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It was shown.

Since the beginning of the summer season, this has been the most popular movie in the background:

"Shen Ma Combination", directed by Yan Fei and Peng Damo, the latest copy of the Xihong City universe.

What happened?

Sir bought the ticket in the morning and came to chat with us first.

Catch dolls

Especially looking forward to it.

This is the first new film released by directors Yan Fei and Peng Damo in six years since "Charlotte's Troubles" in 2015 and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" in 2018.

Very mysterious.

When the release date was confirmed, there was only a 15-second trailer.

No wonder everyone is urging Sir to talk about this movie.

One word to sum up this film

stable.

01

Is it funny?

This is probably the first question you're going to ask.

Sir can say with certainty that there are plenty of laughs from beginning to end, and the combination of Shen Teng and Ma Li is a sure thing.

But it is not completely the same as the first two"Madness"。

"Charlotte's Troubles" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" are both extremely fictional stories. One is about traveling through time and space to chase the class beauty, and the other is about spending 1 billion yuan in vain.

Distorted, exaggerated, and all over the place.

The funny part of "Catching Dolls" is in line with the story itself.

smooth.

Still a high concept story.

What is the kernel about?

educate.

This is no longer a purely imaginative daydream like "Charlotte's Troubles" or "The Richest Man in Xihong City", but a personal experience of each of us, and it is also related to the issues of the next generation.

Therefore, in the absurdity, there must be more warmth.

Brief summary:

This is a story of a trumpet reopening.

The wealthy Ma Chenggang (Shen Teng) has failed in his “big size” training - his eldest son is unsuccessful in everything he does and cannot take over the empire he has built.

He and his wife Chunlan (played by Ma Li) had a "little one" and raised him in wealth.

When traveling, he has a driver driving a luxury car, he lives in a big house with a garden (the kind with an indoor swimming pool), and the servants at home take care of everything...

The results of it?

He is so fat that he can hardly open his eyes. He will not eat unless he is fed, and he will cry and make a fuss if he wants something.

Aren’t we going to raise another... giant baby?

So Ma Chenggang changed direction 180 degrees

Raise your children in poverty.

While the children are still young and don’t remember anything.

They moved into a shabby house, changed into ugly clothes, and began to pretend to be poor.

If you're doing a play, you have to do it fully.

Live in a bungalow and sleep on a kang to save electricity and water.

A whole set of life scenes full of the style of the 1980s and 1990s were also reproduced in this compound:

Car repair stalls, newsagents, hairdressers, chess players, flower growers, Tai Chi practitioners...

Even the details of life were taught to little Ma Jiye: the faucet should be turned towards the water meter to ensure that there is dripping water but the meter does not run out of time, and the main goal is to save as much as possible.

Is there anything else to watch?

You know, the jokes we are familiar with in the past are all about showing off wealth, and seeing how the characters"Extremely rich"。

Do not misunderstand.

"Catching Dolls" is still showing off wealth, but in a“Low-key luxury”form

All the mediocrity has a huge cost behind it.

On the surface, it looks like an ordinary compound.

Behind the scenes, it is an educational base specially built for the youngest son Ma Jiye (played by Shi Pengyuan), with a complete set of high-level teams to escort

There is 24-hour security surveillance around the house where Ma Jiye lives, and there is an entire floor of operation and maintenance team under the house.

The seemingly ordinary meals he eats every day are prepared for him by a hidden chef using methods similar to “cutting sea cucumber into shreds and disguising it as black fungus”.

Ma Jiye seems to be running to school every day, but in fact there are security guards in disguise following him at all times.

Problems in learning are subtle and silent.

The gardener at the door is a horticulturist; the shoe repairman is a physics teacher; the old man playing chess is a math expert; and the boss of the newsstand is a versatile man in the humanities, who looks for opportunities to recommend extracurricular readings to him every day...

Even the grandma was played by a gold medal teacher.

He also had to pretend to be in a wheelchair for more than ten years, just to train him into a 24-year-old all-round filial son...

Installed to this point, I can only say

02

The second “stability” of the movie.

NPCs from the Xihong City UniverseThe stable performance of the group。

Pay attention when watching the movie.

Because from time to time a linkage comes.

In order to enhance the audience's sense of involvement, the director brought in almost all the supporting roles and familiar faces from the first two Xihong City movies in "Catching Dolls".

For example, the consultant who manages Wang Duoyu’s financial investments is Ma Jiye’s security team this time.

The driver who drove for Ma Chenggang and his wife, ten years ago, was Ma Dongmei.

Wang Duoyu's Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Chick sell fish in the vegetable market, while the coach of Three People and a Pig is Ma Jiye's ideological and political teacher.

There are many actors in Ma Jiye’s coaching team, many of whom have appeared in "The Richest Man in Xihong City".

In the movie, under Ma Chenggang's "poor upbringing policy", Ma Jiye learned to pick up plastic bottles to supplement the family income. In order to train the child's "financial intelligence", the father and son found a place with the most plastic bottles.

It happened to be the scene where the Daxiang team, where Wang Duoyu from "The Richest Man" was, lost the game.

