I am a historical film director in the entertainment industry.

The box office reached nearly 1 billion yuan in just half a month.

The nearly 1 billion yuan box office in just half a month has made many film and television companies envious. It's more profitable than robbing a bank, and many film and television companies have already started preparing to make copycat works.

It's so easy for mainstream films to follow suit; they don't need any special effects or scripts at all, because there are just too many mainstream themes—you can find several just by flipping through a history book.

Suddenly, news of patriotic films being made appeared online.

Such as "Wolf Fang Mountain", "Fire Warrior", "Yellow River Action", "Anti-Japanese Heroes", etc.

You can tell what kind of story it is just by looking at the title.

"Are these people trying to kill off this whole genre?"

Cheng Sheng, sitting in his office, shook his head slightly.

“Boss, there’s really no way to stop this trend of copying others. If you hadn’t stopped us, our company would have wanted to make a patriotic film too,” Jiangsu Film said.

"The emergence of similar themes in large numbers will have a significant impact on Hengye's long-term development."

Cheng Sheng sighed.

He has experienced this firsthand.

Following trends can have a multifaceted impact on the development of an industry.

From a capital perspective, if a certain theme or genre of film

If it proves to be a successful path, then various similar works will inevitably appear afterward, whether it's blatant imitation or homage.

This is what "genre film" is all about!

For a particular film genre to succeed, it needs a sufficient number of works with rich content in that genre.

Finding gold in the sand is like panning for gold; gold is certainly important, but without sand, where would the gold come from?
Just like the Westerns produced by the US, after one hit film, a large number of similar works were made, effectively killing the genre.

Once a genre film becomes successful, before the benefits have been fully realized, the industry will mostly engage in incremental innovation rather than creating entirely original works.

Cheng Sheng's "Ten Send-Offs to the Red Army" is different.

The benefits are right in front of everyone.

It's almost a billion now, so what will happen when it's taken off the shelves?

Even if it's not two billion, it's probably fifteen billion!
How much was invested in "Ten Red Army Soldiers Sending Off"?

One hundred million?

Tens of millions?
Whether it's a hundred million or tens of millions.

Compared to an investment of 100 million or tens of millions, everyone knows that 1.5 billion in box office revenue is much more.

"Boss, look, even directors from Hong Kong are starting to follow the trend and make patriotic films."

Jiangsu Film turned the computer around for Cheng Sheng to see.

puff!

Cheng Sheng couldn't help but laugh.

Are those Hong Kong directors capable of making patriotic films?
Are you kidding me?
Cheng Sheng shook his head inwardly, recalling the patriotic films created by Hong Kong directors in another time and space, which were practically nothing more than a pile of dog shit.

The films produced are even more stiff and formulaic than those directed by mainland directors, shouting slogans in a way that is truly chilling.

Hong Kong directors are really not suited to making patriotic films, just as we shouldn't expect fifth- or sixth-generation directors to make them. So why are Hong Kong directors bad at making patriotic films?

The answer is simple: Hong Kong directors have different upbringings, and when they come to the mainland market, they often cater to its preferences and have too much of a speculative mentality. They also lack a sense of community with the mainland, but since the market is there, they want to make money.

They use money from mainland investors to deceive mainland audiences, ultimately just to make money.

Hong Kong directors are becoming increasingly perfunctory in their approach to making films, including patriotic movies and commercial blockbusters.

For example, in mainland China's macro-narrative mainstream films, such as war films, how many Hong Kong directors have experience coordinating thousands of people?

But they don't care about these things, they don't care about the consequences of their lack of experience, which has led to the current situation where grand scenes in film and television works are unwatchable. Now, they are often ridiculed by netizens for being able to film anything as "gangster fights".

This is not to wrong Hong Kong directors; Liu Weiqiang's "The Founding of an Army" and Peng Shun's "My War" are examples of this.

This only requires depicting the macro-level war scenes; it doesn't require any strategic layout, weapon details, tactical performance, or anything like that.

Whether it's the different characters, the different cultures behind each province and city, or the relatively reasonable camera work of the war scenes, Hong Kong directors really can't film them.

This is just a problem with war-themed patriotic films; what about other genres?

The logic is even simpler: if you can't even make a decent patriotic war film that's somewhat related to police and gangster shootouts, how can you possibly make other patriotic films well? Some genres require more emphasis on the expression of the characters' spirit and core values, while others need to be made into acceptable genre films.

In the words of today's netizens, Hong Kong directors are becoming increasingly narrow-minded, their aesthetic sense is deteriorating, and their film and television industry is extremely backward. Their commercial blockbusters often equate to grand scenes, emotional manipulation, large productions, and special effects, ultimately resulting in a strong sense of artificiality and falseness.

Of course, not all Hong Kong directors are bad at making patriotic films; there are exceptions.

For example, Xu Ke and Lin Chao.

Xu Ke's "The Taking of Tiger Mountain" was made in the style of a contemporary martial arts film, while Lin Chao's "Operation Mekong" and "Operation Red Sea" are special forces operations. Lin Chao replaced the Hong Kong police with mainland special forces and brought his "gunfight industry" to its top level, presenting a top-notch effect.

In the movie "Operation Red Sea," Lin Chao played to his strengths and avoided his weaknesses. The entire film was basically about fighting, and he focused on the psychological changes of the team members while downplaying the international political background. Therefore, he effectively avoided problems with the scope of the story, the expression of the spirit, and the character development.

From the perspective of the film's essence, "Operation Red Sea" ultimately narrows down to a single "operation" and fails to reveal the bigger picture from a small perspective.

Many netizens don't understand why "Wolf Warrior 2" grossed over 20 billion yuan when "Operation Red Sea" was clearly better.

Because "Wolf Warrior 2" has a better pacing and is more suitable for the average viewer.

The film opens with the soldiers' helplessness in the face of forced demolition, then moves on to Yu Qian's character's duplicity, and finally to the helplessness of the Chinese workers in the factory when faced with the massacre by Western mercenaries.

That intense nationalist anger was perfectly timed.

This kind of emotion was something that Hong Kong directors before 2000 could capture in their films, namely the generation of directors like Xu Ke.

Therefore, Xu Ke's "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" still has many local elements and martial arts style treatments. Martial arts culture is also a local culture.

Actually, Lin Chao's "Action Series" is considered the best among the worst.

Cheng Sheng really wanted to "beg" the directors in Hong Kong to stop ruining the patriotic theme.

"Jiang Jiang, tell the screenwriting department that the company will not touch any films with patriotic themes for the next three years."

With those Hong Kong directors following suit, films with a patriotic theme are likely to suffer.

"Mm." Jiangsu Ying nodded.

"By the way, when are you going to the film set?" Cheng Sheng asked.

Xing Aina was given two supporting roles as the second female lead in Jiangsu Film Studio, both in idol dramas.

"Next week!" Jiangsu Ying said. (End of Chapter)