New Age Artists

Chapter 648: Lu Chuan's Collapse

The drawn curtains made the large living room look dim.

"Oh, I didn't know and thought it was already night."

Xu Fan walked into the living room, glanced at Feng Xiaogang, who was curled up in a leather recliner counting cigarette butts, pulled open the curtains, and teased, "Old Feng, are you really that serious? Xiao Wang called you but you didn't answer, and Da Wang called you several times. Not only did you not return the calls, but you also don't want your health anymore?"

As the sun shone in, Feng Xiaogang rubbed his eyes and felt much better, but he was still depressed and said, "Why did they ask me to do it? I don't want to film at all."

Feng Xiaogang was exhausted both physically and mentally. "1942" was not as ambitious a work as advertised, which had been in preparation for nearly 20 years. But it definitely took several times or even ten times more effort than his previous comedy films.

Unfortunately, he suffered a heavy loss in the market.

He is becoming more and more confused about the film market.

Any movie by Shen Santong can earn 20 to 30 billion yuan. It's not just Shen Santong alone, but several of the new directors of Santong Entertainment have made hundreds of millions of yuan at the box office, and some have even exceeded 1 billion yuan.

Although the film failed at the box office, the good reputation could barely comfort his hard work. However, after the release of "1937", the reputation fluctuated and the audience ratings dropped.

Feng Xiaogang himself is good at realistic themes, but now this theme has been directly killed. Coupled with the rise of military action, comedy, fantasy and other types of films, Feng Xiaogang suddenly felt frustrated and eliminated.

Seeing him like this, Xu Fan advised: "Why don't we take a break? We are not short of money anyway."

Feng Xiaogang also has this plan: "I need to think about it carefully and try other fields. I feel a little overwhelmed and confused. I don't have the energy I had when I was young. I could make a movie in a few months, but now I can't do it."

Xu Fan said: "Just let it go. Take good care of yourself and don't let the disease recur. Nothing is more important than health."

Feng Xiaogang sighed: "I also want to participate in the planning of several projects at Huayi, so I can give an explanation. But I don't want to move in the next two years."

Xu Fan asked: "What about Shen Santong? I'm afraid this public opinion is manipulated by Santong Entertainment, right?"

"It's useless to dwell on this. Huayi has also been trying to discredit him behind his back, but they are all small actions that cannot be put on the table." Feng Xiaogang is very open-minded: "Shen Santong has offended many people, but who can tell him not to make movies? As long as he can make movies, and the movies are popular and can sell well, and the theaters treat him like their grandsons, all difficulties are not difficulties."

Feng Xiaogang is depressed because his movies are not doing well. He knows very well that the Wang brothers look down on him. Wang Shuo and Jiang Wen also look down on him, but since his movies are doing well, these people have to be polite to him.

He is not like Shen Santong. Even if he stops making movies, he still has the Santong Group.

If Hua Yi trains a young director, his position may be difficult to maintain.

"Wang Zhongjun is also confused. He is using Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons to compete with The Return of the Great Sage. Movies of the same genre will definitely not have good results."

Feng Xiaogang's strongest point along the way is his ability to read people's expressions.

As the old saying goes, don't hit the stupid or the bad, just hit the blind.

In his opinion, Hua Yi is now somewhat short-sighted.

Xu Fan has a different opinion: "That's Zhou Xingchi."

Feng Xiaogang was disdainful. He had not forgotten that Zhou Xingchi had stood him up. He gloated: "Look at how miserable Lu Chuan is now. If Zhou Xingchi can't handle this well, he will be dead or at least suffer a lot."

"Of course, he may not care. This guy really only cares about the money."

the other side.

Someone has super-breaking defense.

"The Banquet", written and directed by Lu Chuan and starring Liu Ye, Zhang Zhen, Daniel Wu, Qin Lan, Sha Yi and others, was a box office failure.

And it was viewed from a normal perspective by the audience.

"The Banquet" competed with Feng Xiaogang's "1942" at the same time, and was never able to win.

The box office on the first day was 10 million, and the box office in the first week was 30 million. It can barely be compared with the previous life. This box office is the result of market expansion.

It plummeted the following week.

Santong Entertainment's historical blockbusters have improved the audience's aesthetic ability, while "The Banquet" is pure nonsense.

