The recent film industry can be described as "big thunder but little rain".
"Thunder loudly" refers to the lively movie market.
The box office of Spring Festival movies reached a new high, with works such as " Hot and Spicy ", " Speedy Life 2", " Article 20" and "Bear Infested" jointly becoming winners.
After the Spring Festival release, " Weekly Remove Three Evils " also became popular. This large-scale Taiwanese crime film triggered an upsurge of interpretation across the Internet. The box office has also been rising steadily. The final box office will exceed 500 million, which is a small hit. .
After "Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils", the Hollywood science fiction film "Dune2" is coming again.
"Raindrops are small" means that there are many problems behind the excitement.
"Hot and Spicy" is a "diet movie", "Article 20" is a "TV drama movie", "Flying Life 2" is "the least Korean Han movie", and "Zhou Chu Destroy Three Evils" is "suspected of plagiarism" Movie".
You will find that many box office hits are mixed with "stains" that have been criticized.
The artistry of Chinese films is weakening, while the product quality is increasing.
Directors have become "product managers" and know better how to manipulate the audience.
The box office success of some movies is essentially the same as the success of live streaming. This is a victory for marketing, not a victory for the movie.
We have noticed that 4 of the 8 movies released during the Spring Festival have been forced to be withdrawn. The audience's choices have been reduced, and everyone's standards for good movies are converging.
We noticed that Zhang Yimou started to make "small films" frequently, Wong Kar-wai started to make TV series, and Feng Xiaogang made "If You Are the One 3" and no one paid attention to it, and Chen Kaige's "Volunteers 2" was not released until the National Day this year.
We have noticed that the Hollywood blockbuster "Dune 2" failed at the domestic box office. With a Douban score of 8.3, the final box office was only over 200 million. The status of commercial blockbusters in China is becoming increasingly embarrassing.
After the severe winter last year, Chinese films seemed to be recovering, but in fact it was a false prosperity.
Fortunately, good news recently came -
's controversial director Wu Ershan has taken action.
Last year, his " Fengshen Part 1 " was finally released after many twists and turns, and it won 2.6 billion at the box office even though it was not optimistic.
While the second and third parts were in post-production, Wu Ershan began to prepare for the next work " Zheng He's Voyages to the West ".
The story of Zheng He's voyages to the West is well-known in China.
A story like this is also difficult to film.
will be criticized by various historical emperors if it is not shot well, but once it is shot well, this will be our own "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Wu Ershan worked hard. He consulted a lot of information and built the lucky ship that Zheng He drove when he went to sea at a scale of 1:100.
This model is lifelike. The placement of the ship's artillery, the internal structure, and the stairs used by sailors are all clearly visible, perfectly restoring the appearance of the ship more than 600 years ago.
Wu Ershan revealed that the filming of this movie will start at the end of the year. Many important scenes in the movie will be shot on the ship. The purpose of making this model is to understand the structure of the ship.
A glimpse reveals the whole thing. From this detail, we can get a glimpse of Wu Ershan's ambition to make a good blockbuster.
There are many excellent directors in China, and there are also many directors who can make epic blockbusters, but Wu Ershan may be the only pure "blockbuster director".
Other directors also make blockbusters, but they are not pure enough.
For example, Zhang Yimou has made blockbusters such as "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers" and "The City of Golden Armor", as well as small films such as "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles", "Three Guns to Surprise" and "The Thirteen Beauties" , alternately.
For example, Chen Kaige, who has filmed "The Promise", "The Legend of the Demon Cat" and "Changjin Lake", will also film "The Taoist Comes Down the Mountain", "Mei Lanfang" and "Search", switching back and forth between different tracks.
also has Feng Xiaogang, who has filmed "Assembly", "1942" and "Tangshan Earthquake", as well as "If You Are the One", "Private Order" and "Youth".
Making a movie is like eating. You have to eat one dish and one meal together. If you only shoot one type of movie, you will get tired creatively.
Only by shooting a high-mountain movie and a down-to-earth movie can you achieve inner balance.
Even Guo Fan, the "godfather of Chinese science fiction", also filmed the youth film "My Deskmate" before filming " The Wandering Earth ".
But Wuershan is an anomaly. From his debut to now, he has only made blockbusters.
The first film "The Sword Sees Laughter" in 2010 was limited by personal abilities and did not become a blockbuster, but it already had the prototype of a blockbuster. After that, all the movies are trying to become blockbusters.
