One "Disappearing Her", top 5 "Crime City 3"? Korean filmmaker "about to cry"

Text | Ling Hu Boguang

"Disappearing Her" has completely become a dark horse hit this summer, and the box office has exceeded 1.25 billion in the 7 days before the release of this post, and it is close to 1.3 billion at the end of today. If today's box office still maintains this momentum, that is, 200 million, then the box office may reach 1.5 billion in 8 days of release.

This is entirely possible, as this first working day has reversed for two consecutive days.

That is, yesterday's box office exceeded 200 million, the day before yesterday box office was 180 million, and the big day before yesterday box office was 150 million. It is still scary to rise against the trend for three consecutive days on weekdays, and today is already Thursday, immediately after Friday and the next weekend, there is no new film released this weekend, the arrangement will be it, and the final prediction of 3.3 billion box office is really not an exaggeration.

If "Indiana Jones 5" at the end of the month, "Drug Sweep 3" and "In the Octagon" on July 6 fail, it is not even ruled out that this movie will have a higher box office. At first, I thought that this film's box office of 1 billion was a big hit, but now it explodes like this is too much beyond expectations.

I guess that the Korean filmmakers next door should cry with envy, of course, it should not be the filmmakers who ran away from Netflix, but the local filmmakers. Because the South Korean local market has been pounced for eight months continuously since last year, it was not until the end of May that Ma Dong-seok's "Crime City 3" began to make money, and it has been such a film for half a year.

Check the data, Ma Dong-seok's "Crime City 3" fell to the second place on the list on June 27, and the fourth weekend of the film's release attracted 430,000 viewers, and the cumulative audience in the four weekends of release approached 10 million, and South Korea's total of more than 52 million people, that is, one-fifth of the population have seen the movie.

And the Korean movie ticket price checked more than 10,000 won, converted into nearly 60 yuan, so the box office of "Crime City 3" is about 500 to 600 million, which is the most profitable Korean film in half a year of 2023.

A "Gone Her" top year? Korean movies in 2023, why "collapsed"

This question has been written many times before, and the most obvious is obviously that the Korean market is too small, even if it is at the peak of tens of millions of people, it is only five or six billion box office. Let's assume that "Gone Her" ended up grossing 3.3 billion, which means that it is the box office of five or six "Crime City 3".

Most importantly, Ma Dong-seok's Crime City 3 is a modern action blockbuster with top investment in South Korea. And "Disappearing Her" did not release specific data, but Chen Sicheng revealed that he supervised the production of new directors' films, and the investment would not exceed 100 million. In other words, this piece is about 100 million.

The top domestic investment blockbuster is still "The Wandering Earth 2", and the upcoming "Fengshen Trilogy" single part of 1 billion, the Korean market can not accommodate such a high investment.

The "Korean restriction order" can also be regarded as accelerating this trend, after the "Korean restriction order" lost a large market with similar cultural attributes, some domestic K-pop fans look quite lively, but in essence are in the white in some Korean stars, just look lively, but can not convert much income.

Now the Korean group is getting more and more rolled, but it feels that it does not have the taste of exo in the girlhood, losing the East Asian charm, mixed with more European and American style taste, a little rush but lost the feeling, after the "Korean restriction order" many Koreans who make cultural products in China have to turn behind the scenes in China.

In those years, the domestic cultural market also felt strange, Koreans directly moved their set to China, it is also a feeling of smoky miasma, in the past two years, I also suddenly found that the domestic cultural market is rotten, but at least feed a large number of practitioners, cultivate the cultural awareness of the industry and themselves, or can raise good works.

This better understands why Wang Jing made crazy bad films back then, at least feeding a bunch of people.

I flipped through the domestic works of the past ten years, in fact, I don't know if I am shocked, there have been good film and television works every year in these years, and the domestic cultural market has still been cultivated, like Hong Kong and Taiwan in those years, if you can't keep your own acre and three points of land, and you can't open up a new cultural market, you really can't raise new cultural works without money.

Leaving Hollywood and catching fire all over the world? Why Korean films "collapsed" at home

In fact, Korean breakthrough dramas are not looking for breakthrough points from their own culture, but learning American dramas, but the gap between American dramas and Asian audiences is too large, and one or two look fresh, always American drama style, will produce aesthetic fatigue. In a sense, it may have something to do with the lack of culture in modern Korea.

Korea before the 50s was colonized by Japan for 50 years, Japan interrupted its context, 45-53 was another civil war, 53-87 was a military DC, Korean literature started too late, it is difficult to study something deeper.

And South Korea now does not take the fast-food route, to engage in something inscrutable, there is only one way to copy, but plagiarism is also to turn itself into someone else. China's cultural context was interrupted from 1966 to 1976, and then quickly recovered, and in 1984 "Garland on the Mountain" can see deep thinking about some social phenomena.

After 2010, Chinese pop culture entered the era of "traffic economy", and there are enough criticisms. In 2017, Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2" was a shock, and then "The Wandering Earth" in 2019, and the "Wandering Earth 2" and "Long Season" in 2023 just released by the epidemic in 2023 have deep thinking.

The more Korean film and television dramas develop, the less they have this kind of thinking.

