"Everyone has a unique password, and this life is the process of decryption." - excerpted from a sentence written by Chen Sicheng in the easter egg of the movie " decrypted ".
After two years, after "Mozart in Outer Space ", Chen Sicheng, the third largest commercial box office director in China, finally has a new work out, and this is "Decryption" which is currently in theaters.
After many rounds of screenings, this film still failed to ignite the mainland theaters. It premiered on August 3 and was poorly received. It lost to Shen Teng's " " and finished second. Considering the cost issue, It is very likely that you will lose money again this time.
So, what is the final box office trend of the movie "Decryption", and what is the quality of the movie?
1. Box office: Chen Sicheng failed to block Shen Teng.
This summer’s summer schedule is so underwhelming. Compared with last year, it’s like heaven and earth.
There were many popular movies last year, such as "The Disappearance of ", " in the Octagonal Cage", "Chang'an 30,000 Miles", "Fengshen Part 1", "Hot", "The Meg 2" and "All or Nothing", etc.
But this year has been really miserable. Starting from the end of June, the summer season is already halfway through. Currently, only two films, "Silence" and "Catch Me", are performing well.
Several films with high hopes have failed one after another, including Nicholas Tse's "Customs Front ", Jackie Chan's " Legend ", Wu Ershan's "Under the Stranger", and Marvel's "Deadpool and Wolverine" "And so on, but failed to create a ripple.
Entering August, the hope for a good start is pinned on Chen Sicheng's new film. However, the cold reception of "Decryption" at its premiere made no one expect that this time, Chen Sicheng completely failed to stop Shen Teng.
First, compare the detailed data on August 3.
As of press time, Shen Teng's "Catch a Baby" has used 27.5% of the film schedule in exchange for nearly 80 million single-day box office. The total score has officially exceeded 2.6 billion, and the attendance rate has reached 10.8%, once again winning the single-day box office Box office champion.
Although "Decryption" defeated Zhang Ruoyun's " Safely Evacuates from the 21st Century" on the first day of release, with 23.6% of the film schedule, the premiere only collected more than 40 million at the box office, which was half of "Catch a Baby" At the box office, the attendance rate was only 7.1%.
Secondly, predict the box office.
Since the release of "Catch a Baby", it has defeated many films in the period and won 19 single-day box office championships. It finally aimed at 3.5 billion and won the 2024 summer box office championship. There is almost no suspense.
Before "Decryption" was released, the box office forecast given by the ticketing platform was 600 million to 1 billion. On the first day of the large-scale opening, the box office was predicted to be 500 million. If the premiere attendance rate cannot be increased, the film schedule will be blocked by others. The film has replaced, and it is very difficult to counterattack.
is finally the roadblock.
Careful movie fans must have discovered that the sequel to the big animated IP "White Snake 3" and Xu Zheng's " Retrograde Life " have also started screening activities recently. Either of these two new films has exploded in word-of-mouth, and "Decryption" 》 are fatal.
At that time, "Catch a Baby" had been released for more than a month, so it had little impact on it.
Therefore, no matter how you compare it, "Decryption" cannot reach the box office height of "Catch a Baby".
2. Film review: Although defeated, it is still glorious!
The plot summary of "Decryption" is as follows:
The male protagonist of this film is called Rong Jinzhen, played by Liu Haoran. He was raised by a foreigner who interprets dreams. His mathematical talent is based on dream interpretation, and he was later adopted by his uncle in Nanjing. adoption.
His adoptive father Rong Xiaolai (played by Daniel Wu) is the president of a university and a master of mathematics who studied abroad. Through the recommendation of his uncle, he entered Zhijing University, where he met his enlightenment mentor, Shee Yi, played by John Cusack. Sri Lanka.
thus opens the door to password unlocking.
On the eve of the founding of New China, the teacher was forced to evacuate Nanjing and went to the United States. He wanted to engage in computer big data research and development. The teacher was going to take Rong Jinzhen with him. At this moment, something unexpected happened.
After that, the two began a ten-year duel...
Interpreting from the movie title, "decryption" has two meanings.
refers to simply deciphering passwords. is a battle without gunpowder. Once it is successfully deciphered, it will save many lives and can turn the tide at a critical moment.
Rong Jinzhen’s two decryptions corresponded to two major events in modern Chinese history. "
The second refers to the psychological decryption between Rong Jinzhen and his tutor.
In a chess duel, he had a chance to win, but the teacher inadvertently stole a piece that was eaten. Mathematics geniuses often think logically Too meticulous, this missing chess piece allowed the teacher to turn defeat into victory.
used this introduction to pave the way for the teacher to dig holes for him later.
Rong Jinzhen spent his most beautiful years in 701 from the age of 22 to 32, specializing in work. He had a special job and lost his most precious freedom. In the past ten years, he only went out once to save his adoptive mother and sister.
His daily job was to deal with passwords. Everything was arranged, including his love and life. Marriage, personal emotions and communication are completely missing, and correspondence is handled by superiors.
The teacher and adoptive father proposed two concepts of "home and country". One is ordinary, surrounded by family, mountains and rivers. This is. His country, his home; the other is cultural inheritance and sovereignty integrity. When necessary, you must take up arms to defend your homeland.
