Start a pan-Asian drama company? Chen Kexin's third creative migration

2022-10-17 03:50:15 movie 1438℃

Introduction

Recently, director Chen Kexin has a new trend. He announced the establishment of a pan-Asian production company, Changin'Picture, which does not rely on internal entertainment capital and platforms, but instead raises funds from Asian channels to develop and produce original content and sell it to streaming media platforms. At present, the company has signed contracts with a number of Asian film and television creators. It is expected to shoot 5 episodes in the first 4 years of the company's establishment. The 5-episode short drama "The Case of Killing a Husband in the Sauce Garden" directed by Chen Kexin and starring Zhang Ziyi and is one of them.

- Asia-Pacific achievements of streaming media + strong output of Korean wave-

adapted from Jiang Feng's novel "Reversal of the Case" The movie "The Case of Killing a Husband in the Sauce Garden" was approved twice, but was stopped by Chen Kexin in 2017, and he gave The reason is: "Now is not the time to shoot big-budget literary films, and the box office cannot be guaranteed." This adaptation into a suspenseful thriller short drama may save Chen Kexin a lot of worries and stop being tied up.

Changin'Picture Another work that has attracted much attention is Donnie Yen 's fantasy action drama "The Loser, The Hidden Master" , which tells the story of an Asian-American who discovers Hong Kong martial artists by combining their memories, martial arts Skills are imprinted on strangers, secretly continuing the story of the bloodline. Donnie Yen is quite excited about the collaboration, where he will be the producer and action director. And this fantasy story with Chinese imprints in cross-cultural genes is reminiscent of Michelle Yeoh and Wu Yanzu for Disney+'s new drama " Meisheng Chinese ", the market space for this type of theme is getting more and more Being valued by streaming media platforms.

However, before these two works are released, Changin'Picture will be the first to launch two Korean dramas adapted from web comics, one is the high school action drama "ONE: high school heroes" , and the other is in line with the current trend. BL theme drama "Class 2 Li Xishu" . Obviously, Chen Kexin's content strategy is to set sail from the Korean drama . Recently, he appeared at Busan International Film Festival . When talking about Korean works, he said that he likes "DP: Deserter" and "Ball Ball Game". , the former is launched by Netflix, and the latter is launched on Apple TV+.

Chen Kexin from the Busan Film Festival

We can all see the strong exportability of Korean film and television. In recent years, with the blessing of streaming media platforms, Korean film and television have been promoted and recognized in the European and American markets and even in the global market. " Parasite " won the Oscar, " squid game " is a big hit all over the world, when the big flowers basically have no new works, Tang Wei has gained a very successful cross-cultural experience with "'s determination to break up ". In this regard, Chen Kexin said in an interview: "Korean dramas have proved that people all over the world do not only watch English. If you watch Korean dramas, why not watch Chinese dramas? In fact, the previous market for Korean dramas was the market for Hong Kong-made films. We Why can't we take back the Korean drama market?"

compared the declining Hong Kong dramas and Hong Kong films, the transformation and revival of Taiwanese dramas are also inseparable from the entry of streaming media platforms such as HBO and Netflix, " The distance between us and evil " " Hua Deng first appeared on " and other dramas are products of this period. In fact, five years ago, Chen Kexin had the idea of making an online drama . After all, online dramas can bypass the cinema and have many advantages such as multiple markets, low trial and error costs, and a long narrative space. In the post-epidemic era, online dramas The advantage of being less limited by viewing time and space is magnified, and the popularity of Asian content on streaming media platforms has given Chen Kexin the confidence to export based on Chinese culture and Chinese.

It is worth mentioning that Chen Kexin'sThe production company is currently planning to shoot copyrighted dramas , which means that they will be sold to streaming media platforms after the filming is completed, rather than customized dramas where the platform invests money and has the final say. The budget for each episode is as high as 2.5 million US dollars. , but also face the risk of not recovering the cost. Of course, the strict selection and reserve of good scripts and creative talents can hedge the risk to a certain extent. The ultimate test is the quality, internationalization and uniqueness of the content.

