Huayu: Starting from joining the mainstream entertainment industry in 96

Chapter 447-445: Pilgrimage

In November, the north of China is already experiencing the chill of early winter, while the south remains warm and spring-like.

Just one week before the release of "Brotherhood of Blades," a quiet but far-reaching change began to stir among young moviegoers in a few major cities.

After close collaboration between Shengying Media's technical team and Tencent, the long-awaited "Maoyan Movies" platform has finally unveiled its mystery and begun its pilot operation.

The first batch of pilot cities is limited to four first-tier cities with the highest internet penetration rate and the largest concentration of young people: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

The cinemas connected are limited to those under the "China Film Grand Cinema" brand, which has the earliest and best hardware facilities in these four locations.

There was no grand press conference, no overwhelming advertising campaign.

The launch of "Maoyan" is more like a precise "hacker-style" infiltration.

The main promotional channels rely on pop-up messages on Tencent QQ, pinned posts on BBS forums of major universities, and film and television sections of online communities frequented by young people, such as Tianya and Xici Hutong.

The promotional slogan also carries a geeky simplicity and allure: "Watch movies, choose your seats in advance, say goodbye to queuing—Maoyan Movies, opening a new era of online movie viewing for you."

For most Chinese people in 2002, "buying things online" was still a relatively new and somewhat risky activity, let alone buying intangible "services".

To address payment trust and channel issues, the technical team cleverly borrowed the point card model from the wildly popular game "Legend of Mir".

The "Maoyan Movie Card," a beautifully printed physical card with a scratch-off password layer, has quietly appeared at the ticket counters and merchandise counters of China Film Grand Cinemas in four cities, as well as in some "Light and Shadow World" audio-visual chain stores that have a cooperative relationship with Grand Cinemas.

The cards come in two denominations: 50 yuan and 100 yuan. They can be purchased in the same way as game points, and can be easily obtained with cash.

With the movie viewing card, users can log in to the Maoyan Movie website (a simple page with a predominantly orange-red color scheme).

First-time users need to register and bind their account with an QQ number or email address, and then recharge their "Maoyan account" using the serial number and password on the back of the movie card.

Next comes the moment to experience timeless convenience: the website clearly lists the screening schedule for the pilot cinemas for the next day, and clicking on the movie you want to see will bring up an intuitive seating chart.

Sold seats are shown in red, while available seats are shown in green.

Users simply need to move their mouse, click on their desired seat, confirm the order, and the ticket price will be automatically deducted from their account balance.

The moment the payment is successful, the webpage will display a "ticket verification code" (a unique sequence of numbers and letters), and at the same time, a confirmation email containing the same information will be sent to the email address linked during registration (this may be extended to mobile SMS in the future, but in 2002, the cost and popularity of mobile SMS notification technology were still limited).

Viewers only need to go to the corresponding China Film Grand Cinema before the movie starts, and show this verification code or tell the staff in front of the specially set up "Maoyan Ticket Machine" (currently, the verification is manually operated by cinema staff on a dedicated computer) to instantly receive a printed physical movie ticket and easily enter the theater.

This process may seem cumbersome in retrospect, but in 2002 it was undoubtedly a revolutionary and convenient experience.

"That's so cool! We can actually choose our seats online!" In a computer lab at a university in Beijing, college student Lin Xiaoyue had just used a 50-yuan Maoyan movie ticket to reserve two adjacent seats in the middle of a prime-time showing of "Brotherhood of Blades" for herself and her boyfriend Zhang Heng. She excitedly whispered to her boyfriend next to her, "This way we don't have to worry about only getting corner seats when we go to buy tickets later!"

Zhang Heng also found it novel: "It saves time queuing and allows you to accurately select a good spot. This thing is really convenient. It's just a bit troublesome to buy the card first. It would be great if you could pay online directly."

"Come on, online payments are so unsafe these days. It feels much more reliable to use a physical card to top up," Lin Xiaoyue retorted, completely captivated by this novel way of buying tickets.

Similar scenarios are playing out among young netizens in the four pilot cities. This hybrid model, which combines "online seat selection" and "offline physical card payment," perfectly reflects the stage of China's internet development in 2002—a trust system that was not yet fully established, but young people had a high acceptance of and willingness to try new things.

Despite its limited coverage, the Maoyan platform quickly generated a strong response among its target user group upon its launch.

