China Entertainment: I have been a director since 05

"Director Guan is amazing! The script is incredibly detailed!"

"While watching the movie, scenes from 'Dream of the Red Chamber' came to mind. Daiyu thought to herself, 'How strange! It's as if I've seen her somewhere before; how incredibly familiar she looks!' After watching the movie, Baoyu smiled and said, 'I've seen this younger sister before.' Grandmother Jia laughed and said, 'That's nonsense again. How could you have seen her before?' Baoyu smiled and said, 'Although I've never seen her, her face looks familiar. In my heart, she's like an old acquaintance. Today, let's just consider it a reunion after a long separation; it's not inappropriate.'"

"Where should I cry?! It's so sad, I've already hardened my heart, sob sob sob!"

"This story is amazing. Director Guan could use this story to warm the hearts of everyone in the city who still believes in love. In such a big world, it takes so much effort to meet you. Traveling through misaligned time and space, looking up at the fallen stars, you didn't leave your name, but I can't forget the words 'I love you'."

"Speechless, gathered into a shape, intertwined, sometimes turning back, interrupted, yet reconnected again. This is the knot. This is time. This is the knot. Dusk, neither day nor night, is when I try but cannot see your face."

"I almost cried myself to death in the movie theater... I didn't really think much of Guan Ling before, and even looked down on him for using the War of Resistance against Japan as a form of populism to make 'Even When the Wind Rises'."
But I never imagined that two years ago, when I despised him for merely stirring up nationalistic sentiments, I would one day cry myself to death in a movie theater. It was as if I saw Lin Ye from her teenage years, a time traveler.

Applause for all the girlish hearts and adolescent fantasies! As long as youth lives, we can meet again, and we can save the world. Now, I'm wiping away tears as I walk out of the theater, and I see the boy in the row behind me take off his glasses and burst into tears…

"I never expected that Director Guan could depict a love story so delicately..."

I've come to see you.

Watching Guan Ling's animations always brings a bittersweet feeling, keeping you in a state of pain where you feel like crying but can't.

You know the stunning scenery is real, you know the fleeting cruelty is real, you know that what you hold dear will eventually come true, but you will always be lost in the crowd.

Unless you find each other, even your dreams will drown you in a profound sense of loneliness.

The original aircraft designer ascended to the heavens in his final moments, but he never saw her again.

Now, Lin Chuan has met Lin Ye.

This is truly animation for adults. Ancient rituals collide with time travel, tranquil countryside embraces bustling city life, forgotten memories search for lost lovers, and what a coincidence, I've been waiting for you all along too.

"We meet in dreams, but the person is nowhere to be seen; if we knew it was a dream, why would we wake up? Even if we often meet in dreams, how can it compare to seeing each other in person? Isn't this just a beautiful lie, a confusion of time and space?"

"This is bound to be an animated film that will go down in the history of 21st-century cinema."

Absolutely amazing! I've already watched it twice. The first time I watched it, I didn't realize how amazing this movie was. But watching it again in IMAX today, I think it truly deserves to be recorded in the history of 21st-century cinema!
Guan Ling's art style, music, expression, and storytelling have all reached a level comparable to, or even surpassing, that of a new generation of Miyazaki Hayao. With fantasy romance as its foundation, the film explores the physical and emotional lives of young men and women, and its focus on the characteristics of Chinese regional culture and natural disasters is unprecedented.

All of this led to Guan Ling's masterpiece, "Even When the Wind Rises," which is beautiful, quiet, touching, and dreamlike.

If the previous film was influenced by militarism and national crisis, this one is clearly more subtle.

Therefore, it is even more classic.

A hundred years from now, "Your Name" may become a landmark film that must be mentioned in film history textbooks. I've only just realized today that it's not that other Chinese animated films are bad, but rather that Guan Ling set the bar too high, making it difficult for anyone to surpass.

Immediately after the premiere, "Your Name" became a hot topic of discussion among young men and women.

Numerous film reviews spread rapidly, causing an uproar throughout the entire film industry.

September 13, 2013, just after nine o'clock,

In Beijing, the chill of an autumn night was gradually overwhelmed by the bustling crowds at Wangfujing Cinema.

The long queue at the ticket gates snaked all the way to the hall entrance. The young faces showed no signs of fatigue, only an almost pilgrimage-like excitement.

The air was filled with the sweet aroma of popcorn, mixed with the soft, intermittent sounds of conversation.
"Have you all read those film reviews? I heard Director Kwan is serious this time, and he's going all out again?"

"Every frame of the video could be used as wallpaper."

"I saw an event on Bilibili where people were trying to grab tickets, and the server almost crashed because of the crowds..."

The heavy velvet curtains in the theater were completely drawn, shutting out the last bit of outside light and noise.

