The Paper's reporter Wang Yi
Two days before the release of the first day of the Chinese New Year on February 12, the pre-sale box office of the movie "Detective Chinatown 3" (hereinafter referred to as "Tang Detective 3") exceeded 600 million yuan (data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition). When this pre-sale score exceeded 370 million yuan a few days ago, the film, which was postponed from the Spring Festival file in 2020 to the Spring Festival file in 2021, has already created a new record for the total box office of domestic film pre-sale.
"Detective Chinatown 3" pre-sale box office exceeded 600 million yuan poster
A year's time, still can be expected.
"Tang Detective 3" began to warm up in October 2019 and came to an abrupt end on January 22, 2020 - the next morning, Wuhan was locked down, and under the epidemic, "Tang Detective 3" was withdrawn in unison with many Spring Festival New Year films at that time - in 2020, when the epidemic development peaked and turned around, only "Tang Detective 3" insisted on its own Spring Festival theater positioning, which was a year later than the original release date.
As the most successful original comedy suspense IP in China, the Tang Detective series has been singing all the way since the opening of the Lunar New Year file in 2015. "Tang Detective 2", released in the Spring Festival of 2018, exceeded 3 billion yuan at the box office. After that, at the beginning of 2020, the network drama of the Tang Detective series was launched, and at the end of the year, Tang Detective IP and Station B officially reached a cooperation, and for the first time tried to adapt the live-action movie IP into a national animation. From the level of film industrialization, it can be said that this domestic original IP already has the so-called "Tang Detective Universe" weather and pattern. With the establishment and clarification of all this, Chen Sicheng, the screenwriter and director of the Tang Detective series, has once again become a hot figure in the industry.
Audiences began to pay attention to Chen Sicheng, mostly from the TV series called "Soldier Assault" more than a decade ago. At the end of the play, Yuan Lang said to Chengcai: "Your road is still very long, much longer than Xu Sanduo, and at the same time, your confusion is much more than his." "Chengcai's actor is Chen Sicheng. Since then, in the mirror image of the media, the shadow of the successful life of the summit has always been with him. People who like him will think that he is real and frank, and people who don't like him will find his unintentional arbitrariness and casualness an invisible offense.
Chen Sicheng on the set of "Detective Chinatown 3"
In early 2020, before the original release date of "Tang Detective 3", Chen Sicheng was interviewed by the surging news reporter in Beijing. Before the formal conversation, we chatted about Stendhal's famous book "The Red and the Black"—in fact, 20 years ago, when he was still studying in Chinese opera, he starred in an obscure TV series "The Red and the Black 2000", which is a rendition of a character in contemporary China. Chen Sicheng said that he had read the novel in high school, and his answer seemed to be that he was talking about people in the book, and he also seemed to be talking about real life, "The real glorious artistic characters are multi-faceted, and I am willing to try to play such a character, whether it is Jullien or Don Juan." Whether such a character exists in this world as a literary figure or has a person like even such a person in our lives, I think there is nothing wrong with it. ”
"I am dead, and in front of me is the boundless darkness, I do not feel the texture of the flesh, I do not breathe, but I can think, like a fish in the deep sea, swimming constantly, but without direction." 」 Twenty years ago, Chen Sicheng, a student, wrote this passage as the opening statement of his first original screenplay, Looking Up at Heaven. Similar to the Tang Detective series that has made him successful today, "Looking Up to Heaven" is also a suspenseful story: after the death of a successful person, the soul constantly tortures who killed him. As he re-sorted out his past interactions with his mother, lovers, friends, and even rivals and enemies, he gradually discovered that his relationship with these people was not at all what he had thought...
Black and sharp, deep and sad, this seems to be a touch of color at the bottom of the Tang Detective series of films that laugh and smirk and swear. Thanks to the scratches of the blog era, we can also find a blog by Chen Sicheng ten years ago, in early 2010, with the title of "Looking Up to Heaven": The graduation drama that "I" wrote for the class in 2003, and then died due to the intervention of the school... The ensuing text shows his relief, "There is no desperate bet in artistic creation, and any effort will not be wasted." Like my 'miracles', those influences are deeply rooted in my bony blood and I am integrated into one, so I do not despair, art, there is no miscarriage. ”
Chen Sicheng and Liu Haoran, star of "Detective Chinatown 3" (left)
【Dialogue】
"The core theme of Tang Detective 3 is peace"
The Paper: I heard that before writing the script, you wrote a short biography of 80,000 to 100,000 words for the two protagonists, Qin Feng and Tang Ren, can you introduce it? In particular, the reason why Qin Feng went to work as a private investigator was because he lost touch with the China Criminal Police Academy, which is in your hometown.