People have also discovered that Maoyan is much more than just an online ticketing tool.

The character "eye" in its name carries a deeper meaning: "insight" and "evaluation".

Another core feature of the platform, the "Film Review Section," was launched almost simultaneously with the ticketing function.

In order to inject initial vitality into this still blank field, the Shengying Media technology team joined forces with the content department of Enlight Media to carry out a large-scale "raw data accumulation".

They not only accessed all the film databases produced and distributed by Shengying Group, but also integrated the basic information of thousands of domestic and foreign films released in China in recent years through legal channels, including directors, actors, plot synopses, posters, etc.

More importantly, they pre-set a rating system (five-star system) and a commentary framework for these films.

Of course, the real trigger point came from the halo effect brought about by Wang Sheng's own brilliant resume.

Almost the instant the platform launched, without any official guidance or paid promotion, users spontaneously and like pilgrims flocked to the movie entries closely associated with the name "Wang Sheng".

On Maoyan Movies' "Overall Ranking - Chinese Films" category, as well as the newly established "Popularity Ranking" and "Rating Ranking," a group of familiar names dominated the top positions with an absolute advantage, forming a breathtaking "spectacle of cinematic splendor":
My Sassy Girl (2000, summer release) - Rating: 9.4
The Pursuit of Happyness (1998, Lunar New Year release) - Rating: 9.3
Harmony Brings Prosperity (1996, Lunar New Year release - the first Lunar New Year TV movie in mainland China) - Rating: 9.2 (with a nostalgic filter)
Happy Family (1999, Lunar New Year film) - Rating: 9.1
First Love (1999, a film that saved the market) - Rating: 9.1
30 Days (1997, Lunar New Year release) - Rating: 9.0
The Fake Marriage (2000, Lunar New Year release) - Rating: 8.9
"Flying Colors" (1999, summer blockbuster) - Rating: 8.8
Lost on Journey (2001, Lunar New Year release, Wang Sheng as the core screenwriter/producer) - Rating: 8.7
These scores may reflect the enthusiasm of early fans and the filter of the times, but they clearly outline how, since 1996, Wang Sheng has almost single-handedly propelled and led the development of Chinese commercial films by virtue of his accurate market sense, pioneering ability in genre films, and profound understanding of audience emotions.

In the film review section, users' comments are filled with reflections on the times and personal emotional projections:

"From watching the family-friendly movie 'Family Harmony Brings Prosperity' on TV, to laughing until I cried in the video arcade with '30 Days,' and then being moved in the movie theater with 'The Pursuit of Happyness'... Wang Sheng's movies have accompanied me from junior high school to university!"

"I remember when 'A Little Thing Called First Love' was released, all the girls in my class were talking about how beautiful Gao Yuanyuan was and how heartbreaking it was to have a crush on her. In the blink of an eye, I'm already a senior in college."

"My Sassy Girl is awesome! Fan Xiaopang is my goddess! Boss Wang is amazing, he always knows how to capture our tastes!"

"Although Wang Yibo didn't direct 'Lost on Journey' himself, it had the same feel to it! Watching it on my way home for the Chinese New Year brought me both laughter and tears."

"Look at this list, and then look at the current film market. You have to admit that Wang Sheng and his Shengying are the epitome of the golden years of Chinese commercial cinema!"

These spontaneously generated discussions and ratings not only quickly solidified the initial content and community atmosphere of the Maoyan Movie Review section, but also inadvertently completed a nationwide review and crowning of Wang Sheng and Shengying Media's achievements over the past six years.

It allows every user to not only try out novel ticket purchasing methods but also to look back on the past and clearly "see" how Wang Sheng grew from a child of the Beijing Film Studio into a trendsetter who stirred up the Chinese and even international film scene.

This collective sentiment of "remembering the glorious past" cleverly transformed into extremely high expectations for the next work produced by Sheng Ying on the eve of the release of "Brotherhood of Blades".

The quiet launch of Maoyan was like a pebble thrown into a calm lake.

Its online seat selection feature has become a hit among young people in pilot cities; and its film review section has inadvertently become a digital monument to Wang Sheng's commercial film empire.

This newly opened "cat's eye" is changing people's movie-consuming habits in a gentle yet unstoppable way, and reshaping the path of movie word-of-mouth dissemination.

(End of this chapter)