In the film industry, Zhang Yimou's name is undoubtedly a golden brand.
However, the great director's latest masterpiece " Article 20 " encountered a waterloo during the Spring Festival. It ranked last at the box office among several blockbusters released, and even lost to "The Bears: Reverse Time and Space".
In addition, the film's reputation is also polarized, and it is not outstanding during this Spring Festival.
What is the reason why this highly anticipated blockbuster has been overshadowed? In fact, the reasons for failure are nothing more than the following three points.
First of all, I have to mention the strong competitors.
Shen Teng's " Flying Life 2" and Jia Ling's " Hot and Spicy " were strongly released during the Spring Festival, and their reputation and recognition by movie fans are extremely high.
These two films have achieved great success at the box office with their light-hearted and humorous plots and deeply rooted character performances.
"Flying Life 2" continues the passion for racing in the previous game, while "Hot Hot" unfolds an inspirational story from a female perspective. Coupled with Jia Ling's weight loss, "Hot Hot" is simply a dark horse.
In contrast, "Article 20" appears to be heavy in subject matter, making it difficult to stand out in the joyful and peaceful Spring Festival atmosphere.
Secondly, "Article 20" has obvious flaws in the narrative logic, which is also one of the important reasons for the box office failure.
Certain plot points in the film were baffling and difficult for the audience to understand. For example, Lu Lingling, played by Gao Ye, lacked the rationality of early "character creation". Hao Xiuping, played by Zhao Liying, forced the criminal police captain to find the murder weapon by jumping off a building.
This kind of unreasonable and incoherent narrative, coupled with the failure of character creation, made the audience feel confused and dissatisfied during the movie viewing process, thus affecting the reputation and box office.
Furthermore, "Article 20" places too much emphasis on individual heroism.
In works of this type of subject, individual heroism will not be recognized and popular. After all, it is very different from the concept of a lone hero. The magic weapon for winning in this type of subject is the gathering of firewood by everyone.
I think Zhang Yimou was careless about this.
In addition to the above three major reasons, "Article 20" also has certain problems in marketing and publicity.
During the fiercely competitive Spring Festival period, major films are vying for schedule and audience attention. "Article 20" is relatively low-key in terms of publicity and lacks sufficient topicality and popularity, which also puts it at a disadvantage in the box office competition.
As a senior director, Zhang Yimou has created many classic works, but the failure of "Article 20" undoubtedly sounded the alarm for him. Even if
replicates the team of " Azolla " and replicates the same efficiency, as long as the polishing is not careful, Guoshi's works may still be abandoned by movie fans.
After all, it is difficult for a film like "River Red" to become a hit, so wanting to do it again is obviously overthinking.
Looking back on Zhang Yimou's director career, we can find that his works have diverse styles and a wide range of themes.
But the failure of "Article 20" also exposed his possible limitations in dealing with certain themes.
Issues such as how to balance the complexity of the plot and the audience's understanding, how to create a real and credible character image, and how to convey correct concepts require the director to conduct in-depth thinking and exploration.
Of course, we cannot deny Zhang Yimou's directorial talent and past achievements just because one work failed.
believes that he will continue to bring us more excellent film works in the future.
As for the audience, we should also maintain a rational and objective attitude, not only appreciating excellent works, but also making comments and suggestions on shortcomings.
But no matter what, it shouldn't be a big problem if "Article 20" has a box office of over 1.5 billion. From a profit-making perspective, Zhang Yimou is still the winner.
