#峰爆 #
"In the face of disaster, the legend of the West is Noah's Ark, and the story of our ancestors is the reclamation of the sea and the migration of the mountain by the fool!" A line from "Peak Explosion" tells the core of Chinese rescue.
The box office broke 300 million in 5 days of release, and won the box office day championship for 9 consecutive days, the average number of people per day and the total number of people, some netizens sighed "never abandon and do not give up to saturation rescue, and then to Jingwei reclamation Yugong moving mountains, we finally have a commercial blockbuster that can output our own values!" ”
This interpretation just right pokes at the "point" of director Li Jun. In such a domestic high-burning disaster film, he did not blindly follow the big scenes of Hollywood and the core of personal heroism, but opened a new door for domestic disaster films with Chinese rescue.
Recently, the film and television word-of-mouth list "One Film, One Person Talk" interviewed Li Jun, director of "Peak Explosion", and Producer Cui Lumeng, in their view, respecting the audience and the market and telling Chinese stories well in a Chinese way is fundamental. They also hope that in the future, China can make more genre films, establish cultural self-confidence, and create a film hero image that belongs to the Chinese.
Double-line concurrency explores the core of Chinese-style rescue
When a ten-year-old tunnel was about to be completed, due to the impact of global geological changes, a series of geological disasters such as ground cracks, earthquakes, landslides, mudslides and so on roared in, and the disaster in the film "Peak Explosion" came unexpectedly, and the audience was also dazzled.
As one of the few domestic disaster films, "Peak Explosion" strives to bring the audience an "immersive movie viewing effect", and has made sufficient efforts to balance between visual effects and reality. Although 70% of the shots in the film contain visual effects compositing, in order to ensure that the sense of realism is not weakened, important scenes, including the construction of tunnels, are built by the crew 1:1. "Peak Explosion", which has many large scenes, does not indulge in "showmanship", but instead adopts the double line of macro scenes and small scenes where the fate of the main character stories is headed, to explore the core of Chinese-style rescue.
One of the most brilliant character story lines in "Peak Explosion" is contributed by Huang Zhizhong and Zhu Yilong. Veteran railway soldier Lao Hong, played by Huang Zhizhong, and Hong Yizhou, director of the blasting research office played by Zhu Yilong, are a pair of father and son who are a bit screwed, they are both "infrastructure demon", but they cannot understand each other. The danger brought about by geological changes has brought opportunities for their reconciliation. At the same time, in the face of a sudden disaster, whether to protect the tunnel that has been poured into ten years of hard work or to protect the county town and the people has also become a problem in front of the infrastructure construction personnel.
In the end, all the trade-offs gave way to life, and everyone joined hands to rescue, and the two-line integration worked together to fight the defense of "Chinese-style rescue".
"Peak Explosion" director Li Jun
"This epidemic has taught us creators a lesson in the most vivid way." Director Li Jun mentioned that in the process of script creation, the inspiration of the double line is mainly from the fight against the epidemic, and Chinese automatically twisted into a rope in the face of disaster, making him feel that China's rescue and Chinese heroes are full of collective strength and can only be formed by collective strength.
"The collective strength of that kind of unity is the core of Chinese-style rescue", in director Li Jun's view, such a heroic group seems to have Chinese characteristics, which is also in line with the group of infrastructure people focused on by "Peak Explosion". The predecessor of China Railway Construction is the Railway Corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which was formally established in 1953, and this heroic unit has made immortal contributions to the cause of the liberation and construction of the Chinese nation. If you want to tell the story of such a group well, you need to have Lao Hong and Xiao Hong father and son as the protagonists of "concentrated firepower", and you also need to express the multi-level and angled group portraits of Ding Yajun and Lu Xiaojin.
True restoration, character shaping more three-dimensional and full
But even with good characters and story lines, it's not easy to tell the story of the railroad soldiers.
Geological exploration, reclamation camps, every mountain chiseled road, water bridge, these infrastructure projects "essential projects", can not be filmed on the spot at the construction project site, because "the construction period can not be delayed", in order to truly restore, the crew can only "engage in engineering" by themselves.
The main creators, production team and actors have no understanding of the main construction of the infrastructure project, the construction equipment, especially the technical level? It doesn't matter, simply go to the construction site to ask the front-line infrastructure builders and experts for advice, learn to understand and then start shooting. So other people's scripts were written squatting at home, and the scripts for "Peak Explosion" were written in tunnels and construction sites. Even the actors had to go to the construction site in advance to eat and live with the front-line infrastructure people before filming, and strive to truly restore the original appearance of this group.
More "truth" is also reflected through character building. Although many small characters in "Peak Explosion" do not have many scenes, the image is three-dimensional and full enough. After the ground rift occurred, a group of people were trapped in the train, the first reaction of the Internet celebrity played by Qiao Xin was to find a signal live broadcast, the exit insurance officer was found in the cave rushed to run and almost fell to his death, and the survey results were inaccurate The foreman played by Zhou Xiaoou almost "ate" Lu Xiaojin... The film does not seem to have a bad person, but "Peak Explosion" cleverly uses these shots to restore the most real human nature.