Because of another crushing defeat, the fans turned their anger into water bottles and threw them into the stadium.

There was a detail. After Ma Chenggang secretly collected the trash bottles in the venue, he patted a player with a big afro and the word "Wang DY" written on his back in the stadium corridor.

It can be regarded as a collaboration between the two giants of Xihong City.

What is more noteworthy is Shen Teng’s performance this time.

Although those who are familiar with him know his routine and his consistent "inability to hold back", although both of them play rich people, the humor of Ma Chenggang and Wang Duoyu is completely different.

Compared with Wang Duoyu, who came from the lower class but was uneducated and cunning, Ma Chenggang already had the attitude of a confident superior.

More stable.

For example, he remained calm when facing doubts, and he was confident when his wife was acting weird.

His humor comes more from the failure of his plans, which turned from self-confidence to arrogance, especially his "frustration" in the second half of the movie.

Why?

There may be happy stories because of money and love.

But there is no such thing as happy writing in education.

On the contrary, education issues may be the disaster destined for successful people who have written wonderful novels.

See "Stop it, A-Zu"

Because for successful people.

Make money and you can control it.

However, educating your children is not something you can control, and the more you control, the more things may go wrong.

The clever part of this "Catching Dolls" is:

The protagonists are rich, but their embarrassment and anxiety make you feel completely reasonable.

Everyone can understand that Ma Chenggang wants to teach his children well.

The difficulty of impressing the audience beyond comedy lies in:

Behind this series of absurd and exciting comedy scenes, there is a real "victim".

Everyone is laughing at catching dolls, but have you ever really heard what it feels like to be a “doll”?

So, when comedy returns to reality, it's a story doomed to fail.

03

To some extent, "Charlotte's Troubles", "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and "Catching Dolls" actually discuss similar propositions.

How to make money, how to spend money, and how to pass money on.

"Charlotte's Troubles" is about how one can be unhappy even if one is rich.

"The Richest Man in Xihong City" tells the story that when one is rich, everything can go well for oneself, but it is still difficult to overcome the hurdle of conscience.

But "Catching Dolls" is even deeper. It tells the story ofThe powerlessness and danger of money。

Because time cannot be repeated, the impact of education can hardly be compensated by money. No matter how rich a person is, some problems cannot be solved, and some decisions will cause irreparable harm.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that these stories use a lot of words to infinitely magnify the power of money, thus creating an absurd and insane Xihong universe.

They use dreams that ordinary people can perceive to create a sense of excitement, but in fact, the theme of their movies has been deconstructing the meaning of money.

This time it was used particularly clearly.

The result of "raising children in poverty" in "Catching Dolls", at least in terms of the concept of money, is completely different from the expectations of Ma Chenggang and his wife.

Sir won’t spoil the story, but I’m sure you won’t be able to help yourself until the last scene.

But compared to the directors’ main themes, what is more noteworthy is why people can repeatedly get a sense of satisfaction from these comedies about “money”?

Because behind this peek into wealthy life is the audience's general anxiety.

Especially anxiety about security.

When Charlotte and Wang Duoyu had no money, they were despised by everyone. But after they became rich, everyone praised and commended them for everything they did.

Money is not the only way to solve anxiety, but it is the most direct way.

But this is also where "Catching Dolls" goes deeper and more practical:

Here, money is useless.

Not only is it useless, there is another detail: what was the reason why Ma Chenggang wanted to train Ma Jiye?

Worried that there will be no one to inherit the family business.

The eldest son can’t do it.

Then have another one.

Versailles?

You may think, I don’t have a wealthy family, so why should I care about these things.

But this is also where the movie makes people empathize

Whether rich or poor, many parents are essentially the same.

Those who are rich have children to continue their success;

For those who have no money, having children can help them "fight back" and bring success to their miserable lives.

The ultimate goal is money.

Sir remembered a scene in the movie.

Ma Chenggang taught us to study hard and get into Peking University or Tsinghua University.

There is no family interaction at home. The family only reads in front of the children.

But a doze hit the switch.

The three elders' faces all lit up.

Is it funny?

funny.

Is it funny?

Adults themselves don’t read or like reading, but they always talk about reading.

Sure enough, it is much easier to raise a baby than to raise yourself.

No wonder some netizens now say: Having a child is like a scratch-off lottery ticket for some people. They can’t do it themselves, but they still want to win the jackpot…

This is also the biggest irony of the movie

Ma Chenggang and Chunlan devoted their entire lives to acting in this play.

They wanted to be good parents, but ended up turning themselves into "fake parents".

Because of the relationship with the children, only KPI remains.

There was not a single moment of frank and easy communication.

Think about it, a family only cares about studying, and the expectation of their children is only about the rate of return from beginning to end, and the parents are all pretending to be grand and noble...

So do you really believe that you will be able to gain love in the end?

From this perspective, "Catching Dolls" is too unsustainable.

Because the only "fake parents" who are extremely wealthy seem to be this funny couple in the movie.

But there are "fake parents" who have little money everywhere.

The pictures in this article are from the Internet

Editorial Assistant: Gilmore