Cover art | Stills from "I Am Not a Medicine God"
Wen | Feng Ma Niu (WeChat public number: Feng Lun Feng Ma Niu)
01
Shanghai boss Xu Zheng
I have to admit that Xu Zheng has done several "propositional compositions" well.
This year marks the third year of the "Me and Mine" film series. As a "platter" series of films, Xu Zheng is also the only director to take the exam for three consecutive years. In the first year's "Win the Championship" and this year's "Duck Prophet", he "took bootlegs" and recreated the alleys of his hometown shanghai, "Duck Prophet", which tells the story of the first TV advertisement broadcast Chinese mainland by Shanghai Television in 1979 - Samui Yangrong Wine.
The film currently grossed 1.2 billion, sending Xu Zheng to the "10 billion box office directors" club, only after Chen Sicheng. Some netizens once called out Toh Chong, hoping that he would create a Shanghai Lane Hall series IP, and Xu Zheng said that he did have ideas: "Let every character in the lane come alive, like the Korean drama "Please Answer 1988"."
Xu Zheng is becoming more and more like the spokesperson of the new forces of Shanghai film and television.
Xu Zheng was born in the 1970s, a native of Shanghai, and the alleys in the movie come from childhood memories. Xu Zheng graduated from the Shanghai Theater Academy in 1994, then entered the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, and won the Shanghai Magnolia Award in 1998 with the drama "The Color of Stocks" - in 1990, the first stock exchange in New China was established in Shanghai, and the enthusiasm of the Shanghai people for the stock market in the 1990s was also expressed in the movie "Stock Madness".
At that time, there was a saying in the Shanghai drama circle that if you had not seen Xu Zheng's plays, you could not be considered to have been to Shanghai. In 2000, the "Eight Precepts of the Brilliant Pig in Spring" that made Xu Zheng famous overnight was also invested and broadcast by Oriental Satellite TV (also called Shanghai Satellite TV at that time).
If you do a statistic, it is not difficult to find that Xu Zheng's most popular role types in his film career are businessmen, small bosses, and many cities with Shanghai as the background. Whenever he had the opportunity, he would say a few words of Shanghainese in his works.
Whether it is the "囧" series that pushes Xu Zheng to the altar of the gods - from "People in the Road" to "Tai 囧", "Hong Kong 囧" to "囧Mom", or from "Behind the Scenes Player", "I Am Not a Medicine God" to "Duck Prophet", the story often starts with a commercial event, and the commercial event also becomes the focus of the drama' contradictions.
The convenience of this identity is that it goes straight to the eye of the play. Many problems are solved in the face of money, but with them comes the dilemma related to money: the choice of interests and morality, the choice of money and feelings. This kind of theme is in the middle of modern people's anxiety: money is not omnipotent, but without money, it is impossible.
Xu Zheng is full of curiosity and fascination with the business world, and this identity complements the temperament of Shanghai, the financial capital, and to some extent, it can also be said to reshape the media image of Shanghai men and fill a gap.
For a long time, there are two most representative male images in film and television works: either the gag-gag Beijing old cannon, the hormones are surging and the money is like dung; or the domineering president in the Hong Kong and Taiwan idol dramas, handsome and golden and only loves you, suspended in the clouds.
Shanghai is the birthplace of mother-in-law dramas. This goes back to the 1998 hit "Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-Law". Its screenwriter, Wang Liping, is a new Shanghainese from Shanghai through the Talent Introduction Program. This drama, coupled with the earlier "Evil Debt" and "Old Lady Uncle", laid the tone of Shanghai TV audiences' preferences for film and television works, and urban family ethics dramas have since become the viewing tools of Shanghai TV. In such film and television works, men are often reduced to supporting roles, providing soil for big female lead dramas, which also strengthens the stereotype of "Shanghai Little Men" by the people of the whole country.
