China Entertainment 1997

Early February 2008, San Francisco

Tom and Jerry made an appointment to have fast food at KFC. The two brothers, who had not seen each other for almost a month, talked about it and were very excited.

After graduating from high school, both brothers entered college.

Universities in the United States are easier to pass than those in China. They adopt the "easy entry and strict exit" approach. More than 45 to 60% of high school graduates can go to college.

Of course, which college to go to still depends on your grades and family background. Those with good grades and money will go to prestigious schools, while ordinary students will go to inferior colleges or even community colleges.

Of course, community colleges in the United States are not actually universities. Although they also have academic qualifications, they cannot be roughly lumped together with domestic colleges and universities. They are more like seniors in high school, for those with poor grades, those who are working in society, return to campus, or who are financially disadvantaged. This is the transition period for students who study in community colleges and then go to regular universities to take exams.

Jerry's grades were better. Although he didn't get into a prestigious school, the school he went to was ranked well. Tom was much worse. He almost went to community college. His father paid for it and he barely managed to get into an ordinary university.

Different from being together every day in high school, the two of them are not in the same city in college. Even if they are not far apart, they can see each other from time to time, but after all, they are not as close as they were in high school.

Of course, the old friendship for many years is still there, and the two are still each other's best friends. They make appointments to meet each other whenever they are free.

After having enough Coke and burgers, it was time to go to the entertainment venue early. The two of them were wondering whether to go home and play games or go to a cinema to watch a movie.

"Let's watch a movie. "So You Think You Can Dance 2" is showing now. It's said that the girl starring in it is very hot."

Jerry suggested that although Tom was not very interested in musicals, hot girls were very interested.

The two came to the cinema arm in arm and were about to buy tickets when Tom was suddenly attracted by a poster.

A pitiful Asian girl in a white skirt is in the lower right corner of the video, surrounded by several villains, while in the upper left corner is a man with a serious face and cold eyes holding a gun in both hands. In the middle of the two pictures is a diagonal banner. Insert, above is the name of the movie - "Taken"

The meaning of the word is to take away, which can also be understood as rescue.

The movie titles here in the United States are different from those in China. Most of the movie titles are concise and reveal less information. They basically rely on the actors to attract people. Therefore, you can often tell who is responsible for the box office from the poster.

On the other hand, the word context and structure of English and Chinese are different, as are the national environment and human idioms. What we can’t understand, others will understand instantly.

For example, Chinese people immediately understand what it means to cook raw rice, while foreigners can only understand it literally.

As for "a pear blossom crushing a begonia", "wait here while I buy some oranges", "obtuse angle", "eat a bowl of rice noodles", "it's cold to prevent Han", "老六", "福" Words such as "Pao" whose literal meanings are completely inconsistent with their actual meanings are even more difficult to understand in foreign countries.

By the same token, many English-language movies that come to China must undergo localized translation, otherwise the audience will not be able to figure out what kind of movie it is.

This has also produced many classic translations, such as "The Love of Ghosts", the original English literal translation is called ghosts, and "Blue Bridge" also made the original "Waterloo Bridge" more poetic and melancholy.

"Scent of a Woman", "Gone with the Wind" and "Inception" are all very good translations, and the artistic conception is highlighted immediately.

But there are also some that messed up. For example, "Zootopia" should actually be called "Zootopia". Madness and utopia suddenly confused the entire concept of the movie.

There is also "Rain Man", the translation is quite outrageous, and it is completely confusing. Even if it is called "The Fool", it would be better. Maybe the staff remembered it wrong.

Of course, even so, the mainland is still relatively reliable, mainly because of its serious homogeneity and fewer jokes. Hong Kong and Taiwan are more ridiculous, and the translations of various English movie names make people laugh or cry.

For example, the Mainland translation of "The Matrix", the Taiwan version of "The Matrix", and the Hong Kong version are called "22nd Century Murder Network".

