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The watershed of the 2024 summer box office is undoubtedly marked by the release of the movie "Catch the Doll". The movie made nearly 500 million yuan in box office in three days of preview, and exceeded 1.5 billion yuan a week after its official release. Professional institutions such as Maoyan and Dengta currently give the ultimate box office forecast of nearly 3.4 billion yuan for the film. The film has single-handedly brought the entire market to a head, and its commercial success needs no further explanation.

"Catch the Doll" box office poster

Back to the movie itself, comedians Shen Teng and Ma Li both returned to the stage, and directors Yan Fei and Peng Damo collaborated for the third time to create the "Xihong City Universe" behind the scenes. The energy that the four people gathered together cannot be underestimated. If "Charlotte's Troubles" tells the story of the youthful dreams of middle-aged people traveling through time and space, "The Richest Man in Xihong City" focuses on the spring and autumn dreams of ordinary people to get rich overnight, and "Catching Dolls" breaks away from the relatively fictional story settings of the first two films and lands on the educational topic that Chinese people care about all the time - the eternal "dream of wanting your son to become a dragon".

Shen Teng and Ma Li collaborate again

With its family-friendly comedy and the strong popularity of the "Shen Ma Combination", "Catch the Doll" may be the movie that has contributed the most laughter to the theaters this year. However, if we define this comedy as "just for fun", it obviously underestimates its staying power. The movie has made an extreme deformation and amplification of the Chinese parents' "in the name of love" education method. With the popularity of the film, topics such as poverty-raising education, control-style education, and guilt-style education have gradually continued to ferment on various platforms.

Recently, Yan Fei and Peng Damo, two directors of "Catching Dolls", accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from The Paper in Beijing. In the interview, the two creators born in the same year, who were born in the 1980s, reviewed their own drama practices on campus and the tempering of "seeing all living things" in the Happy Twist era. When talking about "Catching Dolls", they did not avoid talking about the similarities with the movie "The Truman Show" and gave their own interpretations on whether the educational model of the father Ma Chenggang in the film is cruel.

As the director who is most capable of using the "Shen Ma combination" at present, the four have become close friends who can talk about anything after more than ten years of personal friendship and content cooperation. Talking about the light sadness beyond this hilarious comedy, how can they continue to write for "Brother Teng and Sister Li" in the future? The two directors also frankly expressed their troubles and hopes.

Yan Fei

Peng Damo

【dialogue】

The more comedic it is, the more sincere the performance should be

The Paper: First of all, congratulations on the release of "Catch the Dolls", which has brought heat to the entire summer season and is currently leading the schedule. Can you two tell us about your box office expectations for "Catch the Dolls"?

Peng Damo: We don’t have any expectations for the box office, as long as it’s better than last time.

The Paper: The last time the two collaborated to direct "The Richest Man in Xihong City", the box office was 2.55 billion yuan.

Peng Damo: Yes, it happened in 2018. In fact, we are very slow in writing scripts and filming movies. In recent years, many people's movie-watching habits have changed. Many people prefer to watch short videos at home. Many of my friends rarely go to the cinema.

The Paper: Can you recall your resumes? Director Yan Fei graduated from the Performance Department of PLA Art Academy. Did he know senior brother Shen Teng during school? Director Peng Damo developed "firecracker comedy" during his time at Beijing Film Academy. Did he have a special liking for dense laughs at that time?

Yan Fei: Yes, Brother Teng was quite "conspicuous" when he was in school, and he was quite active. My graduation play "I'll Wait for You in Heaven" was also Brother Teng's graduation play that year, and we played the same role in the same play. The PLA Art Academy is not big, and we are usually in a relatively closed environment. We see each other every day. My teacher and Brother Teng are very familiar with each other, and they often rehearse skits together.

I remember that their class rehearsed a play called "Young Guards". The whole play lasted about two hours. Brother Teng played a cook in it and appeared on stage for less than five minutes. The whole audience burst into laughter during his appearance. Many people came to watch the play just to see him. At that time, he was such an actor. He looked inconspicuous, always laughing and joking, and had good popularity, but as long as he appeared on the stage, his brilliance could not be concealed.

