During the Lantern Festival, the Hong Kong-style romantic comedy "I Still Think You're the Best 2" went to the reunion with the audience. The film is a sequel to the 2022 high-reputation "dark horse" film "I Still Think You're the Best", which follows the original cast, directed by Chan Wing-sun, starring Teresa Teng, Zhang Jicong, Wang Yunzhi, Lin Mingzhen, Chen Zhanwen, etc.
I still think you're the best 2" continues the tone of the previous work, telling the story of the second brother and the third brother who decided to get married after the eldest brother of the Chen family left, but turned the wedding banquet into a "Shura field". Chan Wing-sun said that the new work explores the inner world of the characters more deeply than the first part, showing their struggles and the healing effect of intimacy.
Three interesting wedding scenes string together the whole film
How to surpass the previous work is a common challenge faced by all sequel works, and this proposition is also in front of Chan Yongshen. There is no lack of warmth in the first humor, which cannot be lost, but it must not be too repetitive. Chan struggled with how to balance it, but finally decided: "Whatever, do it in my own way." "He is good at starting from the characters and structuring the whole story according to what kind of problems the characters will face.
The Cantonese translation of the previous part is called "Rice Drama Attacking the Heart", which uses five meals in a house to string together the whole story, and the clue of this part becomes a wedding, and the whole story takes place in three weddings, and the rhythm is relatively tight. "Another important thing in this series is the love of the family. Chan said, "The last part was about their internal problems, and this one is about the family uniting and facing the problems outside." The relationship between them is also deeper, and they have the strength to face different problems. ”
The second brother and the second sister-in-law were decorated with dragon and phoenix decorations at the wedding, and the third sister-in-law was dressed in a dragon and phoenix gown, and the neck was full of "blind" gold bracelets, but the third brother was matched with a set of equipment ...... "** Saint Seiya".There are several weddings in "I Still Think You're the Best 2", both Western-style, some that follow the traditional wedding customs of the Cantonese-speaking region, and some that are in line with the trendy personality of young people. Chan Wing-sun admitted that he did not deliberately investigate wedding customs in his creation, but made various weddings he saw in his life into movies. "I remember what weddings I attended when I was a kid, and what it's like for young people to get married now, both traditional and modern, so I wrote about the things that impressed me the most and formed these interesting wedding scenes in the movie. He revealed that the picture of the third sister-in-law covered in gold is very realistic, he has been to many weddings in recent years, and found that no matter whether she has money or not, every bride wears a lot of gold jewelry, and it is becoming more and more exaggerated, "Some people will also find friends and family to borrow gold jewelry, I think this image is very interesting, so it was written into the script." ”
"I don't believe in marriage, but I believe in you
The previous story centered on the love of the eldest brother and sister-in-law in the movie, but this one was replaced with the story between the second brother Chen Li and his girlfriend Feng Jing, and the third brother Chen Xi and "Zhu Zhufen". The romance and passion of love are only temporary, and when faced with the reality of marriage, how do two brothers deal with intimacy? Chan Wing-sun said that in this part he wanted to express the theme of facing himself truthfully.
Several protagonists in this part begin to face their own lives, emotional relationships and marriages, and they have a common problem that they don't know how to love themselves and don't know how to face their feelings. The second brother Chen Li kept thinking about what his fiancée Feng Jing would like and how popular she was on the Internet, but he forgot what kind of person he was; The third brother Chen Xi was immersed in his own business, paying attention to what outsiders thought of him, but ignoring the feelings of "Zhu Zhufen", who had been in love with him for many years; The eldest brother said goodbye without saying goodbye, leaving the sister-in-law "Meow Meow" who existed in name only, and "Meow Meow" had feelings for this family, but he didn't know what identity he wanted to get along with them in ......the futureIn Chan's view, everyone is thinking about what other people think of themselves, but they don't think about how they feel, and only by embracing themselves can they love others better.
There is a line in the film, "I don't believe in marriage, but I believe in you", which is the concept of marriage that the film wants to convey. Chan Wing-sun revealed that he once said this sentence to his wife. "Some of the elders around me didn't have good marriages, so I didn't believe in marriage very much, but in the end I got married, because I wanted to show the world that my wife was different from everyone else. Marriage is not credible, but I think I'm fine with her and we can trust each other, which is important. He bluntly said that many people now have misconceptions about marriage, thinking that marriage can make them better people. In fact, marriage is a neutral word, there is no good or bad, just a change of identity. "How to go in the future and how to manage the marriage is the business of the two people, don't imagine the marriage itself as too powerful, in fact, that power comes from yourself. ”
The veteran actor Roland made a cameo appearance in the filmThe marriage proposal scene reproduces Leslie Cheung's golden song "Monica".
I still think you're the best 2" is festive and lively, and there are many nonsensical jokes, which are reminiscent of Hong Kong-style Chinese New Year comedies such as "Happy Events in the Family" and "Full of Gold and Jade". Chan said that he did not pay tribute to these classics, but designed comedy elements based on the scenes in the film. "The first part only has this family, and the funny energy doesn't need to be too much, and this one has a lot of people coming to the wedding, so of course the energy will be a lot bigger, so it looks a bit like the previous comedy. But compared with the previous works, we added a little love and family elements to it, so that the audience can still be moved after laughing. ”
In addition to the return of several protagonists in the first part, this one also added a lot of new characters, inviting familiar faces such as Xie Junhao, Luo Lan, Mi Xue, and Hu Feng to make cameos. Chen Yongshen said with a smile that since it is a wedding scene, there will definitely be guests from different generations, and he is honored to invite so many seniors to join the show. "Like Hu Feng and Luo Lan, they are both senior veterans in the Hong Kong film industry, and everyone likes to gather around them and listen to their stories on the set. Xie Junhao played the sixth uncle of the "shark fin king", and contributed a famous scene of dancing with wings in the film, and the comedy effect was amazing.
Xie Junhao contributed a lot of laughter in the film, and the film also used the scene where the second brother proposed to the second sister-in-law to reproduce the dance of Leslie Cheung's classic song "Monica". Chen Yongshen said that the English name of the second sister-in-law is monica, and when he wrote this character, he was inspired by this song. This scene in the film combines the original MV of "Monica" with the dance of a classic live performance of Leslie Cheung, and the actors' looks are the same as Leslie Cheung back then.