The author of this article is a contributor @Yoshinaga Midori
Hungry and lazy, not loving labor, only movies
The 2023 May 1st file with new films has come to an end.
The comedy "Life is Unfamiliar" finally surpassed "The King of the Long Sky" in the final post-production, ranking first and second in the box office list with 500 million and 470 million respectively.
"Life is Unfamiliar" is a road comedy featuring family fun, the family of four's trip to visit relatives was stirred up, and the conflict between the father-in-law and the son-in-law injected a lot of jokes into the film.
"The King of the Long Sky" is a military blockbuster with a military theme, showing the professional life of air force test pilots in the new era, focusing on shocking audio-visual and home-country feelings.
Two films with different genres and different styles jointly supported this year's May 1st file (65% of the box office), and the first producer behind them appeared Han Han's company - Tingdong Pictures.
In other words, although the most popular "King of the Long Sky" before the screening was overtaken, and although the "small type" "Life Road is Unfamiliar" counterattacked the big-production "King of the Long Sky", the big winner of the May 1st file is always Han Han hidden behind the scenes.
Tingdong Film was established in 2015 led by Han Han
At one time, the most prominent label on him was "post-80s writer + racing driver", which was the cultural banner of a generation of young people; But after nearly a decade of trials in the film industry, he has become a successful director, producer, investor, and owns a film company that has an increasingly present presence in the industry.
Today, let's turn the timeline back to 2014 and take a look at how Han Han, a newcomer in the film and television industry of that year, expanded his film and television territory step by step.
The 2014 big-screen debut "After the Meeting" highly condenses the personal style of "writer Han Han": three young people constantly meet old and new people during their journey, there are encounters and partings, but in the final analysis, they still have to go to their destination.
At the beginning of the director, "After the Meeting" is not a mature movie, but it has received a box office of more than 600 million under the influence of Han Han's personal IP, which can be regarded as the opening of stepping into the film industry.
It is worth noting that the production companies of the film are Lu Jinbo's Guomai Culture and Fang Li's Laurey Pictures, and the two companies later established a close cooperation relationship with Han Han, and Bona Film in the joint production company was deeply bound to Han Han a few years later.
The supporting characters who contributed the most to the joke in "After the Meeting" are Baike and Kong Lianshun from Wanhe Tianyi, which was when the short drama "Never Expected" called Beast Yi Xiaoxing exploded, and the friendly cooperation between Han Han and Wanhe Tianyi also continued many years later.
With the success of "After the Meeting", in 2015, Tingdong Film was established, and the company name was taken from Han Han's birthplace - Tingdong Village, Tinglin Town, Jinshan District, Shanghai.
In 2017, Han Han wrote and directed the film "Riding the Wind and Waves" produced by Tingdong Film again, which created a box office performance of 1 billion in the Spring Festival. It continues the motif of youth and intergenerational relations in the small town in the previous work, borrows from the classic narrative mode, and tells a time-traveling story about family affection and love with laughter and tears.
The production companies of "Riding the Wind and Waves" also include Guomai Culture, Laurey Film, Wanhe Tianyi, Bona Film, etc., which can clearly show that Han Han is gradually expanding the "circle of friends" vein. In the same year, Han Han took a stake in Bona Film.
In 2019, Han Han's third film "Flying Life" written and directed by Han Han was released, reproducing the nostalgic elements of father-son love + racing drivers. The story is still pleasant, and the joining of national comedian Shen Teng also added to the national popularity, and the film finally won 1.7 billion box office.
In addition to Tingdong Film, Bona Film, and Guomai Culture, the production companies of "Flying Life" also have Maoyan Culture and Alibaba Pictures. Soon after, Tingdong Pictures received investment from Alibaba Pictures and cooperated to reach the "Jincheng Co-production Plan".
However, by the Spring Festival in 2022, Han Han's fourth film "Four Seas" only received more than 500 million box office, and the tragic story and the Spring Festival atmosphere were misplaced, and did not capture the audience's widespread favor.
Although the core of Han Han's works as a director converges, the films he has participated in the production and supervision of are different styles, and if they are not put on the table, they may not be visible at all.
In detail, he has served as the producer of the literary films "Grocery Store", "The Last Night on Earth", "Sunshine Robbers", the suspense genre "Rise to Fame" and the latest "King of the Long Sky" and "Life is Unfamiliar".
