text | Linghu Boguang
The 2024 Spring Festival has been postponed for too long, and collective official announcements have only recently begun. Among them, Jia Ling's self-written and directed comedy "Hot and Spicy" has released its final trailer. It was previously previewed and it was said that Jia Ling lost 100 pounds and it became a hot search.
This movie is worth looking forward to, because this year’s Spring Festival movie is generally too weak. Among the movies currently officially scheduled, Zhang Yimou’s “Article 20” and Han Han’s “Flying Life 2” all belong to a certain type+ Comedy, there is currently no commercial special effects blockbuster.
"Hot" is not an original movie, it is a remake of the Japanese movie "100 Yuan Love". The Japanese original version is still quite a classic movie. From the perspective of positioning, it is more like Andy Lau's "The Crowd" released during the Spring Festival a few years ago, which was also a remake of a Japanese movie.
At present, it just depends on the quality of the remake of this movie. As long as you have watched the Japanese original version, there are not many surprises. This actually involves something. The success of Jia Ling's "Li Huanying" in the 2021 Spring Festival release is worthy of congratulations, but the movie itself has many problems. The biggest problem is promoting Chinese sketch movies, which is a bit ironic.
has a box office of 5.4 billion, the number one female director in China? Why does "Li Huanying" rank third in film history?
The answer is very simple. There is no need to go into a long explanation. It is that "Tang Detective 3" gave it a chance and failed. Let me recall the background for you. 2020 was the first year of the epidemic, and our country had relatively good control. At that time, everyone was in lockdown for several months, and the audience responded extremely enthusiastically and with great enthusiasm.
started with a big IP, the sequel and all-star cast, and then the comedy mode "Tang Detective 3" are highly anticipated. is also very in line with market expectations in the early stage. The pre-sales of this movie exceeded 800 million, and the box office on the first day of release exceeded 1 billion. It has been breaking various records in the past few days, and within a few days, the box office reached 2 to 3 billion. , the market at that time Everyone thought that this movie would break the record of "Wolf Warrior 2" and hit the record of 6 billion or even higher.
As a result, its reputation collapsed. The movie was too commercial and the quality was seriously poor. On the contrary, the sincere "Li Huanying" was. It immediately aroused the enthusiasm of a large number of Chinese audiences, and then the box office of the two parties quickly closed, and finally counterattacked. In the end, "Li Huanying" became the biggest winner in the Spring Festival, and it dominated the box office.
You must know that there were not many criticisms of "Li Huanying" when the movie was released, because it was "supported by peers."
But after the release of the movie, it achieved a record box office in film history. Of course, the quality of the movie is not bad, and there is also the sincerity of the family relationship between Jia Ling and her daughter. Most netizens will not dispute this. However, the movie itself does have many problems, such as the feeling of a sketch, which was later criticized by many netizens.
It’s understandable that this movie has a high box office. After all, Chinese movies at that time were not as popular as they were criticized by netizens. But the biggest problem with is that it has too much of a sketch feel and too weak of a movie feel. Its own quality and significance are not worthy of the box office level in film history. Its status in Chinese film history is its box office status.
This may be the debate between film industrialization and "telling a good story". Film industrialization should actually mean film industrialization, rather than simply referring to technical special effects, etc. Excellent scripts and directors are also part of it. Direction There is nothing wrong with it. Its essence is a dynamic film market with free competition, and the works produce the real needs of the masses.
In other words, the film industry has never been about improving your aesthetics, but catering to your aesthetics, because everyone in this industry has to eat, and economic interests drive the direction of decision-making. Of course, there will be excellent literature and art. films and independent films, but definitely not mainstream.
The level of public aesthetics is also a process of gradual improvement. In any era, public aesthetics is definitely far lower than academic aesthetics. There will be a deviation between the producers with academic background and the audience with grassroots background. If there is no equality, the difficulty lies in how to lower the threshold for viewing the work, so that it can be enjoyed by both refined and popular people, and be meaningful without losing entertainment.
broke box office records, is it really a sketch movie? Does "Li Huanying" make a "bad start"
? It doesn't matter. After all, before "Li Huanying", comedies, cross talk movies, and sketch movies were all over the place in China. Everyone still remembers Guo Degang's "Nineteen Generations of Ancestors" movie, and then Zhao Benshan's Northeast Gang comedy movie. In fact, they are all the same thing.
"Li Huanying" can achieve great success, and it is better than previous similar movies from the perspective of comedy movies alone. But the biggest problem with it is that it is "appreciable to both refined and popular people, and has connotations without losing its entertainment value." It is entertaining enough, but also vulgar enough. But the level of connotation and elegance is too weak.
If you are familiar with the history of Chinese films, you will find that comedies play a pivotal role in the development of Chinese commercial films every ten years.
