This time, Zhang Yimou really lost!

The Year of the Rabbit Spring Festival blockbusters gather, among which "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2" are currently in the top two at the box office, one is Zhang's usual feature film, and the other is a rare domestic science fiction film, which also makes Zhang Yimou and Guo Fan, the two new and old directors, expected and controversial by many netizens.

Before "Man Jiang Hong", Zhang Yimou's comedy-themed movies were not outstanding, and the reputation and box office of "Three Guns Shooting Surprise" that year were very average.

But in this movie, Zhang Yimou shows a high level as always, whether it is film aesthetics, lens language, and story script.

Except for the embarrassment of the ending rising to values, in fact, it is a well-finished work overall, quite at the level of his previous works, but that's all.

Because Zhang Yimou now understands the Chinese audience too well, he understands too well what the high-quality movies that audiences want to see when they enter the cinema should be like.

Over the years, Zhang Yimou has maintained a prolific creation, from the martial arts action theme "Shadow", to the suspenseful spy war "On the Cliff", to the feature film "One Second", the story presentation and audience reputation are good, it can be said that Zhang Yimou's directorial road is more and more handy.

In contrast to this, his works are increasingly unable to move and resonate with the audience, and his film works in recent years seem to have become "Zhang's assembly line products", with standards and aesthetics, but no breakthroughs, no criticism, and less thinking about film art.

In Zhang Yimou's early films, there was not only moving lens language, but also full of plump story core. For example, "Qiu Ju Fights the Lawsuit" is adapted from Chen Yuanbin's novella "Ten Thousand Family Lawsuits", when Zhang Yimou thought that his thinking focus was not on "people" when filming.

Therefore, he hopes to use "Qiu Ju Fights Lawsuits" to "make up lessons" and increase his attention to "people". At the same time, Zhang Yimou realized that his work had weaknesses in the narrative, and also intended to take the opportunity to hone his narrative ability, and finally the film won the Golden Lion Award at the 49th Venice Film Festival, which is also a rare rural drama film in Chinese-language films.

There is also his "Red Sorghum", when he was created, he wanted to create an authentic national temperament and national style, and the mysterious wild sorghum field was also adapted by Zhang Yimou through the original work.

In addition, there are "The Red Lantern Hangs High", "Land Criminals" and so on, which are classic masterpieces with varied styles and far-reaching ideas. But now, in addition to the excellent lens aesthetics and smooth narrative expression in his films, it is difficult to see the deeper core.

Zhang Yimou is not the only one who has such an embarrassing situation, but also the fifth-generation directors who grew up with him.

There are people like Tian Zhuangzhuang who made films such as "Our Corner", "Rock Youth" and "Great Eunuch Li Lianying" and became a blockbuster, and then "lost everyone" because the long-term movie could not be released.

There are also people like Chen Kaige, who fell off the altar and were "abandoned" by the audience, compared with his famous works "Yellow Earth" and "Farewell My Concubine", starting from "Wuji", the reputation of his works has been controversial.

"The Legend of the Demon Cat" was complained that only the picture was shocking, and the rest had no highlights; "The Taoist Priest Goes Down the Mountain" was again ridiculed as "a pot of chicken soup with bad clothes".

In addition, he ran to participate in variety shows and was also ridiculed by the group, saying that he was too pretentious, an old-style literati thinking, etc., and now Chen Kaige seems to have been abandoned by the younger generation, and it is difficult to dig out new ideas from his works.

And China's sixth-generation directors almost do not follow the mainstream "road", although Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Wang Xiaoshuai are very talented, and have made excellent works such as "The Good Man of the Three Gorges", "Suzhou River" and "Qinghong".

But they have one thing in common: the subject matter audience is too niche, and some works are even reviewed as a luxury.

Their films show different connotations, which may be worth exploring in the field of art, but when it comes to the public aesthetic, it is difficult to resonate with most audiences. Some netizens even said that the sixth generation of directors have an artistic aesthetic, but lack the film market and word-of-mouth recognition.

There is also Jiang Wen, he can be regarded as a stone breaker, and has also exported high-quality works such as "Sunny Day" and "The Devil is Coming", and "Let the Bullets Fly" is even more shocking.