In addition to the above-mentioned films, Tingdong Film also participated in the production of the Hong Kong action film "Kill the Wolf Greedy Wolf", Bona Film is also one of the producers of this film, which is a successful follow-up score.
Looking at the films that Han Han has participated in the production, some of them are due to personal interest, the other is due to commercial considerations, or perhaps both.
"Kill the Wolf, Greedy Wolf", 2017
Except for "The Last Night on Earth" directed by Bi Gan, they are all works with very distinct genre elements. He once bluntly expressed his preference for genre in an interview, "Although my own books or movies are not typed, I like to watch very typed."
"The Grocery Store" and "The Sunshine Robber" are based on the best-selling novels by Japanese writers Keigo Higashino and Kotaro Isaka, respectively. Han Han, who is a writer, is more sensitive to literary IP, and film and television adaptations of literary works often enter his sight.
The ONE APP he founded is also using daily articles to discover young authors and nurture literary IP. At the beginning of founding Tingdong Pictures, he also wanted to incubate his famous work "Triple Gate", but the project was stranded for several years.
Of course, these two films also contain elements that Han Han is interested in: such as the small-town style in "Grocery Store" and the absurd journey in "Sunshine Robbers". It's a pity that the local landing of "Grocery Store" and "Sunshine Robbers" is not good, even with the blessing of traffic actors and national comedians, word of mouth has not achieved the expected results.
Han Han said that he "will also support some literary and artistic film scripts", and it is clear that "The Last Night on Earth" can fall into this category, and he praised it as "a particularly poetic and textured work".
The film revolves around the entanglements, nightmares and mysteries of a pair of red men and green women, which Han Han accurately summarizes, "As if it were a dream, we met so briefly." This sentence is actually very suitable to describe "After the Meeting".
From the big movie "Never Expected" to "Rise to Fame" to "Life Road Unfamiliar", it can be seen that Han Han and Wanhe Tianyi and its faction directors "commercial marriage".
In 2015, Tingdong Film participated in the production of the big movie "Never Expected" in which Wanhe Tianyi first tried to scream, with Han Han as the art director and a funny cameo in the role of White Dragon Horse.
2021's "Rise to Fame" faced the problem of insufficient investment at the beginning of preparation, and director Liu Xunzimo (who was also an actor of "Never Expected") previously created the blockbuster "Report Boss", but it was a small-cost short drama after all.
Perhaps out of friendship, or perhaps out of evaluation of the script, Han Han participated in "Fame", and this small-cost film became a super dark horse that won 900 million box office in a weak schedule.
This year's "Life is Unfamiliar" is the third feature film directed by Yi Xiaoxing, and after experiencing the setback of "Never Expected" and the sales of "The King of Bath", his treatment of commercial comedy has matured.
This time, Han Han gambled right again, and this road comedy showed good box office stamina.
Back to "King of the Long Sky", this is also a "fighter, mechanical" work that Han Han is interested in.
He announced the project as early as the founding of Tingdong Pictures, which was then named "Sky Production".
After going around in circles for several years, Han Han did not direct this visual effects blockbuster as expected, but handed over the director's chair to Liu Xiaoshi, the director of the "Bad Monkey 72 Change Film Project".
Han Han, who flows in front of the stage and behind the scenes, continues to expand his film and television territory.
Next, the movie "Forgetting" directed by Liu Zhenyun's daughter Liu Yulin and starring Liu Haocun and Song Weilong is expected to be released this year, which is also Tingdong Pictures' first attempt at the pure love film genre.
This year's "Life Skin" and "Driving a Shooting Star" are quite Han Han-style works, the former revolving around small-town youth, and the latter exploring parent-child relationships in fantasy flights.
The projects approved by Tingdong Film also include the online drama "Flying Life" and the recently announced movie "Flying Life 2", the drama version focuses on youth fantasy, focusing on the past of two souls; The film version inherits the father-son plot of "Flying Life" and tells the story of Zhang Chi's son.
With the continuous expansion of the border, Han Han and Tingdong will definitely face a lot of pressure and uncertainty, but for the film industry, it is always good to have "new forces" and "new kinetic energy", waiting for the next new layout.