Chen Sicheng: Yes, Shenyang. The biography is a resume written in a form similar to a chronicle, when the two were born, and what major nodes in their lives, including their constellation blood type. I graduated from drama school, and one of the most important acquisitions in our education system is prescribing situations. You establish the prescribed situation as real and reliable, and the characters can stand up. Why did Tang Ren become Tang Ren, and why did Qin Feng become Qin Feng? Why did Tang Ren live in Thailand, why did he learn Nanpai Mojiaquan, and so on. We did a lot of groundwork for their history, especially since I wanted to do a series of films. Actors have to eat through the characters, and they are reading the script or reading the character biography at the same time. I remember that before the filming of "Tang Detective 1" began, Wang Baoqiang still had some concerns, because that was the first time he acted in a non-Hebei Xingtai dialect. At that time, we found a Cantonese actor, read all of Tang Ren's lines in Guangpu, and then Bao Qiang followed the recording sentence by sentence.
Tang Ren (played by Wang Baoqiang)
The Paper: The reason why the China Criminal Police Academy is mentioned is that it can be regarded as a very "real" anchor point in the character creation of the script. But the overall style of the Tang Detective series is very imaginative, you mixed with comedy action, suspense reasoning and other types, a bit like the famous northeast dish "chaotic stew", how to do the more stew the more "tall"?
Chen Sicheng: The creators of each era carry the unique attributes of this era and carry the things given by the times, and we cannot grow out of thin air in the empty valley Youlan. Looking back at my own time of growing up, I was influenced by a variety of information and genres. When I was a teenager, when I was hungry for knowledge and experience, my senses were completely opened, and I watched a lot of videos, whether it was the earliest Hong Kong films, and then Hollywood films, including Japanese and French films. From big productions to B-grade films, from cult films to various experimental art films, I hunted everything, and I was very extensive, and at that time we had many channels, which nourished the most read directors in China today. As for how my system of thinking was formed, I think it was an inevitable state that countless accidents pushed into my current state, and I actually couldn't analyze myself calmly or completely objectively, which was very difficult for me.
Stills from Detective Chinatown 3
The Paper: As a screenwriter, when creating Tang Detective characters, what kind of principles or concepts do you generally follow?
Chen Sicheng: I have a little bit of fatalism when creating characters, for example, some characters have original sins, you can try to attribute the logic of his subsequent behaviors from his early education and childhood misfortunes, but in fact, some people are born bloodthirsty. I believe that the world is like a stage, born and ugly, and everyone's social role carries a predestined side of heaven. When the water is clear, there is no fish, and when people are aware, there is no vain.
The Paper: In "Detective Chinatown 3", what changes will the audience see the creators make?
Chen Sicheng: In the mix and match of Tang Detective 3, the amount of information will be greater. I have been saying that the review of a literary and artistic work is actually a two-way street, it seems that the market is reviewing the works, such as how much box office "Tang Detective 3" will get, how many ratings can be obtained, but for us creators, we are also using our own works to review this market, review its changes, review its feedback. In my opinion, every time, I will regulate and allocate the content of the work according to my own feelings and judgments about the entire market and environment. The director shoots the scene like a cook, making a dish to see how popular it is among diners. When their tastes change, I will also make some changes and change some new tricks.
The first part of the Tang Detective series is about man's original sin, and the second part is the "three natures problem" of divinity, animal nature, and human nature. "Tang Detective 3" I would like to say that its story is more grounded, and the core theme is to pray for peace. In the past two years, you will see a growing increase in regional frictions around the world, which is very worrying. As a filmmaker, it is impossible not to pay attention to the major propositions of these times and respond to them. In addition, the news that Tokyo will host the 2020 Olympic Games was confirmed several years ago, and such a human sports event is often an opportunity to promote cultural exchanges and reconciliation. Combining these factors, I put the story of "Tang Detective 3" in Tokyo.
"The 'flying feeling' of an exotic background is invaluable to creation"
The Paper: Since directing your first film (Beijing Love Story 2014), your films have basically been self-written and directed. There is news that you are going to withdraw from the Tang Detective series and no longer direct, whether it is a movie or a web drama in the future, will you still be in charge or involved in the screenwriting work?
Chen Sicheng: Of course, I will definitely get involved in the screenwriting work. "Script script, the script of a play", I attach great importance to the script, there is no good book and other is nonsense. For the "Tang Detective" series, I will continue to participate in it as a screenwriter and producer in the future, and I do not rule out the possibility of continuing to direct "Tang Detective 4". For example, now (early 2020) Tang Detective network drama broadcast the first 8 episodes, Lin Mo's detective image has been widely recognized by everyone. Maybe we will make a movie with Lin Mo as the protagonist in the near future, but the style may be slightly different from "Tang Detective 1, 2, 3" and will be more genre-oriented. Including the success of "Manslaughter" also makes me think that Chinese audiences are still very eager for pure genre films. In the future Tang Detective system, I hope that different detective films have different genre temperaments, macroscopically they are unified, but in the presentation of details are somewhat different, in a large body system to shoot different types of movies and web dramas.
Noda Hao (played by Satoshi Mu, wife)
The Paper: Since it is called "Tang Detective", the story setting should be an exotic background, what do you think of this layer of background setting?
