The highest-grossing film in the history of Chinese films is "Chosin Lake" with 5.775 billion.
The second is Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2", which grossed 5.695 billion, and the third is Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying", which grossed 5.414 billion.
The total box office of the film directed by Zhang Yimou is 5.194 billion, which is not as good as a "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Hello, Li Huanying", which shows that Zhang Yimou is not as good as Wu Jing and Jia Ling?
Don't consider the "Spider-Man: Heroes Of No Return" that is still in theaters.
According to the data from March 2021, the top 100 "goalkeepers" in the global box office are "Deadpool", which grossed 782 million US dollars, which is about 5 billion yuan.
Domestic movies that broke 5 billion are "Changjin Lake", "Wolf Warrior 2", "Hello, Li Huanying", "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending", then this is not to say that in the past hundred years of film development, there are many masters who are inferior to Jia Ling and Wu Jing.
In addition, Jia Ling also topped the world's highest-grossing female director with the box office of "Hello, Li Huanying" of 5.414 billion, so does this show that Jia Ling is the world's most powerful director?
If anyone doesn't believe in the domestic box office, let's make another analogy with foreign ones.
9.6 billion is the threshold of entering the top ten of the global box office, namely "Avatar" with 19.3 billion and "Avengers 4" with 19.05 billion.
Titanic for 15.09 billion, Star Wars Episode 7 for 14.27 billion, Avengers 3 for 14.13 billion, jurassic world for 11.58 billion.
The Lion King is 11.43 billion, the Avengers are 10.48 billion, The Fast and furious 7 is 10.45 billion, and Frozen 2 is 9.69 billion.
In addition to the above ten films, there are only two films in the global box office list that have grossed 9 billion, one is "Avengers 2" with 9.39 billion, and the other is "Black Panther" with 9.02 billion.
There are 12 movies in the world that have broken 9 billion.
Marvel movies accounted for 5, Cameron 2, Disney 3, and Universal Pictures 2.
Does that mean that other films made by other people except Marvel are not movies, because their box office is not as high as Marvel movies.
Does that mean that Joss Whedon, the Russo brothers, and Cameron are the only three directors in the world in the world in a hundred years, because they each have two films, and they have made the top twelve box office in the world.
Let's expand the scope to the top 100 films at the global box office.
Kubrick, Akira Kusawa, Bergman, they didn't even make a single film, and even the total box office results of the three of them may not be as good as the "goalkeeper" "Deadpool".
Does this mean that Akira Kurosawa, Kubrick, and Bergman, who are madly adored by Lucas, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Scorsese, Hou Xiaoxian, Nolan, and Spielberg, are useless?
Therefore, without combining the environment at that time, without considering inflation, without analyzing the promotion of the development of the film, it is just a simple analogy with the box office, which is not stupid or bad.
Take Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, for example.
If you look at it from the current point of view, the story of this movie is average, the plot is not compact, and it is equivalent to the general level of everyone's cognition.
However, the film's multi-angle narrative structure, multi-linear shooting techniques, and beautiful and freehand composition have directly affected the imitation of later generations of directors, such as Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and Zhang Meng's "The Piano of Steel".
And can this be reflected at the box office? It will even be many years before we can see the value of Rashomon for the development of cinema.
A director like Akira Kurosawa is the creator that Jiang Wen mentioned in "Round Table Pie" who does not fool us.
Dou Wentao asked Jiang Wentao, some of the plots of your movie the audience can't understand, don't understand, will you feel that your hard work is in vain, it is a waste of energy?
Jiang Wen replied that they couldn't understand it now, but one day they would understand it, and when they understood it, they would recall that old Jiang didn't fool us at that time.
Similarly, Zhang Yimou is like Akira Kurosawa (note: it is not that Zhang Yimou has been compared to Akira Kurosawa), not fooling us, but his value is not reflected in the box office.
If you have to use the box office to compare, Zhang Yimou sacrificed a "hero" is enough.
At that time, "Hero" accounted for a quarter of the total domestic annual box office, while "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Hello, Li Huanying" accounted for up to one-tenth or one-ninth of the total box office of the whole year.
The total box office for the full year of 2017 was 55.9 billion, compared to 47.2 billion in 2021.
If nothing is taken into account, according to a quarter of it, "Hero" will break through the box office of 10 billion now, directly ranking among the top ten highest-grossing movies in the world.
And after the emergence of "Hero", Chinese films opened a commercial blockbuster mode, and movies can make a lot of money, it can be said that the commercial films after that are more or less related to Zhang Yimou.
So is it not possible to think that these box office can be counted on Zhang Yimou's head.
Anyway, aren't those so-called Mr. Ten Billion making up the box office in this way? Didn't Zhang Yimou become the first person in the history of Chinese film, and Wu Jing or something?
In the same way, Edison invented the film projector, and the Lumiere brothers invented the film and improved the projector.
So is it intuitive to think that any film that is made and generated box office after its release is related to the brothers Edison and Lumiere.
If that's the case, even if all of Marvel's superheroes, plus all of DC's superheroes, are on board, what will Edison and the Lumiere brothers be afraid of?
Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2", Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying".
The respective box offices are 5.695 billion and 5.414 billion, which is indeed higher than the total box office of Zhang Yimou's films of 5.194 billion, which is understandable.
However, "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Hello, Lee Huan Ying", they only promoted and prospered the market and changed the pattern of Chinese films, but their value is nothing more.
If there is no "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Hello, Li Huanying", there will also be other alternatives, which is an inevitable phenomenon in the development of the market to a certain stage, and the times have achieved them.
Of course, the success of "Hello, Lee Huan Ying" and Chen Sicheng's "Detective Chinatown 3" fueled the wave.
And Zhang Yimou's films? In addition to these meanings, it also has the influence on the development of film, the export of culture to the outside world, and irreplaceability.
It is no exaggeration to say that Zhang Yimou is the fifth Chinese-language filmmaker to have international influence and successfully export Chinese culture after Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Ang Lee.
His "Heroes" was named the first of the world's top ten films in 2004 by Time Magazine.
Moreover, at the previous Oscars, when the best international film was awarded, a number of films were also specially honored, including "Hero", and another Chinese director was Wong Kar-wai.
In terms of overseas box office, put down Ang Lee, not to mention the table, Zhang Yimou is the first Chinese director, and no one can approach his overseas box office results so far.
As for the awards and nominations won by the three major European, Oscar and Golden Globe Awards, Yang Dechang, Hou Xiaoxian, Wong Kar-wai, Xu Anhua and Jia Zhangke are not as many as Zhang Yimou alone.
In addition, Zhang Yimou alone won three awards in Europe and can single out the whole of South Korea.
In China, Zhang Yimou is even more award-winning, with 8 Huabiao Awards, 10 Golden Rooster Awards, 7 Hundred Flowers Awards, 2 Golden Statue Awards, and 1 Golden Horse Award, with a total of 28 trophies.
Such Zhang Yimou is not a sentence that can be erased by a box office sentence that is not as good as "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Hello, Li Huanying".
Wu Jing's box office myth can be copied, and Shen Teng is the substitute who is close to him.
Forty years have passed since Zhang Yimou became famous in the 80s, and there has not been a substitute who can approach him.
If you have to hard bar box office, excluding the unreleased "Rock Solid" and "Sniper", Zhang Yimou has directed 23 films, and there is only one "Great Wall" that has lost money.
Such a number of films, such box office results, so many different types of movies, if I were the boss, I knelt down and asked Zhang Yimou to take my money to make a movie, both famous and profitable, do not choose him, unless I smoke.