Coquettish Rebirth

Jia Hongjian's impression of a play like "The Promise" was all kinds of chaos!What is a witch and a princess, and what is a "murder caused by a steamed bun", anyway, it is just one word, chaos!And the direction of the whole story is obviously biased towards "fairy tales". The witch asked the little girl if she would like to become the princess that men all over the world want to pursue, but the price is that she can't get true love and happiness... How does this feel like The content that can only be found in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales!Or... a plot that only exists in Western fantasy worlds like "Lord of the Rings", isn't it?But as a Chinese film, this is a bit unreasonable and illogical. It seems that the plot is too simple...

etc!Too easy?A plot that only exists in Western fantasy?Suddenly, a flash of light flashed in Jia Hongjian's mind, and he suddenly realized something!What did he realize?He remembered Ang Lee!When Ang Lee filmed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the first version of the script was handwritten in English!When Ang Lee conceived the plot, he conceived it with the American market in mind. The angle he looked for was also an angle that Americans could understand as much as possible, and it was also something that Americans could empathize with!So such a \top\point\ novel "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has a very good box office in the United States, but it is a mess in the Chinese box office!When Jia Hongjian wanted to introduce "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to the theater in China, he had already thought of such a thing!Even as a Chinese himself, he doesn't like the story of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" too much!

And later, when he and Lao Mouzi worked together to film "Hero", didn't he think about that too-because it is absolutely impossible to make back the capital in the domestic market.Therefore, in order to make money back, we must target overseas markets, or we must target the US market!The core of the story must be made so that Americans can understand it, and the story must be close to American thinking!So later, Jia Hongjian and the others tried to link the state of Qin in "Heroes" with the United States as much as possible, which aroused the interest of the Americans!And if you look at it from such a perspective, a film like "The Promise" is a bit of a fantasy style, right?Then the storytelling is relatively simple. The design of witches and the like is like what should be in Western fantasy movies.

If you even think about it, isn't the "Curse of the Golden Armor" filmed by Lao Mouzi alone a foreign film with a Chinese skin on it?Although it is said that the content of "Thunderstorm" is also integrated into this film.But the core is still similar to the direction of "Hamlet".Lao Mouzi can understand for foreign audiences.Choose a fictional era, make a fictional story, and then make a film that is complained about by the people of the country. Chen Kaige can't do it?So if you think about it this way.Could "The Promise" be a foreign film disguised as Chinese?

That's right!Could it be that Chen Kaige aimed at the US market?Could it be that he knew that the Chinese market would not be able to recover its capital.So he has to rely entirely on the American market, so he simply took a very Western story and put it in Chinese skin?In this way, it has a Chinese flavor and can be understood by Americans. It is like all kinds of Chinese food localized in the United States.Like "Furong Egg", "Zuo Zongtang Chicken", and "Li Hongzhang Offal", Chinese people have never heard of it, and they will find it very strange when they eat it, and they will not like it at all, but Americans are Is it okay to love?From a certain point of view, is there really such a possibility?Thinking of this, Jia Hongjian really thinks that a director like Chen Kaige, after all, is successful and famous, so let's not treat him as a fool, let's take him as a failed smart person and have a try!

So with such an idea, he transformed his perception of "The Promise" in his mind.He tried his best to forget that such a movie was made in China, and then replaced all the characters in his mind with foreign characters, made all the dialogues speak in English, and made the whole environment and story look foreign !So how about such a play?Does it feel less messy?Doesn't it seem that this movie is not so rubbish after having a bit of foreign culture as a skin?Even think about it in reverse, what would happen if a movie like "The Lord of the Rings" was replaced with a Chinese style for their story skin?

For example, replace "The Lord of the Rings" with the period of the Five Husbands and Sixteen Kingdoms, or simply the period of the prehistoric Gods List. The actors are all Chinese plus a few Koreans and Japanese, and the spells used by Gandalf and the like become Things like Chinese magic weapons, the plot doesn’t change much, but various props, cities, etc. have changed.Will such a "Lord of the Rings" look good to the Chinese?It must not look good!why?Because it doesn't taste right!It's like the feeling after going to a Chinese restaurant in the United States to eat American-style Chinese food!It is obviously dressed like a Chinese shop from the inside out, but why does the food taste so strange after eating?It is simply not like the dishes that have appeared in China!It's not like Chinese food anymore, but like some messy Chinese food that has been "modified" in Southeast Asia or somewhere else!

