Cultural Industry Review No. 3395
"Manslaughter 2" reputation is obviously divided, like and dislike obvious two camps, the audience that gives praise thinks that the film has many tears and is very touching, and the audience who gives bad reviews comments on the plot routine of "Manslaughter 2" and the heart of the circle of money is too obvious. Through the trough of the reputation of "Manslaughter 2", it can be seen that the audience has been very disgusted with the model of "remakes to make quick money", but due to huge box office revenues, remakes will continue to be favored by capital.
The author | An Dongyang (Cultural Industry Review Author Group; Researcher of Sanchuanhui Cultural Tourism and Sports Research Institute)
Editor-in-chief | Tian Jianning (Assistant Researcher, Sanchuanhui Cultural Tourism and Sports Research Institute)
Edit the | peninsula
The source | Cultural Industry Review
The body totals 3634 words | Estimated reading time is 10 minutes
In December 2019, "Manslaughter 1", directed by Ke Wenli and supervised by Chen Sicheng, was released, with a Douban score of 7.5, a rating of 763,000 people, and a cumulative box office of 1.333 billion yuan. "Manslaughter 1" is adapted from the Indian classic suspense masterpiece "Manslaughter and Concealment of Heaven", due to the quite wonderful adaptation, as well as the wonderful performances of Xiao Yang, Tan Zhuo, Chen Chong and other actors, "Manslaughter 1" has become a phenomenon dark horse film in 2019, and "Manslaughter 1" has also set an industry benchmark for remakes.
In December 2021, directed by Dai Mo and supervised by Chen Sicheng, "Manslaughter 2" was released, the film is adapted from the American movie "Imminent", Douban opening score is only 6.2, the current rating is 6.0, despite poor word-of-mouth performance, but "Manslaughter 2" currently has a better box office performance, the box office broke 300 million yuan in the two days of release, the current cumulative box office of the four days of release is 375 million yuan, and Maoyan predicts that the total box office of "Manslaughter 2" will reach 1.045 billion yuan.
Since this Friday's Christmas file will release Zhou Dongyu and Liu Haoran starring in the love crime film "Flame on the Plain", as well as the love film "Love Myth" starring Xu Zheng and Ma Yili, if the reputation and topic of any of them are obviously better than "Manslaughter 2", the total box office of "Manslaughter 2" may be difficult to break the 1 billion mark. In fact, "Manslaughter 2" was also previously scheduled for this week's Christmas file, temporarily released a week in advance, which shows that the filmmakers deliberately avoid direct competition with "Fire on the Plains" and "Love Myth". Even if the current word-of-mouth performance of "Manslaughter 2" is poor, the decision to raise the file for one week has at least made 200 million more for the film.
△ The new Christmas film is worth looking forward to
The plummeting reputation of "Manslaughter 2" is somewhat unexpected, after all, "Manslaughter 1" is the ceiling of word-of-mouth in the remake movie. According to Douban data, "Manslaughter 1" is better than 76% of suspense films and 72% of crime films, while "Manslaughter 2" has a significant decline in quality, only better than 18% of crime films and 9% of drama films. The bad reviews about "Manslaughter 2" mainly focus on the plot cliché, forced sensationalism, story dog blood, etc., especially the "Manslaughter 2" without "manslaughter", many viewers complained that it had nothing to do with the previous work but insisted on naming it "Manslaughter 2".
In the face of the double circle of money routine of "platter IP" and "flipping foreign movies", many viewers showed strong dissatisfaction. Also a remake of the film, the audience of "Manslaughter 1" praised it, and the audience of "Manslaughter 2" was disgusted and disgusted. Why do the audience have two diametrically opposed attitudes to the same creator? "Manslaughter 2" is controversial, is there a future for the remake in the domestic film market?
Are "industrial tears" worth it?
Objectively speaking, "Manslaughter 2" is not a bad film, whether it is a script, performance or production, "Manslaughter 2" belongs to the best works in the domestic film industry:
The plot design is interlocked, there are laughter points and tears, and the script of "Manslaughter 2" is an excellent case that can be written into the textbook;
The acting skills of all the actors are online, and many supporting roles such as security guards and pregnant women have given wonderful performances;
The rhythm is tight, the production is well-made, and you can see the degree of intention of the creator... "Manslaughter 2" is not a bad film, but it cannot be called a good movie, because the commercial attributes of "Manslaughter 2" are obviously greater than its artistic attributes.
Through the huge box office success of the "Detective Chinatown" series of movies, Chen Sicheng has obviously mastered the way to make money from IP movies, but the Tang Detective Universe has gradually degenerated from a much-loved "detective" IP to a comedy and a farce, and the original intention of "Tang Detective" is no longer there, and the reputation is no longer there. And "Manslaughter 2" still uses "manslaughter IP" in the case of no connection with the previous game, and it is obvious that the filmmaker intends to continue to build "Manslaughter 3" and create a "manslaughter universe".
But "Manslaughter 2" is not only unrelated to the previous game, but also has no direct connection with the "manslaughter" in the title. The story of "Manslaughter 1" originated from the male protagonist's daughter resisting violence and killing each other by mistake, and the plot revolves around "manslaughter" as the core; and the plot that can be associated with "manslaughter" in "Manslaughter 2" is that the supporting character knife man believes that the doctor did not immediately rescue his wife and almost manslaught the doctor, and at the end of the film, the male protagonist took the mayor as a hostage and was finally "manslaughter", using self-sacrifice to transplant the heart to his son. The above two plots are not in the Original Film "Imminent" in the American version, "Imminent" in which the son of the male protagonist gets a new heart, the male protagonist does not die, and the male protagonist is sentenced to three years in prison for taking hostages.
