On February 17, To attended the 73rd Berlin Film Festival and met with the media with the chairman of the jury and other judges.
During this period, Du Qifeng made some remarks, which caused an uproar in public opinion.
At first, he just shared his views on global cinema, his words were normal, and he was surprised when answering reporters' questions in the second act, probably feeling that his speech was somewhat inappropriate and hurriedly taking remedial measures.
At the time, the reporter asked: "Can you tell us why movies are so important to us, audiences sitting in dark rooms and watching movies through the big screen, or according to your opinion, what makes movies so unique?" Make movies last forever? ”
Perhaps influenced by the speech of the Iranian filmmaker on the jury, or influenced by the phoenix legend "Free Flight", Du Qifeng's words began to speak.
This roughly means that if you want to govern a place, the first thing to do is film, stop its inherent film culture, because movies are close to the public and can be started directly from the cinema.
As he talked, he turned sharply and went directly to his homeland, one of which was: "I think Hong Kong... No, sorry. ”
As soon as Du Qifeng's remarks came out, the mainland entertainment industry quickly exploded, and before it was fermented, his personal social platform account "Du Qifengbot" was directly gone.
The search displays: User does not exist.
In this case, it was not canceled by themselves, that is, many netizens reported it together and directly blocked it.
Whether these remarks have an impact on the release of To's subsequent films is not yet known.
Brother Brown analyzed that this remark of the To Qifeng Film Festival caused controversy, with three meanings:
First, about the understanding of "freedom", we are not in a position to talk too much here;
second, the film he directed has been delayed in being released, and he is depressed;
Third, the Hong Kong film industry has been affected.
In this regard, we in the mainland have not interfered or influenced in any way.
But from the context of To Qifeng, I feel that "Hong Kong movies are lonely" has a lot to do with us.
Let's not say anything else, let's compare the current Hong Kong film box office to see how influential mainland films can be in Hong Kong?
On February 18, Hong Kong's real-time box office rankings, there were two mainland films in the top ten, namely "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" priority screenings.
Comparing the box office, "The Wandering Earth 2" was beaten by the Marvel movie "Ant-Man 3", the local Hong Kong films "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" and "When the Wind Rises Again", and the Taiwanese movie "Want to See You".
This is not only the day, since the large-scale release of "The Wandering Earth 2" in Hong Kong on February 9, there has been a situation, even if Andy Lau came forward to announce it desperately, the film's scheduling and box office never got up.
"The Wandering Earth 2", which sold 3.8 billion at the mainland box office, began to be unconvinced when it arrived in Hong Kong, compared to Cameron's "Avatar 2" of 143 million Hong Kong dollars, "The Wandering Earth 2" is a bit of a drop in the bucket, whether it can impact 10 million Hong Kong dollars, it is still a mystery.
From this point of view, the Hong Kong film market is very free, and mainland films in the Hong Kong market are very small, and there is no wave at all, let alone affect the Hong Kong film industry.
The loneliness of Hong Kong films is a deviation between the development of its own film industry and the overall market structure.
A large number of filmmakers went north to the mainland, such as Andy Lau, Stephen Chow, Liu Qingyun, Koo Tianle, Kwok Fucheng, Tony Leung, Chow Yun-fat, etc. A large number of Hong Kong stars entered the mainland, and the young generation of Hong Kong actors lacked, and the screenwriters were not strong, so they could not pull the audience into the theaters.
The DVD era was replaced by network Blu-ray, just as the BB machine era was quickly replaced by mobile phones, film production costs climbed, and peripheral revenues were greatly reduced, film production could not make ends meet, and in the long run, Hong Kong films will be washed by the market, which is what we see now.
Finally, when To's talk about film creation and artistic value, it cannot be explained by the proportion of investment.
The original sentence is like this: "I think movies are not measured by money, I have made several films myself, the cost is not more than two million Hong Kong dollars, and I am so happy and comfortable, I think the most important thing in movies is to talk about passion and vision, without these two, all artists can't do what they should do, even if you give ten billion, you don't have it, you have it." ”
In fact, this paragraph is no problem, many films favored by the academic awards season have very low investment, such as the vast majority of Oscar winning films, almost all of them.
But this passage illustrates a problem from the side: To Qifeng's lack of favor from mainland film capital, so he cannot open the mainland film circle, coupled with the loneliness of Hong Kong films, he has become prolific and has no films to make.
Look at Wang Jing, in the mainland and the three major streaming media platforms in-depth cooperation, his set of 90s set of editing and directing techniques, in the mainland is still very popular, it doesn't matter if it is not on the theater, naturally there will be a large number of ordinary viewers online on-demand, and the box office can also earn softly.
