【Text/Observer Network Columnist Listening to Yuzi】
"Win the Championship", which has attracted much attention, has been postponed from the Spring Festival to the end of September due to the impact of the epidemic, and finally met with the audience.
From the highlight of the New Year file to the prelude to the National Day file, the positioning difference here is inevitably worrying. After all, the so-called schedule has always pointed to the specific viewing appeal of a specific season, the former focuses on family fun, the latter focuses on gifts, and the movie that rushes to the former suddenly runs to the latter, can it smoothly dock expectations?
Fortunately, "Win the Championship" has its own particularities: the field of light, the dominance of the world, and the rise of the five-star red flag, such a theme, but with the sense of national pride required before the "Eleventh".
Passive adjustment has become a return to the value standard.
It is worth noting that last year's National Day had "Captain China" and "The Climber", this year is "Win the Championship", the quality of the film is not the first, at least the theme points to a specific occupation or sports project, the above mentioned "gift" this thing, has been unconsciously, from the great leader of the revolutionary epic of meritorious service, expanded to every field, created by ordinary people of the glorious achievements.
As long as you do a good job, everyone is qualified to become the "main theme" of this country, which is of course a gratifying spirit of the times that should be popularized by movies to the whole society.
The blind spot of genres that needs to be broken through urgently: the comparison between China and foreign countries in sports themes
From the perspective of genre division, "Win the Championship" is of course a "sports theme" - intriguingly, this has always been a relatively barren area for domestic films: the image of Chinese sports on the screen is very thin, which is seriously incompatible with the strong position of competing for gold and silver in international competitions.
Xie Jin's "Women's Basketball No. 5" has had a lot of social impact, but it belongs to a past era and a past literary and artistic attitude: a mother and daughter experienced completely different career situations before and after liberation, the narrative mode is scattered in various works in the "seventeen years" period, sports is only a background board to show the gap between the old and new society, replace it with industry, medical care, literature and art, etc., the story can be smooth.
After this, "Sand Gull", "Diving Sisters", and then "Women's Football No. 9", "Kyoto Ball Man", "Female Handsome Male Soldier", in recent years, "I Am Marbury" and Han Han's "Flying Life", sports movies are fragmented, sometimes and non-existent, counting over and over again, there are about ten, the total amount is small, the attention is low, there is no classic and no hit, it is an indisputable fact.
Only before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, out of response, sports themes had a small Yangchun-style pile, but from the quality point of view: "The Big Slam Dunk" has become a recognized bad film, and the cartoon two-dimensional style has little promotion significance; "One Man's Olympics" tells the humiliating years of the past, and the attributes are closer to the biographies of historical figures; "2008" has a good reputation, but it is not so much a sports theme as a children's theme and a rural education theme.
The only few that have brought some new flavor to the work: "Roll Over! Ah Xin, Breaking the Wind, and Guild Wars are all from Hong Kong or Taiwan.
Animated image of the movie "Roll Over Bar Ashin"
Some people have counted that in the entire history of Chinese films, sports works have hardly won any mainstream awards, and they have hardly ranked among the top box office rankings in any year.
In contrast, sports films have maintained a firm spot at the Oscars since Stallone's "Rocky" won the Little Golden Man in 1977, with "Angry Bull", "Million Dollar Baby" and "Weakness" winning multiple titles including Best Picture.
Behind this, it is natural that Hollywood's extremely powerful production mechanism and creative ability can always combine the advanced film industry in the United States with the deep-rooted sports foundation, and brew up ups and downs of the plot, the performance and the sophisticated visual effects, and the unique passion and perseverance of the movement itself.
Even among China's neighbors, Japan and South Korea have no shortage of masterpieces such as "Crying Fist", "Marathon", "Rookie Story", "Baseball Partner" and so on (this is just a movie, and it has not yet counted the "Slam Dunk Master", "Football Boy" and "Volleyball Girl", which constitute the growing memories of generations); the Russian box office champion "Kill Munich" landed in mainland theaters last year, and the audience was thrilled; as for India's "Wrestling"! Daddy", that's even more of a phenomenon-level god film.
The Indian movie WrestleMania! Daddy" GIF
Treat yourself as a person, and be honest and ashamed.
How did this happen?
