Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 583: Public Opinion and the Premiere of "Dragon Gate Flying Daggers"

"Director Zhang Yimou's new film, The Flowers of War, was released in theaters, grossing 86 million yuan on the first day."

“Tickets for The Flowers of War are hard to come by!”

"Remembering history, The Flowers of War once again tells us that the disaster in Nanjing in 1937 must not be forgotten."

"It was far ahead, with The Flowers of War accounting for 82 percent of the box office on the first day."

……

After the first day box office figures of "The Flowers of War" came out, it was naturally reported by major media outlets.

The grand occasion of movie releases is also a focus of media coverage.

Currently, the only directors in China who can make audiences queue up in cinemas to buy movie tickets are Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou.

Perhaps Jiang Wen should also be added. After "Let the Bullets Fly", his reputation among the audience soared.

Some die-hard fans of this movie are clamoring to apply for "Let the Bullets Fly" to be listed as a world heritage site.

Therefore, Jiang Wen’s next movie will definitely be highly anticipated by the audience.

Due to Golden Harvest’s control over reviews, there are currently very few negative comments about the movie online, and most of them are positive reviews of the movie.

This is also a normal operation. Before any movie is released, especially blockbusters, the production company will control the reviews in the early stages to prevent competitors or other companies from deliberately smearing it.

Because the week before a movie is released is the most critical period for the movie to reap box office revenue.

If the word of mouth is too bad, it will have a huge impact on the movie box office.

Unless your movie is so bad that it is criticized by many netizens after its large-scale release, controlling reviews will be of little use.

Liu Zhou asked Weibo to pay attention to those bloggers with crooked butts. If they continued to talk nonsense and mislead public opinion during the release of the movie, their accounts would be directly blocked.

Ignore the other negative comments.

Golden Harvest will use formal means or regular operations to protect "The Flowers of War", for example, controlling reviews is a common method.

However, negative comments online are easy to control for the time being, but movie ratings cannot be controlled.

On the first day of the movie’s release, “The Flowers of War” received over 6.8 reviews on Douban, with a score of .

This score is pretty good. The original Douban score simply failed.

In the past, Douban ratings did not have much credibility because of the serious problem of malicious score manipulation.

Often, before a movie is even released, a large number of viewers with preconceived notions will give it low ratings.

This is why the ratings of Hollywood movies are always one point higher than those of domestic movies of the same level.

Few people would give a low score to a foreign movie they haven't seen because you are not familiar with the director and actors.

On the contrary, these domestic directors and actors, no matter who they are, are disliked by a large number of audiences, who give them 1 star before even watching the movie.

In this life, Douban was acquired by Sina, and the rating mechanism is much stricter.

The first point is that it is not allowed to rate a movie before it is released.

Then, if the movie ratings are found to be abnormal, there will be manual inspection, and those accounts that are obviously malicious in brushing the ratings will be banned, and the brushed ratings will also be removed.

Therefore, Douban now has more trust from netizens and movie fans. Many organizations and individuals initially judge the quality of a movie based on Douban ratings.

However, even if Douban tries its best to improve the rating mechanism and make it as objective as possible, it is impossible to achieve perfection.

The navy can always find loopholes.

The accounts they control are no longer those that are newly registered, but those that are maintained on Douban and rated normally.

Once they collect money and want to do something, they will control these accounts to brush up the points.

Even manual review cannot detect such a situation.

Apparently, "The Flowers of War" has been targeted by some people.

6.8 points is good for a commercial film, but this is the first day score, not the final score.

Generally speaking, movies like this that don't cause widespread complaints from the audience tend to have ratings of around 7 or even above 8.

Because most of the first audiences who go to the cinema to watch movies are fans of the director or the film's creators.

They generally give higher scores when they rate.

Now "The Flowers of War" has only 6.8 points in the first place, and it is obvious that someone has taken action.

It only scored 6.8 points on the first day, and by the time the movie is released, the final stable score will have to be passing.

However, this impact is not significant. During the release of the movie, the audience will pay more attention to the online public opinion.

If there weren't too many people criticizing it, they would generally go to the cinema if they had plans to watch a movie.

At the same time, senior executives of major film and television companies also saw the first-day box office data of "The Flowers of War".

Everyone fell silent at the same time.

