China Entertainment 1997.

Chapter 515 First battle in North America, "Hurricane Rescue"

Early February 2008, San Francisco

Tom and Jerry made an appointment to eat fast food at KFC. The two brothers, who hadn't seen each other for almost a month, chatted and were very excited.

After graduating from high school, both brothers were admitted to college.

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

Of course, which university to go to still depends on grades and family background. Those with good grades and money go to prestigious schools, while ordinary students go to poor universities or even community colleges.

Of course, community colleges in the United States are not actually universities. Although they have academic qualifications, they cannot be grouped together with domestic colleges. During the transition period of the students, after studying in the community college, they will go to the serious university for the exam.

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

Unlike being tired of being together every day in high school, the two of them are not in the same city in college. Even if the distance is not far, they can meet each other from time to time, but they are still 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 best friends with each other. Whenever they are free, they will make appointments to meet each other.

Coca-Cola is full of hamburgers, now go to the entertainment place early, the two of them are thinking about whether to go home to play games or go to a cinema to watch movies.

"Let's watch the movie. "Dancing Out of Life 2" is currently showing. It is said that the starring girl is very hot."

Jerry made a suggestion. Although Tom is not very interested in musicals, he is very interested in hot girls.

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

An Asian girl in a white dress is pitifully at the bottom right of the video, surrounded by a few villains, and at the top left is a man with a serious face and cold eyes holding a gun in both hands, and a banner slanted between the two pictures Insert, above is the name of the movie - "Taken"

From the meaning of the word, it is called taking away, and it can also be understood as rescue.

The film titles in the United States are different from those in China. Most of the film titles are relatively concise and reveal little information. Basically, it depends on the actors to attract people, so it can often be seen from the posters who is responsible for the box office.

On the other hand, the context and structure of words in English and Chinese are different, and the national environment and common sayings are also different. What we can't understand, others can understand in seconds.

For example, when raw rice is cooked and cooked, Chinese people immediately understand what it means, while foreign countries can only understand it literally.

As for "A piece of pear blossom crushing crabapple", "Wait here, I'll buy some oranges", "Obtuse angle", "I ate a bowl of noodles", "It's cold to prevent Han", "Lao Liu", "Fu "News" and other words whose literal and actual meanings do not match at all are even more difficult to understand in foreign countries.

By the same token, many English-language movies have to go through localized translation when they come to China, otherwise the audience will not know what kind of movie it is.

Among them, many classic translations have also been produced, such as "Human Ghosts", the original English literal translation is called ghosts, and "Broken Blue Bridge" also made the original "Waterloo Bridge" more poetic and sad.

"Scent of a Woman", "Gone with the Wind" and "Inception" are all quite good translations, which highlight the artistic conception at once.

But there are also some messed up ones, such as "Zootopia", which should actually be called "Zootopia". Crazy and utopia confuse the whole idea of ​​the movie at once.

There is also "Rain Man", which is also translated outrageously, which is completely confusing. Even if it is called "Fool", it would be better, maybe the staff remembered it wrong.

Of course, even so, the mainland is still relatively reliable, mainly because the homogenization is serious, and there are fewer jokes. Hong Kong and Taiwan are more ridiculous, and the translation of various English movie names makes people laugh and cry.

For example, the mainland translation of "The Matrix", the Taiwan version of "The Matrix", and the Hong Kong version is 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 "Mrs. "In Xiangjiang, it was originally called "Seven Star Man"...

Of course, these are sometimes not necessarily the fault of translation, and may also be the same as the above, due to differences in regional contexts and customs, and some are purely translation dishes.

"Taken" Stars and Stars mainly invested, and then cooperated with New Line.

In terms of distribution, Fanxing was in charge of Asia, and New Line focused on the US side. Naturally, the title was also changed by New Line, and Cao Xuan did not intervene indiscriminately.

This is actually the English name of the original version of "Taken". Maybe North American audiences will recognize this style. If he is forced to change it and thinks it is good, maybe other North American audiences will not buy it.

