Comment on "Mobile Phone" or "Big Man" from the perspective of film aesthetics, or both can be commented together! ! Be original ~

Why did I feel depressed when Xiaogang Feng filmed "Big Man"? What does it have to do with me? Actually, it has nothing to do with my position, my position. What is the connection? However, after the film succeeded in three New Year films, Xiaogang Feng's name became a certain brand and a certain box office appeal. Xiaogang Feng's film actually became such a unique director at that time, which can be divided into Hollywood films. Xiaogang Feng succeeded. How to mark it? Xiaogang Feng has obtained overseas investment, and the film "Big Man" and his previous films have undergone important changes. The important change is not to mention that the film itself is an investment. American Columbia (Asia) Company invested in Xiaogang Feng. Please pay attention. I don't need to tell you this fact. You all know it. It is almost an indisputable fact that overseas investment is much higher than domestic film investment. So there is no director who doesn't dream of getting enough money to fully realize what he wants to do in the movie. Because let's talk about a small example, for example, I designed a scene that happened at the airport, and finally found it too expensive to shoot at the airport, so I changed it. I changed to a train station. Later, I found that Beijing Railway Station was too expensive, so I changed to a small city, a small city railway station. As a result, when I arrived at the train station in a small town, the possible story I originally imagined as an airport space was changed. Of course, how much an artist yearns for himself, regardless of the bondage of money or having a little more sufficient funds, so in this sense, Xiaogang Feng can be said to be successful. This in itself is a symbol of Xiaogang Feng's success.

There was only one situation before when someone said that he had obtained overseas investment, that is, you were very successful and you were highly valued overseas, so he invested in your film and prepared to show it overseas. As we all know, for example, Farewell My Concubine, for example, many films in Zhang Yimou were made with overseas funds. However, Xiaogang Feng got the investment from Columbia (Asia) Company in the filming of "Big Man", but this investment is another kind of overseas investment. What kind of overseas investment? That is, I give you money, you make a movie, and this movie is shown in China, not to be taken away. So, why do American Columbia companies support China movies so generously? In my opinion, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Why did he invest in China movies? It's very simple, because Xiaogang Feng was the director who could share a piece with other Hollywood films at that time, and Xiaogang Feng could cut a piece from this cake, so I will invest in you, and at least a considerable part of this cut cake will be put in my pocket. Of course, Xiaogang Feng is still filming China films, but from the perspective of funding sources and profit trends, he will not re-inject into the China film market and China film industry.

Xiaogang Feng is a way for China films. There should be many roads for China films, but such a road is needed. At this time, I found that someone wanted to buy Xiaogang Feng.

In this film, in fact, many features that have always existed in Xiaogang Feng films have been changed. And this change is a kind of harm. Because the two comic characters in "Big Man", the comic protagonist and the comic tragicomedy protagonist in "Mobile Phone" still look like nobody, but this nobody is not nobody. Our "mobile phone" is clearer. We say "mobile phone" is a nobody driving a BMW, and I find it hard to believe that he is the middleman between you and me. Maybe someone here drives a BMW, I don't know, but it's not me. So I'm not talking about such a symbol of wealth, because today's modern world, the so-called wealth, is marked by such an external brand, which brand of clothes I wear, which brand of car I drive and which region I live in. So when such a symbol appears, this little man has changed, become bigger, or I can just say that it has gone bad. So in "Big Man", these two cartoon characters still look like Xiaogang Feng-style gangsters and little liars, but these gangsters are such characters that they can organize a funeral for an internationally renowned artist. So this is a little person whose role has changed and the little person has deteriorated, so he calls for warmth, nourishes our hearts with warmth, and calls for the energy of our identity with warmth. I think it has shrunk greatly. Then the whole movie "Big Man" looks like a comedy, like a comic book, which is a thing.

Another point is that Xiaogang Feng's films once won the audience's love and support, because Xiaogang Feng's films did not exclude some small moderate prejudices. For example, we have a subtle rejection of foreigners. In the details of the film, we show a little slight trampling on the foreigner and a little ridicule on him. For example, everyone remembers the scene in "Be there or be square", that is, how they taught the American police and taught them to speak Chinese. Then everyone was very happy, because on the surface, the role of cross talk was played by Ge You, but in fact, we saw a group of American policemen sitting there solemnly learning the dialogues of those policemen who were not allowed to be gangsters, so everyone felt very happy, as if they had imperceptibly met the inner psychological needs of our Chinese nation. However, I found that money is a very powerful thing in Big Man. As China said, when the money was invested by a Colombian company, we saw all the clowns, all the comedies, and all the ugly behaviors in China. When the ending and dramatic ending appeared, we found that the great man was a wise man and a real director. And he is the director of human comedy, and his death has almost become a touchstone. He looked coldly from behind these people. So, such a delicate dislocation happened. Did Xiaogang Feng overcome the prejudice?

