韓國熱門影片《奇怪的她》之後 陳正道的《重返20歲》

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年韓國熱門影片《奇怪的她》(Miss Granny)一樣，陳正道的《重返20歲》屬於那種通過神奇逆轉人物年齡講述人生教訓的類型片。不像《辣媽辣妹》(Freaky Friday)，這部影片沒有身份互換，而是七十多歲、嘮嘮叨叨的婆婆沈夢君在去了一個神祕的照相館之後變回了20歲時的模樣。

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.

一開始，這部有着糖果色彩的電影把很多笑料都放在沈夢君身上，她長着流行歌手般的漂亮面孔，卻仍用假正經、挑剔的眼光看待世界。70歲時的沈夢君由老戲骨歸亞蕾飾演，但是真正有趣的是飾演20歲沈夢君的楊子姍，她可以拿老年人脾氣暴躁、愛嘮叨這種老套劇情大做文章。她弓着腰，不滿地四處張望，拿走商場裏每個攤位上的免費樣品，未經請求就主動給一個年輕媽媽大講育兒之道。

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.

陳正道曾執導熱門中國影片《催眠大師》。不過，在《重返20歲》中，他其實也講述了一個關於自我實現的傷感的家庭故事。重返青春之前，沈夢君和心愛的兒子（一名教授）以及他的家人住在一起，但是變身之後，她躲起來（甚至換了個名字），開始尋找自我。她最終偶遇自己的孫子，他是個音樂家（流行歌手鹿晗飾演），於是她開始追求歌唱事業。她還得應付一個童年時期的傭人，那人對她念念不忘。

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.

這部電影沒有從這個怪誕的幻想中挖掘更深的情緒，而是被束縛在音樂比賽這個普通的次要情節上了。這部喜劇本可以大有作爲，但是因爲想同時表現其他主題而變得平庸。