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Ah Xing

The long-awaited "Under the Alien" hits theaters, making this year's summer season different from any other year.

"Aliens" brought "alien films".

Since it is a "different film", we can't expect it to be a movie that everyone agrees on and is without controversy. Because in many ways, it is different from the kind of "good movies" we are used to.

Its imaginative basic setting, the way it tells stories and shapes characters, and its strange and elegant camera language all have some thresholds.

In the eyes of at least two kinds of audiences, this is a very exciting and successful movie. One is the audience who are familiar with the two-dimensional expression, and the other is the audience who have no preconceptions and are interested in new types of movies that break the mold.

This article hopes to help you understand what is new about this movie and where its industry breakthrough lies.

Let's start with the title. The so-called "alien" is not only a person who is different from others, but also refers to a person with superpowers. The protagonist Zhang Chulan is just an ordinary sophomore student on the surface, but his true identity is related to a secret that has stirred up a century of disputes in the alien world. He has to use his abilities to uncover the mystery that has been sealed for many years.

The biggest highlight of the story, of course, is the grand battle between various extraordinary people with super powers. They emerge in endlessly and in various ways, which makes the audience dazzled and excited.

This kind of movie is most suitable for the summer season.

The summer season should be mainly for young people. Different from the Spring Festival season which pursues a family reunion atmosphere, the summer season should be more innovative and avant-garde, targeting young audiences.

The reason why this point needs to be emphasized is that "youthful content creation" is a capability that Chinese films urgently need to strengthen, and a capability that the film industry must rapidly improve when facing various fierce external competition.

The reason is simple. Only by achieving a younger shift in film content, capturing young audiences with diverse tastes, and deeply understanding the various subcultures that young people love, will Chinese films have a chance to rise again in the chaos.

How did "Under the Alien" manage to be created for young people? There are at least a few key reasons.

First of all, it should be said that this movie, which has already grossed over 100 million yuan, has further opened up the comic adaptation track with huge potential.

There are very few Chinese films based on comic books, especially those that are more targeted at young people and require special effects. There have been some in the past, but they were relatively few in number and tended to be realistic, not known for their wild imagination, and were quite far from the fantasy world of the post-00s.

However, comic adaptations, or works that connect the two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds, have a strong audience appeal, which has been repeatedly proven in related American and Japanese films, especially the American superhero series and the animated theatrical versions of Japanese comics, which have long formed a linked fan effect and even formed a quality guarantee at one point.

However, on the one hand, the audience of the powerful comic book originals in the Chinese film market is not evenly distributed, and the audience is still growing slowly. On the other hand, the film industry is generally not familiar with the second dimension, so successful attempts in this regard are rare.

"Under One Person" is different. The popular comic "Under One Person" created by Mi Er, which has a huge and complex world view, has swept Asia and has achieved a high initial popularity in the industry and even in a larger scope.

Wuershan also made good choices in the adaptation this time. For example, he flexibly intercepted the main plot of the original work without being too obsessed with the restoration of details and the adhesion of relationships, so he could focus on the bigger picture and present the intricate story in the form of a movie. Especially in the first part, it was necessary to allow all audiences to enter without any barriers, which was quite difficult to sort out, but he did it.

For example, the film focuses on the starting point and setting of the characters in their growth, leaving a huge space for subsequent expansion. From a small perspective, the characters have their own inherent experiences and are each moving. From a large perspective, which character appears and which character is given more attention depends on the current progress of the story.

In other words, what he created was not a protagonist who had experienced an incident, but rather a character who was united at the starting point, allowing important characters to begin experiencing various events and gradually grow in line with the audience's psychological presuppositions. Wuershan naturally applied the experience proven successful in "The First Part of the Investiture of the Gods" here.

Another feature is the youthful visual presentation that inspires imagination.

In order to stay close to the comics, Wuershan put a lot of effort into the character modeling. We can see that the clothes and hairstyles of each character are actually close to the original work. This is both respectful to the comics and provides enough resolution for the audience who encounters it for the first time, making it easier to get into the game. At the same time, this also more efficiently creates this huge world that is different from reality.

The styling is so good, not to mention the character's movements. Not only is the fighting style exquisitely designed, but the characters' daily words and deeds are also quite in line with the expectations of the comics. For example, Feng Baobao's cold reaction and Zhang Chulan's "changing face" in response to the environment are very iconic.

