Text: Linghu Boguang
Wu Ershan's "Under the Inhuman" has been streamed online, and it is really scolding, and the huge power of "Fengshen" can't be saved, so let's continue to write about this movie today. I wrote a lot of drafts and analyses when this movie was released, I think this movie is really not the original work of the magic change scolded by fans, it failed because it really wanted to please the fans of the original book to get close to the two-dimensional style, but the result was too hard, and eventually the ordinary audience and fans did not accept it, and finally failed.
"Under One Man" comics and animation are actually not particularly good in the early stage, to "Luo Tian Dajiao" are similar to the style of "Monster Hunter" and "Naruto" ninja competitions, it itself has a lot of gags that were popular in the early and middle Chinese comics, shaping the character of the character, and adjusting the atmosphere of the content, to change it into a movie, you have to condense these contents into a short enough and powerful character behavior logic.
This matter is not done without the help of core fans to provide correct opinions, and it is really impossible to do it based on personal feelings. And for long-term updates like "Under One Man", the core fans play a huge role in its formation, and they collect opinions in the community, reason about the plot, and improve the logic indirectly affect the narrative and direction of the story, so it can be said that the core fan group can be regarded as the indirect creator of this kind of comic to a certain extent.
If you want to engage in film and television, you don't care that these opinions basically have to be overturned, many things don't mean that he Wu Ershan is a big director with a high artistic level, and then he can fully understand and grasp it only by his own level if he goes to watch it once or twice.
The box office is too miserable, and the word-of-mouth is a mess? Is "Under the Alien" a "bad movie"
In my opinion, the failure of the film version of "Under the Alien" is actually quite multifaceted, and the problems of the development team itself may not be the direct reason for the failure (of course, it is not that the team itself has no creative problems, but we as consumers do not know this and will not discuss it).
First of all, an IP is a big problem, the influence of Chinese comics in China is actually not as good as anime, or even as novels, which really cannot be compared with Europe, America and Japan. Even if it is the most well-known comic, you may not be as influential as some second-tier online articles, because the fandom is not so big, so I think it is not good to please fans too much, and it will narrow the road.
"Fengshen" itself is a well-known IP in China, and it has been paved for three or four years.
"Ghost Blowing the Lantern" is adapted well or badly, there is still a lot of discussion, after all, it is the originator of Chinese tomb robbery in online novels, and there are two most well-known Chinese tomb robbers, one "Ghost Blows Out the Lantern" and one "Tomb Robbery Notes", and what else "Descendants of Maoshan" and "Green Capsule Corpse Clothes", including Tianxia Ba Sing and other IPs of the third uncle of the southern school are far behind.
"Under the Alien" is now not in the top few movies today, and then as a commercial product, the user portrait of this movie is obviously wrong. The portrait of "Looking for the Dragon" is not only for book lovers, but also for adventure themes that are in high demand in China, but there is no decent adaptation.
"Fengshen" is also a goal-oriented special effects super fairy hero god and demon blockbuster, and this genre is also in general demand, but it has basically not been met in the past 20 years, because the previous Hong Kong director filmed Zheng Baorui's version, Stephen Chow's version of "Journey to the West", and "Monster Hunt", including Zhang Yimou's "The Great Wall", even if Tsui Hark's "Di Renjie" is worse than usual, there is demand.
But what about "Under the Alien"? Non-fans are not interested, do not meet any special needs, there are not many fans and there are many things, they dislike and disrespect the original work, and even dislike the original author, and the author is fired. I think it can be compared to the movie "Ancient Sword and Legend 2" a few years ago, talking about respecting the original work, it can be said that there should be respect for one of them, I really want to ask how many of you know that there is such a movie?
In the end, there are obviously so many unfavorable conditions for market research, but there are still hundreds of millions of shots. In my opinion, I felt this failure before the release, I have seen "Under the Alien", I think the overall quality of the movie is still qualified, but it is not good in the comics, and the style is too fun.
But I'm not a fan; The movie was also noticed because of the director, because I can't raise any interest in paying attention to the original book even if I know a little about it, how much good attention do you expect from those who are not as good as me to give this movie?
Compared with "Kowloon Walled City", why "Under the Stranger" failed "fiasco"
Now Internet public opinion really can't watch it, not to mention that Wu Ershan's own remarks and positions are very controversial, and fans are very extreme, wearing a hat with a stance and sentencing to death has become the norm, and no one really cares about the movie.
It's like this movie is a hat-wearing criticism in many aspects, such as the issue of candidates, who is better than the drama version, and I don't imagine so many shady things. For example, Hu Xianxu's movies, except for "Under the Alien", which was publicly auditioned, are all made by new directors or directors with poor reputation, which shows that his resources are not good.
Hundreds of small-budget films are made every year, and most of them go unnoticed, why did anyone pay attention to him after he only starred in three films? The fact that the three literary films he starred in have all entered the main competition unit of the film festival is also proof (two of them are rookie directors, and one is a director with a poor reputation before), in the end, there is capital willing to help him try to star in commercial films.
