biggest feeling after watching the movie is that Xu Zheng really knows how to make movies, he is like an ace chef, laughing and crying, they are all ingredients in his hands, and he can always achieve a perfect match.
As soon as the movie opened, Xu Zheng himself played the middle-level Gao Zhilei of the big factory and began his "god operation". Because he was judged to be laid off by the program he did, he went crazy and smashed the field on the spot, and he was put out after the evil spirit.
In this way, he "took off Kong Yiji's robe and became a camel Xiangzi who pulled the cart."
But Shoko the camel pulling the cart is not so easy to do.
For example, I climbed upstairs and knocked on the door only to find that the meal to be delivered was forgotten in the car.
One didn't pay attention to running a red light and stopped on the road.
The takeout person didn't answer the phone, so he had to stand downstairs and shout.
Of course, the funniest and most relieving thing is that the last volume king who replaced him was also laid off to deliver takeaways, and when he gave coffee and praised it, I was really laughing.
These hilarious details must come from the experience of a real delivery person, and the audience will smile and resonate with reality.
But the movie is not Gao Zhilei's one-man show, everyone in his takeaway team is a "talent"!
Feng Bing's King of Volumes, Dahei, delivers food at a gallop, with his speeding movements, chic figure, and thrilling encounters, he just shoots the food delivery passage out of the hurricane feeling of "Flying Life".
can be a casual line, and it is very humorous in black -
Wang Xiao played Lao Li, in the face of the customer's nameless fire, the sudden sentence "kill you with a fist" made people laugh again.
Jia Bing's stationmaster Zhu has rich professional experience, he was the captain of the security team, in the past, "no matter what delivery person"-
Nowadays, "no matter what kind of security" -
In the face of Xu Zheng's complaints, "Customer complaints are not all my problems", a Northeast dialect replied, laughing fruitfully.
In addition to the funny plot, the lines can also be said to be the icing on the cake.
For example, in the scene where Xu Zheng was laid off, "You said it yourself, you have to respect the algorithm". The sarcastic laugh immediately reached the top.
The sentence "ginseng can still be chewed" is laughing with an aftertaste.
Realistic comedy is the most difficult comedy to make, too exaggerated and unrealistic, but too realistic, and the audience is likely to not be able to laugh again.
"Retrograde Life" is just right, the laughter comes from the hard reality, and the comedy in turn wraps the hard reality.
The second word: reality
Under the cloak of joyful comedy, "Retrograde Life" can resonate with the audience because of its "sense of reality".
The biggest concern of the audience of "Retrograde Life" is the suffering of consumption, and the second is the praise of suffering.
But Xu Zheng doesn't, there is no inspirational beating in the whole film, only facing the reality of life, and there is no praise of suffering, only real people who live hard under the cruel background.
Realist comedy, whether it is the reality part or the comedy bridge, the origin of everything must return to life itself.
The movie unfolds from the life of the male protagonist's family, and the plight of middle-aged unemployment is also expressed through the male protagonist's family.
At the beginning, Gao Zhilei, a 45-year-old programmer in a large factory, was old and young, with a mortgage of 15,000 a month, his wife resigned to become a housewife, and his children went to an international school of 200,000 yuan a year.
The legendary middle-class three-piece set is no short of the same.
Until the male protagonist "fell" overnight, his past life was instantly derailed.
Xu Zheng, as the smartest filmmaker, must have thought that the audience might question: 45-year-old middle-level programmer in a big factory, his annual salary was not low in the past, and the compensation for layoffs was 300,000, did he have no savings at home? Why was he forced to deliver takeaways? Is it realistic?
But the movie itself is adapted from a real case, in the movie, Gao Zhilei went from being laid off to delivering takeaways, and there were two months in between, which was a process in which a middle-aged person was gradually overwhelmed by reality.
Cast out more than 1,000 resumes, and sink into the sea.
Investment and financial management thunderstorm, deposits cleared.
My father suffered a stroke and was admitted to the ICU, and he was also trapped in a mortgage, and the bank's collection calls kept coming.
This is the dilemma of middle-aged people: children go to school, parents are sick, they all need money, what if they don't have money?
The most realistic is food delivery.
We have heard these stories more or less from somewhere, and the story of "Retrograde Life" is very current, and it is a reality that each of us is in.
And around the character of Gao Zhilei, the story soon brings another reality: the reality of the delivery man.
It can be seen that the screenwriter has really worked hard to understand the work of the delivery man-
For example, the delivery staff "You're going to time out" and "It's about to time out" is a delivery system like a life charm.
Some customers fill in the wrong address, run two places alone, increase the workload out of thin air, and the pot has to be carried by the delivery man himself.
In the film, there are also delivery people who can't find a place to be complained about by individual viewers about unreality, in fact, this is the most realistic, the corners are in a bad place, not to mention that the riders can't find it, and the residents themselves sometimes get lost.
There are also two batteries for takeaway, try not to send details such as takeaway from schools or bars, and directly give novice training to takeaways.
Of course, the most unique plot is that the male protagonist has low blood sugar, collapses on the side of the road, and struggles to pick up his mobile phone to complete the laughing punch in the delivery person system, and what's worse is that he can't review it all the time against the screen.
If the daily work skills and doorways that only the delivery workers in the film can make the audience really enter the world of the delivery workers, then these presentations of the real and bitter history of the delivery workers should make more people empathize.
For example, Lao Hei's "roll" performance was ridiculed by his peers, and he fell into stomach problems just to make up for the hole of more than 40,000 surgical loans.
The compensation after Lao Li was hit by a car was enough to make up for the surgery fee of his leukemia daughter.
As for the male protagonist, although the final counterattack was a bit dreamy, even if he became a single king and developed a small program and was appreciated by the high-level, he finally returned to reality and sold the house.
