The watershed for the 2024 summer box office will undoubtedly be drawn with the release of the movie "Catch Me". The film earned nearly 500 million yuan in box office within three days of screening, and the box office exceeded 1.5 billion yuan one week after its official release. Professional organizations such as Maoyan and Beacon currently give the film a final box office forecast of nearly 3.4 billion yuan. Single-handedly taking the entire market on fire, the film’s commercial success is needless to say.

"Catch a Baby" box office poster

Back to the movie itself, comedians Shen Teng and Ma Li both returned to the stage. Directors Yan Fei and Peng Damo collaborated for three times behind the scenes to create "Xihong City Universe". The energy that the four people gathered together was incredible. underestimate. If "Charlotte Troubles" is about the youthful dreams of middle-aged people traveling through time and space, "The Richest Man in Xihong City" focuses on ordinary people's spring and autumn dreams of getting rich overnight, and "Catch a Baby" is a break away from the first two films. The relatively fictitious story setting is based on the education topic that Chinese people are obsessed with - the everlasting "dream of a child becoming a dragon".

Shen Teng and Ma Li collaborate again

With the family-friendly nature of the comedy and the strong popularity of the "Shen Ma Group", "Catch a Baby" may be the movie that contributed the most laughter to theaters this year. But if you define this comedy by "it's over after just one picture," it's obviously underestimating its stamina. The movie has extremely transformed and amplified the Chinese parent's education method of "in the name of love". With the popularity of the movie, topics such as poverty-stricken education, controlling education, and guilt-based education have gradually continued on various platforms. Fermentation.

Recently, the two directors of "Catch a Baby", Yan Fei and Peng Damo, accepted an exclusive interview with reporters from The Paper in Beijing. During the interview, these two post-80s creators, who were born in the same year, reviewed their drama practice on campus and their hard work in "seeing all living beings" in the Happy Twist era. When talking about "Catch a Baby", they did not shy away from talking about the similarities with the movie "The Truman Show" and gave their own interpretations of whether the education model of the father Ma Chenggang in the film is cruel.

As the director who is best at using the "Shen Ma Combination" at the moment, the four of them have become close friends who talk about everything through more than ten years of personal friendship and content cooperation. Talking about this hilarious comedy, there is also a layer of sadness. How will you continue to write dramas for "Brother Teng and Sister Li" in the future? The two directors also spoke frankly about their troubles and hopes.

Yan Fei

Peng Damo

【dialogue】

The more comedy it is, the more sincere the performance must be

The Paper : First of all, congratulations to "Catch a Baby" for its popularity throughout the summer season after its release, and it is currently the leading film. Can you tell us your expectations for the box office of "Catch a Baby"?

Peng Damo : We don’t have any expectations for the box office, as long as it’s better than last time.

The Paper : The last time the two co-directed "The Richest Man in Xihong City", the box office was 2.55 billion yuan.

Peng Damo : Yes, it happened in 2018. In fact, we are very slow in writing scripts and making movies. In recent years, many people's movie-watching habits have changed. Many people prefer to watch short videos at home. Many of my friends don't go to the cinema very much.

The Paper : Can you recall the resumes of the two of you? Director Yan Fei graduated from the Military Performance Department. Did he know his senior brother Shen Teng during school? Director Peng Damo developed "firecracker comedy" when he was at the Beijing Film Academy. Did he have a soft spot for dense laughter at that time?

Yan Fei : Yes, Brother Teng was quite "conspicuous" and quite active when he was in school. My graduation drama "I'm Waiting for You in Heaven" was also Brother Teng's graduation drama that year, and we played the same role in the same drama. Military skills are not great, everyone is usually in a relatively closed environment, looking up and not seeing each other. My teacher and Brother Teng are very familiar with each other, and we often arrange skits together.

I remember that their class rehearsed a play called "The Young Guards." The whole play was about two hours long. Brother Teng played the role of a cook in it, and his appearance lasted less than five minutes. The entire audience burst into laughter during his appearance, and many people came to the show just to see him. At that time, he was such an actor. He looked unassuming, cheerful and popular, but as long as he appeared on the stage, his light could not be blocked.