Peng Damo: When I was in the Performance Department of Beijing Film Academy, I was influenced by Professor Zhu Zongqi and became particularly fond of comedy. Professor Zhu has been retired for many years. She has a deep understanding of comedy. I still remember her telling us in class, "The more comedic, the more sincere the performance must be. If even the creator himself does not believe, how can the audience believe?" This has always influenced me and is also our motto for comedy.

My situation was different from other students at that time. They were busy running around the crew and writing papers. I formed a drama club with like-minded students to rehearse skits. We often strung our skits together into short plays and performed them at various universities in Beijing, free of charge, just to see more audiences. The reason why I called my comedy style at that time "firecracker comedy" was that I hoped that the jokes in it would explode one after another, like setting off firecrackers.

The Paper: Did you two meet during the Happy Twist period? You both graduated from acting schools, why did you both turn to behind the scenes?

Peng Damo: That was a long time ago. Yan Fei and I are of the same age, both born in 1983. In 2002, we met in the pre-exam tutoring class of the Military Art Academy. Later, when we were doing short plays in different schools, we often collaborated together.

Yan Fei: We both later felt that, compared to acting, we were more suited to behind-the-scenes creation, responsible for the integrity of the work, and enjoyed the control of this kind of creation. When I graduated in 2006, Da Mo and I collaborated on our first play, The Satan Plan, which received a good response and opened the way for me to perform in small theaters in Beijing.

Later, we collaborated and also worked separately, and gradually we became famous in the industry, but the audience didn’t know us at that time. Later, Yu Kai, the founder of Happy Twist, found us, and Shen Teng, as one of the first actors to join, also invited us to work together on a large theater drama.

The Paper: What is the biggest gain you have gained from your experience at Happy Twist?

Yan Fei: The audiences we face are different now. Most of the audiences who watch small theaters are young people with artistic talents, which is a specific audience group. At Happy Twist, we face audiences from all walks of life, from all walks of life and of different ages, which requires us to consider more aspects in our creation.

Mahua's early works were more like "evening parties". After we arrived at Mahua, we hoped to bring in the story-telling aspect of the works. A performance cannot be all about jokes and singing and dancing, lively and noisy, with a few "external inserts" and then just pass by with laughter. This is too much like an "evening party".

After all, we are all majoring in drama, and we still have the desire to express ourselves as authors, hoping to present a complete story on stage. Every time we create, we must tell the story in a complete and interesting way, so that even professional audiences will feel that it is of a certain standard; we must also add comedy elements that everyone likes, and bring in these baggage and rhythm.

So, we were also confused at the beginning. To be honest, when Mahua first started, we were embarrassed to call our work a drama, but called it a stage play, because once you say it is a drama, everyone may have a benchmark in their mind, like "Tea House" or "Thunderstorm", that is a drama.

Peng Damo: The biggest gain from working at Happy Twist is that I have seen more audiences. In addition, there are many comedians in Twist, some of whom are actors and directors who graduated from drama majors, and some are crosstalk performers. Everyone explores together. For example, crosstalk itself has summed up the rule of "three flips and four shakes", but it may not be completely applicable when it comes to the stage of Twist. Our previous works were also comedies, but they are not particularly different from Twist's works that are purely full of laughs. This is a process of mutual influence. After being together for a long time, everyone knows each other's aura, and the humor comes out naturally. Twist's current comedy is still based on stories, and the platter at the beginning is different.

Yan Fei: In fact, all the comedians who come to Mahua are people who understand humor. It is a healthy competition for these people to come together to create. When an actor says a line on the stage, the audience's reaction is the most direct. If I see the phones around me light up, I know that the joke didn't work.

