Special feature of 1905 film network Producer, directed by Albert Kai-kwong Mak, the crime comedy film starring,, and others landed in the cinema on January 19th.
The film tells the story of two middle-aged "paupers", he is my brother A Hui (Richie Jen) and A Xun (Lin Jiadong), who plan to rob, but are accidentally spoiled by the gangster Mei Lantian (Aaron Kwok), and the three of them temporarily form a team because of a sack of money. As the movie with the highest number of people before the Spring Festival, what surprises will Temporary Robbery bring to the audience?
The movies of the Spring Festival in 2024 have a common feature, that is, they all have comedy elements more or less, and most of the protagonists in the story have a "middle-aged crisis". Temporary Robbery also has these two characteristics in content, just like a "starter" of the Spring Festival.
Taste the "appetizer" of the Spring Festival stalls in three bites.
Taste this appetizer from three aspects. At the first bite, you will find that such a multi-line narrative method in Temporary Robbery is particularly like, structurally, there are actually many coincidences in the film, and these coincidences may lead to many comedy elements.
If Crazy Stone is a series of crazy actions triggered by a stone, then Temporary Robbery is a series of accidents triggered by two sacks of money.
After tasting the second bite, you will find that its taste has some comic sense. The overall style of the film is very young, including the shaping of characters. The most delicious thing is Aaron Kwok’s performance of this gangster Mei Lantian, who is sour and sweet.
At the end of the appetizer, it will be "grounded" and memorable. Although it may have a strong sense of comics in form and a multi-line narrative in structure, in fact, it tells the story of three middle-aged grass-roots men from the core, especially grounded, and has a realistic foundation.
A standard "stone flavor"
To sum up, such a pre-Spring Festival dish "Temporary Robbery" has both a stone flavor and a comic sense, and it also resonates with some middle-aged frustration. In fact, in recent years, there are many films similar in narrative style to Crazy Stone, but not many of them are of high quality. On the whole, Temporary Robbery is still a very "right" stone-flavored film.
The main feature of multi-line narration is that several different protagonists get together in a major event through many coincidences.
There are actually many coincidences in Temporary Robbery. For example, the robber stopped there to repair the car. As a result, in order to sell the stolen goods, he coincidentally threw a bag of money into the trunk of the car, and the taxi driver got mixed up inexplicably.
This particularly accidental event is usually a very important turning point in a multi-line narrative drama.
"Temporary Robbery" is to mix up three waves of different people because of this car through big and small coincidences. Big cases, small cases, big robberies, small robberies, and then there are real robbers, as well as this inside job and petty theft. All kinds of people are mixed together, and finally 12 small cases are attributed to a big case. Such a film structure is still very delicate.
A surprise "comic sense"
The comic sense is also a new change brought by Temporary Robbery. The usual Hong Kong films give the audience a serious feeling. Sir A is Sir A, and thieves are thieves. But in Temporary Robbery, we can see that it is dispelling this stereotype.
As far as the characters are concerned, Aaron Kwok used to play more roles in Hong Kong-made films, such as a depressed father and a bitter undercover, but this time the role is actually a little playful, a subversive buck-toothed and stuttering Aaron Kwok. Some viewers even commented, "Help, Aaron Kwok is like my second uncle" and "The famous actor Aaron Kwok is still missing".
His buck teeth make it easy for the audience to think of his present shape, his big steel head and his way of speaking, which are also very similar to the Spanish killer in the movie.
In the film, he himself said, "We are bandits". It can be seen that he is a particularly principled gangster in his professional orientation. For example, if a brother is going to be shot, he must make up a shot. For example, if someone annoys him, he must say "Say sorry".
These mandatory "unwritten rules" contribute the most jokes in the film. He may not be the same as the people the audience will see in daily life, but in Temporary Robbery, the audience will trust this person very much.
Because he fled from Annan’s hometown to Hong Kong to be a gangster, he once won the East Asian Games, but his life was actually very bitter. He got into the underworld in his hometown and was ruined.
He has a lot of pre-history to express in the film, so he can also say why Mei Lantian, the gangster he plays now, is a little neurotic, a little abnormal and a little exaggerated. In fact, Aaron Kwok has found a good character base for all these characteristics, and the biography of this character is very solid.
A middle-aged frustration
In addition to Mei Lantian, he has two teammates this time, Lin Jiadong and Richie Jen. These two are also two of the three thieves in the film "A tree catches the wind". This time, they are incarnated as three bandits. They are two people in the role, but they bring a completely different experience to the audience.
In "A tree catches the wind", Richie Jen and Lin Jiadong are both particularly fierce bandits, but this time, they are two middle-aged men who are not very useful, a waste and a waste in a waste.
Lin Jiadong is an idiot who is losing all his hair. He lives in a public rental house with his family, and his mother and wife quarrel every day. Life is a chicken feather. His character is a coward from beginning to end.
Richie Jen opened this nursing home. As a result, because he couldn’t afford the room, he took risks for the old people, and then he became a robber. But his fear of hands and feet made his robber dream so unreal. In fact, there is a line of his own, which is very consistent with the characteristics of the role. "Good people can’t do it well, and bad people can’t do it."
These three characters also lead to the core of the film-middle-aged frustration. Three people live three different lives and have three different situations, but in the end all kinds of reality make them make the same choice. In fact, under the funny shell, they also poked some tears in the audience’s heart.
What is different from watching Temporary Robbery is that some comedies may be passed after the audience has finished watching and laughing, but there are still some very distracting parts in this drama.
In the middle, the three of them are pushing a cart, telling each other why they took this road, and then the three brothers sang together, "I just want to go with you all my life." At that moment, I felt that these three robbers seemed to poke you a little. That kind of frustration is very distracting, but some empathy will happen and it is worth going to the cinema to have a look.