Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 572: Breaking Million in a Single Week

The Chinese are very good at fighting, and they are also very good at fighting in groups.

Liu Zhou's collective criticism of the domestic film critics also drew even bigger reactions from them.

The first person he mentioned was Zhu Dake, who posted a special Weibo post to respond to Liu Zhou.

"I was shocked that Liu Zhou could use such vulgar words as 'old dog' and 'idiot'.

We can have different opinions and we can debate, but this is no longer literary criticism. The language used involves personal insults and personal attacks.

Although the Internet is a free world, it is not a lawless place. Everyone must be responsible for what they say.

Public figures like Liu Zhou who have a large number of fans should serve as role models.

He used such vulgar words to insult others, and he should at least face public trial according to moral law."

Liu Zhou also responded quickly after seeing it:

"Swearing? It only counts as swearing if I'm swearing at the person, right?

From the words of Professor Zhu Da, this expert, it can be seen that he is indeed a corrupt person who has been eliminated by the times.

Don't stand on the moral high ground and accuse me. You don't even know how to use the Internet and yet you come here to embarrass yourself.

If insulting someone on the Internet leads to a moral trial, then all netizens may have to be judged.”

After Liu Zhou finished speaking, he saw that many people were still attacking him, and he felt a little unsatisfied and continued:

"I wanted to blast these idiots in the comment circle, but I have to thank you for giving me this opportunity.

There are many so-called critics like Zhu Dake in mainland China. One thing these people have in common is that they don’t understand movies.

They claim to have studied film for many years, but in reality they can only produce academic garbage in a narrow range with outdated or even erroneous theories.

Maybe he can quote a few original words of some film master, or say some obscure knowledge that no one can understand and they don't know what it means, just like Kong Yiji knowing the four ways to write the word "回".

For example, a well-known domestic expert talked a lot about film noir, and finally said that his favorite film noir is "Rocky".

I was shocked when I saw it. Even if you have a little knowledge of movies, you would not say that "Rocky" is a film noir.

There are many people like this, and I am too lazy to complain about them so as not to lower my standards.

This group of people are obviously very ignorant about movies, but they always like to package themselves as if they know a lot.

But if you look closely at their comments, you'll find that they're almost all the same.

Either they retell the content of the movie, quote famous sayings in the industry, and apply some theory to the movie, or they just talk about ideas and are always empty and false.

They don't even know basic film techniques and audio-visual language.

It would be fine if there were one or two pieces of garbage like this, but now garbage like this has become the mainstream in the domestic film review industry.

In fact, film reviews are very important to the development of a film or even a country's film industry.

Good film reviews can discover good works that have been buried, provide technical insights, encourage and recommend good filmmakers, and have an impact on the status and value of artistic works.

However, the domestic film review circle has long been rotten. How can they provide valuable reviews if they don’t even understand movies?

Also, their extreme idea of ​​regarding art films as the norm and commercial films as shit proves that they are not qualified film critics.

Since commercial films can have such a large market, it shows that there is a meaning for the existence of commercial films.

How can they write decent film reviews if they don’t even understand this?
They may not know that the evaluation standards for art films and commercial films in Europe and the United States are different. For example, the score of "Spider-Man 2" on Rotten Tomatoes and MTC is higher than that of "The Shawshank Redemption", which is considered a masterpiece in many people's minds.

The domestic film critics only know how to use the standards of art films as criteria, but the problem is that they don’t understand art.

This is not the saddest thing for me. What makes me saddest is that most of them are college teachers. You can imagine what kind of students they teach.

Why do we feel that there are fewer and fewer outstanding young directors?
It is because they receive education from that group of people in school that many graduates do not even have the basic skills of audio-visual language.

What Chinese-language films need are directors who can tell stories. How can they ever stand out if they don’t know anything about it?

I can predict again that in the next ten or even twenty years, the outstanding new directors that emerge in China will definitely not be trained from major domestic film, television or media schools.

If this group of garbage is not eliminated from the film industry, the harm to Chinese-language films will continue.

The ones who deserve the most criticism for Chinese-language films are those who cause trouble.”

