Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 350 Do You Dare to Confront?

There is an article on Zhihu - How do you evaluate "The Promise" directed by Chen Kaige?
It is said that the two words "Wuji" suddenly popped into Director Chen's head when he was running on the treadmill.

"The Promise" has great ambitions. It attempts to rebuild a new world, and Director Chen is really building this world.

In the world of "The Promise", there are people from the Snow Country, slaves who are "faster than the wind", gods of war wearing armor with flowers, and ghost wolves who are both good and evil.

'The Promise' has almost all the elements that a fantasy movie needs to have.

Director Chen uses only the best actors and behind the scenes.

Jang Dong-gun, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cecilia Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Liu Ye...

In terms of actors, he has gathered some of the most popular actors from China, Japan and South Korea.

The behind-the-scenes lineup is also luxurious——

The photographer is Peter Pau, the art director is Tim Yip, and the music is by German composer Klaus Bardet.

Klaus Bardet has composed music for many Hollywood films and served as the music consultant for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

The soundtrack uses instruments such as drums, flutes, erhu, and violin. Even if you put the movie aside, the soundtrack of "The Promise" is well worth listening to!
In terms of the pictures, Director Chen put a lot of thought into it, using a lot of highly saturated colors such as red and pink, giving the entire film a sense of unreality.

A lot of effort was also put into the camera work. When Qingcheng was locked in a golden cage by Wuhuan, Kunlun came to rescue her and used a rope to pull Qingcheng up. This scene, combined with the background music of the movie, has a grand and slightly sad beauty.

It can be seen that Director Chen really wants to make a masterpiece, probably wanting to recreate the glory of "Farewell My Concubine".

Sadly, the film's flaws are as prominent as its strengths.

The story logic is confusing, the actors have heavy accents, and the lines are shocking.

The latter two can be considered minor shortcomings, but the first one is definitely a fatal flaw.

Many viewers said they didn’t understand it after watching the film. Not only ordinary viewers but also professional filmmakers didn’t understand it.

It is actually a bit of an insult to say that "The Promise" closed the door for Chinese costume films to be exported.

After all, a subject matter will always become outdated, and costume films cannot remain popular forever.

But "The Promise" did act as a catalyst, and it is absolutely no exaggeration to say that it cooled down the craze for costume dramas.

……

The next day, the interview about Zhang Chen was also broadcast. Mrs. Chen was so angry that she cried after watching it.

I really cried~
How can the failure of "The Promise" be blamed on me?

But before Mrs. Chen could react, Xiantao Digital could no longer sit still.

The person in charge of Xiantao Digital accepted an interview immediately: "We were pulled in temporarily to make up the numbers, and we withdrew halfway through the filming because we couldn't communicate with the production company."

Reporter: “Oh, why did you quit?”

XianTao Digital: “Because Director Chen Kai has no idea about the industrial process of special effects shooting, he always thinks that once he gives us the footage, we can make any special effects according to his requirements.

But real special effects production requires preparations in the early stages of filming. When designing shots in the early stages of filming, one must consider how to use special effects. However, all of this process is completely absent in The Promise. Here’s the simplest example…”

The people from Xiantao Digital talked about the scene when Man Shen appeared.

The role of Man Shen is played by Mrs. Chen. The setting of this character is obviously based on Greek drama. The most impressive thing is Man Shen's inverted hair.

What Director Chen wanted to capture was the texture of clothes floating in a vacuum. This scene is actually somewhat similar to the scene of the priestess oracle in the 07 film "300".

Internationally, similar shots of weightlessness are basically shot in water.

This is true for "300" and "Gravity".

It’s actually very simple. The actors are filmed in a large water tank, and then the feeling of weightlessness is simulated. Then, with the help of post-production keying and CG smoke, the feeling of being in the water is diluted.

But for some reason Director Chen was unwilling to shoot it this way. He chose to shoot it in the studio, hanging it with wires.

The method was also very strange. He asked Mrs. Chen to recite the lines at twice the speed, and then used slow motion in post-production to achieve the effect of slowly fluttering clothes.

For this reason, there is even a statement that "actors should be suspended if they don't perform well", which is very weird.

“Director Chen always self-righteously puts forward all kinds of unreasonable requirements. For example, he describes a scene as beautiful, elegant, and full of romance, but he can’t give any specific parameters or references. We can’t understand his ideas at all. We can only try to make a version. If it doesn’t meet his ideas, he will overturn it and do it again. There is no plan at all…”

The people from Xiantao Digital spoke for a long time, but their main point was just one: Director Chen is unreliable and we are not responsible for the bad reviews of "The Promise".

Finally, he solemnly assured: "Xintao Digital is a long-established special effects company in Hong Kong. We have handled countless projects and produced many excellent works, such as "The Legend of Zu", "Shaolin Soccer", "Kung Fu"...

I guarantee on behalf of the company that everything I said above is true. "

It’s over. They have forced people to swear an oath.

Zhang Chen then realized that he had wronged Xiantao Digital. It turned out that the special effect of being able to create a three-bedroom and one-living-room apartment with a toe was not made by others at all.

Speaking of which, these past two days have been really eventful, of course, for "The Promise".

When you turn on the TV, almost all channels are discussing "The Promise". The discussion is indeed very high, but it has no positive effect on the box office.

Instead, the discussion brought up a lot of negative information.

A netizen from Yunnan shared his experience in Xishuangbanna:

I am a staff member of the Xishuangbanna Scenic Area. We provided great convenience to the crew of "The Promise" when they were shooting in Xishuangbanna.

But after "The Promise" left, what it left us was a huge mess.

Not only are domestic garbage and construction waste thrown everywhere, but the built sets are not even dismantled after use.

Not to mention, for the sake of art, Director Chen cut down trees indiscriminately and destroyed vegetation in the scenic area, causing the scenic area to take at least 3-5 years to recover.

……

My dear~
These two days have really opened my eyes.

Although Zhang Chen came from later generations, he heard about many things for the first time.

Maybe I've heard of it in my previous life, but I just treated it as gossip.

But in this life, he is a member of the circle, and these are the people and things happening around him.

The person who was probably the happiest about Director Chen's poor copying of the homework was Zhang Weiping.

In this way, Zhang Yimou in his hands would become even more valuable.

These days he has been promoting everywhere that "Mantou" is a good movie, which straightens out the inexplicable plot of "The Promise".

Director Chen didn't bother to pay attention to him, as his focus was entirely on the overseas returns of "The Promise".

His only hope now is to win an Oscar, hoping to sell the overseas copyright at a high price by winning at the Oscars.

And returns can seriously affect all of this.

Therefore, Director Chen firmly denied the return of the goods.

We just had a disagreement with Miramax over the distribution strategy. The two parties are still in contact and there is no return of goods.

Brother Chen Kai wanted to save his reputation by force, but Dong Jianqiang would not tolerate his bad habits.

He just said one thing: Should we invite Harvey Weinstein from Miramax to confront him face to face to see if the return of The Promise was true or not...

The style of a company is influenced by its founder. Zhang Chen is always complaining about everything, and even Dong Jianqiang likes to make trouble from time to time.
(End of this chapter)