The Paper: After Happy Twist made a name for itself, you were invited by the CCTV Spring Festival Gala crew to create popular sketches such as "Today's Happiness", "Should I Help?" and "Catering to Their Tastes". How do you evaluate this creative experience?

Yan Fei: Creating skits for the Spring Festival Gala is different from creating stage plays in the theater. Skits are different from stage plays, and Spring Festival Gala skits are different from skits in other places. The aura is different. There are too many TV viewers watching the Spring Festival Gala live, and we can't get their real-time feedback. To see if a joke will work, we usually "press the stage" (try it out) before the official live performance, find audiences from different groups to watch the performance first, and then make adjustments based on their reactions.

Movie poster of "Charlotte's Troubles"

The first half of the movie is from Ma Chenggang's perspective, and the second half is from Ma Jiye's perspective

The Paper: After the trials and tribulations of theater comedies and Spring Festival Gala skits, the movie "Charlotte's Troubles" was released. I noticed that this movie was released after your drama of the same name was staged.

Yan Fei: Actually, the script of "Charlotte's Troubles" was written according to the movie script. At that time, the conditions for filming a movie were not yet met, so we filmed a play first. The play was very successful, which strengthened our confidence in adapting it into a movie in the future.

Peng Damo: The leading actors of the drama version of "Charlotte's Troubles" are Zhang Zidong and Ma Li. Zidong is the actor who played the eldest son Ma Dajun in the movie "Catching Dolls". He can be said to be our "royal actor" in the stage play era. He has played the prince in "The Satan Plan" and appeared in "No One Can Laugh" and "X-Files". He has been working with us in the small theater for many years.

Zhang Zidong as Ma Dajun

The Paper: In the domestic film industry, your two creations have almost always been linked. In terms of your creative focus and personality traits, what are the complementarities between the two?

Peng Damo: After entering the film industry, we are bound to meet many big producers and actors. For someone like me who is more introverted and not good at communicating with others, two people can give each other courage. When writing scripts and directing together, there will definitely be bumps and bruises, but after arguing, our friendship has deepened, and the works are also good. It is very comfortable to create together.

Yan Fei: First of all, we can play together, because creation is very lonely. If you can have someone to help you share this loneliness, it would be a very lucky thing. Sometimes when I have dinner with my screenwriter friends, they will lament about the bottleneck in creation, and at the end they will throw out a sentence, "I really envy you." Why is our creation slow? Because most of the time we are immersed in a relaxed state, often arguing on a variety of topics, and creative inspiration comes from this kind of playfulness and debate.

The Paper: From "Charlotte's Troubles" to "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and now "Catching Dolls", it can be said that the "Xihong City Universe" IP has been established. Was there a huge concept from the beginning, or did you just let it flow naturally one by one?

Yan Fei: No, not really. Among the three films in “Xihong City Universe”, “Charlotte’s Troubles” is a dream of youth, which corresponds to the time when we were drifting in Beijing, poor and penniless, and struggling to rehearse the play. We missed the campus days and the goddesses in the class, and wanted to summarize our respective youth.

"The Richest Man in Xihong City" tells the story of a dream of getting rich. We happened to be invited by Universal Pictures to adapt the script of the old movie "Brewster's Millions" from the 1980s. We thought it was a good subject and suitable for us to develop.

Poster of "The Richest Man in Xihong City"

The idea of ​​"Catching Dolls" came after "Charlotte's Troubles", but the script was written after the release of "The Richest Man in Xihong City". The excitement of this script is first of all the high concept. One day, Da Mo came to me excitedly and said that there was a very rich father in Liaoning who insisted on "raising children in poverty" and sent his son to an ordinary school. He rode a bicycle to send his son to school every day, and then drove a Mercedes-Benz to work.

But creation is like this. We have to give full play to a very down-to-earth story. At the beginning, we took some detours. After nearly ten years of repeated consideration, we gradually came back to the original idea that the people around this child cannot be all "fake". The teachers and classmates he met at school were all real. It was only in his own tube building that the characters were arranged by his father. In the meantime, there was a closed loop of going out and coming back. We did not make the news into a realistic film, but gave it a romantic color and wrote it into an absurdist fable.