This is also the reason why the audience is easy to empathize with and feel real after watching it.
There is a kind of embarrassment and embarrassment of "my life is being spied and spoiled" throughout the movie.
But the knife cuts to the bone and makes people hurt, which is the reality.
The third word: surprise
One of the big surprises of the film is the audiovisual language.
In particular, the hand-held photography and high-speed editing of some passages allow the delivery man to walk through the urban forest, which not only has a strong sense of familiarity, but also looks like an athlete racing against time on the field.
Coupled with the strong rhythm of the music, it instantly shoots a kind of life background that runs desperately for life.
But the biggest surprise of the film is that it still shoots a group of people with a vivid and real background.
Especially a group of strangers we know best, delivery people.
Xu Zheng said that the requirements for actors' performances are to show more optimism and strength.
"I don't want to be bitter and hateful, to play such a character."
And the most critical character in the film is Gao Zhilei played by Xu Zheng.
The key to the success or failure of this movie lies in whether the audience can substitute for the predicament of the male protagonist and then substitute for his transformation. From this point of view, Xu Zheng's performance was of course successful.
For example, what he said to his family after losing his job was both wretched and terrifyingly true, which was simply suffocating.
Later, he was ridiculed by the interviewer (played by Ma Dong) for coming to the interview at the age of 50, he stood up and turned around and left.
But in the face of the takeaway station manager (played by Jia Bing) refusing him to join, the sentence "I can't find a job, I need money" is extremely humble.
Not long after the male protagonist delivered takeaways, he received an order from a former company colleague, and the embarrassment of being at a loss was really funny and sad.
Xu Zheng's performance is really good, many of the characters' micro-expressions, actions and lines are in place, and there is a black humor of a small citizen.
The best scene is when the delivery of food is hit by a car and gets up covered in blood to continue to deliver, which completely shows the obsession of the characters who are almost crazy and the pressure of life.
This is, of course, an actor-level performance.
There is also Wang Xiao, who plays the role of Lao Xuan, who is picking and searching, which is not like acting.
In the movie, he has always been sloppy, his hair is always messy, his face is wrinkled, and he eats wolf.
But this is all to fit the role, the daughter is sick and lacks money, and the state of the old man who is struggling to survive should be like this.
And a smiling face of the character completes the sublimation of the character.
Feng Bing's performance was also outstanding.
Acting as a colleague who is disabled and unable to go to college due to the transfer of orders, and the old black who is the "single king" every month, is silent every day, and occasionally pokes your laughter with cold humor.
Although there are few lines, the emotions of the characters in the performance are all displayed.
and Xu Zheng's wife played by Xin Zhilei, after hearing about the family changes, she is so calm and firm, her care for her husband is not pretentious, and she is understanding, and every sentence is very in line with the state of the character.
Ding Yongdai and Ding Jiali played the male protagonist's parents, there is nothing to say about their acting skills, especially Ding Yongdai's stubborn father who had a stroke makes people's hearts twitch, and the final change is so natural.
and Jia Bing, the sentence "Although you have taken off Kong Yiji's robe, you have not yet become a camel Xiangzi", which is funny and sad. If the comedy can be played well, they are all powerful.
Finally, I would like to mention Wu Jiakai, the role of the takeaway brother, but he plays much better than Zhang Lingyu.
The fourth word: moved
Finally, let's talk about the film itself.
"Retrograde Life" is certainly not a simple comedy movie, but a movie rooted in reality and reflects the current reality of retrograde life.
The best thing Xu Zheng did was to capture the plight faced by middle-aged laid-off programmers and delivery workers, but he did not overly dramatize and sensationalize, nor did he forcibly make the protagonist change his life against the sky.
The male protagonist became the "single king", and almost died under the wheel of a big truck, in exchange for not a counterattack in life, the whole family still moved out of the original house.
But this is life, just get used to it.
You can say that Xu Zheng is still very good, and he has filmed and reproduced all the popular short videos that once touched the audience on this theme, but you can't help but admit that Xu Zheng really told a good story.
It's like a mirror, reflected in reality, and also in everyone's heart.
The movie always focuses on the individuals in the tide of the times, especially those corners that are easily overlooked, and can also give respect and respect to every little person, which is sincere enough.
In the end, what touched the audience was also the fate of the little people wrapped in comedy.
Especially the group portraits of the riders in the film, it will make people feel that all the hard work and struggle are worth it after all.
Even if you fall to the ground with low blood sugar, listen to the customer's question on the other end of the phone, "why hasn't it been delivered", and then face the system's smile check, revealing what is probably the most bitter smile in the world.
But that's life itself.
When the lives of ordinary people are seriously filmed, every character and every plot is moving.
Because we are all ordinary people.
In the end, the movie did not preach, did not pour chicken soup, did not reverse the cool text, but told the story of a middle-aged unemployed person who became a takeaway king with a smile, so that the audience could feel their own shadow, and it was very funny.
For a realistic comedy, it's enough.
In the end, the male protagonist found relaxation and healing from his daily relationship with the delivery man, and "Retrograde Life" also found a soothing outlet for the audience.
Life is inevitably retrograde, and there is no shame in failure and unemployment, because living is a very great thing.
Everyone who works hard is a hero, and the more difficult the time, the more you can't give up the courage to go retrograde.
Under the comic shell of the movie is the director's observation of reality. In the end, I hope that everyone can find their own retrograde life like the male protagonist in the movie, instead of being swept away by the countercurrent and silently disappearing in the torrent of this era.
Finally, I also hope that when you finish watching the movie, you can understand the delivery man better, be less harsh, and say more thank you.
As for our own retrograde life, "ginseng can still be chewed." ”