Chapter 1387 "Zombie-Master" Premieres in North America!
"Zbie-Master" is the first Chinese horror film to be fully released in North America, or the first Chinese film to be fully released in North America.
In the last life, "Hero" achieved considerable box office results in North America, but it was mostly because of Harvey's operation and the name of Quentin, and in this life, "Hero" failed to borrow power from Quentin, The box office performance was very mediocre.
However, "Zbie-Master", also known as "Mr. Zombie", is different from "Hero". Although it does not have the grand scenes and exquisite visual effects of "Hero", it is a pioneering Chinese movie. The classic movie, its director did not put any hope of winning overseas awards on it, nor did he think about the test of this movie. In the context of just trying to do something different, I have to say, at this point, they succeeded.
"Mr. Zombie" has a complete character setting, a complete storyline, and a complete monster fighting system. While ensuring the integrity of these aspects, the film can maintain the main tone of wit and humor. What is even more rare is that Lin Zhengying is here. The perfect interpretation of the character in the movie, his expression, his voice, his every move, will give the audience a lot of trust, let the audience really believe that he knows how to eliminate zombies, let the audience believe that he is really a zombie Taoist.
At the beginning, this film created many miracles in the field of Chinese-language films. It single-handedly created a new sect in the highly competitive Hong Kong film industry. Now, this film is ready to be a blockbuster in the North American market!
Since it's an old movie and it doesn't have any actors familiar to North American audiences, "Zbie-Master" doesn't have a premiere, but the first show in the United States will be scheduled at 0:00 a.m. New York time as the premiere of the movie. The audience in North America has long been looking forward to this movie, so the attendance rate of the premiere has undoubtedly reached 100%.
As the film's distributor in the North American market, Lucas came to the premiere in person. He and several of his partners purchased the movie tickets through the Muying Ticketing System, wanting to see the audience in North America. What is the opinion of the film, he needs to infer the potential of the film by observing the audience.
The premiere of many movies can be guaranteed to be full, but this is not a performance of box office sales. Many movies have extremely poor stamina, and the box office and attendance begin to plummet after a few days of release. Therefore, Lucas has no bottom line for this movie. , Although he has a certain degree of confidence, he also wants to know how much potential the film can have.
And how much potential a movie can have, it mainly depends on the audience's word of mouth. If the audience at the scene shows great love for the movie, then the movie will definitely become a hit. Many stalks do not buy it, there is no doubt that this movie will soon be on the street.
zero o'clock,
The lights of the theater were turned off on time, and the entire theater audience was eagerly looking forward to this old film from China Hong Kong, produced and made in 1985.
The moment the movie screen lit up, the classic title of Jiahe Company appeared on the big screen. For the vast majority of North American audiences in the cinema, this was the first time they saw the title screen of this company.
After Jiahe is Baohe, and after Baohe, there are four big characters: Mr. Zombie.
Below these four Chinese characters, is the English title of the film: "Zbie-Master", which is also written in a miserable green color.
The miserable green text created a creepy and eerie atmosphere for the audience, which made all the audience nervous and quickly entered a state of watching horror movies.
After the introduction of the film title and the cast and crew, the first scene of the film opens with Yizhuang, a unique place in ancient China and modern society.
In the dilapidated room in the picture, a large number of coffins are placed. The apprentice played by Xu Guanying pushes the door and walks into the Yizhuang, lights a handful of incense, and calls the ghosts in the Yizhuang to eat.
And then, he said: "The door is a guest, you eat first."
As soon as he finished speaking, he reached out and opened a white gauze curtain, and as he opened the white curtain, a row of zombies wearing official Qing Dynasty uniforms with yellow talismans on their foreheads appeared on the big screen in an instant. .
If it is the first time that the audience sees this scene, they will definitely be startled by the row of zombies. However, the audience who watched this movie for the first time in North America, when they saw this scene , and immediately cheered in surprise!
"China-Zbie!" I don't know which excited audience suddenly exclaimed, and there was a burst of applause and whistles in the theater!
Everyone has been accustomed to seeing the cartoon version of Huaxia Zombies in "Plants vs. Zombies Online". This time, when I suddenly saw the film and television image of Huaxia Zombies on the big screen, not only did they not feel scared, but they felt extra friendly!
In fact, the audience who walked into this cinema, except for a very small number of Chinese people who came to review the classics, almost all the other North American audiences came to this very distinctive Chinese zombie image. I was very curious and interested in this special zombie image. Later, I saw some netizens taking screenshots of the movie on the Internet, and I was even more interested in these zombie images and zombie movies, so the movie just started more than a minute ago. Rows of Huaxia Zombies appeared, and for them, they couldn't be more satisfied!
Later, in the plot, Xu Guanying was grabbed by a "zombie" by the arm in a coffin, and then a "zombie" jumped out of the coffin. Xu Guanying hurriedly picked up the mirror, and then counted the number of zombies. Only the "zombie" suddenly came back. Xu Guanying hurriedly responded, but was accidentally pushed into the corner by the zombie. At this time, the "zombie" opened his mouth to bite. Seeing that Xu Guanying was about to be bitten by the zombie, the audience also became nervous.