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

Sure enough, in the eyes of the Chinese, the name full of slots is completely free for Tom and the two of them. Cao Xuan's face and poster look like the style of an action movie, which immediately aroused their interest.

"Oh, Cao's action movie, the eyes are so cold, I like it."

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

"Hey, I know about this movie. Cao promoted it at the concert, but I forgot about it in a hurry."

"Huh? Because of that latina chick you were talking about who was going to suck you dry."

Hearing this, Tom subconsciously supported his waist, with aftertaste and a trace of fear showing on his face.

"Just watch this, Cao's movie must be good, maybe there is Chinese kung fu."

"It's agreed to watch the hot girls."

"My treat."

"Let's go, buy a ticket, would you like popcorn and Coke?"

"Snack AA."

"..."

"Taken" didn't have many film schedules, Tom and the others waited for half an hour before they were able to enter the theater.

There are not many people in the theater, at least compared to the popularity of "Dance Out 2" and "The Shuttle" next to it, the attendance rate is at most 30%.

While queuing up, Tom listened to the conversations of a few audience members. Basically, most of them were fans of Cao Xuan or Chinese and Asians who came to support. The percentage of spontaneous audiences attracted by the movie was limited.

However, it is also understandable, after all, today is the second day of the film's release, and it is not the weekend with the largest number of viewers.

In fact, the attendance rate is not bad.

At least according to Tom's observation, at least "Taken" still has Cao Xuan's popularity, and there are certain film schedules. The attendance rate is not high, but it's not particularly bad.

Other movies are even worse, there are very few films scheduled, and almost not many people go to see them, and "Taken" can be regarded as the middle class among them.

Tom is keen on whether his idol's movies are popular or not, but Jerry doesn't care much about it. He still doesn't forget to use his mobile phone to surf the Internet when he finds time, and he doesn't forget to share with his friends when he sees something funny

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

"who cares."

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

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

He still remembers when he and Tom met Cao Xuan for the first time when they were in middle school, it was the commercial of Pepsi, Cao Xuan Hero Saves Britney Spears.

At that time, they were obsessed with Bruce Lee and Chinese Kung Fu, and they were instantly impressed by Cao Xuan who saved people with a sword in the advertisement.

Afterwards, the two went to Chinatown to buy Chinese swords, and later found a disc of Cao Xuan's Chinese TV series. They flew around with the sword, which was very cool.

It's a pity that they don't understand the plot very well. They only remember that there is a set of swordsmanship called "The Lonely Ninth Swordsmanship". The two of them have learned it for half a month, but they haven't figured out the essentials. Go to China to learn from a teacher.

Now that the two are college students, the dream of kung fu in their hearts has long faded, and the long sword they bought in Chinatown has long been lost.

And today's encounter in the movie theater brought back the fond memories of practicing swords with my good brothers when I was a teenager in the second year of junior high school.

However, since then, most of the information they received about Cao Xuan was music. They had seen two Chinese movies starring Cao Xuan, but one was about a gangster who went undercover to fight back, and the other was about a villain beating up Jack Cheng.

Although the acting is very good and the plot is interesting, there are not many action elements, and it is always different from the clean, cool and handsome Chinese swordsman image 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 fluctuated, but Tom didn't have his thoughts. He was a die-hard fan of Cao Xuan. Although he liked Cao Xuan's music more, he loved Wu Jiwu. The aroma is tangy.

At the beginning of the movie, there is no dragon logo in the United States, but the title titles of Fanxing and Xinxian. The former is well-known in China, but it is the first time it has appeared in North American theaters.

The opening credits of the two companies flashed, and when the main film entered the plot, an African battlefield appeared. Cao Xuan, wearing a combat uniform, attacked a terrorist stronghold with his comrades.

Cao Xuan performed very well, with a strong individual quality, superb marksmanship, and excellent fighting ability. He eliminated nearly half of the terrorists by himself.

There are very few scenes, about a minute or so, and the scene changes to Cao Xuan getting up from Xiangjiang's bedroom, brushing his teeth, washing his teeth, clocking in for work, and interacting with his colleagues.

