Wen 丨 A wake up
This year's May 1st file, there is the strongest May 1st file in history, the number of blockbuster films exceeds the previous years, almost a bit of a spring file. Various film genres are gathered, the most family-friendly attribute is definitely the "Sunshine Robber" with quite brilliant pre-sale results, let's talk about it first.
This story is quite a fantasy. Xiaoxue (Song Jia) has a tiger daughter Nana who is dependent on each other, but suddenly, Nana is robbed by the richest man Liu Magic (Zeng Zhiwei), and she has no way to help, so she asks Sunshine (Ma Li), who runs a pet-seeking office, for help, so the group plans a robbery drama in order to find out the truth and save the tiger.
On top of the treasure hunting framework, the film is densely filled with unexpected absurd tones and comedic elements. Therefore, this film is completely in line with the distinction between good and evil, cute and funny, relaxed rhythm, warm feelings, etc., but if you think that "Sunshine Robber" is a kind of low-grade film that is stable and has no threshold, then director Li Yu wants to be simple.
According to my understanding of Li Yu, she will put in some bold attempts regardless of the results in each work.
The first attempt this time was that she made the film into an urban fairy tale genre that is rare in domestic films. This DNA comes from the original novel on which this film is based, Kotaro Isaka's work of the same name. The whimsy of the author's world, the strangeness of the character setting, and the loose and obedient story style are extremely difficult to present with visual pictures, let alone transplanted into the domestic background. But Li Yu tried to find the point where the Japanese exaggerated comedy style landed in the context of Chinese.
The biggest challenge was to create an alternate urban scene with a mix of visual styles. Art director Zheng Chen created a paradise-like fairy tale feeling based on Li Yu's vision. The specific approach is to purify certain elements in the real environment and then put them into the big atmosphere.
From large cities to small props, all rely on "painting", especially various concept setting maps and atmosphere maps, in Li Yu's words, it is "always out, has been negative". Zheng Chen added, "All the storyboards and dynamic previews of the whole film were done before the actual shooting, that is, what the city looks like and what it will expand into in the future, in fact, everyone already has a number in mind."
The film is set up in about 4,500 square meters, full of fantasy streets, the iconic sunshine pet office is born in it. I think the most creative and design is the mansion where Liu Magical imprisoned Nana, which is a fanciful test field in the framework of fairy tales, such as the use of a coffee bath when punishing his subordinates, and the binary opposition between happiness and sadness becomes the clue to crack the secret room.
The crew also selected scenes that fit the fairytale texture, such as island cliffs. To this end, they planted a large number of yellow reeds there, reflecting the blue sky and the sea, and used bright colors to assist in the expression of the theme of the film. And like all fairy tales, both good and evil can be seen through at a glance, the protagonists use warm colors, such as sunlight, using less saturated goose yellow and green, while the villain Liu Magic is in reverse, using dark red blood. The blessing of CG further contrasts the icy world with the warm fairy tale.
Each of the main characters in the film is a "robber", and their personalities are as bright and jumpy as the main visual impression of the film.
Villain Liu Magic is a habitual criminal, before robbing the tiger Nana, robbed the ill-gotten wealth, robbed the reputation and status, but also robbed the paralyzed one after another dream, as a villain, bad is not so pure, the back is full of an old soul tortured by "loss", this "into the magic" role, the conflict between magic and human nature is the direction of the story redemption, but also the depth that the fairy tale can extend.
The second type of "robbers" in the middle state is the typical dog leg setting, seeing the wind make the rudder, seeing the profit and forgetting the righteousness, such as Xiao Xue's former gang, they robbed Xiao Xue halfway, but because of the relationship with Xiao Xue, this little bit of old love bondage can make the character swing left and right at both ends of human nature, becoming a test strip for human nature.
As for the sunshine, these righteous characters with small shortcomings and small calculations are a model of escaping from Wei Guangzheng, and those innocuous quirks and flaws are used to achieve emotional fit with the audience, that is to say, the imperfection of "morality" actually hides the internal force that pushes people to perfection, after all, fairy tales need heroes, and modern fairy tales especially need heroes who can "look up". It's just that all heroes will be pursued for a certain aspect of sacrifice, and how big an emotional bomb this sacrifice can detonate determines the resonance height of this urban fairy tale.
Until it reaches its final resonance, "Sunshine Robber" has no intention of immersing the audience in the weight of deep thought. It is to implement the spirit of joy, to let reality fly in the logic of a fairy tale. Therefore, everything will be designed to focus on a strong sense of play.
As a result, the absurd planning, treasure hunts, and good and evil results that everyone has been working on along the way are complex and set-in-set, corresponding to Kotaro Isaka's "multiple creative powers". And because of the nature of a fairy tale, the main characters will not have any fatal injuries under any circumstances, and the villain will never go unpunished, such a treasure hunting adventure controlled within a safe range, still adhere to the principle of family fun.
Li Yu's second extremely difficult attempt in this film is that she wants to shoot a real tiger.
As the focus of the protagonists' emotional projection, Tiger Nana carries the mission of whether the film can be vivid and whether the story can be believed. When she faces good people, she is cute, and when she faces bad people, she shows a fierce face, and this contrast must be accurately expressed, probably in all the scenes in the history of cinema, almost no one has ever done it.
The production team is quite soberly aware that Ang Lee has already used the CG tiger to the extreme in "The Fantasy Drifting of the Young Pi", no matter how to imitate it, it cannot be surpassed, "Sunshine Robber" needs to find another way, so Li Yu chose to shoot the real tiger, and these real shots occupy the vast majority of all the tiger scenes.
