Before it was released until August 8, the cumulative box office of 560 million yuan has already made "All or Nothing" the TOP1 box office in Chinese film history. And the box office performance of 185 million yuan on the day of the premiere made this topic-filled movie the box office champion on the premiere day of domestic crime films in Chinese film history. At present, the final box office of "All or Nothing" predicted by Maoyan is as high as 3.84 billion yuan. Undoubtedly, the biggest dark horse of this summer has appeared.
As the first commercial film in mainland China to anchor the story theme in overseas online telecom fraud, perhaps at the beginning of the filming of "All or Nothing", it did not expect that it would compete with the news hot search "exposing the fraud in northern Myanmar" during its release. Regarding the topicality of this movie, some viewers said, "I'm going to watch it, and I have to buy two tickets for my parents." It shows that the world has been suffering from telecom fraud for a long time.
"All or Nothing" poster
The leverage of social sentiment is of course a major factor in sending "All or Nothing" skyrocketing at the box office. After all, the quality of the movie itself is the fundamental factor that determines how far it can go. In an exclusive interview with The Paper, the director of the film even said that he did not expect the box office to be so popular this time. Since the release of his first big-screen debut "The Beneficiary" in 2019, this is only his second film to be released. However, compared with the box office performance of "The Beneficiary" which is just over 200 million yuan, it can be expected that with the hit of "All or Nothing", the Olympic bid will also be recognized by more audiences.
"The Beneficiary" poster
But this somewhat shy director is obviously not ready to stand under the spotlight. Looking through the past interviews with him, it is rare to introduce his growth story, and it is rare to see his self-report of a more perfect personal style. During the conversation, when we talked about why John Nash, Claude Elwood Shannon and other 20th-century mathematicians and pioneers of information theory were brought out in the opening credits of "All or Nothing", the police officer played by Yongmei pointed out that When the "Kelly formula" leads to the so-called "you can win without gambling", why did the Olympic bid make this anti-fraud film, and how he logically structured the entire film, the attribution behind it gradually emerged.
director bid
【dialogue】
I can't make a movie that I don't believe in myself
The Paper: Talk about the origin of the filming of this movie. As the first-named screenwriter of "All or Nothing", I heard that you originally wanted to tell a one-line story, and I am also very interested in this one-line story.
Olympic bid: My previous story was in 2018, and I started thinking about it after filming "The Beneficiary". In fact, telecom and network fraud has appeared in mainland China since the beginning of the 21st century, and has intensified since then. A few years ago, I had a friend who I knew indirectly because I was deceived and went to a dead end. This touched me a lot, because the people around me had such a big change.
The story that was conceived at the beginning was relatively simple, that is, a programmer was deceived in recruiting and fell in love with a beautiful dealer, but the beautiful dealer was stuck in it and refused to leave, so he used his ingenuity, and finally got the whole group Everyone was rescued. It can be said that it is a story of a lonely hero entering Longtan alone.
Jin Chen as Dealer Anna
The Paper: As far as the current film is concerned, it shows three groups of clues: the victim, the front-line anti-fraud police, and the abducted person. How to organically integrate these three clues?
Olympic bid: Only by unfolding the story from the three perspectives of criminals and accomplices, as well as victims and the police, can the closed loop of the film's narrative be completed, and only in this way can the ecology of telecommunications and network fraud be more completely displayed. Of course, it is very difficult to balance the relationship between these three groups of characters.
For example, the programmer played by Zhang Yixing, the process of being tricked into and fleeing is quite thrilling and exciting. But in the middle, when his freedom is restricted and his equipment is plundered, his subjective initiative is actually very low—thanks to the extensive interview work we did afterwards, I realized that if only one A cheating programmer can bring down a criminal group with his own intelligence, which is impossible in real life. And I can't make a movie that I don't even believe in, or that I know for sure that it is completely fictional, there must be some realistic grip.
Zhang Yixing as Programmer Pan Sheng
The Paper: Zhang Yixing's performance in "Changsha Nightlife" in the first half of this year is impressive. This time he was chosen to play the leading role Pan Sheng. What qualities do you like in him?