Peng Damo : When I was in the Acting Department of Nortel, I was influenced by teacher Zhu Zongqi and I especially liked comedy. Teacher Zhu has been retired for many years. She has done in-depth research on comedy. I still remember her telling us in class, "The more comedy, the more sincere the performance. If the creator himself doesn't believe it, how can the audience believe it?" ?" This sentence has always influenced me to this day, and it is also our motto in comedy.

My situation at that time was different from that of other classmates. They were all busy running theater groups and writing papers. I formed a drama club with like-minded classmates to perform sketches. I often put my sketches into excerpts and performed them in major universities in Beijing. , and there is no charge, just to see more audiences. The reason why I called my comedy style at that time "Firecracker Comedy" was because I hoped that the baggage in it would explode one after another like firecrackers.

The Paper : Did you two meet during the Happy Twist period? You all majored in acting, why did you later turn to behind the scenes?

Peng Damo : That’s early. Yan Fei and I are the same age, both were born in 1983. In 2002, we met in a pre-examination tutoring class for military arts. Later, when we did short plays in different schools, we often collaborated together.

Yan Fei : We all later felt that compared to performing, we are more suitable to create behind the scenes, be responsible for the integrity of the work, and enjoy the control of this kind of creation. When I graduated in 2006, Da Mo and I collaborated on our first play, "The Satanic Project," which received a good response, and this opened the door to performing in small theaters in Beijing.

Later, we collaborated or worked separately, and gradually gained some fame in the industry, but the audience didn't know us well at that time. Later, Yu Kai, the founder of Happy Twist, found us, and Shen Teng, as one of the first batch of actors to join, also extended an invitation to us to do a theater drama together.

The Paper : What has been the biggest gain for you two from this experience at Happy Mahua?

Yan Fei : It’s just that the audience groups are starting to change. Most of the people who watch plays in small theaters are young and artistic people, which is a specific audience group. At Happy Mahua, the audience we face can be said to come from the Five Elements and Eight Works, and include people of different ages from various industries, which requires us to consider more aspects in our creations.

The early works of Mahua were still more like "party". After we arrived at Mahua, we hoped to bring in the story-telling side of the work. A performance couldn't just be a bag-breaking + singing and dancing performance, which is lively and lively, plus a few " The joke about "arranging flowers outside" passed by happily, it was too much like a "party".

After all, we are all drama majors, and we still have the author's desire for expression, hoping to present a complete story on the stage. In every creation, the story must be told completely and beautifully, so that even professional audiences will feel that it has a certain level of quality. It must also add comedy elements that everyone likes and bring these baggage and rhythms into it.

So, we struggled at first. Frankly speaking, when Mahua first started, we were embarrassed to call our work a drama, but a stage play, because once you said it was a drama, everyone might have a benchmark in mind, like "Teahouse" It's like "Thunderstorm", that's a drama.

Peng Damo : The biggest gain in Happy Mahua is that the audience can see more. In addition, there are many comedians in Mahua, some of whom are actors and directors with drama majors, and there are also crosstalk actors, so everyone can explore together. For example, cross talk itself has summarized the rule of "three turns and four shakes", but it may not be completely applicable to the mahua stage. Our previous works were also comedies, but they were not the same as Mahua's works which were purely for laughs. This is a process of mutual influence. After we have been together for a long time, we know each other's aura, and the humor will naturally come out. Mahua’s current comedies are still story-based, and the platters at the same beginning are different.

Yan Fei : In fact, the comedians who come to Mahua are all people who understand humor. This group of people come together to create, which is a kind of healthy competition. When an actor says a line on the stage, the audience's reaction is the most direct. If I see the mobile phones on the front, back, left, and right in the audience light up, I know that the baggage is not ringing.

The Paper : After Happy Twist opened the scene, you were also invited by the CCTV Spring Festival Gala crew to create popular sketches such as "Today's Happiness", "Support or Not", and "Follow What You Like". How do you evaluate this creative experience?

