The third film of "Bad Monkey 72 Change Plan", "The Beneficiary", is also the first feature film of the young director's Olympic bid. On the first day of the film's release, the single-day box office was 29.29 million yuan, which was not too high or too low, but it did not seem to meet the expectations of the media and film critics who watched the film in advance.
The "Bad Monkey 72 Change Project" led by Ning Hao has launched three films, all of which are the works of young directors. The first two films are the "Embroidered Spring Knife" series directed by Lu Yang and the "I Am Not a Medicine God" directed by Wen Muye. The success of these two films naturally brought a lot of pressure to the Olympic bid. The media used him to compare him with Lu Yang and Wen Muye, and he faced such a comparison head-on, saying that he would definitely be nervous, but even if the box office and word of mouth were not comparable, he was willing to face it.
In fact, "The Beneficiary" is a very complete commercial film, with black humor, suspense, and urgent rhythm, and it is definitely a qualified commercial film. Cat's Eye score, "Beneficiary" reached 8.8 points, which is a good score.
Before filming this feature film, the 20-year-old Olympic bid had shot many short films, among which "Helong Chuangang" won the second prize in the student short film unit of the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain and the Golden Wings Award for Best Short Film and Excellent Feature Film Director Award at the First China International New Media Short Film Festival. "River Dragon Chuangang" and "Beneficiary" are completely different styles, the narrative is stable, the tone is gray, and the atmosphere is depressing. Asked which type of film style he prefers to the two, the Olympic bid makes no secret that he prefers "The Beneficiary".
He is indeed a commercially minded director, and he knows well how the ratio between authorship and audience needs in a film should be reconciled. In this "Beneficiary", he also admits that he is maximizing the needs of the audience while preserving his own expressive demands. He said he is a director who is responsible for investors and wants to help investors recoup their investments while completing his first feature film.
And Ning Hao, as a supervising producer, also let public opinion speculate a lot about the relationship between the Olympic bid and Ning Hao's creation. Also filmed in Chongqing, black humor, these elements can't help but remind people of Ning Hao's work "Crazy Stone", which benefited from the "Asian Nova Director Program" led by Andy Lau. In fact, there are indeed many shadows of Ning Hao in "The Beneficiary", just like Shen Ao said, in the creation, Ning Hao has always stressed to him in terms of character settings that the characters in the film must meet several attributes, one is "contemporary", one is "localization", and the other is "eliminated". Ning Hao does this in every of his films, and the Olympic bid follows this in this "Beneficiary".
Every young director will be asked about their future shooting plans, because after all, not every young director will have a plan for their future, and filmmaking is not necessarily their life's career, or career. But Shen Olympic obviously has a plan for his own creation, and he hopes that he can continue to shoot like this, even as much as possible. He admires the charisma of cinema, especially the ritualistic sense of feature films, but he is also anxious about whether films will be replaced by new forms of media. In any case, he emphasizes that he will always be a storyteller, because the human need for stories is eternal.
"A good movie is not a plot reversal, but an emotional baggage"
Liu Yang: Every new director is particularly cautious when dealing with their first feature film, "The Beneficiary" is your first feature film, why did you choose to make such a story?
I'm basing this story on a piece of news that was originally a crime case, but what's interesting about this case is that it's so dramatic, and that's what draws me to it. In addition, because this story is easier to operate in the filming process, it involves fewer scenes and actors, the cost is low, I hope to return the investors' money, and I also hope to have a work that I am relatively satisfied with.
Liu Yang: "Beneficiary" is not a style at all with your previous award-winning short film "Helong Chuangang", which one do you prefer? Why choose to present such a story in a comedic way?
Bid: I prefer the style I have now. In fact, I didn't want to use comedy at first, because I felt that the crime theme didn't match the comedy style, but then the reason why I changed was because I wanted to tell the story clearly, but many details of the criminal investigation were not convenient to show in the movie, and the murderer in the original case was too murderous, so the ending of the story had to be adapted. Conversely, if the ending changes, then the tone of the previous may no longer be a crime film. So in the end, I chose the comedic way.
Liu Yang: Some people say that you can guess the final ending by seeing the beginning of this story, have you ever heard such a statement?
Shen: I don't worry about this too much, because I think that a good movie is not a plot reversal, but an emotional baggage, not to say that the unexpected is good, and I pay more attention to the process of film presentation.
Liu Yang: Dapeng has a lot of experience in making feature films, how did you work together during the whole shooting process?
Shen O: He has a lot of respect for me and gives me a lot of help, and I will even ask him to help me with some of the things he is good at. The final stage of the script writing was almost done by the two of us, and in addition, many of his performances on the scene were improvised, and it was not at all dependent on my scheduling. My performance of him and Liu Yan is to roughly talk about what kind of feeling I need, give them a few reference films of the characters, my requirements for them are that they would rather exaggerate than be bored, and would rather play than be afraid.
"The topic of lies and truth is a motif in my creations"
Liu Yang: At the end of the movie, Yue Miaomiao looked at Wu Hai's figure and smiled, did she forgive him?
Bid: This is our biggest problem in creation. When we wrote the script, we couldn't get by here, some people said that Wu Hai could be forgiven, and some people said no. I've shot countless schemes, and now this one is a conclusion that was reached by asking the audience to vote during the test screening. There is a kind of movie that gives the answer, there is a movie that throws out questions, and I think "The Beneficiary" is the kind of movie that comes after it, that is, what kind of lies are worth forgiving.
Liu Yang: Everyone in life may have lied in some way, have you ever thought of implanting this fable in your creation?