Olympic bid: We quickly determined the intention of cooperation when we met for the first time. After I finished telling the story in his studio, he expressed his willingness to participate in the performance. Even the staff around him felt that this was a bit hasty? But he agreed with little hesitation. Yixing is a versatile artist, who also has music and dance.
One of the most intuitive questions at that time was asking him to cut his hair. In fact, he was still recording some variety shows at the same time and had to attend business events, but he cut his hair without saying a word. In his words, "As long as you can play the role well, You can shave your head."
When I started preparing for the role, I gave him a mobile hard drive of T, which contained a large number of documentaries, related articles, and film and television works, both dramas and movies, as well as many actual records of our early interviews, anyway, they are what I usually collect All the information was given to him, and he could read as much as he could.
During the filming stage, Yixing gave me the biggest feeling that he was very relaxed this time, and he was quite relaxed. Moreover, he is very easy to get along with everyone, and he has no airs of a star at all. Even if he puts on costumes and dangles in front of many extras, no one will recognize him, and this is exactly what the role of Pan Sheng needs. The character itself does not need to have a star halo on his head, and Yixing's daily life is integrated with all of us.
The Paper: The big surprise for me in this film is the two villains played by Wang Chuanjun and Sun Yang. In other words, you have preserved a little humanity for these two persevering characters, which in turn made the relationship between the characters more harmonious. The notation is more complicated. Ah Cai "smelled" the distress message on the 20 dollars, but he didn't say anything, and even released Liang Anna privately; Manager Lu was a vicious man, and he kept his criminal rationality from the beginning to the end. Talk about the settings of these two characters and the highlights of the actors' performances.
Sun Yang as Ah Cai
Olympic bid: I prefer to make the relationship a little more ambiguous, and play some grayscale. This is a habit of mine. I didn't have the idea of adding humanity to the villain, but I just felt that at that moment, the factors behind people's decisions were very complicated. We actually filmed a lot of foreshadowing scenes of the two of them, but the film sometimes has a length limit, including various constraints, so in the end we edited a part of it. If the audience is a little distracted while watching the film, it may feel a bit abrupt. .
In addition, I think Manager Lu's final performance was not so much rational as despair. He was only a middle-level figure in the fraud group, and when the incident was revealed, he knew that his situation was over, and he wanted to make up for the mistakes of the high-level people, and destroy as much evidence as possible in exchange for his daughter's life. At the same time, his family is also under the control of others, and the biggest black hand behind the scenes is relatively obscure in the movie.
Wang Chuanjun as Manager Lu
I saw a comment on the Internet, saying that the fraud leader Manager Lu (played by Wang Chuanjun) looks no different from ordinary people, and he speaks well to the people under him. Unless you obviously want to resist, he will reveal his cruel side, but life He is also good to his wife and children. After seeing this sentence, I thought about another thing: they have caused so many ordinary people to die, the so-called unrighteousness will kill themselves, and they will also have their families ruined one day. This is what I think in my conception of. Of course, the movie should not be explained. I just want the audience to see that the bad guys will have their families destroyed and their wives and children separated one day.
The Paper: I heard that Sun Yang is also playing the role of "manager" on the set this time?
Olympic bid: I met director Bai Xue in Hong Kong in 2019. At that time, "Over the Spring" had already been released, and Sun Yang's Ahao played in it impressed me very much. Then everyone was in a small bar in Jordan, and Sun Yang and I chatted all night, just talking about our favorite movies and performances. The way the two of us met was not through casting, but as friends. After the chat, I wanted to go back to the hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, and he walked with me to continue the chat. When I arrived at the hotel, I found out that his home was in the opposite direction from the hotel (laughs).
This time on the set, because we have a lot of extras, everyone still needs to adjust in the first few days. After the adjustment is complete, Sun Yang will naturally become the role of managing the extras. If there is anything wrong with the state of acting, he will also help enlighten and correct it. This happens to be very similar to his role of Ah Cai in the film, and I am happy to see it succeed, this time he is completely immersed in the role.
