The movie "Five Splashing Teenagers": Localization Adaptation and New Changes in Youth Writing

The domestic youth film "Five Splashing Teenagers" faced the pressure of dominating the market during the National Day period after the delay in its release, and even so, the film still won a certain box office and word of mouth with a high degree of completion. As an adaptation, the main creator has carried out localization and re-creation on the basis of retaining the plot framework of the original work and the overall tone of the characters, showing a unique and light tone in the middle of a number of macro national narrative works, and once again triggering thinking about the creative path of domestic youth films.

In recent years, domestic remakes of youth movies have a rather explosive trend, and many of them are Japanese and Korean adaptations, such as "Little Wish", "Calling for Love in the Center of the World", "Sunshine Sister Tao", "Your Wedding" and other youth films. However, in the process of adaptation of these works, there is a general lack of text innovation and cultural innovation, and the performance of youth life often follows stereotypes, and there are problems of superficiality and separation.

Song Haolin's film "Five Splashing Teenagers" is adapted from the Japanese film of the same name, and compared with the above works, it shows an improvement in quality and a new change in genre. The original "Five Splashing Teenagers" relies on the cultural context of Japanese manga, and director Yaguchi Shijing shows the typical Japanese "burning youth" with soft light, dramatic bridge sections, and absurd and lively brushstrokes. Compared with the temperament of the original version of "Secondary Two", the Chinese version of "Five Water-Throwing Teenagers" first carried out localization in character shaping. Suzuki, who loves fantasy and is dull, transforms into a bland Zhang Wei, who although he shows a non-committal side under the traditional "blow education", he is full of unique tenacity of teenagers; the explosive head of playing rock and roll corresponds to the melancholy sports student Goofy, who is very moralistic despite the appearance of a bad teenager; the weak personality of the early Otome Saint is rewritten into a social talent prince; the dancing man Ota becomes a funny word Nag Xiaodong; the coach with a Japanese "secondary two" temperament is rewritten into an unreliable frustrated middle-aged man. Adds to the meaning of real life. Whether it is character modeling or speech and demeanor, the characters in the original version are more comedic, while the Chinese version is closer to real life, and the handling method is also relatively plain, which is more in line with China's current aesthetic expectations. However, this also weakens the character's distinct personality to a certain extent.

Whether it is a narrative point of view or a narrative style, the Chinese version of "Five Splashing Teenagers" has made localization efforts in adaptation. The original version does not have a single narrative point of view, showing the growth trajectory of each character. The Chinese version begins with Zhang Wei's self-description, taking his psychological trajectory as a foothold. As the captain, Zhang Wei is undoubtedly the core of the team, he cried for the injury of his teammates, and his teammates will also accompany him to practice with his sluggish movements. Spending time with his teammates and training hard, Zhang Wei completed the transformation of his personality. The audience also follows Zhang Wei's perspective, observes his family environment, understands the contradictions between the two generations, follows his emotional context, and captures the emotional surge between teenagers. The film focuses on the highlight moment of Zhang Wei, an ordinary teenager, without frivolous legendary love, nor the gray and dark background of cruel youth, but instead the youth rebellion and breakthrough of self-knowledge of ordinary teenagers. In addition, compared with the original version, which emphasizes unique individuals, the Chinese version emphasizes the cohesion of the juvenile group.

At the same time, the Chinese version uses the method of background transformation to adapt the social situation of the original version with a realistic tendency. In the original film, the family is absent, and the growth of teenagers is manifested as their self-definition of youth. The Chinese version pushes the family element to the foreground, and the school and even the entire social institution are placed in the background board of the narrative. The Chinese version also breaks the age boundary of the original version and extends the focus on adolescent life to the adult world. Whether it is the coach, director, or parents in the film, they all represent the majesty of the adult world, showing the close symbiotic relationship between Chinese teenagers and parents. If the adolescents in the original version have higher autonomy, the Chinese version of adolescents is facing the guidance and intervention of the adult world.

The localization of the narrative style of the Chinese version of "Five Splashing Teenagers" is manifested in the transformation of tones from romance to reality. In the original film, whether it is fishing in the swimming pool, exploding with a burning flame overhead, or artificial respiration of dolphins, it is more romantic, and the grotesque behavior is self-consistent with the character image, forming a unique stylization. The Chinese version has injected more realistic factors into the adaptation process, whether it is the pressure of further education or family relations, which has become a problem that teenagers must face in the process of growing up. In terms of audiovisual language, different from the original version's fantastic warm colors, the Chinese version is dominated by cool colors, and a large number of blue sky lenses, underwater lenses and sports photography have appeared. Compared with the original version of the emotional release, the Chinese version is more restrained in the handling of the character's emotions, and more is to show the emotions of the characters through audio-visual skills. For example, Zhang Wei jumps on the trampoline, his inner self-doubt and resistance to external authority are all expressed in this shot. The rhythm of the editing and the appropriate pauses also give the film a rare sense of lightness.

Different from Japan's campus youth story, but also different from the American song and dance youth comedy, the new century Chinese youth films often carry heavy realistic topics, and are linked to keywords such as campus growth experience, original family, and college entrance examination. The motif of "youth" has gradually been distilled into a series of basic elements in the Chinese film market and has become the recipe for genre production. In particular, in recent years, works such as "Dog Thirteen", "Young You", "Carnival", "Sorrow Against the River", "Over Spring" and so on have focused on "cruel youth", integrating family, crime, black and other genre elements, showing a representative trend of Chinese youth film writing. Although "Five Splashing Teenagers" involves sports, action and other genre elements, it also shows the teenager's rebellion against rules and authority, such as the Nezha doll symbolizes the teenager's rebellion against patriarchy, and the spontaneous performance at the end of the film reflects the game with the system, but this film jumps out of the "cruel youth" and shifts the teenager from outward resistance to inward self-improvement, full of passion and blood unremitting pursuit, dissolving the "cruelty" of youth, and constructing another kind of "burning youth".

At the same time, the addition of new media has also changed the narrative context, and the penetration of youth films has become more and more extensive and deep. "Five Splashing Teenagers" integrates emerging elements such as mobile phones, parent groups, and vibrato, and incorporates new media and cyberspace into the narrative in a mediated way. The internet pours into the emotional space of teenagers, corresponding to the current life state of young people and broadening the life experience of individuals. Correspondingly, youth films also radiate society and the times from the perspective of teenagers, and new media narratives constitute a new landscape of youth films, showing the new appearance of youth writing.

"Five Splashing Teenagers" bid farewell to the previous "cruel youth" routine, in addition to the throbbing and confusion of teenagers, youth is no longer an empty pain, but shows the true sorrow and joy of a generation. This film shows that domestic youth films are more diversified and open in terms of genre, and the writing of the "youth" motif is more attentive and deeper, which is closer to the growth of Chinese teenagers. Maybe that's what a youth film should look like.

Author: Xu Jiali

Source: China Art News