First comes a set of data. As of writing (0:00 on February 18, 2024), according to statistics from the Maoyan Professional Edition, the box office of movies during the 2024 Spring Festival exceeded 10 billion, including "Hot" and "Flying Life 2" ”, “Bear Infested: Reverse Time and Space” and “Article 20” are temporarily among the top four box office releases. Among them, “Hot and Spicy” directed and starred by Jia Ling has won a market share of more than 2.74 billion.
Before writing this article, I must admit one thing. I have not gone to the cinema to watch "Hot and Spicy", and I probably will not go in the future, because I have a good impression of Jia Ling as early as her last work "Hello, Li Huanying" was completely defeated.
Jia Ling started out as a sketch actor. She studied under Feng Gong, the famous sketch actor who dominates the Spring Festival list all year round and says "I miss you so much". However, Jia Ling became popular not because of the sketch, but because of a parody show on a certain satellite TV.
At that time, Jia Ling relied on the energy of "not afraid of being ugly and not afraid of scolding" to find her own way in the imitation show. As a result, she was recognized by more and more audiences. Many people were skeptical about Jia Ling's performance. Most of the good feelings probably started from that time. After becoming popular, Jia Ling continued to participate in many programs and was active on the screen as a "comedian".
has a saying. Jia Ling’s external conditions are not very good. She was relatively pretty in her early years. Later, under the advice of an expert, she decided to take the "full" route. Unexpectedly, the effect was good. After all, such appearance belongs to " Harmless to humans and animals”, no one would be very disgusted. To be honest, Jia Ling's status today has a lot to do with her "full" and "joyful" image.
Just when Jia Ling had accumulated a lot of goodwill from the audience, she felt it was time to reap the rewards, so "Hello, Li Huanying" made her debut as a director. At that time, the audience generally had a good impression of Jia Ling. Including me, I bought a ticket and went to the cinema to support it without thinking. However, after watching it, my feeling was just average, and there was an indescribable feeling. It feels like it's just about catching the audience's tears and forcibly sublimating it, without any actual content.
"Hello, Li Huanying" later successfully won a box office of 5.4 billion, ranking second in Chinese film history, and became a phenomenal movie. In general, although "Hello, Li Huanying" is barely passable, its ability to win such a high box office is beyond everyone's expectations, and Jia Ling's reputation has slowly grown with this movie. Slowly sliding down.
html After 2003, Jia Ling made a comeback with "Hot and Spicy". It still used familiar marketing routines and overwhelming advertising, using "Jia Ling successfully lost 100 pounds" as its selling point. It only won the first prize in the prime time of the Spring Festival in one week. With a box office of more than 2 billion, it seems that it is only a matter of time before "Hello, Li Huanying" is broken.
However, there are also many problems that come with it, that is, Jia Ling made a big mistake, that is, excessive marketing. As we all know, "Hot and Spicy" is a "borrowed" movie, as it bought the Japanese copyright, and "Hello, Li Huanying" is also rumored to be "borrowed" from a Korean movie.
As a result, more and more audiences are very disgusted with Jia Ling's "borrowingism". If even such "borrowed" movies can win box office championships one after another, then what future does Chinese movies have? There are more and more second-rate directors like Jia Ling and Bao Beier.
What’s even more embarrassing is that the film schedule of “Hot and Spicy” ranks first among major theaters, but in fact the audience attendance rate is not good, and the box office is just piled up. At the same time, because they could not get more film shares, many excellent original films, including "Let's Shake the Sun Together" and "Mr. Red Carpet", announced that they would withdraw from the Spring Festival schedule and re-release them at another date. This is a typical " Bad money drives out good money."
To be honest, Jia Ling's works have some merit, but not much. If they had a box office of one billion, it would be reasonable. Now that she has dominated the list for two Spring Festival slots, there must be a problem. Why do theaters give her the film schedule? It’s really hard to tell what kind of interests are involved. After "Hot and Spicy", Jia Ling's goodwill from the audience that she has accumulated over the years will probably be lost in one fell swoop, and she will never make a lot of money so easily again.
Finally, the higher the box office of "Hot" is, the more it shows the failure of Chinese movies. Any Japanese movie that "learns" from it can win the box office championship in China. It is really embarrassing abroad. Anyway, I will never watch any of Jia Ling’s works again.
