Film Name: 抓娃娃 / Successor
Nowadays, “happy twist” in the domestic film market is no longer a piece of box office appeal of the gold standard, and even in the eyes of many viewers, it has become synonymous with bad movies …….
However, born of a group of main members of the team, its reputation is still there – Yan Fei + Peng Daimo + Shen Teng + Ma Li, this golden combination in the “West Rainbow City universe” staged a new film “Successor”, with the actual performance to prove that their own Successor” is a new film in the “West Rainbow City Universe”, which proves that their work is still funny and good-looking.
I believe the film will have a good box office performance in this summer.
Old Ma’s family seems to be so poor that they can’t make ends meet, but in fact it’s a rich couple who pull a group of people together to put on a big show in order to raise their son.
The story looks a bit like the Indian film Hindi Medium and the classic The Truman Show, but in fact, it is more like a projection of the social emotions alienated by the gap between the rich and the poor and the anxiety about education in our environment. …… Therefore, although Successor is far from being a good film that can make you laugh and cry and sublimate the interpretation of the theme, it is not a good film that can make you laugh and cry and sublimate the interpretation of the theme. Therefore, although Successor is far from being a good film that can make people laugh with tears and sublimate the interpretation of the theme, it has all the things it should have.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
The story of Successor was inspired by a very classic passage, and also a dream of many people: when you are an adult, your parents suddenly tell you that your own family is actually rich, and that you are a rich second generation who has a large fortune and career to inherit.
When the story is expanded into a film, the comedic undertones are immediately created, but the focus of the film is on the “deception” before the truth is revealed.
02
As a comedy film that focuses on absurd stories, the majority of the laughs in Successor come from the scenes and sequences in which Ma Chenggang’s family cheats his son Ma Jiye.
It’s safer and funnier to film the rich pretending to be poor than the poor pretending to be rich.
Although the film is still a “high-quality version of a skit”, it does have an amusing effect.
Here to praise the fake hearth that scene, that section of the scene originated from the college entrance examination before the Ma Jiye, inadvertently found pretending to be the grandmother of the Li teacher playing basketball, Ma Chenggang in order to solve his son’s doubts, can only let her fake death, hastily arranged hearth is a flawed grassroots, the scene logic falls and smooth, dense and heavy baggage, the whole play in one go, directly to the spirit of the spirit of the laughter I gave.
Speaking of which, certainly can not bypass the “Successor” of the two leading actors, Shen Teng and Ma Li (after all, the two of them together is the core box office appeal).
03
Honestly, this time I still feel that the choreography is stronger than the acting, but Shen Teng and Ma Li fulfil their roles quite competently.
Shen Teng as Ma Chenggang, not hesitate to use more than ten years of false environment to train his son, determination and perseverance is very strong, Ma Li as Chunlan, in the case of not very agree with her husband, but also willing to accompany him to the end of the play – this pair of old partners, this time to capture the Ma Chenggang and Chunlan’s “pretend”, steal the feeling of full. This time, the old pair captured Ma Chenggang’s and Chunlan’s “pretence” and stole a lot of feeling.
There are natural pretend, there are awkward pretend, and greasy, exaggerated, dangerous pretend, etc., once into their “comfort zone”, the sense of joy naturally come out, do not have to two special to adjust ……
All in all, if you want to have a good time, the quality of Successor is definitely above par, and even though it’s not well paced and occasionally chills out, it’s not a bad time to laugh at anything that needs to be laughed at.
And then it’s time for some in-depth conversation about the extreme education of the rich pretending to be poor – which is the main reason I’m willing to write long posts.
Ma Chenggang childhood home conditions are very bitter, grow up to become a tycoon, his first son Ma Dajun was “raised abolished”, Ma Chenggang think it is too rich and spoilt relationship, so the eldest son sent abroad, Ma Chenggang decided to use the environment of the poor to cultivate the youngest son Ma Jiye.
Like Ma Chenggang such parents, we have a lot around them, they are not good since childhood, relying on personal efforts and the times dividend career success, always feel that it is a child’s difficult growth environment to sharpen the credit, and now the children and grandchildren, “not as good as their own”, because they have not eaten the bitter.
Eat bitter in the bitter, only one person – Ma Chenggang tried to reproduce their own childhood growth trajectory, so that Ma Jiye also the same success, just this time, secretly have the ability to exchange money for a huge manpower and material resources, to escort his son.
But and the reality of the majority of parents is different, ordinary people in life want to cajole, want to set up a child at most only a moment, nothing more than the number of times, and the Ma Chenggang family, the play acted more than ten years.
The time scale and the extent of the play has been stretched and enlarged, which makes the original fun and funny play, and at the same time, it brings a strange sense of fear: are they really for the good of the child? Will the child be better for it?
Initially, Ma Chenggang’s strategy is quite successful, the poor child early to be a family, Ma Jiye at a young age is already a thrifty family, filial piety elders, hard work, everything is in accordance with the behind-the-scenes team of professionals in the development of the planned route.
After all, pretending to be poor is not really poor, and Ma Chenggang is so obsessed with playing tricks and reasoning that the normal grind of life has lost its energy to nourish the child.
For example, in order to teach his son to pick up water bottles “more marketable”, Ma Chenggang arranged for the Daxiang team to lose the game by a large margin (by the way, the goalkeeper Wang Duoyu left a backdrop beside Ma Chenggang), thus obtaining a stadium full of water bottles, and then he chartered the entire stadium, and the family happily picked up the water bottles.
This is similar to the “poor man’s fantasy of the emperor using a golden hoe to plant his land”, I’m afraid that what Ma Jiye has learnt is not market thinking, but the joy of picking up bottles. ……
Besides, is a good lie not a lie?
The more I watched Successor, the scarier and creepier it became. A group of adults, under the money and principle of “doing what’s best for the child”, cheat and toy with a simple child in all kinds of ways, so much so that Ma Jiye doubts the nature of the world even before the college entrance exams.
It’s important to set a good example. It’s not convincing for adults to play cards and rub mahjong while urging their children to do their homework – although Ma Chenggang and the others put on a good show, what’s fake is fake, especially when Ma Jiye discovers the truth on his own, the reality will only shatter his outlook on the world to smithereens.
In the film, Ma Jiye gave up that year’s college entrance examination, the next year with high scores into the sports academy, and then chose the long-distance running programme, the main one does not listen to parents, I do what I want.
But if you think about it more deeply, why Ma Jiye will prefer to run this project? Compared with professional sports students, he has little talent, and started already late, the competition results are still very poor ……
In fact, it is only because he was selected by the coach of the gymnasium when he was a child, and had the opportunity to become a special sports student, and briefly had the dream of “competing for the country” – that was the only time in his 20 years of life that he could rely on himself to change his destiny, and the rest of the time, his life was all set up for him to run, but he was not able to do so. For the rest of his life, the only thing he could do was to study hard and get into a university in Beijing.
Both of Ma Chenggang’s sons have failed in their training, but to some extent, they have also lived their own lives, Ma Dajun no longer longs for his father’s approval, and Ma Jiye has begun to go for his own ideas.
They have plenty of opportunities for trial and error, and even if they achieve nothing in their lives, they still have their tycoon dad behind them, so the story of Successor, no matter how it plays out, is never going to be an outright tragedy……. This is where the irony of the film lies.
As for the child’s education exactly how to do? Sorry, the film can’t give an answer, in the end it’s just a film, which incidentally helps to rule out one of the most outrageous scenarios.
Please specify：Yescase Store » Successor 2024 Film Review: Education starts at a young age. Have you learnt to scrap?