"Lighting Store" is a work that I am looking forward to this winter. The film is adapted from the work of the same name by Korean cartoonist Jiang Cao, starring Zhang Ruonan and Bai Yufan. The story tells the story of several people who meet by chance and are vaguely related in a residential building around a lighting store. Strange events happen again and again around them, and in the process of suspicion and temptation, the mystery of each other is gradually uncovered.
At present, although the score of the film on some social platforms is average, it has been released for a week and the box office is 140 million. It is considered as a newcomer director and a medium-and small-cost work, and its performance is quite good. Spoiler, it is impossible to give you a spoiler. Once this movie is spoiled, there is basically no surprise. I can only comment on this movie as a reader who has read many cartoons of Jiang Cao.
Poster of Lighting Store
First of all, I want to talk about Jiang Cao, the author, who has no formal education in art and painting, and was born in the literature department. Since he founded his personal website to publish his works in 2002, he has won many fans with his first-class storytelling ability and novel story setting. At present, there are many movies in Korea, such as Apartment, Fool, Pure Comics, Pain, Neighbor, 26 Years, etc., which are all adapted from his comic works, and this year’s hit Korean drama "Super Power Family" is also adapted from his original works.
"Lighting Shop" is one of Jiang Cao’s works, which is quite difficult to adapt. It came out in 2011, and it was not adapted until this year. In addition to this one after China bought the copyright, a Korean drama with the same name is also being filmed recently. The author guesses that our Korean colleagues probably scratched their heads when they adapted "Lighting Shop".
Why "Lighting Shop" is difficult to change? First, the multi-line parallel narrative method is inherently difficult. In addition, Jiang Cao’s constant narration, flashbacks and switching perspectives, coupled with the constant jump of the world of life and death, require readers to have higher concentration. Second, there is no absolute protagonist in the original work as the main perspective to take the audience into and understand the story because of the way of characterization of group images. Third, the style is mixed. The Lighting Shop begins with horror stories and urban legends, but the final ending is warmth and sadness. But for commercial films, the most important thing is clear genre. Therefore, to adapt the work, the genre needs to be clarified first.
Zhang ruonan plays Xu nian
Bai Yufan plays Zheng Man.
At present, in the audience evaluation of the China film version of Lighting Store, there have been some doubts about the film’s type and tonality, such as "opening romance film, middle horror film, and ending sensational film", such as "over-emotional and over-emotional", but objectively speaking, as a commercial film, the technical completion of the film is not bad.
Although it’s a debut, I checked the director Cai Er’s resume, and it’s a slow and steady journey from the scene to the director’s position. I think it has control and execution over the production process and technical standards of commercial films. It just happens to be the "genre drift" that everyone questioned. I think this new director has shown a good director’s strength. She can really shoot "horror" for you, especially under the limitation of genre and censorship, in the absence of real hard-core horror elements, it is not easy to create a horror atmosphere in a limited space.
And its "type is erratic", the problem mainly comes from two aspects. First, the first half of suspense and horror content and the second half reveal sensationalism, the type conversion is too large, and the connection is not smooth enough; Second, the horror of the first half of the original "Lighting Store" is much higher than that of this version of the film adaptation. Although many horror "famous scenes" in the comics were not presented in the movies, they still brought challenges to the audience’s viewing habits. Some viewers who are rushing to watch a romantic movie may be surprised at how I sat on the scene of a horror movie. The audience who are rushing to horror movies may be dissatisfied. How can you give me a sensational ending?
Judging from the adaptation of the China film, the screenwriter is committed to subtraction. In terms of characters, the film deleted many group images and supporting characters in the original work, and merged and weakened some people who were "too scary" for the China film market; From the scene, the story is also concentrated in an apartment and a shop, without many important scenes in the original work; From the narrative point of view, a young couple played by Zhang Ruonan and Bai Yufan is taken as the protagonist, and then with several supporting roles and character relationships, the story is started by the woman’s questioning about her neighbors, and the switching of perspectives is relatively few, returning to the more conventional drama narrative. From the conception, it greatly reduces some more complicated emotional treatment and social criticism in the original work, and returns to the more basic narrative of love and affection.
The first three points, in fact, I can understand, because this big probability is based on business decisions made by the market and review. But the fourth point, let the author feel more pity. Jiang Cao’s works, to be honest, are really "flattering", and Jiang Cao’s painting skills, I think few fans can say "excellent" by touching their conscience, but our teacher Jiang doesn’t eat by painting skills, but by stories, and more by insight into human nature and society.
In "Lighting Store", the description of emotion is a highlight and a sensational killer, but it is also about affection. In the original work, the middle-aged mother who can’t speak after death repeatedly takes off the light bulb at home, hoping to hint that the child will go to the lighting store to get the light bulb (the "light bulb" is similar to the setting of the "key" of resurrection). The mother doesn’t need a word, and the mother’s love has jumped to the page. However, in the movie, this setting with strong visual impact was replaced by a beautiful mommy. Ada’s interpretation was really good, and the paragraphs such as teaching children to use sanitary napkins were also very moving, but it was "vulgar" in setting.
Poster of Lighting Store
In terms of love, the "anti-armour girl" in the original works is a clue figure running through the whole comic book. She died for her boyfriend, and she spared no expense to save her dying boyfriend. The most unique thing is the ending of this love story. When she successfully sent her boyfriend back to the world, her choice was not like many love stories of the same type: sacrificing herself to fulfill her lover, and then she disappeared, but came to her lover and followed closely, putting a sad pure love story at the last moment. What the anti-armour woman said to the owner of the lighting store is very interesting. In the process of saving her lover, she is also awakening her lover’s memory. "He doesn’t remember me" is her most bitter pain.
Also in this story, in the other groups of characters, mother and daughter remember each other and depend on each other. The female lover stayed in the world of death for her lover, and she tried her best to save her lover, but her lover didn’t remember her. "Why can’t he remember me, he doesn’t love me", prompting her to transform from a victim to a "ghost" and pester her lover. At the end of the story, a female image who gave everything for love completed some kind of reversal and irony. However, in the movie, the love of the hero and heroine who bear the love line is much less, and it can be predicted almost step by step from the beginning to the end.
The core part of the original work "Lighting Shop" is the deep excavation of human nature and emotion. No matter how the film subtracts the narrative, characters and scenes, it should not simplify its emotions and ideas, turn the original profundity into vulgarity and superficiality, and turn the original shocking and complicated sigh into a cheap tear brought by MV pictures and sensational BGM. Again, to reiterate, the overall quality of the film is commendable from the perspective of the new director and the new team.
It’s just a pity to be an old fan of Jiang Cao. If this film is an original work, I may be more sympathetic, but it is really regrettable to make a second-rate film based on the first-class original work. In addition, in recent years, domestic film original masterpieces are hard to find, and there are many adapted works that buy Japanese and Korean copyrights. It is still difficult to see the adapted masterpieces. It can only be said that it is difficult to comment.
Year after year, the industry and relevant departments talk about "cultural export" and "Chinese dramas/films going out to sea", but interestingly, most of the copyrights that we have bought and imitated overseas are commercial types that cannot be filmed at home, such as: crossing, rebirth, terror, indulging in beauty …… we can’t shoot our own things, so others buy them or copy them.
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