They expected the movie to be a hit, but when it actually became a hit, they were still extremely envious and jealous.

86 million on the first day. If the performance doesn't deteriorate later on, the final box office will be at least over 600 million.

Except for Jiang Wen's "Let the Bullets Fly", all the domestic films with box office of more than 600 million yuan are produced by Golden Harvest.

Judging from the good reputation of "The Flowers of War", the box office of the movie may be more than 600 million, 700 million or even 800 million.

How could this not make them jealous?

The box office performance of subsequent films was pretty much as they expected.

After earning 86 million on the first day, the movie again grossed 97 million on the next Saturday, just 3 million away from breaking the 100 million mark.

At this time, Golden Harvest also made some effort and once again increased the screening schedule of the movie at three points.

On Sunday, "The Flowers of War" raked in 1.05 million yuan at the box office, becoming the fourth domestic film and the third domestic film to gross over million yuan in a single day.

In the first three days of the weekend, the movie took in a total of 2.88 million.

This result once again silenced some people in the circle, and was then widely reported by the media.

However, as the movie has been released on a large scale for three days, there are now a lot more negative comments about the movie online.

The spraying points are mainly concentrated at three points.

One is the suffering of movie consumption that keyboard warriors often criticize.

They almost always bring this up when it comes to disaster movies.

This was the case with the previous "Tangshan Aftershock", and the situation is similar abroad. "Schindler's List" was not spared either.

Don't worry about this at all.

Another point is that I think it is inhumane that the movie uses prostitutes to die instead of female students. The identities of prostitutes and female students should not be the criteria for judging their lives.

Moreover, when the Thirteen Women stood up in the movie, the female students actually felt it was natural. Besides being a little moved, they also felt a little guilty for their previous discrimination against the Thirteen Women.

Except for the priest, no one thought it was unfair. Just because they were prostitutes, they deserved to die more than students?
In fact, even Liu Zhou thinks this issue is worth discussing.

Just like in later generations, there was a college student who sacrificed his life saving an old man. Many people on the Internet discussed whether the college student should have saved the old man and whether it was worth sacrificing himself for doing so.

Of course, this may be a little different, but the reason why there is a discussion in this regard means that everyone’s individual consciousness is awakening.

After all, we have been brought up by the glorious deeds of advanced figures since childhood, and we place more emphasis on serving the collective and sacrifice.

Last but not least, many people criticized Tong Dawei for the fact that his team had already gone out, but went back to save a wounded comrade, resulting in the sacrifice of all members.

This also caused a heated discussion among everyone, that is, whether they should go back to rescue him or not.

This is a matter of personal opinion.

Liu Zhou thinks it’s good to evaluate or discuss a movie with less hostility and less rhythm.

Of course, it is not really peaceful. It is the result of the joint efforts of Sina and the other three major portals. They blocked many inflammatory comments.

Of course, the four websites cannot be completely banned, but these four are the most important public opinion platforms, and other Internet companies have much less influence in this area.

Of course, in addition to the Internet, there is also print media.

Since Golden Harvest had given the heads up, they didn't dare to go too far, and the influence of print media is much smaller now.

This has resulted in a situation where people are now more focused on discussing movies.

This also allowed colleagues in the industry to see Golden Harvest's control over public opinion.

Of course, it is not easy for Jiahe to achieve this. It is impossible for the other three major portals to cooperate with Jiahe to do this all the time, not even Sina.

This time it was mainly about Liu Zhou's face.

This has made colleagues feel a little embarrassed or they dare not deliberately throw dirty water on others.

On the fourth day of the movie's release, a working day on Monday, the box office of "The Flowers of War" was cut in half, earning only 48 million yuan.

In the following four days, the total box office revenue was only 1.58 million yuan.

In seven days of release, "The Flowers of War" earned a total of 4.94 million yuan.

Many media outlets also raised their forecast for the film's final box office to 800 million yuan.

At the same time, on the previous day, which was Thursday, Xu Ke's "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" also held a grand premiere ceremony.

At the National Science and Technology Museum, celebrities from the entertainment industry gathered again after a week.

The reason why the premiere was held here is because it has the most advanced and largest 3D IMAX screen in the country.

Of course Liu Zhou also needed to attend, and Zhang Yimou also came with the main creators of "The Flowers of War", but Christian Bale did not come as he had already returned to Hollywood.

