This is the most special movie of the summer season.

Directed by Li YangSafe Evacuation from the 21st Century” (hereinafter referred to as “21st Century”), Douban scored 7.7 points as soon as it was released.

Higher than the same periodCatch dolls》、《Under the Alien》、《Silent Kill》and many other domestic films.

However, the film only accounted for 10.3% of the screenings on the first day, and the box office was only 8.94 million.

Taking a look at the overall market, it’s actually not that cold.

For example, "Catching Dolls", which has a Douban score of 7.3, has been able to bring in an average of 50 million yuan a day since its release thanks to the appeal of the "Shenma Combination", and its box office share still ranks first.

But as can be seen from the trailer of "21st Century", its stylization is very obvious, which means it is destined to be a niche.

The messy editing, fast-paced transitions, and unreasonable narrative can all discourage you.

Even a "seasoned" audience like Pigo almost left the cinema after watching the movie for half an hour.

But if you watch it patiently, you will be able to feel the unique side of the movie in the end.

This “masterpiece” is indeed a “masterpiece”. When the movie ended, Brother Pi couldn’t help but stand up and applaud.

So I decided to write an article to talk about my experience watching this 98-minute movie.

01、

In order to avoid some netizens being unfamiliar with director Li Yang, before talking about the movie, Brother Pi will first talk about his "debut" "The Adventures of Li Xianji》。

That was in 2009, an era without Tik Tok, Kuaishou and WeChat. However, thanks to the mutual recommendations of netizens on major forums, this 20-minute animated short film managed to get a high score of 8.7 on Douban.

The quality of the short film is touching, the pictures are extremely rough, but the story it tells is very interesting.

The protagonist Li Xianji is a patient suffering from time lag. He is obsessed with playing a game that is said to allow him to open a door and return to the past as long as he completes the game.

Li Xianji wanted to go back and find his lost lover Wang Qian, for which he went through a legendary adventure.

Finally, when Li Xianji finally finished the game and opened the door, when he saw Wang Qian, the person he first met in his memory, he could no longer take a step forward.

Because the Wang Qian in his heart always maintains her original appearance, but time has already passed by violently in his body.

What Li Xianji is desperately searching for is not only Wang Qian, but also the youth that is gone forever.

The youth that we once squandered is the most beautiful and purest part of our life.

The short film reveals the essence of life to us, and also gives us the strength to face life bravely and love life. Therefore, it aroused considerable resonance among the post-80s generation at that time.

15 years later, in "21st Century", we can still see the wild imagination and rebelliousness that Li Yang had when he created "The Adventures of Li Xianji".

This is also a story about "time travel".

Three 18-year-old boys living on "Planet K"Zhang RuoyunPlayed by), Wang Chengyong (Song YangBecause they were contaminated with a potion of unknown origin, they accidentally gained the ability to "travel" from 1999 to 2019 by just sneezing.

But when they came to this familiar yet strange world, they found that they had already lost themselves at the age of 38, their edges were worn down by life, and they were doing a job they didn’t like.

Wang Zha is a errand reporter for a newspaper, busy every day but still unable to get a permanent job;

Wang Chengyong became a thug for a gang;

Although Bubble succeeded in losing weight, he achieved nothing.

And the world 20 years later is not so satisfactory.

Wang Chengyong's father has become a vegetable, and his lover Yang Yi (Zhu YanmanziShe also fell into the trap of being a fallen girl.

There is also a big devil Sanye from a black and evil group (Wen Zhengrong), who wants to use the poison gas bomb made from the drug extracted from Wang Chengyong to make the IQ of all mankind collectively degenerate by 20 years.

So the three of them frequently traveled between 1999 and 2019, trying to fix the flaws in their lives while saving the world threatened by poison gas bombs.

The story is simple and has a bit of a middle school vibe.

But the visual impact presented by the movie, the clues buried by the director, and the grasp of details can all dazzle you and overwhelm you.

For example, the fast editing and slide-style camera switching are in the same vein as the two short films "The Adventures of Li Xianji" and "Bad Future"; the use of plant figurines with sprouts and strange images to show the passage of time;

Using the scale on a microwave oven to present the time spans of "ten years", "fifteen years" and "twenty years" is director Li Yang's original idea.

Add anime-style special effects to action shots to make each move more powerful;

The taillights of the van drifting around the corner cast an orange light, which makes the film as a whole appear exaggerated, lively, slightly absurd and "crazy".

02、

This "crazy" temperament also appears in the plot of the movie, blending into the main storyline, keeping the movie in a grotesque tone.

