Multi-faceted analysis of the ending of the brain-burning sci-fi "Phone"! I guess there is a sequel

Ken 2022-02-07 14:57:14

Let’s talk about the perception first. When it comes to sci-fi films, there are soft and hard points. Generally speaking, it means whether the film focuses on “science” or “phantom”. As a tool to advance the opening of the magical event, the phone connects two protagonists at different times, and the story unfolds.

In fact, no matter whether the sci-fi genre is soft or hard, the most important thing is to have a self-justifying world view setting in the work. The logical self-consistency is more important than the hard core or not.

If you don't raise the bar on why a phone can change the future of "The Clue of Voice", you can continue to read it.

The film was originally released in South Korea in March, but was eventually sold to Netflix due to the delays due to the epidemic.

"The Clue of Destiny" is director Li Chongxian's first feature film. He is only 29 years old and has a formidable future. In 2015, he attracted attention for his short film "Body Value". The short film tells the story of a woman who claims to be a virgin and dresses up as a schoolgirl, and haggles with a man in a hotel room about the price of a bed, but it's not that simple. As the schoolgirl's phone rings, we follow her point of view. On the rooftop, it turns out that this is a more complex organization that sells organs.

From the short film "Body Value", you can feel that the director has a special preference for suspenseful reversal, and the same is true for "The Clue of Life".

Although "The Clue of Destiny" has the imitation of the classic sci-fi elements of other films, Li Chongxian does not exclude others who have used the setting routines for more than ten years. And as an entertainment commercial blockbuster, it looks pretty good.

"The Clue of Destiny" is actually an adaptation of Puerto Rico's 2011 "Call from Time and Space". This movie is still debated whether it is a fine film or not. Similarly, "The Clue of Destiny" is also being debated endlessly.

Quan Zhongrui, who was once amazing in "Burning", once again showed his superb acting skills for us in the film, especially the bloodthirsty and crazy image in the second half, the details of the tongue licking the upper lip, all make people feel shudder.

Although the rhythm of the first half is relatively slow, the second half begins to exert force, resulting in small climaxes. It is a type of movie worthy of recommendation.


Ending & Easter Egg Brain Analysis

In order to better analyze the ending and easter eggs, let's first clarify the world view of the film.

In the film, time moves in parallel. If the devil's side is November 18, 1999, then Shuyan's time is November 18, 2019, except that the year is 20 years apart, and the month and date are the same.

This explains the setting that the past changes and the future changes. In the film, Shuyan's father died in a fire on November 27, 1999. On this day, the devil rescued Shuyan's father, so the moment the future changed, it was also from 2019. On November 27, 2018, the change was made, and it became Shuyan's father who did not die.

But all this is only Shu Yan's memory has not been updated synchronously with the change of time, Shu Yan will always stay in the memory of the linear time she has experienced, which is the same as the character setting of "Butterfly Effect".

Regarding the easter egg, the first thing to explain is that the easter egg is not a branch of another ending, nor is it a so-called parallel time and space, it just fills the phone call received by the future witch in the decisive battle scene of the film.

And the other party of the devil's call is her 20 years ago, that is to say, the easter egg is just an extension of the ending.

Some people on the Internet use Schrödinger's cat theory to analyze the easter egg, uh... the film is not so hardcore, the easter egg is just an extension of the plot, Shuyan's mother and the devil fell from the second floor, in fact, neither of them died.

At this time, some people will doubt, since the devil did not die in the past, why did she suddenly disappear in 2019 when the devil slashed at Shu Yan? To solve this problem, we must first clarify the two major characters in the whole movie. Set the direction.

The character setting of "The Clue of Destiny" is currently divided into two directions. One direction is that this is a movie with a schizophrenic protagonist, and Shuyan and the devil are the same person. The other direction is that this is based on the phone as a time travel Call bridge, use this as the unfolding story.

In my opinion, both directions have their own self-consistent logic, which is also the most interesting part of the film for me.

Let’s talk about the first fine-grained protagonist setting. As mentioned earlier, “The Clue of Destiny” was adapted from Puerto Rico’s “Cross-Space Call”, which is regarded by many as a schizophrenic film.

In fact, it has also been hinted many times in "The Clue of Life". First of all, Shu Yan and the female devil are both 28 years old, and the palm print drawn by the female devil on the wall also coincides with Shu Yan's hand.

The first time the film changed the future was when Shu Yan's father was rescued.

Later, we also learned that Shu Yan actually turned on the gas and caused a fire at home, so Shu Yan at that time couldn't stand such a blow, she had hallucinations, and at the same time split into two personalities, namely Shu Yan's Kind personality and female devil.

Even Shu Yan's mother's brain tumor in the film may have been caused by Shu Yan herself, which may also be one of the factors that indirectly caused Shu Yan's mental personality split. When talking about the symptoms caused by the operation, there is a harsh tinnitus in the BGM of the film, which seems to imply the beginning of the intensification of Shu-yeon's finesse.

And other characters may also be made up by Shu Yan herself, such as the woman in the supermarket, the burned part of her leg is the same as the burned part of Shu Yan before.

So to interpret it according to the precise direction, the truth of the film is that when Shu Yan was a female devil personality, she killed her biological mother and adoptive mother, and then killed the policeman, the strawberry man, and the scavenger.

This also explains why when Shuyan and her mother were walking on the grave-sweeping road at the end of the easter egg, the disappearance of her mother did not arouse Shuyan's surprise, but she continued to move forward. This scene seems to indicate that Yan is a schizophrenic.

