Recently, one of the series of activities of the 4th Aolaiwu Awards Season, the 3rd Aolaiwu Forum, hosted by Aolaiwu Group and undertaken by the Aolaiwu Film Critics Association, was held at Wynn Palace in Macau, China. The forum was divided into two halves. In the second half, Wan Chuanfa, deputy director of the Film Culture Research Center of Shanghai Theater Academy, Suo Yabin, professor of the School of Drama and Film and Television of Communication University of China, Ah Lang, editor-in-chief of "Watching Movies", Han Haoyue, famous film critic, Lin Jinxian, editor of "Contemporary Film", Zhang Linming, associate professor of the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of Macau University of Science and Technology, and Hu Jianli, secretary general of the Macao Laiwu Film Critics Association, who served as the academic moderator of the session, discussed the topic of "how Chinese films can resonate with the audience emotionally in realistic themes".
In 2023, China's film industry will recover rapidly after the epidemic, the film market will be fully supplied, and excellent films will continue to emerge, igniting the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies, and the annual film box office in Chinese mainland will once again stand at the 50 billion yuan mark. "In the Octagonal Cage", "All or Nothing" and other realistic works dare to touch hot social issues of concern to the people, and have won wide attention from the society. How to better resonate with the audience with realistic films is a topic worthy of discussion among film academia and critics. The two seminars were presided over by Tian Ge, a famous host of Beijing TV.
In recent years, the characteristics of Chinese realistic films in terms of emotional expression
Professor Wan Chuanfa, deputy director of the Film Culture Research Center of Shanghai Theater Academy, said that in the creation of realistic films in recent years, there are several major characteristics in terms of emotional expression: First, the current Chinese film is returning to the mainstream Chinese film tradition in terms of emotional expression, which is the mainstream line created by directors Zheng Zhengqiu, Cai Chusheng and Xie Jin. Among them, first of all, the creative mode of family ethics as a method is restored, and in terms of aesthetics and narrative, the expression of emotions is restored to an ordinary person, and "In the Octagon Cage" and "Three Teams" are the emotional expressions of ordinary people. It's actually reconnected with the whole cinematic tradition, so it can resonate emotionally with the audience.
Second, in the process of modernization and transformation of traditional Chinese culture, the current film places special emphasis on the direction of film Confucianism, which is actually a re-continuation of film Confucianism, a continuation of people, love, and China's unique excellent ethics, and an insistence on idealism. In addition, the whole emotional expression is different from the past, and the previous films wanted to adopt an emotional eclecticism, but recently the way of expression of the film has changed, and it is no longer eclecticism, but foldingism. For example, "The Myth of Love" is a middle-class emotional movie, which was not only popular with intellectuals but also won popularity from ordinary citizens after its release. The basic reason is that there is no compromise between emotions in the film, but an expression that folds very well. This fold triggers all sorts of collisions and resonances throughout the emotion, emotion.
Another interesting phenomenon is that in recent years, the emotional expression of realistic movies is the emotional expression of fairy tales, such as "Miracle Stupid Child", "In the Octagon Cage", etc., which are actually the process of counterattacking at the bottom, which is an expression of emotional fairy tales. Fairy tale expressions exist in a large number of Chinese films, especially realistic films, "Mom!" is about the emotional expression of the elderly, "Send You a Little Red Flower" is a fairy tale expression of special emotions, "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an" is about the emotional expression of cultural fairy tales, the most fundamental reason why these films are so popular is that there is a great innovation in this aspect.
Ah Lang, editor-in-chief of "Watching Movies" and a famous film critic, believes that if 2002's "Hero" is regarded as a turning point in Chinese films, then today, in addition to visual stimulation, the audience also needs to have psychological resonance when watching movies, and at this time, works closer to reality have appeared. The "Three Teams" released not long ago is a masterpiece of realistic themes, this movie not only depicts people in real life, but also has the spirit of "chivalry" in traditional Chinese culture, which makes a wonderful connection between excellent traditional culture and realistic genes, which is a very exciting place in this movie.
What's especially heartwarming is that "The Three Teams" is a real story that happened in real life, including the original character, after the movie became so popular, he never accepted interviews, and still did the same thing as on the screen. Sometimes movies provide us with several dimensions of thinking, both realistic and spiritual, as well as the spirit of traditional Chinese culture. The first half and the second half of today's forum revealed a secret of Chinese films, this secret lies in the fact that we have finally gone through the stage of imitation and reference, and finally began to pay attention to the people and things in this land.
"In the Octagon Cage" is popular and integrates the audience's feelings for Wang Baoqiang
Zhang Linming, associate professor of the Faculty of Humanities and Arts and assistant dean of the School of Film of Macau University of Science and Technology, expressed his views on the reality of Macao's construction as a performing arts capital. He said that a large number of performing arts events are held in Macao almost every day, including the Macao International Film Festival, the previous Macao International Film Festival, and the Asia-Pacific International Film Festival held two days ago. There are still many independent filmmakers and independent filmmakers in Macau, but Macau's film industry has not developed for so many years, and it is more dependent on Hong Kong. Macau is more about the very long history of film screening, almost with the birth of films, we can see some film images in Macau. Macau University of Science and Technology is working on an academic platform for the Macao Film Archive, which has just been launched. Macao has a very special regional advantage, where you can see some native images of almost the world, and many movies cannot be seen in mainland cinemas, and have the advantage of multicultural collision.
