It is worth reflecting that several of the relatively successful domestic game plot comedies in recent years are not original scripts.

Due to the impact of the epidemic, this year's two new comedies "Aunt" and "Big Winner" have chosen to play online for free.

"Aunt" as the third part of the series, gives people a mature to greasy feeling. The main reason is that the 囧 series repeatedly borrows a mature type-a healing journey film. If the first "Taiwan" can still be refreshing, and also created a box office miracle that year, "Hong Kong" and "Aunt" will easily give people the feeling of "fried rice." This method of creating comedies with mature types started from Ning Hao's "Crazy Stone", and it has been flourishing all the way. In fact, it has become a mainstream operation method of domestic comedy movies, and it has also produced many good films. However, there are two major risks to this method of operation: First, the research on mature types is incomplete, and type borrowing errors occur. This problem appeared in the "Beneficiary" of the New Year's Eve last year. The second is the excessive re-use of mature types such as "Aunt", not dare to innovate. These two issues are becoming more and more prominent today, putting this comedic operation in danger.

In this case, the emergence of "Big Winner" has brought some surprises. It chooses another comedic operation mode, which I call a game plot comedy. Its biggest feature is that the main plot is built on a hypothetical huge game, which makes this comedy separate from real life, but instead Have greater creative freedom.

Comedy is by its nature a prosocial movie, and its sensitivity to and reflection on social reality is the most critical factor in the success of comedy. On the surface, the game comedy doesn't seem to be conducive to the expression of social care, but its uniqueness lies precisely in the absurdity of the truth, and the society is viewed by the spirit of the game. Bakhtin believes that games are, in a way, a pocket life. At the same time, the game has also gone beyond the normal track of life, getting rid of the laws and rules of life, and adding to the original life program is another program that is more condensed, more joyful and lighter. The early masterpieces of Chinese contemporary game plot comedies include "Party A, Party B", "Endless", and "Big Wrist". In recent years, "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and "Call of Madness" are also remarkable game plot comedies.

Game hypothesis and real social care

For game plot comedies, the key thing to deal with is whether the balance between the highly hypothetical game plot and the hidden social care in it is proper and good, and it will become a very good comedy.

For example, the "One Day Dream Tour" adopted by "Party A and Party B" in 1997 is a typical game plot. But there are metaphors for real life in the game. Among them, carefully selected dreams, such as big dreams of hardships, dreams of female stars who want to live a normal life, and dreams of husbands and wives separated from each other. Etc., all show that the creators were very keen on the reality of the rise of the new civil society at that time. The game settings make these dream stories extremely exaggerated, with strong carnival characteristics. The protagonist played by Ge You was kind and cunning. It was the cartoon image of the new citizen at that time that made the audience very kind and recognized him as his spokesperson. It is this sense of true sense of proportion that made this game's plot comedy a symbolic expression of that era.

The "Big Boss" in 2001 and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" in 2018 also have the style of "Party A and Party B". They use ridiculous games to deal with important themes of the times, and reflect new social conditions in an implicit way. Thinking.

Different from the fictitious pure game plot comedies such as "Party B, Party B", "Big Wrist", and "The Richest Man in Xihong City", Yu Miao's two game plot comedies "Call" and "Big Winner" both use another This way: real characters and situations + game plots. The Italian film "Perfect Stranger" remake of "Call of Madness" provides a wonderful real character and situation + game plot mode: a variety of interpersonal crises caused by mobile games. And this crisis is precisely the problem facing all human beings all over the world. "Exercise Robbery" in "The Big Winner" is also a kind of game. It does not require the suspense and tension of real bank grabbing. The film has a great degree of plot freedom, but the characters and context of the film are based on real Sexual principles. These real characters take the initiative or be forced to enter a game scenario caused by exercises, so they have the opportunity to collide with human and social sparks in this centralized and closed state. Many of these "laughing fruit" are often produced during the development of game plots.

The success of the character's rigorous image has become the key to the realization of the film's realistic care. Rigor has clear personality characteristics and behavioral logic. His truthfulness and kindness not only have the characteristics of typical realist characters, but also have certain characters' charm due to certain ideality, which can infect the environment and surrounding characters, and gain the audience ’s Agree. Other characters with him are also authentic, especially the rigorous bank colleagues are very vivid. The bureaucratic president, the lobby manager who can be called the old churros in the workplace, brought rich human and social information to this game's plot comedy. In the face of everyone's appearances and pretense of attitude and behavior, the more serious rigor implies the irony of various social vices, such as people floating around and playing tricks.

