The Spring Festival stall is over.
But for a movie, the Spring Festival file in 2023 is over before it starts.
Until now, the audience is still confused:
Is it on?
How did I not see.
Didn't get on?
Then why are they all separated.
Actually, it has not left, it is still waiting for a gorgeous counterattack:
Chinese Ping-Pong's Jedi Strikes Back
Frankly speaking, Sir has watched the screening and simply commented:
Deng Chaoyu Baimei combination has the best career.
Wait a minute.
What about this, some people have long formed a prejudice against this pair - "what is produced inside, it must be a bad film".
Let's put it this way, at present, "Chinese Table Tennis Jedi Strikes Back" (hereinafter referred to as "Ping-Pong") Douban 7.0 is also a sports theme, and "Winning the Championship", which won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Picture, has a Douban of 7.1.
Of course, whether it is good or not, or wait until the official release is left to you to judge.
What Sir would like to discuss today is:
A domestic sports film.
A sports film that shows the tenacious struggle and positivity of the national ball.
Why is it so fateful?
01
How many versions of a movie can there be?
"Ping Pong" tells you that there can be thirty versions.
Since its completion in September last year, "Ping Pong" has been wandering, setting and withdrawing files many times, returning to the furnace to modify, and then setting and withdrawing.
Originally scheduled to be released on National Day last year, on September 8, "Table Tennis" first released a trailer, and then the communication plan was continuously shelved.
The first version of the poster is written in 2022, so stay tuned, but the date is to be determined.
At the end of the year, the movie was renamed "Chinese Table Tennis Jedi Strikes Back", which seems to refer to the Spring Festival file.
January 9, set for the first day of the new year.
When other new films in the Spring Festival file are stepping up their publicity offensive, "Ping Pong" was suddenly changed to the third day of the Lunar New Year on January 16, for unknown reasons.
The Spring Festival movie is not the first day of the first year? See you for the first time.
On the third day of the Lunar New Year, due to the erratic publicity in the early stage, the attendance rate of "Chinese Table Tennis" was worrying, and the box office fell behind the other 7 Spring Festival files.
If it continues to be released, it will undoubtedly continue to sink to the bottom.
So "Ping Pong" urgently announced the withdrawal of the file, waiting to strive for another turnaround on February 17.
Seeing this, you may have been dizzy.
However, this is not so much a spontaneous commotion operation of the film side, but rather that there are too many difficulties to take into account when shooting a live-action sports movie in China.
For example, last year's National Day file could not wait for an echo, but really not only "Table Tennis", this year's Spring Festival file "Deep Sea", the recently scheduled May Day "King of the Long Sky", all belong to this ranks.
The original National Day file of "Table Tennis" is just in time for the World Table Tennis Championships, will the release of the movie and public opinion have an impact on the competition?
Perhaps for this reason, "Ping Pong" was asked to change the schedule.
And later?
The comparison can find that from the first day of the new year to the third day of the new year, what has changed is the problem of character prototypes.
In the past, all the publicity of "Ping Pong" emphasized:
"Based on a true story".
There is also a version of the trailer, which is directly called "Five Tigers Special".
Fans familiar with the story of the national team have already given their ID number.
But officially set the trailer for the third year of junior high school, Sir found that all the names of the people were changed, including when watching the movie, some lines and mouth shapes did not match.
Although Yu Baimei said in public that all archetypal characters have been authorized.
But obviously, when it comes to release, this has become a hurdle.
Therefore, when other Spring Festival movies have been successfully finalized, promoted, and pre-sold.
Only "Ping Pong" is still wandering.
Probably because of the lack of preparation time, the helpless option of the third day of the new year has become the only option.
Such a scene is actually not unfamiliar.
In 2017, Chen Kexin prepared for "Winning the Championship", and it took almost two years for the film to finally come out, during this time, in order to smooth out the disputes between all parties and ensure the quality of the film, it also underwent countless name changes, modifications, and withdrawals.
Zhang Ji, the screenwriter of "Winning the Championship", said, "To shoot the Chinese women's volleyball team, many historical periods cannot be avoided, and many things dare not be touched, and they cannot be touched. ”
Replacing the Chinese women's volleyball team with any "national movement" is the same reason.
In China, adapting a true story is not an ordinary difficulty.
Coupled with the qualification of sports, it is bound to be even more difficult.
02
Many people may say:
Since I finally decided on the third year of junior high school, why did you "run away" in the end? Is it prodded?
It's like a 100-meter race.
When someone else has already run 30 meters and then join the race, the result is irreversible.
The popularity of the Spring Festival file is basically about the highest box office "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2", no one cares about the new "Table Tennis", and it can't get the film in the cinema, so it can only fall into complete passivity.
Sir originally wanted to watch it with his parents during the New Year, but found that there were few films, basically only two options: early morning and midnight.
The lack of publicity in the early stage made "Ping Pong" almost in a state of "disappearing" under the battle of immortals fighting in this year's Spring Festival.
In order to make up for the loss of publicity, the film side had to maintain a small range of screenings to attract fans as much as possible and how much word of mouth could be saved.
