The same is a Chinese industrial blockbuster! Why is it that compared with the "small broken ball", "Fengshen" netizens scolded

Text | Ling Hu Boguang

Director Wu Ershan, Huang Bo, Li Xuejian, Fei Xiang, Xia Yu, Chen Kun, etc. starring in the costume mythological epic blockbuster "Feng Shen" finally broke out the official trailer, and is scheduled for July 20, the ups and downs of this film will not be repeated here, the three-year epidemic, the company thunder, this as long as you know a little.

However, this is China's most invested to date, a trilogy of continuous filming, ambitious mythological blockbusters.

The official trailer is full of scolding, in addition to the trilogy investment of 3 billion, a single investment of 1 billion these propaganda techniques that provoke netizens to have bad nerves (most of the Chinese blockbusters with high investment in previous years are bad films). Another reason is the level of art, costume Tao, mythical beasts and special effects presented in the trailer.

Probably the same as the costume magic movies such as "The Legend of Fengshen " and "Asura" in previous years, some are not in the air. It seems that the result of the fake costume magic film is not true, so netizens are not optimistic.

Especially in the 2023 Spring Festival file, there is "The Wandering Earth 2", this contrast is really too obvious.

The development of China's film industry in recent years, if not counting war blockbusters such as "Changjin Lake". Guo Fan's sci-fi blockbuster "The Wandering Earth" series and Wu Ershan's Chinese mythological blockbuster "Fengshen Trilogy" are indeed the only two top industrial blockbusters in the Chinese market. is also a Chinese heavy industry blockbuster, why one has been "sealed as a god", and the other has not yet been released.

From Zhang Yimou's "Hero" to "The Wandering Earth", Chinese industrial blockbusters have been in the past 22 years

The development of China's film and television industry has been written many times before, and here is a review for everyone's convenience. It is probably that in the 8090s, due to the relationship between different systems in the mainland, the fifth-generation great directors represented by Zhang Yimou were basically literary and artistic films, and there was no film and television industry.

Of course, because of the concentrated manpower of the "planned economy" to do big things, there are still the TV series CCTV "Four Masterpieces", and then to the movie "Armageddon" trilogy, etc., the kind of transfer of the big army, manpower and various management from top to bottom, from the inside to the outside.

However, it was not a film industry in the commercial market, and the most mature commercial film industry for Chinese-language films at that time was still Hong Kong films.

However, the Hong Kong film industry is more of a kind of traditional director and screenwriter's "mentor" (master apprentice) + core members of traditional theater troupes (main creative teams such as family classes) + more advanced film technology such as art, costume road, and flying car at that time = half-handicraft workshop and semi-industrialized film industry model.

With the further opening up of the mainland market in the mid-to-late 90s, especially after the signing of the WTO in 2001, Hong Kong and Taiwan cultural elites went north to the mainland market to develop, and the commercial blockbusters in the Chinese-language film market in the next decade will basically be in a cross-strait and three-place cooperation model.

It is probably the top in the mainland, the great rivers and mountains, and some of the main creators (including some actors); Hong Kong and Taiwan provided investment, photography, motion design, and then art costume and other technical support, and the Chinese commercial blockbusters of that decade were mainly various costume blockbusters.

In 2008, Feng Xiaogang wanted to make the war film "Rally", probably because there was no experience in war films in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The shooting mode of concentrating manpower to do major events during the "planned economy" period in the mainland does not seem to be very suitable for the new era of marketization.

(In 2006, Zhang Yimou used the army until "Golden Armor", and later officially banned the army from participating in film and television dramas.) And Zhang Yimou spent hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in chrysanthemums all over the city, as well as piles of large numbers of heads and grand war scenes. But the audience does not recognize this effect, or more recognizes the big stars)

At this time, when Feng Xiaogang filmed "Rally" in the original shooting mode of cross-strait and three-place cooperation, he introduced a Korean team that had developed and was quite mature in the film and television industry at that time. At that time, China and the United States had good relations, and Chinese films were rising at the box office and rich, and they followed the global industrial cooperation.