Yan Fei : Creating Spring Festival Gala sketches is different from creating stage plays in the theater. The sketches are originally different from the stage plays, and the Spring Festival Gala sketches are different from the sketches in other places, and the aura is different. There are too many TV viewers watching the Spring Festival Gala live, and we can’t get real-time feedback from them. As for whether a piece of baggage can be shaken, we usually "press the stage" (try out) before the official live broadcast performance, find audiences from different groups to watch the performance first, and then make adjustments based on their reactions.

Movie "Charlotte" poster

The first half of the movie is from Ma Chenggang's perspective, and the second half is from Ma Jiye's perspective.

The Paper : After experiencing theater comedy and Spring Festival Gala sketches, the movie "Charlotte Trouble" came out. I noticed that this movie was released after your play of the same name was performed.

Yan Fei : In fact, the script of "Charlotte Troubles" was written based on the movie script. At that time, the conditions for shooting a movie were not yet available, so we shot a drama first. The drama performance was very successful, which strengthened our confidence in adapting it into a film in the future.

Damo Peng : The drama version of "Charlotte Troubles" stars Zhang Zidong and Ma Li. Zidong is the actor who plays the eldest son Ma Dajun in the movie "Catch a Baby" this time. He can be said to be the "Queen Actor" in our stage drama era, from the prince in "The Satanic Project" to "No One Allowed" He has appeared in "Laugh" and "The X-Porn Files". He has been working hard with us in small theaters for many years.

Zhang Zidong as Ma Dajun

The Paper : In the domestic film industry, the creations of the two have almost always been tied together. In terms of creative focus and personality characteristics, what complementarity do the two have?

Peng Damo : After entering the film industry, we are bound to meet many big producers and actors. Like me, who is relatively introverted and not good at communicating with others, two people can embolden each other when they are together. When it comes to writing scripts and directing together, there will definitely be bumps and bumps, but after arguing and arguing, our friendship has become deeper, and the works are also getting better. It is very comfortable to work together to create.

Yan Fei : First of all, we can play together, because creating is very lonely. If you can have someone to help you share this loneliness, you will be very lucky. Sometimes when I have dinner with my screenwriter friends, they will lament about their creative bottlenecks, and they will say one sentence at the end. I really envy you. The reason why we are slow to create is because most of the time we are immersed in a relaxed state and often argue on a variety of topics. The inspiration for creation appears in this kind of play and debate.

The Paper : From "Charlotte Troubles" to "The Richest Man in Xihong City" to the current "Catch a Baby", it can be said that the "Xihong City Universe" IP has been established. Did you have a huge idea from the beginning, or did you let it happen one after another?

Yan Fei : Not really. The three movies "Xihong City Universe" and "Charlotte Trouble" are the big dreams of youth. They correspond to the fact that we were drifting in Beijing, poor and miserable. When we were rehearsing the show, we missed our school days and the goddess in the class. I would like to summarize Their respective youthful times.

"The Richest Man in Xihong City" is about a spring and autumn dream of getting rich. We were invited by Universal Pictures to adapt the script of the old movie "Brewster's Millions" from the 1980s. The subject seems good and suitable for us to play.

"The Richest Man in Xihong City" Poster

The idea of "Catch a Baby" came after "Charlotte", but the script was written after "The Richest Man in Xihong City" was released. The excitement of this script is first of all high concept. One day, the devil came to me excitedly and said that there was a very rich father in Liaoning who insisted on "poorly raising" his children. He sent his son to an ordinary school and rode his bicycle to send his son to school every day. Drive your own big Ben to work.

But the thing about creation is that when we get a particularly down-to-earth story, we have to put it into our hands. At the beginning, we took some detours. After nearly ten years of repeated consideration, we gradually came back. That is, the people around this child cannot be all "fake". The teachers and classmates he faces when he comes to school are all Really, only in the Tongzilou of his own home are the characters arranged by his father. During this period, there was a closed loop of walking out and coming back. We did not make the news into a realistic movie, but gave it a romantic color and wrote it into an absurdist fable.