The Paper: In addition, when dealing with the plot of releasing Anna privately, you still made some preparations for the role of Ah Cai.
Olympic bid: The role of Anna, the way she entered this fraud group is different from others, especially the role of Pan Sheng. The person who brought her into the group was Ah Cai, and Ah Cai's motive for doing this was to make money, using her as a tool to make money, not to kill her. He is not a murderous demon, nor is he just a hired horse. In a sense, the fate of the two people is sympathetic to each other at a certain stage. To put it bluntly, they are both tools in the chain of fraud.
Except that you just mentioned that Ah Cai already guessed what Anna wanted to report by smelling the coffee on the dollar bills, but he still chose to conceal it. Careful viewers will also see a deep scar on Ah Cai's neck. Whenever he appears in China, he will wear a small silk scarf or raise his collar to the highest point to cover it up. This is a detail I designed for him, so that everyone will think of this character's history. He may have been a coerced person and experienced a narrow escape, so when he faces another person who is dying State, maybe there will be empathy, a flash of humanity for a moment, I think so.
Conceive movies according to sophisticated logic
The Paper: At the beginning of the movie, the police officer played by Yongmei introduced the Kelly formula, which says that in the face of temptation, you can only win if you don't gamble. This makes me think that the theme of the film is not only anti-fraud, but also to persuade people to quit gambling. It can be said that gambling is a common problem among perpetrators, believers and victims in the film. What do you think?
Yongmei as Police Officer Zhao
Olympic bid: That's right, the perpetrators and victims involved in the movie have a gambling nature in their bones, and they all take risks because they want to get rich overnight.
The arrangement of the opening paragraph is actually because I am particularly interested in mathematics. My mother is from the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I have been in contact with many mathematicians since I was a child, and I also learn Olympiad. So I have always believed that mathematics is the most scientific way to explain the world, and when I see numbers, the radar in my body seems to be awakened.
In the movie, Pan Sheng always used the "number 6" to hint to his friends, hoping that his friends would notify the police after seeing it. Although I have never learned programming, in binary, "6" = "110". I will understand when I This may be a bit abstract to the audience, but I know binary conversion very well. Give me a number, and I can convert it right away, so I naturally added this bridge in the film. Pan Sheng is a programmer Master, of course he also understands this.
The Paper: Does this kind of mathematical thinking also affect some of your ideas about making movies as a director?
Olympic bid: "All or Nothing" begins with mathematics. Mathematics is a very esoteric subject, but behind mathematics is logic, which is very logical. When I conceive a movie, I also conceive it according to precise logic, even if I have to break the inherent logic in the end, but I have to form a logic from the beginning.
Mathematics is so amazing that all structures can be explained by mathematics, even the music theory of music can be calculated. The beauty and power of mathematics are everywhere. This is my little easter egg about mathematics, and this feeling is put in the opening. This also makes me tend to be calm when making movies. My logic will be stronger than emotional sensibility, which is caused by my own personality.
The Paper: There were also anti-fraud police at the premiere in Beijing. They called out the "water room" for private torture in the film, as well as the "GOIP" equipment and the motorcade. Most viewers may not understand these plots when they watch the movie, can you introduce them a little bit?
Olympic bid: When I did my homework and checked the information, I read a lot of related things. "Water room" is the victim's first card that was stolen. "Water room" will split into "refrigerator", "refrigerator" It's a secondary card. These scammers will disperse the first sum of money into the "refrigerator", but only store it in the "refrigerator" for a few minutes, and then disperse it again from the "refrigerator", so there may be thousands of accounts scattered across the country All over the world, even around the world, this kind of virtual transaction method makes it very difficult to trace the stolen money now. "GOIP" is a kind of virtual base station, which appeared before Internet fraud, that is, in the era of telecom fraud by phone and text messages, but it is still in use today.
