Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 498: Storm and Celebration

This kind of comparison between two well-known figures has always been a favorite of Chinese people. In less than a day, the entire Internet was filled with debates about who was the number one director between the two.

No one expected that the debate over who is the number one director in China, Liu Zhou or Zhang Yimou, which was originally intended to celebrate "Interstellar" breaking the box office record of "Avatar", would suddenly become heated.

"Interstellar is the first and only domestic film to have grossed over 1 billion yuan, and it also broke the record of Avatar. Is there a problem with Liu Zhou surpassing Zhang Yimou to become the top director in China?"

This is a popular pinned post on Douban Movie Forum. The title mentions support for Liu Zhou, and a series of statistics are listed below, which shows that he is a loyal fan.

From Liu Zhou’s first film “My Sassy Girl” in 1999 to the current “Interstellar”, there are a total of eight films.

We analyze each of these films, in terms of box office, reputation, and awards, and compare them with Zhang Yimou's films in the past decade.

After a discussion, Liu Zhou had undoubtedly surpassed Zhang Yimou's achievements.

This post certainly received support from the majority of Liu Zhou's fans, but Zhang Yimou's fans were not happy about it.

Since you want to compare yourself with Zhang Yimou, you can't compare yourself with Lao Mouzi in the past decade. Lao Mouzi won numerous international awards in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Why don't you talk about it?

You are good at presenting data and so am I, so fans of both sides started to present facts and data and argue with reason and evidence.

But not all movie fans are so rational. It was fine at the beginning, but they became angry later on.

"What can Liu Zhou use to compete with the Imperial Master? Just based on the box office? Then Cameron is the top director in Hollywood?"

"Isn't Cameron the number one director in Hollywood? Is there anyone better than him?"

"When did Cameron become the top director in Hollywood? This is so childish and ridiculous. It's a waste of time to argue with you."

"Lao Mouzi's first film Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear Award and became famous all over the world. It was also the first domestic film to win the three major international awards. At that time, Liu Zhou was still in elementary school."

"Fuck, since when did the discussion of who is more powerful start with comparing age? If that's the way it counts, then whoever is the oldest is the top director?"

"Who's comparing ages? Can't you even understand simple reading comprehension in Chinese?"

“Those who praise Liu and Zhou are probably just kids. Which of these movies, Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, Qiu Ju’s Lawsuit, To Live, Not One Less, and My Father and Mother, is not a classic among classics.

Not to mention the three major European awards, he has also been nominated for three Oscars and five Golden Globe Awards. Don't you see that? So far, Liu Zhou has only won the Golden Lion for "Room" besides being on the Cannes Short Film Jury. How can he be compared with Zhang Yimou? Liu Zhou can win if he has more money."

"Liu Zhou's wealth is a bother to you. You keep talking nonsense. You can brag about awards but not box office. You are such a double standard dog!"

"Those movies are indeed classics, but don't you consider what era they are from? How many classic movies has Zhang Yimou made in the past ten years? Some of these movies have been praised for ten years, and they will still be brought up to talk about them after twenty or thirty years?"

"Isn't that funny? The national master has no box office success? Hero and Red Cliff Part 1 and Part 2 broke the Chinese-language film box office record three times, and were the annual box office champions three times. Red Cliff Part 2 even broke the domestic film history box office record held by Titanic. Did you take all of this?"

"Haha, Hero is indeed awesome, but Red Cliff wasn't just Zhang Yimou's work, it was Liu Zhou who initiated this movie. Apart from the ones Zhang Yimou collaborated with Liu Zhou on, which of his movies in the past decade has a good reputation?

"House of Flying Daggers" and "Curse of the Golden Flower" have both been criticized to bits. Even "Hero," which opened the era of blockbusters, has also been criticized by many people. And which of Liu Chou's eight Chinese-language films to date has not been a big success in both box office and critical acclaim?"

"I think the first director still has to look at influence, otherwise awards and box office will just be addition and subtraction. After all, Zhang Yimou has been a judge at the Venice Film Festival, directed the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, and was nominated for Time Magazine's Person of the Year in the United States. He enjoys a high reputation overseas. In this respect, Liu Zhou is still slightly inferior."

