Film Name: 我和我的家乡 / My People, My Homeland
Among the seven stories of last year’s National Day melodrama My People, My Country, the one with the best overall quality and audience reputation has to be Ning Hao’s Hello in Beijing, which is not a complicated story, but tells the memories of a generation of Chinese people in the form of a friendly comedy, with laughter and touching feelings.
As the 2.0 version of My People, My Country in every sense of the word, Ning Hao, the director of My People, My Homeland, has cleverly followed his previous thinking, and carried out the strategy of “comedy + melodrama + folklore” to the end, with five stories about the hometowns of the common people, allowing audiences to watch them all at once. Five stories about the hometowns of the common people, allowing the audience to watch them all at once.
It can be predicted that My People, My Homeland won’t do badly at the box office, and this kind of short and quick filming mode of “distributing semi-proposal essays, letting each team shoot short films, and finally coordinating a feature film” seems to have a tendency of a new kind of wealth code! — Success” can be copied and mass-produced.
As long as the film is good, I personally don’t have any opinion on what filming method to use …… just “My People, My Homeland” in making everyone laugh with tears at the same time, but also quickly appeared some kind of set of fatigue, which can’t help but make me have another question: such a “success”, and how long can it last? This makes me ask another question: how long can such “success” last?
[Warm reminder: there will be spoilers below].
The Good Person of Beijing tells the story of another “Zhang Beijing”, who, on the one hand, is reluctant to lend money to his cousin’s uncle for a thyroid operation, but on the other hand, he can’t bear to care about his relatives in his hometown of Hengshui, so he stages a farce of stealing from them to cheat on the medical insurance.
Ning Hao’s play still has the flavor of the “crazy” series, there are interlocking accidents, there is a full weight of the joke, warm banter and bitter satire is not absent, it can be said to be very interesting.
The two lead actors deserve a lot of credit. Ge You, needless to say, dejected, witty and swollen face, that flavor called a full, another civilian actor from the “Rebuilding” Zhang Zhanyi (this is his second film) also gave a lot of surprises, not that his acting skills how outstanding, but the richness of his body of the vernacular is too “nature”, is the same as the “Rebuilding”. It’s not that he’s a great actor, but his strong local flavor is so “native” that he’s exactly the kind of honest, mute and stubborn elders we see around us.
Moreover, in this short film, selflessness and selfishness in human nature are not opposites, and the characters did not ignore the reality at the same time as they talked about human feelings, for example, Zhang Beijing finally paid money to his cousin’s uncle for an operation, and he still remembered the car that he didn’t buy, and the cousin’s uncle just said that he would eat dandelions for three meals a day. “After hearing “the money can not be returned” immediately stopped in his tracks ……
As a tribute film, “The Good People of Beijing” is the point of coverage is expanding, increasingly perfect national health insurance system, from this point of view, the end of the hard “elevated” is going to damage the overall tone, Ning Hao good good in the end of the two people did not forget to run to the village committee to go reimbursement process, so that some of the “heaven! The story of “UFOs Falling from the Sky” has been reintroduced to the earth.
A UFO fell from the sky” took place in Guizhou Qiannan, many villagers witnessed UFOs in the sky shortly after the ‘re-entry into the scientific’ program team to Afu village to conduct field investigations, focusing on the village’s ‘folk inventor’ Huang Dabao, and ultimately learned of the oolong, but also compulsion, but also heartbreaking, but also touching the truth.
Director Chen Sicheng has already achieved great commercial success, and from “Tang Detective 2” we can see that he has a knack for entertainment.
This time, he simply let go of the game, what ready-made with what: first set a layer of general director of last year’s film “Crazy Alien” skin, and then a cottage version of the “Detective Chinatown”, and then look at the originator of the Huang Dabao, which is not long with the face of Huang Bo handmade Geng it?
UFOs Falling from the Sky” has the most elements, the most hilarious, and the actors have contributed their most ‘iconic’ screen images in recent years. Huang Bo is responsible for hilarity and positive energy, Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran are Tang Ren and Qin Feng, the village chief Wang Yanhui and the boss Wang Xun are responsible for ulterior motives, and Dong Zijian is in charge of the young talents, Tong Liya is in charge of the dream girl, and Tong Liya is in charge of the young talents. Tong Liya is responsible for dream lover ……
Of course, whether it’s the rapidly developing alien-themed specialty tourism economy in Afu Village, or Huang Dabao engaging in giant drones in the hope of opening up mountain village logistics, or even the local good mountains and good water and good people in Guizhou, it’s all a simple expression of love for your hometown and the development of your hometown.
The Last Lesson travels to Qiandao Lake in Chun’an, Zhejiang Province, where an elderly teacher, Mr. Fan, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and is still trapped in his memories of when he was a rural teacher. In order to help the teacher, his students rebuild a classroom from 1992, and then Mr. Fan witnesses the significance of his many years of education with an out-of-this-world experience.
Xu Zheng is so smart that he knows what his task is, and he also understands the limitations of the task, so he makes the direction of the short film very clear: I am going to make a sensational and touching story, but with exaggerated comedy techniques.
