Film Name: 保你平安 / Post Truth
After its first screening at the Hainan Island International Film Festival last December, Post Truth received quite positive feedback, which raised my expectations for the film.
After the screening last weekend, I’m convinced that it’s a good film that deserves to be acknowledged: this film, which focuses on online rumours and violence, accurately practices the common theory that the core of a comedy is a tragedy, through the travesty of Wei Pingan, an atypical modern-day “chivalrous warrior” who breaks the law by using his martial arts skills. The film is an accurate fulfilment of the popular theory that “the heart of comedy is tragedy”.
Thanks to its contemporary subject matter and solid execution, I’m sure Post Truth will receive more meaningful critical acclaim.
What surprises me even more is the progress that director Dapeng has made, not counting the unrepeatable masterpiece The Reunions, but as his third feature-length comedy film after Jian Bing Man and City of Rock, Post Truth has managed to be not pompous and greasy, but sincere and powerful, with the quality of being rooted in the muck and cleaned of the lead. In the future, this “comedian who is gradually moving away from comedy” may be able to go even further.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
Since it’s labelled “comedy”, let’s start with the comedy.
Post Truth has the important advantage that the laughs are (relatively) natural and not forced.
Take the green hair of the protagonist Wei Pingan as an example, when she went to pick up her daughter Wei Shuitong, she deliberately wore a green hat to cover her hair (coupled with Feng’s yellow hair and the red hair of the young Wei Pingan in the colourful eggs, I was reminded of the old “red, yellow and green lamps, three hairs” in the “First Chaos of All Time”), this kind of old-fashioned laughs could not make everyone laugh out loud, and the film then stops there, the whole film does not mention the word “green”, nor does it amplify this point to tickle the audience awkwardly. The film doesn’t even mention the word “green”, nor does it amplify this point to make the audience laugh.
The film learns to hide its laughs as it goes along, and this is the difference between the majority of Chinese comedies and the majority of Chinese comedies.
Of course, the real “laughs” in Post Truth are not ambiguous, and the scene where Wei Pingan goes to the haunted house to look for his sister Wei Ruyi is the most classic. Through the external intruder, Wei Pingan constantly deconstructs the horror elements, and at the same time, quickly converts the dissolved emotions into a sense of comedy that is both laughable and shocking, presenting a slightly horrifying and hilarious atmosphere of the grotesque.
There are many more laughs in the process of tracing the chain of rumour spreading, such as Wei Ruyi’s psychological fraud on Chairman Jin, Wei Pingan’s reaction to his own fanbase, and so on, all of which are relatively new baggage for the times.
As for the “Wei Ruyi – part-time friend – her mother – square dance partner – Chairman Jin” montage, it’s no longer just a joke, but a seemingly frivolous but heavy reality with blood.
Which brings us to the film’s core strengths; Post Truth’s greatest triumph remains essentially a triumph of reality.
“Behind the story of a beautiful woman who donated 1.36 million dollars to the city’s orphanage, the orphan Han Lu donated her insurance money to give back to the community after she got a brain tumour. The truth is so simple, but after her death, she was rumoured to be a working girl, turning an otherwise unremarkable news story into a hot topic, which in turn led to a series of stories in the film.
In the process of Wei Pingan tracking down the source of the rumour, the line that impressed me the most was Tony’s line, “Why are you so strict when you can just eat a melon?” This is one of the main reasons why rumours spread so widely on the Internet: the rumour-mongers usually don’t have the sense to ask for evidence, not to mention the psychological baggage that comes with rumour-mongering.
In reality, Internet rumours are more complex, in addition to the exponential growth of multiple chains of transmission, the source of rumours is often more than one, the film rumour mongers “in order to read online articles for free and other small profits, cheat likes and cheat replies to brush the hot comments” is just a typical category, there are also “don’t believe that other people will do good things, and so put their own dark guesses out”, and “just want to create a reverse spin under the lopsided comments, to get attention” and so on. There are also those who “don’t believe others will do good deeds, so they speak out their own dark conjectures” and those who “just want to create a backlash under the lopsided comments to gain eyeballs” and so on.
But even if Post Truth simplifies the complexity of online rumour mongering drastically, it’s still alarming enough.