"The King's Speech", the Hong Kong version is called "The King Has No Words", the Hong Kong version of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is called "The Smiths vs. Smith's Wife", "The Shawshank Redemption" became "1995", "Ultraman" "It was originally called "Seven Star Man" in Xiangjiang...

Of course, sometimes these are not necessarily the fault of translation. They may also be due to different regional contexts and customs, as mentioned above, and some are simply translation problems.

Stars and Stars primarily invested in "Taken" and then collaborated with New Line.

In terms of distribution, Fanxing is responsible for Asia, and New Line focuses on the United States. Naturally, the title of the film was also changed by New Line, and Cao Xuan did not interfere randomly.

This is actually the English name of the original version of "Taken". Maybe North American audiences will recognize this style. If he insists on changing it and thinks it's better, maybe North American audiences won't buy it.

After all, judging from his North American distribution experience, he is definitely not as knowledgeable as New Line.

Sure enough, in the eyes of the Chinese, the name that was full of flaws was no burden to Tom and the others. Cao Xuan's face and the look of the poster showed an action-drama style, which immediately piqued their interest.

"Oh, Cao's action movies, his eyes are so cold, I like them."

"Tom, aren't you a big fan of Cao? You even went to the concert in Los Angeles. Why didn't you know that the new movie was released?"

"Ahem, I know this movie. Cao promoted it at his concert, but I was so busy that I forgot about it."

"Huh? Because of that Latina girl you were talking about who was draining you dry."

When Tom heard this, he subconsciously held up his waist, with aftertaste and a hint of fear on his face.

"Just watch this. Cao's movie will definitely be good, and maybe there will be Chinese Kung Fu."

"We agreed to watch the hot girl."

"My treat."

"Let's go buy a ticket. Would you like some popcorn and Coke?"

"Snack AA."

"..."

"Taken" didn't have a lot of films scheduled, so Tom and the others waited for half an hour before they could enter the theater.

There are not many people in the theater. At least there is a clear gap in popularity compared to the neighboring movies "Dance 2" and "The Shuttler". The attendance rate is at most 30%.

While waiting in line, Tom listened to several audience conversations. Basically, most of them were fans of Cao Xuan or Chinese and Asians who came to support. The proportion of spontaneous audiences attracted by the movie was limited.

But it's understandable, after all, today is the second day of release, and it's not the weekend with the largest number of moviegoers, and the publicity isn't high, so it's normal to get a cold reception.

In fact, this attendance rate is pretty good.

At least from what Tom has observed, at least "The Rescue" still has Cao Xuan's popularity, and it has a certain schedule. The attendance rate is not high, but it is not particularly bad.

Other movies are even worse. There are only a handful of films scheduled and not many people go to see them. "Taken" is considered to be in the middle of the pack.

Tom is passionate about whether his idol's movie is popular, but Jerry doesn't care much about it. He still surfs the Internet on his mobile phone when he has time, and he doesn't forget to share funny things with his friends when he finds them.

"Tom, look at how funny this news is. They actually think that a black man from the Democratic Party can be the president."

"who cares."

Tom was not interested in politics and patted Jerry: "The movie has started, watch the movie."

Jerry put down his phone. Although he preferred hot girls, he was actually quite curious about Cao Xuan's movies.

He still remembers the first time he met Cao Xuan when he and Tom were in middle school. It was a Pepsi commercial where Cao Xuan hero saves Britney Spears.

At that time, they were obsessed with Bruce Lee and Chinese Kung Fu, and they were instantly attracted by the handsome Cao Xuan in the advertisement who was holding a sword to save people.

Afterwards, the two went to Chinatown to buy Chinese swords. Later, they also found a CD of Cao Xuan's Chinese TV series. They were flying around with the swords, which was very cool.

It's a pity that they didn't understand the plot very well. They only remembered that there was a set of swordsmanship called "The Lonely Ninth Set of Swordsmanship". The two of them had learned it for half a month, but they still couldn't figure it out. They were still in the second grade of middle school at the time and almost ran away. Go to China to become a disciple.

Now that they are college students, their dreams of kung fu have long faded away, and the long sword they bought in Chinatown has long been lost.