Many people have done analysis, but in my opinion, the reasons that have been analyzed are more and more proof of our lack of correct understanding of sports movies.
For example, some commentators say that the crux of China's sports theme is that "sports people don't understand movies, and filmmakers don't understand sports", which is almost a nonsense. Interlaced, sports and film are two groups of practitioners, and this is true for the whole world. Nor did I see which American director was an athlete, or which European Olympic champion abandoned Wu Congwen and won the Berlin Cannes Venice.
For example, there are also comments that Chinese sports movies are excessively sensational, either as tear gas or as inspirational chicken soup, this time "Win the Championship" was released, and such criticism was once again rampant. To be fair, it's a bit of a stereotype and a sin of desire. Domestic films do often go into the misunderstanding of preaching and spilling dog blood, but to say that the world is not afraid of "full of emotions", or sports themes, after all, sports natural and adrenaline, and dopamine, and "upper head", and "two souls in the blood" related, trust, friendship, courage, ideals, tenacity, inspiration, emotion, these looking old-fashioned keywords, has always been this type of benchmark appeal and ontological characteristics.
So I think the real problem is the vision, and the pattern.
First, it is not difficult for you to find that the above-mentioned domestic films are mostly fragmented stories, which occur in ancient times, or in schools, or in rural areas, or on the fringes of society, and they are more like "sports-related movies" than "sports movies" in the real sense.
In reality, on the various international highest competitive stages of the Olympic And Asian Games, the World Championships and the World Cup, so many competitions that are talked about by sports fans, so many familiar star athletes, so many blood-boiling glory moments, filmmakers have never had the courage to touch it head-on.
Successful sports themes, in addition to "a person in a game to find themselves" and "the final moment of victory and defeat is always undecided tension" these standards, often attached to a more ambitious thing, in addition to the opponent and the championship, it often has to overcome something else, or to build something else:
"The Glorious Road" and "Success in Man" are racial equality, "WrestleMania! "Daddy" is gender equality, "Penalty Balls into Gold" is mathematics and wisdom, "Iron Fist Man" is life and responsibility, "Marathon" is out of autism, and "One Goal fame" is coexisting with temptation and human weakness.
The first point is "to return to the classic sports that have the most realistic soil, the most social recognition, and the most people."
The second point is "from sports to those that can be built on sports, and that originate from sports and are higher than sports."
Whoever can do these two things may be able to rewrite the fate of Chinese sports films.
When the women's volleyball team meets Chen Kexin: the screen reconstruction of group memory
Chen Kexin has always been a particularly intelligent and keen director, so that it is difficult for you to define his main style, "I am a businessman" is his master's own way, the core message is: what the audience needs the most and what is most lacking in the market, then I will shoot what.
Especially after he went north to the mainland, from "Chinese Partner" and "Dear" to "July and Ansheng", everything was the case.
Therefore, he will definitely capture the environment in which patriotic feelings have continued to ferment in the past two years, and then find a suitable release port for this environment.
Interestingly, when calling for the breakthrough of local sports films, many experts and film critics have mentioned the Chinese women's volleyball team: the only team project and big ball project that has dominated the world, the horn of the times, the hero of the towel, and the doping of the whole nation.
Who better deserves to shoot sports?
As a result, Chen Kexin met the Chinese women's volleyball team, which was expected.
"The most realistic soil, the most socially recognized, the most impressive classic sports", this proposition was suddenly solved by this encounter.
In fact, he did take on the responsibility of filling in the genre gap and making something that must be in a "sports movie" (rather than just a "sports movie" with something to do with sports):
A person and a group of people, spiritual beliefs in a sport, a profession, support and evoke each other, idealism with flying personalities, witnessing history, a positive and tenacious attitude to life...
Parallel editing is flowing in a row, and the intertext between several lines is neat. The start and turn of the race inside. A close-up of a large number of muscles, scars, beads of sweat, and tears. Timely silence, timely live sound. Appropriate detail props and detailed lines, in the reproduction of specific occasions to lay the emotional point, such as many years later, again in front of the TV set to wear the sweater that one person knitted a few stitches, such as the reunion at the funeral of his teammates, Yuan Weimin is still cut through the iron "don't fall behind, keep up"
But this is not enough, after the type of essential elements are compacted, there must also be promotion elements, and after the completion of the action, there must also be extra points.