As Liu Zhou fired on all cylinders and fought alone against the "group of scholars", other people in the industry also became excited.

They have long been dissatisfied with the group of domestic film critics, who know nothing but like to point fingers.

What’s even more disgusting is that some people blatantly ask you for favors, or they will give you a bad review of your movie.

So they already knew what kind of garbage these people were.

But there is no way. They have a great social influence. Even if they point fingers at us and scold us, we can only bear it silently.

Now Liu Zhou said what they had always wanted to say but didn't dare to say. Looking at Liu Zhou pointing at their noses and scolding them, they felt refreshed all over.

With Liu Zhou taking the lead, some people in the circle had fewer concerns and began to respond.

The first to stand out was Liu Zhou's henchman, Ning Hao, who was discovered and trained by Golden Harvest. He has been unpopular with critics since he switched to making commercial films.

When his "Crazy Stone" was released, he was criticized by Professor Huang Shixian of Beijing Film Academy, who said it was not a comedy but a farce, and "Crazy Racing" was criticized even more harshly.

Therefore, Ning Hao had long been dissatisfied with the group of film critics. With the leader in front of him, he also directly criticized them:
“Not only do the so-called critics in China have corrupt ideas, their theoretical knowledge is not as good as that of experienced movie fans. At least experienced movie fans have a certain appreciation of movies and can tell whether they are good or bad from multiple angles.

The so-called critics always mention Godard, Bergman, or talk about some ideology, so you can imagine how lacking their film theory and basic knowledge are. "

After Ning Hao finished spraying, Feng Kuazi followed closely.

Not to mention Feng Kuzi. He has never been well received by the critics in all the years he has been making movies. Even when he went to flatter them, they ignored him and mocked him even more.

So his resentment towards the critics was as great as the sky, and at this time he did not care about the conflict with Liu Zhou:
"Director Liu is absolutely right. Many people in the mainland commentary circle are ignorant and are just trying to strengthen their tail wolves, holding up the big stick of ideology and culture to show their authority all day long.

But in fact, they are the biggest threat to Chinese-language films and should be eliminated from the film industry.”

In addition, even people in the cultural circle and film critics have come out to support Liu Zhou's views. Although Liu Zhou indiscriminately attacks the film critics, people who claim to be well-educated, talented and upright will not take Liu Zhou's words personally.

Even Liu Zhou expressed their real feelings, that they had long been dissatisfied with that group of people.

But that group of people have already gained the right to speak, and even though they are very sad that those people have made the film review circle a mess, there is nothing they can do.

All they can do is not to go along with that group of people.

Well-known film critic Zhou Liming believes:

"Art films and commercial films are both important components of the film industry. Both have their own value. We cannot use the big stick of art and culture to kill commercial films. This is not good for the entire film industry."

Rao Shuguang, director of the Chinese Film Critics Society, said:
“The more the truth is debated, the clearer it becomes. This debate reflects two issues that cannot be ignored.

First, the domestic film review system and film critics lag far behind the development of Chinese-language films. Second, the standards and scales of film reviews are no longer suitable for the current film industry.

These are all issues that need to be resolved urgently, otherwise they will continue to affect the healthy development of Chinese films, especially commercial films.”

Liu Zhou's influence in the film industry has always been great. With him taking the lead and Ning Hao, Feng Kuzi and others responding, more and more directors, experts and professors stood up and expressed their opinions, which led to a fight on the Internet.

This debate lasted for several days online and was so heated that it even overshadowed the news of the "Tangshan Earthquake".

However, it did not affect the box office of "Aftershock" at all.

After earning more than 60 million yuan in box office revenue in the first two days of the new week, the box office revenue of "Aftershock" increased instead of decreasing in the following three working days due to online debates.

It grossed nearly 1.7 million yuan in three days, and then another 5.1 million yuan in the two days of the weekend. In its second week, "Aftershock" grossed million yuan.

This also shows that most of the audience still stand on Liu Zhou's side.

After this result was announced to the public, there was a sudden silence on the Internet.

