Film Name: 爆款好人 / The Hutong Cowboy
Compared to a few other National Day movies, “The Hutong Cowboy” is a double loss in terms of box office and word of mouth, and it’s also a bit quiet……. It’s a Ning Hao+Ge You comedy film, and for that, I have to find out what it’s all about.
Unfortunately, the National Day holiday because of the slow action point, resulting in simply not find a good row of films, so I can only after the festival to find another time to brush the film …… after watching I have to say:
The movie doesn’t suck, it’s decent, and it points out a lot of the characteristics of the internet age, but it’s hard to like. Minor problems aside, I think the most important thing is that it’s trying to speak well of the present and put its own attitude on display, but it’s long since tired and out of its depth.
Of the seven short films in “My People, My Country”, I personally think the best one was “Hello Beijing”, a collaboration between Ning Hao and Ge You, and in the next installment of “My People, My Homeland”, the two of them teamed up again for “The Good Person of Beijing”, which was even more outstanding. -Ning Hao, a man with a talent for the eccentric, a backbone, and a cynical streak, and Ge, a smooth, calm and collected man, make for an appealing “Zhang Beijing”.
The Hutong Cowboy, a feature-length film, makes Zhang Beijing an internet sensation and allows the audience to see more of the character’s story, but the difficult subject matter and stretched narrative also magnify its flaws.
Let’s start with the movie’s strengths: it’s well thought out, well intentioned, and treads on all the right points.
Zhang Beijing has become an Internet sensation because his video of himself defending his rights (and taking the heat) accidentally exploded, and the sudden attention made him proud for a while, but also made him go through a lot of hardships in the midst of his fame and fortune.
It should be said that “The Hutong Cowboy” still pinpoints the “popularity dragon” in today’s Internet era, and reveals some of the life on earth, such as Zhang Beijing’s popularity (had to) take the track of the “right to defend”, the company deducted money according to the rules, the hot pot restaurant does not allow parking, and so on. The company deducted money according to the rules, the hot pot restaurant does not allow parking, and other reasonable or unreasonable rules, suddenly all invalid for him, at first he did a lot of good things, and after cooperation with the MCN company also made some money.
But at the same time, the identity of a rights defender is destined to be annoying, not only because they will offend people, but also because they will always be suspected of motives when interests are involved.
Therefore, although Zhang Beijing’s original intention of being a video blogger was to do some good while earning fame and fortune, and he is indeed a good person, it was only a matter of time before the “Rights Defender” capsized.
The twist appeared in Zhang Beijing in spite of the laugh against the brother bent on having to live for Li Xiaoqin with goods to sell soap, due to the persona of misplaced plus these people do not understand the live, Zhang Beijing quickly fell to the bottom of the valley, became a bad reputation of the poor traces of netroots, and the more the blacker the later.
In my opinion, these ups and downs show one thing: most people are not suitable to be a netizen, either they can’t act or they don’t want to act.
Zhang Beijing belongs to the type that can’t and won’t act – he originally thought that people liked his side of doing good things to help others, and then habitually agreed that to be a netrooter is to act for others to see, selling misery, selling color, selling features (many people want to sell but don’t have the opportunity), but when the road to netrooter enters the deep end, he realizes that this is not what he wants to do. This is not what he wants.
The Hutong Cowboy” is already a passable work if you can make sense of the causes and consequences, the ups and downs, and the thematic ideas of the film.
Inevitably, the shortcomings of the movie seem to be more obvious, and can not be ignored: it can not catch the reality of the “network sense”, it is pushing, yearning for something, and the era is getting farther and farther away.
Seriously, the story line of “The Hutong Cowboy” is very complete, and the network theory is impeccable, but it’s hard to get into the movie right from the beginning.
Because of the current environment of “all people can shoot videos and do live broadcasts”, there is no law to speak of, bloggers up one more than one will be able to live, so like Zhang Beijing such as driving a child playing a small train crashing into the thunderstorm of the video, almost certainly will not be able to fire, not to mention the popularity of the whole country … … …
Of course, these days, theoretically everyone may be red, but the problem with the movie is too theoretical, a step or two similar to say, completely in accordance with the script belongs to the spirit of no Internet entertainment. The climax of the end of the movie, is Zhang Beijing decided to self-hacking in the end, in the live broadcast scolded Li Xiaoqin, reverse take goods to the other side of the soap sold out, I was watching the film thinking “often watch live talent will not eat this set, can have a few people really order ah”……
The net sense of this kind of thing, probably can only go to feel, to observe it after the fact, shoot is not to shoot out.
And hidden behind this bigger problem is that Ning Hao he wants to get close to, but can not get close to the mediocrity he has been mocking.
In the past two films, Zhang Beijing, even if he made some jokes that were not melodramatic, it would not hurt, but in “The Hutong Cowboy”, Ning Hao seems to be in a dilemma. He wants to get close to the masses who have the most consuming power, and use a good deed that is right enough to catch the air, but also difficult to let go of his cool and lonely mind, and play those ingenious small smarts (not in a pejorative sense).
It’s a feeling called chicanery.
I still like Ning Hao and Ge You, but Zhang Beijing, who doesn’t do Netflix, should concentrate on being a cab driver, hutong stringer, and old man from now on.
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