Ma Zhencheng (Du Wenze) is a policeman in Macau. He was suspended by his boss because he was involved in a lawsuit. His police career is coming to an end. When he is unhappy, he accidentally meets a mysterious girl, Zhang Bixin (Liang Luoshi). Cheng thought he had a one-night stand with the other party, but Xin claimed that she was the daughter born after breaking up with her first lover, which made Cheng dumbfounded!
Xin was homeless because she owed rent for several months. Isabella, a beloved shih Tzu, was driven away by an unscrupulous owner and her whereabouts were unknown. Cheng suddenly found himself a father, hoping to make up for his past responsibilities, so the reunited father and daughter began a dog-hunting adventure. Xin later insisted on living with Cheng, and Cheng's laissez-faire life changed. Xin and Cheng's girlfriend Joan (Ji Yun) are incompatible as soon as they meet, but Cheng has to deal with a male classmate who has a crush on Xin (Zeng Guoxiang), which leads to a series of interesting things, which makes the two strangers regain their family warmth. ...
Wonderful point of view
Isabella, as the only China film shortlisted in the competition unit of the 56th Berlin Film Festival, finally won the Silver Bear Award for Best Film Music. Commenting on this new film by Hong Kong director Peng Haoxiang, Reuters said: "Isabella is a soft and sad film. The two heroes and heroines look forward to tomorrow, but they are tightly bound by their own yesterday, and there is a helpless beauty. Such a movie is commendable. "
The plot originated from the small talk style, which was very "not Peng Haoxiang".
Peng Haoxiang, the film director, is a Hong Kong-made new generation director with personal style, and is known as the "pioneer of the new generation". He has directed Bounty Hunter, Brave Man, Beyond Our Vision and AV. Peng Haoxiang revealed that Isabella was inspired by a chat with Du Wenze. He inadvertently asked Du Wenze if his ex-girlfriend would fall in love with him, which suddenly aroused Du Wenze's interest, and he also provided many details for the story.
The original immature story gradually became clear after repeated discussions between two men. After filming AV, I just finished writing the first draft of the script. Peng Haoxiang will discuss it with Du Wenze, so we can start filming.
Compared with previous works full of black humor, Isabella's style is more simple. In Peng Haoxiang's own words, this is "very unlike Peng Haoxiang".
Peng Haoxiang once said, "I am full of infinite interest in all kinds of emotions between people. Most of my previous concerns were men's and women's feelings, but this expression of father-daughter affection is a new attempt for me. The overall style of the film is very simple, unlike my previous films, which are full of black humor. It can be said that this film is very Peng Haoxiang. "
Du Wenze has completed its transformation, and Liang Luoshi has demonstrated its advantages.
Isabella is the first film starring Du Wenze and his first film as a producer. Peng Haoxiang was full of praise for Du Wenze's performance. This time, he said, the audience will see a completely different Du Wenze. In the past, every movie he played was very Du Wenze, and almost all of them made the audience want to laugh as soon as they appeared.
But this time, it's not a comedy, it's a serious literary film, and it's about ethical affection. He plays Liang Luoshi's father with a beard, and they are not much different in age, which is a big challenge for him. However, everything went well when shooting, and he wanted to tell everyone that he was a good actor.
Under the guidance of Peng Haoxiang, Du Wenze's performance completely showed another style. In the last scene, Du Wenze and Liang Luoshi's father and daughter have dinner together. Peng Haoxiang watched Du Wenze's performance from behind the monitor. "I really want to cry."
Liang Luoshi, a model from Macau, plays Du Wenze's daughter in the film. Liang Luoshi, 17 years old, is a new king highly praised by the British emperor, aiming to cultivate her into a new generation of "cannibals" against Cecilia Cheung.
Peng Haoxiang spoke highly of Liang Luoshi's performance: "I think Liang Luoshi, as a young actor who just stepped into the film circle, didn't make people feel immature in acting. She brought this rebellious little girl who lost her father's love from childhood into her life. It seems that she is not acting, but she is the girl, and her life is like that.
I am really emotional. She met all my requirements, even exceeding my expectations. She is really a promising actress. "Although she lost the best actress at the Berlin Film Festival, Liang Luoshi made an unexpected gain. She got the favor of Spanish director Gernan and took over a Spanish action movie. After the best actresses Maggie Cheung and Shu Qi, another Hong Kong actress entered the European film market. ...
