"You can't be shameless to this point", this sentence form is still quite common on the Internet now, and its originality does not dare to say that it is definitely someone, but it is undoubtedly the great director Chen Kaige who makes this sentence fire.
Who is the person who can make the industry's famous director release such harsh words? In fact, it is just a small person, Hu Ge, not Hu Ge.
This is the "steamed bun case" that was hyped up by all walks of life from the end of 2005 to the beginning of 2006, that is, the lawsuit caused by "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun".
More than ten years have passed, I don't know how many people still remember this matter, may wish to talk about it.
Let's look at the parties first.
First, Hu Ge and Chen Kaige
Hu Ge is a boy born in Wuhan in 1974. His interests from an early age were quite extensive, such as music, song and dance, art and film and television, and he was basically interested in art, probably related to his family of literary and art workers.
Hu Ge has successively studied piano, drum kit, electric guitar, electric bass, Chinese painting, break dance, modern dance and other talents, and later played roller skating. After graduation, he has worked as a host, musician, audio technician, composer, arranger, sound recordist, animation sound effects, etc., and seems to have sold second-hand audio.
From Hu Ge's simple resume, it can be seen that this is a "restless" big boy, in other words, he is not satisfied with the status quo and is not honest, such a child will generally cause some big things sooner or later, but he did not expect that he would provoke the big director Chen Kaige as soon as he provoked it.
Chen Kaige was in a period of transition around 2005, in fact, it was not only him, but also the big domestic directors in that period of the early twenty-first century followed the devil.
Because Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won the Oscar, this triggered several major directors in China to start "rushing the Olympics".
Zhang Yimou took the lead in filming "Hero" and "Ten Faces Ambush", although there was no success in the Olympic Games and bad reviews in China, but Lao Mozi's films won praise abroad, and he also basically laid the status of an international brother of Chinese films.
Rising star Feng Xiaogang also began to transform in 2004's "No Thief in the World", and then prepared to shoot "Night Feast" to impact the Oscars.
Before there was Zhang Yimou, then there was Feng Xiaogang, Chen Kaige could not be idle, he spent a lot of money and energy on "Wuji", not only wanted to rush to Austria in one fell swoop and create glory in China, but also had the ambition to open the Japanese and Korean markets and then be as famous as "Hero".
Understanding this background, we also understand why Chen Kaige angrily rebuked Hu Ge later, "You can't be shameless to such a point."
"Wuji", which I still haven't understood after 20 or 15 years,
At the end of 2005, "Wuji", which pinned on Chen Kaige's infinite hopes, was finally released, and before that, this movie was like a windy publicity and roadshow everywhere in the country, Chen Kaige can be described as full of sincerity, and the audience is also full of expectations for this movie.
Not surprisingly, Chen Kaige's heavy investment in publicity was not wasted, and after the release of "Wuji", it broke seven box office records of Chinese films in a row, including on-demand box office records, first-day box office records, single-day box office records and first weekend box office records.
However, as a series of box office records were broken, the reputation of "Wuji" began to collapse, and some inexplicable and funny dialogue in the film, as well as the awkward and obscure plot, made the audience not only look laborious, but even once enjoyed this epic film as a comedy.
I remember that Chen Kaige seemed to have said a word, and ten years later, you will understand it when you watch "Wuji".
To tell you the truth, fifteen years have passed, and the author still does not understand what Chen Kaige wants to say in this movie, although in recent years, countless people have reconstituted "Wuji" in advanced language, and even think that everyone blamed Chen Kaige at that time, "Wuji" is an excellent movie.
But the author would like to say that if the vast majority of the audience in the whole country or even the whole world (the reputation of "Wuji" overseas is worse than that in China) cannot understand "Wuji", then what is the significance of your profundity? Just like Lu Yao's Tian Er, every day muttering "the world is going to change", such an "unpredictable" whisper can scare a few strangers, but the whole village who does not know that Tian Er is a humble person.
The famous "Tenth Screening Room" said a summative comment: "With the ambition to express the chest directly, it is not necessary to give up the duty of telling a good story, which is thought-provoking and puzzling, but there is still a difference."
Although some film critics and film experts gave "Wuji" a lot of praise that year, most of the audience did not buy it. Helplessly, the network environment in 2005 is not as convenient as today, and it is not difficult for ordinary audiences to publish their film reviews, but it is not easy to attract attention and resonance, and the right to speak in film reviews is not in the hands of ordinary audiences.
Third, the "Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" that has aroused countless resonances
On December 18, 2005, an important day in the history of Chinese online video, Hu Ge, who had just spent 80 yuan to watch "Wuji" at a high price, felt deceived, and he published a simple film review on a forum to the effect that Chen Kaige as a director was excellent, and Chen Kaige as a screenwriter was unqualified.
I have to say that Hu Ge's film review is very professional and to the point. But this kind of film criticism has no channel of dissemination, and it undoubtedly has no meaning.
Hu Ge, who is familiar with online video and audio technology, has also seen videos such as "The Great History" and "Separation in October" before, and he decided to adapt "Wuji" to make a spoof movie with "Wuji" as the main material.
In addition to using some clips of "Wuji" as material (which looks like a gun version recorded in a movie theater), Hu Ge also used materials such as CCTV's "China Rule of Law Report" and the Shanghai Circus City performance clip.
