New Age Artists

Chapter 40 Born in 1984 with talent and virtue
The box office of over 25 million in the first weekend is a blockbuster in the current film market.

The only people in mainland China who have achieved this result are Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang.

The latter, "A World Without Thieves", is obviously an exaggeration and contains some water.

The only one with full value is Zhang Yimou.

As for Chen Kaige, he has yet to prove himself in commercial films.

Where is Shen Santong?

Currently studying at Beijing Film Academy, born in 1984.

I am only 21 years old, which means I have just started my career as a director.

Moreover, the film cost only over 2 million yuan, which is a low-budget film and the director’s debut work.

Mainland movies, no stars.

Xu Zheng has only proven himself in the television industry, and the only familiar face he can claim to have on the big screen is the role of Sha Gen in A World Without Thieves.

But Wang Baoqiang is neither an actor nor a star, and has no box office appeal.

Most people in the industry estimate that this drama will only make 20 to 30 million.

Who knew it would gross over 20 million in the first weekend, shocking everyone.

Official media and industry insiders gave it high praise.

"Supermarket" is clear and concise as the name suggests. The director tells us that this is the story of a supermarket.

The name of the film reflects the director's wisdom. Such convenience stores began to appear in BJ and are the first choice for convenient shopping for many white-collar workers, overtime workers, and night owls.

However, the convenience store in the film was not visited by those fashionable white-collar workers, but several gangs of real and fake robbers. The story that happened next was both hilarious and ridiculous.

Some people call low-budget comedy movies smart comedies, and the story that happened in the supermarket is enough to reflect the great wisdom of the screenwriter.

The director has a main story line running through the plot, but in fact it is divided into several small stories with rich plots. The use of multiple narrative lines makes the film seamless and compact.

The absurd story creates one climax after another, and the jokes are just right.

The whole story takes place in a convenience supermarket of less than 30 square meters, an eight-hour game of wits, in which suspense, comedy and warmth are cleverly blended together.

It can be said that all aspects of life are captured at a glance, and this creative approach is unique and intelligent.

In terms of performance, Xu Zheng made a breakthrough, proving that he can not only perform ancient costume comedies, but also modern comedies, while maintaining his previous style.

The movements are as exaggerated as always, the eyes are as wide open as always, but overall it is still quite good, and the performance of the character of He Sanshui is very vivid.

As the younger cousin, Wang Baoqiang played the role of Tire after Sha Gen in "A World Without Thieves".

He has martial arts skills, but he pursues justice and does not attack ordinary people. Later, he realized that he must dare to fight against injustice. His character arc is perfect.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is Huang Bo, who plays Zhu Liao.

He played a young actor who gave up singing to join a crew, which was quite similar to his real experience.

Whether it was his dance or his acting skills, which allowed us to see the struggle of a small person, he left a deep impression on all the audience.

The director gave him a superstar ending in an allegorical way.

The answer that after becoming famous, he was surrounded by good people was unexpected but reasonable, and reflected the director's own thoughts on society.

Yan Ni's female boss, Fan Ming's soy milk drinking customer, He Sanshui who was misunderstanding and wanted to break up, and the customer who was a disabled person, each of them had their shining points.

Officer Gao, played by Han Sanping, plays a police officer again in this film after Lu Chuan's cameo appearance in "Looking for the Gun".

As the leader of China Film Group, he always likes to support newcomers.

This is director Shen Santong's debut film. His calmness and confidence were admired by many people.

The pseudo-long shot at the beginning boldly explains the relationships between all the characters, and there is sufficient information to be explored about each character.

Various small plots and foreshadowings leave the audience with enough room for exploration.

The director's distinct and firm market awareness determines the entertainment quality of "Crazy Supermarket", but the film is not just entertainment. It also reflects on the value of diamonds, whether lottery can be calculated using mathematical models, and the broker scam that is quite alarming. Even from the two people, He Sanshui and the tire, we can see the impact of urbanization on traditional culture and traditional villages.

This film not only makes the audience feel comfortable and happy, but also allows the audience to savor it over and over again. I think this is the key reason why the movie Supermarket can be a success.

China News Network Review.

The film illuminates the dark low-cost film market in China. The language of "Supermarket" is completely cinematic and audio-visual, rather than the traditional paradigm of "novels, essays and even poems" that Chinese films are good at and firmly grasp.

It intentionally mobilizes the special sense of humor in life, and tells comedies of small people, all with dense and vivid shining details.

Chinese films need more Shen Santong.

The significance of "Supermarket" to the Chinese film industry is definitely greater than the value of the film itself.

Regardless of the film's artistic merits and demerits, just looking at the spiritual outlook that the film presents to the audience is a powerful and vivid feeling of life.

This feeling cannot be obtained through quick-success-oriented means such as money, fame, seniority, political achievements, marginal topics, etc.

The above-mentioned impetuous terms are covering every aspect of Chinese films, forcing ordinary audiences to move away from Chinese films.

The director's attitude is obviously different from that of the fifth and sixth generation directors.

We can see from his portrayal of Officer Gao that he is a responsible policeman who did not spend his birthday with his daughter because of work.

He would complain, but he still did his job conscientiously.

At the end of the story, there is not only self-help, but also the intervention of government forces.

The last sniper, wearing slippers and pajamas, indicated that he was called out at short notice.

Vivid and full of flesh and blood.

The spirit displayed by director Shen Santong is calm and composed.

We should not look at our society with a rigid and critical gaze, but with a normal and loving gaze.

Perhaps only with this attitude will he regard the development of his own films as the responsibility of the new generation and be able to speak out about his desire to work in the film industry.

I think he does not belong to the sixth generation of directors, but to the new generation of directors.

He definitely won me over with this movie.

CCTV Film Channel made a special feature called "Crazy Supermarket" and invited BJ film critic Lao Huang as a guest.

Lao Huang is a professional screenwriter, film critic, and chief writer for Film World magazine.

The top ten movies in the 2004 box office rankings were "House of Flying Daggers", "Kung Fu", "A World Without Thieves", "New Police Story", "2046", "Magic Kitchen", "The King's Avatar: The Last Airbender", "Deng 2", "Zhang Side" and "Baby in Love".

The box office ranking is almost becoming a ranking of Hong Kong films, and the first seven are almost all related to Hong Kong.

Except for "House of Flying Daggers" and "A World Without Thieves", the remaining five films were produced by Hong Kong companies, directed by Hong Kong directors, and starred by Hong Kong actors. Although they are co-productions, they can be said to be very authentic Hong Kong films.

Everyone says that we have to face fierce competition from Hollywood, but in fact, mainland filmmakers now face more competition from Hong Kong filmmakers.

At the beginning of 2005, director Shen Santong gave us a surprise. "Crazy Supermarket" was produced entirely by mainland cast, which shows that our mainland films are not bad.

I think what Director Xie Fei said is very right. Shen Santong is a role model of the new generation of directors, or to put it more simply, a leader and a pioneer.

An industry insider said this in an interview with a reporter.

Tuesday morning, January 05, 1.

The box office came out on Monday, 671 million, a big drop.

But it's normal considering it's a weekday.

"Morning, Teacher Xu Zheng, Brother Bo, Baoqiang, we have something to discuss."

Shen Santong felt that everyone's attitude towards him had changed significantly.

(End of this chapter)