Besides, far more people read debunked rumours than rumours, and it’s simply impossible to completely debunk them, hence Wei Ruyi’s very true line, “When you open your mouth and say a woman is a lady, whether she is or not, she already is.”
So what Post Truth really looks at beneath the surface of internet rumours is why a 40-something, junior high school graduate, ex-convict, and less-than-desirable life is trying to clear his name for a client he met in passing, and just how far he can go in his quest for justice.
This problem at first glance seems very simple, righteousness every more slaughter dog generation, Wei Pingan preferred to fight, and even zealous to some lack of heart, that year is for the old friend Qi head out to hurt too much to sit in jail, such a person, naturally can’t look at the injustice of what happened.
But this explanation can only be counted as axiomatic, Wei Pingan and then lack of heart, to the age of this should also “learn smart”, look at the old Qi with the tide, swallowed his anger and begged for the best, even if you want to help, but also at most in the ability to not endanger their own case to help.
In my opinion, when Feng moved his brother’s grave, things should be over: Feng did not go back on his word to move Han Lu’s tomb, Wei Pingan can continue to run for the rumour, no matter how the result, he is Han Lu accountable, not counting the sorry people …… However, Wei Pingan chose to snatch the ashes, so that the situation is completely out of control.
Wei Pingan’s move, simply for the life of the lovers love can still be buried together after death (and rumour or not have little to do with it), this is not at all he should be in charge of, can care about idle matters, but he still a head of his shoulders – from this time onwards, Wei Pingan is not simply nosy enthusiasts, but a martial arts violation of the ban, A chivalrous man who fights for justice.
In the film, Wei Mutong’s secondary line of standing up for his wronged classmates is an effective complement to Wei Pingan’s main line of “doing stupid things”. Everything on campus is relatively simple, but the essence is the same: meddling heroes have to pay a price (hidden birthmarks, black history of imprisonment being exposed, suffering from violence on campus, cyber-violence), and if you want to save someone from hell, you have to go to hell yourself first! The truth is so important.
Is the truth really that important? Once a label is put on, even if it is torn off later, the traces will still be there, not to mention that everyone has their own “truth” in their heart.
In Post Truth, there is another way to deal with rumours, that is, Zhao Yuxuan’s parents, they do not care whether their daughter has stolen or not, they only consider whether they want to transfer their daughter to another school or not, this kind of approach focuses on stopping the loss, and does not pursue the truth, may be more practical.
But this approach is certainly not suitable for Wei Pingan, more sorry for the public’s simple sense of justice.
The film shows Wei Pingan’s pursuit of the truth while also adding many current fashionable elements, such as the network broadcasting boom on all aspects of the real world intervention, “Cemetery Brother” can be red, precisely because Wei Pingan has a network of rare “true” and “axis”, these qualities have become some people’s “net sense”. “These qualities have become what some people refer to as a “sense of network”.
Without the accidental popularity of “Cemetery Brother” and the hotspots that Yizhihua posted on him, Wei Pingan would not have been able to accomplish his goal, and Wei Pingan finally caught the rumour mongers offline, more or less for the netizens out of a bad mood. …… All these appearances are the top and bottom of the content of the “Post Truth”. Post Truth’s plus points.
In the end, the rumour-monger 421 and Wei Pingan were both detained and fined, the police issued a rumour announcement, and the netizen who admitted to the face of the reversal and sold the “Graveyard Brother’s identical schoolbag” ate the second wave of traffic, but the “Graveyard Brother” himself did not seize the opportunity to cash in on the rumour, and Wei Pingan also lost his job at the cemetery. Ping An also lost the graveyard work, turned around and sent a takeaway ……
This is not a good ending, some people can’t help but ask: What is the picture?
With Wei Pingan’s level, I’m afraid I can’t say “I have a clear conscience” and other beautiful words, but he can say: figure a trust, figure a peace of mind, figure a good and evil will be rewarded in the end, there is a true love in the world.
Accompanied by the song “wish you peace”, Han Lu set off big fireworks for Brother Ping An to brush a wave of 666, which is like the imagery of the white horse before, a little subtle, a little superstitious, and a little earthy, but extraordinarily right.
If there is another melon on the internet one day, please also remember that there is such a gaijin with dyed green hair and a pink school bag, no matter how high or low, you and I can do the same righteous act as him.
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