When it comes to online movies, what keywords will come to everyone's mind?
Rough and raw? Or is it slightly pompous?
Today, if everyone's impression of online movies is still stuck in these negative feelings more than ten years ago, it means that everyone, like me, has completely missed the process of upgrading the Internet University from barbaric growth to today.
To what extent have today's online movies been upgraded?
You see the delicacy of this visual effect, it has basically reached the point that it is difficult for us ordinary audiences to distinguish the difference between it and the theater from the visual effect.
Look at the cast, Liu Yase, Zhang Xiaochen, Liu Xiaoqing, the configuration of the golden statue and the golden rooster double film in the three protagonists is also completely the level of first-class theater movies.
These are all from the recent "Qi Men Dun Jia 2", and for people like me who have not seen much of the market, this film really opened my eyes.
The IP of "Qi Men Dunjia" first came from the theatrical film "Qi Men Dunjia" co-developed and produced by Tsui Hark and Wei Junzi in 2017, which retained Tsui Hark's consistent whimsical imagination and preference for oriental strange fantasy culture, and the foggy hidden gate is a very core setting in the entire IP.
Shortly after the release of the movie, Li Siwen, vice president of Qishu Youyu, took the initiative to contact Wei Junzi and conducted IP contact, and under his push, soon "Qi Men Dun Jia" was transformed into an online movie for second creation.
"Qi Men Dunjia", which was launched in 2020, retains the core "fog hidden door" setting of the original IP, and is more bold in visual effects.
Recalling that I accidentally clicked on this "Qi Men Dunjia" from the homepage recommendation of the video website, the weird inn, spider web hanging corpse, insect demon devouring soul and other pictures were completely presented in the same big scene, the incision was extremely small, but the shock was great.
Although visual effects have not been the biggest problem for domestic movies over the years, it is still very amazing that an online movie can make visual effects like this!
After the launch of "Qi Men Dunjia" that year, it was broadcast by the audience with a box office of 56.41 million, creating a new record for online movies in the traditional billing mode.
Today, three years later, "Qi Men Dun Jia 2" has reappeared as a series of films. A sequel to do for three years, in the post-epidemic era, does require the creator's intention and persistence.
I thought about the intentions of the creators, but I didn't expect them to be so attentive.
Friends who know a little about the online film market will know what it means for the film's producer Fang Qishu Youyu and the director "Xiang Brothers" - in the online student market, they are synonymous with boutique.
Dong Guanjie, the founder of Fang Qishu Youyu, took the lead in proposing the "IP strategy" of online movies in the industry, and for the first time introduced well-known IPs such as "Shaolin", "Four Famous Catches", "Forensic Qin Ming", "Ghost Blowing Lantern Makino Tricks" into the online film industry, and distributed more than 600 online movies under the strategic layout of "boutique". Among the online movies produced by various companies in 2022, the box office champion work "Weird Tales in Yin Yang Town" and the third-place work "Open Coffin" are both produced by Qishu Youyu, and at the same time, it also ranks first with an eight-part box office score of more than 10 million, which can be called the industry's out-and-out online movie boss.
Among the three Xiang brothers who are in charge of the content, the background of graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts gives the three a natural advantage in film and television aesthetics and art setting modeling. The close cooperation and clear division of labor of the brother family have made this film and television company quickly enter the ranks of "high-precision" online content.
The strong combination of these two companies has made "Qi Men Dun Jia 2" also achieve an all-round leap. From the visual effect alone, bugs, cobwebs, etc. continue the aesthetic design of the previous one, and have been upgraded in more detail in terms of look and feel.
Ruined forests, treacherous caves, temples in the night... These scenes connect fantasy and thriller, and establish the genre temperament of the film from the aesthetic design.
On top of this, one of the most surprising upgrades is the scene of the Mist Hidden Gate and the Land Temple. As the core concept of the entire IP, "fog hidden door" gives it a cultural imagination in terms of visual presentation. In the smoky cloud mountain, the people of the fog hidden gate are hidden in it, and the lamps suspended in the air are the incarnations of the people of the fog hidden gate who guard the water and soil, people are on the lamp, people are dead and the lights are out, which contains simple Eastern philosophy.
The concept of "fog concealment" is embodied as the visual perception of the cloud mountain fog cover, and its appearance is related to the small land temple on the stone bridge of the small city, and the square inch of heaven and earth and infinite time and space are one.