Macau is small, but it's full, it's rich, it's very modern, it's very traditional, it's very post-modern, it's very magical to walk here. The story that happened in Macau may seem like it, it is normal, it is a combination of China and the world, connecting the East and the West, connecting the traditional and the modern. There is a very diverse story to be seen in Macau, which is very diverse and inclusive. There are many films filmed in Macao, but it is not enough to just come to film, how to develop Macao's film industry, how to develop Hengqin, how to make use of the advantages of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the future is promising.
Suo Yabin, a professor at the School of Drama and Film and Television of Communication University of China, talked about the reality movies that were popular at the box office this year, and believed that hot topic movies such as "All or Nothing" are part of reality films, and their creation has received more official support and some echoes of national policies, so it is a huge atypical success, and he personally thinks a better example is "In the Octagon Cage". This film also involves a hot topic, the prototype character in the film caused a lot of controversy seven or eight years ago, when he even participated in the planning of related theme films, saying whether it could be filmed, and finally many years later, Wang Baoqiang directed and acted by himself, although it was far from the hot topics at the time, but it was still a very successful work.
"In the Octagon Cage" has a lot of depressing things in front of it, but in the end, it has a very good feeling with a game, and it is also a cool film, but it also gives the audience a lot of room to think. All the things that the actor did in the film did not wronged him, using children to box, deceiving children to buy insurance, and was once scolded, looking at it from another angle, in fact, what he did can also be called a good thing. Whether it is a person or a thing, when you take care of it from different angles, the evaluation scale may change, and the nature of the matter will also change, which is a particularly successful point of the film.
The success of "In the Octagon Cage" also lies in the integration of Wang Baoqiang's personal experience and the public's feelings about him, which is particularly good. Chen Sicheng said that the movie itself may be a box office of 1 billion, and the other more than 1 billion box office is actually the audience's feeling about Wang Baoqiang, which is equivalent to giving it to him, that is, the feeling of his personal experience, and the public's acceptance of him is perfectly integrated into this character, which is hard to find, but every director and actor can find their own unique things, and can integrate realistic themes, personal experiences, and hot topics together, which is particularly rare.
Some high-grossing reality movies are prevalent
Han Haoyue, a famous film critic and writer, talked about the reality of the theme of the point of view is sharper, he said: In the past, there was a saying about realistic themes called pseudo-realism, and then it was called suspended realism, and now it should be called OEM realism. "I Am Not the God of Medicine" has a high box office, everyone will feel that it deserves it, and there are many things that can be discussed and questioned in the high-grossing reality movies in 2023, and it is more not about the realism contained in the film, relying on the story itself to attract the audience, but on the consumption of some social topics, the binding of gender opposition and other topics on social media, and even the consumption of the creators behind the movie. These are all a chaotic phenomenon in which real-life labelism prevails.
He believes that compared with high-grossing realistic films, the small- and medium-cost realistic themes of literary films present and dig deeper into realism, such as "The Mistake by the River" and "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department" may not have a high box office, but he feels that the concern for reality in the work is more real, more systematic, and more critical than those high-grossing films. He thinks that a truly great realistic work must be able to infuse the spirit of realism into it 100% in a small incision, the label is not important, the OEM is not important, but what it wants to express, what it sincerely wants to tell the audience, can be received by the audience without loss, which is a problem that reality films urgently need to solve.
Lin Jinyi, editor and editor of "Contemporary Film" and executive editor of "Contemporary Animation", mainly talked about his own views from the perspective of domestic realistic animated films, hoping to lead everyone to pay attention to the creation of realistic themes in Chinese animated films. To this end, she listed and analyzed three domestic reality-themed animated films "Wanton Youth", "Yesterday's Blue Sky" and "Big World" in 2018, the first two are about the theme of youth campuses, and "Big World" focuses on marginal characters, with a box office ranging from 2 million to more than 80 million. The first two will also have some shadows of Japanese comics in the painting style and plot, which are not localized enough, while the animated films of the past two years have appeared with localized painting styles and styles, such as "Lion Boy" in 2021, which focuses on local cultural themes and teenagers, as well as the dreams of ordinary people, and has received more than 200 million box office.
The reality-themed cartoon "Tea Ah No. 2 Middle School" released in the summer of this year and "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an" and a number of excellent live-action movies were PK on the same stage, and finally won a box office of 384 million yuan, which shows that it is very popular, and it is also an expansion of domestic animated films with realistic themes. This film is a youth campus theme, and youth campus themes are very common in live-action movies, but the use of animation and comedy is relatively rare. The director set up the characters in the film to speak Northeast dialect, which is very infectious, and there are many interesting stories on campus, and the ending is positive and returns to reality, which is particularly down-to-earth. And the empathy card of the film is played very well, and the marketing is also very good.
Founded in October 2020, Aolaiwu Forum is a high-end international film and television cultural industry forum held during the annual Aolaiwu Awards Season. The organizer invites leading figures, experts and scholars in the film and television culture industry at home and abroad to express their opinions or exchange views on hot topics such as the development direction and trend of the film and television culture industry in Macao, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China and even the world.
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