Chapter 589 "Dear" And "Lost"
Wu Yuan didn't choose a "blockbuster" not because he doesn't like making blockbusters, but because there are really no suitable ones at this stage.
To be honest, there are really no real blockbusters in the mainland market.
It's funny to say that in the first decade of the 21st century, blockbusters were endless in the mainland film market. Starting from Zhang Yimou's "Hero", there were historical power struggle epics with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment every year, with big scenes.
But after 2010, the explosion of the mainland market also pointed out a way for mainland film practitioners to make money.
That is comedy movies and youth films.
These two themes of movies are low-cost, short-production cycles, but high-return themes.
Most of the box office dark horses and big-money movies in recent years are comedies and youth films.
First of all, the main characters and stories of "Dear" are derived from the real "anti-trafficking" incidents.
"Lost and Love" is more like an essay or a poem.
The mainland film market in the next few years will be impetuous, crazy, and exaggerated to the point of being incomprehensible by common sense.
Through the character lines of the father of the child and the child looking for both parents, the tragedy of child trafficking on both the parents who lost the child and the trafficked child is portrayed.
Under such circumstances, Wu Yuan could not make a blockbuster like "The Wandering Earth" because the risk was too high and the stimulation to the market was not very good.
So when "Dangal" and "Dying to Survive" were temporarily unavailable, he set his sights on the two films "Dear" and "Lost and Found".
Magic and fantasy themes are also the only blockbuster themes that are still strong in China.
The lyrical and symbolic empty shots with inconsistent rhythms throughout the film make the narrative of the whole film messy and disorganized, but the result is that it eliminates the cruelty but fails to ignite the audience, becoming an embarrassing work that is neither reliable nor reliable.
Whether it is Huang Bo and Hao Lei who are looking for their children everywhere, or the village woman who secretly raises the child, or Zhang Yi, a man looking for his child with a lot of stories, they all have many stories and their own helplessness, and the characters are constantly reversed.
As a result, investors voted with their feet, and a large number of comedies, youth films, and comedy romance films were approved for filming. It was difficult to attract investment in Chinese blockbuster projects, and the number of projects decreased sharply.
In the movie, the pain of losing the child and the hatred of the traffickers that the audience had accumulated along the way with Huang Bo were reversed at this moment by the "stepmother" who also loved the child and was in pain because she didn't want to be separated from the child.
And those movies under the banner of 3D blockbusters, such as "Legend of the White Snake" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", although they also made money from the box office results, the profit was higher than that of no comedy at all.
The two-hour story was filled with too many conflicts and contradictions about family affection and blood ties, which forced several protagonists to weaken their own plots and accommodate the overall story development. Such accommodation made the characters that could have been full become somewhat distorted.
But embarrassingly, there were no blockbusters with good box office results in the mainland in the next few years.
"Lost and Love" does not exaggerate the suffering of the protagonist Liu Dehua, but through a map, a motorcycle that is about to be scrapped, and the dark and cracked skin wrapped in ragged clothes, the audience can understand the road he has walked and the hardships he has suffered in the past 15 years in search of his son.
There are even variety shows such as "Where Are We Going, Dad?", which have received a box office of 695 million yuan.
Whether it is "Youth" or "Beijing Meets Seattle", or "See You Tomorrow" and "The Breakup Master", they are not blockbusters.
In this regard, another similar theme "Lost and Love" is handled very well.
It seems to be the solution of a tragedy, but it has become the beginning of another tragedy.
Such an over-exerting screenwriter makes this movie more like a TV series.
The audience has not yet had a deep enough understanding of these characters, but a series of sensational scenes and emotional outbursts have been staged one after another, which makes many audiences unable to resonate and integrate, and the emotions that should have exploded cannot be directly conveyed.
Once abduction occurs, no matter whether the family that lost the child can find the child, one of the two families will be hurt and suffer.
Mango TV relies on its high skills and boldness to throw variety shows directly on the screen.
The characters and story framework of "Lost and Love" are composed of three clues. Unfortunately, the overall structure of the three clues is not well controlled throughout the film, and there is a feeling of complete disconnection between the front and the back.
And its style is still a magical and fantasy film.
However, "Dear" is trying to please the audience from beginning to end, and is extremely sensational in the hope that the audience will cry.
Secondly, this kind of parent-child theme itself is a "tear-jerking big family".
In 2013, only one real blockbuster was released, that is, Xu Ke's "Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame". He is still insisting on making magical movies.
It has to be admitted that female directors are indeed much better than male directors in controlling delicate emotions and film details.
He hopes to make a film with depth and meaning, which can cool down the mainland movie fans when the domestic film industry is in chaos.
Compared with the story of "Dear", the focus of "Lost and Love" is on writing about people.
It is fragmented and scattered, although beautiful, but it cannot make up a complete story.
As for Master Xing's "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", strictly speaking, it is a gray comedy. Although there are big scenes in the second half of the movie where the demon king Sun Wukong fights demon conquerors and Buddhas, which is not inferior to Hollywood special effects blockbusters, the main tone of this movie is still comedy.
What's more terrible is that they have succeeded, occupying the Spring Festival period and winning nearly 700 million box office.
Every single scene is either picturesque or simple. Liu Dehua has been searching for his son for 15 years. He has suffered many blows but has always been on the road. He has also met kind people who help him, but there is a lack of a central explosive point. Just relying on good people and good deeds, the story seems loose and not catchy.
In the end, the family who lost the child was in pain, and when the child was rescued, the family who later adopted the child also suffered the pain of losing the child.
This is the unknown world that the film wants to show to the audience in addition to "fighting against human trafficking".
The story of this film is not complicated, and it can be summarized in eight words: Losing an orphan - looking for an orphan - meeting an orphan - becoming an orphan.
Especially after "Love Is Not Blind" swept the country again, investors from all walks of life are even more superstitious about the magic of romantic comedies.
But the control of the plot of "Lost and Love" by Peng Sanyuan is not as good as "Dear".
It can be said that "Dear" and "Lost and Love" each have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Both movies have obvious advantages but also obvious disadvantages, so the box office of these two movies is around 400 to 500 million, and the reputation is also mixed.
But coincidentally, the advantages of these two movies are complementary. If the advantages of these two movies are combined, the disadvantages are eliminated, and integrated into one movie, it will definitely present a great "anti-trafficking" theme movie! (End of this chapter)