#头条创作挑战赛#
It's another year of Chinese New Year.
This year's Lunar New Year stalls are still deserted. So far, the total box office of the Lunar New Year stalls is 4.5 billion, and the box office champion is the police film "Three Teams", which tells a story of chasing the murderer that spans many years;
was originally the most optimistic "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3", but it became an upset. The box office on the first day was less than 25 million, which was one-tenth of the top box office on the day, and there is a high probability that there is no hope of recovering the cost. The Douban score is passable, with the lowest score among the works in the same period.
Big IP, sentimental cards, Feng's comedy...... Why did these former killer features fail in this year's Lunar New Year?
The Chinese New Year file refers to the film schedule from November to the end of December every year (another version is until March of the following year), which originated in Hong Kong in the 80s of the 20th century. The Chinese New Year movies derived from this refer to the family-friendly movies released during the Chinese New Year file.
In 1997, Feng Xiaogang's "Party A and Party B" launched the first shot of mainland Chinese New Year films, and since then, the popularity of movies such as "See You and Leave" and "No Thieves in the World" has made him the "father of Chinese New Year films" in the hearts of the audience.
The recently released "Do Not Disturb 3", the previous work in the series broke the box office record of the Chinese New Year, and now, the third part of "Do Not Disturb" has a dismal box office, and few people discuss it on the Internet.
Some people say that Feng Xiaogang has changed, and the movies in recent years are too nostalgic and boring to watch.
Some people also say that Feng Xiaogang has not changed, but the times have changed, and the audience's tastes have changed.
No matter whether it changes or does not change, the era of Feng Xiaogang and the Chinese New Year stalls he led to sweep the country has passed.
Feng Xiaogang, outdated?
Feng Xiaogang, the "father of Chinese New Year films", has not made a Chinese New Year film for ten years.
At the premiere of "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb 3", Feng Xiaogang lamented that he had been absent from the field of Chinese New Year films for many years, and the last Chinese New Year film he shot was "Private Custom" ten years ago.
Returning to familiar comedy, he explained: "There is a great need for a comedy to uplift people this year".
The classic shot of "If You Are Honest, Do Not Disturb", Ge You Shuqi's collocation is very fresh
The release of the "Do Not Disturb" series began in 2008, with the first part grossing 325 million, winning the box office championship of Chinese films in the same year, setting a new box office record. The second part was released in 2010 with a box office of 500 million, which also has good results.
The movie tells a love story: Qin Fen, a returnee played by Ge You, became rich because of an invention, and since then he has embarked on a marriage journey, and after encountering a series of unreliable blind dates, he finally met Liang Xiaoxiao, a flight attendant, and the two have been separated and reunited many times, and finally they are still together.
The time background of the third part came to 2031, Qin Fen and Liang Xiaoxiao are old, they have been married for ten years, Xiaoxiao has become an environmental activist, has been away from home for many years, and picks up garbage all over the world. Qin Fen misses his wife, and is presented with a bionic intelligent person by a friend, which looks similar to Xiaoxiao, Qin Fen gradually has a relationship with Xiaoxiao, but the real person Xiaoxiao went home at this time, and staged a picture of two maids and a husband.
In terms of film quality, "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb 3" is not bad, it retains the sense of humor of Feng's comedy, the starring role is stable, the supporting roles are not hindered, and popular elements such as AI, androids, and dopamine tones are also added.
At the end of the film, the easter eggs played the emotional card, Ge You and Shu Qi lamented the passage of time, and "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb", which spanned fifteen years, witnessed their aging and the growth of the audience, "When "Non 1" was released, some of you were still in school, and some of you just started to fall in love and get married. Watching "Non 3" today, the college students of that year may have become parents, and the children are all teenagers......"
But now the audience no longer pays for feelings.
Compared with the previous work, the box office reputation of "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3" has declined, and many viewers are drowsy when they watch it, and the Feng feelings in their hearts end here.
The source of the picture is a short comment on Douban, and many viewers have Feng's feelings
is neither applauded nor blockbuster, Feng Xiaogang's recent works are facing this embarrassing situation.
"Only Yun Knows", released in 2019, tells the story of a middle-aged man who has been wandering for half his life and loses his wife in middle age, adapted from the true experience of Feng Xiaogang's friend Zhang Shu. Feng Xiaogang said that he had no box office ambitions to make this movie, and just wanted to restore this heartwarming love.
This love story that moved Feng Xiaogang did not move the audience. "Only Yun Knows" has a total box office of less than 200 million, and in 2019, when the box office of the movie is often two or three billion, it was compared by the media to "box office Waterloo".
Under the short comment on Douban, the comment with the highest praise is "a glass of boiled water", boiled water is not wrong, but it is also bland and boring.
In 2021, Feng Xiaogang broke through his comfort zone and entered the field of online dramas, filming the popular urban women's theme "North and South" in the past few years, in which the per capita lives in luxury houses, some people have rooms in Beijing Hutongs, and some people live in high-end hotels every day.
The suspense web drama "Echo" he launched last year goes hand in hand with the murder line and the emotional line of middle-aged couples, and the quality is higher than that of "North and South", but it is not much higher, and the score is hovering on the verge of passing.
