The second half of November is a once recognized unpopular period in the industry. However, just recently, a thriller film landed in theaters, released for four days, and grossed 129 million. This is the new film "Door Lock" directed by "Aiming" director Buick and "Psychological Crime" director Five Hundred.
If "Door Lock" performs well in the market and eventually breaks through 432 million at the box office, Bai Baihe will become the first actress in the mainland to star in a film with a box office of more than 10 billion. But judging from the current box office performance, it may be necessary to wait for the next one.
The cowardly Fang Hui and the strong Bai Baihe
"Door Lock" is based on the 2011 Spanish film "When You Sleep" and the 2018 Korean film "Door Lock", which is based on the former.
Bai Baihe's version of "Door Lock" retains some of the content of these two films, but also carries out localization adaptations. From the box office and word of mouth, the film presents a high-open-low attitude. The film was released for 6 days and achieved a box office of 155 million yuan, which is still a good result for a suspense thriller, but the performance of the future is obviously insufficient. In terms of word of mouth, the Film's Douban score is only 5.0 points, which is not satisfactory.
But for Bai Baihe's performance in the film, the vast majority of the audience has given recognition.
"Door Lock" Fang Hui is a woman living alone in a big city, unmarried. She is a relatively cowardly and gentle person in life, and most of her adopts a withdrawn and calm attitude towards the problems encountered in life.
For example, being harassed by male passengers on the subway is also choosing a silent attitude.
In the middle of the night, when I heard that the door lock was constantly pulled, the atmosphere did not dare to come out, and a look of fear appeared in my eyes.
When she found that a masked man in a raincoat had been standing outside her door, she did not want to catch him like her friend Qiao Xiaoman, but with the attitude of "moving soon, more is better than less", hoping to fool the past.
Fang Hui's attitude was one of the reasons for her tragedy. For a young woman living alone in a big city, the problems Facing Fang Hui are indeed realistic and complex, and it is not objective to say that it is entirely caused by her personality problems. But the cowardly part of Fang Hui's personality is also one of the important reasons.
As a representative of the "chick movie", Bai Baihe has created a series of straightforward, enthusiastic and fast-talking characters since the first TV series "Days Related to Youth", typical of which are "33 Days of Lost Love", "Who Decides My Youth", "Breakup Contract" and so on. Even Get Out! In films such as "Tumor Jun", the cartoonist Xiong Dun, who she plays in the film, is also a representative of the positive energy that shows great strength and confidence in life after suffering from cancer.
The former "chick" has entered a new stage of performance
Bai Baihe can be called one of the most recorded faces of China's big screen in the 2010s.
Ten years ago, "33 Days of Lost Love" came out, and Bai Baihe, who first ventured to the big screen, was seen by the public. In the following years, Bai Baihe "copied and pasted" a large number of characters of the same type: He Qiaoqiao in "Breakup Contract", He Man in "The Stolen Five Years", Sakura in "Spend a Long Time with Anthony", and Lychee in "Passing Through Your World", these characters have similarities in personality and attitude towards feelings, and Bai Baihe has further established and consolidated his status as the "first person in the chick movie" in the mainland.
The reputation of these works is uneven, but the box office performance is good, Bai Baihe has also proved his box office appeal again and again, although the roles are similar, but the audience will not fall into the "aesthetic fatigue" of seeing Bai Baihe, which is related to the temperament of Bai Baihe. The beauty of Bai Baihe's body is not amazing at first glance, on the contrary, she has a strong affinity on her body, making people believe that this is the friend around them, or themselves.
There is no shortage of big green clothes on the big screen in the mainland, nor is there a shortage of small flowers, but what is most lacking is this kind of grounded and life-oriented "little chick". The appearance of Bai Baihe is timely and difficult to replace. Although Zhou Dongyu, Ni Ni and others have also starred in "little chick" type movies, such as "Like You", "Waiting for the Wind to Come", etc., but can continue to cultivate in this genre, and have been recognized by the audience, the entire showbiz circle looks around, only Bai Baihe is alone.
However, Bai Baihe said many times in the interview that she did not want to be solidified by the label of "little chick", so in the most vigorous years of her acting career, she also took over the filming of "Catch the Demon" and "Get Out!" More genre works such as Tumor Jun" and "Hotpot Hero" show strong character shaping ability. If this trend continues to develop, Bai Baihe has become the leader of mainland actresses and the first ten billion actresses, but the sudden marriage change in 2017 has not only impacted Bai Baihe's reputation, but also the character image created on the big screen and the people in life have also had a huge deviation, and she can only be forced to change the drama path, abandon the "little chick" movie, and take the independent female route, taking over a number of films and dramas with big female themes or professional background roles.
In the past few years, the overall standard of the works she has taken over is mediocre ("To Catch a Demon 2", "Ma Ge is a City", "Dear Happy New Year"), some have not been released for a long time ("Eight Women a Drama"), and some have even completely disappeared because of "technical problems" ("Love Saint 2"). On the one hand, she was forced by the pressure of public opinion to keep a low profile, on the other hand, the works she took over never had a hit again, and she was only one step away from the goal of "10 billion queens", and she stopped at that step.
In fact, I can see that Bai Baihe has also made great changes in his performance in recent years. The most obvious change is that her smile and charm convey a sense of vicissitudes, and most of the women who play her are no longer "heartless and lungless" like the early "chicks", but have experienced the ups and downs of the world and can face the women in their hearts calmly.
In 2016, Bai Baihe once talked about "women's independence" in the "Winter Starry Sky Speech". She said: "What exactly is female independence? Is it independent living? Financially independent? No, true independence is when you can think independently, follow your own ideas, make your own choices, and take responsibility for your own choices. Looking back now, her change is the best interpretation of independence.