I didn’t expect that the box office of "Aftershock" would be so strong. In its second week, the box office was even higher than that of "Transformers 3".

A box office of over 500 million in a week was unthinkable in the past. It was rare for a movie to have a total box office of over 500 million. Now, "Aftershock" has made 500 million in just one week.

Combined with the 3.28 million yuan it earned in its first three days, "Aftershock" raked in 8.38 million yuan in ten days, surpassing the 7.2 million yuan of "The Martian" and ranking second in the domestic film box office rankings.

Even if Hollywood movies are included, it will still be ranked fourth on the list, and with the momentum of "Aftershock", it should not be a problem to surpass the box office of "Transformers 3".

Now the box office potential of "Transformers 3" has been exhausted. It only earned more than million yuan this week, which is less than the box office of "Aftershock" in one day.

Including this week's box office, the total box office of "Transformers 3" barely reached billion.

As for "Aftershock", no one knows what its subsequent momentum will be. After all, if the online debate continues, it may continue to attract traffic to the movie.

Therefore, the experts and professors led by Zhu Dake were the first to break through the defense.

They thought that they could bring down Liu Zhou with their methods, or at least damage his reputation.

Now that the box office results of "Aftershock" have been released, they realize that their efforts have been completely in vain and they have even helped Liu Zhou.

This time, in order to deal with Liu Zhou, they gambled their last prestige to a certain extent.

The final result was that not only was Liu Zhou not overthrown, but their prestige seemed to have plummeted.

Now it has caused such a heated discussion on the Internet, especially Liu Zhou's crazy face-to-face attack, which also exposed their filthiness to everyone.

This has caused their film critic circle to have a bad reputation, and they can no longer lord it over the film industry as they did before.

If they hadn't provoked Liu Zhou, perhaps they could have continued to bully others for a few more years.

This action against Liu Zhou was a loss for them.

Apart from these people, everyone in the industry was shocked by the extremely high box office of "Aftershock" in its second week. They were very clear about the value of this achievement.

Some people were delighted after being shocked, which proves that the domestic film market is growing.

"Aftershock" is a 3 billion-dollar movie at the box office, and together with "Transformers ", there are two movies with box office revenues of over billion at the same time in the same summer season.

This is even crazier than last year's Lunar New Year box office.

However, some people with more profound thoughts are somewhat suspicious that Liu Zhou started this controversy in order to hype his movie.

Otherwise it would be too coincidental. While you are stirring up a huge public opinion storm, "Aftershock" is making huge box office revenue.

But even if it is hype, they won’t say much, they will just feel that they have learned something.

With the release of the second week box office data for Aftershock, the internet seemed to quiet down all of a sudden.

At night, shortly after the 7 o'clock "News Broadcast" began, a report on the "Tangshan Earthquake" appeared on TV. The camera showed a huge crowd of people in the cinema:

"The epic film "Aftershock" by Chinese director Liu Zhou was recently released in North America, causing a sensation among the local Chinese community..."

Although the online debate was so intense before, the authorities have not expressed any attitude and have seemed to be letting things take their own course.

Now that "The Tangshan Earthquake" is on the "News Broadcast", there is no need to make a clear statement, this clearly expresses support for Liu Zhou.

This debate has almost come to an end, and the influence of those so-called film critics and so-called expert professors will plummet.

Their influence may not be eliminated all at once, but they can no longer bully filmmakers. It is only a matter of time before they are swept into the trash.

In addition to being surprised that Liu Zhou's film was featured on the "News Broadcast" for the third time, people in the industry and the audience were even more shocked by the hot release of "Aftershock" in North America.

Unexpectedly, Golden Harvest unknowingly distributed the film to North America.

In fact, this was already planned by Golden Harvest. It would be released in China first and in North America a week later, and officially landed in North American theaters last Friday.

Then in a week, starting from this Friday, it will be released in Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea.

As for Europe, it depends on the arrangements of Lionsgate.

Liu Zhou and Tangshan were not joking when they said they wanted to release "Aftershock" overseas on a large scale.

(End of this chapter)