It is almost as good as Li Rengang's "The Legend of Hongmen Feast", or even worse.

Through deconstruction, "The Banquet" negates the entire history, gives Liu Bang a non-existent fear, and designs a non-existent suspicion of his old enemies and meritorious officials, because he is afraid of killing Han Xin, Peng Yue and other kings of different surnames.

Liu Bang, a monarch who started chopping kings in his forties, some say in his fifties, and unified the world in seven years. In his later years, he could still pacify the kings of different surnames as easily as chopping melons and vegetables. He was an emperor of all ages, but his deconstruction turned him into a psychopath.

Through fragmented narrative, the moral price of "becoming king" was added to Liu Bang.

During the Chu-Han Contention, Xiang Yu was no longer indecisive. He was kind and let Liu Bang go, but things didn't get much better.

In "The Banquet", Liu Bang prostrated himself and begged for survival by lying about dividing the world.

Xiang Yu also became Liu Bang's shadow, as his ashes were mixed into mud to build walls.

Fortunately, China has history books and the tradition has not been cut off, otherwise it might not be possible to become a "really daring shoot".

The failure of "The Banquet" can be attributed to the confusion in the narrative, and the audience cannot be blamed easily.

It’s not that the film producers are kind, it’s that there are historical blockbusters from Santong Entertainment to compare with in this life.

If it weren't for the historical series produced by Santong Entertainment, the blame would definitely be on the audience.

Blame the subject matter again.

There are many reasons, historical themes face commercial difficulties.

The risks of serious historical themes in the Chinese market are high costs, low returns, and limited audience acceptance.

Audiences cannot appreciate non-entertaining historical narratives.

The audience still has to take the blame.

The director then pretended to reflect and began his creative transformation, turning to more commercial projects.

Then, industry analysis shows that the box office failure of "The Banquet" is not only the result of the misalignment between historical themes and the commercial market, but also reflects the imbalance between the director's artistic expression and audience demand.

Together with "1942", it became a lose-lose case for the 2012 Lunar New Year box office, sounding the alarm for the Chinese film industry that historical narratives must balance artistry, watchability and market rules.

Later, costume blockbusters gradually faded away, and serious history was buried with them.

In this life, the relevant parties encountered the impact of public opinion in advance.

"The Banquet" could not find an excuse because Santong Entertainment's historical blockbusters were selling well one after another, and the box office of "1937" was rising all the way, which led to the old accounts of "Nanjing Nanjing" being dug up.

"1937" and "1942" can only be described as "serious history", and they are of the same subject as "Nanjing! Nanjing!" The audience is even more dedicated to researching.

What's more, there is Shen Santong's black hands guiding him from behind.

There are obvious differences in the historical perspectives and narratives of the two films.

"1937" emphasizes the subjectivity of ordinary people in history. Through the self-help and organized struggle of the grassroots people, it conveys the belief that the people are the driving force of history. It sublimates the suffering of the Nanjing Massacre into the awakening of the national spirit, and ultimately comes to the positive conclusion that only unity and self-reliance can resist foreign aggression.

Our attitude towards the invaders is undisguised and our position is clear!

The Japanese invaders are portrayed as a highly organized violence machine whose atrocities are systematic and inhumane, which avoids psychological empathy for the perpetrators and intensifies the sharpness of ethnic confrontation.

The presentation of the atrocities of aggression is restrained but also straightforward, directly showing the Japanese invaders' systematic massacres, mass executions, and caesarean sections of pregnant women.

Serving the people and creating history, serving the Chinese people, has been about gathering strength from the very beginning.

To put it nicely, Nanjing! Nanjing! is an attempt to break the single narrative.

Through the perspectives of both China and Japan, Chinese soldiers, Japanese soldier Kadokawa, and international figures, the complexity of war and the alienation of human nature are shown.

The focus is on the psychological struggles of individuals in extreme environments, Kadokawa's self-reflection, and Rabe's sense of powerlessness, rather than a clear nationalist narrative.

To put it bluntly, the director sat on the script.

It is very considerate of the book, focusing on the psychology of the invaders and taking a step forward to historical nihilism.

The author describes Kadokawa's inner disgust and struggle in great detail.