After 2010, China's commercial blockbuster film and television industry has followed this model.

Whether it is Tsui Hark, Stephen Chow and other Hong Kong directors' costume magic blockbusters, or Zhang Yimou's "Jinling 13", Feng Xiaogang's "1942" and other mainland war blockbusters.

In 2012, with the box office of Xu Zheng's "Thai" exceeding 1.2 billion, the box office of Chinese films entered an era of rapid growth, and the entire Chinese pop culture also entered the era of "traffic economy", at which time the investment in Chinese films also began to climb.

Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West" invested 550 million yuan in publicity, and "Asura", which was removed from the shelves within a few days of release, invested 750 million yuan.

The reason for the previous article also summarized three points, one is that the domestic film and television industry technology is backward, hiring a foreign technical team will make a lot of money, domestic special effects companies are holding small heads, the premium is more serious; The second is the "comprador route", and those middlemen who form groups will also make a profit.

The third point is that I believe that there is no need to say, "The Legend of Fengshen ", "Asura", "The Great Bombing", "Ip Man 4" and so on are "money laundering films", this is all news, not my nonsense, this is already a financial problem and social problem, not simply a movie problem.

The next "Legend of the Gods"? Wuershan's "Fengshen Trilogy", what is the origin

In 2016, Zhang Yimou's "The Great Wall" was released, which is strictly a co-production, and the situation is still different.

In 2017, Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2" became a super hit, with an investment of only about 200 million.

In 2019, Guo Fan's "The Wandering Earth" appeared, and the investment in this film is not too of reference significance. Because the first team generates electricity for love, the second "too many fatalities" and the support of national enterprises are not general film projects in the commercial market.

In recent years, the market investment of relatively healthy Chinese commercial blockbusters, basically the "small broken ball" built by the film and television industry, penetrating the traffic economy, spending money on the blade, that is, the special effects team participated in "Assassination of a Novelist", "Walking Alone on the Moon" and "Ten Thousand Miles Home", the investment is between 300 million and 400 million.

You know, at that time, Ning Hao's "Crazy Alien" in the same batch of projects as "Ball 1", went to find an investment of 400 million in special effects made by industrial light films, and that special effect was not an order of magnitude at all.

Not to mention, the previous costume magic blockbusters that claimed to have invested 500 million, 600 million, or even 700 million.

Let's go back to Wuershan's "Fengshen Trilogy", which is the kind of model of "global industrial chain" cooperation mentioned above. The director's last film "Finding the Dragon" was released in 2015, and "Fengsheng" was officially announced in 2016, prepared in 2017, and laid the foundation stone in 2018 and started.

In 2019, various production specials, posters and publicity, and finally finished at the end of the year, were originally scheduled for the 2020 summer file, and we all know what happened later.

After all, "Fengshen Trilogy" and "Ball 1" are a film project of the same period (of course, the latter's investment is not comparable), and "Ball 2" is already because of the success of the first film. Then the main creator has experience, the investment is higher, the scale is larger, and it is already a project for the comprehensive upgrading of the film and television industry.

But "The Wandering Earth" we all know that in addition to the ability of "science fiction Daji" to turn around, it is completely a breakthrough from zero for the Chinese film and television industry, a model of generating electricity with love, which is different from the shooting mode of Wuershan's "Fengshen Trilogy".

In the final analysis, the breakthrough of these two director teams for the Chinese film and television industry is still a dispute over the route.

Guo Fan's "The Wandering Earth" is to take an independent route, generate electricity with love, and finally build China's film and television industry step by step; Wu Ershan's "Fengshen Trilogy" is a model of taking the global industrial industry chain, and then learning from it, summarizing experience to build a model of the film and television industry.

Note: I have looked for information in the previous article, and Wuershan first looked for a domestic special effects team. It was also the Chinese special effects company MOREVFX such as "Little Broken Ball", but the technical people at that time really couldn't push it. At the same time, the director team also established its own special effects company Changshengtian, which is used to learn industrial technology, management and other experience.

