Author | Wei Jian
2 days 800 million, the box office growth of " silently kills " has greatly exceeded pre-release expectations, and the summer season has finally been ignited.
The public opinion field is equally lively. The Douban score of "Silent Kill" dropped from 6.9 to 6.6. The negative reviews focused on the fact that the film had a mixed bag of issues and was "full of buffs", but failed to address any of them well. The five-star review praised its large scale and "enjoyed watching".
The setting of all villains, mixed and sharp social issues, "large-scale" sensory stimulation, coupled with the constantly reversing plot, it seems that this 2-hour movie can be regarded as a movie every five minutes if cut out alone A collection of paid skits.
If last year's summer movies " The Disappearance of Her " and " Desperate " were successive hits, it can also be attributed to the return of everyone's enthusiasm for suspense crime films. Now that the plot is mixed and the scale is larger, "Silent Kill" can already be watched. In the post-epidemic era, mainstream audiences prefer the new generation of "spectacle" blockbusters: uses social topics as an introduction to provide the most straightforward sensory stimulation. This new spectacle movie is also the most attractive "emotional movie" to the audience at the moment.
In the Chinese film market, the role of "spectacle" is becoming more and more important. Jia Ling in the Spring Festival film " is hot and hot " actually provides a kind of "physical spectacle" that is difficult to replicate, and goes with the current feminism Narratives trigger the most heated discussions and intense emotional conflicts.
ai Illustrated by Entertainment Capital Theory
The success of "Silent Kill" has pointed out a highly potential industrialization path for current suspense crime films: instead of polishing the script for several years with uncontrollable results, it is based on Real events and "spectacle movies" full of visual stimulation are more efficient refreshing machines.
"Silent Kill" is adapted from director Ke Wenli's own debut film of the same name. Because the lead actor was involved in a scandal, that debut film was only screened at film festivals. In February this year, "Silent Kill" started shooting in Malaysia and wrapped in April. It only took half a year from the start of shooting to the release. Although it was foreshadowed by the previous work, the speed was still shocking. The concentrated display of specific spectacles such as campus bullying, burying people in flower gardens, and hammering people not only provides a starting point for short video marketing, but also increases the ticket purchase conversion rate.
Some people may worry that this kind of movie that constantly piles up spectacles will one day cause fatigue to the audience. As Douban's praise short review said, "Silent Kill" has given Chinese movies a strong dose of medicine and "is more like an overdraft therapy for the movie market." But before that, the most important thing is to let the audience in and let them experience an experience in the cinema that is difficult to replicate in other social venues.
At least on this point, "Silent Kill" did it.
"Silent Kill": a short drama movie
In the corridor of a girls' school on a small Pacific island, Xiaotong (played by Wang Shengdi) was "nailed" with glue by four girls like the suffering Jesus. On the wall, the mouth is glued The paste was applied bit by bit, and the whole body could not move. The classmates passing by looked at all this with cold eyes and did not lend a helping hand.
After the scene of constant bullying, mother Li Han (played by Zhang Junning) rushed to the scene, crying and "tearing" her daughter off the wall, and cutting off her long hair that was so sticky that she couldn't comb it.
The camera turned and the three bullies went to play in an abandoned castle. With the terrifying BGM and constant flashbacks and jump scares, they were each taken turns being beaten with a hammer by a mysterious man in a black raincoat. die.
Five minutes of bullying and ten minutes of counter-killing. "Silent Kill" grabs the audience's attention at the beginning with an extremely fast pace and bloody shots of hammers hitting heads.
Director Ke Wenli once said that the original inspiration for this film came from a social news: a mother was looking for her missing daughter, and finally her daughter’s mutilated body was found under the bed in the criminal’s home. But while the criminal was killing people, everyone in the building heard the noise, but they were indifferent.
Perhaps it is because it wants to show the theme of "banality of evil". The suspense of the whole film is not strong. Not only can the audience easily guess the murderer at the beginning and know the murderer's modus operandi, the film even reveals it directly in the middle of the film. The answer. Later, multiple issue elements supplemented the plot, creating a short drama-style movie with constant reversals and surprising audiences, but like the short drama, the theme was not clear.
Through several protagonists, the film involves many highly social issues. Li Han and his daughter Xiaotong are still suffering from domestic violence. The policeman Dai Guodong and his son Wu Wang are the pain and tracking of the original family. Youth crimes revolve around principals, collusion with power and money, fraudulent donations and other issues.
The logic and characterization of the entire movie are in the service of "reversal".
The image of the protagonist Li Han has gone through multiple reversals. At first, she was a loving mother who loved her mute daughter and even worked in school, and then she became a vicious mother who domestically abused her daughter. In a twist of events, she ended up being raped by her husband. Violent poor man. Not just Li Han, every main character in it is assuming a mechanical reversal function, constantly giving the audience a "hook" to keep watching.
Another feature that attracts viewers is the large scale.