Overall, everyone has a comic exaggeration and drama. This is a major feature and a magic weapon to build this work's special position in the current Chinese film industry.

The third key point is that the aesthetic taste and humor of "Under the Alien" are close to young people and Internet culture.

In the fast-paced sports, the language of the lines also conforms to the way young people speak, full of joking teasing and self-deprecation, contrasting with a complete language system with the characteristics of Generation Z.

We know that the first comic of "Under One Person" was created in 2015. Nearly ten years have passed, and even the language and vocabulary of young people have changed a lot. Wuershan is very careful in that he not only retains the characteristics of that time, such as the word "brain-dead", but also adapts the lines to be more local and more in line with the aesthetics and habits of recent years.

The mixture of current and past popular words effectively bridges the gap in time. While providing nostalgia for the times, it also suddenly brings the audience to a familiar language environment, enhancing the sense of presence.

In short, watching the movie "Under the Alien" often evokes a feeling like reading a comic book, which is both familiar and fresh.

What makes young audiences resonate most with "Under the Alien" is that this movie truly speaks for the voices of the majority of young people.

When Zhang Chulan first appeared, he hid his identity and lay flat everywhere, looking very cowardly. He obviously had a unique skill, so why was he unwilling to display it when facing oppression? ‍‍‍‍‍‍

In fact, this is because he is full of doubts about his identity as an "alien" and his superpowers, and has no sense of identity. This kind of self-confusion and self-denial has also happened to every ordinary person like us.

In the movie, Zhang Chulan went from being hesitant about not taking action as taught by his grandfather when he was a child, to obeying his grandfather's last words and "hiding" himself, and later drawing his own conclusions through his own exploration of the world of aliens.

The words "I don't want to hide anymore" are Zhang Chulan's answer to himself. It is the end of a period of confusion for him and the beginning of his determination of the future path. This spirit of discovering one's own value from confusion, tapping into one's potential, and having the courage to take responsibility is exactly the core strength that young people are trying to find in the process of colliding with society.

Speaking of youth, it not only refers to the fact that this film is aimed at young people, but also in another sense, the genre and subject matter it represents are also very young in current Chinese films.

This "youth" is a premise that we must consider when measuring the performance of this film - it appeared when the domestic comic-adapted film market was not mature, and its pioneering significance was more important than anything else. In the traditional track of domestic heavy industrial films, such as science fiction and fantasy, which are highly competitive and involuted, "Under the Alien" strives to open up new imagination space for the industry.

"Under the Alien" will certainly further raise the benchmark for domestic comic-based movies. It can also use the power of the big screen to feed back to upstream domestic comic creation, clearing many obstacles for the development of the domestic comic industry. At the very least, more and more three-dimensional people have gained a bridge to enter the two-dimensional world. Many viewers will go back and read the original comic of "Under the Alien" because of this movie.

The stronger the Chinese comics are, the stronger the comic adaptations will be. The two are interdependent.

More importantly, just when people doubted the influence of film as a medium, the popularity of "Under the Alien" was enough to prove that the film medium is still at the core of the IP development industry chain - whether it is novels or comics in the upstream, or derivative products or amusement parks in the downstream, they must be linked to each other through film development to amplify the influence of the entire IP.

Finally, I want to say a few words about director Wuershan. Unlike many movie fans who first knew Wuershan from Painted Skin 2 or Mojin: The Lost Legend, I started paying close attention to his work in 2010 because of Blade of the Dragon. So I know that Wuershan has always chosen to create a creative idea of ​​youthful film content by mixing multiple media forms and combining postmodern film language with fantasy genres.

"Knife of Laughter"

The unrestrained and unrestrained style of "Under the Alien" is not isolated. It is engraved in Wuershan's creative DNA and has been further broadened and enhanced in the new film.

This year's summer season is about to pass the halfway point. Has it met the high expectations of the industry and the audience? At least in terms of the richness of the content, Chinese films have shown their true strength. Looking back at the previous few months, the box office was not satisfactory, and the industry was worried, mainly because the genre films were weak. But the summer season has improved greatly. In terms of genre, there are comedies, actions, crimes, suspense, and a mix of the above genres. The themes are even more widely distributed, which gives the audience the motivation to go to the cinema.

Whether it is supporting "Under the Alien" or supporting the entire summer season, it is supporting Chinese films.