"How dare you brag about something that happened more than 20 years ago? You're just like poet Chen, who has been bragging about Farewell My Concubine for almost years. Now look at Zhang Yimou's achievements in the past years!"

……

At the beginning, fans of both sides were able to restrain themselves, but later they found that there was nothing to say, because no matter how reasonable what you said was, you could not convince the other party, or even they would not listen at all.

The Internet is like this. You can't reason with it. Everyone is talking to themselves, unless you can defeat the other person through the Internet.

So afterwards, fans of both sides basically started to criticize each other.

However, these fans may have forgotten, or they know but don’t take it to heart, that Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou are both from Golden Harvest.

At first, Golden Harvest didn't pay attention to the debate between Zhang Yimou and Liu Zhou as the number one director in China. At that time, the entire Golden Harvest was immersed in the joy of "Interstellar" breaking the box office record of "Avatar".

Moreover, there have been debates like this before, especially when the four major directors were selected in China. At that time, there must have been many people who would give them an order.

But it was not very popular at that time, and Liu Zhou at that time was indeed no match for Zhang Yimou in terms of directing.

But as Liu Zhou made one movie after another, especially "The Martian", which set a new record in domestic film history and was also the country's first hard-core science fiction blockbuster, Liu Zhou's status was greatly elevated.

At this time, the other two of the four major directors, Chen Shishi and Feng Kuzi, fell behind while Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou were rushing forward.

Especially for poet Chen, the movie “The Promise” destroyed most of the reputation and influence he accumulated from “Farewell My Concubine”, and he has not recovered until now.

As for Feng Kuzi, because he lacked the two box office and well-received masterpieces "Assembly" and "Aftershock", his influence is much smaller than in the original time and space.

However, one good thing about Feng Kuzi is that his Feng-style comedy is still the number one brand of domestic comedy films and has many fans.

But they pale in comparison to Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou, especially Zhang Yimou. Not only has his achievements in film creation been much better than theirs, he was also the chief director of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, a world event, and delivered a report that satisfied the people of the whole country.

Even though Liu Zhou brought out the movie "The Martian" shortly afterwards, it was still not as good as Zhang Yimou's.

So although many media and netizens ranked them as top directors at the time, when really compared, Zhang Yimou was still more strategic.

Most people actually thought so at the time, but the influence and box office appeal of the two were extremely strong, so the media did not arguably rank who was first and who was second.

But now, with Liu Zhou's "Interstellar" creating a new domestic film history record, Liu Zhou's influence and status have once again been greatly elevated.

Therefore, netizens and even the media inevitably compared the two again.

I thought this would be a small-scale discussion like before, but maybe the Internet is more developed now, and maybe Liu Zhou's popularity is high at the moment, so the dispute over their status quickly became a hot topic on the entire network in a short period of time.

So when Golden Harvest noticed this, it was already a little late. At this time, the two people's fans and followers had already gotten really angry and started to attack each other.

Jiahe now had to invest resources to guide public opinion and try to calm the dispute, but the results were minimal.

To be honest, the top management of Golden Harvest felt a little puzzled by the netizens' debate, because they knew how good the relationship between Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou was. They were like both teacher and friend, and Liu Zhou also respected Zhang Yimou very much.

The more important point is that Liu Zhou now doesn’t care about this meaningless debate at all. He is the richest man and he has long ceased to care about such false reputation.

And if you really count it, Liu Zhou is still Zhang Yimou's boss. Zhang Yimou is the same, he doesn't care about these false names at all, he is a person who is more pure about movies.

The two have such a close relationship but neither of them cares about the empty title of the number one director. Unexpectedly, their fans are fighting with each other, which makes everyone in Golden Harvest feel a little ridiculous.

But these fans can be said to be the bread and butter of the directors, and the reason they quarreled so fiercely is because of their love for the two directors.

This is the first time that Golden Harvest has encountered such a thing. After all, they cannot offend fans of both sides, so they can only adopt a gentle approach to guide and release some other news to confuse people.

But the effect is mediocre. After all, the popularity of general entertainment news cannot be compared with it at all.

Later, many reporters went to interview the two parties. At that time, Zhang Yimou was busy filming his "The Flowers of War" and had no energy or intention to pay attention to the reporters.