This leads to the previous statement: "from sports to those values that can be built on sports, which originate from sports and are higher than sports."
What is that bigger thing? While talking about the Chinese women's volleyball team (behind), what else can the movie say?
From qualified to excellent, it depends on this step.
The more grandiose thing in "Win the Championship" is called "The Thirty Years That China and Chinese Have Gone Through", while talking about the Chinese women's volleyball team (behind), the film is still salvaging and reviewing the group memory.
In this sense, "Win the Championship" has a kind of era of graphic and literary meaning, which takes the Chinese women's volleyball team as a clue and helps us remember a lot: those simple, sincere, pure, heartfelt touches and excitement.
When I watched "Win the Championship," there were a number of old aunts sitting behind me, and they were sobbing all the time. Presumably, they all came to the same memory symbol, unsealed youth.
Using some real characters to expand many, many real eras in his half-life ups and downs, this is something that Chen Kexin has done well in "Chinese Partner".
While these years of reflection on the gold medal theory have also provided many rational and valuable voices, it must be acknowledged and understood that for a country that has been branded with the notoriety of the sick man of East Asia, the historical legitimacy of this group sentiment should not be ridiculed for the desire (and even obsession) of national dignity by the triumph of competitive sports.
Therefore, "patriotic sentiment ignited by sports" has become the unchangeable background of this film.
But in the unchanged background color, there are still gradients, after all, this background color has crossed the historical time zone for too long:
The hunger for honor that had just returned to the international arena in the 1980s was the ultimate hardship and hard work, the anxiety of not knowing where the opponent had come, and could only gamble with his life on an innings with unknown chips.
The King's Landing style of Athens, and the failure and trough of 2008, which is the adjustment and resurgence that are destined to come after getting everything, and even the self-doubt and dissipation of "what age, sports are just a game".
Behind the return of the king of Rio, there is a more direct and more multi-dimensional and more extroverted emotion, the concept of "rest, go to love" concept innovation, is a fresh nutrition, management, training, funding use model, is full of personality of many people: Zhu Ting's family situation, Hui Ruoqi's personality, Zeng Chunlei's grievances, Zhang Changning's habits, Chen Lu's choice.
They are not presented in the same form. They are wrapped in three different group emotions. We've all gone through these three stages in our own way, and we've all been involved in these different group emotions.
Stills of "Win the Championship" (Photo/Douban)
It is worth noting that the symbols it uses, or the discourse system, are abstract and even old-school expressions of "winning glory for the country", but under this symbol, it is the people who are real and still retain the inner enthusiasm of youth, at least the memories of youth, who rejoice and boil under this symbol.
It is necessary to repeat the parts related to the Chinese women's volleyball team in these real human life experiences, and the parts of these youth enthusiasm and youth memories that are stimulated by the guidance of the Chinese women's volleyball team. Then it will have both the sacredness of the present and the nostalgia of the past.
It can be said that it provides a staged situation for many rare and urgently needed qualities in real life, posing a serious indoctrination and appearing to be overly preachy, making them very natural and moving, and re-evaluating their value and respect.
Bravery, hot blood, strength, cooperation, trust, and even stubbornness and a little bit of domineering are separated by the utilitarian factor of everydayness. Sport gives them a reason to return, and the return is so natural and natural.
So many people say that sports is a peacetime war. Because it has an epic flavor.
It's also rare that in the movie, these emotions are not aggressive. The only nationalist anger was fleeting, and it was directed at the ultimate hero, Lang Ping.
It is not to defeat anyone, to crush anyone, still less to humiliate anything or to seek justice from anything, it is only to transcend and realize itself, just to present a kind of strength and style. This is, without a doubt, more in line with a healthy and positive sportsmanship.
Everyone knows where the suspense comes from when they win: narrating the dilemma and the breakout strategy
It's time to explore the narrative difficulty of Win the Championship.
Many people take it for granted that the gold medal IP of the Chinese women's volleyball team, five consecutive championships, long troughs, rise again, change coaches, reversals, climbing to the top, so many ready-made dramas, so many ready-made emotional bursts, are ready for you, "I can shoot well if I change."
As everyone knows, these elements are all double-edged swords.