And today's meeting in the movie theater brought back the beautiful memories of practicing swordsmanship with my good brothers when I was a teenager in middle school.

But since then, most of the information they came into contact with about Cao Xuan was music. They did watch two Chinese movies starring Cao Xuan, but one was a gangster undercover counterattack, and the other was a villain beating up Jack Cheng.

Although the acting was good and the plot was interesting, it didn't have many action elements, and it was always different from the clean, cool and handsome Chinese swordsman image he had when he first met Cao Xuan.

This movie looks like an action movie. I wonder if I can watch more of Cao's action scenes...

Jerry's heart was shaking, but Tom didn't have these thoughts. He was a die-hard fan of Cao Xuan. Although he liked Cao Xuan's music more, he loved Cao Xuan's music. As long as it was an idol's work, he would praise it even if it turned out to be shit. The aroma is delicious.

At the beginning of the movie, there is no dragon logo in the United States. It starts with the logo titles of Stars and New Line. The former is famous in China, but it is the first time it has appeared in North American theaters.

The titles of the two companies flashed and entered the main plot. An African battlefield appeared. Cao Xuan, wearing combat uniforms, attacked a terrorist stronghold with his comrades.

Cao Xuan performed well, with strong individual qualities, superb marksmanship, and great fighting ability. He eliminated nearly half of the terrorists by himself.

This scene is very short, only about a minute or so. The scene changes to Cao Xuan getting up from his bedroom in Xiangjiang, brushing his teeth and washing up, clocking in for work, and interacting with his colleagues.

The plot moves smoothly. In just a few minutes, the background of the male protagonist, who retired as a mercenary and is now working as a full-time bodyguard in Hong Kong, is explained.

Immediately afterwards, her sister and best friends were invited to watch the concert in Xiangjiang. Avril Lavigne's guest appearance made many viewers smile.

There is also a joke in the movie. During Avril Lavigne's concert, she was singing in the front, while several bodyguards were watching from the backstage. Her colleagues were twisting their bodies and humming along, and they also asked the male protagonist played by Cao Xuan how he felt about listening to the Queen's concert.

The male protagonist looked indifferent: "I'm not interested in pop music, and I don't understand music."

Fortunately, the domestic audience who had already been shocked by the "second-rate singer Cao Tianwang" saw Cao Xuan say this for the first time abroad. Even if they knew it was a joke, they couldn't help but laugh wildly.

It's equivalent to pointing at Liu Guoliang and saying that this fat guy doesn't understand football. Xiao Li Zi feels that he is infatuated and single, and Bill Gates admits that he is poor. The contrast is extremely hilarious.

Tom, a die-hard fan, burst out laughing, and Jerry couldn't help laughing.

On the contrary, the few spectators who were not familiar with Cao Xuan looked around in confusion, not knowing what the people around him were laughing at.

The subsequent plot is that the younger sister was bewitched by her best friend and decided to travel to Japan. The male protagonist couldn't persuade her and could only agree with a bunch of conditions.

At the same time, various details and side plots are arranged to once again strengthen the character of the male protagonist and pave the way for the following plot.

His mother died young, and due to various misunderstandings, he had a normal relationship with his father. His temperament seemed a bit withdrawn and indifferent, but deep down he was a person who cared very much about his family and relatives.

There is also a scene specially added to the plot of the movie to create the loneliness of the male protagonist. The full moon is in the sky and it is the reunion festival. Others are laughing and gathering together. The male protagonist is holding a beer and sitting alone looking out the window. The camera Zooming in closer, there is a faint family photo from childhood.

After all, brother and sister are not the closest blood relationship like father and daughter, and their relationship is separated by a layer, so the male protagonist must pay more attention to his family and play the family card wildly.

The male protagonist, who was cold and withdrawn at the beginning, turned into a long-winded "old father" and sent her to the airport after giving the female protagonist countless instructions, further embodying the character of being a doting girl and a maniac.

And when the heroine and her best friend come to Japan, the main plot finally begins.