Peng Damo : The script writing of "Catch a Baby" started in 2015 and has experienced countless bottlenecks. For example, how exaggerated can the audience accept it? Another example is the father, Ma Chenggang, who has no money to support his son. What is his psychology?

Later, we gradually figured out that the mentality of Chinese parents who want their children to succeed is more universal than this news. This is also our personal experience after becoming fathers. We enroll our children in various classes and have been in various examinations since childhood. . Chinese parents are generally like this. Before they have children, they always say that they will "freeze" in the future. When they actually have children, the environment determines that they cannot let their children lose at the starting line.

I’ve also seen some viewers say after watching “The Truman Show” that it looks a bit like “The Truman Show.” But "The Truman Show" is also a classic formula in which many people hide something from one person, which is like a classic model of meta-story. "The Truman Show" is a big company that set up a realistic world for Truman to earn ratings and squeeze out the value of Truman's "reality show". Although the parents in "Catch a Baby" deceived their children, their starting point was to love their children and work hard for their children's growth.

"The Truman Show" poster

Yan Fei : In fact, when we wrote the script, the character perspective we set for ourselves was neither Ma Chenggang nor Ma Jiye, but Ma Dajun. It is related to this story, but at the same time there is a sense of alienation from watching from the sidelines.

The Paper : Can you talk more about how "Xihong City" got its name? As the place where the three movies take place, how do you structure the relevance of this city in the movie step by step?

Peng Damo : Xihong City is a homophone of "tomato", which is actually a symbol. We understand it as a hometown full of happiness in everyone's heart. We hope that every audience can become its "citizen" when entering the theater. , just like returning to your hometown. In fact, this also brings back many memories of what our childhood hometown looked like. Although the three movies were shot in different locations, the Xihong City in the movie is a city in the north, and it is a city with a sense of happiness. .

After three movies, many movie fans have begun to look for interrelated easter eggs. For example, the school Ma Jiye goes to this time is the same as Charlotte's school in "Charlotte", but it was later repainted. Including the school uniform and school emblem on Ma Jiye in "Catch a Baby", it is also the same as the school uniforms of Xia Luo and Ma Dongmei.

"Xihong No. 7 Middle School" School Uniform

Yan Fei : People often say that characters in comedies are dull and flat. The little characters in Xihong City all reflect our observations of Northeastern people, and they are all shaped according to the friends and knowledge around them. We usually magnify the cutest side of them. Even if some characters are lazy and greedy, their lively and humorous side is shown.

The citizens in Xihong City are all fun and lively. For example, the driver of Ma Chenggang can be said to be a culmination of taxi drivers from Northeast China. They may be informal, but they are very old-fashioned. I remember that at that time, taxis in Changchun had on-board radios, and they responded to every call to help the police round up fugitives. There were too many stories of bravery like this. When we write about the little characters in Xihong City, we always look for prototypes, and it takes a long time to write about any character.

The Paper : "Catch a Baby" is quite adventurous from a narrative perspective. Soon after the film opens, it is revealed to the audience that Ma Jiye actually lives in a difficult living environment specially created for him by his parents, instead of letting the audience know at the end of the film Discover this secret with Ma Jiye. The two directors, who are also screenwriters, must have their own thoughts on this. Can you elaborate?

Peng Damo : "Catch Me" is not a suspense film. It is not like "The Island" (2001, starring Nicole Kidman), where the bottom line is revealed at the end. In this day and age, no matter how hard you hide it, the audience will know the answer one day after the movie is released.

Yan Fei : Of course there is a trade-off involved. If it is revealed layer by layer, the suspense of the story will undoubtedly be stronger. But if the mystery is revealed first, the comedy will undoubtedly be more exciting. When we were writing the script, we hoped that when the audience watched the first half, they would be able to empathize with their parents' choices and pity the hearts of parents all over the world.

