In the "May Day" that just ended, the biography movie "Dunting Queen" became a box office dark horse. The film has been in a strong momentum since it was released on April 30. Its box office exceeded 100 million in just three days, leading the "May 1st" box office list and becoming the first domestic film to have a box office of over 100 million in this period this year.

This film is based on the real experience of Zang Jianhe, the founder of Wan Chai Wharf and known as the "Dumpling Queen". It tells the story of a single mother who wanders in a foreign land starting a business counterattack in Hong Kong and growing into a business legend.

The film director Liu Weiqiang is an iconic figure in Hong Kong films. As a director who has transformed from a photographer, his lens language and narrative techniques are unique, his works are distinctive in style and diverse in genre. After more than 30 years of directing, Liu Weiqiang has left a strong mark in the Chinese film industry with his reputation works such as "Young and Dangerous" and "Infernal Affairs", "Initial Words D", "The Founding of the Army" and "The Captain of China". This time in "The Queen of Dumplings", Liu Weiqiang once again focused the camera on Hong Kong, where he grew up. In his own words, "It not only witnessed the struggle story of Miss Zang in the film, but also a look back on our growth past."

Individuals resonate with the times

The greatest charm of "The Queen of Dumplings" lies in the basis of the real story and the inspirational core. Zang Jianhe's life experience itself is a legendary history of struggle. In the late 1970s, she lived in Hong Kong with her two young daughters. Faced with her husband's betrayal, living in poverty, and language barriers, she did not bow to fate, but instead went to the wharf to sell dumplings to make a living. With her diligence, wisdom and tenacity, she developed and grew step by step from operating a small stall that few people care about, and finally founded the well-known dumpling brand. This kind of story of fighting back all the way naturally has the power to touch people's hearts. It provides a solid story foundation for the film, allowing the audience to see how a mother is indomitable in adversity, rewrites her destiny with her hands, and realizes her life value. The motivational effect of this real story is incomparable to many fictional stories.

"The Queen of Dumplings" is not only a person's struggle legend, but also a deep look back on an era. Through Zang Jianhe's perspective, the film shows the social landscape and changes in the times of Hong Kong from the late 1970s to the early 21st century. From humid and dim rental houses to bustling Wan Chai Wharf; from small vendors on the streets and alleys to high-rise commercial centers; from people rushing for food and clothing to the rapid development of Hong Kong's economy... These details restore the fireworks Hong Kong, which not only provides a vivid background for the story, but also showcases the social changes in Hong Kong during the economic take-off period.

Zang Jian and all kinds of people around him also form a group portrait of the lives of Hong Kong people, showing the changes in people's lives and thoughts in Hong Kong's economic rise. Zang Jianhe's dumpling business gradually developed from a street stall to a supply supermarket. This is not only her personal success, but also reflects the development of Hong Kong's economy and changes in the business environment. During this process, you can feel Liu Weiqiang's intention: I hope that while watching individual struggles, the audience can also appreciate the grand narrative of social changes and experience the same frequency resonance between personal destiny and the pulse of the times.

Story folding leads to rhythm imbalance

Although the movie has a strong foundation for real stories, it is difficult to hide the shortcomings in narrative. The most prominent problem is that the inappropriate folding of the story has formed a diary-like narrative method.

The film lists Zang Jian and major events in life almost in a chronological order. From working experience after entering Hong Kong, to starting selling dumplings, to building a brand, linear narrative has the advantages of being easy for the audience to understand, but each stage must strengthen its own functions and achieve the ups and downs of the plot, so that it can attract attention. From a poor person to a "queen" is a dramatic process. Perhaps it is precisely because the story itself has too much "information", so the creation of films is inaccurate between choices.

The story of "The Queen of Dumplings" tends to highlight suffering, but it has made a large fold on the process of conquering difficulties. This has led to the audience soaking in Miss Zang's tears, and her tears seem to have magical power. As long as they cry, the suffering will be almost over and the problem will be solved. There is a lack of preparation in the front and a lack of breakthroughs in the back, and the suffering in the middle will inevitably appear to be empty.