Those obviously "irrational" plots become reasonable and natural because of this grotesque atmosphere.

For example, Wang Chengyong wanted to save a neighbor lady who died in a bicycle accident, so he traveled back to 1999 and smashed the lady's bicycle and the bicycles of his neighbors' relatives.

In the end, the old lady was hit and killed by a car while riding a shared bicycle.

The act of smashing a bicycle is absurd in itself, but the aunt's fate of getting into a car accident is an unchangeable destiny.

For example, after the great devil San Ye extracted the potion that could achieve "soul travel" from Wang Chengyong, the first thing he thought of was to use the potion on unconscious vegetative patients, using their consciousness from 20 years ago to inject it into their current bodies and revive them.

The Third Master's son, who just turned 29, is also a vegetable. If he uses drugs, his IQ will only remain at that of a 9-year-old after he wakes up.

So the Third Master decided to spray the drug to every corner of the world, so that everyone on the earth would become "stupid" along with her son.

The Third Master has a thug with great martial arts skills named Han Guang (played by Wu Xiaoliang).

It turns out that his martial arts skills originated from a Street Fighter game card he borrowed from Wang Zha when he was 18 years old.

When Wang Zha traveled back to 1999 and replaced the game card in Han Guang's hand with a Japanese movie VCD and the "Movie Girl" comics, Han Guang in 2019 immediately degenerated into a fat otaku.

These clever ideas and details with black humor run through the entire film story. If you can adapt to its nonsense and absurdity, you will be able to understand director Li Yang's recklessness and experience the uniqueness of the "weird power aesthetics".

03、

Of course, speaking objectively, a 98-minute movie is obviously different from a 20-minute short film.

No matter how wild your imagination is, how crude the picture quality is, or how unrestrained your camera movement is, you must still conform to market demand, fill the movie with a solid storyline, lower the threshold for watching the movie, and at least make it understandable to ordinary audiences.

Therefore, compared with Li Yang’s previous short films, “The Adventures of Li Xianji” and “Bad Future”, “21st Century” uses far fewer showy techniques and is much smaller in scale.

It's not so bloody and violent, and the main story is told clearly, just like a naughty little kid who finally carries a schoolbag and goes to elementary school.

Even so, "21st Century" still continues the theme of Li Yang's short films "injury literature", hiding the hidden pain of the growth process in the time that has passed.

As he said in an interview: "These past few years have been difficult for everyone. I want to use a happy story and various tricks to cover up the fangs of a hard life."

In the summer vacation of 1999 in the film, the 18-year-old boys were carefree every day, bathing in the saturated and warm sunshine, their hearts full of longing for the future.

Their love for each other is so simple, firm and pure, without a trace of scheming or utilitarianism.

However, 20 years later, at the age of 38, they have become unrecognizable, and life has long exhausted their persistence and courage.

Just like us in real life, since graduating from college, how many people have lost themselves in the busyness and rushing around day after day, and how many people have forgotten their original intentions and become the people they once despised.

But in the movie, the three people whose consciousness is still that of 18-year-old boys choose to rise up in resistance.

They pick up the "hero dream" of our childhood on our behalf, use their own strength to fight against fate, defeat the evil devil, and save the world that is deteriorating.

When 18-year-old Wang Chengyong and Yang Yi stood by the window of the classroom, facing the sun and shouted "Don't be bad", I believe many people would be touched by that sincere emotion.

Although the story is absurd and has a middle school temperament that is somewhat incompatible with this era, it is like a shot of adrenaline, igniting the increasingly dark part of our hearts.

Brother Pi was surprised that Director Li Yang, who is already 43 years old, still has the same surging passion as when he created "The Adventures of Li Xianji" 15 years ago. It is obvious that the fire in his heart has not yet been extinguished.

04、

It is also because of this surprise and exclamation that Brother Pi was able to write these words with excitement.

"Safe Escape from the 21st Century" may not be the dark horse of this summer's movie season.

Its box office may only stop at 100 million, but it is similar to last year's "Space Exploration Editorial Department》 will become a good work with the most obvious personal style this year.

The current market prefers direct-feed comedies, which is ultimately born at the wrong time.

Perhaps in another 10 years, this type of movie will be able to break through the circle with its creativity, and the quality of the film will be worthy of a 2 billion box office.

If netizens have watched Li Yang's two short films "The Adventures of Li Xianji" and "Bad Future" and are interested in his "weird power aesthetics", then Brother Pi recommends you to watch this movie.

At the same time, I also hope that it can have more screenings, so that good movies with ideas will not be buried by the market.

Text/PiPi Movie Editorial Department: Passionate and Loyal

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