After the bully died, he was wrapped in plastic and hung in the auditorium for public viewing. Li Han found the heads of three bullies in the black garbage bag discarded by Lin Zaifu. Lin Zaifu's daughter Huijun was bullied to death. She fell straight from the roof of the auditorium and was covered in blood.
These large-scale visual scenes appear frequently in movies, coupled with exciting BGM, creating the atmosphere of a B-level thriller.
Most of the clips do not directly advance the plot. Their greatest use is to continuously flash back in the plot, provide sensory stimulation, and are cut into short segments with quick cuts to achieve one million likes after another on the short video platform.
The stacking of issues, frequent reversals, and concentration of miracles. Countless tips have been found for the film’s marketing. Among the 6 videos on the official TikTok of "Silent Kill" with more than 1 million likes, four are intercepted clips of school bullying of Xiaotong being glued to the wall. Three videos with 200,000 likes were produced under the topic #无杀王传君为 Female Heavy Hammer Bullying#.
Director Ke Wenli is like a new generation of product managers, firmly grasping the current audience's preferences.
The setting of all villains avoids the cliché of police and gangster narratives. Even solving puzzles does not require a police perspective. The whole process relies on Wu Wang's candid human surveillance to provide key evidence and solve all puzzles.
The seasoning of comedy elements is also sprinkled in. Teacher Cai Ming was responsible for at least ten minutes of laughter, and she is still the classic image of "Sister Ma, an idler".
Finally, the "mysterious smile" of the little girl in "Detective Tang 1" was added to complete the last big twist of the film: it turns out that Xiaotong is the final boss who controls everything, causing the audience to enjoy the movie after leaving the scene. Review the details and restore the logical line from another perspective.
Compared with anti-bullying, the presentation of direct bullying clips is obviously more out-of-the-box. People remember these exciting scenes and feel as curious and exciting as watching pornographic news. Perhaps in order to emphasize the theme of "anti-bullying", on July 11, the official launched the "Bringing a Wreath of Roses to Anti-Bullying" activity, but this kind of attention to real social issues is obviously not as good as taking the lead and having your head covered with rose thorns. It's the spectacle of blood that makes it exciting.
On the Douyin challenge list, the "Silent Killing MVP Famous Scene Challenge" that imitated Xiaotong's last smile attracted 27 million views, while the "Wearing a Rose Garland to Fight Bullying" only had 6 million views.
Compared with suspense, "Silence" is more like a thriller, with blood everywhere and direct jump scares. As much as it is a "feeling" film, it is simple, direct and effective.
To a certain extent, there is a lot of overlap between the audiences who love watching "Silent Kill" and those who love watching short dramas. They get direct sensory stimulation from the bizarre and reversal of events. The audience tries to escape from the real world in this spectacle experience, even if Only two hours.
The 3.0 Era of Spectacle Movies
From last year's "Vanishing Her" and "Despite" to the success of this year's "Silent Kill" summer release, the importance of "spectacle" has become more and more prominent.
Scholar Mulvey observed the shift from narrative to spectacle in films in the 1970s. From the inequality of gazes on women in pornographic films, she proposed that "narrative gives way to the visual spectacle of the scene." Scholar Zhou Xian pointed out that spectacle is "extraordinary images and pictures with strong visual appeal, or fantasy images and pictures created with the help of various high-tech film means."
The most typical spectacle movies are action movies, Gunfight movies, with their physical spectacle, have brought out action stars like Stallone, Jackie Chan, and Schwarzenegger. It can be said that compared to acting skills, the presentation of their body movements is the key to their ability to star in the film.
But the market for such spectacle films has shrunk significantly. Today's Hong Kong action movies are a typical example. The main creator hopes to use more realistic explosion scenes and real martial arts action as selling points, but the audience has obviously experienced aesthetic fatigue. It is difficult to attract more audiences to the theater with more grand scenes and fist-to-flesh action. Just this summer, " Customs Front ", which has "action blockbuster and visual effects spectacle" on the cover of the poster, only had a box office of 127 million.
The other category is the Hollywood-style speed spectacle and spectacle that once sold well in the Chinese market. The "Fast and Furious" series and Marvel's superhero series both belong to this category. The spectacle of speed not only refers to the rare daily movement speed shown in the film, but also refers to the editing speed of the splicing of the pictures. The spectacle of the scene includes natural landscapes and science fiction blockbusters focusing on visual effects.
Before the epidemic, this type of spectacle film had always been among the top five in the domestic film market. "Avengers 4" grossed 4.2 billion domestically in 2019, and "Fast 8" ranked second on the domestic box office list in 2017 with 2.67 billion. Superheroes in fantasy settings, extreme speed and fast editing satisfy people's expectations for spectacle. These movies will also be criticized by fans for having simple and clichéd narratives, but the distinctive characters, clear story lines, and imagination of fantasy settings have not affected them from becoming blockbusters loved by mainstream audiences.
But since last year, this type of Hollywood-style spectacle movies has clearly begun to show signs of weakness in the domestic market.