Chen Sicheng: I think the starting point of the setting of an exotic background is not a kind of opportunism. It is the cultural differences brought about by the exotic background that allow us to bring a little "flying feeling" to the expression of realism. This is actually very important, if you are writing about the people around you, writing about the life around you, if it is too floating or exaggerated, often the audience will feel unreal and not into the play. And once the story is set in a foreign land, everyone will have a feeling of watching western scenery. This little bit of flying is very, very valuable for creation.
The Paper: Speaking of the Tang Detective series, the word you just used is "system", but in the mouths of many fans, they call it "Tang Detective Universe". What do you think?
Chen Sicheng: I think we are just starting out now, and we are not enough to cover it with "universe", which is a bit self-proclaimed. The Tang Detective series will go through more time to polish and rich in content, but at least as creators, we have the courage to try, and no matter what step it can go in the future, it will accumulate more successful experience, or the lessons of failure, for the Chinese film industry. I think it's all good, and someone has to do it. I just hope that the audience will be more tolerant of us and more supportive of domestic and local content, because it is really not easy. The industrialization of Chinese films has not been around for many years, less than 20 years.
We will continue to create web series, including films of different detective genres, but also developing its comic book films. I especially hope that there will be more cross-industry cooperation in the future, such as Tang Tan's online game. Tang Detective's derivatives are already being done, and in the future, it is not excluded to cooperate with some large amusement parks "Tang Detective Room", a kind of interactive reasoning game of the secret room. I think there are still many areas that can be done, and we must step out of this field, and we must establish more sustainable profit models for our industry, rather than relying on a particularly single traditional model.
"Real cow movies tend to be commercial films with authorship"
Stills of "Soldier Assault", Chen Sicheng played Cheng Cai
The Paper: Many viewers know you from "Soldier Assault" more than a decade ago, which has won a lot of actors, but at present, only you have transformed into a very successful director in business. What are the sufficient requirements for your feelings to be able to make a successful transformation?
Chen Sicheng: I have always believed that creation should be driven entirely by desire, and whether you have a desire to tell a story very much, I just want to tell a story. And I don't think there's a way to call it that all the stories have already been told by Shakespeare, and I think there are still many themes and genres of blue ocean that have not been touched. In the future, the audience will also see me withdraw from Tang Detective and make other types of films.
The Paper: I heard that before graduating from Chinese opera, you wrote a suspenseful drama to rehearse. Is it possible to think that the first screenplay you personally created was a suspense theme?
Chen Sicheng: Yes, the name of that play was "Looking Up to Heaven", and the school later called it a halt and replaced it with a big drama "Dear Yelena Sergeyevna". Director TsangE's later row of "The Forbidden Game of Youth" is another name for Dear Yelena Sergeyevna. I didn't attend and went out acting.
The Paper: When did you become interested in suspenseful and detective literary and artistic works?
Chen Sicheng: I have always been very interested in this type of work. When I was a child, I watched Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection" and read it all the way from his earliest "Blood Letter Study" and "Four Signatures". After going to college, I watched Agatha Christie's stage play "The Mousetrap", including films based on her novels, "Massacre on the Nile", "Murder on the Orient Express", and "Sin in the Sun". I think the works of these two masters are relatively original, and you will read them with great interest, and go to investigate with the characters in the book, and then get an intellectual pleasure.
The Paper: In the past directors' elaborations, you have great respect for the aesthetic characteristics of the restoration of the times in "Sunny Days" and "Memories of Killing". Can you talk about the aesthetic style you established in the Tang Detective series?
Chen Sicheng: Just like Godard's influence on the directors of Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, our generation of directors cannot get rid of the influence of their predecessors. Specific to our generation, the influence may be more complex and diverse, so the works presented are often a kind of mix-and-match. I can't say where my aesthetic comes from, but I know exactly which people have had a deep influence on me, such as Jin Yong, such as Shakespeare, such as Stephen Chow, and I can clearly feel the imprint of these people's works on me. For example, in the TV series "Great Prospects", it is actually a drama that I made by combining Jin Yong Shakespeare and Stephen Chow (style).
One thing I particularly dislike is that the so-called art film is high-level, on the contrary, doing commercial film is low-level, and I have always thought that the real cattle films are often commercial films with authorship. What kind of movie do you say "The Shawshank Redemption" is? What kind of movie is The Godfather? Are they art films? At the same time, can you say that they are purely commercial films? For example, I like Spielberg's Indiana Jones series, which may be a bit more entertaining, but also philosophical. I'm very pleased that the movies I like are basically the same as the so-called best films in film history voted by fans.
The Paper: In addition to the Tang Detective series, what other plans do you have for film creation?
Chen Sicheng: I think it's just whatever you want. I actually use movies as games, and I even think that life is a game, but you have to be very enthusiastic and engaged to play. So you don't have to meet anything, everything goes with the flow, what makes me happy, I will shoot what. Maybe one day I suddenly want to make a literary film, but I don't know. But at least this year (2020) and next year (2021) shooting plans I have determined, or the cinema big movie, not a literary film, but also completely different from the type of Tang Detective.
"Mozart in Outer Space" concept poster, Chen Sicheng said at the end of 2020 that he will write and direct the "Outer Space Trilogy"
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Luan Meng