Stills from "The Debt of Iniquity"
And this kind of Shanghai man played by Xu Zheng, there is no northern man who is bold, everything is carefully calculated, and when making a choice, he must weigh the pros and cons, occasionally take the tone, there are many shortcomings, but it is harmless, and the background is still kind. The most typical is the protagonist in "I Am Not a Medicine God", who has won respect both inside and outside the story. Xu Zheng finally saved face for the Shanghai man in the film and television.
From inside the play to outside the play, Xu Zheng shows people with a shrewd image. When Xu Zheng was only an actor in "People on the Road", but he was interested in the subject matter, he started a new stove and directed himself to act in the second "Tai 囧"; when shooting "Tai 囧", in the face of the newcomer director Xu Zheng, the light boss Wang Changtian still promised to reward him with a 10% profit share; by the third "Hong Kong 囧", Xu Zheng had regained the initiative, set up his own company XinleDao, and became the first investor.
Xu Zheng also injected the right to the box office proceeds of "Hong Kong 囧" into hong Kong listed 21 Holdings in the form of a stake, which later changed its name to Huanxi Media, and Xu Zheng became the second largest shareholder. Then to the "囧Mom" released in the Spring Festival of 2020, because the epidemic cinema was closed, Xu Zheng was the most responsive one, selling the copyright to ByteDance for 630 million yuan, which shocked the industry.
In one of the interviews with Xu Zheng in "Thirteen Invitations", Xu Zheng never accepted the call in the face of Xu Zhiyuan's words of "the ideal bows to reality". There is a barrage evaluation: a delicate egoist face.
02
Shanghai film and television forces are rising
Before "Tai 囧", Xu Zheng experienced another twist.
Here we will first introduce two important film and television companies in Shanghai: SMG Shangshi Pictures and Orange Sky Entertainment. The former was founded in 2007 as a wholly-owned content production and production company owned by Shanghai Media and Guangdong, and "Snail Residence" is from this company; the latter was founded in 2005 and acquired The Hong Kong veteran film and television company Jiahe Film in 2007 and changed its name to Orange Sky Jiahe.
Before Xu Zheng, in the film and television drama set in Shanghai, the most impressive role was Song Siming in "Snail Residence". But Song Siming is not a local Shanghai man, he came from a rural area, came to Shanghai from other places to work hard, and nourished some rare qualities by self-struggle, father-in-law and years: elegant and assertive, erudite, and to the point, this kind of middle-aged male image is very rare in past film and television dramas. So although Song Siming is a villain in the play, it just makes many people hate it. "Uncle" has since become synonymous with a class of men.
Song Siming's actor Zhang Jiayi is from Shaanxi. But how much does the people of Shanghai love him? He is the actor who has been nominated for the Shanghai Magnolia Awards six times. Zhang Jiayi has thanked Shanghai many times: "Shanghai is my blessed land" and "Every time I come to Shanghai, I actually go home."
Zhang Jiayi first mixed in the Xi'an Film Studio, and later went to Beijing to develop, still lonely and unknown, until 2009 in "Snail Residence" became popular, becoming a model of late success. Zhang Jiayi is a signed artist of SMG Shangshi Pictures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai Media Andguang, so it seems that Zhang Jiayi is indeed the "own person" in the Shanghai film and television circle.
"Snail Residence" this very large-scale, extremely controversial work, the investor is Shang Shi Pictures, the broadcast platform is also in the Oriental Satellite TV, later, Zhang Jiayi successively starred in the Oriental Satellite TV's "Floating Sinking", "Cliff", "Heart Technique", "One Servant two lords", the ratings are good, becoming the top card of Shang shi Film, it is no wonder that he took Shanghai as a blessed land.
At this stage, Zhang Jiayi and Xu Zheng had an intersection.