The plot went smoothly, and in just a few minutes, the hero's background as a mercenary retired and currently working as a full-time bodyguard in Xiangjiang was explained.

Immediately afterwards, the younger sister and girlfriends were brought to Xiangjiang to watch the concert. Avril Lavigne's guest appearance made many audiences smile knowingly.

There is also a stalk in the movie. During Avril Lavigne's concert, she sang in front, and several bodyguards watched in the background. Her colleagues twisted their bodies and hummed along, and asked the hero 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."

The domestic audience who had already been impacted by the "second-rate singer Cao Tianwang" was fine. It was the first time I saw Cao Xuan say this abroad, even though I knew it was a joke, I couldn't help laughing wildly.

It is equivalent to pointing at Liu Guoliang and saying that this fat man doesn't know how to play football, Xiao Lizi thinks he is infatuated and single, and Bill Gates admits that he is poor, and the contrast is excellent.

Tom, a die-hard fan, laughed even more, and Jerry couldn't help laughing.

On the contrary, a few audience members who were not familiar with Cao Xuan looked around suspiciously, wondering what the people around them were laughing at.

The following plot is that the younger sister is bewitched by her best friend and wants to travel to Japan willfully.

At the same time, various details and side plots are arranged to strengthen the personality of the hero again and pave the way for the following plots.

His mother died young, and because of various misunderstandings, he had a mediocre relationship with his father, and his temperament seemed a bit withdrawn and indifferent, but he was a person who cared about his family and relatives in his heart.

A scene was 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 laughing. Pulling closer, there are faint family photos when I was a child.

Because brother and sister are not the closest blood relationship like father and daughter after all, the relationship is separated by a layer, so the hero should pay more attention to the family and play the family card wildly.

The male protagonist who was indifferent and withdrawn at the beginning turned into a long-winded "old father", and sent him to the airport with thousands of instructions to the female protagonist, further embodying the attribute of a doting sister.

And when the heroine and girlfriends come to Japan, the main plot finally comes.

As soon as they arrived in Japan, the two were targeted. When they met a handsome Japanese guy, the best friend immediately became one with him, and also leaked everything. Knowing that it was two girls, she immediately notified her accomplices to do it.

The hostess on the other side was being checked by the male host, and when she acted coquettishly and complained, she suddenly heard a noise, saw her best friend being arrested, and panicked.

The male protagonist realized the crisis of his sister, forced himself to calm down, and then seized the time to interrogate various details, such as who he was in contact with, basic information, and what characteristics,
Before all the inquiries were over, my sister's phone was snatched. Hearing the screams over there, Cao Xuan had a serious expression, deep eyes, and a deep voice.

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

Now that you have released my sister, I will act as if nothing happened. If you insist on going your own way, I will find you and... kill you. "

Throughout the entire line, Cao Xuan didn't have that kind of yelling anger, but that obviously suppressed sense of restraint made people feel like a bomb that might explode at any time.

"Wow, this paragraph is almost cool, full of domineering."

Tom couldn't help feeling emotional, and Jerry on the side nodded again and again. This passage really made people feel the anger coming from the male lead, and his skin got goosebumps.

Returning to the plot, the hero is also a mercenary after all, and both black and white are sold, and he quickly figured out some of the enemy's routes based on the existing information.

The Black Dragon Society, a gang that has sprung up in Japan in recent years, often targets and kidnaps single girls traveling overseas, 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 behind it, and its actions are relatively secretive and cunning, there is no evidence, and similar investigations are often left unsolved.

The world is not peaceful, and millions of people disappear without explanation every year.

Even if the national backing is useful, there is no evidence overseas, and there is no law enforcement power. There are many things that can’t be done. Northern Myanmar is the best example.

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

With the behavior style of the Black Dragon Club, if it drags on for a few days, who knows what my sister will become, maybe it will be ruined for the rest of my life.

So, the male protagonist who killed the terrorists back then reappeared.

Knowing that the black dragon would be powerful, the hero did not act rashly. He uploaded photos of Penguin Blog and Qzone (advertising) through his sister, and found the handsome Japanese guy who hit up a conversation through the reflection of the glass inside.