Photo comment
Beautifully packaged candy-Isabella
In today's Hong Kong, the shabby and messy living environment can be made so emotional and pleasing to the eye. Apart from Wong Kar-wai, there is probably only Peng Haoxiang. But even the subtitle design and music style of the credits list are exactly the same as those of Wong Kar-wai's films, which are too grand to "pay tribute".
No wonder some friends complain: Wong Kar-wai is enough, and now there is another Peng Haoxiang. Aren't you depressed? Wong Kar-wai has many followers in the Hong Kong film circle, but most of them are out of fashion.
Sofia Coppola, a beautiful director on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, stole a fist and took a golden statuette from Uncle Oscar, so she was grateful to Wong Kar-wai in her acceptance speech. With Peng Haoxiang's talent and ambition, no matter who follows him step by step, he won't feel lucky.
As a screenwriter, Wong Kar-wai made great efforts in refining lines and creating emotional appeal, while Peng Haoxiang found another way and played a great role in narration. He is good at playing time-space disorder games. At the beginning of the film, he used skipping rope to connect things that happened in different time and space without causal connection, creating the illusion that Ma Zhen Cheng and Zhang Bixin were sleeping.
When Ma Zhencheng learned that she was underage and asked her to deny having sex with herself, Zhang Bixin said flatly, you didn't sleep with me, but slept with my mother. In fact, incest is just an empty shot, the purpose is to make the audience more convinced that they are father and daughter. Of course, the moment Zhang Bixin revealed his identity, he still achieved a shocking effect.
The film runs through the voiceover of the late Zhang Lihua, who is also trying to mislead the audience to predict the plot. While describing the difficult time when mother and daughter lived together, she also described the past with Ma Zhencheng, especially after the robbery, Ma Zhencheng accompanied her to the hospital for an abortion. She only wanted to marry him, supplemented by a lot of details, which made it easy for the audience to judge that she was desperate to give birth to a child for love.
Subsequently, the film naturally entered the affectionate routine of father and daughter, interspersed with the search for a shih Tzu dog named Isabella, and the battle of wits between Zhang Bixin and Ma Zhencheng's girlfriends (with a little black humor), which also laid the groundwork for the final plot turning point.
The film sets off the humble fate of the little people with historical background. The story in the film takes place on the eve of Macau's return to China. As a corrupt policeman, Ma Zhencheng is prepared to take risks to escape the punishment of the law. From Ma Zhencheng's self-report, we can see the bitter course of the little people. He said that it is difficult to be a man in Macao, and you can't live without a gold watch on your wrist, because "it's not that others look down on you, but that you can't be seen."
At the end of the film, he suddenly repented under the influence of his family and finally decided to be an honest man. From then on, you can "see people and respect God". In Wong Kar-wai's films, film critics often read about the complicated mentality of Hong Kong people in the face of "reunification in 1997". This film is based on the return of Macao, which should be relatively easy to interpret, and the uninterested audience can take it lightly.
However, the story itself still has something to ponder. For example, it is obviously influenced by Kislovski's Ten Commandments 4. The original story of Kiehl's tells that after her mother died, her daughter Anka and her father Michelle got along well. When she saw the letter left by her mother, she realized that she was not Michelle's own, so she went to seduce him, but he refused. Finally, she confessed to her father. She didn't read the letter.
From these two similar stories, we can see the distance between the younger generation and the owner of the Forbidden City. The master has sailed the crane westward, and the younger generation is catching up, which is also the salary of the film industry.
The soundtrack of this film won the Silver Bear Award at Berlin Film Festival. Composer Jin Peida is one of the few original film musicians in Hong Kong. However, after watching the movie, I felt a little dissatisfied. The music in the film seemed to usurp the host's role. As soon as the words of the characters in the film stop, the music will start immediately, and there is almost no blank.
Music, as one of the elements of film performance, serves the whole film. Some places do addition on demand, and some places do subtraction on demand, but this film does multiplication blindly, which inevitably gives people the feeling of flooding. Painting still pays attention to blank space. In some places, "silence" may achieve better results than "sound".
In the whole film, it is like a beautifully packaged candy. When you open a colorful candy paper, you find it is just an ordinary lollipop. At this time, you may suddenly realize that the fun of watching movies is not the taste of lollipops, but the process of opening candy paper layer by layer.