On December 28, 2005, Hu Ge produced a 20-minute "Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun", which was then distributed online to several friends and then published on his own technical forum, which was initially played very little.
In early 2006, someone uploaded "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" to six rooms and other video websites and provided free downloads, and then the video began to ferment rapidly on the Internet, and eventually became a phenomenon-level network spoof video, some people jokingly called it "the originator of Chinese spoof video".
In fact, before Hu Ge and "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun", there were already some spoof videos on the Internet, but none of them became a climate, so it is acceptable that Hu Ge's "steamed buns" are called the originators of spoof videos.
There is a saying that Hu Ge's "steamed buns" can be considered medium from the current point of view, and the low clarity of the picture is a technical environment problem, not to mention, mainly because the content of the video is slightly delayed, and the production is relatively rough.
However, "The Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" is still hot, in addition to this spoof form is relatively novel, there is a more important factor that has to be mentioned, that is, everyone's bad reviews of "Wuji" resonate.
Someone once said that those who spent fifty yuan to enter the cinema felt after watching "Wuji"? The vast majority of people are undoubtedly dissatisfied and feel deceived. But how do you ask a company white-collar worker, a bus driver, or a supermarket salesman to make their own complaints in the media? Even if it is posted on the Internet, who can see it?
Hey, at this time, "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" turned out, and everyone not only found joy in this spoof video, but also found the resonance of wanting to complain about "Wuji".
Interestingly, some people took the initiative to buy tickets to see "Wuji" because they watched "The Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun", just to see what this film is like, and after watching the "Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" on the computer with depression, and then shouted: "Steamed Buns" is not deceiving me!
"The Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" is so popular, driving the development of China's online video industry, making countless netizens feel the charm of online video, and also triggering a rare network carnival in the past. Hu Ge's name was more brilliant than Hu Ge for a while.
However, there will definitely be people who are unhappy, such as Chen Kaige.
Fourth, Chen Kaige's thunderous wrath
With the popularity of "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun", its number of viewers even exceeded that of "Wuji", and what made Chen Kaige even more angry was that countless people watched "Mantou" and turned around to mock "Wuji", in this environment, how do you let the grand plan of "Wuji" and the majestic plan to attack overseas markets unfold?
Seeing that his hundreds of millions of dollars and several years of hard work were destroyed by a small production of ten days by an unknown pawn, and even the materials used by Hu Ge were on "Wuji", to be fair, this matter would be angry at anyone.
Therefore, Chen Kaige issued the famous sentence in front of reporters: "People cannot be shameless to such a point."
On February 12, 2006, Chen Kaige sued Hu Ge for infringement of "Wuji", which caused an uproar in the public opinion circles, everyone was not concerned about who lost the lawsuit and who won, but more importantly, Chen Kaige actually condescended to deal with a hairy young man, and the disparity in the status of the two sides became a hot topic at that time.
It is said that Zhang Yimou was also asked by reporters: "If your movie is paroded, what will you do?" Zhang Yimou smiled, "I will enjoy with the people." There is no doubt that the old strategist is not a big deal to see the hilarity.
Others, such as Lu Chuan and even Zeng Zhiwei, have participated in the hot discussion, of course, the vast majority of people think that Chen Kaige's move is unnecessary, too much to fall into the director's share.
On the side of netizens, there is also a phenomenon of one-sided support for Hu Ge, and some people even shout out the slogan of filing a lawsuit for Hu Ge's donation.
So, if you calm down, is "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" infringing?
5. Is Hu Ge infringing?
At the same time as the media is hyped, there are many legal people involved, which is a rare infringement case and has guiding significance for the future online world.
According to legal circles and research and popular science, many people have come to the conclusion that although Hu Ge's "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" is not used for commercial purposes, its reference and spoofing of the movie "Wuji" and the act of forwarding it to several friends have constituted infringement, unless Hu Ge can prove that he has no intention of letting his friends forward the video but only uses the video as learning material. (Many videos now have the words "Learning Only")
Perhaps Hu Ge also has a deep understanding of the relevant laws, although there are countless netizens to support, he still "instigated", on February 15, he officially apologized to Chen Kaige through the media, and then with CCTV said not to prosecute Hu Ge, the matter finally ended with reconciliation and private settlement (there is also a saying that it can not be resolved).
6. Follow-up
"A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" brought harm to Chen Kaige, but after all, he was a big director who had seen the world, and two years later he regrouped with a "Mei Lanfang" and won the Kurosawa Akira Award.
For the online world, "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" has inspired the industry of spoof video, of course, now it seems that more people call this thing ghost animal video.
That is, in those years, online video platforms appeared in large quantities, and now they have gradually become an indispensable element in the lives of netizens.
For Hu Ge, although "The Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" made him famous, it did not let him get much benefit, and the spoof videos he produced such as "Spring Festival Empire" were also quite popular, but they could not be monetized for him.
Not long ago, someone asked Hu Ge on the Internet what he was doing? As a result, Hu Gebenzun appeared, saying that he is now a filmmaker and is preparing for an online movie.
Interestingly, under a question about Chen Kaige, the answer at the top was written by Hu Ge, who obviously sided with Chen Kaige in support of the big director. So everyone talked about "The Blood Case Caused by a Steamed Bun" and "Wuji" again, and it seems that this topic will continue.
Fifteen years, like a circle, it seems that Hu Ge and Chen Kaige have not changed much.