At this time, the "zombie" suddenly spit out a pair of false teeth. It turns out that the "zombie" is not a real zombie, but a junior brother played by Qian Xiaohao.
Although it was a false alarm, among the eight zombies behind, the talismans on the foreheads of several zombies were accidentally dropped, and then these zombies immediately recovered their freedom and began to attack the two of them.
Immediately afterwards, the two's master, Lin Zhengying, appeared and easily solved the troubles of the zombies. This episode was quite comical, and the audience was also very impressed by the comedy treatment of the clip. In the end, all the zombies were eliminated and re-enacted. When they stopped, Lin Zhengying's junior brother took the eight zombies to get up and went on their way. When the eight zombies jumped and followed Lin Zhengying's junior brother to go out, a burst of laughter broke out in the screening hall again.
What's even more interesting is that there was a zombie who couldn't jump over the threshold no matter what, Xu Guanying hurriedly came out to help, saying that I'm here to help you, while hugging the zombie and sending him out.
At the end of the small plot of the first unit, the audience has a very intuitive understanding of this zombie. In the subsequent plot, Lin Zhengying was invited to help the businessman Mr. Ren to move the grave. During this period, Lin Zhengying mentioned the unique feng shui of China in front of the camera. It is interesting to say that the word "feng shui" also has a certain influence in North America. North America knows the "yin and yang" and "feng shui" in Chinese culture, but most people do not understand the details. Some feng shui is briefly introduced in the plot. This plot also makes North American audiences watch it with gusto. Although they can't understand it, they can know that the tombs in Huaxia also pay great attention to feng shui. Bring disaster to future generations, and even mutate the corpse.
This unique Chinese culture, after being processed into film and television, can easily allow Western audiences to see the characteristics and depth of Chinese culture. Westerners do not have the so-called Feng Shui. In their culture, one of the most metaphysical This kind of legend is the night of the full moon. The werewolf will mutate on the night of the full moon, and the vampire will mutate on the night of the full moon. Apart from that, there are basically no other metaphysical legends.
The subsequent plot of "Mr. Zombie", through the corpse of Mr. Ren's father, combined with the plot, tells in great detail the reasons for the formation of zombies and the methods to deal with them. Bad guys are not good enough to live up to their expectations, and the reason why corpses turn into zombies is because of an extra breath. Before death, people get angry, suffocated, and sullen. This breath will make people continue to accumulate resentment after death, and eventually become zombies.
The sayings of good people and bad people, dead corpses and zombies are very consistent with the philosophical principles of Chinese national culture. These truths are spoken in Lin Zhengying's language, but they are especially recognized and praised by Western audiences in their hearts.
As for Lin Zhengying's practice of letting his apprentice use the ink bucket to pop out the grid on the coffin, it also opened the eyes of many audiences. In their eyes, this ink bucket should have a certain metaphysical element, which is the spear and shield of the Chinese legend.
There are also spears and shields in Western legends, but the overall rank is relatively low. For example, vampires want to beheaded, devils are afraid of holy water, and werewolves are afraid of silver weapons. The whole is very simple;
The spears and shields in the legend of Huaxia Zombies are very cumbersome. There are not only occupations such as zombie priests, but also complex methods such as arranging arrays. Even if you just make ink fountains, you need chicken blood and ink, and then use these materials to practice, and then Pour into the ink fountain to make it work.
Although it seems cumbersome, when Lin Zhengying does these things, there is a magic power that can make the audience feel that everything he does is very convincing.
The very interesting point of this movie is that the comedy effect is very well created. After the brothers and sisters finished handling the coffin of Mr. Ren's father, Qian Xiaohao met the ghost bride who admired him on his way home. As a result, the ghost bride sat on his The back seat of the bicycle was knocked down by a branch. When the ghost bride sat on the ground and was aggrieved, there was laughter in the cinema.
The structure of the film has always adopted the structure of comedy-drama-comedy-drama interspersed with each other. As soon as the funny story of the ghost bride is over, Master Ren's father begins to change into a corpse, and Lin Zhengying's ink bucket also has a magical effect, so that the zombies temporarily disappear. escape.
Afterwards, the two brothers went to Mr. Ren's house, but found that Mr. Ren's daughter's cousin had coveted her daughter, Ren Tingting for a long time. Adding a talisman turned Qianjin's cousin and Xu Guanying into a pair of "dolls" who acted in unison. Afterwards, the two sides came and went and laughed frequently.
This comedy plot is very exciting, and the whole movie theater has become a piece of laughter. This kind of stalk that "A" does what "B" does, has been played badly in Hong Kong movies, but for North American audiences, This is the first time I have seen it, so the audience also bought it.
Seeing the audience's eyes and laughter, Lucas said excitedly to a partner beside him: "Oh God, look at the performance of these audiences so far, I believe this movie will be a hit! "