Li Nian, the heroine of "Snail Residence" and plays Seaweed, is a signed artist of Orange Sky Pictures, known as one of the "Seven Princesses of Orange Sky", and Tang Yan is also among them. The company invested in two films that helped Xu Zheng get rid of the shadow of the "Eight Commandments of pigs" and turn to modern urban themes: "Love Call Transfer" and "Night Shop". Of course, before that, Xu Zheng had already won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actor with "Crazy Stone", proving his strength. Xu Zheng is the "son-in-law" of Orange Sky, and his wife Tao Hong is an artist signed by Orange Sky, which is naturally easy to hook up.
"Night Shop" is a small-budget black humor film that takes place at a late-night convenience store in Shanghai. In addition to Zhang Jiayi, there is also Qiao Renliang, who was selected from Oriental Satellite TV, who is also a shanghai native.
At this stage, Shang shi pictures and orange sky entertainment two newly established Shanghai film and television work cooperation is quite close, mutual benefit and reciprocity, in the works invested by each other, plus their own artists, strengthened the momentum of the Shanghai film and television circle.
But that's not enough.
In 2005, something happened that had a long-term impact on the Film and Television Circles in Beijing and Shanghai. Huayi ace agent Wang Jinghua ran away and joined the newly established Orange Sky, which is not only a major shock for Huayi, but also transports a large number of artists such as Chen Daoming, Hu Jun, Xia Yu to Shanghai, and brings the interpersonal relationship network of the Beijing film and television circle to Shanghai, just like a big series of Beijing and Shanghai film and television circles.
Not only Orange Sky, But also Shang Shi Pictures and the Shanghai Wenguang behind it are also huge beneficiaries.
The "Iron Triangle" combination of Teng Huatao + screenwriter Liu Liu + Haiqing emerged during this period. The "trilogy" ("Double Sided Glue", "Wang Gui and Anna", "Snail House") cooperated by the three opened a new situation for the family ethics drama of Oriental Satellite TV.
Teng Huatao grew up in Beijing, and his father Teng Wenji's representative works are the film "Chess King" and the TV series "Blood Romance". Teng Huatao, on the other hand, has established himself in Shanghai by urban romance dramas. Beijing's film and television companies not only sent directors to Shanghai, but also brought money bags, and in addition to Shangshi Pictures, behind these works stood the Jingpai Film and Television Company, of which Huayi Brothers also voted for "Snail Residence".
The hit "Biography of Zhen Huan" in 2011 can be regarded as the most successful cooperation in the Beijing-Shanghai film and television circle. In addition to LeTV, Beijing Television Art Center and Shang Shi Film are the same investors, behind which is the joint efforts of Beijing Television Station and Shanghai Radio and Television Group. The director of "The Biography of Zhen Huan" is Zheng Xiaolong from Beijing Tv, and the premiere is on Oriental Satellite TV.
During that period, Zhang Li, who had been a cinematographer for Feng Xiaogang for four films and directed two divine works "Towards the Republic" and "Daming Dynasty 1566", also went south and stayed in Orange Sky for two years as a signed director. In 2020, the anti-epidemic drama "Together" promoted by Shanghai Wenguang was all out of the horse, and Zhang Li picked the beam and served as the general director.
In recent years, several urban dramas set in Shanghai have stirred up a lot of splashes. "The First Half of My Life", "Thirty Only", "Flowing Golden Years"... Both the first and last films are adapted from the Hong Kong female writer Yi Shu, and the screenwriter Qin Wen, a Native of Shanghai, was boycotted by Yi Shu fans because of the complete appearance of the adaptation, claiming that "qin Wen's screenwriting works should not be read". Qin Wen's saying goes, "I borrowed a seed from Master Yishu and planted it in this land in Shanghai, and it grew a tree of our own."
The riverside building where Wang Manni lives in "Thirty Only" is a Shanghai Internet celebrity punch card
The most vigorous force in Shanghai's film and television circle still comes from the noonday sun. After the successive launch of "Parental Love", "Ode to Joy" and "Langya List", Noonday Sun was called "Explosive Manufacturing Machine" by the industry, and in 2016, the Chinese Cultural Industry Fund invested in Noonday Sunshine and became its largest shareholder.
