On October 29, the drama movie "Wuhai", directed by young director Zhou Ziyang and starring Huang Xuan and Yang Zishan, appeared on the big screen, and as of 17:00 on November 2, the cumulative box office in the five days of release was only 8.495 million, and the Douban score was 6.1, which was passable, far from the previous box office forecast of breaking 100 million. The reporter noted that at present, the film's schedule has plummeted, and the director is still posting on the social platform today to talk about the hardships of its creation.
However, many viewers said that the whole film is full of strong conflict plots, debts, loans, infidelities, quarrels, arson, car accidents, etc., but the narrative density is low, "Although Huang Xuan's acting skills are good this time, but such a hard pile directly depressed the audience, as if the audience was pushed into the breathless darkness, but forgot to pull it out." ”
"The Sea of Desire, the Man Who Rises and Falls"
The film takes the small city of Wuhai as the background of the story, telling the story of husband Yang Hua (played by Huang Xuan) and wife Miao Wei (played by Yang Zishan), who also kissed sweetly and snuggled up to each other. But the desires that breed in urban life hit them, bringing the young couple to the brink of love and hate, and making the two people who were originally in love entangled in the escalation of contradictions. Under the concentrated outbreak of borrowing pressure, trust crisis and family conflicts, the storm of life swept in.
As the name suggests, the film is a dark and deep sea of desire, a sea of nothingness. The protagonist seems to be caught in an endless fall, and whenever there seems to be a turnaround, he finds that he is ushering in a new round of misfortune. Entrepreneurial failures, friendship betrayals, broken love, and suffocating misfortunes ensued.
There is an impressive scene, the protagonist Yang Hua returned to his parents' home to enjoy some natural fun, and then returned to his home, the elevator, he looked at himself in the elevator with deep meaning, and seemed to be ready to start life again, but opening the elevator door was a bloody word "debt repayment", and life kept hitting him again and again.
All kinds of misfortunes seem to never end in the movie. The source of all contradictions and conflicts is desire. The director weaves a deep sea of black sea in the interweaving of desires, which is bottomless and can swallow a person in the blink of an eye and turn him into a terrible "monster".
The schedule plummeted, and the director posted an article about the creative process
On November 2, Zhou Ziyang, the director of "Wuhai", posted a long article on social platforms, saying that the film's schedule had plummeted to less than 5%, expressing sadness at the same time, he shared the film's creation process.
Zhou Ziyang said that the script development of "Wuhai" lasted about a year and a half, and he insisted on creating in the case of a small income for several consecutive years, and he reflected his difficulties and pains in the role of Yang Hua (Huang Xuan).
At the same time, he expressed his deep gratitude to Huang Xiaoming, Ni Ni, Wang Baoqiang and other friends in the circle who helped, Huang Xuan, Yang Zishan, Tu And other film creators, Guan Hu, Liang Jing and his wife, Zhou Xun, Yao Chen and other filmmakers, as well as every audience who walked into the theater.
Finally, Zhou Ziyang emotionally said that if people can get some touch and understanding from it after watching "Wuhai", then this movie is worth making, "no matter what happens, we should believe that although life is turbulent, there is love in the world after all."
"Hopefully, this film will send a warning signal to the audience"
"Under money and desire, people's loss and deformed values bring harm to people", this is the main theme of "Wuhai", and it is also the vigilance signal that director Zhou Ziyang wants to convey to the audience through this film.
Zhou Ziyang also said in an interview with the media that he hopes that the film can be used as a mirror to trigger the viewer's introspection: "If everyone ignores, these things will continue to happen, which is its greatest significance and value." ”
"Wuhai" continues the reflection on social issues of his former work "Old Beast" in the ideological core, and also continues the surreal expression in "Old Beast" in terms of creative techniques, and the symbolic techniques of imagery metaphors and surreal absurd scene narratives have become the iconic techniques of Zhou Ziyang's films.
"This fish generally survives in Africa, and when it runs out of water, it burrows into the mud and wraps itself in spit, and it can survive for up to four or five years until it rains and then drills out of the soil." The director arranged a video of an African lungfish at the beginning of the film, and Zhou Ziyang introduced, "In order to survive, life can be mutated, which is very similar to the theme of the movie." ”
There is also the movie in which Yang Hua is forced to spend the night in the body of a dinosaur model, Yang Hua and his wife do yoga together, and the images and scenes such as the state of desire struggle formed in the action of wrapping and winding, and the sudden appearance of prosthetic limbs in the elevator are very intriguing.
Huang Xuan's acting skills were generally praised
It is worth mentioning that in the multi-platform comments, most of the praise is directed at the male protagonist Huang Xuan. Netizens have said, "This is the best performance that Huang Xuan has contributed after "Tuina", "What is more commendable is That Huang Xuan has found a long-lost movie performance status." ”
It is reported that before the release of "Wuhai", Huang Xuan won the Best Actor Award in the Hong Kong International Film Festival Rookie Film Competition with the film, and director Zhou Ziyang also said in an interview with the media: "When he was halfway through the film, I decided that this was Huang Xuan's performance masterpiece." ”
The densely depressing plot leads to "stacking" questions
"Wuhai" was previously shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Spanish SanSai Film Festival, but now it has received such a dismal box office, even in the Douban, which has a high tolerance for literary films, it has only received a passing score.
Some netizens said that at the beginning, the film stood in a higher position looking down on the current materialistic world, reflecting and questioning endless desires and distorted values. Perhaps in order to better reflect this theme, the film arranges too many contradictions, conflicts, setbacks and misfortunes, tight as a storm that overwhelms people's breathlessness, and there are also doubts of tragedy, which is as if the audience is pushed into the darkness that is difficult to breathe, but forgets to pull it out, it is completely the dark side of society and does not produce the expected positive effect, which may be the director's desire to show is deep, but the director did not give a solution, the audience is really uncomfortable.
The reporter noted that the audience's short comments were spicy and direct, overall, netizens recognized the director's shooting ability, but questioned the plot arrangement, "a series of tragic piles, trying to mock the materialistic society, but the depth of excavation is limited" "Zhou Ziyang is a director who can write a story framework, the idea sounds good, but it can fall on the screen on the big beads and small beads crackle and scatter, which is also related to its shooting method. It is easy to make the fate of the characters the same as the film, a road to the black. ”
It is worth thinking about that the dismal box office and poor reputation of "Wuhai" have put a question mark on the future development of such literary and art films. This year's "gold-encrusted" literary and art films wearing foreign awards are not only "Wuhai", but almost none of them have reached the ideal box office and word of mouth, and this vicious cycle has also made literary and art films fall into the difficulty of "going out of the circle". It is not fair to use the box office to measure literary and artistic films, but because of obscurity and falling into the quagmire of word of mouth, the introduction of familiar stars can not withstand the dismal box office, and it does need to be re-measured by the literary and art film industry.
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Kong Xiaoping
Intern Bian Shulei
Proofread by Xu Heng
Source: Purple Cow News