2012's "Painted Skin 2", a fantasy blockbuster, ranked fourth in the box office of the year;
2015's "The Secret of the Dragon", a tomb robbing blockbuster, ranked second in the annual box office;
2023's "Fengshen Part 1", a A mythical blockbuster, ranked fifth in the annual box office;
this year's "Zheng He's Voyages to the West" is an adventure blockbuster.
If a director can only shoot one genre all the time, he must be able to continuously receive positive feedback.
Wuershan is the same.
The first few blockbusters he shot were well received. He went from one victory to the next, and his ambitions became bigger and bigger.
Until I filmed "The Trilogy of the Gods".
Wu Ershan worked hard to make this trilogy as a "domestic "Lord of the Rings"", and even aimed at the box office record in Chinese film history.
In order to make this film, he prepared for ten years. He spent three or four years polishing the script alone, another three or four years for filming, and another three or four years for post-production.
A proton troupe could have been played by young freshmen, but instead he found a group of unknown young people to play the role. He spent 2 years training them in horseback riding and archery, and surprisingly helped them develop a body of meat.
In the following years, Xiao Xianrou's personal designs collapsed, and many people lamented that if Wu Ershan had asked them to act in the movie, "Feng Shen" would probably not be released.
When Guo Fan was filming "The Wandering Earth", he came to visit the studio. He bluntly said that compared with "Feng Shen", "The Wandering Earth" is as simple as a small workshop.
Judging from the subsequent films, Guo Fan is not a compliment, "Fengshen" deserves such praise.
Wu Ershan has been sharpening his sword for ten years and finally made a trilogy. The
movie released a trailer at the end of 2019 and announced that it would be released in 2020. As a result, one unreasonable disaster followed another.
First the epidemic hit, and then the infighting among the top management of the production company led to a lot of scandals.
Natural disasters plus man-made disasters, any other movie would have been dead.
But Wu Ershan never gave up. During the four years it was hidden, the official account of the film continued to promote it. Every solar term would release posters with only one purpose: to tell the audience that "Fengshen" is still alive.
This move aroused ridicule from netizens.
Many people ridiculed "Fengshen" as China's "solar terms movie". It only has posters and no movie. It is better not to release it in the future and just publish a wall calendar.
No one knows how Wuershan spent these four years.
html’s 0 years of hard work was ruined and he owed huge debts. The new actors he signed were delayed because the movie could not be released. The reputation he had accumulated over the years was also likely to be ruined because of the film’s demise, and his career as a director may even end directly.When Wu Ershan recalled this experience in an interview later, he said lightly that he was ready to pay off the debt in ten years.
Eventually the epidemic ended and the haze dissipated. In July 2023, "Fengshen Part 1" finally got its chance to be released.
But now and then, the epic blockbuster that was highly anticipated back then has now become a clown that is ridiculed by the crowd.
Wu Ershan posted a long post specifically for the release of the movie, but what awaited him was that the whole network was disappointed.
I really don’t blame the public for this, because the timing of its release is indeed too special.
It will be released on July 20th, which happens to be the summer season.
Last year’s summer season was hailed as the “hottest summer season in history”. It produced many box office hit films such as “The Lost Girl”, “All or Nothing”, “The Octagon” and “30,000 Miles to Chang’an”.
"Fengshen" chooses this time to enter the game, and it is likely to become cannon fodder.
In addition, a visual blockbuster is very timely. Strictly speaking, "Fengshen" is a 2019 movie, and its release was delayed by 4 years. It is difficult for the special effects of that year to keep up with the times.
Because the producer is involved in a scandal, the mainstream argument on the Internet is that "Fengshen" is a money laundering movie. It is released to pay off debts. If it sells 1 billion, it will be a big profit. You must not be fooled into paying for a bad movie. Everyone has seen what happened after
.
"Fengshen" was released and surprised everyone.
html The special effects from 2004 are still shocking, the actors' performances are all online, the restoration of history is very good, and the film is extremely complete.Although there are certain flaws in the plot and special effects, such as Jiang Ziya, Nezha and Yang Jian being reduced to a trio of errands, and Lei Zhenzi's special effects are shocking, the flaws are not hidden, and this is still a sincere work.
More than 20 years after the release of "Hero", "Fengshen" has regained the glory of domestic historical epic blockbusters.