The contract he signed was to follow the crew to promote the show for a week, and at the end of the week, his work would also be over.

When "The Flowers of War" premiered before, Xu Ke also brought the film's main creators to show their support, and this time Zhang Yimou also returned the favor.

In fact, both films were produced by Golden Harvest, and the two were colleagues. Although they competed with each other, they also worked in a friendly atmosphere.

The ceremony was held at around 7 o'clock, and Xu Ke brought Jet Li, Chen Kun and others to the stage.

For the film "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", Golden Harvest, apart from investment and necessary financial supervision, almost completely handed over power to Xu Ke.

The selection of actors was entirely based on him, and Golden Harvest had no say in the matter.

In the end, after the audition, Xu Ke chose Chen Kun for the important role of Yu Huatian.

However, it must be said that the role of factory manager is indeed very suitable for him. Chen Kun has a feminine temperament that is rare in other male actors.

The heroine is still Miss Zhou. Although her acting skills are good, she is not suitable for martial arts films. She does not have the chivalrous spirit of a woman of the rivers and lakes.

And she is a bit old now. Not only her, but even Jet Li is a bit old.

Therefore, the protagonist of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" is more like Yu Huatian and Feng Lidao rather than Zhao Huaian.

The movie started at around 8 o'clock.

As a remake, and a second remake at that, the plot of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" can be roughly understood in your mind with your eyes closed.

Having an audience base also poses a hindrance to a second remake.

The old Shaw Brothers version of "Dragon Inn" was also a classic at the time. Xu Ke used the star-studded tactics properly, and the many stars he invited were perfectly suited to the roles.

By integrating its own new martial arts characteristics, "New Dragon Inn" surpasses the old version and becomes a new classic.

Now it will be even more difficult for "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" to surpass the previous version.

Xu Ke probably knew that it was not easy, so in addition to gathering stars from three generations, he also considered 3D and special effects.

Firstly, he is indeed obsessed with special effects. Secondly, if he wants to make new breakthroughs, he really needs to use some technical means.

Xu Ke is quite attentive to the application of 3D.

The effects of various depth of field scenes and dynamic objects approaching are all done quite well.

Whether it's the flying sand and rocks, the Xixia Blackwater City deep in the desert, or the battle scenes with weapons and blood, the 3D imaging performance is good.

In order to highlight the three-dimensional effect, some locations, weather, and fighting settings are deliberately strengthened.

At the same time, the plot was also innovated to a certain extent. It was not limited to the attack and defense of the inn, but introduced the Xixia Blackwater City mentioned in "Ghost Blowing Out the Light".

It seems that his interest in "Ghost Blows Out the Light" is not bragging. He really likes this novel and really wants to direct "Mojin: The Lost Tomb".

However, the addition of the Western Xia Blackwater City to the film does not seem out of place, and is very much in line with Xu Ke's style of mysticism and romantic fantasy.

In addition, the characters have also undergone subversive changes.

But this is a flaw. Without the coquettish proprietress, Longmen Inn would not be the same Longmen Inn.

Finally, in terms of action, the edited action scenes were too fast, so fast that they were a bit messy.

Compared to "New Dragon Inn", it lacks the texture of action scenes, making the audience feel like they are watching a stop-motion animation that mixes CG and real-life shooting.

However, its flaws do not outweigh its merits. Overall, "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" is still the best martial arts movie in recent years.

This was evident from the warm applause that broke out at the end of the two-hour screening.

With the premiere of "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" over, the movie will be released in major theaters across the country at midnight the next day.

Golden Harvest also negotiated nearly 60% of the screening schedule for the film, and then the screening schedule of "The Flowers of War" was inevitably reduced, but it still remained at 32%.

That is to say, the two movies "The Flowers of War" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" accounted for 90% of the screenings.

Other films share the remaining 10%, and their release periods are still relatively unpopular.

But there is no way, these two movies are the only ones that sell well during the Lunar New Year period, so theater companies are of course willing to schedule more screenings for these two movies.

Previously, "The Flowers of War" was the only popular film, but now with "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate", the film market has suddenly become much more lively.

Everyone also wants to see whether Xu may not be able to defeat Zhang Yimou this time.

(End of this chapter)