It can be said that "Lion Boy" has been experiencing various "never expected" since the birth of the game.
Many viewers never expected such an obscure movie to be so good-looking, the filmmakers never expected that this movie would actually open the douban 8.3 points of the annual theatrical Chinese new film highest score (in addition to the documentary), and what everyone did not expect was that the light of this national comic was actually labeled as "insulting China".
So magic realism began to play on the Internet again.
If:
A certain media: "The real lion teenager is not squinting, but Wu Jing."
Wu Jing: "As long as the drums in our hearts are still ringing, we are lions!"
Ask:
Is Wu Jing a lion boy? Did Wu Jing insult Hua?
One
Why "Lion Boy" did not insult China
There has always been such a meme on the Internet that a foreigner will definitely experience three things in his life: birth, humiliation, and death.
Obviously, this is more of a ridicule, but it also shows that "insulting China" has a larger premise, that is, "the context of the other". That is to say, under normal circumstances, foreigners will "insult China", Chinese they will not in most cases.
It's like Judy the Rabbit in Zootopia said: Rabbits say that rabbits are cute and normal, and other animals say that rabbits are cute and will be awkward. So whether the adjective "cute" will offend the rabbit depends on whose mouth it comes from.
Similarly, it is generally not too much of a problem for blacks to call each other "niggers", but what whites say is racist.
This is also why both last year's "Mulan" and this year's "Shangqi" could not be introduced because of suspected "insults to China". Although there are many Chinese characters in the film, and it seems that the story of Chinese is told, these films are the product of the typical "otherization context", representing China under the vision of the West and Hollywood, so many domestic audiences will feel offended.
Of course, Okafina could not have imagined that her appearance would cause such a big controversy.
The famous literary theorist and critic Said said in "Orientalism": On the one hand, in the Western imagination, the East is always mysterious, romantic and exotic, representing beautiful landscapes and unforgettable memories; on the other hand, as the opposite of Western culture", "advanced, democratic, civilized, rational, and restrained", the East is interpreted as an "other" that integrates "backwardness, despotism, barbarism, ignorance, and indulgence". The East was almost created out of thin air by Europeans, and the East became a theatrical stage for strangeness. It just satisfies the voyeurism and curiosity of Western audiences, and just represents the "real China" in the long-standing stereotype of the West.
So when such a basic logic is clarified, let's look at "Lion Boy", is this animated film a work in the "other context"?
First of all, from the perspective of seeking truth from facts, the main characters of "Lion Boy" do have a "squinting" situation, and from the perspective of character modeling, it is not a "good-looking" image in the traditional sense.
Especially when we are accustomed to watching domestic animation movies like "White Snake: Origins" with "big eyes", it is indeed easy to produce some discomfort, mainly because we are not used to it.
Whether it is "White Snake: Origins" or "Lion Boy" are native domestic animation films, the creators behind it are not from the perspective of the West to observe China, so after losing the premise of "otherization", the most fundamental basis of "insulting China" no longer exists, so it is not enough to criticize "Lion Boy" for "squinting" just because of "squinting".
Of course, many people will still be unforgiving, they will say that guangdong people in real life will not grow up like this, so this is a kind of insult. Even the main creator of this film has begun to be maliciously P-charted by netizens.
But Zhang Miao, the film's executive producer, is also the producer of "Wolf Warrior 2" and "The Wandering Earth", saying that he is "insulting China", isn't it exquisite?
Graph source network
The statement in the above picture seems very reasonable at first glance, but you know, in real life, there are almost no people like white snakes and Nezha. So there is actually a certain degree of double standard at this point.
In addition, the setting of the three male characters in "The Lion Boy" originally corresponds to "sick cat", "skinny monkey", and "fat man", so it is reasonable to draw like this. After all, it was originally to show the hardships of the low-level characters, if everyone has thick eyebrows and big eyes, handsome and handsome, why do you still dance lions, is it not fragrant to do live broadcasting?
Some netizens expressed their affirmation of this style of painting before the release of the film
If "squinting eyes" is a stereotype, isn't "awl face + big eyes" also a stereotype of anime characters? The film "Lion Boy" is also infused with the theme of the gap between the rich and the poor and the solidification of class, so what is too big a problem in portraying the characters like this?