"The Vanishing" and "All or Nothing" under the suspense crime genre became the biggest winners of last year's summer season. Their common feature is that is based on vicious social events and represented by direct sensory stimulation, which triggers the emotional resonance of the audience and forms A new generation of "wonders".
The "Exotic Wife Killing" in "The Vanishing She" corresponds to the recent Thai wife murder case. The freak show satisfies people's curiosity about the legend of disappearances in Southeast Asian locker rooms, directly stimulating the audience's adrenaline and gaining instant pleasure.
"Desperate" is based on anti-fraud. Brainwashing slogans, fear of restricting personal freedom, and sexy dealers dealing cards online form people's deepest stereotype of the electronic fraud industry chain in Southeast Asia. This spectacle is extremely efficient at pulling the audience into the venue. According to Beacon's 2023 annual report, the trailers for "All or Nothing" that have the highest conversion rates are all clips showing the wonders of the "Fraud Factory".
From last summer to the end of the year, a series of suspenseful crime films were released one after another. The selling point posters on the ticket purchasing platform all used "large scale" and "reversal" as keywords. " rescues the suspect " and " rescue the suspect " which focused on extreme reversal. "Minors watch with caution" "Wide the Angry Sea", which has a selling point of real pain and large scale, has received more than 500 million in box office.
Source: Lighthouse Pro
There are similarities in the marketing of such movies. The poster had to say "Minors watch with caution", and the short video of the reaction where the audience covered their mouths and eyes, all hinted at the scale of this movie. On the short video platform, the "spectacles" that most arouse discussion among the audience are repeatedly edited and released, and even cause competition to imitate and continue to build momentum.
However, not every story based on real events can gain market recognition. " Wandering Blade ", which was released in May, also had the theme of "revenge for women" and focused on the sentencing issue of "underage crimes", but the box office was only less than 90 million. The film focuses on the process of how the father, played by Wang Qianyuan, seeks out the murderer for revenge. In the end, there is no "real" revenge shot. It is neither exciting nor surprising enough, and there is no direct discussion of real issues.
Suspense crime spectacle movies also have their own upper limit. At present, such movies between 1.5 billion and 3 billion are still very scarce. Compared with last year's two 3 billion+ movies, "Silent Kill" still lacks a direct converter with "educational" significance.
For example, the official website of "The Disappearing Her" released a series of short videos "Li Muzi's Diary" with 570 million views, allowing the audience to enter the victim's perspective and allowing the video to have a certain "educational" significance, that is, it was circulated at the time A very wide "must read for those with a love brain".
"Desperate" relies on the spectacle of the "Electronic Fraud Factory" to present the slogan of "more people watching the movie, less people being deceived", so that young audiences are willing to buy tickets and bring their families to the theater, and ultimately go for a box office of 3 billion.
The success of these movies has revealed the audience’s demand for short-drama-style “joy movies”, and the “spectacles” they expect have gone beyond the action movies and visual effects blockbusters of the past to social-themed, sensory-stimulating movies. To represent the 3.0 era.
The long board is long enough to attract the audience.
Since this year, the correlation between Douban score and box office level has become increasingly weak.Domestic films " Stop and Go " and " Let's Shake the Sun Together ", which have Douban ratings of 8.0, have box office receipts of 100 million+ and 200 million+ respectively. The importance of fan reputation is declining sharply, and public preferences need to be re-examined.
"Silent Kill" provides a case worthy of reference by the industry. Even if the suspense elements are insufficient and the characterization cannot be explored in detail, as long as the large-scale picture is comparable to a B-movie, it can attract a specific audience. The Beacon Professional Edition report shows that the proportion of suspenseful crime themes in two-person movie viewing is second only to romance movies, and the proportion of same-day ticket purchases for suspenseful crime movies is also higher than the same period in the market, indicating the demand for such movies by couples and passers-by. still exists.
Source: Lighthouse Professional Edition
In the audience’s evaluation system, reversal, reality, and rhythm are more likely to be praised, and this is the characteristic of "Silent Kill". There are enough reversals and the rhythm is fast enough, and the audience does not even need to interact with them. The characters in the film empathize. The most important thing when watching a spectacle movie is to detach yourself from the other. As long as you watch all these spectacles as a bystander, your sensory needs are truly satisfied during the movie viewing process.
In addition, if there are enough plot twists that most viewers can still recall it after leaving the scene and discuss the details on social media, the film's natural popularity can be maintained. As for whether the theme is unified and whether the characters have grown, it is not that important to the mainstream audience of most suspense films.
Source: Beacon Professional Edition
Understand what the audience wants and what they can give. "Silent Kill" does not dwell on vague artistic innovation, but uses professional and efficient "product manager" thinking to make a solid commercial film. , this choice is not brave, but it is indeed pragmatic and useful.
Movies, as a commodity, have clear selling points, the industry chain from top to bottom is fully operational, and the audience has returned to the cinema. This is a good start.
