Author: Pang Hongbo
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, 13 domestic films were released, making it a battleground for domestic films. And with the movie market falling all the way, it seems that the Mid-Autumn Festival is urgently needed to strongly drive the market up.
Judging from the Mid-Autumn Festival period, although most of them are small and medium-cost domestic films, there are also some topical films that can drive a recovery in the market. However, judging from the performance on the first day, it was still somewhat disappointing. According to data from Maoyan Professional Edition, the total movie market yesterday was 98.568 million, which is a natural increase compared to the previous days of about 30 million. However, on Teacher's Day, the market total was 102.537 million, which shows that the performance during the Mid-Autumn Festival was also difficult to handle.
The summer movie Douban score of 5.78 has become the target of complaints, and the decline in the quality of domestic films has become an indisputable fact. The Mid-Autumn Festival is reserved for domestic films, which naturally becomes a "parade" to test the quality of domestic films. However, the reputation of most movies is still poor, especially the three films known as the "Three Kingdoms" in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although "July and Ansheng" has a good reputation when it is screened, it is not favored by most people because of its potential to be hacked. However, since the first day of viewing, this film has become the best-received film on the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and is considered by many to be a rescue film for youth films.
1. The "Three Kingdoms Killing" is not powerful enough, and each hidden danger breaks out at the same time?
On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, "Westward Journey 3", "The Murderer" and "Anti-Corruption Storm 2" were jokingly called the "Three Kingdoms" during the Mid-Autumn Festival by many movie fans. The three works are the most eye-catching during the Mid-Autumn Festival in terms of topicality and attention. The first-day scheduling ratio of the three films accounted for 48.4%, which shows the box office appeal of the three films. But judging from the performance on the first day, it was shocking.
As the final chapter of the "Westward Journey" series, "Westward Journey 3" is naturally highly anticipated by the audience. With the high popularity and good reputation of its predecessor, it was once considered the most "successful" film in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although it became the box office champion on the first day as expected, the box office result of 41.182 million cannot be called excellent. The Douban score of 5.5 also makes it hard to escape the reputation of "ruining classics". "Westward Journey" has Stephen Chow's very strong personal style at its core. It should be said that they are works that complement each other. As the final chapter, the film's cast underwent a major change, and the removal of Stephen Chow once became the biggest hidden danger to the film's success. Judging from the performance on the first day, this concern became a fact. Fans expressed their dissatisfaction with the lead actor, thinking that the acting was stiff and uninteresting. "Westward Journey" was re-released in China in 2014. The box office performance was not satisfactory. Many people believed that the film quality was not gimmick, and it was difficult to achieve success relying on emotions. In this film, the producer announced early on that 90% of the film's shots were supported by special effects. However, when the core selling point of the film was insufficient, the special effects also became the target of criticism.
"The Chaser" had the highest screening ratio among all movies yesterday, reaching 21.2%, but in the end it only delivered 13.7996 million, ranking third among all movies that day. In terms of reputation, it did not reach the reputation it had when it was screened. Instead, it was criticized by movie fans because of the deliberate plot and strong sense of design. Many movie fans expressed disappointment that Cao Baoping lacked the sincerity of "Heart of the Burning Sun" and seemed to "take Ning."A hands-on work based on Hao's script. ”
"Anti-Corruption Storm 2" is undoubtedly the one with the worst reputation among the "Three Kingdoms". It is believed that it only added a lot of action scenes based on the first part and lacked highlights. There are serious concerns before the screening that there is a serious ceiling for such themes, and there is not enough room for action in mainland screenings. Judging from the movie reviews, this is indeed the case.
As three small- and medium-budget domestic films, they were not optimistic from the beginning if they wanted to help the "quiet as the dead sea" September box office out of decline. However, these three films, known as the "Three Kingdoms" films in the Mid-Autumn Festival, collectively failed. Both the box office and word-of-mouth failed to meet expectations, which is somewhat surprising.
2. The production team behind "Ageless" has changed the traditional youth film model. Is it a "dark horse" in the manufacturing industry?