From the plot to the core, these works have a sense of stale that is incompatible with the present.
"Only Yun Knows" retains a strong nostalgic color from the character design to the plot. In "Echo", the "Seven Year Itch", which was filmed by film and television dramas in the 90s, has been copied into 2023, as the protagonist of a female policeman, she will always be suspicious of "her husband's haunting and cheating".
In "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb 3", the setting of the android is like a dream back to Cai Ming's 1996 Spring Festival Gala sketch "Robot Funny Words", the plot of real people laughing and androids laughing at two maids and a husband was even ridiculed as "two Shu Qi robbed Ge You, it is purely a plot that can only be thought of by an old man who is crazy".
Feng Xiaogang once said, "The purpose of making money is to make your favorite movies." ”
I don't know if this is Director Feng's favorite movie, but this is obviously not a movie that the audience likes.
More than 10 years ago, CNN interviewed Feng Xiaogang on that episode and praised him as "the most respected director in China."
At that time, Feng Xiaogang understood what the audience wanted to watch, and he was a well-deserved "public opinion mouthpiece". However, his works in recent years are neither close to the lives of ordinary people, nor do they point to deeper social issues.
Since when did the director, who knows the audience best, get farther and farther away from the audience?
Young sleek, middle-aged twisted
Back then, "serving the audience" was the first priority in Feng Xiaogang's heart.
His famous work "Party A and Party B" tells the story of helping ordinary people realize their dreams, and four freelancers founded the "Good Dream Day Tour" business on a whim, to help ordinary people live a one-day dream come true.
In "A Day Trip to Good Dreams", an ordinary bookstore owner becomes an iron-blooded general, a cook with a loose mouth experiences the taste of preferring to die unyieldingly, and a wealthy company CEO no longer pretentiously says that he is tired of eating delicacies from the mountains and seas......
While the audience was having a good time, they also accepted universal principles such as "two people should be considerate of each other" and "cherish everything they have".
The famous scene of "Party A and Party B", "The landlord's family has no surplus grain"
In the movie, Qian Kang talks about his views on "Good Dream Day Trip", which is more like Feng Xiaogang's own attitude towards filmmaking: "We are in the service industry...... To put it bluntly, it is a question of what people's interests are catered to and why the object is served. ”
Feng Xiaogang in the past knew very well who he was serving-ordinary people, mainly ordinary citizens.
In his early works, the protagonists in "See You or Leave", "Endless", "A Sigh" and "Big Names" are all ordinary little people:
In "See You or Leave", the actor Liu Yuan lives a miserable and lonely life in a foreign country, and in "Endless", Han Dong, an honest and honest person, tries his best to recover his arrears, just to treat his vegetative sister.
These protagonists come from ordinary backgrounds, love to play poor, and are engaged in the most ordinary professions, perhaps drivers, freelancers, laid-off photographers, with a little cunning in kindness, and some purity in their wit, and the audience can easily see their own shadows in them.
Fung's comedy is not deep, but it is better than witty and humorous, and it is often tasted after watching it.
These works are not liked by peers, but the audience likes them.
At the beginning of the 21st century, when domestic films were not very profitable, Feng Xiaogang led his Feng comedy, which was one of the few profitable films at that time, and won the box office champion of Chinese films for many years.
At the internal meeting of China Film Group, he summed up his successful experience as one point:
"The most important thing in making a movie is to meet the needs of the audience and the needs of investors. ”
Feng Xiaogang's low profile and civilian consciousness are related to his origin.
He was born in Beijing, but he is not a child of a big courtyard like Ye Jing and Wang Shuo, just a child of an ordinary citizen family. He was a soldier in his early years, and after changing jobs, he worked as an artist and screenwriter in the crew, and after many years of hard work, he became a director step by step.
In the documentary "A Day of Feng Xiaogang in 2000", he explained the source of his attitude towards receiving people and things, "I came out of a small citizen's house and wanted to embark on a road to success, which also determined the way I received people and things, on the one hand, I was very active, starting from the fundamental desire of my heart, on the other hand, I was very passive, and it depends more on how well you please others." ”
He compared himself with Zhang Yimou, they were both from civilian backgrounds, and they relied on their own life to "slash and kill" a way.
Perhaps because of this, Feng Xiaogang was sleek when he was young, but as he grew older, he gradually gained a firm foothold in the circle, and he showed his stubborn and twisted side.
At this stage, he tried to stop making films for the sake of pleasing anyone, but to shoot more in-depth subjects.
2010 was the dividing point of Feng Xiaogang's creation, and before that, he was a "layman" in the eyes of his peers, a box office guarantee in the eyes of investors, and launched a series of acclaimed and blockbuster comedy films.
After 2010, he made disaster films "Tangshan Earthquake" and "1942", "1942" was brewing for 18 years before filming, so he was determined to bet on "the popularity accumulated by the previous 12 films, even if he loses, he has no regrets". He also filmed the theme of peasant women's rights protection "I Am Not Pan Jinlian", and "Fanghua", which is full of memories of the Wen Corps.
