’s New Year’s Eve movie schedule, which just ended, looks lively, but the actual quality and reputation are mixed. Apart from suspense-themed films in Hong Kong, youth romance films have the highest box office.
"Twinkle Twinkle Star" starring Qu Chuxiao and Zhang Jianing, has a box office of over 400 million, but it has a very poor reputation, with a Douban score of only 6.3. Fans of the drama have to run away after watching it.
In addition, the 2021 movie "Your Wedding" was re-released in theaters, and the box office successfully exceeded 800 million.
In May 2021, "Your Wedding" was already the pre-sale box office champion and the consecutive single-day box office champion during the May Day period. But I really didn’t expect that this film would be re-released in 2024.
At that time, a new director and a new actor, among a group of veteran actors in the film industry, could stand out and make a lot of money just by relying on the overwhelming short video marketing. Let’s talk about this movie again today.
[1]
During the pre-sale promotion period of the movie, the main gimmicks were "Xu Guanghan", "Youth" and "Tear-Jerking". After the film was released, topics such as "Your Wedding Is So Crying" and "Your Wedding Is So Sad" have continued to be trending on Weibo and short video platforms. Many viewers burst into tears in the cinema, and comments showed that they were moved by the "love lines".
Some painful lines have been circulated as golden sayings, "If I could grow up early, I wouldn't lose you"; "You told me personally that you would never make me sad"; "In my youth, everything "My happiness is all given by you" "The only thing I don't regret is being with you"...
In the film's promotional slogan, the painful sentences were also bolded and bolded, "Why did you lose it so much?" Love her”.
The audience cried uncontrollably and shed tears on all major social network platforms. "I hope my ex-boyfriend will watch this movie and let him know how he lost me."
To be honest, the harder they cried, the more they cried. , I want to laugh even more. This tearful film can be summarized as: the 15-year self-impression of a dog-licking boy.
Zhou Xiaoqi, played by Xu Guanghan, is a brash schoolboy who loves to fight. Because he fell in love with the beautiful heroine at first sight, he started a long 15-year pursuit. The heroine You Yongci is a top student who transferred to another school. Because she is too beautiful, she is pursued by almost all the boys in the school.
The story of a bad student and a goddess begins like this. It was You Yongci's birthday. Zhou Xiaoqi learned that she wanted to watch fireworks, so he set off fireworks on the rooftop of the dormitory and shouted "Happy Birthday" to her. Even though the heroine didn't know where the fireworks came from, she didn't know the existence of the hero that day.
From high school to college to work, the two of them separated and reunited due to various misunderstandings that were not clearly explained.
After graduation, Zhou Xiaoqi became a professional swimmer and invited You Yongci to watch the most important game of his career.
Whenever the director foreshadows a "most important" moment, he knows that what follows will not be simple. Sure enough, when a typhoon happened, the heroine was trapped on the road. The hero, who was already standing in the swimming pool, chose to give up the game and run to the goddess at the moment the whistle blew. Isn’t it only a matter of a minute or two to swim? In order to show his infatuation for the goddess, director
deliberately created many "obstacles from the sky": the competition encountered a typhoon, and the male protagonist gave up the highlight of his career. Turning around, in order to create obstacles, the male protagonist hurt himself for the goddess, which led to the ruin of his sports career...
In the eyes of some female viewers who entered the cinema by mistake: Is there something wrong with the male protagonist's brain?
Does the heroine really want him to give up and hurt himself to express his love for her? From the director's perspective, she wants it. Zhou Xiaoqi's self-motivating dedication finally influenced the heroine little by little. After he was injured, the heroine took the initiative to kiss him and fell in love successfully.
Since the title of the film is "Your Wedding", of course it is be. However, the reason why the two broke up was that the heroine accidentally heard the hero say "I'm afraid I will regret it." So she didn't listen to the explanation, didn't ask sincerity, and firmly stated that there was no future for the two of them.
got together because of a natural disaster, fell in love because they were touched, and broke up because of a misunderstanding. Everything was promoted by the screenwriter's golden finger. What is suspension, this is it.
[2]
Throughout the movie, Xu Guanghan is the male protagonist, making sacrifices and sacrifices on one side, and the female perspective is missing.
From the beginning to the end, the heroine You Yongci, who is a perfect academic beauty, is pursued by the male protagonist and other boys in the same school, but the director never shows her true perspective and thoughts.
She paid attention to the scumbag male protagonist because she was being pursued. Because of the self-destructive care she received from the scumbag, she shed tears of gratitude and fell in love with the male protagonist.
We don’t know what the heroine likes and appreciates about him, nor do we know at what moment the heroine fell in love with the hero. Everything is just the director’s imagination. Even her name was chosen as "You Yongci" in order to match the male protagonist's love of swimming.
The character of the heroine is completely untenable. She was born in an unfortunate family. Her father was violent and the family moved many times.
It stands to reason that this should be a character like Chen Nian in "Young You". He is working hard and full of things. He values the college entrance examination more than anything else and is waiting to be independent and away from his family after going to college.