It is difficult to find a domestic animation film of fair quality, and if it is attacked for unwarranted "insulting China", it is inevitably too absurd.
Two
From the perspective of industry, why should we support "Lion Boy"
Indeed, since "The Return of the Great Sage" injected a burst of cardiotonic agent into the Chinese animation industry, to "The Devil Boy of Nezha" to the gods, domestic animation films have ushered in great development and progress, and the entire industrial environment is good and good, but obviously there are still many shortcomings and deficiencies.
For example, compared with live-action drama movies, the box office distribution of domestic animated films is very uneven, there is a serious disconnection, "Nezha" with a super high box office of 5 billion at the top, and directly fell to the 1.6 billion "Jiang Ziya", and then down is the 954 million "Return of the Great Sage", "Bear Haunting", "White Snake", "Big Fish Begonia" The box office is about 500 million.
It can be seen that high-quality domestic animation films are still seriously insufficient in quantity. In addition, it can be seen from the above table that domestic animation is not rich enough in terms of genres, mainly concentrated in the two major plates of mythology and low childhood.
The "Lion Boy" from the original IP, realism, all-age and other dimensions, to a certain extent to make up for the single type of domestic animation films, and its reputation successfully laid a very good foundation for the production of other domestic animation films. Its positive reputation means that the production of domestic animation films does not necessarily have to be bound to various myths and legends as insurance, which is of strong positive significance.
After all, lion dance is a cultural theme that is particularly worth showing.
In addition, from the perspective of commercial distribution, "Lion Boy" was released with a 25.7% schedule on the first day of release, pressing the commercial blockbuster "Manslaughter 2" released on the same day, which also released a very clear signal to the outside world: as long as the domestic original IP animation film is well-made, it can get more scheduling support, and the theater is also happy to see such a movie exist.
It's just a pity that compared to such a proportion of films, "Lion Boy" did not come up with a commensurate proportion of the box office, and there was a very serious upside-down phenomenon, and the attendance rate could be described as dismal relative to its schedule.
As the new Chinese story film of the year and the highest score film of the year in the theater animation, it is inevitable that people will be a little frustrated and disappointed to start with such a data.
Compared with some media's predictions of the multi-billion dollar box office of this film during the screening, it is really ironic.
The box office collapse of "Lion Boy" naturally has a variety of factors, mainly:
1. There is a certain cognitive threshold for the original IP, which is not conducive to going out of the circle;
2. The film was labeled as "insulting China" and was boycotted by many people;
3. At this time, the market is relatively cold, and it is affected by the epidemic, and the overall shortage of people watching movies is insufficient.
Although the box office in the first weekend was not ideal, it is clear that "Lion Boy" has not yet reached the time of surrender, and it can still rely on its reputation to get out of a strong long tail effect, the key is to see if there are more "tap water" willing to follow up.
And with the withdrawal of "Flames on the Plains", there is a huge film vacuum in this week's Christmas slot, and if "Lion Boy" can seize this opportunity, it may be able to re-usher in a counterattack.
In short, I still hope that everyone's evaluation of "Lion Boy" can return to its film itself. The display and portrayal of Guangdong in the film is very meticulous, and the shots of some urban scenes are extremely realistic and moving, and these excellent creations should not be easily ignored.
We watch animated movies in addition to looking at the character modeling, but also look at the details, look at the rendering, like the following shot, the red sun is like the drum face in the film, the red sun does not set also means that the drums do not stop.
These are all very good ideas and performances, and if the discussion of the film is completely out of the film, it is really boring, boring, and it is a pity.
Finally, if you haven't seen "The Lion Boy" yet, it is still very recommended that you buy a movie ticket or even bring your friends and family to the theater to see the movie.
After all, throughout the year, there are not many movies with a Douban score of 8, and at the same time, this movie can also let you hear the singing of five people and nine real people at the same time.
For Ah Juan in the film, even if Optimus Prime is unattainable, he knows that he can't do it, and this kind of courage is moving. For the film itself, the criticism it faces has become an Optimus Prime on another level, and whether it can jump up depends on whether each of us ordinary viewers is willing to help.