The same is a "Chinese industrial blockbuster", compare "Fengshen" and "The Wandering Earth", the difference will come out

According to what I know about the Chinese audience, the above content is actually waste content, that is, useless. Because the audience does not care about the development of your industry, whether the special effects are done by domestic companies or foreign companies. Unless the movie explodes and all aspects are interpreted, this will also be taken out as a merit.

The Chinese audience's perception of a film and television drama must be based on past experience, the stereotype at first glance.

This is also normal (ordinary people who have time to care about these), and for "The Wandering Earth" and "Feng Shen", although there were many trailers and scoldings for "Little Broken Ball" at the beginning, but now in hindsight, the biggest difference between these two Chinese industrial blockbusters is.

Chinese science fiction blockbusters have no experience before, but Guo Fan's team used the "The Wandering Earth" series to create from scratch to establish the aesthetics of Chinese science fiction blockbusters, and the narrative and expression of Chinese science fiction blockbusters.

Because "Ball 2" is released, we will feel a little rough watching "Ball 1" again. But magnificent planetary engines, icy cities; Soviet and Chinese infrastructure heavy industry scenes, wagons, exoskeletons and dungeons, etc., still have their own aesthetic and style.

Chinese mythology and costume blockbusters are experienced, and have been damaged by the costume magic films of Hong Kong directors in previous years, the costume dramas that restore history in recent years, and the rise of the Hanfu movement.

Wu Ershan's "Feng Shen" is so high-profile, Chinese audiences hope that it is a mythological epic blockbuster that restores traditional Chinese culture, distinguishes it from the previous magical and bad films, and establishes a traditional Chinese aesthetic in the new era. Now it seems that some of the costumes and scenes in this film can still be seen very elegant.

For example, Li Xuejian's clothing, and then the clothing of Chen Kun and other immortals, this is a very pure traditional cultural aesthetic.

But many characters that armor, the architecture of the Shang Dynasty, this is not some "local luxury gold" aesthetic problems, but at first glance it is indeed a combination of Chinese and Western style elements are somewhat obvious, in the current domestic costume film and television dramas is a taboo ah (I have seen comments on what traitors, to foreign dynasties of those wearing hats will come)

In addition, special effects like Thunder Zhenzi.

Then there are some "online game" style buildings, various grand scenes that combine Chinese and Western, and so on.

These combined with the investment of 3 billion high-profile too high publicity, in previous years, "The Great Wall", "The Legend of Fengshen ", "Asura" and other kinds of costume magic bad films, netizens have this association for the first time, and it is very normal to conclude that "bad films" and "money laundering" are very normal.

Domestic 3 billion blockbusters suddenly fixed? Netizens are singing down, it doesn't matter

Finally, as far as I know, this industrial level is at the same time as "Ball 1". At that time, the aesthetics of fine arts, the film and television industry, the trend of traditional Chinese culture, and even because the relationship between China and the United States was completely different from now.

Today's young Chinese audiences have strong requirements for the restoration of traditional culture of costume film and television dramas, as well as independence and autonomy.

Wu Ershan's "Fengshen Trilogy" is still too big a lot, maybe many people don't believe it, film and television dramas are really not the most important thing to serve the times, as far as I understand this film is definitely not like "The Great Wall", "The Legend of Fengshen ", "Asura", absolutely still do things seriously.

I dare to really better than "Ball 1", which is an upgraded version of "Assassination of the Novelist" full of special effects and big scenes, and may slightly lose to "Ball 2". Don't look at the special effects on the computer now, but the movie theater feature film is definitely very good.

Now the problem is that the style is so exquisite and magnificent, it is not impossible, the main thing is that the homogenization is more serious. Without its own aesthetic characteristics, it has not established a traditional cultural aesthetic that makes the Chinese audience shine. In the case of controversial aesthetics, it is ultimately up to see if there is a good story.

However, the story of "Romance of the Gods" is familiar to Chinese audiences, and the magic reform will be very controversial, and it will be too long if it is not made into a movie.

In general, I think it depends on whether you can tell a good story!