The Spring Festival season has long ended, but four new films (the other four have been withdrawn) are still continuing their previous hot streak. Surprisingly, "", which had previously dominated the single-day box office during the Spring Festival for eight consecutive days, was beaten by "" and "" on its tenth day of release on February 19. "Flying Life 2" surpassed it and only ranked third. As of February 29, the single-day box office of "Hot and Furious" has never surpassed these two films. Despite this, after 20 days of release, the film still grossed 3.339 billion yuan at the box office, beating the 3.146 billion yuan box office of "Flying Life 2" directed by Han Han, becoming the biggest winner. Counting the 5.413 billion yuan in box office of "Hello, Li Huanying" directed by Jia Ling in 2021 after its release during the Spring Festival that year, Jia Ling has currently achieved an astonishing box office of 8.752 billion yuan with just two works. This is not only She is the only female director in the Chinese film industry. Even in the world film industry, only Greta Gerwig, the female director of last year's hit " Barbie ", ranks ahead of her in terms of career box office total. Jia Ling is said to be the world's best film director. She deserves the title of "Second Box Office Sister" in the world.
The film meets the viewing requirements of the Spring Festival movie
It was an accident once, but there must be a certain reason behind it topping the box office for the Spring Festival movie twice in a row. Zhi Feina, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Arts, believes that this is first of all because the film has chosen a suitable schedule. In her opinion, the Spring Festival schedule is not a "professional" schedule because it has to take care of more than 100 million people on a maximum scale. Regarding the cultural consumption needs of the number of viewers, “a large part of them are low-frequency moviegoers who only watch movies once a year, such as the elderly who occasionally reunite with their children, and returnees who go out to work, etc.” It is required that Spring Festival movies must first have a "highly identifiable" label. This label attribute can allow audiences to buy tickets with confidence. Secondly, the film should not be too heavy in form and should fit the theme of family reunion and fun during the Spring Festival. In addition, the film should not have too high a threshold for artistic expression and should be understandable by ordinary people. Finally, it is necessary to express emotions so that the audience can have a sense of empathy and empathy, and be able to "take the seat". Among the four new Spring Festival films, "Article 20" has a serious theme, "Flying Life 2" is a professional racing-themed movie, and " Bears: Reverse Time and Space " mainly targets children. Only "Heat" is a movie with a serious theme. "Hot and Spicy" all meet the requirements mentioned above. "This is true for "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Hot and Spicy". The emotional core can arouse empathy and recognition from most viewers."
Professor at Shanghai Film Academy, Shanghai University Cheng Bo believes that there is a potential "intertextual relationship" between the two works "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Hot and Spicy". For example, after "Hello, Li Huanying" was released that year, Jia Ling made a promise during the promotion period, "If the box office exceeds 3 billion yuan, I will lose weight and become a piece of lightning." She really did it in "Hot and Spicy". She first gained 40 pounds and then lost 100 pounds. Not only that, the boxing vest of Du Leying, played by Jia Ling in "Hot", also has the words "This is Li Huanying's daughter" printed in English, connecting the emotions of the two films together. At the same time, the cast and creative teams of the two films also overlap. This kind of "resonance" at different levels will undoubtedly greatly improve the recognition of the film, giving viewers who have watched "Hello, Li Huanying" the urge to watch "Hot and Spicy" again.
Precise topic marketing detonated the box office
"What detonated the box office of "Hot and Spicy" is undoubtedly marketing." According to Jiang Yong, a film market expert, as early as "Hello, Li Huanying", the film team had precise marketing in the film For example, when "Hello, Li Huanying" was released, the family story of Jia Ling and her deceased mother Li Huanying was repeatedly told and exaggerated on various major platforms. When it came to "Hot and Spicy", although Jia Ling emphasized on different occasions that the film It is not a movie about "weight loss". She prefers that the word that appears on the hot search is "love yourself". However, judging from the actual effect, the topic "Jia Ling lost 100 pounds" still hits the hot search many times and becomes a topic that attracts many people. The main reason why female viewers go to the cinema.Later in the release, when Jia Ling was a guest on "A One Day Trip with Lu Yu", she also disclosed her "slimming recipe". Jiang Yong believes that the marketing popularity of "Hot and Spicy" during this year's Spring Festival has completely overwhelmed several other films. "In the short video era, the role of film marketing is becoming more and more important. The release of a large number of short videos has increased the popularity of the film." The topic has a 'snowball' effect, getting bigger and bigger."
"Because of Jia Ling, the 'wall-breaking' effect of "Hot and Spicy" is obvious." Cheng Bo believes that to some extent, "Hot and Spicy" " can be regarded as a "reality show" movie. "The movie breaks the boundaries between characters and actors, reading experience and life experience, reality and fiction. Because Jia Ling's positive star effect has completed the previous Chinese movies in this regard. Clear exploration, which has formed a good support for market response and word-of-mouth effect."
"Jia Ling's box office myth" is difficult to copy
"Hot and Spicy" currently has a Douban score of 7.8, which is higher than "Article 20" 7.6 points and 7.7 points for "Flying Life 2". The film is adapted from the Japanese film " 100-yen love ". With the release of the film, the film also received some negative reviews. For example, some netizens believe that based on the character and performance of Du Leying who appeared earlier in the film, it is completely impossible for her to transform into the boxer she later became, and the emotional logic of the character changes abruptly. Some people also think that Du Leying is actually surrounded by "scheming people". This setting itself has problems. The film does not find reasons from Du Leying herself, which is not objective. Nie Wei, a professor at the Shanghai Theater Academy, also believes that if "Hello, Li Huanying" is an explanation of the youth of the mother's generation "looking back", "Hot and Spicy" is an explanation of the youth "in front of you". "The film focuses on the inspirational story of 'Looking in front of you', which is the director's sincerity towards the audience and the sophistication of catering to the market. But after 'Looking in front of you', you still have to 'look forward', and how to discover, understand and tell the youth group's move forward" Looking at the real life and daily struggles, domestic films still have a long way to go to create better youth films that share common sense and empathy."
The success of "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Hot and Spicy" at the box office is undoubtedly due to many It is beyond the reach and imagination of the film producers and creators. Can "Jia Ling's Box Office Myth" be replicated? Will there be a swarm of movies with this theme appearing on the market in the future? Will Jia Ling's emergence change the ecology of the Chinese film market in the future? It has also become a topic of concern to many viewers and netizens.
In this regard, Yin Hong, vice chairman of the China Film Association and professor of Tsinghua University, gave a clear answer of "no". He believes that the change in people's mentality under the general social environment is one of the reasons supporting the sales of "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Hot and Spicy". In recent years, even the once-popular Hollywood superhero movies have ceased to be blockbuster hits, and social trends are changing. “Judging from the summer season in recent years, audiences are paying more attention to real society and life. Everyone I hope I can see more of the present from the movie and draw some inspirational power from it." Jia Ling's two movies not only closely connected the story with real life, but also achieved the ultimate in publicity points. "This is very difficult and difficult to copy."
Yin Hong believes that compared with " The Wandering Earth 2" and " Chang'an Thirty Thousand Miles " and other works that pay more attention to the innovation of film industrialization in form, "Hello, Li Huanying" "Hot and Spicy" is another form of "industrialization". "Actually, there are also many high-tech applications in these works, but they are not like the high-tech pursuit of big scenes in the past. Instead, they are more integrated into telling stories and writing characters. The overall industrialization level of Chinese films in recent years is undoubtedly It’s improved."
