Whether "The Knife In the Snow" is not the last king of 2021 is too early to say.
However, judging from the degree of discussion after the premiere, at least it shows that everyone's expectations for this martial arts drama are still very high.
There are more than 20 related topics on Weibo, accounting for 50% of the discussions over 100 million, Tencent premiered with a rating of 8.5, the number of plays exceeded 120 million times, and the discussion broke 41,000.
Whether it is the influence of the original work, or the production company and the main creative lineup are very powerful, there has been no explosive martial arts drama for a long time, and it seems to see new hope.
Wuxia films have always been the favorite of martial arts fans, and "The Undefeated East of the Laughing Pride", "The First in the World" and "New Dragon Gate Inn" are all classics in the classics.
For martial arts fans, watching martial arts still has to be an old film, there is no high-level special effects, most of them use the plot and actor acting skills to achieve the film effect, and one move and one style are real hits.
Capital martial arts fan Tang Min watched the premiere of "Snow in the Sword Line", he couldn't help but spit out: the fight scene can't do the violent aesthetics of fist to flesh, but at least it has to be seen, but the currently broadcast fight scene makes people powerless to spit out, slow motion plus character face close-up plus attack slow-motion close-up, a set of processes down, I don't know also think that the crew invited a layman to do martial arts guidance.
Tang Min feels that the films of directors such as Xu Ke and Cheng Xiaodong are really the memories of several generations, and the plot expresses more chivalrous tenderness and chivalrous courage in addition to containing emotional lines, and does not make people completely detached from the illusion of martial arts essence to see romance.
Unfortunately, with the 1980s martial arts films reaching a boom, various acting schools began to imitate martial arts films intentionally or unintentionally, such as "Divine Eagle Heroes" starring Gu Tianle Li Ruotong, "Smiling Proud of the Jianghu" starring Lu Songxian, "Tianlong Babu" starring Huang Rihua, and "Deer Dingji" starring Chen Xiaochun, but compared with the 1980s, the martial arts boom has decreased.
In addition, according to incomplete statistics, between 2018 and 2021, no more than 30 new martial arts films will be released.
Yunhe data shows that in 2019, nearly 300 online dramas were broadcast on various platforms, of which martial arts films accounted for less than 3%, and in 2020, martial arts films accounted for only 8%.
However, in the current market, martial arts films seem to be constantly looking for new themes and new ways out, but there are very few successful people.
First, the rivers and lakes that are getting farther and farther away
In 1966, the martial arts film was officially put on the screen, and Hu Jinquan's "Drunken Man" was released in Hong Kong, which launched the first shot of the new martial arts film, and the "martial arts guide" in the film shooting was also born in this film.
In the following year of "Drunken Man", Zhang Che's "One-Armed Knife" completely pushed the Hong Kong film industry to the era of martial arts films. Dillon, David Jiang, Qin Pei and other film stars have dominated the Hong Kong film industry for more than 20 years.
Until 1976 to 1981, Chu Yuan later filmed gu long's "Meteor Butterfly Sword", "Tianya Mingyue Knife", "Chu Liuxiang", "Lu Xiaofeng's Embroidery Thief", "Peerless Double Glory" and other more than 20 films, which became the hottest works in the late stage of the wave of martial arts films.
From the 1980s to the 1990s, the decision made by Hong Kong TVB Television was not only to start filming "Book of Swords and Vengeance", but to directly buy out all the film and television adaptation rights of Jin Yong's novellas.
Chow Yun Fat, Andy Lau, Liang Chaowei and other acting schools have successively starred in martial arts dramas, creating classic screen images such as Ling Huchong, Yang Guo, Wei Xiaobao, etc., and Jin Yong dramas have suddenly become the killer skills of Hong Kong TVB to compete for ratings.
But even so, the 1994 martial arts film still entered a downturn, and the box office was even not more than ten million.
However, as early as 1972, Jin Yong wrote a letter to Gu Long to take over the pen, Liang Yusheng sealed the pen in 1983, Wen Rui'an supported the overall situation in 1985, and Hollywood seized the market, which had already laid the groundwork for the gradual decline of the new martial arts.