In this sense, "mobile phones" will also be included. I think it will be recorded in the history of film culture in China, not the history of film art in China. Because this is the first movie in the history of China, that is, a movie as an advertisement, it is a huge advertisement, which is quite cheap and effective in terms of advertising. The whole movie became an advertisement for mobile communication and Motorola. More ironically, have you seen many versions of posters in this film? One version of the poster is very good. From a distance, it is a mobile phone with the word "mobile phone" on the bottom. From close range, it's a Grenade, right? This mobile phone is going to explode. "Mobile phone" is either called modern civilization or modern existence. It provides you with endless convenience and carries so many horrors. And this kind of terror is not only felt by men. On the one hand, it has such an effect, on the other hand, it is advertising mobile phones. How many functions can a mobile phone have today, what it can do, and how developed the mobile communication network is today.

From "Big Man" to "Mobile Phone", these two films list it separately because you will see the power of capital, how to change the creative track of a so-called artist and how to change the expression of a movie. On the one hand, if "mobile phone" is a super advertisement. And "Mobile Phone" is actually a super advertisement, which plays the role of a super advertisement, and to a great extent, the capital and funds of such a movie are actually a way to put advertising funds. We should advertise, how much TV stations put in, how much newspapers put in, how much magazines put in, and how much roadside advertisements put in. Put it in a movie to complete a soft advertisement, because we have all seen many movies, so I won't mention the name or anything. For example, a group of children drink a cup of Coca-Cola together and share a cup of Coca-Cola, which is a very touching scene. Seeing that the children in the mountain village regard a cup of Coca-Cola as such a precious thing, you can look at the subtitles at the end of the film and thank the Coca-Cola Company. This is so-called soft advertising behavior. However, the special feature of mobile phone is that it is an advertisement from beginning to end, an advertisement about mobile phone and an advertisement about Motorola mobile phone. Then when you want to advertise for Motorola, when you want to advertise for Motorola, a multinational company, when you want to show various models and models of Motorola mobile phones in this advertisement, and at the same time show its latest functions and high-end products, it is decided that your role cannot be a nobody, a marginal person, a bitter comedy or a taxi driver. He can't be a person struggling to survive on the edge of overseas, but he must have a certain social status and economic ability in this society in order to consume high-end products of internationally renowned brands of mobile phones. Therefore, it is in this sense that I say that the story of his warm tragicomedy is doomed to deteriorate. This is a very interesting situation. We can clearly see how things like market capital and box office returns have penetrated into such a field that we usually think of as culture and art, and how innate it is for this change. Xiaogang Feng is spending his symbolic capital. What is symbolic capital? It is the audience's trust, the audience's expectation and the audience's love for him. Therefore, from the perspective of China film history and world film history, a very successful director who is deeply loved by the audience has only three chances. If he abuses the audience's trust in him three times, he basically exhausts his symbolic capital. So when I saw "Big Man" and "Mobile Phone", I saw that Xiaogang Feng had taken advantage of his second chance.

So where did Xiaogang Feng come from? Come back from such a place with high commercial operation cost, shoot another story, a story of a nobody, a comedy with ups and downs, and win the story. Is that what you mean? Xiaogang Feng tried to return. So in this sense, "world without thieves" seems to be the beginning of Xiaogang Feng's original context. Although this is a thief who can cheat money or steal a BMW, rather than a big man who legally drives a BMW, then, although he is such a big thief, a very successful thief and a very capable thief, he is only a thief after all. So with such a thief, I'm just a thief. In the story, Andy Lau always said that it was a wolf, I was a wolf, and we were wolves. In other words, it was called a passerby, and we were passers-by. In this way, Xiaogang Feng obviously wanted us to see that he was a big thief, but he wanted to lower his profile. He is just a thief, just a passerby, just a wild wolf and a hungry wolf. So this kind of hunger, in the film, is obviously not a physical hunger, not a hungry thief who steals money because of lack of food, but a hunger of desire.