After a moment of darkness, the screen lit up.

It wasn't a dazzling barrage of colors, but a deep blue, almost inky black sky, studded with tiny, cold stars.

A tremendous rumble, silent and arrogant, swept across the ancient stillness, the cold light carrying a sense of oppressive destiny, piercing the stagnant air of the cinema.

At that moment, all the whispers and rustling of adjusting postures vanished. Only a breathtaking silence remained, gripped by overwhelming shock.

The story unfolds between the hustle and bustle of the capital and the tranquility of the Qiang ethnic region.

When Lin Chuan, that young man who toiled in the gaps between the high-rise buildings of Beijing,
Waking up in the morning, confused and shocked, she reached for the softness of her chest that didn't belong to him.

A burst of suppressed laughter suddenly erupted from the darkness.

The laughter was brief, carrying a hint of unspoken embarrassment and the restlessness unique to adolescence.

When Lin Ye woke up in a strange man's body, looking at her reflection in the hotel mirror, her fingertips hesitantly traced her Adam's apple.
And as they continued their exploration with an almost scientific seriousness,

The laughter grew louder, but it also carried a gentler, more understanding tone.

This is the awkwardness and honesty of a teenager's awakening body; the light from the screen illuminated the knowing yet embarrassed smiles on the faces of many viewers.

However, this ease did not last long.

The misalignment of time is like an invisible noose slowly tightening.

Lin Chuan was flipping through old local newspapers in the dimly lit library when he discovered news of the tragedy.

Almost everyone in the theater had their pupils shrink.

A chilling sensation simultaneously crept up the spines of everyone in the theater.

The gasps of surprise were like air escaping from a person's throat.

The image of Lin Ye running, the doomsday shadow lurking beneath the tranquil daily life of the Qiang people, and the scene of Lin Chuan desperately searching on the streets of Beijing are all intertwined.

The rhythm quickened, and the drum-like heartbeat seemed to belong no longer just to the character.

Instead, it resonates from the chest cavity of each audience member.

A girl in the back row was gripping her boyfriend's arm tightly, her nails almost digging into his skin.

"Don't pinch me! Sigh!"

There were gasps of surprise.

Then, there was that moment.

Afternoon, the moment when yin and yang meet, neither day nor night.

The lake in the Qiang region reflects the fissure in the earth torn apart by the dragon of the land, presenting a magnificent yet tragic rose-gold color.

On the ruined mountain peak, young men and women from different times and spaces...
Finally, piercing through the fog of life and death, past and future, we saw each other's blurred outlines.

"Lin Ye!"

"Linchuan!"

The shouts carried a tremor that seemed to transcend time and space.

They stumbled toward each other, reaching out their hands, their fingertips trembling in the thin twilight as they drew closer and closer.

The moment their palms finally touched, carrying immense weight and incredible warmth—"snap."

A very soft sound, like a dewdrop falling to the ground. That was a tear!

A young man in a plaid shirt in the front row quickly wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his hand, his movements clumsy.

Immediately following was a second sob, from a short-haired girl watching the movie alone on the right. She bit her lower lip tightly, but her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.

Like the first domino falling, faint, suppressed sobs quietly rose from all directions, quickly merging into one.

The soft sounds of tissue packaging being torn open echoed throughout the room.

On the screen, Lin Ye opens his palm, and the words Lin Chuan wrote—"I cherish you like a treasure, respect you like a god, admire your demeanor, and rejoice in your deep affection"—are being rapidly erased by an invisible eraser.

The visuals were breathtakingly beautiful, but the despair of separation, like icy lake water, overwhelmed the entire theater.

As the ending melody, melodious yet tinged with a touch of melancholy, plays...
As the song "It's No Big Deal" began to play and the credits started rolling, the theater lights did not turn on as usual.

In the darkness, the sobbing did not stop; instead, it became clearer and more unrestrained.

A middle-aged man took off his glasses in the flickering light and rubbed his brow vigorously, a damp sheen reflecting between his fingers.

His teenage son, sitting next to him, was also disregarding any notion of "manliness" and was wiping his face haphazardly with his sleeve, his head bowed.

The exit was opened, but the crowd seemed to be nailed to the spot, moving slowly and silently.

With red-rimmed eyes and clutching soaked tissues, many people had lingering tear stains on their faces and an almost dazed expression.

There was no heated discussion, only a profound silence, a silence born of being deeply shaken and still feeling as if their souls had not yet returned to their place.

"I'm thirty-seven years old... I never thought I'd cry like a baby while watching an animated film."

A tall man lit a cigarette at the entrance of the cinema and spoke to his companion in a hoarse voice, his tone tinged with self-deprecation but also with a deep and unwavering emotion.

afternoon.