As soon as they arrived in Japan, the two of them were targeted. When they met a handsome Japanese guy, their best friend immediately got involved with him and leaked all the information. Knowing that they were two girls, she immediately notified her accomplices to take action.

The heroine in this compartment is being inspected by the hero. While she is acting coquettishly and complaining, she suddenly hears a noise and panics when she sees her best friend being arrested.

The male protagonist realized his sister's crisis, forced himself to calm down, and then took the time to interrogate various details, such as who he had contacted, basic information, and what characteristics he had.

Before all the inquiries were over, my sister's phone was taken away. When I heard the screams on the other side, Cao Xuan's expression was serious, his eyes were deep, and his voice was dark.

"I don't know who you are or what you want. If you want a ransom, I can tell you that I have no money, but I have some special means...

Now that you let my sister go, I will pretend that nothing happened. If you insist on having your own way, I will find you and... kill you. "

Throughout the entire line, Cao Xuan did not have the anger of shouting, but the obviously suppressed sense of restraint made people feel like a bomb that might explode at any time.

"Wow, this part is so cool, full of domineering."

Tom couldn't help but sigh, and Jerry on the side also nodded repeatedly. This paragraph really felt like it, making people feel the anger coming from the male protagonist, and he got goosebumps.

Returning to the plot, the male protagonist is also a mercenary after all. He has people selling both black and white, and he quickly figured out part of the enemy's tactics based on the existing information.

The Black Dragon Society, a gang that has emerged in Japan in recent years, often targets single girls traveling overseas and kidnaps them, forcing them to become addicted to drugs and sell themselves to make money.

Because this matter has caused some international disputes, but because the Black Dragon Society has a certain background and is relatively secretive and cunning, there is no evidence, and similar investigations often come to nothing.

The world is not peaceful; millions of people disappear inexplicably every year.

Even if the state backing is useful, there is no evidence overseas and no law enforcement power. It cannot do many things. Northern Myanmar is the best example.

The male protagonist has notified his parents and asked the embassy for help. The embassy has also put pressure on the Japanese police, but it cannot directly intervene in the investigation. It still depends on the efficiency of the local police.

With the way the Black Dragon Society behaves, if it drags on for a few days, who knows what will happen to my sister, or she may be ruined for the rest of her life.

As a result, the timid male protagonist who killed the terrorists returned to the world.

Knowing that the Black Dragon would be powerful, the male protagonist did not act rashly. He uploaded photos from Penguin Blog and QQ Space (advertising) through his sister, and found the handsome Japanese guy he had chatted with through the silhouette of the person reflected in the glass inside.

The male protagonist soon found the guy near the airport, but during the chase, the guy jumped off an overpass and committed suicide.

The clue is broken.

The male protagonist has no choice but to seek help from Yano, his Japanese comrade who worked together as a mercenary. Unexpectedly, the other party asked the male protagonist to give up the pursuit and wait for the police's investigation from the police's perspective.

The male protagonist ignored it and investigated on his own. He destroyed a stronghold of the Black Dragon Society, found his sister's clothes, and continued the clues.

This is also the first battle for the male protagonist Cao Xuan. Before, helping Avril drive away bastards and chasing down handsome Japanese guys were just small tests.

The entire fight involves punches to the flesh, with no unnecessary tricks. The fighting moves are aimed at vulnerable parts such as the temples, throat, eyes, etc., with full force and basically a fatal blow.

In the end, he grabbed the gun, and then went against the action movie styles of Bruce Lee, Cheng Long, and Jet Li, giving up fighting directly and using American Iai.

Bang bang bang!

Within thirty steps, a gun shot to the head.

If Cheng Long's action style is kung fu comedy, Bruce Lee's style is fast and fierce, Jet Li's style is gorgeous and smooth, Cao Xuan's action style highlights a cold and ruthless character.

It was crisp, sharp, and full of fierceness. The purpose of the attack was to kill people. Every move was aimed at killing people. The movements were not flashy, some were even a little ugly, but they were murderous and gave off an indescribable sense of oppression.

