With an investment of 60 million yuan, the box office was only 750,000 in the 4 days of release - because of "Where Do You Run", he ran a new milestone on the road of "salt" bad films.
He is Wong Kar-wai's "good friend" and Chow Sing-chi's benefactor, and "nonsense" is his unique benchmark. Some people have praised him as a "ghost horse genius" who has made great achievements in many fields such as screenwriting, directing, and supervising producers.
Some people also commented that he had reached the point where he could not shoot the terrier of 30 years ago. According to the Douban score, since 2005, his films have never passed in the hearts of fans, and have even been labeled as the "king of bad films".
He is Liu Zhenwei.
▲Liu Zhenwei
Where can "Where Do You Go" go?
"Liu Zhenwei came with his bad film circle money again, looking at this plot routine, the typical bad film rhythm, popcorn movie is not counted, another slot full of points, all kinds of spit drama." Some netizens have seen Liu Zhenwei's new work "Where Do You Run", and complained like this.
In such a context, it is impossible for the box office not to hit the street.
According to the professional version of Maoyan Film, the first day of the film (October 13) accounted for about 1.2%, the box office was 297,600, the average number of people per game was 3, and above it was "Wraith 2", which accounted for about 1.7%, the box office was 1.2899 million, the average number of people per game was 11, the former was 26.9%, the latter was 15.2%, but the latter's box office was much higher than the former, which was really weird. On the same day, a Thai small film "Genius Gunner" exceeded 30 million at the box office on the first day.
4 days after its release, the box office of "Where Do You Run" ran out was only 750,000 yuan, probably this is the fate of cannon fodder movies, and it is estimated that investors have fainted in the toilet.
In addition, due to the small number of viewers, "Where Do You Run" even failed to show the Douban score, which may make the former comedy master more embarrassed, and even a little embarrassed. People can't help but sigh that a comedy movie that cost nearly 60 million yuan and took 4 years to prepare and complete the release has reached this step?
The low box office results also made the producer panic, so he had to hastily announce the withdrawal from the October slot and choose another day to fight.
Some analysts said that the performance of this comedy in the market is actually predictable. In the first half of 2015, Liu Zhenwei's "Fairy Ball War" was completed, and in the second half of the year, he began filming "Journey to the West 3", and in early 2016, he began filming "Big Trouble in the East Sea", and just before "Big Trouble in the East Sea", he took the time to shoot "Where Are You Running". In such a hurry, why bother?
The film side is not careful, and the actors do not seem to pay much attention. At the film conference on October 9, the male one Wang Xun and the male second An Zhijie were absent at the same time, and only sent on-site VCR blessings. If it is so insincere, how can it not be disturbed?
"I've always made crazy comedies, but 'Where Are You Going' is a very different comedy!" As Liu Zhenwei's first "family fun" type of warm comedy, it does bring the audience a "very different" feeling, but this transformation is a bit very gray.com.
Selling emotional fried cold rice, but the more fried it is, the more it is steamy
In the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, Liu Zhenwei spent more than ten years to set up his golden sign of a big director of comedy, but now, it is about to fall.
As early as 2005, because of his "Love Epilepsy Dasheng", people began to sigh that the technical director who could make classic films such as "Gamble Saint", "Journey to the West", and "East into the West" had begun to embark on the road of bad films. Although the film is not directly related to "Journey to the West" on the surface, it is actually continuing the routine of big talk.
In 2010, another of his divine works, "Yueguang Treasure Box", came out, which is only one word away from "Moonlight Treasure Box". The following year, he used the name of his classic comedy "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter To Become the West" to shoot another bad review of "East into the West 2011", and each character in the film is a cottage and then a cottage. As a result, the movie became a copycat Three Kingdoms kill.
In 2014, another bad film called "Big Talk Heavenly Immortal" under the banner of Liu's banner appeared in people's field of vision, and still failed to get rid of the fate of the dog-tailed sable.
With the release of "Journey to the West 3" in 2016, Liu Zhenwei's old road of selling feelings for gold and eating big talk westward journey seems to have come to an end. Although the 360 million box office is acceptable, the quality of the film is unbearable, and the Douban score is only 3.6. Netizens have said: Liu Zhenwei, you have enough bad movies over the years, please don't consume "Journey to the West" anymore!
Some film media people also commented, "Liu Zhenwei is really cruel and destroys his classics with his own hands." "In fact, for Hong Kong directors, remaking old films, only familiar with their hands, fried cold rice is not shameful, as long as it is delicious." However, Liu Zhenwei's cold rice is more and more fried.
In June this year, Liu Zhenwei brought He Jiong, Zhong Xintong, Cai Zhuoyan and other big stars, plus Ma Li and Du Haitao and other happy family members to shoot the "Fairy Ball War" was released. Liu Zhenwei, who is full of confidence, was once again slapped by the box office - the end of the release did not exceed 10 million! This movie was not only evaluated by the audience as a cosmic-level bad film, but also allowed the Happy Family to once again confirm the curse that the movie it starred in must be a bad movie.
The collapse of the actors and the splicing of the classic bridge sections, resulting in embarrassing plot and taste, are considered to be the inherent routines of Liu Zhenwei to destroy the classics.
In the face of everyone's doubts about his bad film, Liu Zhenwei once said: "No way, no way to care." Because the art of cinema is something that some people like sweet, some people like salty, and some people don't like both. You can't always make everyone like it. ”
"Journey to the West" was an accident
Is it true that Liu Zhenwei is really "Jiang Lang's talent"? Maybe Liu Zhenwei may still be that Liu Zhenwei, but the Chinese film market is really no longer the original market.