His attempt is like a big gamble, sometimes the box office reputation is a double harvest, and sometimes the box office reputation is not satisfactory.
"1942" is adapted from Liu Zhenyun's novel, and 200 million yuan was invested in the production cost alone, but in the end it lost money. Perhaps out of anger, or perhaps because of the pressure exerted by capital, the next year, Feng Xiaogang launched a low-scoring work "Private Custom" that reproduced "Party A and Party B", which only took a month to shoot, and copied himself, but the box office was very hot.
When "1942" won the Huabiao Award, Feng Xiaogang laughed at himself, "The movie I don't make seriously sells 400 million in a week, and I make a movie seriously, but it doesn't make money." ”
In those years, he was always struggling with the movies and box office he wanted to make, hoping for higher artistic achievements, but also finding it difficult to accept the decline in box office and word of mouth, which seemed quite screwed.
This generation of audiences no longer needs Feng Xiaogang
If he insists on making movies like "1942", Feng Xiaogang may really be able to become a generation of grandmasters. If you insist on making movies that depict the psychology of ordinary citizens in the early days, there will be no shortage of audiences who will buy for Feng's comedy.
But he not only lost the persistence of "even if he loses everything" when he first filmed "1942", but also lost the original intention of "serving the audience" when "Party A and Party B", which led to the director's reputation declining one after another.
Is "North and South" and "Echoes" really the works he wants to make in his heart?
Not necessarily.
The former represents feminism, and the latter represents suspenseful web dramas, both of which conform to the popular popular elements in the market.
failed to gamble twice, and the high-hopeful "Mobile Phone 2" could not be released for a long time, which smoothed out Feng Xiaogang's character.
In the past, Feng Xiaogang scolded the reporter who exposed his home address as "shameless and bastard", and scolded the Douban film critic for "always being inseparable from you".
asked Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group, whether it was out of commercial revenge to reduce the schedule of "I Am Not Pan Jinlian".
He also scolded the audience, "Chinese movies are so littered with garbage now, it must have something to do with a large number of garbage audiences."
But now, he has changed his previous tone, commenting on the Golden Horse Awards and Douban that have been bombarded, with an "objective and fair side", and mentioned in the interview of "Extraordinary Dao" that Ning Hao, Xu Zheng, Guan Hu, and Dapeng, a group of young directors, have made their debut films "artistically much better" than they were back then, and he is also aware of his limitations, thinking that "the audience will always need comedy, but not Feng Xiaogang's comedy".
Screenshot of "Phoenix.com: Extraordinary Dao".
Feng Xiaogang did not shy away from admitting that he was old on various occasions.
Four years ago, he posted a Weibo, first recalling his golden age, in 2004 "No Thieves in the World" was a great success, he chartered two carriages to celebrate, named "No Thieves in the World", "What a pride it was in retrospect tonight".
He also mentioned that the rapid development of the mainland film market in those years has created many cutting-edge directors and box office miracles.
Looking back at the dismal results of the new movie, he sighed: "The hero is old".
The 65-year-old Feng Xiaogang is indeed no longer young, nor is he as "prickly" as before, but compared with the aging of the body, the more cruel change is that the director who has created countless miracles, his time has passed.
Today's popular comedy is the work of Happy Twist, more absurd and exaggerated performances, and the burden of jokes to the flesh. Or in "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop", the spicy satire on the workplace ecology of migrant workers makes people in the workplace find resonance.
also knows how to adapt to the market's "box office big names", Feng Xiaogang in the past, and now Chen Sicheng. The latter's works such as "Disappearing Her" and "All or Nothing" in recent years are all theater hits with low ratings, but they have made a lot of money in the sinking market.
"She Who Disappeared"
And Feng Xiaogang and the Beijing circle culture represented by him, which once represented power and mystery, have gradually become a "old man's dinner" for daddy, and are less and less mentioned by young people.
The Chinese New Year files are becoming more and more deserted year by year, and they are no longer the box office guarantee of any movie, and the summer files, National Day files, and Spring Festival files have become the most competitive movie schedules.
Perhaps Feng Xiaogang has already seen through it, and what he has said most often over the years is: "A generation of directors serves a generation of audiences." ”
But I will always remember that in the documentary "Feng Xiaogang's Day in 2000", at the age of 42, he had scenery and fatigue, and at the end of a busy and trivial day, Feng Xiaogang summed up the first half of his life:
"This is the forty years I have worked hard for, it's okay, anyway, I didn't live in vain, I don't die now.
If God says, boy, I'll let you live a few more years.
I'm sure I'll tell God:
Old man, you wait, there is still a big color."
As a generation that grew up watching Feng's comedies, I sincerely hope to see his next "Da Caier" work.
Resources:
1. The Paper "<非诚勿扰3>: Feng Xiaogang has not changed, the times have changed"
2. Entertainment "Has the era of Feng Xiaogang passed?"
3. Independent Fish Movie "The Most Dare to Say in Internal Entertainment, Also Shut Up"
4. Beidaihe Peach Canning Factory Film Monks Association "The Day of the "Little Citizen" Feng Xiaogang
5. Nanfeng Window "New Year's Stalls, No More Feng Xiaogang"