Peng Damo: The script creation of "Catching Dolls" began in 2015, and we went through countless bottlenecks, such as how exaggerated it should be for the audience to accept? Another example is the father Ma Chenggang's mentality of raising his son in poverty?

Later, we gradually figured out that the mentality of Chinese parents who want their children to be successful is more universal than this news. This is also the personal experience we both had after we became fathers. We enrolled our children in various classes and made them take various exams since they were young. Chinese parents are generally like this. Before they have children, they say they will "let them go". When they really have children, this environment determines that they cannot let their children lose at the starting line.

I also saw some viewers say after watching "Catch the Dolls" that it was like "The Truman Show". The two are indeed a bit similar. But "The Truman Show" is also a classic routine where many people hide something from one person. It's like a classic model of a meta-story. "The Truman Show" is a big company setting up a simulated world for Truman to earn ratings and squeeze Truman's "reality show" value. Although the parents in "Catch the Dolls" deceived their children, their starting point was to love their children and they were doing their best for their children's growth.

Poster of The Truman Show

Yan Fei: Actually, when we were writing the script, we set the perspective of our character to be neither Ma Chenggang nor Ma Jiye, but Ma Dajun. This means that he is related to the story, but at the same time he also has a sense of alienation as an outsider.

The PaperQ: Can you talk more about how "Xihong City" got its name? As the location where the stories of the three films take place, how did you construct the relevance of this city in the films step by step?

Peng Damo：Xihong City is a homophonic pun of "tomato", which is actually a symbol. We understand it as a hometown full of happiness in everyone's heart. We hope that every audience member who walks into the theater can become its "citizen", just like returning to their hometown. In fact, this also brings up many of our memories of our childhood hometowns. Although the three movies were shot in different places, the Xihong City in the movies all have the appearance of a city in the north, and it is a city with a sense of happiness.

After three movies, many fans have started to look for interrelated Easter eggs. For example, the school that Ma Jiye attends this time is the same school that Charlotte attended in "Charlotte's Troubles", but it was repainted later. The school badge on Ma Jiye's school uniform in "Catching Dolls" is also the same as the school uniforms of Charlotte and Ma Dongmei.

"Xihong City No. 7 Middle School" school uniform

Yan Fei: People often say that characters in comedies are dull and flat. The little people in Xihong City are all based on our observations of Northeastern people, and we shape the characters based on our friends and experiences. We usually magnify their most lovable side, and even if some characters are lazy, greedy and cunning, we still show their lively and humorous side.

The citizens in Xihong City are all interesting and lively. For example, Ma Chenggang's driver is the epitome of Northeast taxi drivers. They may not be particular about details, but they are kind-hearted. I remember that taxis in Changchun all had onboard radios, and they responded to the call to help the police to block the fugitives. There were too many stories of bravery like this. When we write about the little people in Xihong City, we always look for prototypes, and it takes a long time to write any character.

The Paper: "Catching Dolls" is a risky film from a narrative perspective. It reveals to the audience that Ma Jiye actually lives in a difficult environment that his parents built for him shortly after the film begins, rather than letting the audience and Ma Jiye discover this secret together at the end of the film. The two directors, as screenwriters at the same time, must have their own ideas about this. Can you elaborate on them?

Peng Damo: "Catch the Doll" is not a suspense film, not like "The Island" (2001, starring Nicole Kidman), where the truth is revealed at the end. In this era, no matter how much you keep it secret, the audience will know the answer one day after the movie is released.

Yan Fei: Of course, there is a balance to be made here. If the story is revealed layer by layer, it will undoubtedly be more suspenseful. But if the mystery is revealed first, the comedy will undoubtedly be more exciting. When writing the script, we hope that when the audience watches the first half, they will be able to empathize with the parents' choice and feel sorry for the parents.

