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On August 9, Xu Zheng's film "Reverse Life", which he directed, wrote and acted in, was released. This is also his new work released after 6 years of absence from the summer season. As a realistic film, the controversy that cannot be avoided is: Will the characters and plot seem suspended because they are not real enough? Is the film really recognized by the audience because of its "reality"? Judging from the current reputation and evaluation, this work is a work with obvious advantages and disadvantages, and these advantages and disadvantages are precisely concentrated on the shaping of the characters and the arrangement of the plot.

Xu Zheng wrote, directed and acted in the film

A new work on a serious subject

The film "Reverse Life" is a relatively innovative film. The film starts from the perspective of the male protagonist Gao Zhilei, played by Xu Zheng. As a top student who graduated from Tongji University, he was promoted from a programmer to a senior executive of a large company, and was optimized and laid off at the age of 45. He has elderly parents and young children, and he needs to face the common problems of the elderly seeking medical treatment, the children going to school, and paying high mortgages. He must shoulder the burden of life. In order to cover the monthly family expenses of 15,000 yuan, Gao Zhilei chose the takeaway industry with a low entry threshold, took off "Kong Yiji's long gown", and turned into "Camel Xiangzi" to deliver takeaways. After several months of hard work, Gao Zhilei, who was not even familiar with the route, became the "single king", collected 15,000 yuan, and saved his big house.

Before the release of the movie "Reverse Life", the publicity campaign emphasized that "the film is Xu Zheng's return to the summer season with realistic themes after 6 years", and also emphasized that this is Xu Zheng's new work "self-directed, self-written and self-acted". The realistic theme work 6 years ago was the phenomenal movie "Dying to Survive" in 2018, but at that time Xu Zheng was only the producer and starring actor of this film. After that, Xu Zheng also produced and starred in romantic films such as "Time Travel" and "Love Myth". The feature-length films that Xu Zheng really directed are "Lost on Journey", "Lost in Thailand", "Lost in Hong Kong", "Lost in Russia" and other "囧 series" road comedies. It can be seen that this time, Xu Zheng wants to prove that he can "reverse" himself through this realistic theme movie that is completely led by himself, break through the creative inertia of the "囧" series of comedy movies, and prove that he has the ability to shoot serious movies.

Xu Zheng's way of proving himself inevitably reminds people of another filmmaker, Chen Sicheng. Like Xu Zheng, Chen Sicheng was also well-known to the audience as an actor in the early days, and then transformed into a director and producer. The difference is that Xu Zheng mainly presents himself as an urban elite, and the types of films he excels in are mainly light-hearted and cheerful love films. Chen Sicheng's main track is suspense films. He wrote and directed the "Chinatown Detective" series of films, as well as the works he produced and participated in, such as "Manslaughter", "Gone Girl", and "Silent Killing", which demonstrated his skills and ability in shooting and operating commercial suspense films. In order to prove himself, Chen Sicheng changed his track, brought Mai Jia's famous work "Decryption" to the big screen, and shot a spy film with biographical and suspenseful elements.

Unfortunately, after "The Decryption" was released on August 3, its score on Douban dropped to 6.6 points. Movie platforms such as Maoyan predicted that the final box office of the film would not exceed 500 million yuan. Chen Sicheng did not prove his ability to handle serious films through this new work, and he also lost the box office appeal of his past commercial films.

So does Xu Zheng's new film "Reverse Life" show his ability as a filmmaker to balance seriousness and commerciality? At present, "Reverse Life" has a Douban score of 6.9, which is slightly better than Chen Sicheng's "Decryption" with 6.6 points, but compared with other films of the same period, such as "Negative Negatives Make Positive" with 7.2 points and "White Snake: Floating Life" with 7.1 points, "Reverse Life" does not show an advantage in terms of score. Most people have mixed opinions on "Reverse Life", which indirectly shows that this is a work with obvious advantages and disadvantages.

