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The author of this article is @吉永绿, who is greedy and lazy, doesn't like to work, and only loves movies.

Among the new films released during the summer vacation, there is a film that is worth paying attention to - "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century".

Before its official release on August 2, it launched a nationwide preview for half a month, with the preview and pre-sale box office exceeding 40 million.

The good results are inseparable from the recommendation of the first batch of viewers.

Randomly click on different platforms, and you can often see similar comments: "Unique temperament, different from traditional movies", "The director's mental state is 20 years ahead", "The whole audience is laughing", "Wait for the official release to watch it again"...

As this imaginative and unique sci-fi comedy is officially released, let's talk about the story behind it.

New way to play "Crossing"

"Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" once again plays with time travel. The story takes place on Planet K, which is unknown to people on Earth, which also paves the way for the fantastic plot.

The film has two narrative lines: 1999 and 2019.

In 1999, Wang Zha, Cheng Yong, and Paopao were three high school boys who loved playing video games and reading comics. In addition to fighting and bragging, they also liked to hang around the campus goddess Yang Yi.

Three young boys chosen by fate gained the superpower to travel through time and space twenty years by sneezing after accidentally falling into the sea. Out of curiosity, the three of them visited their future selves.

In 2019, the relationship between Cheng Yong (played by Song Yang), Paopao and Yang Yi (played by Zhu Yanmanzi) has undergone subtle changes; after Wang Zha (played by Zhang Ruoyun) met investigative reporter Liu Lianzhi (played by Zhong Chuxi), he discovered that someone wanted to destroy humanity. In order to protect their loved ones, the mission of saving the world fell on their shoulders.

There are many familiar faces in "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century".

Zhang Ruoyun has been very successful in the TV drama circle in recent years, with "Joy of Life", "Police Honor", "Dragon Boy"... one hit after another. Coincidentally, his representative work "Joy of Life" is also a work that transcends time and space.

"Chengyong" Song Yang is the favorite of director Xu Haofeng. He has played important roles in "The Pirates' Trace", "Arrow Master Liu Baiyuan" and "Master". In recent years, he has also participated in "Silent Witness", "Never Stop" and "The Accidental Detective 2".

Zhong Chuxi, who plays the "fighting girl Liu Lianzhi" in the film, has been making efforts on both the big and small screens since her stunning appearance in "Youth". She also appeared in this year's May Day action blockbuster "Peacekeeping Riot Control Team". This time, she partners with Zhang Ruoyun in the new work to adventure together.

Zhu Yanmanzi, who plays "White Moonlight Yang Yi", has appeared in "Unrequited Love in the South" and "An Elephant Sitting Still". In recent years, she has participated in "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Ex-Files 4". She is a post-90s actress with a unique temperament.

Li Yang's unique "crazy style"

The style of "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" is flexible and unconventional.

Sometimes it looks like a video game or comic, and sometimes like a MV advertisement. The fusion of real-life performances and animation special effects presents a 2.5-dimensional powerless texture.

The timeline goes back to 1999, and is filled with the nostalgic elements and dreamlike feeling unique to the millennium. The surrealist fantasy and blurred low-pixel old objects bring people back to their childhood in a second.

Audiences who are accustomed to traditional movie scenes will get a brand new viewing experience in "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century"; those who are good at surfing the 8G network will have a sense of resonance that "the movie brings my mental state to life."

When talking about the style of the film, we have to mention its creator behind the scenes - Director Li Yang. If you have seen his previous works, you will better understand the "weird power aesthetics" of this new work.

Li Yang was born in 1981 and studied at the Animation School of the Beijing Film Academy. In 2009, his animated short film "The Adventures of Li Xianji" amazed audiences and was widely circulated on the Internet that year.

This two-dimensional short film uses the high concept of "time lag" (making a short time seem longer or vice versa) as an introduction. On the surface, it tells the story of Li Xianji playing computer games desperately, while the hidden plot is his love story with Wang Qian - Li Xianji wants to complete the game and return to the past when he had Wang Qian.