The male protagonist quickly found this fellow near the airport, but during the chase, the other party committed suicide by jumping off the overpass.

The trail is broken.

The male protagonist has no choice but to find Yano, a Japanese comrade-in-arms who was a mercenary together, for help. Unexpectedly, the other party, from the perspective of the police, made the male protagonist give up the pursuit and wait for the police to investigate.

The male protagonist ignored him, investigated by himself, destroyed a stronghold of the Black Dragon Society, found his sister's clothes, and continued the clue.

This paragraph is also the first battle of the male protagonist Cao Xuan. Before, helping Avril to drive away the illegitimate meal and chasing down the handsome Japanese guy were all small attempts.

The whole fight is punched to the flesh, and there are no extra moves. The fighting moves attack vulnerable parts such as temples, throats, and eyes. They are full of strength and are basically fatal in one blow.

In the end, he even grabbed the gun, and then violated the action movie styles of Bruce Lee, Cheng Long, and Li Lianjie, and directly gave up fighting and used American-style Juhe.

Bang bang bang!
Within [-] steps, Gun Gun shot his head.

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

They are crisp and sharp, full of vigor, and their moves are aimed at killing people. Their moves are not gorgeous, some are even a bit ugly, but they are murderous, revealing an indescribable sense of oppression.

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

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

Jerry shook his friend excitedly. Tom was more exaggerated than his reaction. Looking at Cao Xuan who drove away from the explosion site with a blank 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 excited, was instantly splashed with a bucket of cold water, leaned gently to the side, and persuaded his friend to calm down.

"Not so, not so..."

Going back to the plot, although we 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 face of the Japanese police is disheartened. The old comrade-in-arms asks the hero to meet, but actually wants to force him to be repatriated.

Because of this, the male protagonist was notified by the police and became a loner, and he no longer trusted official agencies, including the embassy, ​​mainly because he was afraid that the Japanese police would have information, so he planned to rescue him alone.

Afterwards, the male protagonist finds the gang leader Chang Wei, another high-burning fight scene, kills the younger brother, and sees his sister and best friend who has died. The frightened male protagonist arrests the gang leader and tortures him to extract a confession, and learns the whereabouts of his younger sister.

Because she is a virgin and looks pretty, the gang is currently planning to auction it off, so my sister is still safe at this time.

But it won't take long, and he must find his sister before the auction.

The male lead finds his old comrade-in-arms Yano again. He has already learned from Chang Wei that this guy is colluding with the police and gangsters, so he came to him for clues.

Yano complained all kinds of complaints about Tokyo University, how hard it is to live in, how difficult his life is, and he fell down because of his family.

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

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

Hurrying to the auction, the male protagonist didn't wait for his sister. This was a game, his old comrades and the Black Dragon Society teamed up to knock him down with an electric baton and arrested him.

The boss of the Black Dragon Society gave full play to the characteristics of the villain who died of talking too much, Balabala pretended for a while to force the hero to buy time for recovery.

When he was actually fighting, he was attacked by the male protagonist, and he killed him indiscriminately. Yano and the members of the Black Dragon Club all became ghosts under his sword and gods under his gun.

Knowing the whereabouts of my sister from the boss of the Black Dragon Society, I shot the incident and rushed to the cruise ship. My sister was sold to a Japanese boss.

In the final decisive battle, the hero sneaked into the cruise ship secretly... Well, the so-called secret sneaking means seeing one and killing one, and no one knows it is a secret.

The younger sister was held hostage by a Japanese boss with a knife, and the two sides confronted each other. The audience thought it was an old-fashioned threat, but the villain was shot in the head by the male protagonist as soon as he opened his mouth.

Japanese boss: "Young people don't talk about martial arts, they engage in sneak attacks~"

In the end, under the rush of the embassy, ​​the hero was safe and sound, and was reunited with his sister and his father and stepmother who rushed over.

Looking at the scars on the hero's face, the father who had a bad relationship with him also patted him on the shoulder vigorously with red eyes, and those past grievances and awkwardness seemed to dissipate.