The protagonist played by Andy Lau in the story is such a hungry wolf, but it is obviously a hungry wolf in the sense of desire. So Rene Liu's character kept saying, "Shut up, stop, we've had enough." . Then he thought it was a joke. How can we do it? We're not enough. So such a plot, such a narrative, is called rhetorical strategy in professional terms, that is, it is a thief. But we used a lot of things to reduce his figure, his social status and make him a nobody again. Moreover, an important detail, a detail that supports the narrative of the whole drama, makes such a nobody's story established, that is, the motive is simple, the clue is simple, and the woman is pregnant. A woman is going to be a mother. She doesn't want her child to be born a thief's son, and she doesn't want her son to become a thief when he grows up. So something moral and ethical, something religious or religious, something transcendental began to enter her life and became the driving factor of the whole plot. So, finally, what's the difference between world without thieves and Xiaogang Feng's previous New Year films?

I think it's more melodramatic. It used to be a civic comedy, but now it's more melodramatic. It touches you with plot, plot evolution, emotion and warmth. Although it continues some comedy elements, it is of course very interesting. In other words, sometimes the expectations of the audience will be quite strong.

When watching "world without thieves", I found the audience laughing all the time. Many times when I think it's not funny, everyone laughs. But on the other hand, I think when we go to see Xiaogang Feng movies and Xiaogang Feng New Year movies, our expectations for comedy are too high. People's expectations of comedy are too high, so people laugh at anything with a sense of comedy, because when we almost paid that money, we felt that we had paid a right to laugh, a right to laugh. Of course there are exceptions. For example, when I watched Hero in the cinema, the cinema kept laughing, which had nothing to do with the comedy effect of the film, but with some psychological experiences of the audience.

As far as Xiaogang Feng is concerned, "world without thieves" has become a drama, no longer a comedy, let alone a banter comedy famous for its humor and gimmicks. But more on the road of drama. Another change of "Xiaogang Feng" is that if Xiaogang Feng continues his tradition of excellent production, the technical content of this film is obviously greatly improved compared with other films and other films in Xiaogang Feng. It is on the level of using various film techniques that it greatly surpasses the previous Xiaogang Feng films. Another change is that in this film, Xiaogang Feng expressed his respect for order, which surpassed previous Xiaogang Feng films. Originally, we said that the previous films in Xiaogang Feng were all little people who lingered on the edge, people who always seemed to have an illegal heart and didn't do anything illegal. This little guy, but his little guy, has always had a little wandering relationship with social order. Just like his "Be there or be square", he put the story in the American scene, so these China people, as new immigrants, have nothing to do with the mainstream order in the United States, and they don't try to find that order to protect them. By the time of Endless, this little guy seemed to come out and become a kidnapper, but a warm story changed this thing. He had this scene specially, and she went to find her. Then she insisted that there was no such thing. I was kidnapped. I don't admit that I was kidnapped. How can this case be established? I didn't really offend the cult, but I never sought its protection.

But in this film, we see a change, that is, on the one hand, the hero is a fugitive, this little guy is a fugitive, he is a thief, a liar, a robber, or an illegal high-tech job. This is a joke. There are many such tricks and stunts in this movie. I said this is a highly skilled and high-tech job. Then, in this film, the protagonist is like this. He is already a fugitive, but on the one hand, the whole story is a story of a fugitive returning to the mainstream society. This pair of men and women, their last love, their expectations for their life after birth, the continuation of their own flesh and blood, and their children make them guardians, not people who break the law. This is on the one hand, and on the other hand, we will see that in this film, not only the protagonists will return to order, but they still have to pay the price for their illegal behavior. The first is the appearance of brave police, and the image of brave police appears. Next is a brave, reasonable but intolerant police image. But at the same time, in order to improve the expression of order on the one hand and sitcom on the other, everyone is expecting a warm and happy ending when watching sitcom, otherwise it will not be a sitcom and become a tragedy. Satisfy everyone's psychological comfort, then these two things must be satisfied. In this film, the neatness of the film is also reflected here, that is, Xiaogang Feng chose this ending and let the thief played by Andy Lau die in the hands of gangsters, so as to finally protect the law. If he ever broke the law, he used death to pay for it, which is too much, because he can't be sentenced to death anyway, but he died and gave his life, so he not only paid for his sins, but also paid for the sins of his lover or his wife. So in the end, the leniency of the French Open is based on the premise that a big punishment already exists, and this big punishment happens in the story as a self-punishment, so it is the dignity of order, not the cruelty of order. This is a change of Xiaogang Feng in this film. You can say that Xiaogang Feng is more mature, because the whole film is neat and round, its technical content, a large number of stunt scenes are used, and then the narrative details are as detailed as his previous TV series, so you can say that he is mature.