For example, in the passage of Zang Jianhe who wants to commit suicide, although there is a scene where she was injured and unemployed, the rental house is helping her, from the landlady to the tenant neighbors, so when Miss Zang walks to the rooftop to seek death, it makes people feel "why is this?" Later, the singing of her daughter and the appearance of Tang Shuibo quickly recalled her mind, giving up the idea of ​​suicide, which seemed too easy and lacked weight.

For example, when telling the plot of Zang Jianhe's improved dumpling skin formula, although the picture shows that she constantly adjusts the ratio of raw materials, kneads, rolls the dough, and tries repeatedly, the repeated pictures lack the progression of the plot and the rendering of the setbacks, making people unable to truly feel her hardships and difficulties. When the film shows the difficulties and challenges encountered by Zang Jian and the entrepreneurial process, the solution is also too simple and hasty, and there is a lack of in-depth portrayal of business competition and the difficulties of single mothers in entrepreneurship. Some story passages have a lack of key links and a lack of reasonable motivation and transition, which affect the coherence and credibility of the story.

This kind of narrative storytelling also leads to an imbalance in the rhythm of the film. In the early stage, when preparing Zang Jianhe's life difficulties, the pace was too slow and he also spent a lot of money to spread the various aspects of the tenant neighbors. However, when Zang Jianhe's mid-term entrepreneurship stage, especially the commercial expansion part, many key plots have been mentioned, such as how she cooperates with supermarkets and how to deal with market competition. These parts that should have created tension and conflicts have been quickly skipped. The audience cannot see her desperate breakthrough from scratch or feel the intellectual tension of her business game, so it is difficult to form emotional resonance.

The inner world is not deeply explored

In terms of character creation, although "The Dumpling Queen" strives to show Zang Jian and his tenacious side, the overall character image is not full enough and the character portrayal is relatively single. The film emphasizes more on her fighting spirit as an entrepreneur, and she does not explore her emotions and inner world as a mother, daughter, woman and other identities.

From a weak mother oppressed by life to a strong woman who is in the business world, the transformation between this requires sufficient psychological description and plot support, but the movie has not done enough in this regard. Faced with some major decisions and crisis moments, Zang Jianhe's response performance tends to be programmed and stereotyped, lacking the true pain and transformation trajectory of the characters. This makes the character's growth seem a bit stiff, making it difficult for the audience to fall into the character's fate and cannot deeply feel her powerful motivation for persistence and struggle in difficulties.

In addition, when facing love, the emotional line between her and police officer Hua Ge also developed in a relatively hasty manner, lacking delicate preparation and natural warming process, but it suddenly showed a feeling of vagueness. This not only makes the audience unable to feel the beauty of love and the difficulty of choosing, but instead feels that it is a forced element to be implanted in order to increase the highlights of the plot.

The regret of "The Queen of Dumplings" may be that it holds the good card "Legendary Women's Struggle History", but fails to inject real blood and temperature into the texture created by the characters. Zang Jianhe's story could have become a prism that reflects the times and individuals - in her, she can not only see the fireworks of the Hong Kong market, but also touch the tenacious core of women breaking through the difficulties, and can also tap into the collision between tradition and modernity, local and international under the wave of business. But the film ultimately lets the characters hang in the cloud of "perfect character", using routine supporting roles, stiff emotional lines and superficial struggle narratives to dissolve the supposedly heavy texture of reality.

Perhaps, the real "queen" is not a deified symbol, but a survival sample that retains historical folds and is full of real pain. After removing the deliberate halo filters in the film, we should perhaps think more: in the film and television creations that are intertwined with traffic and feelings, how can real characters penetrate the screen and penetrate the hearts of the people, and let the audience see themselves and the world in other people's stories? This is not only a thought question left to the industry by "The Queen of Dumplings", but also the original intention that realistic creation must always be questioned. (Liang Kun)

[Editor in charge: Yang Guang]