This is reflected in the box office and reputation. Its Douban score is 7.7 points, and it is currently stable at 7.8 points.
's box office was initially predicted to be just over 1 billion. After starting with negative word-of-mouth and zero publicity, it relied on its excellent quality to complete a counterattack, and the box office soared to 2.6 billion.
But the disaster is far from over.
The huge sales of "Feng Shen" moved other people's cheese, and a storm of public opinion against Wu Ershan soon came over.
Someone exposed the controversial remarks about race made by Wu Ershan during the promotion;
Some people questioned Wu Ershan's use of the actor who played Daji with personal goods;
Someone revealed that Wu Ershan had a bad relationship with the actor, and all "Closed" were removed. Actor of "God";
These black fists formed a combination and hit him with only one purpose: to kill Wu Ershan.
During that time, Wu Ershan was frequently pulled into the center of the whirlpool and turned from a famous director to a "traitor" overnight.
Fortunately, he was not afraid of his shadow. Later, CCTV personally stood up to support him, and Wu Ershan was freed from this public opinion storm.
"Fengshen Part 1" has come to a perfect conclusion amidst continuous controversies. The post-production of the second and third parts has begun. Wu Ershan feels like "the boat has passed the ten thousand mountains".
Most people who experience this kind of shock will not be able to recover for a while. At least, they have to take a break for a year and a half to wait for the storm to completely pass.
Even if he gets some rest and returns to his position as a director, he will probably make two more relaxed movies to regain his energy and relax his mind.
After all, "Feng Shen Part 1" has already established its reputation, and the next two parts can easily earn billions.
But Wuershan’s choice is to fight to the end with the blockbuster.
In fact, as early as April 2022, when the fate of "The Trilogy of the Gods" was still uncertain, he was already preparing to shoot "Zheng He's Voyages to the West". On April 6 of that year, the film crew released the title poster.
What kind of motivation can make a person reach the bottom of despair? Instead of making short-term and fast small productions to pay off debts as soon as possible, he still wants to make an epic blockbuster?
I think it must be the love for movies, the persistence of blockbusters, and the persistence of feelings about family and country.
Wu Ershan is not a traitor as netizens have smeared him to be. He is a director who truly has great love.
At the end of this year, the filming of "Zheng He's Voyages to the West" will officially start. Post-production will be carried out next year and it will be released in 2026.
is full of success, and it has been nearly 5 years.
According to current news, this series of works will invite Wu Jing, and Chen Kun to star.
One is the hottest actor at the moment, and the other is Wu Ershan’s beloved general. God knows what kind of legendary story Wu Ershan will make.
China does not lack pure directors.
For example, Jia Zhangke insists on shooting rural movies, Wong Kar-wai insists on shooting petty bourgeoisie movies, and Ning Hao insists on shooting comedy movies, but they all stick to small films in the traditional sense.
only has the purity of Wuershan, the purity of a blockbuster movie, a kind of self-torture.
Of course it’s great to make a blockbuster movie. Grand narrative + heroic epic + protagonist’s aura + visual spectacle, each one is enough to make every filmmaker excited.
But behind the high returns of blockbusters are high risks.
's ultra-high investment + all-star lineup + ultra-long production cycle + personal expression that is suppressed everywhere, every link has extremely important pressure.
If there is a problem in any link, the movie may fall into an abyss of destruction.
Wuershan succeeded, but almost failed.
He fell into an abyss, and then got up step by step, patted the dust on his body, washed away the splashed sewage, and set foot on the original road again, with thunder in his chest and a flat lake in his face.
In today's economic downturn, the film market is changing rapidly, and almost all filmmakers are playing conservative cards.
remake and plagiarism, family fun, laughter with tears, large-scale heavy taste, over-marketing and over-interpretation, winner takes all.
Over the past period of time, we have witnessed and participated in too many strange current situations in the film industry.
This mainstream track was already overcrowded and traffic jammed, but Wuershan relied on his lonesome courage to embark on another path as a director. He has been on this path of
for more than 10 years and will continue to do so in the future.
We believe that Wuershan will carry the banner of Chinese blockbusters.
He will use his perseverance to prove that no matter how the times change, there is always a power that allows people to enter the theater again and again to experience the visual experience and inner shock that only the big screen can bring.
This is the core reason why the movie has become the core of the movie, and it is also the fundamental reason why Wuershan can get back up after all the hardships.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Yi Li Ji
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