Author / Fish Boy
Will cinemas disappear? Will movies die? These two questions were asked countless times during this time.
On the surface, the film industry is only temporarily suspended, and cinemas still maintain its huge operating mechanism, in fact, a "revolution" is already quietly underway: movies are on pay online on demand, movie theaters are overwhelmed and crumbling, and audiences are gradually getting used to the new experience of watching movies brought by small screens. No matter how advanced the cinema equipment is, it is not as good as the video platform that can watch the film anytime and anywhere; no matter how good the movie is, it cannot compete with the attention of the audience by TV series and variety shows.
From the end of January to the present, theaters have closed, movies have been withdrawn, and the film industry has fallen to a freezing point, while the popularity of small screens has not decreased but has risen. Netizens have just experienced the sweetness of love in "Next Stop, Happiness", "Want to See You", "Under the Golden Dress", and collectively denounced the sins of the original family in "An Jia" and "Imperfect Her", and recently they have fallen into the juvenile beauty of "Fake Couple Tiancheng" and the middle-aged beauty of "Sideburns Are Not Begonia Red".
Looking at the world, the productivity of TV dramas in other countries has not weakened. "Itaewon Class", "Mechanism Doctor Life", "Kingdom" Season 2, "Westworld" Season 3, "Alien Invasion" all appeared, contributing wave after wave of spiritual nourishment to the home audience.
Compared with TV dramas, the discussion of movies is much lower. However, although no movies are currently released in theaters, many films have broken into the audience's field of vision, being watched, discussed, and shared. Intelligence Jun also summarized the "net red movies" that had a certain degree of popularity on social networks between February and April, so as to review the audience's viewing history during this period.
The film is only temporarily absent, it has always been in the hearts of everyone who misses it.
Half popular science and half prophecy
The re-screening of the old film is imminent
Turning the pointer back to the beginning of February, people were disrupted by the sudden virus, and they were immersed in great shock and uneasiness before they could recover in time. The official information on the epidemic is not comprehensive enough, and the interpretation of the disease by the people has come and gone, and most people have no understanding of the origin of the virus, specific symptoms, and treatment drugs. In the absence of a clear indication of when work will resume, the Spring Festival holiday has been repeatedly extended, and people have to close and wait for further notice. The Korean movie "Flu" and the American movie "Infectious Disease" became popular again during this period.
The movie "Flu" tells the story of a virus carried by Southeast Asian stowaways that quickly became a super virus that swept the country after crossing the ocean into the Bundang district of South Korea. Directed by Kim Sung-so and starring Jang Hyuk, So-ae and Park Min-ho, the film was released in South Korea in 2013. The popularity of "Flu" is not accidental, after Bong Joon-ho and his "Parasite" shined at the Oscars, Korean movies were in the limelight for a while, the government's inclusive support for culture, mature film industry system and metaphorical reality text made Korean films receive global attention, and the movie "Flu" is the "infectious disease" theme that Korean genre films are better at. Because the transmission method and speed of the virus in the film are similar to the new crown pneumonia, and because the isolation measures taken by people in the film are in contrast with the isolation life of the current netizens, "Flu" became the first movie to become popular during the epidemic. After the film regained attention, Taiwan also announced that it would re-release the film in theaters on April 30.
The American movie "Infectious Disease" became popular again with a line, and Jude Lowe said "Do you know forsythia?" "It's a lot of imagination. The epidemic in the film has caused social panic, and the reporter and pharmaceutical company played by Jude Lowe have taken the opportunity to boast about the efficacy of "forsythia" to seek huge profits, and the news has triggered a mass rush to buy, which in turn has brought about a larger-scale infection, which can't help but remind people of the real "people snapping up double yellow lian" incident. While the two can't be crudely linked because of the similarity of the situation, the film at least provides a sober line of thought for the avid rush of the masses.
The Japanese animated film Akira also played the role of "God Prophet" during the epidemic. The animated film, born in 1988, not only predicted that Tokyo would host the Olympic Games in 2020, but also that the Games would be suspended for special reasons. Not long ago, some netizens turned out the original comic of "Akira", which has the plot of the United Nations Health Organization WHO being reprimanded by various countries for failing to prevent the epidemic, although there is a certain difference from reality, but the coincidental part also makes netizens marvel at the imagination and creativity of director Katsuyo Otomo. A few days ago, "Akira" is being re-screened in Hong Kong, and the re-release version of the Chinese character trailer is also marked with the slogan of "prophecy come true".
