At the beginning of 2021, the Chinese film market was on the verge of collapse.
Although the teeth have been gritted through the most difficult period of the epidemic, the market market of 40 million yuan or so in a single day after the New Year's Day file still makes the industry anxious. Without the stimulation of good films, audiences gradually lose their desire to watch movies, and theaters have become unnecessary entertainment venues.
Just when experts and filmmakers were confused, a comedy turned out to be the first day of release, and it topped the box office list of the day, and then won 14 single-day box office titles, and finally won a total box office of 235 million.
This film that successfully pulled the film market back to the 100 million range and played an incentive role in the industry is "Big Red Packet". The "rescuer" is a previously unknown director - Li Kelong.
Directed by Lee Klong
Since the turn of the century, Li Kelong, who entered the industry as an actor, has worked hard for more than 20 years, and has constantly switched between the identities of artistic director, director, screenwriter, actor and so on.
During this period, he created nearly several digital films for CCTV6 Movie Channel, and directed "Young Chess King" with many awards.
The reason why "Big Red Packet" can burst out such a huge "energy" is not accidental, in fact, it is the director's years of hard work.
After the success of "Big Red Packet", Li Kelong did not continue to cultivate in the comfort zone of comedy to create his own label, but after a year and a half of retreat, he came up with a high-IQ crime movie with strong suspense, "Digital Hunter".
Digital Predator poster
And this time he not only wrote and directed himself, but also played two roles in one person, starring in the two brothers of "one positive and one negative" in the film.
From successful comedy directors to challenges to self-written and self-directed crime films, this huge span is puzzling, so with these curiosities, we interviewed the all-round filmmaker.
I didn't expect this conversation, but also dug out a good story about the movie dream.
Stick to your dreams, there is always hope
Born in 1979 in Binzhou, Shandong Province, Li Kelong has had a movie dream since he was a child, watching the fresh world and various characters on TV, he seems to have stepped out of the small city and stepped into what Yang Dechang called "triple life".
At that time, the fifth generation of directors sprang up, and Chinese film masters such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou created a number of works with special Forms of China and implicit trends of the times.
In particular, Zhang Yimou's "My Father and Mother" has become the origin of Li Kelong's dream. According to him, "Zhang Yimou's exquisite, aesthetic and even excessively intense picture colors in the film are rich in emotion and poetry in every frame. The whole film is like a spring flowing gently. The curium bowl symbolizes the simplicity and simplicity of the feelings at that time, which can be repaired at any time. Thinking like this, our parents have been sewing and patching all their lives, in fact, they are not only making up for life, but also getting stronger and stronger feelings day by day. ”
On the set of "My Father and Mother"
Looking at these works that can touch the texture of the times, Li Kelong also wants to embark on this road of dream-making. However, at that time in his hometown in Shandong, movies could not become Li Kelong's means of livelihood, plus there was no way to enter the industry, so he had to "curve to save the country", was admitted to the Normal College to study music, and became a teacher after graduation.
Logically, this is a good destination, and it is also the pursuit of many people. But dreams are not consumables for Li Kelong, even if he has become a glorious people's teacher, it has not erased his love of light and shadow.
One day, between proctoring exams, he happened to see an advertisement for admissions to the Beijing Film Academy posted on a telephone pole. Although there were only a few words, in the words of Li Kelong: "The fire in my heart was instantly rekindled." ”
In a state of excitement, he actually forgot the school, forgot the students waiting for him to proctor the exam, and went home to pack his bags at the first time, taking the first step towards his dream.
Two years later, at the turn of the century, Li Kelong was "electrocuted" for the first time and made a cameo appearance in his first play, "Young Hero Fang Shiyu". Completed the identity transformation from a teacher in a small city in Shandong to a filmmaker on and off the screen.
Lee Klong
With the slow understanding of the rules of film and television shooting, Li Kelong's ideas have become more mature, and he has firmly established his goal of creating a work of his own. To this end, as an actor, he does everything in the crew, even trivial "chores" such as drama, co-ordination, and assistant directors, just for a closer understanding of the whole.
Just an ordinary young actor, it is easy to be a director.
For investors, movies and TV series are commodities, and investing money in inexperienced young people is most likely to lose money and not make money.
Fortunately, Li Kelong not only has a passion for blood, but also has the ability to write scripts independently, which has become a key move for him to transform into a director.
In his spare time, Li Kelong polished the script again and again, and finally he successfully impressed the capital with his creative passion and sincerity to use the story. In 2007, he independently directed his feature film debut, making a small profit for investors and officially starting his directing career.
Comedy is not a farce
After Li Kelong took the guide tube, he showed his rare creative ability and creative passion.
In 2008, he directed the film "The Oscar of the Old Five", which was rated as a domestic high-quality film of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and won the 2009 Domestic Film Support Fund of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. The 2014 thriller film "Flower Curse" was hailed as "the most beautiful horror film". In 2015, the film "Young Chess King" won the 16th Huabiao Awards and was nominated for the Best Children's Film at the Beijing Youth Film Festival...
