In this year's National Day file, Wu Jing, Zhang Ziyi, Xu Zheng and Shen Teng jointly directed the movie "My Father and Me".
Since the 2019 National Day file, "My Motherland and Me" has sold well at the box office, the "Me and My" series has also become a reserved program for the National Day file, one a year, never absent.
However, with the routineization of the story content, this form of "segmented film" has also begun to make the audience feel rejected. Compared with the two works of "My Motherland and Me" and "My Hometown and Me", the backwardness of "My Father and Me" in terms of word of mouth and box office makes us intuitively feel the audience's resistance to the "Me and Mine" series of frequent sequels.
In this issue, we don't talk about "content", only "form". Talk about the development of years and the changes of the times on the big screen in Chinese, such as the "Me and Mine" series, which have undergone periods of development and changes in the times.
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Because of the influence of the "Me and Mine" series, today's audiences like to call this type of segmented film work "platter film".
In fact, on the big screen in Chinese, this form of "segmented film" is not uncommon. In the 1990s, Hong Kong horror films often used this form. Wang Jing, Ma Weihao, Ye Weimin's cooperation in the "Strange Talk Association", Qiu Litao, Tan Langchang, Zheng Weiwen's "Yin Yang Road" series, are representative works of segmented horror Hong Kong films.
The creative form of segmented films originated in the United States. In 1916, film giant David Griffiths filmed the film "The Party Fights Differently".
In this work, David Griffith divides the story of the film into four segments: "The Fall of Babylon", "The Passion of Jesus", "The Massacre of Saint-Bartoromy in France", and "Labor Conflict in The United States in the Early Twentieth Century". Although these 4 stories take place in different eras and different countries, they all closely follow the theme of the movie "the party is the same as the difference".
After "The Party Fights Against the Difference", this form of "segmented film" has begun to be imitated by more and more European and American directors. In 1924, Ukrainian director Leo Bilinsky and German director Paul Lenny jointly produced the fantasy horror film Wax Man.
This "Wax Man" tells the story of a "wax museum" opened, but there have been no guests, the owner of the wax museum invited a writer to write some bizarre stories for the wax people in the wax museum, hoping to use this as a gimmick to attract tourists. So, the writer wrote 3 bizarre horror stories.
The story structure of this "Wax Man Pavilion" is very unique, and the author's 3 horror stories divide the film into 3 segments. The story between the owner of the wax museum and the writer not only runs through the whole story from beginning to end, but also constitutes the fourth horror story in the movie.
In 1996, Wang Jing, Ma Weihao, and Ye Weimin collaborated on the "Strange Talk Association", which was structurally imitated the 1924 "Wax Man Museum".
In 1924, after the release of "Wax Man", it received double praise from word of mouth and box office. The creative form of segmented films has since become a patent for European and American horror films.
In 1945, "Dead Night", 1963's "Black Sabbath", and 1968's "Ghost in the Shell" set off one "segmented horror film" creation boom after another in the international film world.
At the end of the 1960s, under the influence of international film trends, Chinese filmmakers also began to experiment with "segmented films". In 1970, Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan, Li Xing, Bai Jingrui, four famous directors, joined hands to shoot the movie "Joy and Sorrow". The film also became a pioneer of segmented Chinese films.
Behind the birth of this "Joy and Sorrow", there is also an interesting little story.
In the early 1960s, Li Hanxiang, with the support of "Shao", filmed classics such as "Ghost of Qiannu", "Yang Guifei" and "Wu Zetian". These works have allowed Li Hanxiang to be nominated for the "Palme d'Or at Cannes" three times. Among them, "Yang Guifei" won the "Technical Award" at the Cannes Film Festival for its magnificent court set and costume design, becoming the first Chinese film to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
After becoming famous internationally, Li Hanxiang left "Shaw" to develop his own business independently and established the film company "Guolian Pictures".
In 1964, "League Pictures" spent a lot of money to shoot the movie "Xi Shi". Although this film won many awards, the box office was extremely dismal. After "Xi Shi", "Guolian Pictures" filmed "Xin Fourteen Niang", "Several Degrees of Sunset Red", and "Proud Daughter of Heaven".
At the end of the 60s, Li Hanxiang's "Guolian Pictures" fell into a development crisis. At this time, several friends in the film circle reached out to Li Hanxiang to help, they were Hu Jinquan, Bai Jingrui, and Li Xing.
Of the three who helped, the film industry resume was more vigorous than one.
Hu Jinquan needless to say, the audience who likes to watch martial arts movies should be familiar with him. "The Drunken Man", "The Heroine", "The Dragon Gate Inn", "The Storm of Yingchun Pavilion", "Zhonglietu", "The Spirit Rain of the Empty Mountain", and "The Strange Edge of the Mountain" are all classics of Mr. Hu.
It is worth mentioning that Hu Jinquan and Li Hanxiang are still brothers, and the elder brother has difficulties, and the nature of being a younger brother cannot stand idly by.