As the story progresses, Ma Jiye grows up and begins to have his own consciousness and ideas. That is, after Shi Pengyuan took over the role of Ma Jiye, we gave the perspective to Ma Jiye in the film, allowing the audience to directly see Ma Jiye from this perspective and reflect on the disadvantages of parents' excessive intervention in their children's growth. So in this film, we are making a bold attempt. The first half of the film is from Ma Chenggang's perspective, and the second half is from Ma Jiye's perspective.

Shi Pengyuan as young Ma Jiye

About ShenmaIn fact, there is no concept of CP

The Paper: Judging from the reactions of the audience and fans, the return of the CP combination of Shen Teng and Ma Li seems to be what everyone wants?

Yan Fei & Peng Damo: To be honest, we don’t have a CP concept for them. The four of us have worked together for so many years. We are old friends and work partners, and it’s easy to work together. Brother Teng and Sister Li are both very good actors. In the previous skit "Help or Not", one can even play an old lady and the other a young man, which is completely fine. In terms of the suitability of the actors in this "Catching Dolls", they are very suitable to play Ma Chenggang and Chunlan. As a screenwriter and director, we have to be responsible for the movie. What we have to do is to choose the right actors according to the plot.

The Paper: Tell us about your communication regarding inviting Shen Teng to perform.

Yan Fei: The process was very simple. We told him that this was a story about the love between a father and his son. When he was halfway through the script, he was a little confused, wondering how he had become "evil" (laughs). Da Mo and I told him that the role of a father has his own set of parenting views. This story can be discussed by everyone after it is presented, but your task, Brother Teng, is to play this father in a way that no one hates him and everyone can understand him. Brother Teng himself later realized that there is no villain in this movie.

Shen Teng as Ma Chenggang

The Paper: Personally, do you think Ma Li is a bit restrained in her performance this time? Of course, this is related to the role of the mother and motherhood.

Yan Fei: That's right. Ma Li has been using a mother's perspective to shape the character this time. In real life, Ma Li is now a mother, and she has a very personal experience of Chunlan's motherly side. At the end of the movie, Ma Jiye pointed to the famous teacher list on the wall and said to the parents, "What about you, which two teachers are you?" Ma Li captured this heartbreaking scene very accurately on the set. She hugged her child and cried bitterly. She realized that as a parent, they did something wrong and hurt their child's heart. This is completely the reaction of a normal mother.

Ma Li's performance was also very layered. When the child was young, she gave people the impression of a little wife; when the child began to grow up, she was a caring mother, emphasizing that she cared about the child's growth; when the mystery was finally solved by the child and was about to break through the siege, she did not chatter like Ma Chenggang, but as a mother, she comforted the child and chose to let go and respect the child's choice.

So she fully portrayed the growth and transformation of a mother, and appropriately placed her understanding of the story and character on Chunlan.

Ma Li as Chunlan

The Paper: There is another female character in the movie, played by Sarina, who is a parenting expert and also Ma Jiye’s “grandmother”. The funeral scene really made the audience feel mixed emotions of sadness and joy. It seems that she has never starred in a comedy before?

Peng Damo: Teacher Sarina was very modest on the set, and she would often ask both of us about a certain scene, “Is this possible?”

Yan Fei: When we were selecting the actress for the role of "grandma" this time, we actually had many "professional old lady" comedians, including those who were candidates for skit actors. Later, we thought that we should find a "national grandma" who is recognized by everyone, and who also has to be a "miserable grandma". In this case, Teacher Sarina is definitely the right person.

Sarina as Grandma

When we first told this story to Teacher Sa, she was confused and asked awkwardly, "This is a comedy, why did you choose me?" We told her that this time we wanted to subvert the audience's habitual perception of your image in film and television, and that this is very important for the film. Even if you can't act funny, we will help you adjust this feeling.

Just like what Da Mo said just now, "Sincerity is the most important thing when acting in a comedy." When the plot has laid the groundwork for you, what awaits you is nothing more than the actor's explosion and contrast. Teacher Sa's performance this time also fully illustrates that there is no essential difference between acting in a comedy and acting in a drama, especially for a good actor.