The female characterization in "Peak Explosion" is a must. Ding Yajun, the project manager played by Chen Shu, is a strict controller of the construction period and budget at the construction site, and has an absolute right to speak; but she also has the softness and strength of a woman, and when Hong Yizhou tried her last force for the explosion, she thought of calling Lu Xiaojin and using the power of love to encourage her soldiers.
And Lu Xiaojin, played by Jiao Junyan, is soft and inward, she is a caring little woman in front of her boyfriend, but when the cave rescue, she resolutely rode a motorcycle alone, making the most powerful support for her boyfriend and children.
Director Li Jun shared an interesting shooting tidbit. When Hong Yizhou decided to place explosives in "human flesh" to blow up the mountain, Ding Yajun's sentence "I must be with my soldiers" touched many people, but this line was not actually written in advance, but Chen Shu blurted out the words when reading the script. These words aptly reflect the situation in which the power fused in the blood of the Chinese is revealed when they are faced with a choice, so they changed the original line.
The pursuit of authenticity in "Peak Explosion" also infects the actors and the on-site staff. Finally, in order to successfully blast the mountain, Huang Zhizhong and Zhu Yilong had a freehand rock climbing scene, in the past month, the two hung on the cliff and rained on the scene, because the simulated bad weather needed to drain, in the case of not opening their eyes, the two actors could only "rely on memory" to find points, Huang Zhizhong frankly said that "this is the most challenging play since entering the industry."
"Peak Explosion" producer Cui Lumeng
Producer Cui Lumeng mentioned that in order to present the most realistic disaster relief story, the crew went deep into the longest cave in Asia to shoot the scene. Due to the steep terrain and closed traffic, it takes an hour and a half to walk to the shooting site every day, and people in narrow places need to bend down and crawl through, but no one complains, and even the young actors have overcome difficulties. "The film actually presents a kind of strength, and today everyone can see that the film actually comes from the strength of the unity of all the staff." Cui Lumeng said with emotion.
Be less narcissistic and burdensome, and focus on creating Chinese movie heroes
From "Earth-shattering Reversal" to "Chang'an Road" to "Peak Explosion", director Li Jun is not satisfied with simply "telling a good story", testing the waters of domestic disaster films is only the beginning of the attempt, and he has greater ambitions in his heart, that is, to establish cultural self-confidence and create more film heroes who belong to Chinese.
This point is also expressed in the film through the character of Hong Yizhou. In the case of physical exhaustion, the setting of successfully being rescued from the cliff volley made some viewers puzzled, but this happened to be the "heroic nature" given by director Li Jun to Hong Yizhou. "What I actually want to express this leap is our cultural self-confidence, why can foreign heroes jump, but Zhu Yilong can't jump?" He further explained that watching a movie is that you are enjoying the stories in the movie, those flying moments, rather than comparing it to your life, and how sad it would be if you didn't even dare to dream.
More value transmission and reflection are also placed on the father and son of Lao Hong and Xiao Hong. Many people have read the inheritance and family reconciliation between Lao Hong and Xiao Hong, the father and son of the "infrastructure madness", but they may not necessarily read the "contrast" placed by director Li Jun on the two.
Veteran railway soldier Lao Hong can sacrifice his personal and family for his career, and to some extent, Xiao Hong eventually grew up to be an infrastructure builder like his father Lao Hong, which is the inheritance. In the era in which Lao Hong lived, his choice was inevitable, and it was precisely because of their sacrifice at the expense of their small family for everyone that the rapid development of New China and the achievement of our current convenient life have been achieved.
For Xiao Hong, he not only inherits the spirit of his father, but also shows the appearance of a better new generation. He inherits the spirit of Lao Hong and is not exactly another Lao Hong, when his father is in danger, he will return to his relatives without hesitation, and when he is ready to give up his life, he will also pluck up the courage to jump because of the call of his lover, this setting is director Li Jun's interpretation of the inheritance of two generations, and his thinking about the times.
As a director who is "particularly fierce", Li Jun admitted that he deleted many wonderful scenes in the post-editing process. For example, the confrontation between Chen Shu and the county magistrate played by Zhang Yi is very material, the conflict between Ding Yajun and the workers and the old Hong single rope climbing the cliff are very interesting, but in the end, considering the overall rhythm of the movie and the audience's "cool feeling", he cut it out painfully.
"After all, a movie is an entertainment product, its first attribute is entertainment, you have to make the audience feel good." 」 In Li Jun's view, the director must respect the audience. A good genre film must have both full commercial elements and a good rhythm to give the characters a solid foundation, only in this way can it more impress the audience.
"Peak Explosion" has opened a new chapter in domestic disaster films, what will be the characteristics and innovation space of Chinese disaster films that are different from Hollywood in the future?
In director Li Jun's view, if you want to tell a good Chinese story, you will definitely be different from Hollywood in terms of emotional expression and way, which is beyond doubt. However, it has to be admitted that the current number of domestic disaster films is small, and there is also a certain gap between the film industry and technology and foreign countries, and there is still a long way to go. "We don't lack themes of expression, and it's key to sinking in and learning some regularity techniques, being a little less narcissistic, and then reading more of the audience's ideas." Li Jun said that he hopes that the younger generation will bear less burden, shoot more films of this type, build cultural self-confidence, and create more heroic film characters belonging to China.