On the first day of the new year, Jia Ling entered the Spring Festival with her second directorial work "Hot and Spicy", which also brought the topic of "losing 100 pounds in one year" that set off social media. Three years ago, when "Hello, Li Huanying" was released, Jia Ling made a promise: "If the box office exceeds 3 billion, I will lose weight and become a lightning bolt." Three years later, she fulfilled it with practical actions.
"Hot and Spicy" poster
Jia Ling mentioned in an interview that "Hot and Spicy" is not about weight loss or boxing, but the story of a girl learning to "love herself." She also chose not to go out because she was afraid that the topic of her weight loss would be trending.
Jia Ling was interviewed by "Zhang Yang Dialogue"
But everyone has to admit that the topic of weight loss in the early stage earned the movie a lot of attention. Together with Jia Ling, who has not yet appeared, this is a suspense setting full of tension. After the first day of the Lunar New Year, Jia Ling, who appeared in major movie promotion events, unexpectedly triggered a new round of weight loss topics.
The topicality and good reputation accumulated by Jia Ling are directly reflected in the box office performance. Except for the first day of the new year, which was lower than Han Han's "Flying Life 2" with a gap of less than 10 million, in the following days, "Hot and Spicy" all It is the single-day box office champion, and the gap between it and the runner-up is gradually widening. As for the word-of-mouth performance, "Hot and Spicy" scored 7.8 on Douban. After the score was released, the score did not fall but rose, now reaching 8.0. Sony Pictures has also officially announced that it has acquired the global distribution rights for "Hot and Furious". Taken together, the tone has been basically set for both fame and fortune.
The US Variety magazine website was the first to report that Sony Pictures had acquired the global distribution rights to "Hot and Furious"
(The following content contains spoilers)
Back to the movie itself, "Hot Hot" is a remake of the 2014 Japanese movie "One Hundred Dollar Love" starring Sakura Ando. Both movies are about 30+ loser women who "sit at home" and change their lives through boxing. story. The main framework of the two stories is also completely the same, but they have completely different temperaments. This can be seen from the name of the movie. The focus of "Hot and Spicy" is that the heroine Du Leying (played by Jia Ling) rebounds after hitting bottom. "One Hundred Yen Love" always shows a good-for-nothing heroine who thinks she is worth only 100 yen (equivalent to less than 5 yuan in RMB).
"One Hundred Dollars of Love" poster
"Hot and Spicy" has created a comedy version that is more suitable for Chinese babies' physiques and the Spring Festival through subtle adjustments in several angles. It has completed a successful "mourning film and happy filming" adaptation. The first is the background of the film. Adjustment.
"Hot and Spicy" continues the sketch-style comedy movie style of "Hello, Li Huanying". This is an area that Jia Ling and her team are good at. The screenwriter has set up extremely dramatic appearances and settings for the characters. Her ex-boyfriend Hao Kun (played by Lei Jiayin) made his first appearance when he was secretly urinating on the side of the road. He was brightly illuminated by the headlights of the car that Du Leying turned on by mistake. The embarrassment and awkwardness of the whole scene were perfectly expressed. Similar short scenes are densely arranged throughout the movie, and with the participation of veteran comedians such as Zhang Xiaofei, Xu Juncong, Sha Yi, Shen Chunyang, Ma Li, Qiao Shan, etc., the tone of the comedy is set. .
Screenshot from the trailer of "Hot and Spicy"
Then there’s the handling of the movie’s placement. The core focus of the entire films of "One Hundred Dollars of Love" and "It's Hot" is that the protagonists' obsession is "win once", but there are subtle differences in the definition of winning. "One Hundred Dollar Love" is literally "win a game", while "Hot and Spicy" made slight adjustments, lowering the standard of winning and changing it to "finishing a game", so it also persisted until the end but After losing the competition, the heroine of "One Hundred Dollars of Love" did not win even once until the end of the movie, but Du Leying of "Hot and Spicy" actually "won", which was another loss and another joy.
Finally, the scale of some plots in the original work was adjusted. "Hot and Spicy" deleted some plots in "One Hundred Dollar Love". For example, the plot where the heroine was raped by a colleague and was unable to resist was weakened into sexual harassment. In order to fill the content, traditional comedy scenes such as best friends snatching boyfriends and relatives stabbing each other in the back were added.
"Hot and Spicy" stills
After several adjustments to the background, placement, and scale, a family comedy suitable for the Spring Festival has begun to take shape. But what you gain must be sacrificed. The comic temperament in the early stage and the weakening of the scale of oppression made Du Leying's suicide in the middle period and the explosion in the later period slightly lacking in motivation. It was like a spring. If it is not pressed to the end, it will not be able to accumulate enough. Pressure releases maximum energy.
In terms of performance, the other actors are responsible for the comedy part, but Jia Ling must have her own independent performance positioning. The character Du Leying does not know how to connect with the world or communicate with people in society. Jia Ling, who has always presented a lively and cheerful image, in order to make the audience feel a little strange, broke away from her previous screen image and broke the deep-rooted impression, she chose to keep gaining weight and performed the early Du Leying with a weight of 210 kilograms. In order to show her cowardice, Jia Ling also deliberately lowered her voice. The final effect was not satisfactory, but she and Ando Sakura from the inside Compared with the dejection outside, his acting skills are still a little immature. When it came to losing weight and practicing boxing, the classic soundtrack of "Rocky" sounded at the right time in the movie. With the reproduced pictures and lenses, the passionate emotions were brought to a climax. It's a fitting tribute, but it doesn't quite feel like it belongs in "Hot and Furious." It can be seen that "Hot and Spicy" is indeed not sophisticated enough and needs more help.
"Hot and Spicy" stills
Jia Ling is a smart enough director. She knows how to choose a suitable script, and she also knows how to adapt the script according to her own advantages and schedule. She also knows how to adjust the choice of heroine in line with current social preferences. At the end of the film, her ex-boyfriend once again sent out an invitation. The heroine of "One Hundred Dollar Love" chose to accept it, while Le Ying of "Hot and Spicy" chose to refuse and chose to run forward alone with brisk footsteps. This adaptation is based on Jia Ling The understanding of the characters is obviously the ending that the current audience is more willing to see.
Jia Ling is an actress who works hard enough. The focus of social media may be more on losing 100 pounds, but I was even more shocked by the training clips in the film. Her boxing movements, reaction speed, and core strength, every link is amazing. Beautiful, even if you take into account the lighting, angles and post-production factors of the film, it cannot be achieved casually within a year. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with using this as a topic point, but I also hope that the topic can gradually shift from "Jia Ling's weight loss" to the expression of the movie itself. That may also be a change that Jia Ling, as a director, is happy to see.
Screenshot from the trailer of "Hot and Spicy"
