Text | Niu Jiaojian
National Day holiday to the fifth day, the National Day box office competition has become fierce. Currently, at the top of the list is the short story collection "Me and My Motherland" directed by seven directors, with a cumulative gross of over 2 billion at the box office; followed closely by "Captain of China" with a box office record of less than 200 million. , Firmly sit firmly in the runner-up position of the National Day file. The last "Climber" ranked third with a box office record of over 700 million.
is surprising that the "Climber", which was previously expected to be the most champion in the industry, unexpectedly "falls behind". Instead, "Captain China", which was relatively inferior in pre-sales and film release, ushered in an "inflection point". At present, the film has won the single-day box office runner-up for 5 consecutive days. It was near the early morning of last night, counterattacking "My Motherland and Me" with a single-day box office score of 240 million, becoming the box office champion of the day. This makes the original National Day file, which was originally set, become confusing.
"Chinese Captain" is a theme based on the theme of the theme adapted from real events. As one of the three giants of National Day gift, the film’s cast is not as strong as the previous two, but it also invited Zhang Hanyu, Ou Hao, Du Jiang, Yuan Quan, Li Qin, Zhang Tianai and other star stars to come. The guest actors are also popular idols such as Li Xian, Yang Ying, Guan Xiaotong, which can be said to be a "star-flavored" gift work.
From the perspective of genre creation, although "Captain China" was created for the main theme, its essence is an out-and-out disaster genre. The most popular thing about it is that this is a perfect combination of the main theme and the genre film-its desirability lies in the "non-fiction" method of literary creation in the image, which truly reproduces the "at the time". "Aviation crash" scene.
"Chinese Captain": "Non-fiction" creation of the main theme genre film
The number of works created on the theme of the theme is not a small number. However, there are not many main genre films adapted from real social events. However, Bona Pictures did set a lot of "precedents" on this point, and all of them have achieved good results.
"Taking Tiger Mountain out of Wisdom" produced by Bona in 2014 is taken from a famous historical event during the Liberation War; "Operation Mekong" directed by Lin Chaoxian in 2016 is adapted from the famous "10.5 Crew Victims in the Golden Triangle"; The 2018 "Red Sea Operation" was adapted from the "Yemen Evacuation" incident that occurred in the society in 2015.
Even this year, there are "Heroes of Fire", which is based on a long-form record report, and competitors such as "The Climber" and "My Country and Me" based on real historical events.
From the perspective of literary creation, these film creations adapted from real events can be collectively referred to as "non-fiction" creations. "Captain of China" is one of the few "non-fiction" creations that have taken place in the past two years. The story of the film is based on an air disaster that occurred "in the cabin". The entire event took 34 minutes from the occurrence to the safe landing of the plane. After
was completed, the "Captain of China" was processed into a 119-minute commercial film with the main theme based on the story prototype. Judging from the current film presentation and market feedback, this is a relatively qualified theme creation. In addition to vividly recreating the real scene of the "crew killed", director Liu Weiqiang also added the close connection between the crew and passengers, relatives and friends in the theme portrayal. From the point of view of "presentation", the film did not have too many problems, and played a positive guide to promote socialist values.
However, from the perspective of the film's own structure, this is a commercial film with obvious advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the whole film has a degree of relaxation and a full perspective depicts the entire process of the crew's death; the disadvantage is that the film does not have a deeper human interpretation and expression, even in the story prototype, except for the intuitive visual impact of the audience. The glorious image of the great captain "Liu Chuanjian" was not portrayed and deepened, but was replaced by the image of the crew leader played by Yuan Quan.
As for the too many sub-line statements in the film, they are quite eye-catching at first glance, but if you go into it carefully, most of the plots described from the perspective of passengers fail to further clarify their inner intentions. In particular, the branch of Chinese aviation enthusiasts played by Guan Xiaotong has been evaluated by many netizens as "extra plot" on the Internet.
on Douban, there is a top ranking and number of likesA short commentary for 1463 wrote, ""The Captain of China" is a disaster film with no plot, no depth, nothing but special effects." The remarks may be a bit too exaggerated, but I have to admit that, apart from the profound "disaster crisis" left to the audience, the film does not have too many deeper elaborations of human nature or expression of values. Compared with the "Captain Sally" released in China last year, the difference is immediately clear.