In 2013, Li Yang brought another live-action short film "Bad Future" with a unique idea: a meteorite transformed into a human form, with a built-in good or bad adjustment button. The bad guy Zhao Kou is a gangster who likes to fight, and the good guy Sun Bai is a boy who likes his classmate Zheng Xiaoyan.

Many years later, the prematurely aged Sun Bai and the young and vigorous Zheng Xiaoyan meet on a train, but the two people who belong to the military of different countries are bound to be enemies.

In 2015, Li Yang shot a retro-style promotional short film "A Teenager with Superpowers?!" for the movie "The Young Class". Set in the 1950s, it tells a fantasy story about a rescued superpower boy who diverted the Yellow River flood. Combining a specific era with superhero elements similar to X-Men, the images are still very interesting.

But after shooting this short film, Director Li Yang remained silent for 9 years.

In terms of both story and style, "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" is clearly a culmination of the above-mentioned predecessors, but a more mature and sophisticated one.

Li Yang, who returned ten years later, still likes to tell the story of a middle school youth resisting the world. He is obsessed with the vague feelings of his student days and often sighs about the good past and the not-so-good future.

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Time manipulation is an important element in his works. The male protagonist in his previous works has time disharmony or becomes an old man, while "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" cleverly sets up juxtaposed timelines.

The mix of animation and real people, the collage of different art forms, the meaningful Easter egg references, the ingenious imagination and the philosophical lines are all inherited in Li Yang's works and continue to this day.

Behind the scenes of the creation of "21st Century"

During the 9 years of "disappearance", Li Yang was mainly doing one thing - planning and polishing "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century".

The script creation began in the mid-to-late 2012s. Li Yang wanted to tell the story of three young people, but suddenly found that his 18-year-old friends had all gone their separate ways. So he created the clones of Wang Zha, Cheng Yong, and Paopao in himself. "When they collided with each other, they became more three-dimensional characters."

After the manuscript was completed in May 2015, the project was shelved due to its overly unconventional imagination until actor Zhang Ruoyun read the script.

After communicating with him, Li Yang finally found someone who shared the same frequency with him.

Li Yang drew a relatively complete storyboard script, and images can better convey his fantastic ideas than words. As a director who started out as an animation director, he is more sensitive to images.

After the official shooting started in November 2020, he watched the actors' performances in front of the camera and materialized the two-dimensional effects in his mind.

Producer Wang Hongwei said that he was willing to participate in this project because "the skills starting from the text are abundant and skillful, and have a very rare foundation."

Wang Hongwei is the driving force behind many young directors. He has produced "The Wandering Earth" directed by Guo Fan and "Space Exploration Editorial Department" directed by Kong Dashan.

Coincidentally, Guo Fan, Kong Dashan and Li Yang have a deep connection.

Back then, Guo and Kong both liked Li Yang's "The Adventures of Li Xianji" very much.

In 2011, when Guo Fan directed for the first time, he chose to collaborate with Li Yang to remake it into a live-action feature film; Kong Dashan, who was still a student, adapted it into a short film "The Troubles of Young Ma Liao".

Movie version of "The Adventures of Li Xianji"

The lives of three future Chinese science fiction film directors intersected this year.

About ten years later, they handed in different answers. Guo Fan's "The Wandering Earth" series is a hard-core science fiction film, Kong Dashan's "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department" is a pseudo-documentary comedy science fiction film, and Li Yang's "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" is a whimsical comedy soft science fiction film.

Under the sci-fi shell and passionate style, "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" also has the background of a romantic youth film. Audiences of different ages can get a glimpse of their own youth, and those born in the 80s and 90s can find a rare resonance, as if they were returning to their youth.

As the director's special said, "Let those who are bored with the world become a little more interested in the world."

Just like what the protagonists in the movie shouted to the future, "Don't become bad", I hope this imaginative new film will bring you not only fun, but also reflection and emotion.

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Note: Some of the pictures in this article are from Douban and the Internet. If there is any infringement, please contact us.