At the end of the movie, a small easter egg was placed in the textured lens with old images.

The little girl with braids was playing with her brother, but she got into trouble with other children and was beaten and cried. Her brother helped her vent her anger.

The girl said softly, "Brother, you are so kind."

The older brother, who was already a teenager, hugged his younger sister and said with a little fart: "Who told me to be your brother? If you are bullied in the future, come and find your brother."

"Then brother must protect me."

"Don't worry, with my brother here, I can't let you be bullied."

……

The movie is over!

Jerry couldn't finish it, and gave his own evaluation: "Good family relationship, smooth and compact plot, cool fighting, I give this movie 8.5 points."

Tom didn't talk nonsense, and went straight to the box office to buy two more tickets after leaving the theater.

"Go, watch it again."

It’s actually easy to get mentally exhausted when you concentrate on watching a movie, especially such a fast-paced action drama, but Jerry can’t beat Tom, and he is really itchy, so he watched it again after half-pushing.

The two are not the only viewers who chose this way, and there are a few who are also preparing for a second brush. Of course, more people are ordinary people, just discussing the plot of the movie with their partners and leaving, and their comments are mostly positive.

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

This Rotten Tomatoes is a movie rating website in the United States, which is mainly evaluated by professional film critics from the media or the Film Critics Association.

These film critics write articles about a certain movie, and the movie is more positive, and the website defaults to voting for red tomatoes, which means fresh, and for negative reviews, they vote for green tomatoes, meaning rotten.

Each film critic has one vote, no matter how many people there are, the freshness of the two is finally expressed according to the percentage, and the higher the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes, the higher the score.

It is worth mentioning that Rotten Tomatoes has a variety of criteria for judging. Film critics do not just watch movies based on word-of-mouth, but evaluate movies based on various aspects. Many popcorn masterpieces can also get a high degree of freshness.

And this is not necessarily accurate. There are not a few movies with high freshness that hit the market, and movies with single-digit freshness still have box office hits.

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

If the freshness is above 60%, you can see that most of the films below 60% are bad movies.

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

IMDb scores are similar to those of Douban, ranging from 1 to 10. Each user can rate freely, but the algorithm is very complicated. In order to prevent score fraud, there are various restrictions, and the proportion of user votes is also completely different.

Rotten Tomatoes is expert opinion, IMDb is Dianping, and there is Metacritic, which also invites experts, but instead of voting for each person like Rotten Tomatoes, it is scored, ranging from 1 to 100 points, which is relatively more detailed.

These three websites are known as the three major artifacts of North American movie fans. Comprehensive comparison, combined with the common opinions of experts and the public, can relatively accurately judge the quality of a movie.

At present, because the movie has just been released, IMDb does not have enough viewers to rate it, so there is no evaluation for the time being.

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 extremely high evaluations at the same time, and to a certain extent, they were pleasantly surprised because they did not have high expectations for Cao Xuan.

Of course, the intense and exciting plot rhythm and the fierce and ruthless action style of "Taken" are also extremely plus points.

"Rolling Stone" magazine is very optimistic about this movie, and the magazine's film critics praised it——

"A sincere and ambitious work, Cao, who also has an excellent performance in the Chinese film industry, has accurately grasped the key to open the North American market.

Moreover, Cao did not blindly follow and imitate successful predecessors Bruce Lee and Jack Cheng, but boldly opened up 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 an excellent debut..."

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

"It's not a novel theme, and the plot is not complicated, but it captures the tension that closely follows the theme of "rescue", one ring after another, without any pee.

Compared with Cao's fighting dramas, his literary dramas are actually more worthy of praise. The excellent line tension, eye contact and micro-expressions make me forget that he is still the king of the world. I don't know why God favors this guy so much. His two incomparable top talents..."

The steady stream of positive reviews made "Taken" the best-reviewed theater movie in North America in February, even though it didn't make a big box office hit.

This change gave "Taken", which had been suppressed to death, a chance to stand out...

(End of this chapter)