The twists and turns of the movie, because the factors are too complicated, the film party can not announce to the public, the combination of "confusing operation" and "unspeakable" has led to more trumped-up accusations in "Ping Pong".
Some people feel that "Ping Pong" has repeatedly changed its files because they are worried about box office failure.
And in the current atmosphere of "against capital".
Any behavior of striving for the ideal schedule for the film will be defined as "capital circle money", or even "consumer athlete".
Sir believes that after being scolded for a bad film, the main creator already has resistance.
But for a filmmaker.
The most feared thing is not being scolded, but that no one cares, not even an echo.
For all movie-loving audiences, the biggest fear is not that the movie is not perfect.
Rather, it is a discussion about cinema, which begins to have nothing to do with cinema and is hijacked by public opinion and stereotypes.
Not to mention.
The quality of the film is passable.
In order to shoot "Ping Pong" well, Yu Baimei and Deng Chao put in a lot of effort.
As a national sport, table tennis is extremely popular, and the large amount of professional knowledge and competition scene involved in it is difficult to let the audience enter the play once there are flaws.
So, the script was polished for five years and revised over and over again.
But the crew believes that what to be afraid of and what to grind is the spirit of ping-pong.
Unlike Chen Kexin's "Winning the Championship", the former uses athletes as actors, and Yu Baimei uses actors to play athletes.
To this end, he specifically consulted "Wrestle! Aamir Khan, who plays a wrestling coach in Daddy, how do actors act sports themes like things.
Khan encouraged that as long as he took the time to train, the actor's performance in the film could be fake.
Yu Baimei had the bottom of this, and asked every actor who appeared in "Table Tennis" to set aside eight months to train hard like an athlete.
As the line in the film:
If others practice a thousand times, you will practice enough ten thousand times.
In this regard, the actor did not complain, but only encouraged himself.
Remember when it hurts
Others have been practicing for more than ten years
As someone who has seen the movie, Sir can say it responsibly.
From the actor's appearance, technique to expression, the film is very restored.
The degree of intention, the archetypal characters are indeed boasting.
I've seen a lot of games
He could find the look on my face on the field
Such a film that has been recognized by prototypes, taken from reality, and has undergone so many modifications and twists and turns.
"Ping Pong" deserves a fair evaluation.
03
In China, the difficulty of sports movies is not sports, but "big".
Since sports are a national system on the mainland, the concerns involved are too large and too many, and the obstacles encountered may be even greater.
So why not shoot sports small?
However, small stories, small people, without the endorsement of big IP and national plots, publicity will become particularly difficult.
It's like "Deep Sea" at the box office Waterloo in the Spring Festival file.
Of course, there are many flaws in the movie, but compared with the previous domestic animation, which only relies on combustion and positive energy to get out of the circle, and repeatedly applies traditional Chinese mythology, Brother Monkey's monkey hair is about to be gone.
This time "Deep Sea" chose an original story, and with a depressed little girl as the protagonist, the innovation in the subject matter itself is worthy of respect.
Of course, judging by the box office results, it is also particularly thankless.
Similarly, if the prototype of today's "Table Tennis" story is not the men's table tennis team that once turned over in the trough, and it is not telling a well-known history, how many people will be willing to spend money to enter the theater?
The return of this year's Spring Festival file allows us to see the revival of the film market.
But what is more undeniable is that.
The same movie, released in different schedules, will turn the box office performance upside down.
The audience does not have the habit of steadily consuming movies, and cannot reach a strong enough trust with movies.
If there were, it had been broken by more force majeure factors in the past three years.
This is not entirely for the filmmaker to decide.
This is why Sir is still willing to shout for "Ping Pong" today.
When watching the movie, Sir kept thinking, what is the spirit of ping pong?
Perhaps, it is both about winning and losing, and it is not about winning or losing.
Winning is strength, ambition, and proof.
But again, winning requires the right time and place, not always the standard of all things.
And every moment when you are willing to "lose" in order to "win" is truly strong and confident.
The movie has a place to go.
Dai Minjia, the head coach played by Deng Chao, in order to boost the morale of the players, the wall opposite the "Glory for the Country" in the training hall was plastered with posters of our biggest opponent - the then "big devil" Swedish team.
In the last game, before the 1995 Tianjin World Table Tennis Championships, Dai Minjia removed the poster of the Swedish team and replaced the poster with a photo of the Chinese team member himself.
This scene has no lines, but it is particularly moving.
Perhaps, man's biggest opponent has always been himself - too afraid of losing, too eager to win, too concerned about honor and results, and forgetting to enjoy the game.
Perhaps, this line in the play is not only applicable to the table tennis team, but also a footnote to the fate of "Chinese Table Tennis" from the trial to the release, full of tribulations:
"If winning is always so easy, what's the point of winning?"
Even Chinese table tennis, which has always been considered to be "won numb", will have a slump, not to mention that it is still in its infancy, and it needs encouragement, competition, and progressive sports movies and Chinese films.
The picture of this article comes from the Internet
Editorial Assistant: Dr. Strangelove's multi-store hostess