Mr. Zhao, the manager of Wangfujing Cinema, rushed into the office with huge dark circles under his eyes, his hands trembling slightly as he picked up the phone.

The receiver carried the same hoarse and excited voices from other cinema chains.

"Old Zhao! Did it explode? Our place is packed! It exploded! Director Guan is fucking awesome!"

Old Zhao's throat was dry: "It's more than just a hit! The statistics just came out, on the first day... in just one morning, the box office reached 3600 million! It broke records! It completely broke records!"

He practically shouted it out; outside the huge French windows, there wasn't a single bird.

It's as if you can already hear the entire Chinese film market being jolted awake by these numbers, soaring into the sky.

Data, like a raging tide, assaults the nerves of every practitioner.

It also shakes the hearts of everyone.

The box office reached 6900 million on the first day!
This not only broke the record for the highest-grossing opening day for an animated film, but it was also like a boulder thrown into a stagnant pond.
The splashing waves soaked all the faces that had once doubted the potential of the animated film market.

Social media was flooded with comments like "Your Name" and "It made me cry," and the film's rating on Maoyan soared to 9.4, while on Douban it remained at an astonishing 9 points.

The cinema's scheduling manager's phone was ringing off the hook, and the extra screenings were sold out the moment tickets went on sale.

A large crowd of young viewers waited in front of the posters at the cinema entrance, their lines swirling around the lobby, their eyes sparkling with the same anticipation as the midnight screening the previous night.

The next morning,

The headlines in newspaper entertainment sections and online media were even more shocking.
"Your Name's opening day box office is phenomenal!"

Guan Ling's new animation sweeps mainland China; the "Your Name" storm has arrived!

This gust of wind not only brought all the audience members to tears, but also violently swept into the cramped or deserted studios of Chinese animation filmmakers.

In a rented apartment in Chengdu, the curtains were drawn, and the only light source was the pale glow of a laptop screen.

Dumplings curled up in the old sofa.

The corner of the room was piled with sketchbooks and storyboard drafts. On the top page, the image of a rebellious child was beginning to take shape, with the words "Demon Child Nezha" scrawled next to it.

Today, he watched Guan Ling's new movie.

But to be honest, he didn't think much of it.

He dislikes the two-dimensional view of romantic love between men and women, believing that the only things that can be depicted in animated films are family and friendship.

The light from the screen illuminated his thin face, his eyes red-rimmed, but not entirely from tears of emotion.

It was something more complex and hotter burning.

He abruptly pressed the pause button, and the screen froze on the movie he watched today, capturing the two hands that were about to touch, transcending life and death.

His fingertips twitched involuntarily, as if the electric current had traveled through the cheap computer speakers to his body.

"So... this is how stories can be told."

He muttered to himself, his voice hoarse.

At that moment, the images of Nezha and Ao Bing exploded in his mind!
It's not childish coaxing, nor is it rigid preaching.

It is a pure, universal human emotion, so exquisitely and powerfully wrapped, striking the hearts of people of all ages.

He looked down at the Nezha on his draft, who was trying to "defy fate," and a tremendous force mixed with an equally immense anxiety gripped his heart.

He grabbed a pen and scribbled almost fiercely in the blank space beside him: "Emotion! Real emotion! Not a slogan!" The pen tip tore through the paper, making a sizzling sound.

Meanwhile, in the capital city
In a studio converted from an old warehouse in the suburbs, Tian Xiaopeng's drawing tablet was still lit up.

On the screen, a monkey figure wearing a tattered red robe and with an arrogant look appears and disappears among the clouds. This is the protagonist of "Monkey King: Hero Is Back," which he has painstakingly crafted.

However, at this moment, his attention was completely captured by the clip playing repeatedly on another screen next to him.
The film "Your Name" depicts the shimmering ruins bathed in a thin veil of sunlight after the disaster.

"Ruins...can also be beautiful."

He spoke softly, his fingers unconsciously tracing the edge of the graphics tablet.

For a long time, domestic animation seems to be trapped in a vicious cycle: either it is a children's playground with glaring color saturation, or it deliberately pursues a dark and heavy "adult" style.

But this work, set against such a horrific backdrop of disaster, presents a shimmering lake, a survivor's unwavering gaze on life and hope. This understated yet powerful aesthetic deeply moved him.

He picked up a pencil, intending to jot something down on his storyboard for the Monkey King. The pencil tip hovered in mid-air for a long time before finally snapping in two with a "snap" from the force he unconsciously applied.

He looked down at the pen broken in two, then looked up at the tranquil yet powerful lake on the screen, and something in his eyes was completely ignited.

"Yes, ruins can also be beautiful."

"Then, Great Sage, even in ruins, there is still beauty."

Suddenly, he realized something! (End of Chapter)