The initiator of Chinese culture is Li Ruigang, who is the real big man in the Shanghai film and television circle. With Zhang Li in the south and north, they are called "Uncle Li".
Xu Zheng graduated from the Shanghai Theater Academy in 1994, Li Ruigang also graduated from the Department of Journalism of Fudan University, entered the Shanghai Television Station as a choreographer, and became the president of Shanghai Wenguang Group (SMG) in 2002, until he left the system in 2015, focusing on becoming an investor, operating his own Chinese culture fund, and investing in many film and television cultural projects.
"Chinese Entrepreneur" describes Li Ruigang: In the development of film and television culture industry in Shanghai and even the whole country in the new century, Li Ruigang is a benchmark figure that cannot be ignored. During his tenure, he led the separation of SMG production and broadcasting, the integration of large and small literature and broadcasting, and the merger of BesTV and Oriental Pearl.
Although Li Ruigang left SMG, he never forgot that he was a Wenguang person and continued to weave a network for Shanghai's film and television cultural undertakings. After the Chinese cultural investment in the noon sun, it has successively produced blockbuster dramas such as "All Is Good", "Big River", "Big River 2" and so on. The investors of the two "Great Rivers and Great Rivers" were contracted by three Shanghai-based capitals: Shanghai Radio and Television Station, Noonday Sunshine, and SMG Shangshi Pictures. As gift dramas for reform and opening up, the "Dajiang Dahe Series" and "Mountains and Seas" not only completed the propositional composition, but also won a good reputation and earned enough face for Shanghai.
In 2017, Chinese Culture also invested in the world's largest brokerage company , CAA (Creative Artists Agency" in the United States), which is the overseas business agent of many domestic stars, including Xu Zheng.
03
Hong Kong filmmaker's Shanghai complex
Recently, Xu Zheng also served as a guest in the "Talk Show Conference", knowing each contestant well in his speech, and he was very familiar with the performance style and life gossip of the contestants, and he was indeed a die-hard fan of talk show.
Xiaoguo culture is the new position of Haipai comedy, and the content creation is mainly the observation and spitting of urban life and young culture, which is a new force that can compete with northern comedy after Zhou Libo's Haipai clearance, which is a good thing for the Shanghai literary and art circles.
Xu Zheng's attention to talk shows, in addition to the geographical proximity, is probably out of the possibility of cooperation, injecting inspiration into his own comedy content creation, discovering new comedians, and secondly, it also stems from what he revealed in the latest issue of "Talk Show Conference", he is currently the manager of the Lyceum Theatre, and it is also his duty to find excellent performers for the theater.
The news shows that Xu Zheng took office in January this year.
Lyceum Theatre is a performance section of Shanghai Cultural and Broadcasting Arts Center, which in turn belongs to Shanghai Cultural and Broadcasting Group (SMG). Go around, or this circle.
Coincidentally, director Lou Ye's new film "Lyceum Theatre" is about to be released. The film is adapted from the novel "The Death of Shanghai" by writer Hongying, which takes place in the 1940s at the Shanghai Lyceum Theatre and is a work of espionage suspense. Lou Ye is also a Shanghainese, and over the years he has photographed from Guangzhou to Chongqing, from Beijing to France, and this time he has finally returned to his hometown.
In this way, this year is indeed the "big year" of Shanghai film and television dramas. In addition to "Lyceum Theatre", two other film and television dramas about Shanghai have also attracted much attention recently. One is "The First Burning Incense", directed by Xu Anhua and based on Zhang Ailing's novel, and the other is the TV series "Blossoms", which is a gimmick of "the first TV series directed by Wong Kar-wai".
This is the third time that Hong Kong director Hui Anhua has shown love to Zhang Ailing. The first two "Allure of Love" and "Half Life" have a good reputation, but this "First Burning Incense" has deviated due to casting errors and the style of publicity copywriting, and the breath of youth pain literature has come to the face, and it has not yet been screened by netizens sprayed into a sieve.
