Film Name: 沐浴之王 / Bath Buddy
This weekend’s cinema movie is the best of the bunch, the New Year’s Eve comedy “Bath Buddy”.
Although this kind of comedy movie inherently comes with the property of the people, but by all kinds of domestic “awkward film” injured audience know, even such a glance at the comedy film just for fun is also divided into three, six, nine grades …… To my surprise, the movie color greatly exceeded my expectations! I was pleasantly surprised that the color of the movie greatly exceeded my expectations.
Compared to the Surprise movie five years ago, this year’s second feature film from “Barking Beast” Yi Xiaoxing is a big improvement in many aspects, at least, Bath Buddy looks like a movie.
Yi Xiaoxing, a web writer from the first decade of the 21st century, may not be a successful “director”, but he can be a good “product manager” for movies.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
Be forewarned: if you value basic plausibility or logical self-containedness, then don’t go see Bath Buddy, it will disappoint you.
It’s not that “you can see the end of the story at a glance” is the main problem, it’s that in order to move the story forward, the movie will use very playful, absurd and even silly twists and turns to fulfill its purpose.
The awkwardness of “Bath Buddy” lies in the fact that it fails to achieve the kind of traditional old Hong Kong movies that can let the audience completely relax, ignoring the rationality of the temperament, and also fails to do the general Hollywood commercial movies can at least smooth flowing plot, more “party skits” level of contradictions to fill the film’s joints, naturally, it can not withstand the people to watch carefully ( Most Chinese comedies have this problem, and this is the main reason why this movie is not popular among some audiences.
So, my positive opinion of “Bath Buddy” is more of a no-brainer “overall view” than anything else.
Although the use of bath rubbing this pro-people and comedic subject matter, but a little attention will find that the film does not really “drill” in the material above the dead, bath rubbing is only the most eye-catching part of the selling point of the elements, Zhou Donghai (Qiao Suen) and Xiao Xiang (Peng Yuchang) often do is not related to the professional things, many of the laughs in fact, is very cheap but also works. cheap, but it works.
This kind of pragmatism helps “Bath Buddy” to avoid the problem of drawing a blank, which similar films are prone to do – if you step on this pit, you will end up in a situation where “the harder you try, the more embarrassing it will be”.
Another thing I appreciate about this movie is that it has enough fireworks. Bath Buddy is set in Wuxi, and the main setting is the ordinary county roads and alleys, including the not-so-clean-looking but well-stocked brother’s bathhouse, which is exactly the same kind of bathhouse that can be found in the streets of Wuxi.
Whether it’s the muddy courier boy trying to take a shower or the unassuming but skilled popcorn/chef chef, all of them reveal the simplicity and loveliness of the working people – probably thanks to Yi Xiaoxing, who came from the grassroots and is good at filming the grassroots, even though he wanted to borrow the element of “laborers” for the film, it’s not detached from the people. Although he is borrowing the element of “laborers” to serve the film, he has not lost touch with the people at all.
Compared to some of his counterparts who “pretend to be pro-people, but are in fact noble”, this film’s groundedness is at least a sign of sincerity, not pretense.
All of these features create a solid chassis for “Bath Buddy”, and it’s only on the basis of not being annoying that the film’s professionalism will be further realized and spread out.
This movie about bath rubbing, most of the time in the early part of the bath rubbing this thing seems to be very restrained, whether it is to avoid the world master Zhou Donghai to teach Xiao Xiang, or let Xiao Xiang while working to receive special training, are all in a form of a joke “muddle” – until the final climax of the film is gradually revealed to let us realize that the bath rubbing is really a great craft, but also can be presented as a visual spectacle of martial arts masters to practice their skills. It’s not until the climactic bath rubbing competition that the film reveals itself and makes us realize that bath rubbing is really a craft with a great deal of care and attention, and that it can also be presented as a visual spectacle like a martial arts master sparring match.
Yes, there’s no hiding the homage to the movie “The God of Cookery” in “Bath Buddy”…… That said, “The God of Cookery” can be considered as a high-class (top class) version of similar comedies, at least not as much as “Bath Buddy”, which has a superficial characterization. Buddy” is nowhere near as good.
But I’d still like to recognize Yi’s progress and achievements, one compared to himself and one compared to his peers.
Five years ago, with the immense popularity of the hit web series of the same name, the Surprise movie received a huge amount of bad reviews after its release, and I think one of the main reasons for the lack of quality of the movie was that the director was limited by the limitations of the “short, quick and fast” style of thinking of the web series, whereas five years later, Bath Buddy, though stuffed with a lot of web clips, has begun to consider and solve problems in the rest of the movie in a holistic way, and the growth is visible. Five years later, “Bath Buddy”, though also stuffed with a lot of internet clips, has begun to consider and solve problems with a holistic movie mindset in the rest of the movie, and the growth is visible to the naked eye.
Three years ago, “The One” was in a similar position to “Surprise,” and its director Lu Zhengyu was an interesting reference – also first bursting onto the internet with his personal work, and gradually accumulating resources and experience before launching his solo movie (even the two of them are both post-1980s Hunanese, with a difference of less than a year), and if you look at their professionalism alone, you’ll find that they’re both very good at what they do, but they’re also very good at what they do. ), in terms of professionalism alone, Lu Zhengyu, who has made several successful microfilms and has been recognized and reused by Stephen Chow, is stronger than Yi Xiaoxing.
However, also a tribute to “The God of Cookery”, “The One” is slightly inferior to “Bath Buddy”, whose problem is precisely that it is “overly professional”, with its tone too high and too far from the ground, resulting in a lot of laughs that always have a kind of awkwardness that can’t be landed on the ground, while the latter effectively circumvents this problem (I hope that Lu Zhengyu can avoid this problem). The latter effectively avoids this problem (I hope that Lu Zhengyu, like Yi Xiaoxing, will make substantial progress in his next movie).
Let’s be honest, Bath Buddy is not a movie that deserves much appreciation, and from a professional fan’s point of view, it could be called a “sewing monster” or a “quadriplegic”… …
But what kind of movie do audiences want to see? And who represents how many viewers? There are no standard answers to these questions, but at least when I saw it, I was surrounded by people who laughed at this smooth, witty and heartwarming movie, and that was enough.
I started following Beast Yi Xiaoxing in 2008 through the “Beast Teaches You***” video series, and he’s one of my earliest memories of the Internet. Although I haven’t paid much attention to him and his group of friends since they left the main site of Wanhe Tiany, I’m still delighted with the performance of “Bath Buddy” performance.
Personally, I feel that compared to the past, the beast Yi Xiaoxing is more clear and put his own position, he does not have too much creative ambition, and did not put up how serious the pursuit of art, just want to use a simple story to let the audience to harvest a relaxing movie-going experience only.
Perhaps this man will give me a new surprise again sometime in the future?
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