From "Flu" to "Infectious Disease" to "Akira", the old film after many years has become popular again, witnessing the connection between artistic creation and reality. It turns out that a good film is not about the passage of time, it can withstand the test of successive generations of audiences and at some point regain new vitality. However, the popularity of these films also reflects the lack of scientific knowledge of the domestic epidemic from the side, and the understanding of the virus situation can only be found in the movie. But in the end, the film is only an artistic life, and cannot provide people with a real reference answer.
Austrian films are highly anticipated
Controversial director "out of the circle" with unsolved case
From February to March, the eyes of the film industry were focused on the Oscars. In fact, since the end of last year, Venice, the Golden Globes and other major awards have blown the whistle for the Oscars, and many movies have been fired from last year to this year. After the Oscars, some films continued to form a new round of pursuit because of their own topicality.
This year is the year of the Oscars, and the various nominated films are more diverse in style, genre and issues, so the competition is quite fierce. Nominated for Best Picture for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", "The Irishman", "Parasite", "Little Women", "Marriage Story", "1917", "Joker", "Jojo's Whimsical World" each of them has gained tens of thousands of fans because of its unique style, plus Bong Joon-ho won best director, "Parasite" won best picture, and this year's Oscars are in the top in quality and topic.
This year is also the year when mainland films have embraced the Oscars in an all-round way for the first time in history. In previous years, few films were generally well known to Chinese audiences before the opening of the Oscars, but this year, films such as "Joker", "Parasite" and "Marriage Story" have all seen a phenomenon in the mainland after the release of online resources. The reason is that in addition to the blessing of famous directors and famous IP configurations, such films have certain achievements in artistry and commerciality, criticism and entertainment, coupled with the word-of-mouth boost of Cannes and Venice, "out of the circle" is also inevitable. After the Oscars, popular movies such as "1917", "Jojo's Whimsical World", "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", "Marriage Story" and "Little Women" have been confirmed to be introduced to the mainland, although due to the epidemic, they have to shelve the original release plans, but also make people look forward to their box office performance in the Chinese market.
This year, two famous directors have been controversial because of the early sexual assault cloud, one is the Polish director Romain Polanski, the other is the American director Woody Allen, last year they each had a new film, but due to the rise of the global film industry "MeToo" in recent years, this year they have returned to Vanity Fair.
Poland's 40 years ago a sexual assault case was wanted and did not dare to step into the United States, and now in his later years, he still faces numerous sexual assault allegations, and this year's film "I Accuse" directed by him has caused many controversies at the Venice Film Festival and the French César Awards. At the César Awards, after learning that Polanski won the awards for best director and best adapted screenplay, many actresses, including Adele Hahnel and Serene Sienma, left the audience in anger. Although Polanski himself did not attend the ceremony for fear of being "publicly executed," widespread protests took place in France after the ceremony. Chinese audiences do not have much judgment on Polanski, and most Chinese film fans want to see It because Polanski himself said that the plot of the film is similar to his own sexual assault case.
Woody Allen's life wasn't much better than Polanski's. "A Rainy Day in New York" was actually filmed as early as the end of 2017, but his own "sexual assault Rashomon" was revived by the old matter, the distributor Amazon announced the abolition of the contract, and the film was not taken over by the Italian distributor until the middle of last year, but in the end it still found nothing at major awards ceremonies. At the beginning of this year, the publication of Woody Allen's autobiography also suffered a series of twists and turns, and fans relished the fact that Woody Allen's autobiography expounded his past experience and exposed many hollywood insiders, including his belief that Sweet Tea condemned him in order to have a greater chance of winning at the Oscars.
In the past two years, the speed of social network updates has become faster, information sharing has become more frequent, and many Chinese viewers have learned about these events through various channels, which has not been criticized by the end but has also aroused their curiosity. For the identity of the famous director, most Chinese audiences still maintain the attitude of watching the fire from the other side and eating melon rationally. However, because the two films themselves are not strong in commercial attributes and the audience area is small, they have not formed a large-scale circle, but have only become popular on a small and medium scale in the fan circle.