The concerns and objections caused by "revising history for the contemporary era" from real people have directly led to the previous name change storm, which is a matter of opinion and opinion, and the positions of all parties are different, so let's not mention it here.
An obvious problem is that the group portrait scene is not conducive to focusing, and may break up the plot momentum that lacks cohesion.
Fortunately, there is Lang Ping, and Chen Zhonghe (respecting the objections of the parties, his specific name is never confirmed in the film, although everyone knows it).
With Lang Ping in tandem, this choice does not need to be evaluated as appropriate, because there is no more suitable choice: from the player to the coach, from leaving to returning, having been the main backbone as a savior and even as an opponent, even the encounter is highly synchronized with the Chinese women's volleyball team, the long-term no ball before the first outbreak, and the blame before the second counterattack is suspected. I can't think of anyone more suitable to continue the three eras in one.
The real Lang Ping and the Lang Ping played by Gong Li
Chen Zhonghe gradually infiltrated from an initial outsider's point of view to the inner point of view, and then extracted into a "more responsible bystander than the inner person", interpreting why the champion can become a champion from various angles, providing another story rhythm and charm.
Three games, two people, they are also friends and friends, and even "enemies". They were all marginal at first, and then they all created brilliance. They know each other when they fight with wisdom, and the tactics are highly synchronized. He was the first or even only supporter of her reforms. He voluntarily withdrew from the campaign and pushed her to the throne. He helped her team members find their original intentions.
When director Chen Kexin was asked about his most touching bridge in the film, the answer he gave was that after Lang Ping led the young Chinese women's volleyball team to win the Olympic championship, he called Chen Zhonghe and asked him to listen to the national anthem.
At this moment, they achieved unity. These two people are the metronomes of the story of "Win the Championship".
Another problem is even more troubling: the film begins with "no suspense."
The peaks and valleys of the Chinese women's volleyball team along the way have long been cherished by viewers. In the era when style is not separated from family, Lang Ping and a cadre of team members are all high-exposure public figures, and their experiences and even personalities and emotions are familiar to everyone.
Before the story is told, "everyone understands how everyone in the story is, and everyone understands what happens at the end of the story." Even the specific starting and closing combinations have been announced in advance, anyway, the finals of that tournament have been chased live.
So what else are we looking at?
There are two answers: we have been excited, we want to wait and see if we can remember the once excited self in the movie, or even, can we be excited again in the movie; we know they won, we want to dig carefully, how they won.
For the former, the audience does not want a result this time, but this result evokes a certain high-light emotional experience, a certain touch and glory, just as it once evoked during the live broadcast of the event. Even, with the bonus of literary rendering, this evoke should be more memorable and touching.
There's a kind of suspense that's what (a lot of commercial films), there's a kind of suspense that's what's (a lot of author movies), there's a suspense that's how (TV series), and the suspense here is probably when: When will I be able to relive the cheers.
"Result delay" becomes "satisfaction delay": leaping, smashing, blocking nets, anti-hanging, making slow motion and upgrading shots again and again, inserting flashbacks again and again, using the backwardness on each scoreboard to accumulate momentum, the match point is always actively muted a dead silence, and after cheering, the national anthem will be played throughout the whole process.
Cheesy, but useful.
For the latter, this time watching the game on the big screen, what you see is not how to fall and get up and reverse between winning and losing (these have all been seen at the beginning), but how to layout and how to do strategy, how to know oneself, how to mobilize oneself, how to form a condensation, to see the fighting wisdom, the fighting heart, and even the fighting aura.
This also helped Chen Kexin to insist on his authorship to a certain extent in addition to commerciality. Of course, the negative impact is that for the audience who completely rushed into the theater with "cool", this film still has some "text".
A large section before each game will be more tepid, the tension of the process will be slightly less intense (if compared to the text of "Breaking Bad Munich"), the ups and downs are not particularly obvious, and even the big climax is not the top champion.
But if the self-expectation management is built into: looking at the background, is the development, is the persistence, is the growth, then it still provides a more inhibitible thickness.
Of course, this film is definitely not perfect, and many plots and many characters give people a regret that "digging deeper could have been better". But I still don't want to deny its moving in many scenes.
A team of decades of ups and downs, countless collective memories, generations of fancy years, history has given the best story blueprint, sports themes have been made up for the expansion of the territory, there are enough of these.
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