"The King of the Circus" is a film with a rather creative theme. The blurring of the positioning of the commercial genre makes it difficult for this film to make a bright spot in terms of publicity. Is it music singing and dancing? Inspirational plot? Or a biography? Whatever it is, it sells better than comedy, romance, action and other elements. Almost at this time last year, the song and dance romance "City of Philharmonic" only achieved more than 200 million box office results in China with its talented director and continuous fermentation of word of mouth. In contrast, "The King of the Circus" may only be the last few at the box office of the annual introduction films. Even in the United States, the film's first week of release at the box office was unsatisfactory.
However, what is strange is that the box office of the film in the second week has achieved a counterattack, and the increase is quite rare. ImDB's high rating of 8.0 also proves that the quality of this film can satisfy the audience, which has won a good reputation in the follow-up.
If you're tired of the American commercial film of fighting and killing and looking for a warm and moving feeling this winter day, then "King of the Circus" is a good choice.
Poster of the Chinese version of "King of the Circus"
The film is based on the life of American circus owner Barnum. Before him, although animal circuses, clown acrobatics, strange shows and other performances were popular in the folk, but relying on barnum's operation, these performances were integrated to form a "circus" performance system. According to today's popular way, Barnum, a talented performance planner, with his business acumen and superb operating means, including advertising promotion, troupe management and a series of successful innovations, so that the "circus" performance form finally jumped into the public eye, resulting in huge economic benefits.
Barnum's contribution to the circus, roughly comparable to Guo Degang's contribution to cross-talk, successfully moved the original niche art form into the theater and integrated it into a more numerous, more complete and elegant performance. This is a kind of inheritance of ancient art, but also a genius innovation. To this day, circus as a theater art has gradually declined, but there are still famous troupes such as "Cirque du Soleil" in the world that continue to continue the theater performance system pioneered by Barnum.
From the plot point of view, the film shows how Barnum overcomes the contempt and hatred from those around him, sticks to his dreams, and finally unites his friends to achieve success, which can be regarded as a typical inspirational and positive energy film. For example, in the opening paragraph of the film, the poor boy falls in love with the rich woman, but the rich father's unreasonable slap shows the poor poor living environment. However, in the montage of a song, we see that the poor child finally grows into a fallen and generous youth, and even if his father-in-law opposes it, he marries his wife and returns home, realizing the dream of rose-colored love. Whether it is the simplicity and popularity of the theme processing, or the fluency of making full use of the time and space conversion of film means, it shows the good skills of the film's choreographer.
Stills from The King of the Circus
Because the performance of the circus will involve a part of the performance scene, interspersed with song and dance is indispensable in the film, and then further enlarged into a song and dance film style - similar to the setting of the few song and dance films in Chinese films, "If Love". In recent years, the precedent for song and dance to play a large part of the film has generally been adapted from successful Broadway stage plays such as "Chicago" and "Les Misérables", or the director's pursuit of some kind of retro literary mood - such as "Philharmonic City" and "The Artist". For an original song and dance film like "The King of the Circus", which is not both, it seems logical, but it actually requires a lot of innovative courage.
The theme of this film is more suitable for another genre - it is expressed in cartoons. For Hollywood animation, audiences have accepted that there is always a song and dance in the film. The theme of this film, "Pursuing Dreams Without Fear of Hardships and Courageously Expressing Yourself", also has a hidden coincidence with the popular animation film "The Voice of Joy" the previous year, and even the plot of raising bank funds and theater destruction in order to perform on stage also has similarities.
"The King of the Circus" and "The Voice of Joy" have similarities in plot
More importantly, the film shows many "bizarre people", such as "fat ladies with beards" or "conjoined twins from China" – which corresponds to some famous performers in American history, and it is difficult to say that their appearance is "beautiful", which objectively challenges the public acceptance of commercial films. What if these images were placed in cartoons? For example, a "fat pig" in "The Voice of Joy" can also be designed as a chubby and cute feeling, thus avoiding some kind of controversy. From this point of view, although the film seems to be decent in commercial treatment at first glance, in fact, it has made some breakthroughs that are not simple, "showing many strange-looking people on the screen, without making the audience feel uncomfortable."
The strange people in the movie do not make the audience feel uncomfortable
Circus, as a genre of art, in addition to the juggling part that emphasizes strength and skill, often has a frightening and comical curiosity. I believe that many viewers have similar experiences: when they were young, they visited the park and saw a banner painted with "Snake-faced Woman" or "Conjoined Baby Specimen", surrounded by a mysterious open space, selling tickets to attract people to visit. All kinds of disabled people with physical disabilities, or "hairy children" and "giants" caused by endocrine disorders, have become part of traditional circus performances. Modern circuses avoid discrimination and controversy and gradually fade away from them. But as a film performance of the "start-up circus" era, this still has to be shown. Therefore, under the inspirational theme of the film, the issue of respect for minorities is also implicitly explored.
Still in order to avoid causing discomfort to the audience, the film chose a black mixed-race girl to fall in love with a white guy to show the growth of the main supporting characters. Breaking apartheid is already a risk-free political benchmark today. While other special people remain invisible behind the scenes most of the time, they can never really become the protagonists of the plot development for a live-action work. This also leads to the depth of the theme of the film, which can never be as simple as the animation, but it is thought-provoking. If you have seen David Lynch's "The Elephant Man", you will know that the social oppression and attacks of the special groups that live in the circus are far more violent than those shown in this film.
Poster of The Elephant Man
Over the course of the film, the discriminated against quickly gained self-confidence because they received applause during the performance. In fact, this is the same as the beginning of the film "the poor boy married a rich woman, and the two did not abandon each other", which is too beautiful rose-colored dreams. In the tradition of song and dance films, many problems can be solved by dancing a dance, just as this film quickly establishes the friendship between the protagonist and the partner in an exquisitely designed double dance, and even the problem of division is clearly discussed. Compared with the director of "Philharmonic City" who tries to show a deeper pain in a certain kind of love, this film continues the convention of song and dance films, "getting a big reunion in song and dance". This is probably the reason why the theme of the film still lacks some aftertaste.
"Ji Qing" is full of a double dance. There are also such well-relevant sentences as "Hurry up and get in my car" in the translation of the lines
If you don't ask for more, then this film is still quite exciting. The director of the film has been a special effects supervisor before, and from the perspective of song and dance choreography and scene conversion, he has made full use of the charm of special effects and light and shadow, showing the artistic effect of the film's time and space conversion and the combination of sound and painting. Several song and dance scenes, such as supporting actors dancing together on a swing, or the first vocal performances of opera masters, are as if they were enjoying a cabaret performance in a theater or watching a love movie with emotional details. Overall, "King of the Circus" is also a film worth going to the cinema to enjoy.