In addition to Hu Jinquan, the names of Li Xing and Bai Jingrui are also the memories of an era of Chinese films. As the "godfather of Taiwanese literary and art films", classic works such as "Dumb Girl Affection", "The Duck Keeper", "Autumn Decision", "A Boat in the Ocean", "Lonely Seventeen", "The Bride and Me", "People in the End of the World" and other classic works have left Li Xing and Bai Jingrui in the history of the development of Chinese films.
Influenced by foreign segmented horror films, Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan, Bai Jingrui and Li Xing decided to shoot a Chinese-style segmented horror story. As the chief planner, Li Hanxiang also focused on the classical masterpiece "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
Originally, this "Joy and Sorrow" was called "Joy and Sorrow of Liaozhai". However, Hu Jinquan, who came to help, did not cooperate, and he insisted on shooting martial arts and patting inns to fight. Li Hanxiang also had no choice but to take his brother as a brother, so he had to remove the word "Liaozhai" and named the movie "Joy and Sorrow".
The first story of the film, "Hi", was directed by Bai Jingrui. In this story, Bai Dao made a mockery of Li Hanxiang.
In 1960, Li Hanxiang was nominated for the Cannes Palme d'Or for the film "Ghost of a Woman". This love story of "scholar and female ghost" has also become a classic. In "Hi", Bai Jingrui also designed a story of "shusheng and female ghost". However, this time, the handsome student met a strange and ugly "female ghost". The "female ghost" fell in love with the student at first sight, but the student was disgusted. Between this "one person and one ghost", in the end, it failed to rub out the spark of love, but instead staged a farce.
The second story, "Fury", directed by Hu Jinquan, is the story of "Ren TangHui Three Forks Save Jiao Zan", which is the story in the Peking Opera "Three Forks".
The third story, "Lamentations", directed by Li Xing, tells the story of a man who wants to take revenge, only to find that the enemy's entire family has long been "killed", and the enemy's daughter incarnates as a "ghost" to persuade the man to let go of hatred.
The fourth story, "Le", directed by Li Hanxiang, is directly filmed and televisionized the story of the chapter of "Wang Liulang" in "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
After the release of "Joy and Sorrow", it received a good market response. In the early 1970s, the Chinese film industry also set off a wave of "segmented film" creation.
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After "Joy and Sorrow", Li Hanxiang made a new exploration of "segmented films". In 1971, Director Li filmed the segmented city comedy "Deception" with the theme of "Deception".
The convergence of segmented small stories, curious deception traps, and comedy story themes has made "Deception Strange Tan" get a good market response. In 1972, Li Hanxiang filmed a sequel to the film, "Deception Grand View", which won the full house again after its release.
In the early 1970s, "Jiahe" rose rapidly above the Hong Kong film market with Bruce Lee's kung fu films. And "Shaw" is also under the market pressure of "Jiahe" and gradually falls into passivity.
In 1972, the three directors of "Shaw", Zhang Che, Cheng Gang and Yue Feng, were inspired by Li Hanxiang and also planned to create some new tricks in the creative form of "segmented films". Therefore, the three of them joined forces to shoot the segmented martial arts film "Heroes of the Crowd", hoping to use this new form of creation to compete with Bruce Lee's kung fu films at the box office.
This "Heroes of the Crowd" is composed of three martial arts stories of "White Water Beach", "Rouge Tiger" and "Iron Bow Edge", which gathers a large number of Shaw popular movie stars such as Dillon, Jiang David, Luo Lie, Yue Hua, Shi Si, and Jiang Ling.
"Buy a ticket and watch three movies" has also become a publicity gimmick when "Heroes of the Crowd" was released. However, the filming of this "Heroes of the Crowd" is not a success, and the word of mouth and box office are also very general.
Seeing that Zhang Che, Cheng Gang, and Yue Feng were not good, "Shao" spent a lot of money to invite Li Hanxiang back in 1972, hoping to use Li Hanxiang's "segmented film" to fight against "Jiahe's" "Bruce Lee Kung Fu Film".
In 1972, Li Hanxiang returned to "Shaw", and successively filmed 5 works of "Wind and Moon Strange Tan", "Affair and Rhyme", "Cow Ghost and Snake God", "Deception in Strange Wonder", and "Northland Rouge". These five works still continue the creative form of "segmented film" and express some interesting things in the city.
Of course, in order to cater to the market audience, Li Hanxiang also designed many "wind and moon elements" in these film works. Although the works such as "Wind and Moon Strange", "Cow Ghost Snake God", "Deception Strange Wonder", and "Northland Rouge" have not been able to rank no. 1 in the box office list like Bruce Lee's "Jingwumen", the high-yield, low-cost and high-box office production characteristics of these works have made "Shaw" turn the risk above the Hong Kong film market.
In the first and middle of the 1970s, Li Hanxiang fell into a creative bottleneck period, so he began to rely on "segmented films" to stabilize his market value. In the early 1970s, "Shaw", because of the pressure of competitor "Jiahe", fell into a development dilemma. In order to get rid of the embarrassment, "segmented films" have also become the main force of "Shaw's" to gallop the box office market.
