韩国热门影片《奇怪的她》之后 陈正道的《重返20岁》

Like the 2014 Korean hit “Miss Granny,” Leste Chen’s “20 Once Again” belongs to the genre of stories that set up life lessons by miraculously reversing a character’s aging process. In this case, no bodies are switched à la “Freaky Friday”; instead, a nagging septuagenarian mother-in-law, Shen Mengjun, turns back into her 20-year-old self after visiting a mysterious photography studio.

和2014年韩国热门影片《奇怪的她》(Miss Granny)一样，陈正道的《重返20岁》属于那种通过神奇逆转人物年龄讲述人生教训的类型片。不像《辣妈辣妹》(Freaky Friday)，这部影片没有身份互换，而是七十多岁、唠唠叨叨的婆婆沈梦君在去了一个神秘的照相馆之后变回了20岁时的模样。

At first, Mr. Chen’s candy-colored movie lands many of its gags through the fact that Mengjun, behind her pop-star-cutie face, still views the world through a prudish, nit-picking mind-set. A veteran actress, Grace Guei, plays the character as a 70-year-old, but it’s Yang Zi Shan as the rejuvenated version who gets to have fun playing with grumpy-old-biddy clichés. Hunched and peering about disapprovingly, she takes free samples from every stall at a marketplace and, unsolicited, lectures a young mother on how to feed her baby.

一开始，这部有着糖果色彩的电影把很多笑料都放在沈梦君身上，她长着流行歌手般的漂亮面孔，却仍用假正经、挑剔的眼光看待世界。70岁时的沈梦君由老戏骨归亚蕾饰演，但是真正有趣的是饰演20岁沈梦君的杨子姗，她可以拿老年人脾气暴躁、爱唠叨这种老套剧情大做文章。她弓着腰，不满地四处张望，拿走商场里每个摊位上的免费样品，未经请求就主动给一个年轻妈妈大讲育儿之道。

But Mr. Chen, director of the Chinese hit “The Great Hypnotist,” is also telling a soppy family drama about self-realization. Before her transformation, Mengjun lives with her beloved son (a professor) and his family, but afterward she goes into hiding (even adopting a different name) to find herself. She eventually crosses paths with her grandson, a musician (the pop singer Lu Han), and dreams of a singing career. She also has to reckon with a former servant from her childhood who’s fixated on her.

陈正道曾执导热门中国影片《催眠大师》。不过，在《重返20岁》中，他其实也讲述了一个关于自我实现的伤感的家庭故事。重返青春之前，沈梦君和心爱的儿子（一名教授）以及他的家人住在一起，但是变身之后，她躲起来（甚至换了个名字），开始寻找自我。她最终偶遇自己的孙子，他是个音乐家（流行歌手鹿晗饰演），于是她开始追求歌唱事业。她还得应付一个童年时期的佣人，那人对她念念不忘。

Mining deeper emotions from the fanciful premise doesn’t work out for the film, which gets tied down to a generic musical-contest subplot. It’s a workable comedy that’s sunk by its attempts to impersonate something else too.

这部电影没有从这个怪诞的幻想中挖掘更深的情绪，而是被束缚在音乐比赛这个普通的次要情节上了。这部喜剧本可以大有作为，但是因为想同时表现其他主题而变得平庸。