- Migration and the Possibilities of Chinese Dramas-

The fact that Chen Kexin opened a pan-Asian production company is surprising but not surprising. In 2000, Chen Kexin established Applause Pictures, a production company that took the pan-Asian route, and produced films such as the "Hell" trilogy, "Golden Rooster", "Midnight", and "Spring Die". Chen Kexin also thought about making Ha Jin's novels. "Waiting", a love story during the Cultural Revolution, was abandoned because the work was not approved. In addition, Chen Kexin is a director who has been migrating physically and mentally, from Thailand to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to the north, this turn is his third creative migration . Every migration of

brings about changes in style and context, and 's growth full of migration and wandering is also the creative motif of Chen Kexin in his blood. " Tale of Two Cities " takes place in Hong Kong and the United States. " Sweet Honey " is about the love of two young men and women who work hard from mainland China to Hong Kong. One of the male and female protagonists of "If Love" is Hong Kong youth who came to Beijing to study directing, one is a Hunan girl who dreamed of acting as an actor, and the early protagonist has a strong imprint of Chen Kexin's growth. It finds its own position in the formed triangular space. It is conceivable that Chen Kexin will like the Korean drama "The Game of Pinball", which tells the story of the long migration of Korean immigrant families from South Korea, Japan to the United States.

In 2002, after the box office of " Hero " reached 250 million, Chen Kexin saw the size of the mainland market and began to think about it. He gave up the pan-Asian route and planned to go north. Supervised the production of " October Siege ", and it didn't take long for " Martial Arts " to encounter Waterloo. At that time, directors were all wrapped up in blockbusters, misfortunes and blessings, and the failed Chen Kexin got away and turned to cooperate with mainland screenwriters to shoot He released his more handy and more local reality films "Partners in China" and " Dear ".

At the same time, Chen Kexin is also doing his own production business. In 2009, Chen Kexin established "We Produce" and hatched two "Dereks" like twins-directors Zeng Guoxiang and Xu Hongyu , " July Films such as An Sheng and Love You are all produced by the company. Chen Kexin's second migration journey has yielded a lot of achievements, and the structural dilemma of sports movies has also brought a lot of consumption to his filmmaking. Since 2014, Chen Kexin has only had one " win " to meet the audience.

And now, under the tide of streaming media, Chen Kexin went around and picked up the pan-Asian route he had imagined, but this time, started from genre dramas, a field he had never set foot in . "Now that we have reached a fork in the road, there is only one way to entertain audiences and writers." Chen Kexin expressed his affirmation of the former in the interview, but the problem is that in the field of film, Chen Kexin's considerations have always been business, literature and art. Expression and sense of the times and society "want everything". He is a centrist who is always entangled. Even in the era of blockbuster films in China where the box office is often billions, his films have not exceeded 1 billion. The preferences of the town youth are completely congenial. The ideal is very good, but what is worrying is whether Chen Kexin, who is always in the "middle", can break through the "extreme" and mature genre of Korean dramas, and how long it takes for the transition of thinking and context to the drama after making movies for many years .

Of course Chen Kexin has his own unique advantages, that is, open integration. Japanese director Iwai Shunji 's first work "Hello, Zhihua" in China was inspired by Chen Kexin.As a result of the invitation and encouragement, Iwai was one of the directors who participated in Chen Kexin's Pan-Asian route in the 1990s, and Chen Kexin's life experience in many places and multilingual communication also allowed him to join more Asian creators, three well-known Thai Directed by Banjang Bisindanagang ("The Medium"), Natav Pempiria ("The Genius Gunner") and Bodepan Wangpan ("The Hate Label"), two Korean directors Kim Ji-woon ("The Hate Label") "Rose, Red Lotus") and Xu Qinhao ("Spring Die") are both Chen Kexin's partners.

, as a "comer", both Korean and Taiwanese dramas have successfully got rid of the path dependence of romantic love idol dramas, and have evolved the tentacles of realistic themes and genre dramas, while domestic dramas still can't get out of the routine cycle of sweet pets and ancient puppets. . If Changin'Picture's drama breakout can be successful, it will undoubtedly be good news for Chen Kexin and Chinese dramas.