Care for reality, expose human nature, predict the future
The apocalypse of "influencer movies" during the pandemic
Observing the out-of-the-loop situation of Internet celebrity movies over the years, thriller, crime, and action movies have always been the favorite of Chinese film fans. From "The Night the Comet Came" to "The Invisible Guest", from "The Return of the Joker" to "Happy Death Day 2", the dark and eerie visual experience, the tense and exciting plot rhythm, plus the high-concept setting and the high-energy reversal of the ending, this kind of film usually occupies a certain amount of discussion space, and this year is no different.
In early April, the three thriller films "Invisible Man", "Hunger Platform" and "Hunting" were "packaged" and sent to Chinese audiences. "Hunger Platform" focuses on confined space crime, known as "the combined version of "Snow Country Train" + "Chainsaw Horror" + "Panic Party"; "Hunting" is jokingly called "live-action version of eating chicken" by netizens, a net to exhaust fans and game fans; "Invisible Man" ushered in the trend of screen brushing in Douyin, and the high-energy places in the film were cut into small videos and spoilers.
In fact, it is no coincidence that these three films are out of the circle at the same time. Due to the epidemic situation, in mid-March, Universal Pictures opened its "Invisible Man" and "Hunting" that have been released in theaters for a while to online on-demand rental to global audiences, while Netflix launched "Hunger Platform", which is not difficult to explain why these three films have flowed out of network resources almost at the same time.
In addition to the above, disney's "1/2 Magic", Warner's "Birds of Prey and Harley Quinn", Sony's "Jedi X-Men: Speed Pursuit" and so on are on demand on the online video platform, but most of these films have poor reputation, so there is no larger-scale discussion on the side of Chinese audiences.
To some extent, the circle of "Invisible Man", "Hunger Platform" and "Hunting" also cuts to the current hot social issues and audience viewing preferences, and the feminist meaning in "Invisible Man", the exposure of class and human nature in "Hunger Platform" and "Hunting" are all emerging concept themes that have been moving closer to commercialization in recent years, and they also represent the thinking and criticism of people in high-speed developing countries for the current social environment.
Coincidentally, the popularity of the Korean movie "Kim Ji-young born in 1982" in China at the beginning of this year confirms to some extent the current audience's attention to women's issues, and the dilemma encountered by Korean women in the film is also resonated with many women; the American movie "Blackwater" is adapted from the true story of corporate defense lawyer Robert Bilott, which directly hits the current socio-economic issues, and is also considered by netizens to be the biggest pearl of the awards season at the end of last year.
Combing through the Internet celebrity movies that have swept the Internet in the past two months, we can find an interesting phenomenon - the overall number of Internet celebrity movies is even more than the number of last year and the previous year, and the themes are more diverse. Without fanatical emotional guidance, without overwhelming publicity, when movies are no longer linked to the box office and people return to a more pure state of viewing, what kind of movies can enter the audience's field of vision and be welcomed by the public? There is no standard answer here, but it is certain that this type of film must be scrutinized and have enough room for deep thinking and discussion.
Whether it is "Parasite", "Jin Zhiying born in 82", or "Infectious Disease", "Flu", "Akira", they all have a certain degree of illumination on the current real life, and the depiction of the living state of modern people, the insight into human nature, and the imagination of the future world in the film have a realistic basis at the moment. This shows that the film not only assumes the function of entertainment, but also has the effect of enlightening the audience and triggering thinking, which is why the audience is so enthusiastic when the prophetic plots in "Infectious Disease" and "Akira" appear.
For film creators, although the industry is not very prosperous during this time, it is also a good time to observe the network society and observe human nature. If you maintain sensitivity and empathy for what is happening in this world, and have a deeper understanding of each individual, then you will be closer to good creation.
"Since the invention of cinema, human life has been extended at least three times" The line in the movie "One Eleven" also confirms the importance of cinema in our daily lives during this time, we are not watching movies, but experiencing life.
Although the current theater is still not open, all the "net red movies" can only meet with everyone through video platforms or resources, but we also believe that after the epidemic, people will have a deeper understanding of movies. With the gradual excavation and opening up of the domestic market to "net red movies", we look forward to meeting them on the big screen as soon as possible, and we look forward to them being able to spend a more complete life cycle in the Chinese film market with a complete appearance.