The model of Korean dramas is that if it is successfully put in China, Chinese audiences will not recognize it, but will spray it. Because many Chinese audiences spray domestic output of Douyin, web novels, idol dramas, games, what is not cultural output, but are exporting garbage, pulling down the image, if it is really the same as South Korea, they spray more ruthlessly.

China's export you no longer look down on is also our things our thoughts, those Korean dramas are still like Korean dramas, that is, American dramas with a lot of black and deep damage, it is cool to watch, but is it really good? Is this still something of the Koreans themselves? Of course, South Korea did not have many things of its own, and what was copied here and there has been seriously westernized.

At this time, some people will definitely say that the Korean Wave cannot enter the Chinese market (in fact, China is still the second largest overseas market for South Korea), and people will enter the old drama of the West and the world. In fact, one of the problems with the new markets in Europe and the United States that "Korean Wave" has opened up in the past two years is that it cannot form an absolute cultural highland.

Culture is something that can only be earned by hitting from a high dimensionality, otherwise the market will be too small.

Instead, the Korean creative elite was sucked dry by Netflix, which left the market unsupportable. Movies began to cater to the audience, and as a result, the quality of film and television dramas became worse and worse, but the audience did not like to watch it, so that the vicious circle would have a record of eight months of Korean films from last year to this year.

Going to the world, but the local market is rushing to the street? Why Netflix failed to save the "Korean Wave"

Some people think that Netflix has sucked up Korean talents is a good thing, because Korean filmmakers have gone to Netflix to make dramas, international integration, too much demand, resulting in insufficient local film talent reserves, but in the future, the development of young Korean filmmakers is estimated to be stronger Korean films.

But there is a fundamental problem with this view? That is, who will cultivate young talents? In recent years, from "Kingdom" to "Squid Game", and then to this year's "Negotiations", "Jung-yi", "Killing Fushun", etc., you will find that directors to actors are not without newcomers, but the vast majority are top Korean talents.

So will this model develop young talent? At that time, Hong Kong movies were once, the economy was not good, the local market was weak, Jackie Chan and other creative elites left Hollywood to get alive, and the local "Infernal Affairs" rescue work, at that time, there was also a To Qifeng and Galaxy Image.

When the American audience in other people's markets is tired of aesthetics, has the new generation of Hong Kong's local market been cultivated?

(After 2010, Hong Kong films, the first decade of Galaxy Image cultivation talent contributed more than half.) And after 2010, these Hong Kong filmmakers will still be able to mingle, they still rely on the mainland market)

The current Korean film market does not yet have "Infernal Affairs", and there is no To Qifeng, and Galaxy Images. The local market of South Korea is a little larger than the Hong Kong market, but once the American audience is aesthetically fatigued, and then faces the comprehensive rise of Chinese pop culture in the new era, representing East Asia, Asian culture to the world.

What card should be played by the Korean film and television industry, which has not cultivated a new generation of talents, economic decline and environmental degradation?

Finally, some people must say that the Korean film industry is developed, but only a little developed, and it can only be said that it has changed from Hong Kong's community-style half-handicraft workshops and semi-industrialization to Korean chaebol-style handicraft workshops and industrialization. It does surpass the Japanese and Hong Kong live-action film and television industries, but because of the market, population and environment, there is no way to break through the upper limit.

The simplest truth is the industrialization of the new era, South Korea is earlier than Chinese films, in the 00s "Taiji Flag Flying" to learn the United States that set has its own mature film and television industry, Feng Xiaogang "Rally" and other Chinese films also use the Korean team, Korean blockbusters to the "Walk with God" series around the peak.

But by 2019, Guo Fan in the mainland began to build his own industry and filmed "The Wandering Earth", and South Korea also filmed "Victory".

As a result, it was beaten by the blockbuster of the Chinese film industry with the size of the population, industrial scale, environment and historical and cultural thickness. Almost once in a decade the theme has been innovated (there is also a relationship to cater to the US market), the choice of Korean filmmakers is industrial blockbusters such as science fiction, modern action movies, and military action movies.

But the works handed over by Korean filmmakers are "Squid Game", "Zombie Campus", "Dark Glory", "Negotiations", "Jung-i", "Kill Fushun", which are the black and deep remnants of learning the United States.

Since the success of Guo Fan, the same special effects team participated in the costume action blockbuster is "Assassination of a Novelist", the modern military action film is "Thousands of Miles Home", science fiction has "Walking on the Moon Alone", after "Ball 2", the Chinese film industry has basically determined that Asia is the first, as long as the future Chinese blockbuster follows the "Ball 2" model, it is impossible to lose.

The latest heavy industry blockbuster depends on how Wuershan's "Feng Shen" is, which is a level of heavy industry blockbuster with "The Wandering Earth Series", if the costume myth can be passed, the future is his "One Under One Trilogy" and the so-called "Zheng He Under the Western Ocean Six Parts". South Korea cannot beat such an industrial-scale, population and market large Chinese heavy industry blockbusters, Hollywood blockbusters are about to catch up.

And the comparison between "Disappearing Her" and "Crime City 3" may just be the beginning.