However, this film has too many jokes and old obsolete jokes, and there are fewer "smile fruits" naturally generated from the character's situation and personality. If you compare the Korean movie "Live and Live" with the same subject as its remake, the problem of the lack of depth of the "laughing fruit" of "The Big Winner" is even more obvious. "Live and Live" changed from comedy to a certain tragic color. Not only the Korean bureaucracy was tortured in the film, but the male character's humanity was also tortured in the process of playing a robber.

A balanced grasp of game plots and linear storytelling

General genre films often attach great importance to the linear plots dominated by conflicts. From the beginning, the opposition of conflicts is established, steadily tense, and the conflict is symbolically resolved through the ending. Game plot comedies are not completely dependent on conflict-dominated linear plots, and more emphasis is placed on the autonomy of the game plot. Because the plot of the game itself has carnival traits, with certain anti-rational characteristics, but the linear plot emphasizes reason and logic. If they are not combined well, they will be mutually exclusive and dismantled.

In 2004, "A World Without Thieves" tried to combine the plot of the game with a linear plot, but it was not successful. Judging from the linear plot, the film uses the huge amount of cash on silly roots as a clue structure to compete for a complete linear narrative of cash. As a group of robbers in the opposite image, although they play real swords and criminals in the film, the way they are presented has the character of comedy in the game. For example, Ge You ’s comedy image and lines of the robbers weaken the robberies. The thrill of the plot. The silly robbers played by Fan Wei joined in the second half of the narrative, which is a typical game plot, and further weakened the credibility and thrill of the robbery plot. This kind of robbery made the linear plot fragmented, full of loopholes, and the final outcome lacked credibility and appeal.

However, if the game plot and the linear plot are well combined to create a sense of balance, it may also greatly broaden the theme of the game plot comedy. After all, pure-playing plots with big brains and profound meanings, such as "Party A and Party B", "Big Wrist", and "The Richest Man in Xihong City", are beyond expectation. "Big Winner" has a better balance between the game plot and the linear plot. The film has made a lot of efforts especially in the linear narrative festival, taking the rigorous "robbery" process as the narrative clue, and basically following the four-stage narrative structure of preparation, complicated action, development and climax summarized by the classic Hollywood narrative. The time allocation of each narrative paragraph is also reasonable, so that the film maintains a good narrative rhythm. The preparation phase of the exercise ended with rigorous forced entry into the bank. During the complicate operation phase, he killed a policewoman and four special police officers to further the exercise. In the development phase, President Wu was eventually expelled from the exercise. The end; this also pushed the exercise to its final climax and rigorous victory. The film also properly uses suspense to leave the image of Wu Haijiao's helper to the end. In fact, it is also a weaving plot of the love between Yan Wu and the two into the robbery plot, forming an implicit double plot clue.

However, "Big Winner" also almost splits between the game plot and the linear plot. Especially in the development stage of the exercise, the hostages, hot pots, and parental persuasion were too carnival and weakened the linear plot. Obviously, how to maintain the balance between the two still needs more exploration. In general, "Big Winner" is a novel attempt in the genre of game plot comedy, and the completion of the entire movie is also very high. It is enlightening to rediscover the development of domestic game plot comedy.

It is worth reflecting that, such as "The Crazy Call", "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and "The Big Winner", these relatively successful domestic game plot comedies in recent years are all remakes of movies that have been remade many times abroad. "The Richest Man in Xihong City" remakes the Hollywood movie "Brewster's Millionaires", and the story has been put on the big screen many times by Britain, India, Brazil and other countries; "The Perfect Stranger" remake of "Call of Madness" is currently at least Remakes 12 editions; The Big Winner is remakes from Japanese and Korean movies. Because the remake of the movie script has been tested by the market, movies such as "Big Winner" have also formed a successful way of localizing the plot of the game + linear plot. This is not only a fast path to the success of domestic comedies, but it also brings a lot of hidden concerns. Completely original high-quality game plot movies such as the early "Party B" and "Big Wrist" are currently lacking. How to consider original content more in the reference? When can domestic game plot comedies provide remake ideas for the world? These issues are the directions worthy of the efforts of domestic filmmakers.

Guilin

(The author is an associate professor at the School of Humanities of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)