That's right, Jia Hongjian felt that this kind of "Lord of the Rings" was just like "The Promise", which caused a sense of cultural discomfort.Obviously the outer skin of the story is Chinese, but the inner core is foreign, which makes the Chinese very uncomfortable.On the other hand, if in a typical American superhero film, the heroes and supporting actors do not look like Americans, but look like Chinese, then the Chinese will be easier to understand, but the American People still think this is a mess!

In the eyes of ordinary people in every country, many things have a fixed standard.For example, Western-style fantasy, that is, dwarves, elves, mages, and even barbarians. The background is a historical period similar to the dispersion of various city-states in the Middle Ages in Europe.Then the Chinese style is to have fantasy, that is to fly with the sword, and that is to have various magic weapons.Then for each type of story, the logic of what the characters in the story do and say must also conform to the different norms of the East and the West.It's like the American remake of "Journey to the West" that Jia Hongjian once watched, such as Tang Seng and Guanyin's love affair... It just made Jia Hongjian want to die!And isn't such a film actually a foreign film approved for a Chinese story?People have greatly remodeled Journey to the West, the purpose of the transformation is to make Americans understand it, not to make it enjoyable for Chinese people!Similarly, if a giant dragon captures the princess and the knight rescues the princess, if everything is filmed according to Chinese habits, then foreigners probably won’t be able to stand it!

So from such a perspective, "The Promise" was actually filmed for foreigners?So such a film can actually get a good box office in North America?To be honest, at such a time in history, after watching "The Promise", Jia Hongjian really never paid attention to the news of such a film, so how did this film perform at the overseas box office in history? I really don't know!But at least if "The Promise" is regarded as a purely foreign film, Jia Hongjian feels that the box office will not be a big hit, but it may attract a small number of fans-such a film is actually a bit like a stage play. Even when the various lines are translated into English, it feels a bit like a Shakespeare play!And because of the long history, Jia Hongjian can't remember all the details of such a movie. Even if he can roughly estimate the North American box office after watching a movie now, he can't make an estimate for "The Promise" now. !

But fortunately, because it is going to hit the Oscars, such a "Promise" should be released as soon as possible.If the Weinstein brothers really talk about it, they really have the ability.After introducing it in a short period of time, the day before the deadline for the Oscars, they froze "The Promise" to the theater!They operate the release by letting Warner Independent, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., find a total of 213 movie theaters to release it simultaneously. Although the scale is much worse than that of "Hero", it is still much better than "Golden Armor" and so on. !And 213 were quickly finalized within a week!Looking back, if the box office is good, it will definitely be added!

There are 213 movie theaters showing "The Promise" at the same time. As a Chinese, Jia Hongjian must go to see it. Besides, didn't he forget the details of "The Promise" before?So no matter what, you have to go and have a look, and then fully estimate the market potential and award-winning potential of such a film!When such a film was released, it was a Friday.After Jia Hongjian found a theater in Los Angeles, he bought a ticket and went in to watch it.As a result, I found out that most of the people who came to see this film in this cinema were of Chinese descent, and there were very few foreigners!And then on the first day, according to the information Jia Hongjian got from the theaters, the total box office was 73817 US dollars.That's right, $810!This result does not seem to meet the level of 200 movie theaters showing it at the same time!Then on Saturday, the single-day box office reached 11 US dollars, while the box office on Sunday on the third day was [-] US dollars, and the box office on Monday on the fourth day was only [-] US dollars...

After four days, the box office was $30.Such a result...it's really not good.Seriously, according to Jia Hongjian's understanding of American theaters, with the results of the first four days, the number of theaters showing the show in the second week after the seventh day will definitely drop sharply!And as expected, on the eighth day, the number of theaters showing the movie was cut in half!And after the number of theaters released in the second week was cut in half, the total box office was only 56 US dollars!In general, it is impossible for such a film to surpass the million-dollar box office.Although such a result seems a bit embarrassing, but don't forget, it is the Weinstein brothers who operate such a film!If they use a series of methods such as canvassing votes to make such a "The Promise" really win the best foreign language film and then add a few other awards...then maybe it will really make such a film It was re-released after the Oscars, and the box office made millions! (To be continued..)