The Paper: Xiao Bochen, who plays the young Ma Jiye, is also very impressive, so innocent and romantic that it makes people feel distressed.

Peng Damo: He is very smart. We discovered this kid from the TV series "The Glory of Our Fathers". How could this kid be so good at acting? When we met and talked, we felt that this kid was very real and relaxed, without any trace of pretense.

Xiao Bochen as the young Ma Jiye

Yan Fei: Generally speaking, child stars who have acted in dramas often act tense when they meet other crews, just like little adults, and this kind of unnaturalness is exactly what we reject. Because we think little adults are fake, and children's innocence is the most valuable. After he came, we observed him. In fact, the interview is just a chat. Through the chat, we can see what kind of actor he is. We found that this child from Northeast China sat there very casually, and he didn't speak in a pretentious tone. He just chatted with people in Changchun dialect.

He has a mature side, but it is not fake. Because the young Ma Jiye has a very important crying scene in the play, we asked him, have you ever acted in a crying scene? He said, "Oh, I can cry." He just needs his mother to be there, and he looks at his mother a few times, thinks about something, and then he can express it very smoothly.

The Paper: The ending of the movie can be said to be a powerful "leopard tail", but many viewers also said that they felt it was not enough. Tell us what you think.

Yan Fei: At the end of a comedy film, we still hope to give the audience a good feeling of leaving. The ending of the film is not what Ma Chenggang and his wife wanted, but in fact, the line that the audience ignores the most, Ma Dajun climbed Mount Everest, is our attitude towards this story. At the same time, according to the guidance in the movie, the audience will think that Ma Jiye’s disappearance was caused by Ma Dajun kidnapping him, and this line must be explained in the end.

Peng Damo: The ending of the film should be the eldest son Ma Dajun climbing to the top of Mount Everest. It is a symbol of our story, that is, Ma Dajun, the eldest son who was useless in his father's eyes, can also achieve his own life achievements when he follows his inner choice and works hard.

We studied the ending for a long time. If we follow the conventional thinking, after Ma Chenggang keeps talking, should Ma Jiye turn around and have a battle with his father, spouting out his values? But if it really ends like this, many people will still feel that it is out of cliché.

Yan Fei: Many young viewers may feel that at the end, Ma Chenggang owes his son an apology. We think that the acceptance of this movie is different for different groups of people. For example, people without children and parents with children will have different experiences when watching this story. I saw a comment from a netizen who said that he took his father to watch the movie together. His father was tense throughout the whole movie until the end of the movie, when Ma Chenggang shouted to Ma Jiye's back, "Are you coming home for dinner tonight?" His father burst into tears. I think at that moment, the father and son also reached a certain reconciliation with the audience.

The Paper: The second half of this film strikes a very clever balance between the serious thinking raised by social topics and the comedy laughter. Can you tell us how you struck this balance?

Peng Damo: In essence, we still want to tell a good story. The integrity of the story itself includes the beginning, development, turning point, and ending, including suspense, and finally solving the problem. On this basis, humorous and fun elements are the genes of this movie. At the same time, we will not deliberately seek to magnify these fun genes. Everything should still be subject to the shaping of the characters and stick to the characters. We will not use some "external flowers" (unrelated to the story, but funny plots) to dilute the main line, and simply pursue "laughing effect".

Yan Fei: When we were discussing the script, we brainstormed and gave the characters a lot of baggage. For example, we once wrote a plot where Ma Jiye was playing computer games with his classmates, and his computer suddenly crashed. At this time, a "teacher" came and taught him to learn computers from DOS (disk operating system). There were many similar plots in our initial script. They were parallel to the main story. I can guarantee that each plot can be turned into a particularly wonderful skit that can become a joke, but it will harm the rhythm of the story. In order to make the story rhythm smooth and the emotions smooth, we must do subtraction and remove it.