No one expected that the "Fengshen Trilogy", which claimed to spend 3 billion yuan to create an oriental magic giant, has not yet been released!
At this point, the festival poster of the official blog of the movie has been released for 4 consecutive years, but the movie only has a 30-second pilot trailer released at the end of 2019.
There are many opinions about why the film could not be released.
Some say that they are blamed for censorship according to "routine operations", some say that they are "dragged down" by the beijing culture of film investors, and some have questioned the use of film funds...
In any case, 2 years after the pilot trailer was issued, there has been no news of the film, and the release seems to be far away.
The "Fengshen Trilogy" series is the first time in China to use three consecutive films to shoot films, and director Urshan tries to explore the construction of China's film industry system through this attempt.
I believe that as an audience, most people do not care about how the movie is filmed, but want to know how the movie story is made?
For the familiar stories, I am not afraid to copy the classics according to the rules, and the most feared is the "magic reform", which is completely unrecognizable.
From the pilot trailer, in addition to the classic characters in the original book, it also focuses on another important clue that runs through the trailer - "Proton Brigade".
"Protons" are hostages sent to places or other countries in ancient times, mostly princes of noble birth; "brigades" are armies. In order to celebrate the victory of the war, the proton war dance, as the highest ceremony at that time, was half-naked by noble men and danced together to show their merits to the king.
In order to perfectly shape the Proton Brigade, the crew set up a training camp for 24 weeks of "Wenwu" exercises, including understanding the pre-Qin culture and practicing riding, archery, etc.
The time-consuming and cost-consuming element of creating proton brigades shows that the story of the "Fengshen Trilogy" does not stick to "tradition", and there is no lack of plot innovation.
In addition to proton brigades are mostly newcomer actors, other major roles are played by domestic powerful actors - Huang Bo as Jiang Ziya, Fei Xiang as King Huan, Li Xuejian as Ji Chang, Xia Yu as Shen Gongbao, Chen Kun as Yuan Shi Tianzun, Yuan Quan as Queen Jiang...
With a luxurious lineup + huge investment, a director who is good at shooting magic, and a production team with experience in industrial blockbuster production, the "Fengshen Trilogy" series looks really attractive. However, there must be a reason why the Chinese film market has long had a precedent of spending huge amounts of money on blockbusters slowly released on the street after "pushing three pulls and pulling four".
However, with the recent quiet establishment of director Urshan's new work, it also indicates that the production of the "Fengshen Trilogy" has long been completed or entered the end, as a film that has invested heavily, the producer should already be actively promoting the finalization of the file.
At the same time, director Urshan is still moving in the direction of building a Chinese film industry system, the new title of the film "Zheng He's Voyage to the West 1: The Sea of Darkness", Synopsis: Yongle second year, the Ming Emperor Zhu Di wants to open a sea ban, reviving the shipping route. Unexpectedly, the first envoys to Nanyang did not return. The envoys disappeared, rumors spread, so Zhu Di sent the eunuch Zheng He to the West, one to find out the truth about the disappearance of the envoys, and the other to build good communication with the countries along the way to restore sea trade.
It is not difficult to see from the title that this will also be a series.
Some netizens joked that Zheng He went to the West seven times, is this series going to shoot 7 films?
Once the "Fengshen Trilogy" was initially called "China's version of the Lord of the Rings", now "Zheng He's Going to the West" seems to be compared to the "Chinese version of "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Director Urshan is really comparing the American film industry system to explore the Chinese film industry system!