What is even more rare is that as of 2016, Li Kelong has created nearly 40 digital movies for CCTV6 CCTV Movie Channel, with amazing efficiency.
In 2016, he once again jumped out of his comfort zone and entered the online film industry without hesitation.
At that time, the online movie had not yet taken off the label of "shoddy", and the screen was full of demons and ghosts and scraping content. Li Kelong did not conform to the "market interpretation" and "audience needs", but instead started from life and created a number of extremely realistic works.
Among them, "Poor Student Qiao Xi" focuses on the education of "problem girls", and the protagonist of "S4 Hero Descending Demons" is a "North Drift Security Guard", both of which use comedy as a carrier to focus on special groups and reveal social phenomena that are not easy to detect.
In the end, the network account of "S4 Man Descending Demons" reached 18.5 million, and the copyright of the movie channel sold to nearly 2 million, and the total box office ranked first in the 2018 cinema network co-broadcast movie list. "Bad Money", which started from the reality show, also broke through the siege, got more than 80 million hits, and became a blockbuster project for online movies.
Li Kelong on the set of "Poor Student Qiao Xi"
Judging from Li Kelong's creative experience, in his long career, he also has the ambition of subject matter exploration while maintaining quality and quantity. According to him, his love of film, his focus on real life and his pursuit of artistic exploration are just the keys to his ability to maintain his momentum and produce quality works.
For example, the origin of the creation of "Big Red Packet" is a social news he once saw on the Internet: a man was desperate, came up with a fake wedding to cheat the dowry money, and found a fake daughter-in-law to cooperate with the acting to divide the money. Originally, there was nothing flawed in this scam, the bride price money was also divided between the two, who expected the man to see the color, wanted to come to a fake play to really do, the woman did not follow, the man actually hurt the killer, and finally caused a catastrophe.
This case that the screenwriter could not make up, But Li Kelong thought that it could be adapted into a movie and created into a comedy theme of "Big Red Packet", and won the recognition of the box office and the audience.
Li Kelong on the set of "Big Red Packet"
Its practical comedy tells a true story, and it is definitely a hellish way of creating it.
But Li Kelong, who has created many comedy-themed movies, has a unique observation of comedy, which is also the key to his success through "Big Red Packet" and be well known to the public.
In his view, comedy is by no means the same as farce, and the traditional physical comedy is no longer accepted by the market. Companies such as Happy Twist and Big Bowl Entertainment have played a new way of playing on the comedy theme through stories and lines, that is, through carefully polished baggage design, coupled with the dramatic structure that implies reversals, so that the audience can get an unexpected comedy experience, thereby strengthening the comedic effect.
In the interview, Li Kelong called this kind of high-level comedy "new comedy". Judging from the box office performance, "Big Red Packet" can naturally be counted among them, but Li Kelong modestly said that he is still on the road to exploring "new comedy".
Li Kelong cameo in "Big Red Packet"
Artistically, we do our best to be perfect
This set of methodologies based on reality allows Li Kelong to embark on the road of exploring different themes.
This time, Li Kelong challenged the crime theme to create "Digital Predator" the inspiration source similar to "Big Red Packet", and it was also not made up out of thin air.
The protagonist of the film, Chen, is a "mathematical genius", who was honored by the public as a "digital man" by helping the police restore the portrait of the robber through digital deduction due to accidental hitting and bumping.
This character, who seems to have a distance from ordinary life, actually comes from a friend of Li Kelong's reality. This friend is a digital genius who can never forget anything related to numbers. Even in his spare time, he challenges world-class mathematical puzzles and successfully solves them.
Starting from the magic of this friend, Li Kelong gradually enriched the story and characters, and finally created "Digital Predator" with huge reversals and strong emotional density.
This kind of subject matter is neither easy to shoot nor easy to act, especially in the face of the stories and characters he created, Li Kelong emphasizes the harsh demands on the film art itself, hoping that all links will be perfect.
According to him, in order to enhance reality, the on-site crew used a lot of real-life shooting, and even the explosion scene was really fried, which was extremely difficult.
Therefore, in the choice of actors, it is not only necessary to accept the shooting risk of real-life explosions, but also to have the performance skills of one person to play two extremely complex characters.
Li Kelong, who has many years of acting experience, gritted his teeth and stomped his feet, and decided to personally play the two brothers Chen Zheng and Chen Mo in the film (key point). Self-written and self-directed completed the work "Digital Predator".
During the filming, he broke out of the explosion scene, and the shrapnel passed by, although he did not feel fear at the time, but he still had palpitations in retrospect.
Because of self-directing and self-acting, he also has to put forward higher goals for himself, in order to do all the details well, he looks at the monitor while acting, and really suffers a lot of unexpected suffering.
But all these hardships in Li Kelong's view are all "compulsory courses" for making movies well.
From "Big Red Packet" to "Digital Predator", and even all future works, do all the details well step by step, do not forget the original intention, adhere to the ingenuity, this is Li Kelong, the only methodology for creation.