To this end, they visited a number of zoos in northeast China, Jiangsu, Guizhou, Jinan, Taiyuan, Guangzhou and other places, among dozens of tigers, with the front of the end as the main criterion, selected an adult Siberian tiger Wenwen from a wildlife park in Guizhou to play the protagonist Nana. Nana's childhood scenes were completed by two small Siberian tigers in the same zoo, one of which was only three months old and the other was only one month old. As if that wasn't enough, they went to the United States to get two Bengal Tigers to help, including the 15-year-old one who had participated in french director Jean-Jacques Arnold's "Tiger Brother Tiger Brother", and now they are responsible for adult scenes with Wenwen.
The Bengal Tiger is familiar with the rhythm of the camera performance, so many movements are natural and can quickly complete a variety of professional movements.
In addition to the small tiger being able to interact with the actors to a certain extent, the big tiger is in the later stage through digital models and other technologies to narrow the distance between it and the person, or to erase the double that guides the action, so as to capture the realism of the tiger and complete the relatively real interaction between the person and the tiger.
During filming, the crew made an iron fence more than three meters high outside the space where the tiger was active, and then set up a green screen, and the photographer captured the tiger's movements and expressions in its natural state in an iron cage on the track.
But even to this extent, it still needs some CG technology intervention, to undertake these work is the existing tiger model of South Korea's Dexter, the result is beyond imagination, because everyone is familiar with the fierce appearance of the tiger, but the cuteness is various, micro-expression changes, only this one adjustment work, it took more than half a year. If it is a dangerous action, or an action that violates the natural laws of the tiger, it is all handed over to CG to complete.
Tiger opera consumes a huge amount of manpower and material resources, and the "film remuneration" of wenwen alone is at least more than 30 million yuan. Is it worth it? From the production of a movie alone, it may not be so cost-effective. But this complex attempt at shooting large animals, the valuable experience of the forerunners in throwing stones and asking for directions, will eventually translate into the accumulation of the Chinese film industry.
In addition to these new breakthroughs and attempts, director Li Yu, as one of the most important female creators of mainland films, persistent female expression is the unchangeable theme of her films. "Sunshine Robber" is of course a genre film based on action clues, but the character setting of the film is actually "very Li Yu".
The film constructs three pairs of sad mother-daughter relationships, between people, it is Yang Mother and Sunshine; between beasts and beasts, it is Nana Mother and Nana; and between people and beasts, it is Xiaoxue and Nana. The first two mothers and daughters had nearly identical fates, namely that both mothers died because of their daughters, although that was not the daughter's intention. It is precisely because of such an inexplicable knot that the surface of the fairy tale peels off, revealing a bloody reality.
The essence of the so-called fairy tale is all here, that is, to purify the sadness of reality, and then cover up the pain with joy, and write the world through with naivety.
In this situation where mourning is greater than the death of the heart, the sunshine needs to be touched by the "same sin" Nana, in order to face their own heart knots, in order to have the luxury of release, so saving Nana, it becomes to save themselves, so working with a small team to compete means opening up the heart in the true sense.
This openness points to another important relationship between women and women, that is, friendship, or a higher level of affection than friendship, because it has no blood bond, but is the purest.
In the process of searching for Nana, Sunshine perceives Xiaoxue's hidden selfishness, but she insists on helping, this will not be just because she believes that Xiaoxue's love for her daughter is true, more importantly, Xiaoxue, to some extent, condenses the image of Sunshine's mother, and even condenses the essence of her mother's year, close to her, is close to her once estranged spiritual salvation. Such a female friendship, the more detached, the more lamented.
In particular, they join forces against a hostile system built by men, where there is money, power, accomplices, and the incompatibility caused by these asymmetrical relationships, and in such an environment, the two women are still continuing the fate of breaking these shackles. This is a women's issue that has received more and more attention in recent years, and Li Yu has used fairy tale brushwork to let them move towards true freedom in the name of love.
She said, "I want to use a warmer or more humorous way to tell a more painful kernel, in which all the people, including the villain, are very sad people, are people who need to be healed." 」 Between Ma Li and Song Jia, from two strange women, to the time a true friendship was established, they were healed by each other. You will find that in fact, what is really healed is the sincerity between people and people."
Li Yu, who has been experimenting with female expression in various dimensions, used to focus on the struggle of female individuals against emotional distress, family conflicts, and social problems, and women are often in a tense antagonistic relationship because of various resources and ethical issues. For example, the early short film "Sister" has insight into the moral inclination that is "defined" as a sister to women, which means airtight morality. The feature film "Apple" punctures the fragility of poor marriages and the beggars of the money-power society, forcing women who are limited to this to jump out of the victim's ruts. "Guanyin Mountain" is in the spiritual world of the broken wall, trying to reach some power that can take people away from nothingness and uneasiness.
And in "Sunshine Robber", it is to let two women try to be frank and honest together, help each other without any problems, complete each other, and take away from the opposite sex what should belong to them, such as tigers, prestige, freedom and self, etc., which is the new tone of her work.
All in all, "Sunshine Robber", which is called "fairy tale realism", is a breakthrough work that Li Yu jumped out of her comfort zone, no matter what the final ending is and how much recognition, this fighting spirit is enough to make her receive the admiration of others. Then, this May Day show, whether it is curious about urban fairy tales, loves light comedy, or loves treasure hunting adventures, and loves female friendship, may be able to find their own emotional foothold in this movie.