"In fact, after doing a big talk trip to the west, I was more stressed. It used to be easy to write a script. Now everyone measures my creation with big words. He had minded, but then he looked away: "You say it's a classic, it's just an accident for me." ”
In fact, the popularity of "Journey to the West", which is regarded as a god by movie fans, is really an accident.
Whether we like to admit it or not, when "Journey to the West" was released in early 1995, it was a shoddy, poorly word-of-mouth, and box office fiasco in the eyes of the public. The first and second episodes of the film were filmed in just over 100 days, with an investment of more than 60 million Hong Kong dollars, but only sold more than 50 million. At that time, the deputy director of Xiying also believed that "Journey to the West" could not represent the level of Xiying Film Factory at all, and even could only be regarded as cultural garbage.
The entire Chinese film critics have also made almost mocking noises. The most vicious words include, "What did Liu Zhenwei shoot this time?" Liu Zhenwei once regarded it as his own failure, and even immigrated to Canada and faded out of the film and television circle for many years.
By the time the phrase "there was once a sincere love in front of me, and I didn't cherish it" became popular all over the country, it was already three years after the movie was released. This has a lot to do with the advent of the Internet age, the promotion of the first batch of "network water supply army" - college students, and the talented students of China's institutions of higher learning will introduce the supreme treasure in the film as a confidant.
Therefore, some people pointed out that the success of "Journey to the West" combines the talents of several directors and actors, and also sets the time and place to benefit people, and it cannot be simply used to measure Liu Zhenwei's level of directing.
In addition to the big talk of traveling to the west, Liu Zhenwei has also dedicated many classic screen works to the audience with his wild imagination and dumb nonsense style.
For example, "Gamble Saint", written and directed by himself, is the first film in Hong Kong to exceed 40 million at the box office, also known as the precedent of "nonsense". It also made Zhou Xingchi, making it begin to form its own nonsense performance style, and gradually became the king of comedy in domestic movies;
For example, his first award-winning film, "92 Black Roses to Black Roses", formed a style different from Stephen Chow's "Leung-style comedy", setting a record for the only film in Hong Kong to be released for 168 consecutive days;
For another example, he used the original team of "East Evil and West Poison" to spend 27 days to urgently shoot the "firefighting" blockbuster "East into the West", and successfully interpreted the legend of "taking the award to find Wong Kar-wai, making money to find Liu Zhenwei";
"Kung Fu" proves Liu Zhenwei's good executive ability, and his re-pairing with Stephen Chow not only made "Kung Fu" successfully go abroad, but also made it the highest-grossing foreign language film in the United States in 2004...
Is Liu Zhenwei really a legend?
Liu Zhenwei, 65, was born into a Catholic family in Cheung Chau, Hong Kong, and his mother has taken him frequently to and from the island's two few theaters since he was a child. At the age of 16, he went to England to study fine print design, and his first job after graduation was in an advertising agency.
About three years later, feeling uninterested in design, he joined a financial firm with Asian capital to manage money. Later, the company decided to make films in Hong Kong, and by chance, he became the general manager of the film company.
At the age of 24, the young Liu Zhenwei was already an important figure in the Hong Kong film industry. His company has signed new directors such as Xu Anhua and Xu Ke, and has participated in the supervision of "Marginal Man", "Murder List", "Kill out of Xiyingpan", "Fire Youth", etc., all of which are representative works of the Hong Kong New Wave.
The good times were not long, Liu Zhenwei's company went out of business, and after several turns, he decided to start from scratch, "put dignity under his feet", and learn to write and direct. In 1984, Liu Zhenwei participated in the creation of the script for the first time; in 1987, Liu Zhenwei completed his directorial debut "The Fierce Ghost Pavilion" with the theme of fierce ghosts, with an investment of only 1 million yuan, but obtained more than 10 million box office performance. After that, he completed "Fierce Ghost Academy" and "Fierce Ghost Building" at the rate of one film per year.
At that time, when all the filmmakers mentioned Liu Zhenwei, they wanted him to make ghost films. After that, he went to make a gambling film, which turned out to be better at the box office, and then the investors kept letting him make gambling films.
In order to make many different movies, Liu Zhenwei once used different pseudonyms to hide his real name. So you will see that in "91 Divine Eagle Heroes" his name is Li Dawei, in "92 Black Roses to Black Roses" he is called Chen Shanzhi, and in "Heaven and Earth" he is called Liu Yuming.
In the road of work, he has been in and out of the film industry several times, and every comeback always has a stunning performance, such as choreographing "The World Is Matchless", serving as the supervising producer of "Kung Fu". Some people commented that Liu Zhenwei's previous film career, every step has found out the pulse of the audience's aesthetics and the trend of the times.
In recent years, a large number of Hong Kong directors have gone north, and Liu Zhenwei is also one of them. But compared with Xu Ke, Chen Kexin and other constant debugging to adapt to mainland audiences, Liu Zhenwei's change does not seem to be too big. This may be related to the lack of popularity of the current nonsense theme.
"Comedy has never been a bad era, the key is whether it can make good works in that era." I've always used my comedic approach to storytelling and continue to create. Liu Zhenwei once said so.
For the audience, "Is Liu Zhenwei a legend?" ”
This question on the knowledge may have two different conditions: on the one hand, whether it is a positive or negative answer, such an evaluation shows that the subject himself has a lot of weight; on the other hand, it also conveys a message that this person's time seems to be really about to pass.