In 1997, Feng Xiaogang's "Party A and Party B" was a box office success, launching the concept of Lunar New Year movies.
In 2007, Ning Hao's "Crazy Stone" became a dark horse at the box office and launched China's black comedy. The following "Crazy Race" became successful and contributed a great director to the Chinese film industry.
In 2012, Xu Zheng's "囧" and later directed by Ning Hao's "Heart Blossoms on the Road" were very successful at the box office. The former was China's first domestic film to break 1 billion in box office, and opened up the genre of road comedy films in China.
In 2015, Happy Teng and Shen Teng's "Charlotte Trouble" was released and became a dark horse. Did Shen Teng and Happy Teng start to become the best brothers in the Chinese comedy film industry?
After reviewing history, I won’t say that Chinese comedies are getting worse and worse. These comedies have stood the test of time and are still classics. The ones that the younger generation of netizens are making fun of are "Party A and Party B" and a large number of Feng's comedies. The same goes for "Crazy Stone" and "Crazy Racer", and they are still the benchmark for Chinese comedy movies.
"囧囧" is obviously a weak one, as is the case with several comedies directed by Xu Zheng.
"Heart Blossoms" directed by Ning Hao is still a classic like "Charlotte".
But if you watch "Li Huanying" again, you will eventually find that apart from the box office and the touching mother-daughter relationship, there is nothing from a comedy level. No netizens are making fun of the plot or drama of this film. There is no need to compare this with masterpieces such as "Kung Fu" and "Let the Bullets Fly" (these two are actually not simple comedies), even if they are compared with Happy Twist, "Shameful Iron Fist" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" Compared with the film, it is a bit weaker in terms of comedy. From the perspective of comedy, it seems that it can only be compared with a few of Han Han's movies.
(Even some comedy scenes, dramatic conflicts, and comedy plots are weaker than Han Han's movies.)
It's just a sketch, not a movie. It's not unjust for "Li Huanying" to be scolded.
First of all, the film industry should really serve the film In terms of content, it shouldn’t be the other way around (at least at the popular film level). You have to watch independent films and literary films, which are another track.
Secondly, the worry that comedies crowd out the creation of other types of films is an immature way of thinking. The problem is not that "Li Huanying" is a hit. The problem is that most investors in film and television works are highly blind and speculative, and lack good artistic appreciation.
To put it bluntly, Chinese commercial blockbusters at the same time were terrible, especially "Tang Detective 3". If this is the case, we should support excellent works created by outstanding artists and let capital understand the direction of excellent literary and artistic investment. And "Li Huanying" is undoubtedly excellent.
The biggest problem with "Li Huanying" has already been discussed, that is, its cinematic feel is too weak and it is just a sketch movie. The box office and quality of film history are still not quite matched. At least compared with the same classic comedies in Chinese film history, such as "Party A and Party B", "Crazy Stone", "Charlotte" and so on, it is indeed far behind. .
The level of film industrialization mainly determines the lower limit of the film industry. "Li Huanying" is really bad. Industry does not equal industrialization, and the film industry does not equal film industrialization. Film industrialization is not just about shooting technology, the screenwriting industry is also an important part of film industrialization.
In the past, the reason why American movies were better than Chinese movies was not that good movies were better than our good movies, but that bad movies were better than our bad movies, and the rate of bad movies was lower than ours. This is determined by the level of film industrialization. After all, you call it a movie, not a sketch, right?
From "Li Huanying" to "Hot and Spicy", there are "more and more Chinese sketch movies"
Finally, why was "Li Huanying" praised when it was released, but there were more criticisms from the audience after it was released. Because most of the people who spoke out during the screening were ordinary viewers, but most of the people who talked about it after the screening were movie fans, or at least netizens who cared about the movie. As for ordinary viewers, they actually don’t care about movies or not.
No matter how excellent the story is in their eyes, as long as it is an ordinary film without special effects, there is not much difference between the viewing experience of TV series and movies.
When there are no blockbusters with excellent special effects, the audience can only choose family movies during the holidays, and they are especially willing to choose comedies or films with comedy elements. But just like the chick flicks of the past, the audience will always get bored, and most movies will have to wait. The same goes for watching video websites at home, because 2D screen expressions are always limited and cannot always bring novelty and excitement to the audience.
To put it bluntly, many comedy movies nowadays are no funnier than various short videos.
The success of "Li Huanying" is understandable, but the two top movies scheduled for 2024, "Article 20" and "Hot and Spicy", are too "sketchy movies" based on the current trailers. There is no real blockbuster movie during the Spring Festival this year, if only because it satisfies everyone's demand for local entertainment during the Spring Festival.
If the two movies are a big hit at the box office again, it will be a bit ironic for Chinese movies.
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