It's hard to tell which of these styles is the best, but Cao Xuan's style alone has a destructive and cold charm that makes people tremble and excited at the same time.

"F***, Tom, he's so handsome."

Jerry shook his friend excitedly, but Tom's reaction was even more exaggerated than his. Looking at Cao Xuan who drove away from the explosion site with an expressionless face, his voice was in a trance.

"If I were a woman, I would definitely fall in love with him. No, even if I am not a woman now, I can't help but love him."

Jerry, who was in excitement, was instantly poured a bucket of cold water on him. He leaned slightly to the side and tried to persuade his friend to calm down.

"No, not so much..."

Going back to the plot, although I got the clues, it also caused a little damage——

A dozen gangsters were killed, a stronghold was blown up, and five or six cars were damaged.

The Japanese police were disgraced. Their old comrade-in-arms asked the hero to meet him, but in fact they wanted to force him to deport him. The hero saw the trick in advance and let the police fail.

Because of this, the male protagonist was reported to the police and became a loner. He no longer believed in official institutions, including the embassy, ​​mainly because he was afraid that the Japanese police would get the information, so he planned to rescue him alone.

After that, the male protagonist found the gang leader Chang Wei, and there was another high-octane fight scene. He killed the younger brother and saw his sister's best friend who had died. The frightened and angry male protagonist took the leader in and tortured him to extract a confession, and he learned the whereabouts of his sister.

Because she is a virgin and beautiful, the gang currently plans to auction her off, so my sister is still safe at this time.

But it can't be delayed for long. We must find my sister before the auction.

The male protagonist once again found his old comrade Yano. He had already learned from Chang Wei that this guy was colluding with the police and criminals, so he came to him for clues.

Yano complained in various ways about Tokyo University, Jubu Yi, and how difficult his life was. He had to fall because of his family.

"You have a family, and my family is not family."

The male protagonist didn't talk nonsense with him anymore, he knocked him down directly, dragged his wife to threaten him, and finally found out the location of the auction.

Rushing to the auction, the male protagonist did not wait for his sister. This was a game. His old comrades and the Black Dragon Society collaborated to knock him down with an electric baton and arrested him.

The boss of the Black Dragon Society gave full play to the villain's tendency to talk too much, and Balabala pretended to force the hero for a while, buying time to recover.

When he actually started to take action, he was attacked by the male protagonist and killed indiscriminately. Yano and the members of the Black Dragon Society became the ghosts of his sword and the gods of his gun.

He learned the whereabouts of his sister from the boss of the Black Dragon Society, shot him, and rushed to the cruise ship. His sister was sold to a Japanese boss.

In the final battle, the male protagonist secretly sneaks into the cruise ship... Well, the so-called secret infiltration means killing everyone on sight. No one knows it, it is a secret.

The younger sister was held hostage by a Japanese gangster at knifepoint, and the two sides confronted each other. The audience thought it was a cliched threatening plot, but as soon as the villain opened his mouth, he was shot in the head by the male protagonist.

Japanese boss: "Young people don't respect martial ethics and engage in sneak attacks~"

Finally, after running around the embassy, ​​the male protagonist was safe and reunited with his sister and his father and stepmother who came over.

Looking at the scars on the male protagonist's face, his father, who had a bad relationship with him, also had red eyes and patted his shoulder hard, and the past grudges and awkwardness seemed to disappear.

There is a small easter egg at the end of the movie, with the texture of old images in the shot.

The little girl with pigtails was playing with her brother all the time, but she got into trouble with other children and was beaten to tears. Her brother helped vent her anger.

The girl said with a smile on her face: "Brother, you are so kind."

The older brother, who was already a teenager, hugged his younger sister and said with a bit of arrogance: "Who made me your older brother? If you are bullied in the future, you will come to see me."

"Then brother must protect me."

"Don't worry, my brother is here and I won't let you be bullied."

…

The movie is over!

Jerry was still not satisfied and gave his own evaluation: "A good emotional line of family, smooth and compact plot, and cool fighting. I give this movie an 8.5."