"Blossoms" is adapted from the novel of the same name by Shanghai writer Jin Yucheng, who was denounced by netizens two years ago for interpreting "scumbags" in "Thirteen Invitations". "Blossoms" is a rare Shanghainese novel that recreates the authentic Shanghai style of decades ago in detail, and won the Mao Dun Literature Award in 2015.
It is said that when casting, Wong Kar-wai's first condition is that the actors can speak Shanghainese, so the three leading actors - Hu Ge, Ma Yili, tang Yan, used a shanghai local actor of Yishuier, and the film also received strong support from the Shanghai Film Group and became one of the investors. The film version of "Blossoms" will become the third part of Wong Kar-wai's "Shanghai Trilogy" after "Fancy Years" and "2046". By the way, Wong Kar-wai is also a shareholder of Huanxi Media, along with Xu Zheng.
Prior to this, The Shanghai Film Group also praised another local writer, Wang Anyi. In 2005, Wang Anyi's award-winning work "Long Hate Song" was invested by Shanghai Film Group and Emperor, and was set in old Shanghai. Shanghai Film Group has high hopes and is listed as a key project, inviting Hong Kong director Guan Jinpeng to direct and Zheng Xiuwen to star, hoping to reproduce the glory of Maggie Cheung's "Ruan Lingyu" that year.
Unexpectedly, the 50 million investment ended in a dismal 6 million box office, which made Wang Anyi, who was already the chairman of the Shanghai Writers Association at the time, very embarrassed. Later, Wang Anyi said: I want to become an excellent screenwriter. This time, Xu Anhua directed "The First Burning Incense", Wang Anyi took on the responsibility of screenwriter. However, from the perspective of public opinion in the early stage, the box office is worrying.
Hong Kong filmmakers have always preferred Shanghai. Many years ago, Zhou Runfa, who starred in "Shanghai Beach", talked about this and mentioned an important reason: TVB boss Run Shaw is a Shanghainese, so Hong Kong movies are equivalent to a large number of old Shanghai filmmakers to run.
In the 1970s, Zou Wenhuai, who ran away from TVB, set up his own portal and founded Jiahe Pictures, although zou boss was born in Hong Kong, but graduated from St. John's University in Shanghai, and also worked as a reporter in "Declaration", like Run Run Shaw, he was also full of nostalgia for Shanghai. The fate of the owners of these two long-established film and television companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai has undoubtedly deepened the connection between the film and television circles of the two places.
The tribute film "Opium War" was invested by Jiahe and directed by Xie Jin
In the new century, this fate continues in a wonderful way: first, in 2007, Jiahe Pictures was wholly owned by Orange Sky Entertainment and merged into Orange Sky Jiahe, an established Hong Kong film and television company that completely threw itself into the arms of Shanghai; second, in 2016, Li Ruigang's Chinese Culture invested in TVB and Shaw Pictures, and is now the largest shareholder of TVB.
04
"Rooted in your own soil"
In the 1980s and 1990s, the rise of "Beijing Circle" film and television works had three elements, content production + platform + capital. Content production is a top priority.
Wang Shuo's "Haima Film and Television Creation Center" gathered a large number of writers: in addition to Wang Shuo, there were also Ma Weidu, Mo Yan, Haiyan, Su Tong, Liu Heng, Liu Zhenyun, Wei Ren, Shi Tiesheng, etc., becoming the main force of content production. The early classic TV series "Longing", "The Story of the Editorial Department", "Beijingers in New York", and then to the popular Haiyan drama and Feng Xiaogang's New Year movies, a hundred flowers bloomed, all of which were made up by these people.
In the TV series "Longing", the male protagonist who cheated was named Husheng, who knows if it was deliberately squeezed "Shanghai Little Man".
Beijing dialect is funny, shanghainese can not understand at all, this is a natural advantage in the dissemination of Beijing film and television dramas. But in the final analysis, Shanghai's film and television industry still lost in content creation, and China's fifth generation of directors are also concentrated in the north. Shanghai is short of people.