Some people say that the 2005 version of "The First in the World" is the end of the martial arts film, and in fact, the end of the martial arts film is the 2004 Xingye's "Kung Fu", behind the seemingly comedy, it is actually the real martial arts from Tianya to the city, and every people in the city fantasize about having tianya dreams, but are still "bound" by the real society.
Liang Xiaolong, one of the Four Little Dragons of Hong Kong, plays the evil god of fire and clouds who practices magic; Yuan Hua and Yuan Qiu, members of the Seven Little Fortunes who are in the same drama class as Jackie Chan, play the chartered public and charter wife; Zhao Zhiling, who has won the true biography of Huang Feihong, plays the poor tailor who practices the Hong family's clematis; Shaolin disciple Shi Xingyu plays the coolie of the Twelve Road Tan Legs; Dong Zhihua, who is a martial arts student of the Chinese Drama Academy, plays the fried ghost of Wulang Bagua stick; and Yuan Xiangren of the Yuan family class makes a cameo appearance as a tramp who sells secrets.
Even the "martial arts instructor" in the field is "the world's first martial finger" Yuan Heping Seven Little Fu big brother Hong Jinbao. It can be seen that there is also enough effort in the casting of actors, and there is no ambiguity at all.
However, in these many actors, in fact, there is a common point in the film, that is, even if they are also masters with extraordinary skills, they are still unable to escape the ordinary and trivial life and the oppression.
On the other hand, it is the film that uses the satire of the laws of the dark forest to reflect the market environment at that time.
In the film, the gangs make a lot of money in the face of interests, they act in a high-profile and wrongdoing manner; the lower-class poor people dare not do evil, are timid and cowardly, and run for a full stomach all day long, and still live in poverty. In this world of gold everywhere and beautiful women all over the streets, the richer the richer, the poorer the poor, and it is difficult to cross the class.
From the perspective of cultural barriers, the temple is getting higher and higher, and the rivers and lakes are naturally getting farther and farther away, which is a tragedy that belongs to the martial arts film itself.
It is reported that there is currently no martial arts drama broadcast in 2021, with a cumulative playback of more than 1 billion and a Douban score of more than 6 points.
SECOND, the "martial arts" abandoned by the times
In fact, another reason for the rapid deheating of martial arts films in the 1990s was the emergence of more entertaining martial arts films, which were welcomed by the masses.
"Hero", "Peerless Master", "Wuji", "Modern Huang Feihong", "Legend of the Paladin Sword" series and other forms of martial arts films began to become popular.
In addition, the foreign 3D science fiction film "Avatar" and "Tangshan Earthquake" that came out in 2010 topped the domestic box office with 673 million.
2010 was a year of momentum for Chinese films, with a total box office of 10.171 billion yuan for the whole year, breaking through the 10 billion mark for the first time. There are more than 260 domestic films that have entered the mainstream cinema line, of which 17 have grossed more than 100 million.
To this end, what is visible to the naked eye is that the diversification of Chinese films has also directly laid the foundation for the importance of martial arts films in the market will become lower and lower.
Some people may wonder, 2010's "Sword Rain" is still rave reviews, how can it be said that the weight of martial arts is getting lower and lower?
The answer is very simple, in the same year through the drama, adapted network TEXT IP, alternate history of the Xian Xia in the creation time dominant, but also obtained a certain market effect, for the film market, since it can be assembly line drama, the martial arts film through special effects, Weiya, Yan value idol and post-dubbing, etc., more can reduce costs and time to do the drama, then, naturally it is easy to be expelled by "bad money".
To this end, martial arts movies, as a golden signboard of Chinese films, have long existed in name only. The current martial arts films are no longer fairy tales for adults, and after the complete lack of a cast of martial arts basics and real fights, martial arts dramas have completely changed their taste, and a healthy and ancient road hot sausage has disappeared.
Even if the effect of the props is getting better and better, the spirit of the hero is gone.
It is worth noting that in the past, it is common for popular martial arts films to be repeatedly remade, but the ratings are often unsatisfactory.