However, all this does not hinder all the achievements currently held by "Captain China". According to the scoring agencies of Maoyan and Taopiaoping, the current public ratings of the film are 9.4 and 9.3 points respectively. The Douban score has declined slightly recently, but fortunately, it has remained within 7 points. The box office trend of the film is basically increasing at a rate of over 100 million per day. The cumulative box office has reached 1.7 billion at present, and it was a counterattack to the single-day box office champion last night. Whether it can surpass "My Motherland and Me" in the future is not necessarily an "impossible" thing. The reason for
is that in addition to being a qualified commercial film, there is also the addition of "non-fiction" creation.
Will “non-fiction” creation be a rich mine in the movie market?
There are not a few domestic film and television works adapted from "non-fiction" themes. In addition to the "Captain of China" mentioned above, and a series of thematic creations such as "Taking the Tiger Mountain out of Wisdom" and "Operation Mekong", this type of creative technique is also quite common in other types of fields. For example, "Dear", released in mainland China in 2014, was adapted from a "child-finding case" that occurred in society. Subsequent creations of the same type of theme "Lost Orphans", "Finding You" and "Baby" also have story prototypes.
In 2015, "Rescue Mr. Wu", starring Andy Lau and Liu Ye, was adapted from the sensational "Star Kidnapping Case" that year; in 2018, "I am not the God of Medicine" starring Xu Zheng and Wang Chuanjun was adapted from "Leukemia Patient Lu Yong" Real events; similar works include "Carnival", which won the Taiwan Horse Award, and "Treading Snow and Looking for Plum Blossoms," which won the Hong Kong Film Awards.
It is not difficult to find a common trend from these works, that is, they all have good incomes at the box office and word of mouth, and even some films are profiters of both fame and fortune. For example, "I'm not the God of Medicine", which won the summer box office champion last year, scored 9 points on Douban, and its box office revenue exceeded 3.1 billion; "Operation Red Sea", released in the Spring Festival file, broke the "old rules" that have been maintained for many years in the Spring Festival file. , With a box office record of over 3.3 billion, sweeping comedies of the same period. Similarly, "Dear" starring Zhao Wei and "Operation Mekong" produced by Bona Pictures, both have outstanding achievements in box office and word of mouth.
"Hollywood Reporter" once put forward such a point of view in an article summarizing the trend of "non-fiction" creation, "Most movies adapted from real events, the prototype of the story has shocking scenes, twists and turns, and Abundant feelings and other advantages". The implication also seems to indicate the internal reason for the success of these films, that is, under certain propositions, regular and thoughtful creative texts will at least not be reduced to "bad films."
From the perspective of social communication, the six characters of "real event adaptation" are far more convincing and dissemination than the story created by the screenwriter. Therefore, at the level of film publicity, it has also achieved the effect of "free warm-up".
(Related drafts of the "Chinese Captain" propaganda on "real event adaptation")
At present, the domestic market has shown strong interest in adaptation of "non-fiction" film creation. Among the known projects, there are already two works "Chinese Women's Volleyball" and "Emergency Rescue" that will be released in the Spring Festival file, which are adapted from famous historical figures and maritime rescue events. In the field of film and television dramas, more than 16 "non-fiction" themes will be created in the next two years, such as the upcoming "Awakening Age", "Fox Hunting" and "Cat and Mouse" which are in production, etc. Both have been bought by the producer.
It is worth noting that although non-fiction adaptations are a bonanza of movies, some of their problems have caused many controversies. For example, the plots of "sleeping, kneeling" and other artistic processing in "Dear" have triggered many accusations from the prototype characters; the story archetype in "I am not the god of medicine", Lu Yong, directly embarked on the "rights defense" These problems have hindered the creation of "non-fiction" subjects to a certain extent. The "non-fiction" creation of
is similar to IP adaptation-a double-edged sword. The front of the sword is the natural publicity and the more convincing emotion that other movies can meet but cannot ask for.resonance. But once the adaptation collapses, it will not only bear the rights protection statement of the prototype character, but will also encounter public opinion disputes from all sides. Fortunately, there has not yet been a "non-fiction" film creation with such a "collapsed reputation" character in China. Although "Chinese Captain" has some flaws, it is always flawed.
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