However, in the past two years, his films have not only been few, but the reputation of "One Step Away" and "Evil Does Not Suppress Righteousness" is not enough, and he cannot afford the beams of Chinese films.

Watching the fifth generation of directors more and more followed, the sixth generation of directors gradually "lonely", on the other hand, the younger generation of directors burst out a different creative spark. For example, Guo Fan's "The Wandering Earth 2" took 3 years just to polish the benchmark in the field of Chinese science fiction.

In him, sci-fi films that were beyond the control of the older generation of directors developed rapidly.

In fact, in "The Wandering Earth 1", the special effects in the film are wonderful enough, allowing countless audiences to begin to see the progress of Chinese science fiction films, creating a box office miracle of 4.6 billion.

In "The Wandering Earth 2", Guo Fan added a full story logic, making it more logical for the "Moving Mountain Plan" to become the "Wandering Earth" plan, and also allowing more audiences to see the "spring" of domestic sci-fi films.

Although the narrative expression of the "The Wandering Earth" series still has some stiff places, such as Andy Lau and his daughter Yaya's story line is slightly immature, and Zhang Yimou's plot narrative technique is not comparable.

But Guo Fan's film ambitions are already impossible for Zhang Yimou to complete. Perhaps, as he emphasizes in the film, "this is a project that will take 2500 or even 100 generations to complete", although it is a first taste, but it is not hidden.

Guo Fan is not alone, and a new generation of directors like Wen Muye and Lu Yang are also like this, and the box office has received a double harvest in the past two years. Wen Muye used "I Am Not the God of Medicine" and "Miracle Stupid Child" to make the audience once again moved by the strong "human touch".

As he said in the interview: "Although success and making money may be the landing point of happiness for many people, what I advocate is that whether it is successful or not, whether it makes money or not, happiness is the most important." ”

Lu Yang used "Embroidered Spring Knife" and "Assassination of a Novelist" to let everyone see the shadow of the "new generation" of ghost directors.

And a rookie director called "Dumpling" exported more than 5 billion cartoons "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends", so that more people began to pay attention to national comics and expected Chinese animation to go to the world.

In the field of niche routes, non-professional documentary director Qiu Jiongjiong exported the much-praised "Pepper and Horse Hall Meeting", the imagination in the film is amazing, and the unique narrative technique is completely not the old way, which can be described as magical and absurd but not sincere and heavy.

Some netizens said that the sci-fi masterpiece "The Wandering Earth 2" bumped into the traditional mainstream movie "Manjiang Red", worried that it would not hit the "head and break the blood", and also worried that it would close the door of Chinese sci-fi films with its own hands, but in fact, this worry is somewhat redundant.

We cannot deny that in "Manjiang Hong", there is oriental realism romance, and there is "death" that does not seek people's hearts, but seeks endless "life", but we must also see the "current crisis, only responsibility" in "The Wandering Earth 2".

After all, Zhang Yimou's era has many differences from Guo Fan's era, because whenever sci-fi films and dynamic large-scale productions are mentioned, Hollywood movies will be thought of by global audiences, but Guo Fan with his ambition tries to let more people see the different colors of future sci-fi films, a new expression belonging to the Chinese style.

Many people know that "The Wandering Earth 2" has been in preparation for 3 years, while "Manjiang Red" has only been in preparation for half a year.

It is reported that Zhang Yimou went to Shanxi to see this old mansion, wanting to shoot more than "The Red Lantern Hangs High", and also thought of a bold attempt to use a mirror to the end, but in the end he "compromised" for the smoothness of the story.

It is undeniable that "Manjiang Red" has achieved "full popularity", Zhang Yimou is still a golden signboard of Chinese films, and the lens aesthetics are still outstanding, but it has "lost" to "The Wandering Earth" to some extent.

Because in the long run, Chinese films may not need "Manjiang Hong", but they must need "The Wandering Earth", which is necessary for the replacement of Chinese films with the old and new.

In the new generation of directors, we can see a keen capture, imagination and ambition of the mood of the times, and they can resonate with young audiences.

The gradual withdrawal of the older generation of directors, the emergence of a new generation of directors, they have the future of Chinese films, perhaps as Zhang Yimou said in the interview, "I hope to always make different things", we also look forward to the future of Chinese films can compete for the flow.