With his outstanding performance in the spy war drama, Liu Yunlong was crowned by the audience as the "godfather of spy war".
In 2006, Liu Yunlong transformed into a director and directed and acted in the spy drama "Dark Calculation". The birth of this work directly pushed the development of domestic spy dramas to a new peak.
After "Dark Calculation", the birth of works such as "Informer" and "Kite" also brought new screen surprises to the audience.
Many viewers may wonder: Liu Yunlong's performance on the spy TV screen is so good, why not try to transform the movie big screen?
Not to mention, Liu Yunlong in 2010 really launched an impact on the Chinese big screen. This year, Liu Yunlong directed and acted in a spy film and tried to enter the film circle.
However, the performance of this work after its release was not ideal. This film work is " East Wind and Rain".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >, Liu Yunlong's film debut</h1>
In fact, when Liu Yunlong filmed "Dark Calculation", he had already begun to conceive the story script of "East Wind and Rain". Originally, this "East Wind and Rain" was intended to be filmed as a TV series.
However, "Dark Calculation" was well received after its release. At this time, Han Sanping of the "China Film Group" also found Liu Yunlong and hoped to cooperate with him in a film work with the theme of "espionage".
Therefore, Liu Yunlong decided to put this "East Wind and Rain" that was being created on the movie screen.
The East Wind and Rain is set against the backdrop of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.
At the beginning of the film, Masahiro Nakanishi (played by Kenichi Miura), a member of the "Anti-War Alliance" who lurks inside the Japanese "Mantetsu", receives secret information that Japan will "sneak attack Pearl Harbor".
Masahiro Nakanishi tells the information to an "underground lurker" in Shanghai, An Ming (played by Liu Yunlong), hoping that An Ming will pass on the information.
Just as An Ming was about to act, the intelligence officers (played by Wang Baoqiang) and the messenger (played by Liu Xuan), who formed the "four-person intelligence group" with him, were assassinated by the "Wang Pseudo Agent".
An Ming and Hao Birou (played by Li Xiaoran) became the ultimate survivors of the "Four-Man Intelligence Group".
Faced with the crisis situation, An Ming and Hao Birou used emergency contact methods to complete the transmission of intelligence.
However, after the intelligence was passed on, the "Pearl Harbor incident" broke out.
An Ming suspected that there were traitors within the organization and that the intelligence was not sent at all. The organization suspected that one of An Ming and Hao Birou had defected.
In order to investigate the truth, the organization sent "Fang Yanmo" (played by Yu Rongguang) to investigate An Ming and Hao Birou.
At the same time, the investigator "Yoshio Fujiki" (played by Takayuki Takemoto) of the "Japanese Special High School" also began to investigate the "spy network" hidden in old Shanghai.
Under the undercurrent, the "British spy", "Soviet spy", and "military spy" lurking in the shadows have also surfaced.
Under fujiki's investigation, Masahiro Nakanishi's identity was exposed and arrested, and an important piece of information was put on a roll of film by Masahiro Nakanishi.
On the other hand, under the investigation of Fang Yanmo, An Ming became the biggest suspect of the "mutiny organization". Fang Yanmo wanted to capture An Ming, but was unfortunately escaped by An Ming.
An Ming did not betray the organization, and in order to prove his innocence, he decided to use the "information" left by Masahiro Nakanishi to personally find the traitors.
As the investigation progresses, An Ming discovers that his girlfriend Huanyan (played by Fan Bingbing) is not as simple as it seems, she is actually a "military command agent".
Under the three-party investigation of Fang Yanmo, An Ming, and Fujiki Yoshio, the truth of the matter also began to surface step by step.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > second, the market setback of "East Wind and Rain"</h1>
After 2006's "Dark Calculation", a wave of espionage theme creation was set off in the mainland film and television market. Many Chinese filmmakers have also begun to try to express "spy war stories" on the big screen.
In 2007, Ang Lee's spy romance film "Color Ring" swept the major film festival awards. And 2009's "The Sound of the Wind" has also achieved good results in the Chinese box office market.
After experiencing the market preparation of "Color Ring" and "The Sound of the Wind", when "East Wind and Rain" was announced in 2010, many fans were full of expectations for the debut film of "Spy War Godfather" Liu Yunlong.
However, after the release of "East Wind and Rain", the film's market reputation suffered a 180-degree reversal, and the box office was even more miserable.
"East Wind and Rain", which invested nearly 100 million yuan, only won more than 29.8 million box office results in the end.
The market failure of "East Wind and Rain" is inseparable from the presentation content and presentation method of the film.
In this "East Wind and Rain", Liu Yunlong, as a director, constructed a very large story background.
In old Shanghai in 1941, espionage forces surged from all sides, except for the three-way game of "spy of military unification", "spy of special high school" and "underground lurker".
Branches such as "Soviet Spy" and "British Spy" were also arranged to enrich the story of the film.
In addition to the mutual calculation between the "spies", a large number of emotional scenes have been arranged between the male protagonist AnMing and the female protagonist.
According to this design, if it is made into a TV series, it should be very exciting, but it is too crowded to show so many elements in a movie of about two hours.
Good film directors are good at subtracting their own works. After all, one movie can't say it all.
Director Ang Lee grasped the focus of "emotion" in "Color Ring", and director Chen Guofu grasped the focus of "suspense" in "The Sound of the Wind".
Director Liu Yunlong in "East Wind and Rain", "emotion" and "suspense" all want to grasp, but none of them are grasped. The length and messiness of the plot have also become an important reason for the market setback of this "East Wind and Rain".
In addition to the "greedy" in the performance of the story, the "too literary" in the performance of this "East Wind and Rain" has also made the film encounter a lot of resistance in the box office market.
In the story of "East Wind and Rain", every "spy worker" seems to be a bard. The lines in their mouths are always full of poetry.
"I remember asking you before, why do Japanese people like to eat puffer fish, delicious but perhaps deadly, isn't that also true of spying?"
"Where are you going?" From Shanghai to the ocean, to the land. ”
"You see the bats in the night, half beasts and half birds, and I'm with you, I just want to be birds and fly to a place where there is light."
Lines like this are very poetic, and they abound in "East Wind and Rain". Although these lines are full of beauty, the literary and artistic expression methods make the tense and exciting "suspense atmosphere" between the "spies" disappear.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="48" >3</h1>
The story content of "Greedy" and the literary and artistic performance methods made the final box office of "East Wind and Rain" stay in front of the data of more than 29.8 million, failing to break through the 30 million mark.
However, compared with the investment cost of nearly 100 million, this box office performance can be said to be a "blood loss".
But As a director, Liu Yunlong is very indifferent to this box office result. In 2010, in an interview with the Southern Metropolis Daily, Liu Dao also bluntly said, "I can afford to lose." I can afford it personally, and the company can afford it."
The double setback of "East Wind and Rain" and box office seems to have also allowed Liu Yunlong to see his flaws in the film market.
After the film, Liu Yunlong chose to return to the TV drama industry he was familiar with, and then created the classic spy drama "Kite".
In recent years, Liu Yunlong has been active in the TV series screen, and few film works have appeared. In 2010, this "East Wind and Rain" also became Liu Yunlong's only big screen work.