In 1997, Shanghai held the first New Concept Essay Contest, organized by Sprout Magazine, a subsidiary of the Shanghai Writers Association. Sprouts is China's first original youth literary journal, named after Ba Jin's novella. Shanghai planted the seed of youth culture early, and by the 21st century, the seed had grown into a small tree, and the tree had two branches— Han Han and Guo Jingming.
These two highly controversial post-80s writers have also converged into an important branch of the Shanghai film and television circle in the past decade.
Han Han literature and art, small four luxury. Compared with Han Han, a young man in a small town in Shanghai, who always cares about "mountains, rivers, lakes and seas", Guo Jingming, who came to worship from a small city in Sichuan, seems to have a deep love for Shanghai. Each of his works, at first glance, is a handsome man and a beautiful woman talking about love, which is essentially a love letter written by Guo Jingming to Shanghai. "Little Times" is Guo Jingming's eyes of Shanghai, paper drunk gold fans, but most Shanghainese disdain, think that only the skin of Shanghai is filmed and there is no foundation.
But it doesn't matter. What is important is that Guo Jingming lived the life of his dreams, and in his Shanghai mansion, he lived his life into "Little Times".
More importantly, Guo Jingming is already a new Shanghainese. In 2010, Guo Jingming settled in Shanghai, and the news report of that year wrote: "Shanghai built a green channel to apply for the household registration of high-level shortage talents such as Guo Jingming." Along with them was Venus. The news report also wrote that during the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" (2006-2010), the talent work system of the Shanghai cultural propaganda front was basically formed, and the cultural talent policy system was gradually improved.
Shanghai is thirsty for talents.
In 2004, the Shanghai Municipal Steering Committee for the Certification of Cultural Talents was established, and over the years, a steady stream of practitioners were introduced to Shanghai, the most recent of which was Yang Chaoyue; the Shanghai Writers Association implemented the "Shanghai Young Writers "531" Training Plan", with the goal of establishing a phalanx of young writers with more than 100 young writers in three echelons in five years.
In 2017, Shanghai once again issued the "Several Opinions on Accelerating the Innovative Development of the City's Cultural and Creative Industries", which began to certify the importance of the cultural industry:
Culture is the soul and foundation of urban construction, and the core element of enhancing the attractiveness, competitiveness, influence and soft power of cities. The cultural and creative industry is an important pillar industry of national economic and social development, and an important driving force for Shanghai's innovation-driven development and economic transformation and upgrading.
A few years ago, Hu Ge stood for a press conference. At that time, Wang Liping, the screenwriter of "Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-Law", set up the "Shanghai Wang Liping Film and Television Studio", which was also in response to Shanghai's development of film and television cultural undertakings: "In order to encourage more artists to create in Shanghai, leave their works in Shanghai, write about Shanghai, shoot Shanghai, and prosper Shanghai literature and art."
Wang Liping is a nobleman of Hu Ge, and during the bottleneck period of Hu Ge, she invited Hu Ge to join her own screenwriting works and cooperated in three plays together. Shanghainese actor Hu Ge appealed on the spot: "As a local actor, I think this is sending a message to the Shanghai actors who are drifting north and drifting sideways, we have our own soil, let's come back and root in our own soil."
At that time, the slap of "Husheng", many years later, Xu Zheng can also be regarded as returning it for the Shanghainese. In 2013, "Tai 囧" became the first film to step onto the 1 billion box office step, and Feng Xiaogang followed suit, hurriedly rushing out a "private order" - also to make up for the loss of "1942" the previous year - hoping to recreate the glory of "Party A and Party B" that year. But word of mouth collapsed completely.
I don't know if Feng Xiaogang will silently recite the line in "Party A and Party B" in his heart:
1997 has passed and I miss it.
Image from the web
The author of this article | Peng Peng Editor-in-Chief| Wang Tao
Editor| Chen Runjiang Consultant | Wang Shuqi