I attach great importance to this thing, and I think that everyone in life actually lies at certain times, and the difference is the measure of lies. I am particularly fond of exploring the topic of lies and truth, which is probably a motif in my creations.
I buried a lot of little lies in the movie, which may require you to watch it many times to see it. Every sentence of each character I basically try to make the audience wonder whether this is the truth or a lie. This is also a small game I made with the audience, I want to explain the fact that each of them is deceiving each other, especially the male number two Zhong Zhenjiang has been deceiving Wu Hai, Wu Hai has been deceiving Yue Miaomiao, and finally Yue Miaomiao used a very small lie to puncture the lies that those people have thought about for so long, that is what I want, I think this is interesting.
"Creation is about preserving one aspect and then maximizing on the other"
Liu Yang: In other interviews, it is said that you made some compromises to the audience in your creation, what are these compromises?
Shen Ao: What the audience wants is a kind of satisfaction, but the author actually wants to throw out philosophical ideas, I think if a problem is dialectical and anxious, it will be energetic, but in fact, the audience especially needs a clear position and a clear direction, otherwise he will be very confused.
Liu Yang: This will be a point that a professional director is more entangled in the process of growing up.
I think one of the industry's misguided directions is that the audience is opposed to the authorship, but it's not the case. Creation is about preserving one aspect and then maximizing on the other. For example, some films may preserve the authorship and then maximize the audience. I'm actually doing the film this time to preserve the audience, try to meet the needs of the audience, and then maximize what I want to express. I think compromise is not cowardice, but wisdom. It is smarter if you can preserve one side while pursuing maximization on the other.
Liu Yang: Where is your "maximization" manifested this time?
Bid: The handling of the ending is typical, including the human setting. In fact, the characters in "The Beneficiary" are risky, these three characters are not likable, but the villains in it also have his cute places, which is what I do to maximize, I don't believe that there are absolutely bad people and absolutely good people in this world.
"Contemporaneity", "Localization", "Obsolescence"
Liu Yang: How did you determine the identities of these characters?
Shen Ao: Because Ning Hao has always told me three words, one is "contemporary", one is "localization", and the other is "eliminated", the characters in the films he writes have these three qualities, so the characters in this movie also meet these qualities. These people may not be seen in other countries, and how long can they exist in these industries? In the future, there may be no need to drive, click a button car and drive home directly, not to mention the anchor, it may be replaced by the form of updates on the network, I think they are trying to not be eliminated, and the Internet café is already gradually being eliminated.
Liu Yang: Did Ning Hao have a great influence on your creation as a producer?
Bid: Huge. He trusted me very much in my ability to shoot, but I hadn't actually written a script, and the longest thing I had written before writing this script was only 2,000 words, and it was ten years ago. If I had to make an analogy, a short film is a Lego, a feature film is a building, these two things are not the same thing at all, it is not a long film that lengthens the short film. Short films are played in a limited market, while feature films are much more complex, and their architectural structure collapses if it is not good.
Liu Yang: What is the hardest thing about making feature films?
Bid: Script. I still prefer to write my own scripts, but this actually conflicts with my desire for high productivity. It's hard to be productive when you write on your own, and it's especially hard to satisfy yourself. If you are shooting someone else's script, you may be able to shoot the script at the producer's OK, but it is much harder to satisfy yourself than to make others satisfied.
"The quality of many works is diluted by the market"
Liu Yang: Do you have any plans for your future creations? Do you plan to continue making feature films or short films?
Olympic Bid: Shoot feature films, shoot as many as you can. I feel like one day the movie will probably be eliminated in another form, and I have this anxiety. When we were in college, we were making films on film, and the teacher told us that you were the last batch of people to make films on film, and it was likely that this form of film was going to be eliminated. We were very uncomfortable at the time, and it turned out that the film did disappear within five years. At that time, for us, the film was gone without the film, but then the film survived in the form of numbers, but I always felt that there are audiovisual forms that are longer than the film and shorter than the film, and the industrial upgrading will be reshuffled.
Liu Yang: Why do you want to continue to shoot stories?
I think movies will come in other forms, but humans always love to hear stories. For example, on the Internet, the paragraphs, gossip, and chicken soup are actually all stories, so the story does not exist in the form of a movie, it will exist in other forms. But I adore movies very much, and their sense of ceremony is so charming, so maybe in the future I will do other forms, whether it is TV or mobile phones, but when the movie is still there, I will try to shoot as much as possible.
Liu Yang: Do you think the current environment is good for young directors?
Shen: I don't think it's good, because there are more opportunities, in fact, the quality of the work is diluted. In the past, when dozens and hundreds of people could have a chance, you had to be good enough to come out, or your specialization as a director was outstanding, or your script and your talent were outstanding, but in fact, now it seems that you don't have to be particularly prominent, resulting in a large number of diluted works in the market, and the purity of the works is very low. In the past two years, everyone thinks that this is a new director, which is not bad, in fact, it is not ok, and some bad works have suppressed everyone's expectations for new directors one at a time.
Liu Yang: So you put a lot of pressure on yourself?
Bid: Right. I think there are only new directors, not young directors.
Liu Yang: Are you afraid of being used to compare yourself to others?
Bid: Of course it will, but it will only face the difficulties. But I think that if you lose, you lose, and if you compare, you will go down, because some data can be quantified, such as ratings, box office, and when those data are compared, they are compared.
Liu Yang: How did you decide when you signed a bad monkey?
Shen: At that time, many companies were looking for me, but Ning Hao was my idol, and I especially liked to watch his movies since I was a child, so I definitely chose bad monkeys first.
(Source: "Liu Yang Movie Notes" WeChat public account)