A few days ago, the high-profile short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" quietly started airing. This short drama, which was produced under the banner of Stephen Chow, had high hopes from the market. However, the expected drama of a professional team to rectify the market did not take place. Instead, doubts arose, making people wonder, "Is Stephen Chow's signature not working anymore?"
In fact, this is not the case. "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" exceeded one million views in the first hour of its release, relying on the natural traffic brought by the three words "Stephen Chow". However, the follow-up is weak, and the average number of views per episode of the drama is about 21 million, which is far different from the average number of views per episode of the recent controversial "Wang Ma" short drama "Rebirth: I am a nanny in the boss miniseries". Very far.
The playback volume of the short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" has plummeted.
rectify the market or be rectified by the market?
html At the beginning of 2000, the domestic short drama market ushered in a huge explosion, creating wealth myths one after another. And the news that Stephen Chow "entered" the short drama track has attracted attention from all walks of life.As the "King of Comedy" of the generation, many of Stephen Chow's past movie clips are still alive on the Internet. Even now, the voice of "owing Stephen Chow a movie ticket" is still heard.
However, with high expectations come high standards. "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" avoids the popular themes of short dramas such as bosses, rebirth, revenge, ancient costumes, etc., and focuses on the social theme "Pig Killing Plate" fraud case. However, in the plot, while trying to break through the "scale" to allude to various popular events, it was also trying hard to find an angle to pay tribute to Stephen Chow's classic films. In a short drama that pays special attention to emotions, "Can't go up, can't come down" is stuck in the middle like a lump in the throat.
The audience wanted to see Zhou's nonsensical comedy and down-to-earth stories about small characters, but they didn't see any of them. Instead, the "homophonic jokes" that have been complained about countless times can be seen everywhere.
Video screenshot of the homophonic lines of the short play "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf".
Produced by Stephen Chow, supervised by Yi Xiaoxing, starring professional actors, comedians, and a number of popular Internet celebrities, the lineup of "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is already among the best in short dramas.
Not only that, the production team once shouted the slogan that the short drama should be shot with a movie quality. Even if it is broadcast on the short video platform, it still chooses the horizontal screen shooting method, and still frees up 10 seconds of the limited time for the previous scene. From the introduction, everything seems to be in line with high standards and strict requirements. After reading it, I found out that "poor students have too much stationery."
If you don't work hard on the most important plot, you just want to flatter celebrities, hot topics, and engage in "formalism", you will only get backlash in the end. You know, today's audience is no longer someone who can be easily fooled.
Seeing that the episode is about to pass halfway, the audience is getting more and more confused as they watch it. The front-row comments for each episode include "It's a bad episode", "I can't watch it even after fast forwarding", "It's been like sitting on pins and needles and a light on my back in just these few minutes." " and other similar pessimistic remarks, the data is even more obvious that one episode is not as good as one episode.
hopes that the creative team can understand that although the vision of making a "high-quality" short drama is good, it still needs to be practical. The development of short dramas to this day is not without merit. We should not take the high profile of so-called "professionals coming down to earth" and only think of a "dimension reduction attack". In this way, the market will not be rectified but will be rectified by the market.
Screenshot of netizen comments on the short play "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf".
Can the three words "Stephen Chow" still scare people?
"Content is king" in the film and television market, and Stephen Chow's ability to grow from a bit player to the "King of Comedy" is also due to the confidence given by his works.
However, the word Stephen Chow is not the "universal antidote". The audience group that is gradually disenchanted with the "star effect" has also put forward higher requirements for the film and television market.
Looking at Stephen Chow's works since his transformation, although " Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons " and " The Mermaid " have done well at the box office, many public opinions believe that the quality of director Stephen Chow's works is far inferior to that of the movies he starred in. With the increasing star aura, After the cuts, you won’t even be able to enjoy the box office dividends.
Data map: On February 17, 2016, Stephen Chow and the main creative staff of the movie "Mermaid" appeared in Taiyuan, Shanxi to promote the film.Photographed by Zhang Yun
In 2019, the movie " The New King of Comedy " written and directed by Stephen Chow only had a box office of more than 600 million. It was not only questioned as a "frivolous rice", but also had the disadvantage of "consumption sentiment".
As a director who can control the quality of a movie like this, let alone a work signed by the producer and producer, which has a certain "star quality".
In 2023, the animated film " The Monkey King ", produced by Stephen Chow, was launched on overseas video platforms. It was still a familiar Journey to the West theme, but the audience obviously no longer paid for it, and the ratings were poor at home and abroad.
Data map: Stephen Chow. After China News Service published Yangbo's photo
, Stephen Chow changed tracks again and entered the short drama market as a producer to "get a share of the pie." Some viewers who didn't know the truth were attracted by the three words "Stephen Chow". After watching it, they realized that they had been "fooled". There was no trace of Stephen Chow at all.
Nowadays, the first season of "Golden Pig, Jade Leaf" has started high but gone low. As the first work of Stephen Chow's short drama brand "9527 Theater", it has not led the short drama revolution as expected. The first shot was a misfire. Whether it can use the banner of "Stephen Chow" to attract audiences in the future remains a question mark.
(Author Wang Shiyao Source China News Network)