On the first day of the Spring Festival this year, the highest single-day box office record in history was 664 million, up 78% from 373 million in the same period last year, easily surpassing last year's highest of 425 million.
Stephen Chow's three-year-old sharpened sword of "The Mermaid" box office all the way to the highest box office, the sword refers to the highest box office record of "Catch the Demon", and the "Macau Storm 3" that sells the feelings of the god of gambling gathers the strongest lineup, no matter how bad your reputation is, the box office is still high. But why is no one talking about "Journey to the West" Sun Wukong Three Dozen White Bones? (Hereinafter referred to as "Three Dozen")
"Mermaid" as a whole is good, but if there is no "Stephen Chow" three words, perhaps the box office will not be so high, "Macau Storm 3" reputation is like a mountain, relying on a number of Tianwang superstars to support the field. "Three Dozen" has the courage to challenge special effects and use special effects to build a dualistic world of gods and demons. Using special effects to present a well-known myth, this experiment will be criticized badly as soon as it goes wrong.
"The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" is that the special effects have been criticized, and the plot has been criticized fiercely. So to "Three Dozen", Zheng Baorui did subtraction from the special effects, paying attention to the quality and plot of special effects, "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" has 2300 special effects shots, "Three Dozen" is shrunk to more than 1000 shots, and to do more detailed and better layout of these more than 1000 special effects shots.
For example, in the two scenes of Sun Wukong fighting the dragon and fighting the tiger in the film, the filmmakers specially hired a Korean special effects team to be responsible, using a team of 150 people to produce for half a year, and the production of the model alone required 12 processes, costing more than 10 million. "Three Dozen" is indeed greatly improved compared to the previous special effects, and it can indeed be ranked in Chinese movies.
In the previous part, the Bull Demon King was evilized, and the faint jade emperor became able to fight a good battle and the relationship between Sun Wukong's three-legged character was a complete failure, and the character was too facial and the personality was not full enough. In terms of character shaping, Zheng Baorui is very diligent, Sun Wukong's makeup takes 8 hours, Gong Li needs 6 hours, and Pig Eight Commandments also takes 5 hours.
Aaron Kwok's Sun Wukong is obviously better than Zhen Zidan, first of all, Aaron Kwok has a solid foundation in martial arts, plus he is known for his dance, and his actual combat ability is not as good as Zhen Zidan, but from an aesthetic point of view, it must be better than Zhen Zidan.
And Zheng Baorui set Sun Wukong as a serious criminal who entered the world, good at countering violence with violence, and Tang Monk is a born student, believing in the beauty of all the eyes, and the two form a strong contrast to make the role fuller and more attractive.
But I am personally not satisfied with the role of Tang Monk, Zheng Baorui designed him to be too preachy and foolish, and his mouth full of Buddhist lines seemed childish. It seems that he wants to imitate Luo Jiaying's version of Tang Monk, but he can see the audience weakly when he nags up. On the contrary, "red robes" become "blue" makes me refreshed, "robes" is Sanskrit, which is the name of a color, which is translated as red in ancient times, and it is also said that it is yellow, orange yellow, blue and black magnolia, that is, there is no blue.
Blue represents dreams, highlights the theme of scripture, and also creates a strong visual contrast with previous versions. (Japan's "Journey to the West" often looks for actresses to regurgitate this is another matter)
Zheng Baorui asked Xiao Shenyang to play the Eight Precepts of the Pig as an idol, that is to say, he was responsible for supporting the laughing point, so Xiao Shenyang also personally visited Teacher Ma Dehua, the actor of the Eight Precepts of the Pig in the 86th edition of "Journey to the West". Unfortunately, the self-selling and boastful laughter looks more like it and is not easy to make people laugh.
Luo Zhongqian, who plays a sand monk, was originally a handsome student of TVB, and in "Three Dozen", he made up a makeup that he could not recognize without looking at the cast list. And this "blue sand monk" sprouted Compared with the original book in the river to eat people, into a riverside play flower, the most important thing is that the sand monk is no longer without a sense of existence, and began to help Sun Wukong fight the bat demon, and even opposed the opinion of the Eight Precepts.
The villain's personality is also fuller in stark contrast, Gong Li's white bone essence is a demon who does not want to be an adult, and Fei Xiang's king is a person who wants to become a demon. In this fictional mythological story, it also highlights the theme of human nature that people are sometimes more terrifying than demons, and Zheng Baorui, who was born in the galaxy image, even in mainstream commercial films, does not want to forget the original intention, because the theme of the galaxy image is the evil of human nature.
The shape of Gong Li's white bone essence is combined with reference to "Snow White and the Hunter", "Sleeping Curse", and "Black Swan". The elegance of the costumes, the only two sets of black and white costumes, highlight the dreamy sense of Yi Xian and The Devil, reflecting the loneliness and arrogance of the goblin, as well as her sad past life. The domineering spirit possessed by Gong Li just deduced the image of the "king" of the white bone essence, which was more kingly than the king. The cold face and the ghostly eyes simply suppressed Aaron Kwok.
"Three Dozen" uses experienced Hong Jinbao as a martial arts instructor, and the previous one was completely for special effects, and the Heavenly Court Battle feels like an animation. And Hong Jinbao, who is good at designing group fights, uses special effects and actions wonderfully, and the three-person battle of the White Bone Army in "Three Strikes" makes the White Bone Army obviously meticulous, and the design of each action is very smooth.
Although "Three Dozen" is a Co-production between China and Hong Kong, it does not deliberately cater to the Hong Kong market, it caters to the mainland market, which is dozens of times larger than Hong Kong, and the larger market of North America.
The shape of the white bone essence comes from the Hollywood blockbuster, the confrontation between Sun Wukong and the white bone spirit is the standard of Hollywood special effects movies, and the Tang monks are full of Shakespearean Buddhist philosophies, which are all carried by an oriental myth. The fictional caves, forests, ancient houses, etc. all have a Western European architectural style, presenting the oriental mythology as a magical fairy tale.
In this way, in the case of the decline of Hong Kong films, this may be a new way for Hong Kong directors to start facing a larger market to adapt to globalization.
However, because "Journey to the West" needs to use a lot of special effects, often hundreds of millions, so few people in Hong Kong in the early days played its idea, but the huge market in the mainland is open to Hong Kong filmmakers, coupled with Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West. After "Descending Demons" created a number of records in Chinese films, "Journey to the West" became a hot IP.
Therefore, after following the trend of "Haunting the Heavenly Palace" and earning 1.05 billion yuan, the producer Fang Xinghao Pictures planned a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan, and in the next 15 years, at an average rate of one per two years, 8 series of movies in the West series were launched consecutively. Zheng Baorui revealed that before the next sequel "Daughter Country" starts filming, he hopes to return to Galaxy Image to make some personalized movies that do not forget their original intentions.
Don't be disappointed in Zheng Baorui because of the failure of "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", Zheng Baorui's early works are so sword-like, and when he left the Galaxy Image, he did not want to shoot a "Du Qifeng's work", but he is also grateful for Du Qifeng's cultivation and will always return to the Galaxy Image to help. As for whether "Daughter Country" will be made into "Love Night Pu", I think it will definitely not, there is a barrier of radio and television, plus the Spring Festival schedule.
From "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" to "Three Dozen", it is obvious that Zheng Baorui's progress in the use of 3D special effects, coupled with the honing of the early galactic image, may be Zheng Baorui's next work.
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