No, Donnie Yen was brought out by him, and "The Legend of Qiao Feng of Dragon Babu" was directly broadcast on the Internet, attracting a large amount of traffic.
With a large number of films such as "Mermaid", "Journey to the West", "Operation Mekong", "Outsmart Tiger Mountain", "Di Renjie", "Operation Red Sea", "Changjin Lake" and "Chinese Doctor" and a large number of films have exploded at the box office.
Hong Kong directors such as Stephen Chow, Lam Chiu-yin, Tsui Hark and Lau Wai Keung have been recognized by mainland capital.
Film production companies such as Bona Film and Huayi Brothers give them heavy film budget costs, and their commercial box office has always refreshed the box office ranking of Chinese film history.
As long as the films produced have a market in the mainland and the audience is willing to say "owes him a movie ticket", the latest works will naturally continue to come out, but what about To Qifeng?
In 1996, he co-founded Galaxy Images with Wai Ka-fai and other filmmakers, and cooperated with Hong Kong stars such as Andy Lau, Liu Qingyun, Wong Zihua, Cheng Xiuwen, Yam Tat Wah and other Hong Kong stars, and made many popular films around the millennium.
For example, "Skinny Men and Women", "Gunfire", "Dark War", "Dark Flower" and other excellent works, at least three movies can be produced every year, but since "Poison War" in 2012, the works have begun to decline year by year, and in recent years, it has reached the appearance of a few years to release one.
Among them, 3 films are more difficult to produce than imagined:
One is "King of Kings", which was established in 2016, a costume fantasy movie about "The Yellow Emperor vs. Chi You", and the Douban information only shows director Du Qifeng and screenwriter Wei Jiahui for 7 years, and none of the starring information can be found;
The other is "Black 3", the film was established in 2013, because the starring actor used controversial actors, so for ten years, it has always been in an indefinite extended state, which may be one of the main reasons why Du Qifeng's complained;
There is also "Monster Hunting Master", the film was established in 2015, bringing funds to Huaqiang's Chinese star to enter, starring Andy Lau, Gong Li and Xiang Zuo, and another name called "Big Man Has Big Wisdom 2".
Is it very familiar, yes, it is Andy Lau's big fat movie, the first heroine is Cecilia Cheung, and the second film has been filmed for 8 years, and there is no way to release it, what strange things happened in between?
From Du Qifeng, who was comparable to Wang Jing in terms of high production before, and now 3 movies with difficult production compared to Stephen Chow, it can be seen that Du Qifeng's has gradually been abandoned by the market.
Because he did not learn the essence of Wang Jing, nor did he come up with the mind to embrace the mainland, he could not obtain the same massive film resources in the mainland as Stephen Chow, Lin Chaoxian, Tsui Hark, and Liu Zhenwei.
In this way, you can only make small-production films with an investment of 2 million Hong Kong dollars.
Tracing back to To's last movie, or "My Boxing King Boyfriend" in 2019.
The film is directed by To Qifeng, "My Boxing King Boyfriend" starring Xiang Zuo and Wang Keru was abandoned by the market, with a total box office of 24.5 million, and the film side only got 8.85 million at the box office, and the budget cost of the film was about 30 million, and the producer had no return.
The owner behind "My Boxing King Boyfriend" is Xiang Huaqiang's China Star Pictures, it is obvious that the movie did not come at the box office, this is what the father paid his son to play tickets, and the previous "Legend of Fengshen ", starring Jet Li".
An actor who has not undergone acting training, coupled with the fact that the subject matter cannot attract the audience, the consequences of strong praise to Xiang Zuo have made To's works lose their box office appeal.
Previously, the box office of Du Qifeng's "Three's Company" was only 100 million, and the box office of "Gorgeous Office Worker" cooperated with Zhou Yunfa was only 47.42 million, plus Xiang Zuo's "My Boxing King Boyfriend",
Du Qifeng successfully achieved the box office "three consecutive swoops", word of mouth has also repeatedly broken new lows, the only good reputation of the later works "Tree Big Move" is affected by the theme and content factors, the mainland can not be released.
Du Qifeng also has a nickname called "Du Cannon", and his degree of bombardment was comparable to Feng Xiaogang's, coupled with his arrogant and unobstructed personality.
The Berlin Film Festival remarks are controversial, and I am afraid that they will really be abandoned by the market.
Do you have anything to say about Du Qifeng's remarks?