In the 2009 Chinese New Year schedule in Mainland China, in addition to Feng Xiaogang's "If You Are the One" (2008), Andrew Lau Wai-Keung's "Look for a Star" (2009), Vincent Kok Tak-Chiu's "All's Well, Ends Well 2009" (2009), there is also Ning Hao's "Silver Medalist" (Crazy Racer) (2009) and Ma Liwen's "Desires of the Heart" (2008), the last two films show the development trend of Mainland films entering commercialization. Since Feng Xiaogang opened up the situation of Chinese New Year films in Mainland, the directors have begun to emerge from the previous pattern of propaganda films and literary and artistic films. First, Zhang Yimou attacked the production of the martial arts film "Hero" (2002), and the creation of genre films or commercial films gradually began. A lot of attention, Feng Xiaogang mastered the ecology and preferences of the Mainland people and made one blockbuster film after another, on the other hand, Ning Hao created an intensive crazy comedy "Crazy Stone" (2006) with reference to Hong Kong comedy, and successfully broke through with low-cost production, has become a top-selling director in the Mainland, and has also made a number of film actors participate in many Hong Kong co-productions, including Guo Tao and Huang Bo.
"Silver Medalist" takes the cyclist Huang Bo as an introduction, interspersed with Jack Kao's Taiwanese gangster to sell drugs in the Mainland, and deal with Thai drug dealer who pretend to be cyclist. The film continues the multi-line staggered structure of "Crazy Stone", "Crazy Stone" plays Hong Kong professional thief, "Silver Medalist" plays Taiwanese gangster, you can see Ning Hao "learning" from Hong Kong and Taiwan genre films, but when Hong Kong thief and Taiwanese gangster came to the Mainland, they were both burdened by a group of "stupid" thieves. In Ning Hao's films, they all became the targets of laughing. In one scene of "Silver Medalist", Taiwanese gangster mistakenly took the ashes as cocaine to try it, and was teased by the taxi driver. In addition, at the beginning of the film, it was copied from Universal Studios and the title of "The Incredible Hulk" (2008), which is full of jokes and humor. Ning Hao's creatives are different from Feng Xiaogang's "cold humor", which mainly describes the ecology of the urban middle class, Ning Hao takes the life of ordinary people at the grassroots level and the bizarre phenomenon of society as his material.
As for "Desires of the Heart", Ma Liwen, as a female director, intends to challenge Feng Xiaogang's comedy depicting the relationship between men and women. Although "Desires of the Heart" is a typical domestic film, the film was shot in Dalian, but the film is produced by Hong Kong's Sil-Metropole Organization Ltd, Media Asia Film and Edko Film co-financed, and encountered many twists and turns from the start of the filming to the completion. It was suspended for two years to resume filming, and there was dissatisfaction with the actor's poster design during the film's promotion. It is a production that the audience looks forward to but has a lot of trouble. The film depicts the stories of five women of different types and personalities, including Yuen Qiu and Vivian Wu Junmei who were divorced, Li Xiaolu who was determined to marry a rich and handsome guy, Mei Ting, a virgin in her boudoir, and Song Jia, an innocent girl who left a large inheritance from her overseas Chinese father. They all have their own obstacles in the way of love. The men around them, except for the migrant worker chef Li Chen whom Song Jia met, the others such as Ge You and Guo Tao are all liars. Duan Yihong, the second generation tycoon, and Geng Le, a returnee from overseas, both lack commitment to their lovers, we can see Ma Liwen's views on various bad behaviors of modern men. The film is handled in a humorous light comedy style, with rich plot and content, and the five actresses' performances are just right. Among them, Vivian Wu's low-key performance and Yuen Qiu's door-to-door quarrel with a group of women who were deceived by Guo Tao were quite pleasant. As for Fan Bingbing, who only occupies a small part of the film, playing the innocent girl who was deceived by Ge You, it is only a cameo.
By Kam Po LAM (original in Chinese)
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