As the story develops, Ma Jiye grows up and begins to have personal consciousness and opinions. That is, after Shi Pengyuan took over the role of Ma Jiye, we gave Ma Jiye a perspective in the movie, allowing the audience to directly attack Ma Jiye from this perspective. Reflect on parents’ excessive interference in their children’s growth (what are the disadvantages). So we are making a bold attempt to make this movie. The first half is from Ma Chenggang's perspective, and the second half is from Ma Jiye's perspective.

Shi Pengyuan plays young Ma Jiye

Regarding "Shen Ma" , there is actually no concept of CP

The Paper : Judging from the response from the audience and fans, it seems that the return of Shen Teng and Ma Li CP combination is what everyone expects?

Yan Fei & Peng Damo : To be honest, we have no concept of CP between them. The four of us have been working together for so many years. We are both old friends and work partners, and it is easy to work together. Brother Teng and Sister Li are both very good actors. In the previous sketch "To Help or Not to Help", one could even play the old lady and the other the young man, which was no problem at all. In terms of the suitability of the actors in this "Catch a Baby", they are very suitable to play the roles of Ma Chenggang and Chunlan. As screenwriters and directors, we have to be responsible for the movie. What we have to do is to choose the right actors according to the plot.

The Paper : Talk about inviting Shen Teng to star and your exchanges.

Yan Fei : The process was very simple. We told him that this was a story about the love between a father and his son. When he was halfway through the script, he started to mutter, thinking that he had become "black" (laughs). Da Mo and I told him that the role of a father has his own views on parenting. This story can be discussed by everyone after it is presented, but Brother Teng, your task is to play this father so that no one hates him. , everyone can understand him. Brother Teng himself later understood that there was no villain in this movie.

Shen Teng as Ma Chenggang

The Paper : Personally, I feel like Ma Li is holding back her acting this time? Of course, this is related to the identity of the character's mother and motherhood.

Yan Fei : Yes, Ma Li has been using a mother's perspective to shape the character this time. In life, Ma Li is now a mother, and she has a very personal experience of Chunlan's motherly side. At the end of the movie, Ma Jiye pointed to the list of famous teachers on the wall and said to his parents, "What about you, which two teachers are you?" Ma Li captured this heartbreaking scene very accurately on the set. She was holding her child in her arms. With a headache and crying, she realized that as parents, they had done something wrong and hurt their child's heart. This is exactly how a normal mother would react.

The layering of Ma Li's performance is also very good. When the child was young, she gave the impression of a little spoiled wife; when the child began to grow vigorously, she was a doting mother who focused on showing that she cared about the child's growth; when in the end the mystery was revealed by the child, she had to When she broke through the siege, she didn't have Ma Chenggang's nagging. As a mother, she was comforting her child and choosing to let go and respect her child's choice.

Therefore, she fully performed the growth and transformation of a mother, and appropriately placed her own understanding of the story and character on Chunlan.

Ma Li as Chunlan

The Paper : There is another female character in the movie, a parenting expert played by Sarina, who is also Ma Jiye's "grandma". The funeral scene really gave the audience a mixture of sadness and joy. She seems to have never appeared in a comedy before, right?

Peng Damo : Teacher Sarina is very humble on the set. She would often ask both of us for a certain scene, "Can this work?"

Yan Fei : When we were selecting actors for "Grandma" this time, there were actually many "old lady professional" comedians, including candidates for sketch actors. Later, we felt that we needed to find a "national grandma" that everyone recognized, and she also had to be a "suffering grandma." In this case, Teacher Sarina was definitely a suitable candidate.

Sarina plays grandma

When I first told this story to Teacher Sa, she looked confused and asked awkwardly: This is a comedy, why are you looking for me? We told her that this time we want to subvert the audience's habitual perception of your film and television image, and that this is very important to the film. Even if you can't achieve comedy in your performance, we will help you adjust it.

Just like Da Mo said just now, "Sincerity is the most important thing in comedy." When the plot has laid the foundation for you to this point, what you are waiting for is nothing more than the explosion and contrast of the actors. Teacher Sa's performance this time also fully demonstrated that there is no essential difference between acting in a comedy and acting in a drama, especially for a good actor.