The reason is that now the comprehensive strength of those old classic dramas has not attracted people, and the remake either needs to achieve the original effect or cross the original effect, and the actor has become the biggest challenge first. Secondly, the whole subject matter is outdated.
Although the degree of stimulation and popularity of martial arts films in that year is far above that of Shuangwen, comparing martial arts films that have become outdated and do not adapt to the times with Shuangwen, martial arts films are bound to be difficult to compete.
To this end, the decline of martial arts films is the choice of the market, the barrier of culture, and the loss of the entire Chinese film and television.
1997 edition of "Tianlong Babu"
Third, martial arts dramas are becoming less and less "chivalrous"
I have seen such a sentence on the Internet: there is no declining martial artist, only a declining writer.
However, in today's short and fast-paced times, it is difficult not to agree with this statement.
First of all, take the Internet writers, most of them are lazy to read, or even only read online texts, lack of sufficient reading, almost no contact with classic literature, or contact with very little, even martial arts novels read less, not enough knowledge reserves is already the norm.
Among the new writers, post-95 writers account for 80%; among the top 100 writers in new book sales, post-90s writers account for 57%; among the newly promoted platinum god writers, post-90s writers account for 54%.
Taking the reading as a reference data, in the era of increasingly large network writers, the proportion of post-95 writers is higher than that of post-90s, but differently, the number of post-90s writers and new platinum gods is more than the number of post-95 writers, which shows that the knowledge reserve and age form a certain proportional relationship.
Secondly, an era has an era of literature.
Before the martial arts, there are novels of various eras such as Tang poetry, Song, Song, Yuanqu, Ming and Qing, and the determinants have a certain relationship with the life of the times. In the current era, more and more young people are receiving continuous education and rich cultural knowledge and lifestyle.
As some netizens once said: "The day China's industrialization is completed is when Chinese martial arts novels leave." ”
This is true of previous novels, and the same is true of wuxia novels, and wuxia is no longer attractive to young people who have grown up with China's industrialization.
In the past, martial arts dramas were righteous thin clouds, were jianghu morality, and were happy to take revenge.
Some people ranked the Jin Yong martial arts characters, compared from the dimensions of martial arts, emotional intelligence, IQ, hero index, etc., and ranked the top ten heroes, the top five in turn are Qiao Feng, Guo Jing, Ling Huchong, Yang Guo, Chen Jinnan, almost all of them are typical "the great hero, for the country and the people".
And now, although the costume drama with martial arts elements, the core has deteriorated. "Chen Qing Ling", "Mountain and River Order", "You Fei", almost no shadow of home and country feelings, has become a sweet pet drama cloaked in martial arts, and everyone likes to hear about it.
Often only when the classic martial arts drama is remade, the original classic drama will be nostalgic.
Contemporary young people do not understand martial arts, martial arts is just a shell of expression, they prefer to pass on the values they want to express through martial arts, they do not want to discuss chivalry in a serious way, but to ridicule, funny, or magic reform.
30 years ago, "New Dragon Gate Inn" was released, and at the end of the movie, Maggie Cheung said to the desolate desert: Go, let's leave this ruthless and unjust place. It has moved countless martial arts fans and regarded it as a classic.
Today, 30 years later, the post-95s and post-00s are discussing in the Douban "Pretend to Live in the World of Martial Arts" group:
"What kind of exercises can you do to complete the revenge against mosquitoes?" "Can't drink, what to take with two pounds of beef?" "Gentlemen, the coils are exhausted, how to quickly make money?" ”......
《New Dragon Gate Inn》
Similarly, in the market more and more utilitarian, the encounter between martial arts and writers is less and less, the ceiling of the category is getting higher and higher, the rivers and lakes are getting smaller and smaller, and when more and more young people no longer believe in legends, martial arts are destined to be forgotten.
In summary, for many martial arts fans, even under many factors, it is still impossible to determine whether martial arts are completely eliminated, and a stone stirs up thousands of waves.
Just like "Master" that suddenly came out in 2015 when everyone thought that wuxia was completely in decline, perhaps at some fortuitous moment in the future, wuxia can still return to the light.