There are four production companies behind this film: Geek Pictures, Alibaba Pictures, Jiaying Pictures and our production. Among them, Jiaying Pictures and our production have close ties with Chen Kexin, and Chen Kexin also serves as the producer of this work. Judging from this film, it is difficult not to think of Peter Chan's early films.
Today in June, Jiaying Pictures held a new culture conference in Shanghai and announced that in the next two to three years, it will create an A-level platform for creating "good Chinese movies" and become a cutting-edge high-quality film and television content output source for Chinese-language movies. Among the "super partners" convened by Jiaying Pictures, Chen Kexin is among them. Among the super film lists released by Jiaying Pictures, "July and Ansheng" has also attracted much attention. Our production company was founded by Peter Chan's creative team. From the production team, this film has a deep imprint of "Johnny Chan".
Kevin Chan himself is a very delicate director who is good at shooting such works. His "Sweet Honey" has become a classic in the hearts of a generation, and "If Love" is Chen Kexin's first work in the mainland. The two films express the emotional entanglements of the female protagonists heartily and vividly, and there is always a transcendent surprise in the expression of love.
The keywords cited by fans for this work are: Annie's Baby, domestic youth film, two heroines and best friends, Xiao Qingqing, each of which is the hardest hit area by hackers and has full potential. Although the film has all the elements of a domestic youth film, the film cleverly adapts the character and ending of the story to make the film appear more layered and in-depth. Among them, it is undeniable that Chen Kexin played a very important role.
The reputation of youth films has seriously declined in recent years, and many people believe that youth films have entered a bottleneck period. The production team behind the film obviously made a positive attempt at domestic youth films, telling the story in a rich and detailed way. Peter Chan, who once refused to be the director of "July and Ansheng" because he felt he was old, and four young companies created what many movie fans and industry insiders called "a surprise masterpiece of the year."
3. The young male director who “understands girls best” has produced an “annual surprise” masterpiece?
When talking about the film's director, Tsang Kwok-hsiang, the film's producer, Peter Chan, joked that he "knows girls best"uo;'s director. After watching the movie, I found that this is not unreasonable. The director retrieved the female narrative that had been lost for many years and almost perfectly interpreted the emotional relationship between best friends.
The most praiseworthy thing about this film is that it goes beyond the thickness of youth films and is delicate, rich and deep. The film contains many philosophical concepts of life choices and the exploration of the meaning of life, making it seem more substantial than ordinary domestic youth films.
When the director first revised the script, he hoped to express the concept of "exchanging lives." But Peter Chan thinks this idea is too "intellectual" and "too pretentious". However, Qiyue and Ansheng in the movie are originally two sides of their personalities. In the movie, Qiyue and Ansheng did exchange lives, but the director did not act pretentious or intellectual. It was precisely life circumstances and time that pushed the two to different choices. By telling the growth story of the two people over more than ten years, the film focuses on the subtle and delicate emotions of the two girls during their growth, and provides a relatively excellent interpretation of the emotions between best friends.
Another big surprise in the film is the unanimous praise for Zhou Dongyu's acting. Zhou Dongyu broke through her previous screen image, and her smooth and comfortable performance won her unanimous recognition. They all believed that this would become another masterpiece of Zhou Dongyu. There is a complete contrast between Zhou Dongyu's docile and pure lady image and the crazy yet warm Li Ansheng in the film. Zhou Dongyu's interpretation of this image is very vivid, which surprised many people. The film has started a "word-of-mouth dominance" mode since it was screened, but it was once left out in the cold because of its inherent image as a movie label and its competitors. However, since its release, the reputation has remained the same, which is enough to see the success of this film. Although the film's box office results are not particularly satisfactory, for today's domestic films, only by improving their quality can they achieve stable development. The reason why the three films known as "Three Kingdoms" performed disappointingly is that the core competitiveness of film quality is fragile. "July and Ansheng" not only counterattacked during the Mid-Autumn Festival to become a word-of-mouth masterpiece, but also became the opening film of the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. "July and Ansheng"'s positive attempt in domestic youth genre films has paid off, and it is also a surprise for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