The audience will laugh at the chaos, simplicity, and unprofessionalism of “setting up the stage” and “singing”, but they will not laugh at a people’s teacher who dedicates 10 years of his youth to a rural elementary school, which makes the film’s perception very appropriate.
Movie star Fan Wei’s acting is another major plus point, he stepped on the character characteristics of the role of Mr. Fan, regardless of age for the cause of education and dedication to the duty, from the heart for the students to teach and solve the problem of sincerity, slow and methodical not see weak, rooted in the countryside refreshing – stepped on the soul of the protagonist, the soul of the short film is also in the.
As for the “main theme” issue, “The Last Lesson” is a bit ambiguous. Although the theme of “rural teachers dedicating themselves” is enough, it is clear that it also wants to show the great changes and development of the backward countryside in the past 30 years. It’s still a bit weak to use only specialty tourism and beautiful houses to make the results – fortunately, Xu Zheng finally puts the focus on the people.
The Road Back Home” cuts to the front line of Yulin, Shaanxi Province, where Yan Feiyan, a popular network carrier, meets Qiao Shulin, a familiar fellow villager and schoolmate, on his way back to his hometown to participate in a school celebration. He was thought to be an unreliable goods who is a swindler, but it turns out that he is a hero who has been rooting in his hometown for many years and has led his fellow villagers out of poverty and into wealth.
The directing duo of Deng Chao and Yu Bai Mei, how their strength is obvious to all (“The Breakup Guru”, “Devil and Angel”, “Looking Up”), is, to put it in a good way, improving, and to put it in a bad way, the level has not been high ……
This short film has almost all of their faults, such as concept first, unclear persona, etc., Yan Feiyan looks like a netizen who forgets her roots, but is a reliable elder sister in her behavior, so that the audience can not figure out whether she is considered to be “sensitized” or intended to give back to her hometown, Qiao Shulin on the first suppressed and then raised, and then too blatant, raw! As for the overall narrative, “Returning to the Hometown” is a very good one.
As for the overall narrative, “The Road Back Home” also has a similar problem as “Looking Up”, that is, it has a good subject matter in hand, but has to use a large section of sensibility to replace rationality, and sensationalism is forced to stir up the emotions, so that the “taste” that should be appropriate has turned into heavy flavors that are overloaded with oil and salt.
The story of the people’s “sand control and forestation” in the Mao Wusu Desert deserves to be widely praised, and the short film also features the excellent line “After learning the skills, let’s change our place”, as well as the story of the selflessness of the local bosses who brought people to sell their specialties to earn money, which also triggered a lot of resonance. The story of the selfless local boss who sells specialty products to make money can also resonate with a lot of people. …… I believe that “The Road Back to the Countryside” can move a lot of viewers.
The magic pen Ma Liang” rolled into the big northeast of the Xihong City, the painter Ma Liang could have gone to the Russian Leben Academy of Fine Arts for further study, in fact, but hidden from his wife Qiu Xia, secretly ran to build their hometowns, in order not to expose the truth, the whole village to help him to round the lie, until the last Qiu Xia came to his side ……
Yan Fei and Peng Daimo gave full play to their expertise in tickling/laughing points, presenting a story that is almost impossible in reality in an extremely playful way.
Not only that, these two also like Chen Sicheng also included a lot of “private goods”, such as highly overlapping with the “West Rainbow City” names of places, “The Trouble with Charlotte” Charlotte promised Ma Dongmei sunflower promise is also realized, so familiar with their work of the audience to get more fun.
Shen Teng and Ma Li led the full Northeast lineup, funny up the most handy, from flinging baggage jittery, to body language look and feel grooming, and then to the dialect lines layer play terrier …… can say, as long as your heart is not cold, absolutely can laugh out loud.
However, the story of “Magic Pen Ma Liang” is too much paragraph in the funny side, so that it can not make the audience find more emotional resonance, about the spiritual theme, it also stays in a relatively shallow new rural construction, “bias” is very strong. Visible, let the happy twist team can be funny, but at the same time still have to sing the main theme is a little difficult.
Postscript:
From the current box office trend, “My People, My Homeland” should become the final winner of the National Day (even if it can’t surpass “My People, My Country”, it can still make a fortune), coupled with generally positive feedback, fully proved that this kind of entertainment plus melodrama filming mode has a lot of market space.
But if we really want to evaluate the real quality of the film, I’m afraid it’s not so optimistic: from my personal point of view, the best effect is The Last Lesson, and the best mood is The Good Person of Beijing, but that’s only from the point of view of the five shorts, and when put into the director’s own curriculum vitae or the entire sequence of Chinese films, it’s not so good.
What’s more, these short films are essentially the same story, although based in the countryside, but in fact, the knowledge and experience of the countryside are relatively scarce, in the quantifiable material conditions and ecological environment to measure the changes in rural life at the same time, but it is difficult to touch the more delicate mentality of the people’s transformation and spiritual outlook.
And this is reflected behind, is the filming of the film “theme first” of the essence of …… enhanced version of the sketches of course also look good, but if the future of the “pro-people” melodramatic movie are so engaged, I am afraid that will quickly exhaust the freshness of the people. I’m afraid that will quickly exhaust the freshness and enthusiasm – the audience and creators should not be satisfied with this, we should see a better “Chinese story”.
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