Workplace comedy explores changing mindsets and social pressures

During the preparation of Make Zhonghe Great Again, a workplace comedy, director Dong Runnian and his creative team collected extensive material from workplaces, discovering that one of the most striking changes in recent years has been the shift in employees' mindsets.

In 2017, Dong began interviewing employees from a variety of companies, listening to their shared struggles, confusion and pressures at work. The interviews later inspired Johnny Keep Walking!, a box-office hit released in 2023 that grossed nearly 1.3 billion yuan ($192 million).

Many interviewees described a highly repetitive daily routine: taking the same subway train, ordering takeout from the same area, performing tasks similar to those of the previous day and scrolling through short videos that were often almost identical.

One interviewee described such a life as "being stuck in a black hole of a loop". The remark prompted Dong and his team to combine the high-concept fantasy of a "time loop" — a narrative device in which a character is forced to repeat a specific period — with the increasingly limited opportunities for upward mobility in today's workplace.

Recently, Make Zhonghe Great Again, a loose sequel to Johnny Keep Walking!, held a seminar in Beijing, bringing together the film's creators, industry insiders and researchers to discuss how the movie uses comedy to provoke deeper reflection on social issues.

Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, said the film represents a major breakthrough in expanding the comedy genre, strengthening its criticism and satire of workplace malpractice while retaining a foundation in realism.

Li Daoxin, a professor at Peking University's School of Arts, said the film makes a positive contribution to exploring new narrative approaches in Chinese realist cinema and broadening the concept of realism. He added that its portrayal of "Chinese-style relationships" offers profound insight into the underlying philosophical concepts and mechanisms through which society operates.