I think that if these slang words are used in movies, the audience will feel mysterious, and the real texture of the movie will come out. In this regard, we did consult front-line interviews and obtained first-hand information, and these inscriptions will change every few years. For example, "rider" is now called "Q Zai" in Cantonese. It can be said that these scammers have anti-reconnaissance capabilities. It is also very strong.
The Paper: I think these quack and slang words created a spectacle effect in the film.
Olympic bid: That's right, including when we conceived the base where the fraud group is located, the building where they are located is divided into several floors. The lowest level of practitioners is called "dog push" or "pigboy", they are labor-intensive "practitioners", and the next level is where "vegetable farmers" are, they are technology-intensive, and then online is the lottery. Officials and other types of work, which also reflect the division of labor and classes within the fraud group.
We will also highlight this contrast when we set up the art scene this time. From the basement to the top floor, their ecology gradually becomes more glamorous and luxurious as the floors jump. Pan Sheng played by Zhang Yixing, whose name is not only a homophony of the programming software python, but also means "climbing". He was coerced into this group step by step, and finally almost became a partner.
Realism is a technique, not a genre
The Paper: From your first big-screen film "The Beneficiary" to "All or Nothing", the two films are not so much crime themes as they are social issues themes. How do you define your topic selection strategy and personal style positioning in the "Bad Monkey 72 Transformation Movie Project"?
Olympic bid: In my opinion, these two films are drama films. I don't like bloody and violent things very much, because of the genre, these things must be shown, but it must be the end. I think what really attracts the audience is the struggle of human nature. After I chose to make big movies, I have always firmly chosen to use realistic techniques to shoot realistic themes. I remember that director Ning Hao once told us that realism is a technique, not a genre. Sci-fi films can also be shot in a realistic way, and romance films can also be shot in a realistic way.
Darren Wang as Ah Tian
For example, the photography style of "All or Nothing" this time, when we shot the part of Wang Dalu (playing the victim A Tian), we specially used a hand-held camera to approach the shooting, so as to create that everyone around A Tian is in the same place. With a feeling of watching him very closely with anxiety, he has ghosts in his heart, and everyone is full of doubts about him, which creates a kind of plot tension.
In the part of filming the fraudulent factory, all fixed shots are used, and the presentation of the shots is like the audience in a movie theater watching them with bated breath. The use of these scenes is completely different, and it is the result of our communication with the photographer in the early stage. It can be said that the scenes in movies outside the country are generally far away from the camera, while the domestic part is relatively close.
The Paper: Personally, I really want to know the way of cooperation between you and Director Ning Hao. I have also done many interviews with director Ning Hao, and I feel that although his films are extremely funny, they are pessimistic and gray in their bones, but your films, at least these two, have a lot of warm colors in the world. I don't know if it's a matter of the times or your personal preference?
Olympic bid: My personality is relatively optimistic, and I am also willing to present the sunny and warm side of life. Director Ning Hao and I are both Virgos and type A blood, so we get along and cooperate with each other quite tacitly. I don't know whether it's the zodiac sign or the blood type, which one plays a bigger role. Anyway, this is a metaphysics (laughs), but we do have many similarities in personality, but we are more strict with ourselves.
Director Ning Hao and I met on the set of an advertisement, and it happened that Mr. Huang Bo was also speaking for that advertiser. I am the executive director. Director Ning Hao may think that I can produce work faster and more quickly, so he invited me to join the "Bad Monkey 72 Transformation Film Project".
Poster of "River Dragon and River Hill"
The Paper: Judging from the story background of your debut short film "Helongchuangang", I would think that you may be from the Northeast. The last question, please tell us about your own growth story.
Olympic bid: I am from Beijing, Korean. My father did commercials for a period of time in the 1990s, and brought me into contact with the film and television advertising industry. When I was young, I often went to the studio to observe, and I also saw many great directors who are now shooting commercials.
In fact, I had always been determined to take the comprehensive university entrance examination. The road of film and television sounds like a joke, but I really went wrong when I accompanied a classmate to the exam. Later, that classmate went to Chinese opera, and I went to Beijing Film Academy, we often hang out together during school.