The small land pavilion has become the entrance of the "Mist Hidden Gate", which has the meaning of seeing the heaven and earth in every square inch. This is also real and illusionary, the strong contrast between a large and a small instantly deters everyone's attention and creates a strong impact visual experience.
Vision alone is not enough, this time, from the cast and story level, the film is also moving towards an extreme. It is no exaggeration to say that it is the "roll king" of this year's online movies.
The story still continues the previous work, telling the story of the messenger of justice, the Wuyinmen people, hiding in the busy city to keep one side safe, and the villain Tianxie vainly trying to use the power of Taisui to fight to the death with the Wuyinmen.
Among them, the righteous heroine of Wuyinmen is played by Liu Yase, the queen of the golden statue, the villain Tianxie is played by Liu Xiaoqing, the queen of the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers, and the male protagonist Wu Yin, who longs for an ordinary life in the midst of good and evil, is played by Zhang Xiaochen, who surprised everyone in the movie "Nameless Madness".
When did online movies "roll" to the point of using two queens?!
Not only the two actresses, but also Wu Yin, played by Zhang Xiaochen, is also eye-catching. He is unruly and has a persistent and sincere look, which is extremely consistent with the identity of the character in his film - a person who repeatedly jumps between dreams and reality.
The performances of these excellent actors have largely realized the landing of the script at the performance level, and completed an optimization and upgrade in the presentation of the story.
According to the past practice, talking here, we can say that we have witnessed the birth of an excellent S-class online movie, but this time, for this film, super visual effects and lineup are only its duty, and the real special skill that hides it is its care and respect for the content of the script.
Frankly speaking, when I watched the first part of "Qi Men Dunjia" a few years ago, although I was amazed by its visual level, I still had a strong dissatisfaction with the thin play. And this time, although the visual effects and lineup are surprised, what makes me most valuable is its intentions in the play.
It can even be said that from the first to the second, it has completed a surprising drama growth, even if it is placed in the annual theatrical film.
The magic weapon carried by the little junior sister (played by Liu Yase) in the film roared and vibrated when she saw Wu Yin (played by Zhang Xiaochen) for the first time. One is a misty hidden door person, and the other is a street god who is not doing his job, and the details of the magic weapon vibration pave more secret connections for the two.
Little Junior Sister's magic weapon is a goldfish, and in the swimming of the goldfish, ordinary people are erased from their psychedelic memories of the "Mist Hidden Gate". The appearance of this fish has also become a foreshadowing in the play - people's memories can be changed at will, so will emotions also change?
Furthermore, as the story progresses, we see one dream after another of the protagonist, like waking up like a dream, and it is impossible to tell whether the dream is real or not.
The emotions between the male and female protagonists come and go in this oriental Zen way, and in the interweaving of reality and dreams, we complete a complete imagination of the previous history of the two.
Through the intention of the goldfish, in a film known for action and visual effects, we obtained a complete understanding of the characters and plot, which was almost unimaginable in previous online movies.
Even, the film uses symbolic characters to complete the two-way construction of the emotions of the male and female protagonists. The use of this series of cinematic narrative elements allows us to see the original intention of this film to start from the characters and start from the emotional logic of the characters to build the story.
The ability to make an online movie so emotionally delicate and narrative complete is thanks to the screenwriter of the film, Yu Ao. As the screenwriter of "Wind Spell", Yu Aosu is known for emotional processing, and her addition has given the entire film an extremely delicate emotional texture. While completing the narrative task, the oriental philosophy she injected into the entire film also makes people feel more surprised than expected.
"Am I dreaming, or am I in someone else's dream?"
In the film, the male and female protagonists have expressed such feelings, and the dream not only formed the emotional echo of the characters, but also left the myth of Eastern philosophy - is Zhuang Zhou's dream butterfly really a butterfly or a dream of Nanke like you and me?
As a tool to open dreams, the intention of fish can also find the origin from Laozhuang's philosophy - Zifei Yuyan knows the joy of fish? It leads to thinking: Are those who forget happier or those who remember happier?
Dreams and fish, memory and reality, the emotional reality of the characters echo the truth and falsehood of the existence of the "fog hidden gate", and on top of the vision and emotion, give us the aesthetic aftertaste of oriental Zen and Laozhuang's intention. For a large network, it completely exceeded expectations.
When theatrical films thought that the oriental fantasy theme had come to an end, online movies deeply cultivated this field, and even rediscovered living water at the end. The leap it presents is enough to make theatrical films feel crisis.
Go check it out, the password of the oriental fantasy theme, is in it.