If it was an interview about a movie, he might have dealt with it, but when it came to this kind of meaningless debate, he was too lazy to bother with it and simply closed the crew, prohibiting the entire crew from accepting interviews from the media.

As for Liu Zhou, it was even more difficult to interview him.

He is more than just a director now. Not to mention the entertainment media, even the mainstream media have to make an appointment if they want to interview him.

However, these media soon had a good opportunity to interview Liu Zhou.

On January 31st, Golden Harvest held a grand celebration party, with half of the entertainment industry in attendance.

At the media conference of the celebration party, the protagonist of this celebration party cannot be absent.

Regarding this rare opportunity, many reporters asked him about his opinion on the debate between him and Zhang Yimou as the number one director.

Liu Zhou was a little helpless about this. Of course, he had heard about the online debate between him and Zhang Yimou, and he was very concerned about the direction of public opinion on the Internet.

“I don’t think there’s any need to compete for first place on this question, especially since there’s no standard answer to this kind of question. Everyone likes different types of movies and directors, and they all have subjective opinions. It’s not like a martial arts competition, where two people fight and whoever wins is the best, right?

And I want to emphasize that Director Zhang and I are very good friends. When we were filming "Red Cliff", he gave me a lot of guidance.

So in my heart, Director Zhang Yimou has always been the most outstanding and most respected director in China. It can be said that he is my mentor and friend.

Whether you are my fans or Director Zhang's fans, I hope you can stop arguing. We all know that you are doing this for our own good, but we actually don't care about the false title of the number one director.

Instead of arguing about this, why don’t you pay more attention to our movies? After all, no matter how famous a director is, the most important thing is the works you shoot.

If the work we shoot is not liked by the audience, then even if it is Director Zhang and I, everyone will still criticize us, so everyone should pay more attention to our future works. All the previous honors are actually in the past. "

Liu Zhou had made it so clear, but some reporters still kept asking:
"Many fans think you have surpassed Zhang Yimou. What do you think?"

"Let's leave this question to the audience. Time will give us the answer."

Not to mention that Liu Zhou was not interested in this debate. Even if they really wanted to choose the number one director, they would not do it in such a noisy way.

The title of the number one director is not gained through arguments. It is only when everyone agrees and there is basically no dispute that it is truly his.

Just like the title of GOAT in basketball is not decided through arguments, when the majority of people agree that someone is the GOAT.

After answering two more reporters' questions, Liu Zhou took his people away. The celebratory press conference ended here. There was a large dinner in the banquet hall next door.

As soon as Liu Zhouyi walked into the banquet hall, people came to congratulate him one after another.

"Congratulations to Director Liu for setting a new box office record."

"Director Liu gave us a sigh of relief by taking down Avatar."

"It has to be Director Liu again. This time, he has recaptured the domestic movie box office record in less than a year."

"Congratulations Director Liu..."

"Congratulations!"

……

Liu Zhou responded to everyone's congratulations and compliments one by one, and his facial muscles were sore from laughing.

After things finally calmed down, Liu Zhou also joined Han Shanping's circle, which was composed of bosses of film and television companies in the industry.

"Liu Zhou, now you finally get what you wanted, hahaha!"

"Mr. Han, isn't it the same for you? Everyone gets what they want." Liu Zhou also replied with a smile.

"What were you talking about so happily just now?" Liu Zhou asked.

"We are talking about Big Dog's Pony Galloping, which is about to go public."

"Oh, the Pony is going to be listed?"

At this time, Big Dog explained:
"We have just signed investment agreements with several investment institutions, and will start the listing process next."

"Then congratulations, Big Dog."

Liu Zhou said this, but he knew in his heart that Pony.com's attempt to go public had failed.

Moreover, the investment agreement signed with the investment institution must be the gambling agreement.

It was precisely this gambling agreement that caused Brother Big Dog to die of exhaustion in order to achieve performance goals and strive for another listing.

Liu Zhou wanted to give him some advice, but seeing how high-spirited he was, he shut up.

"Boss Liu, you've caused me so much trouble!"

When Liu Zhou was deep in thought, a voice suddenly came to his ears.

(End of this chapter)