But she is full of contradictions. The so-called "student master" character is only given a few scenes of learning, and then turns around and goes climbing walls, skipping classes, and eating barbecue with the bad-school male protagonist. It is so heartless. very. You said she is a pretty and willful Bai Fumei, and I believe it.
In fact, it’s not just the female protagonist. Except for the male protagonist’s perspective, all other characters in the movie are blurred. There is no mention of who the male protagonist's parents are or what his family upbringing environment was.
Several brothers, I can’t even remember what they look like, what their personalities are, and their careers, let alone the specific entanglements in these youthful friendships, and how the adult world after they grow up is different from the friendship between teenagers. The director has no idea. involved.
only gave a few scene shots like short videos, swimming, running, and riding in a car to attend the heroine's wedding, which were blunt laughs. Just a tool man.
The so-called youth scenes are very sparse. One of the highlights was when Xu Guanghan set off fireworks on the rooftop of the dormitory. The boys downstairs confessed their love to the girls in the girls' dormitory one after another, causing a sensation.
In fact, there has long been controversy over this way of openly expressing love in the downstairs of the girls' dormitory. Many boys make public confessions without knowing whether a girl likes them. I think this is something that is very cost-effective and can use public opinion to get girls to agree.
The girl's feeling is: Embarrassing, you are touching yourself. However, this mask-like drama has become a representative of romantic college life under the arrangement of the director's song "Fairy Tale".
But even this superficial youth film still made many people shed tears. Some girls watched this film and took on the perspective of being pursued by a handsome guy, or began to lament, "Youth owes me Zhou Xiaoqi."
But everyone, wake up. In the director's mind, only the perfect campus goddess can receive this kind of treatment. There are boys who take on the perspective of pursuing the goddess. No matter what the other person needs, by stalking and causing guilt and sympathy to the other person, everyone can be moved, euphemistically called "youth".
please also wake up, the result of this is not to gain love, but to lick until you have nothing. Xu Guanghan, who had a 20-meter filter in "Want to See You", appeared in such a film and was directly criticized for being criticized.
[3]
Popular short love movies like this have become successful not just once or twice.
"I'm Waiting for You at the End of Time", with a rating of 5.5, and a box office of 500 million; "A Story More Sad Than Sad", with a rating of 4.8, and a box office of over 900 million; "The Ex 3: Goodbye Ex", a rating of 5.5, has a box office of 1.9 billion, and all members are not The "Tiny Times" series that exceeded 6.0 reached 1.8 billion; this year's "Twinkle Twinkle Star" exceeded 400 million and continues to rise.
These romantic movies are popular not because they have a good reputation, but because they always use short videos to do self-impressive marketing, and use routines to earn cheap tears from the audience again and again.
What are cheap tears? As Li Chengru said when commenting on Guo Jingming's films, "You cannot use cheap brushstrokes to generate widespread resonance." Bad love movies like
are very similar to today's short videos. They only have a moment of touching moments produced by routines, without real life details, let alone some insights about love.
After reading it, cry for a while and forget it. "Your Wedding" is called "The Girl We Chased Together in Those Years" 2.0 by many people. To say this is a bit insulting to "Those Years".
Although "Those Years" is also a youth film from a male perspective, what is commendable is that his portrayal and foreshadowing are delicate enough. Although the mainland does not have such fresh school uniforms as theirs, it still has the throbbing, ambiguity and random collision of the ignorant period. are common.
The details of the campus drama are the blue dots poked out on the white shirt, the useless math questions that need to be done together but need to be tested, the fallen leaves that cannot be swept away when cleaning, and the mobile phone that has no signal during the earthquake.
Many Taiwanese romance films, such as "Those Years", "Blue Door", "My Girlhood", etc., are not very sophisticated, but at least they are solid in life style and details, and are not annoying. Not to mention, as a youth drama, "Want to See You" directly wraps humanistic care in infatuated love.
In recent years, there have been no domestically produced romance films. Songs adapted from "About Winter", "The Next Us", "Gardenia Blossoms", "You at the Same Desk", etc. are all replicas of the painful youthful love in some non-mainstream eras. Men and women love each other to the death, and there is an eternal alliance. , abortion, cancer, heart-breaking but unrequited true feelings.
Does it really make sense that romance movies can’t be made? The classic love trilogy "Love Is" series uses details and dialogue to show the different stages of love. After falling in love at first sight, the two parties experienced throbbing, falling in love, separation, reunion and running-in, and moved towards different stages of life.
However, in China, it is difficult to produce good romance films. Domestic directors don't seem to be good at making romantic movies, and the audience doesn't seem to need a good romantic movie. Filmmakers only care about whether the routine can make money. With the support of overwhelming marketing, romance movies are a tried and tested money-making routine.
And those couples who date on holidays do not really love movies and want to learn something from romance movies. They just need a movie that allows them to go into the theater for a date, cry a little during the routine plot, and vent briefly.
Tears and emotions gradually become cheap under this premise. Speaking of which, isn’t it quite sad?