The actor's acting skills were recognized

But it's a bit too much

From the perspective of advantages, the creative theme of the movie "Reverse Life" is relatively positive, and it creatively focuses on the strangers that the public is most familiar with - the food delivery riders, filling the gap in domestic films in this content.

Most of the film is told from Gao Zhilei's work perspective, focusing on the image of Gao Zhilei's new colleague and several representative delivery riders, showing the work and life conditions of the delivery riders: Yang Dashan, a young man played by Wu Jiakai, is enthusiastic and cheerful, and brings Gao Zhilei, whom he met by chance, into the industry; Stationmaster Zhu, played by Jia Bing, is the backbone of everyone, with leadership style and wisdom; "Lao Kou" played by Wang Xiao and Gao Zhilei get to know each other after a fight; "Dahei" played by Feng Bing continues his image of "Lao Mo" who is ruthless and taciturn in "Kuang Bi"; Qiu Xiaomin, a female deliveryman played by Liu Meihan, is as good as any man... It can be said that the portrayal and interpretation of several delivery riders by a group of supporting actors is remarkable and memorable.

However, as a film that shows the lives of food delivery riders, the problem with "Reverse Life" also lies in the display and grasp of this life. In the process of creating artistic works, the creation of typical images in the works lies in the fact that the works need to highly summarize the commonalities of certain people or things in social life and reflect certain essential laws. This highly realistic and highly generalized artistic image, on the one hand, fully and concentratedly expresses the essence and universality of social life with very vivid images and particularities. At the same time, it embodies the outstanding personality, sincere emotions and unique aesthetic creation of the creative subject. However, the display of Gao Zhilei's food delivery rider career and other supporting roles in "Reverse Life" all feel overdone.

For example, the several main delivery riders in the film seem to be of different genders, ages, and places of origin, but their personalities are highly unified. Almost everyone has life burdens and goals to achieve, but their overall personalities are relatively optimistic and positive: Gao Zhilei, as a newly joined delivery rider, aims to pay off his mortgage and keep his monthly expenses of 15,000 yuan; Yang Dashan, played by Wu Jiakai, works desperately to deliver food in order to raise money for his wedding and marry his girlfriend; Lao Kou, played by Wang Xiao, seems to be stingy, but in fact he is saving money for the surgery of his daughter who suffers from leukemia; the reason why "Dahei", played by Feng Bing, is so far away and cold and arrogant is mainly because he indirectly caused his former colleague to lose his legs, and he hopes to save up compensation for his former colleague; Qiu Xiaomin, the female delivery rider played by Liu Meihan, is smart and clever, but she still brings her daughter to deliver food at night... The original intention of the film was to encourage frustrated people in real life: difficulties will always pass, just hold on a little longer, but the superficial, dramatic, and exaggerated portrayal makes people feel that the film's display of the hardships of the grassroots is superficial.

From the perspective of Gao Zhilei's family, in addition to Gao Zhilei himself, his wife Xiao Ni played by Xin Zhilei, and his father and mother played by Ding Yongdai and Ding Jiali, all have more roles. However, several family members only expressed their disappointment at his unemployment in the early stage, and basically fully supported and encouraged his career as a food delivery rider in the later stage.

For example, Ding Yongdai, who plays Gao Zhilei's father, has played the role of a father many times in "The World" and "Going North and South", but this time, he needs to play the strong side of an old intellectual, and there are a lot of scenes after the character has a stroke. Ding Yongdai once said at the film meeting, "In life, I have come into contact with many relatives and friends who have suffered strokes. I acted a little too much at the beginning, and the director told me to 'not try so hard'. Our crew is like a family, and driven by this warm atmosphere, my performance has become more and more natural..."

Although this description is aimed at Ding Yongdai's personal performance, it can basically summarize the feelings given by other characters, that is, some plays are overdone and some performances are too exaggerated. "Reverse Life" has certain breakthroughs and innovations in the creation of "midlife crisis-style" characters such as Gao Zhilei, but it can work harder to create the various aspects of life to avoid this sense of consistency and suspension.

Source: Jinan Times