When the kind Shuyan personality in Shuyan's mind defeated the devil, Shuyan thought that her mother was with her, but when the devil in her mind woke up again, the future changed immediately, her mother disappeared, and the kind Shuyan personality was replaced by her. tied to a chair.

Of course, if you don’t agree with such a precise setting, there is no problem. Another more mainstream film is the setting route of the real two heroines, which will also make the sci-fi setting logic of the film more valuable.

According to the interpretation of the real two heroines, we will now solve the problem mentioned above. Since the devil did not die in 1999, why did she suddenly disappear when she cut down on Shuyan in 2019? This explanation has actually been shown too much before the film. times.

According to the aforementioned setting of parallel and synchronous changes in the past and present, after Shuyan's father survived on November 27, 1999, Shuyan reunited with her family on November 27, 2019.

But on the morning of December 31, 1999, Shuyan and her father went to the devil's house as a child. After the devil killed Shuyan's father, on the morning of December 31, 2019, Shuyan's father disappeared and Shuyan was lying In the tunnel, when she returned home, her home changed.

To sum up, the past will change instantly, and the future will change accordingly. The sci-fi element setting of “instant change” is very important.

So when Shuyan's mother and the female devil both fall from the building, the future will change accordingly. In 2019, when the female devil disappears, it is not that the female devil died, but the female devil chooses another way to live and fight against Shuyan's mother. Female.

Combining the ending and easter eggs, the ins and outs of the entire ending event should be like this.

After Shuyan told the devil to kill the scavengers in the past, the future has changed. The devil has been at large for 20 years, and the house has changed accordingly. The devil will live in that house forever.

Then the witch in 1999 called and answered her future self.

Note that time-travel calls can only be made from the past to the future, and the future cannot be called back to the past.

In the easter egg of the film, the devil of 2019 waited until the phone rang before answering the call.

In 2019, there was a scar on the neck of the devil's head, which also proved that it was left by her struggle with Shuyan's mother in the past tense, so the devil in 2019 warned that she might die in the past. Why use "maybe", in fact, this The lines are very strict, because the past can change the future, so the devil in 2019 cannot guarantee whether her warning can make the past survive by herself.

Some people here will question, since the devil already knew everything in the past, and the devil in 2019 in the easter egg also emphasized that you need to hold the phone tightly to change everything, but why was Shuyan's mother still got the phone at that time.

My understanding here is that the witch was careless at the time. The witch thought that as long as she sat next to the phone, there would be no problem, but Shuyan's mother picked up the phone rudely.

And the devil in 2019 probably didn't say the relevant details, which led to the development of the past according to the predetermined development, and changed the future, which is the ending we saw.

After Shuyan's mother and the witch fell from the second floor, we assume that it happened in the early morning of January 1, 2000. After that, Shuyan's mother woke up first, then left with her childhood Shuyan, and called the police, but Before the police arrived, the witch also woke up and fled the scene to hide, and the house was uninhabitable.

Changes in the past can instantly change the future, so in the early morning of January 1, 2020, the female devil disappeared instantly, and Shuyan’s environment changed instantly and became uninhabited. She immediately rushed to the cemetery to confirm whether her mother died. It turns out that the mother is not dead.

At this time, in the daytime on January 1, 2000, the female devil woke up and found Shuyan's mother and daughter again, and killed Shuyan's mother, which caused Shuyan's mother to disappear instantly in 2020 in the easter egg.

Some people would think that it was Shuyan's mother who was directly repairing the knife and breathing after the female devil woke up, thus causing the future mother to disappear. Although this statement is true, but the camera showed that when the female devil woke up, Shuyan's mother next to her had already disappeared. It's gone, so this also proves that Shuyan's mother woke up before the female devil.

However, what makes this scene a bit confusing is that there is actually a police corpse lying not far away, and it has disappeared. Could it be that after Shuyan's mother woke up, she not only left with her childhood Shuyan, but also carried the police corpse on her back?

One of the easter eggs is that Shuyan was tied up in the basement. This can be understood as the fact that after the witch killed Shuyan's mother in the past, she put her childhood Shuyan under house arrest, or the time jumped directly to 2020, and the witch took the book Yeon grabs it.

Of course, the reason why the easter eggs in the film are more realistic, I think it is to pave the way for the sequel, that is, the duel between the two heroines is not over yet, and there are some small holes buried in the film. For example, although the adoptive mother is superstitious, she can really calculate the female devil The head will become a serial killer, and when the adoptive mother "fortune-telling", there is also a picture of the female demon head killing in the future.

Maybe the adoptive mother is not necessarily talking to someone in the future, and there is no explanation for how the female devil's biological mother died. These are details that can be dug up in the sequel, if the film is a sequel.

good! The above is my superficial interpretation of "The Clue of Destiny". Rational discussions are welcome. After all, this is a film that focuses on entertainment business. It goes through the theme itself, especially within the world setting of the specific film and television work. Looking at it from a very harsh scientific point of view, there must be so-called bugs. I don’t think it is necessary to force too much. "The Clue of Voice" can interweave several typical sci-fi setting routines, and can also branch out in multiple directions. The logic of the film is self-consistent, and the filming can be tense and exciting. This is the biggest advantage of this commercial entertainment film.

If you have been out of film lately, you can consider this "Fate Clue".

View more about The Call reviews

Extended Reading
  • Deonte 2022-03-25 09:01:22

    Why does she have no memory of the past after the future has changed? This bug is too big.

  • Cameron 2022-03-19 09:01:10

    Can you call yourself 10 minutes ago and shut down when you see the first end credits?