"Decryption" combines "Inception", "Oppenheimer" and "Oppenheimer". Me and My Motherland " is a personal biography and tragic film, interspersed with the feelings of family and country. It is the highest quality among all Chen Sicheng's films.
Brother Fei personally gives it four and a half stars, 8.5 points, and is worth recommending.
Although the box office of "Decryption" is not satisfactory, Chen Sicheng is proud of his failure this time. This film should go abroad and be released in North America if it is distributed well.
The cost is 300 to 500 million, and Chen Sicheng will lose. Money.
At the movie premiere, Chow Yun-fat said: "After so many years, tonight I finally saw a movie that has truly gone global. "
Wang Baoqiang said: "Chen Sicheng has spent all the money he earned from making movies over the years on movies. "
Yes, the budget cost of "Decryption" is as high as 500 million. It is a real large-scale film. The reason why it is so expensive is mainly reflected in two aspects.
First, the film is similar to Nolan's "Dunkirk" 》Like, shooting with imax cameras. Movies in format are very expensive. Depending on the model, the cost of imax official cameras ranges from 40,000 to 2 million US dollars.
In addition, shooting with imax cameras requires the purchase of each camera. 3 minutes of film costs US$1,000. There are only 12 machines in the world officially manufactured by imax, and the rental price is as high as US$160,000 per week. The wide-angle lens of
can capture people at close range without deformation. Of course, it makes imax shooting. The cost is much higher than the production cost of traditional movies.
Secondly, there are a lot of special effects shots in the movie
. Rong Jinzhen has ten dream scenes, such as red beach, huge walrus, huge computer, and three seats. The collapse of the Ferris wheel, the moving deep wall maze, the walrus man on the train, etc.
These dreams require real money to create. The film quality is great, especially Cao Yu's photography is so shocking, and the sound effects are also top-notch. .
Wu Ershan's "Fengshen Part 1" cost 800 million, the two parts of "Changjin Lake" cost 1.3 billion, and "The Wandering Earth 2" cost 65 million to 70 million US dollars in Hollywood. , it can only be regarded as a medium investment, but in China it is a top-notch large-scale production.
Chen Sicheng dared to be so generous because the expected box office of "Decryption" was between 3 billion and 3.5 billion. But the reality is cruel, and the premiere was not successful. The predicted box office is only 500 million. The pressure to recover the capital this time is huge, and the probability of losing money is extremely high.
4. Chen Sicheng has to wait another 2 years if he wants to surpass Tsui Hark.
Well done Chen Sicheng!
He has two major box office codes: Southeast Asia's imaginary country and the suspense comedy style of "Tang Detective", but this time he did not use any of them. In my words, Chen Sicheng is creating a dream for himself and wants to find a new way through this movie.
I remember that in March this year, "Dune 2" premiered in the mainland. Director Denis Villeneuve came to China to promote it, and the first filmmaker he came into contact with was Chen Sicheng.
When talking about the style of the film, Villeneuve said frankly: "I haven't seen Chen Sicheng's movie, but many people have told me about your movie, and I will watch it when I get home."
Chen Sicheng is indeed very famous in China. But he has no reputation at all internationally. He needs a different movie to increase his popularity.
Chen Sicheng jumped out of his comfort zone and made a very serious movie.
The film is a bit abstract, especially the dream scenes, which may be half-understood by many movie fans. Indeed, if you want to fully understand the content of the dreams, you need to rely on film reviews to interpret them, and it is not easy to fully understand them in one go.
Currently, Chen Sicheng ranks third in terms of box office revenue among Chinese film directors. The first and second place are both well-known directors Tsui Hark and Zhang Yimou.
The box office of Tsui Hark's personal director, screenwriter and producer films reached 14.6 billion, while Chen Sicheng's score was 12.3 billion. The difference between the two was 2.3 billion.
Originally thought that Chen Sicheng could surpass Tsui Hark and win the first prize this summer with "Decryption", but now it seems that it is no longer possible.
follow-up, Tsui Hark has "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero", and Chen Sicheng has two works that have the potential to be big hits, one is "Manslaughter 3" starring Xiao Yang; the other is "Tang Detective" 1900" is expected to be released during the Spring Festival in 2025.
These are all works that Chen Sicheng is good at. The box office potential of a single movie is more than 1.5 billion. It only takes one year to surpass Tsui Hark!
5. Conclusion.
"Decryption" has many exciting highlights. There are guest appearances by Wang Baoqiang, Xiao Yang, Chen Sicheng, Pan Yueming and others in the film.
Finally, let me talk about the easter egg. After watching the movie, my first impression was why Chen Sicheng is so narcissistic and metaphorically transformed himself into Rong Jinzhen. Could it be that he is a genius among directors?
Later, I thought about it carefully. This should be the meaning of Inception. It is exactly the same as the ending setting of the Hollywood science fiction film "Upgrade". The light that cannot be extinguished means:
The interview he did may be one of Chen Sicheng's Dreamland! The entire movie could be in a dream state!
Okay, that’s all for talking about this movie. Do you have anything to say about "Decryption"? Let’s complain about Chen Sicheng’s handwriting. Is it really so ugly?