This is essentially a good thing for Chinese films, after all, they are willing to support newcomers, and for young actors, the top resources in the industry are to follow the box office celebrities, such as Yi Yang Qianxi and Fan Chengcheng who rubbed Shen Teng. The second is to follow the great directors, such as Liu Haoran who rubbed Chen Sicheng, Liu Yaowen who rubbed Zhang Yimou, and Wang Hedi who rubbed Wei Shujun.
The next thing is to follow the team, such as Wang Junkai in "Ten Thousand Miles Home", the latest "Hedgehog" and so on.
And the non-commercial films made by new directors and small directors are obviously the worst resources in the industry. Actors who are interested in taking the road of traffic will never choose to make this kind of film, because making this kind of movie can neither make money, nor earn traffic, nor can they go to the top three in Europe. Only young actors who do not take the road of traffic and have artistic pursuits will choose this path.
There are more other similar problems, the biggest problem of this movie is that the manga characters, actions, demeanor, costumes, etc. will be exaggerated, and people who have not watched the anime will feel embarrassed and don't know what to say, this is natural rejection, which is equivalent to half of a bowl of rice has been thrown away. Then the audience of the film is the fan group of the anime, and the popular characters are indiscriminately adapted, which is equivalent to throwing away the other half of the rice in the bowl.
It can be seen from "Under the Alien" that the director wants to play some new routines, which is understandable, Stephen Chow's adaptation of Journey to the West and the image of Monkey King are still well received, is your director capable of this? For example, the original work of "Under One Man" is a comic, and its content will be different in different media expressions.
Even if the anime is probably only shot with the feeling of seven or eight percent of the manga, its form has other advantages.
For example, the content of the work and its spiritual core echo, and a big problem with the live-action adaptation is that it pursues too much similarity. The flat comic world and the real world are incompatible. There are some exaggerated expressions and funny actions, which are very appropriate in the second dimension, but if they are completely reproduced to real people, it will make the audience feel too forceful or embarrassed. The advantage of real people is that they can present more delicate and layered emotional changes through facial expressions.
The AI art style at the back of the movie "Under the Alien" lacks the light-hearted humor of comics, and loses the emotional outpouring of real people, making it feel unreal, stiff, and plastic.
You can compare this year's quality, word-of-mouth and box office success "Kowloon Walled City", this is a Hong Kong manga live-action movie, I haven't seen the comics, but the introduction itself is an exaggerated kung fu film like "Dragon Tiger Gate", and on the two Hong Kong live-action manga movies.
Hong Kong's action design is the world's first, needless to say, the action design of "Dragon Tiger Gate" is also top-notch, but why is its reputation not as good as "Kowloon Walled City", you will find a very obvious thing if you compare it a little.
"Dragon Tiger Gate" is very floating in the adaptation of the world view (it may also be related to comics), and the plot is even more simple and rough, which is a bit bad to say. But although the storyline of "Kowloon Walled City" is old-fashioned, and the character creation and core are also old-fashioned Hong Kong movies, it is like the Kowloon Walled City built vigorously in the movie, and it is very real.
In the final analysis, "Kowloon Walled City" is just a comic book to make a history of the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong (the same as the "Chasing the Dragon" hero), but its action design performance is more fierce, but this is just the form of expression, not the core, right.
"Under the Inhuman" hit the streets? What does this have to do with "Fengshen 2".
Finally, in all plot-oriented entertainment works, the quality of the script will decidely affect the work, as well as its future value and status.
This time "Under the Alien" failed, the most regrettable thing is that the mainland's first big investment in the live-action manga film failed, capital is like this, it will not reflect on how it is, it will only feel that the market does not welcome the live-action manga or something, this may not only be an IP of "Under the Alien", it may affect many animation IPs.
In the past, live-action comic movies in Chinese-speaking areas were mainly Hong Kong movies, such as "Fengyun", "Chinese Heroes", "Dragon Tiger Gate" to "Kowloon Walled City". The mainland invested and successful live-action manga movie, I think the most regrettable is the remake of Japan's IP "Animal World", this movie should be a textbook for Chinese live-action manga movies.
At present, only this movie in the mainland has been changed. The core point of manga is the skin, the core must not be moved, and it will be finished if it moves. But the first thing that many comic adaptations and even novel adaptations do is to move the core, and it is the kind of smug change, which can only show one thing, that is, I really don't understand it, and if I don't have this ability, failure is failure.
In the end, "Under the Inhuman" failed, and I hope it will not affect "Fengshen 2", after all, the two have nothing to do with each other.
I hope this movie will be released as soon as possible, after all, it is now an environment where there is a controversy of speech, and netizens will be crazy to wear hats and ask for works, creators, and even the entire circle to be banned and killed.