The Paper : Xiao Bochen, who plays the young Ma Jiye, is also impressive. He is so innocent and romantic that it makes people feel heartbroken.

Peng Damo : He is very smart. We discovered from the TV series "Glory of Our Fathers" how this kid is so good at acting. After meeting and chatting, I felt that this child was very down-to-earth and relaxed, without any trace of artificiality.

Xiao Bochen plays young Ma Jiye

Yan Fei : Generally speaking, child actors who have acted in dramas often tense up when meeting other crews, just like a little adult. This kind of unnaturalness is exactly what we reject. Because we feel that little adults are fake, and children’s innocence is the most precious thing. After he came, we observed him. In fact, the interview is just chatting. Through chatting, we can see what type of actor he is. I found this kid from Northeast China sitting there very casually. He didn't have any accent when he spoke. He just talked to people in Changchun dialect.

There is a mature side to him, but he is not pretending. Because the crying scene of young Ma Jiye in the play is particularly important, we asked him, has he ever acted in a crying scene? He said, Gee, I could cry. He just has to have his mother at the scene. He can look at her a few times and think about something, and then he can express it very smoothly.

The Paper : The ending of the movie can be said to be a powerful "leopard's tail", but many viewers also reported that they still felt unfinished. Talk about your thoughts.

Yan Fei : At the end of a comedy movie, we still hope to give the audience a good sense of departure. The ending of the movie is counterproductive for Ma Chenggang and his wife, but in fact the line that the audience ignores the most, Ma Dajun climbing Mount Everest, is our attitude towards this story. At the same time, according to the guidance in the movie, the audience will feel that Ma Jiye's disappearance was caused by Ma Dajun kidnapping him. This line is buried and there must be an explanation in the end.

Peng Damo : The end of the film should be when the eldest son Ma Dajun reaches the summit of Mount Everest. It is a symbol of how we tell this story, that is, Ma Dajun, the eldest son who has accomplished nothing in the eyes of his father, can also achieve his own achievements in life when he follows his inner choice and works hard.

Regarding the ending, we have been studying it for a long time. If we follow everyone's usual thinking, Ma Chenggang kept chattering, should Ma Jiye turn around and have a battle with his father, crackling and delivering values. But if it ends like this, many people will still feel that it has fallen into a trap.

Yan Fei : Many young viewers may feel that at the end, Ma Chenggang owes his son an apology. We feel that the reception of this movie depends on different groups of people. For example, people without children will have different experiences watching this story than parents with children. I saw a comment from a netizen. He said that he took his father to watch a movie, and his father remained tense throughout the movie. Until the end of the movie, Ma Chenggang shouted to Ma Jiye’s back, "Is it okay to go home for dinner tonight?" The boy burst into tears. I think at that moment, the father and son audience also reached some kind of reconciliation.

The Paper : In the second half of the film, a very clever balance was achieved between the serious thinking arising from social topics and the amusing comedy. Let’s talk about how you achieved this balance.

Peng Damo : Essentially, we still want to tell a story well. The completeness of the story itself includes the beginning, the transition, the suspense, and finally the solution. On this basis, humor and fun elements are the genes of this movie. At the same time, we will not deliberately pursue amplification of these fun genes. Everything must still be subordinate to shaping the characters and follow the characters. We will not dilute the main line with some "extras" (those that have nothing to do with the story but are funny), and we will simply pursue the "laughing fruit".

Yan Fei : When discussing the script, we "brainstormed" and set a lot of baggage for the characters. For example, I once wrote a scene where Ma Jiye was playing computer games with his classmates, and his computer suddenly crashed. At this time, a "teacher" came and taught him how to learn computers from DOS (disk operating system). We wrote a lot of scenes like this in our initial script. They are parallel to the main story. I can guarantee that each scene can be turned into a particularly exciting sketch that can become a joke. But it would hurt the pacing of the story. In order to keep the rhythm of the story smooth and the emotions smooth, it must be removed by subtraction.