But from another perspective, Xiaogang Feng seems to have lost its former vitality. This is my personal observation and thinking. Without the vividness in his previous movies, there will be many unexpected things coming out of Generation every time. On the contrary, what we encounter is a smooth, neat and complete warmth, a standard pop culture. Because it not only gives us an hour and a half of happiness, an hour and a half of warmth and tenderness, but also gives us a call for order, a call for order and a powerful edification, which is so intangible that while we are watching the plot, we are concerned about the fate of the protagonist.

On the other hand, there are two important clues to the expression of order in this film. Then an important clue is the heroine played by Rene Liu. She is pregnant, eager to be a mother, and then eager to be an innocent mother in front of her children. The affection between two people finally overcame the seemingly insatiable desire. The occurrence of this change revolves around an almost sacred character, which is the silly root in the story. It sets a plot, he grew up in a remote mountain village, and he worked in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, so he was completely away from the world. This figure is almost a mythical figure, and it is a completely mythical figure. Because we know that an important feature of the process of commercialization or globalization is that it is not only destructive, but also ubiquitous. It is hard for you to imagine that a mountain village is a paradise, isolated from the world, because a simple thing is directly related to the space we are in today. Television media almost covers the space that people never thought they could enter the outside world, so the world is connected in this sense, so there is no paradise in this sense, and there is no bustling place in this world. So I said a myth, a mythical figure. For such a mythical figure, I want to make a joking association here. I said that Xiaogang Feng is providing us urban residents with an ideal village imagined by the rich people of Party A and Party B, that is, imagining such a pure land, such pure and absolutely pure people. In order to protect this man's pure heart, our last myth, the last pure land can die, and the characters in the story can die. This is another expression of order.

Thirdly, in the sense of expressing order, I think Xiaogang Feng chose the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to strengthen the richness, visibility and appreciation of such a melodrama. In this way, he can bring a lot of natural scenery and exotic customs, and also provide a basis for the survival of such a role as silly root. If silly root works in Beijing and Shanghai, it is hard to say that he is that pure. He thinks that world without thieves, we put him on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, seems to have a glimmer of possibility, a glimmer of possibility. Then he brought this factor as well as another thing, that is, religion. The power of religion, but obviously he did not deliberately emphasize the power of this religion. He is not so much expressing a religion as saying a belief, a belief, something that people will cherish in their hearts, which will be regarded as sacred and will be adhered to.

I think Xiaogang Feng, who just got back, will still fly away. Or will it continue to return? Still going further and further? I can't say for sure. Because I think I like a sentence very much. In today's world, only fools will make predictions. Because there are too many changing factors, because there are too many unpredictable factors. So I'm not sure. I don't feel like a fool, but I don't feel sure and qualified to predict what will happen, so I can't make a prediction. But I just think that Xiaogang Feng's role has changed from "big name" to "mobile phone" and now to "world without thieves". I once said that he is such a demonstrator of popular culture, such an example, and he has indeed given this ordinary person and all kinds of small people who may succeed in the changes of modern life, but at the same time they have also suffered setbacks and pressures. Having such an hour and a half of happiness may be a long aftertaste after an hour and a half. You will smile when you think of it, or friends will exchange a pair of signals. For a pair of lines, then everyone will smile at the same time, so he gradually becomes a demonstrator of the new commercial film, and he is trying again or showing the possible elements of a successful commercial film. These elements are not that we all know that ordinary commercial movies contain those elements at the same time, such as scenery plus love, such as fighting, and high technology, such as wonders, which are well known. But what matters is how to combine, which factors and which factors are combined successfully in a work. So as far as pop culture and commercial films are concerned, there are limited routines and elements, but endless combinations. You can give birth to new stories in constant combination and arrangement. In my favorite sentence, there are no new stories, but there are always fresh lips. The old story told by fresh lips turned into a new story, which made us hear something new.