Tom didn't waste any time. After leaving the cinema, he ran directly to the ticket office and bought two more tickets.

"Let's go and watch it again."

It’s easy to get mentally exhausted when watching a movie with full concentration, especially such a fast-paced action drama, but Jerry couldn’t resist Tom, and besides, he was really itchy, so he half-heartedly followed it and watched it again.

The two of them were not the only viewers who made this choice, there were a few others who were also planning to watch the movie again. Of course, most of them were ordinary people who just left after discussing the plot of the movie with their friends, and their comments were mostly positive.

That night, the Rotten Tomatoes website officially published the data for "Taken", with a freshness rating of 85%.

Rotten Tomatoes is a movie rating website in the United States, mainly based on professional film critics from the media or the Film Critics Association.

When these film critics write an article about a certain movie and have a positive evaluation of the movie, the website defaults to voting for red tomatoes, meaning fresh, and for negative reviews, voting for green tomatoes, meaning rotten.

Each critic has one vote, no matter how many there are, and the two finally present the freshness based on the percentage. The higher the Rotten Tomatoes freshness, the higher the score.

It is worth mentioning that Rotten Tomatoes' judging criteria are very diverse. Film critics not only look at the reputation of the film, but also evaluate the film based on many aspects. Many popcorn masterpieces can also receive high freshness.

And this is not necessarily accurate. There are not many movies with high freshness that are popular on the market, and movies with single-digit freshness can still be box office hits.

Of course, this situation is relatively rare. As long as there are a certain number of film critics, the Rotten Tomatoes score is still relatively useful as a reference.

You can take a look at the movies with freshness ratings above 60%. Most of the movies below 60% are bad movies.

In addition to Rotten Tomatoes, similar rating websites include IMDb, the most comprehensive database website in the world.

IMDb's scoring is similar to Douban's, ranging from 1 to 10. Each user can score freely. However, the algorithm is very complicated. In order to prevent score brushing, there are various restrictions and the proportion of user votes is also completely different.

Rotten Tomatoes is the opinion of experts, IMDb is Dianping, and there is Metacritic, which also invites experts, but instead of everyone voting like Rotten Tomatoes, it gives scores from 1 to 100, which is relatively more detailed.

These three websites are known as the three great tools for North American movie fans. Through comprehensive comparison and combined with the common opinions of experts and the public, the quality of a movie can be judged relatively accurately.

Currently, because the movie has just been released, there are not enough viewers to rate it on IMDb, so there are no reviews yet.

After Rotten Tomatoes came out, Metacritic, which is also dominated by film critics, quickly gave an average rating of 72 points per capita, which is quite good.

The two websites gave very high evaluations at the same time, partly because they had low expectations for Cao Xuan, so they were surprised.

Of course, the exciting plot rhythm and sharp and ruthless action style of "The Rescue" are also extremely bonus points.

"Rolling Stone" magazine was very optimistic about this movie and praised it highly in the magazine's film review——

"A sincere and ambitious work, Cao, who has also performed extremely well in the Chinese film industry, has accurately grasped the key to opening up the North American market.

Moreover, Cao did not blindly chase and imitate the successful predecessors Bruce Lee and Jack Cheng, but boldly developed his own new action style. We dare not say whether this new style will be successful, but as far as this movie is concerned, I thought it was a great appearance..."

Cao Xuan's old friend "Los Angeles Times" also gave "Taken" high scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

"It's not a novel subject, and the plot is not complicated, but it captures the tension of the theme "rescue", with each link nested within one link, without any fuss.

Compared with Cao's fighting scenes, his literary dramas are actually more worthy of praise. The excellent tension of his lines and the coordination of his eyes and micro-expressions made me forget that he is still the king of the world. I don't know why God favors this guy so much. He has two unparalleled top talents..."

A steady stream of positive reviews has made "Taken" the most critically acclaimed theatrical movie in North America in February despite its modest box office performance.

This change gave "Hurricane Rescue", which had been suppressed, a chance to come forward...