However, after 1975, Li Hanxiang found his creative state and began to fade out of the shooting of "segmented films", and successively created classic works such as "Falling into the City", "Yingtai Weeping Blood", "Qianlong Under jiangnan" and so on.
After 1975, "Shaw" found a new direction of development in the shooting of "ancient dragon martial arts films", so it also slowed down the shooting intensity of "segmented films".
In a sense, the popularity of "segmented films" in the commercial film market is a manifestation of the exhaustion of creativity and development difficulties of some directors and some producers.
This significance has once again been verified in the Hong Kong film market in the 1990s.
In the early 1990s, Hong Kong films entered their final peak. Classic works such as "Huang Feihong", "Truant Weilong", "Flying Eagle Project", "Hot Hand Detective", "Undefeated In the East of the Laughing Pride", "New Dragon Gate Inn", "Police Story 3", "Serious Crime Team", "Jingwu Hero", "Journey to the West" and so on emerge in an endless stream.
However, none of these classics have come in the form of "segmented" films.
At the end of the 1990s, under the sluggish Market environment of Hong Kong films, "Half a o'clock in the night", "Strange Talk Society", "Office has ghosts", "Yin yang road", "three more" and other "segmented horror films" began to be popular.
The creative form of "segmented film", coupled with a very commercial story theme, seems to have become a common means for many Hong Kong film producers to survive in their predicament.
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After the new millennium, with the rapid development of the mainland film market. This wave of "segmented film" creation, which originally pervaded the Hong Kong film market, also went all the way north to the mainland.
In 2010, Hong Kong film directors Xia Yongkang and Chen Guohui joined hands to shoot the movie "Love in the City". The film tells the love story of 6 pairs of men and women in a segmented form, and brings together Jacky Cheung, Rene Lau, Maggie Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Wu Yanzu, Xu Ruoxuan, Cai Zhuoyan and other big names.
After "Love in the Whole City", mainland director Zhao Tianyu also followed suit, and in 2011, in the form of a "segmented film", he filmed a work with urban love themes, "Gravity".
Around 2011, the mainland film market has not yet sunk to the fourth and fifth tier small towns as it is now. At that time, the cinema line was mainly concentrated in large cities, and the main consumer groups of movies were also migrant workers who worked in big cities.
So around 2011, "the love of urban men and women" became the focus of many filmmakers' creation. During this period, Gu Tianle and Gao Yuanyuan filmed "Single Men and Women", the article and Bai Lily filmed "33 Days of Lost Love", Andy Lau and Gong Li cooperated in "I Know the Woman's Heart", and Xu Jinglei also directed and starred in "Dulala Promotion".
On top of the "urban romance" market under the mud and sand, this "Gravity" has not achieved any decent market results. The ordinary screen performance of "Gravity" has also become a microcosm of the decline of "urban romance" at that time.
After 2011, the development of the mainland film market entered a peak period. In 2012, "Tai 囧" and 2013's "Journey to the West to Descend the Devil" made the mainland film market quickly enter the "billion era". At the same time as the market box office soared, the quality of Chinese films has also entered a "period of inexhaustible words".
Between 2013 and 2015, the "box office myth" of the "Little Times" series allowed more and more filmmakers to see the market potential of "pain love stories".
So in 2016, Zhang Yibai, Guan Hu, Zhang Meng, Teng Huatao, and Gao Qunshu joined forces to create "Ben Ai" in the form of a segmented film.
Through 5 stories, this "Ben Ai" tells the "pain love story" of 5 couples before, and different loves have different pain methods.
Although the film brings together a luxurious lineup such as Zhang Ziyi, Peng Yuyan, Tong Liya, Zhou Dongyu, Zhang Yi, Liang Jing, Wu Moxuan, and Wang Qianyuan, the effect after the release is very general. Perhaps, this is that human pain is not the same, the audience only feels to do it.
After "Ben Ai", this kind of "love story" that is twisted and screwed up began to lose the audience market. With the emergence of works such as "Wolf Warrior 2", "Red Sea Operation" and "Captain China", new "commercial film genres" began to dominate the mainland box office market.
The "Me and Mine" series has also smoothly entered the audience's field of vision under this market trend. From Chen Kaige, Zhang Yibai, Guan Hu, Xue Xiaolu, Xu Zheng, Ning Hao, Wen Muye, to Chen Sicheng, Yan Fei, Peng Damo, Deng Chao, Yu Baimei, and now Wu Jing, Zhang Ziyi, Shen Teng.
My series "Me and Me" has "tested" the professional ability of successive groups of mainland directors.
In the early 1970s, Li Hanxiang set off this "segmented film" creative boom in the Chinese film industry. Half a century later, this boom spread from south to north, all the way to the mainland film market.
History is always strikingly similar, and the stories that have happened in the Hong Kong film market seem to be playing out again in the mainland film market. At present, Wu Jing, Xu Zheng, Shen Teng and others also seem to have encountered the difficulties of life encountered by Li Hanxiang in the early 70s.