△ "Imminent" has no "manslaughter" related plot
Through the above two adaptations, it can be seen that the creator of "Manslaughter 2" has worked very hard, trying to deduct the topic of "manslaughter", and trying to "manslaughter" for the sake of "manslaughter", but does such "manslaughter" really make sense, and is such "manslaughter" necessary?
With the routine used in "Manslaughter 2" for film adaptation, everything can be "manslaughter", find a touching drama film, or a classic suspense film, configure a certain "manslaughter" plot, all films can recruit into the "manslaughter universe", supplemented by social issues such as the gap between rich and poor, privileged classes, medical resources, corruption issues, etc., with family, friendship, love and other related tears, everyone can shoot "manslaughter", so "industrial tears" is valuable?
△ The portrayal of family affection in "Manslaughter 2" touched many audiences, but some viewers believed that the film was forcibly sensationalized
In the eyes of the audience, the "industrial tears" under a series of routine designs are obviously worthless, which is also the root cause of the plummeting reputation of "Manslaughter 2", in order to "manslaughter" and "manslaughter", in order to make money, the theme is not in the "manslaughter" story into the "manslaughter universe", a wanli model is very clever and opportunistic, but the audience is not stupid, the sugar-coated shell packaging is exquisite, simple and rude take-ism must not be the audience's recognition, the real high-quality creation.
"Remake films" are still favored by capital
For the audience, the "industrial tears" in the remake are not valuable, but for capital, the "industrial tears" or "industrial saccharin" are very profitable. Among the many remakes from 2014 to 2021, only "Twelve Citizens", released in 2014, is adapted from the less popular and excellent award-winning films, "Twelve Citizens" is adapted from the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear award-winning film and the Academy Award-nominated film "Twelve Angry Men", and the rest of the remakes are almost adapted from popular and box-office successful overseas commercial films.
As can be seen from the above form, domestic remake films are mainly concentrated in the four major genres of comedy, love, drama and crime films, of which the highest-grossing remake film is comedy, and the cumulative box office of "The Richest Man in Xihong" adapted from the American movie "Brewster's Millionaire" is as high as 2.548 billion yuan, followed by crime films, adapted from the Indian film "Manslaughter 1" With a cumulative box office of more than 1.333 billion yuan.
The remakes of the film are comedies and romance films that have repeatedly turned over, but although the reputation of these films has not reached the passing line, their box office results are particularly eye-catching, such as:
The romance film "A Story More Sad Than Sad" has a Douban score of 4.8, but the cumulative box office is as high as 958 million yuan;
The comedy film "Warm Hugs" has a Douban score of 5.3, but the cumulative box office is as high as 864 million yuan;
The comedy film "Caller" has a Douban score of 5.8, but the cumulative box office is as high as 641 million yuan...
In addition to the high cost of suspense crime films, the production cost of comedy, love and other remakes is only about 50 million, and the production of small and medium-sized costs has obtained hundreds of millions of yuan of box office results. Therefore, no matter how much the audience scolds, no matter how many remakes have a reputation, remakes will still maintain a certain number of appearances in the domestic film market every year.
Many viewers wonder why the poor reputation of the remake can still make so much money? First of all, the remake is really not bad money, one is adapted from the overseas well-known IP, the second is that there are star celebrities to join, the remake film from buying IP to inviting stars to join, to marketing publicity, each step is not bad money; secondly, the remake film will always take advantage of the theme, emotion, star and other aspects, in the case of word-of-mouth decline, it can also continue to harvest the box office in the third and fourth tier cities, compared to the audience in the first and second tier cities pay more attention to the film reputation to choose to watch the movie or not, third, Audiences in fourth-tier cities usually choose to watch movies through IP and star influence.
△ "A Story More Sad Than Sad" Douban score of 4.8, better than 6% of romance films, because it is sought after by young audiences, the box office is as high as 958 million yuan
Word of mouth is extremely poor box office but very high This is obviously not a benign film market should appear in the phenomenon, although not every remake film is a bad film, we should also be wary of the flood of remakes, with the use of take-ism instead of hard work, with take-ism to squeeze the living space and market resources of domestic original films, which is not conducive to the long-term development of domestic films.
And some sober viewers obviously do not recognize the creative model of "take-ism" to make quick money, so the reputation of "Manslaughter 2" has bottomed out. We are also glad that the audience is becoming more mature and rational. In November 2021, wanhe tianyi's film "Fame and Fame" double harvest of word-of-mouth and box office, Douban score of 7.5, the cumulative box office of more than 890 million yuan, which is the audience's great support for high-quality domestic original films. Meaningless remakes can be fewer and fewer, expecting more high-quality domestic original films.
epilogue
If the box office of "Manslaughter 2" can steadily break through 1 billion, the reputation of "Manslaughter 2" is no longer good, and "Manslaughter 3" will also be quickly scheduled on the agenda, which is the inevitable pursuit of capital profits. If "Manslaughter 3" is really on the agenda, I hope that the creators of "Manslaughter 3" will listen to the voice of the audience and make better adjustments and improvements.
There are pros and cons to remake movies, there is no need to shout and kill one-sidedly, but when "remake movies" become a new routine for quickly cutting leeks, we should be cautious, after all, movies are an art, take-ism is very good to use, very profitable, but can not let more creators lose the valuable ability to observe reality and lose deep thinking.
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