article | @木伊movie (senior film critic)
* The author of this article participated in the live broadcast of "Nine Schools Roundtable" of Jiupai News "The summer season is half over, is the summer of movies still hot? 》It is compiled from the speeches on the topic discussion and has been reviewed and modified by the author before publication.
Audiences are no longer as blindly obedient in watching movies as before.
I believe many people have very high expectations for this year’s summer release, Catch a Baby. Film practitioners will feel that it should be a catalyst to make the summer release truly lively and exciting. Its current results are gratifying, but it can do better. I hope it can break through 3 billion or more. After all, it is currently in the lead in terms of box office performance, film schedule, attendance, etc. Movies like
can drive the market and the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies, which is very beneficial to the development of the movie itself.
As for " silently kills ", it was a little bit beyond my expectation. I thought the box office might be around 800 million or 900 million. But it crossed a billion, like over 1.2 billion, which is very gratifying.
Judging from this year's market situation, the audience's movie-watching choices are actually constantly changing. In the past, there was a bit of blind obedience, but now they have more of their own choices and some self-judgment: Is the movie the type I like? Are there any actors I particularly admire? Are there any emotional expressions or discussions of realistic issues that I particularly want to know about?
The movie itself attracted a lot of attention before it was released. On the one hand, it is because its genre is a comedy with a certain degree of realism, and on the other hand, it is the cast of Shen Teng and Ma Li , whether it is the previous Charlotte Trouble, the richest man in Xihong City, etc., The audience reputation they have accumulated has formed a good foundation.
has such a good premise, which contributes to the movie's good popularity with the audience. When it is screened, you will find that its popularity is indeed very high. After it was released, everyone felt about this movie. The level of discussion is far ahead of other movies. The ratings of
Catching Baby on some platforms are relatively good, not exceeding 8 points, nor falling below 7 points.
Audiences will now consider the quality of movies. It does not mean that they will all watch it just because there are Shen Teng and Ma Li. They will make a choice after everyone thinks it is good.
Lu Chuan said that Catching a Baby is a high-alkaline and low-quality comedy film. I think we must first respect everyone's perception after watching the movie. Lu Chuan's judgment system for movies is still somewhat different from most people. He is a very experienced director himself, and his judgment on movie aesthetics is different from many of us. The occurrence of this incident cannot be said to be completely negative. Perhaps to some extent, it has stimulated more viewers to pay attention to this movie. Everyone wants to see what the so-called strong base and low quality is like.
Returning to the movie itself, first of all, it must be funny. Many viewers’ needs for movies have slowly become to go into the theater to relax and gain some pleasure, and they will feel very satisfied. Nowadays, short videos are increasingly embedded in In life, everyone’s deep thinking about movies may become less intense.
The weakest link in Chinese movies is creativity.
Audience reputation is closely related to the quality of the movie itself. For "Under the Stranger" directed by Wu Ershan, his ratings well reflect the judgment of different audience groups on the film. The reason for the controversy may be that the first part of last year's "Fengshen" has some high expectations for director Wu Ershan, and I hope that the quality it presents will be a very good expression. The Stranger is not as good as expected. There is a problem. A sense of gap.
In addition, public opinion has an increasingly strong influence on films. After a film is released, whether it is its shooting angle, audio-visual expression, or content, there are always some points that can inspire criticism from public opinion.
But in my opinion, the judgment of movies is sometimes more based on the accumulation of film reading and some understanding of movie knowledge. When we watch movies, we may see richer things.Not only the story, plot, characters, emotions, but also the performance of some audio-visual language, some core performance, including the observation of social culture and other aspects, so there are many factors in the evaluation of a movie. There will also be some commercial presentations. So the reference system is actually very rich, it is not an independent component.
Looking back at Chinese-language movies, live-action adaptations of Chinese comics are still in their infancy, and there are many things to learn. Marvel movies are very mature. If we take a closer look at the special effects of "Under the Stranger", there is indeed room for improvement. It is difficult to meet the preferences of readers or fans of the original anime. On the other hand, director Wu Ershan is of course very good, and the team is also They are all very good elites. But if compared with Hollywood and Japanese genre films, the creativity is still weak.
How to balance big scenes and character conflicts requires more to deepen the creative perspective.
Large enterprises such as Disney and Netflix are developing rapidly in the contemporary cultural context and era of the United States. Some things are more mature, such as industrial production, and have a good foundation and soil. When it comes to Chinese-language films based solely on investment strength, we have many strong ones here, but when it comes to understanding and cultural investment in films, we still lack such strong enough genes. In addition, we also need to put a question mark on the extent to which our managers or persons in charge understand the movie.
I can’t talk about the strongest point of our film industry system. We are still in a stage of continuous learning, exploration, and trial and error. The weakest link is the creative level. The technical level can be continuously improved and improved. For example, " decrypting ", which is currently being released, if you watch it purely from an audio-visual perspective, the overall effect is very surprising, and the story and characters are not that interesting.
Some people say that we haven’t had a classic for a long time. Everyone’s understanding of classics will be different. The classics I understand are works that can stand the test of time. Are there any classics in the past 10 or 20 years? In fact, in retrospect, there are still many works that can stand the test of time, whether they are works by Zhang Yimou or Chen Kaige , including "Feng Shen" or " The Wandering Earth ", there may be some shortcomings of one kind or another. But just like the movie " Heroes ", it did receive some criticism in the early days, but in retrospect, it did start the era of blockbusters and has unique significance.
What I understand as a top blockbuster is never how cool the technology is, but the quality that can be truly comprehensively expressed in the three aspects of story, characters and emotions. If the basic story is not told well, the characters are not well created, and the emotions are not conveyed in place, it is not a blockbuster. It is often not accumulated with so-called investment or money, but the perfect fusion of the creator's understanding of film art and good audio-visual effects.
[Source: Jiupai News]