The director objectively whitewashed the Japanese invaders.

Portraying the Japanese invaders as individuals who hated atrocities and were merely swayed by militarism weakens and blurs historical responsibility, deconstructs seriousness, and weakens the strength of criticism of the nature of aggression.

Trapped in the perspective of the invader, he claimed to be trying to explore the human dimension of the invader, but in fact, by delving into Kadokawa's contradictory psychology, he quietly helped the other party shift the blame.

There are similarities with certain forces active in the public opinion field of the University of Tokyo.

When talking about the Japanese invasion, some clips of important figures are excerpted.

I didn’t believe it at all and didn’t support it at all in normal times, but at this moment, I suddenly believed it.

The contrast in narrative perspective is even more tragic.

While 1937 is about construction, Nanjing! Nanjing! is about dismantling.

"1937" takes a microscopic perspective, depicting the survival details of the printer brothers in great detail, and the main narrative line is clear.

Even if we praise the artistic techniques, "1937" uses a magical narrative, which is much better than literary and artistic, and is full of historical allegory.

"Nanjing! Nanjing!" tries to flatter itself by having a multi-line narrative, but in reality it is fragmented.

The Chinese soldiers are not portrayed well, and the psychological struggle of the Japanese soldier Kadokawa is even more disastrous, with no clear focus and no ability to distinguish between friend and foe.

Go find the non-existent conscience of the Japanese invaders and unearth the glimmer of Kadokawa’s humanity.

The ending is symbolized by Azuki's survival and Kadokawa's death. It neither points out the future of the nation, but also helps the Japanese invaders complete their reflection on war and human nature.

I didn’t know and thought it was directed by Ben Zi!

The problem is that the director is Chinese.

Maybe, not necessarily.

Hard to say.

Not only is there a gap in stance and narrative, the details of the film itself are even more tragic.

The rice price tags, boat tickets, and salt bags in "1937" are all textual research details. In the movie, there are two brothers collecting supplies, and there are Japanese invaders stealing chickens. They fight over a chicken leg, and when they encounter chicken fried in tung oil, they are unable to move their legs and poison themselves.

"Nanjing! Nanjing!" Kadokawa paid silver dollars to the prostitute Xiao Jiang, which is pure fabrication.

At that time, 1 silver dollar was equal to 5 French francs on the black market. The director asked Kadokawa to take out 20 silver dollars to redeem the prostitute, which was enough for an ordinary family to live on for half a year.

Is poor imperialism a joke?

Where does Kadokawa get the money?

It seems that the director ignored even the basic facts in order to whitewash the Japanese invaders.

Audiences who had watched Nanjing! Nanjing! and passers-by flocked to the film review page.

"I gave you five stars in 2009 because I was young, but after watching 1937 I changed it to one star!"

"I suggest that Lu Chuan and Kadokawa co-produce "Hiroshima! Hiroshima!" to make Americans regret the atomic bomb!"

"How dare you make excuses for the devils?"

Some people's history of plagiarism was also exposed.

"Looking for the Gun" was written by Jiang Wen, and "Kekexili" plagiarized Liu Yujun's "The Tibetan Antelope and I: The Kekexili Glacier".

More and more people are participating. In this era of the rise of self-media, everyone has the right to participate.

A student from the School of Political Science and Law created a "Plagiarism Identification Standard Comparison Table", pointing out that 23 identical scenes in "Kekexili" meet the "substantial similarity" clause of the Copyright Law.

A large number of shots and narrations in "Kekexili" are similar to those in "The Tibetan Antelope and I". The story line and outline are also similar to those of Liu Yujun's works, with similar scenes such as "tracking poachers in the snow", "discovering poachers in the river from the car window", and "team members taking off their pants to cross the river".

This was 12 years ago, not ten years ago, nor five years ago. 3G emerged, and this time ignited the basic memory of the Internet that could become the rise of self-media.

If it can become as popular as 4G, it will have no problem being popular for ten years.

And if the image collapses, it will be extremely difficult to change the timeline and modify the dark history.

"Industry paraquat! Industry paraquat!"

Lu Chuan walked around the room and saw netizens' comments about what Lu Dachuan's name sounded like backwards, which was "Chuan Dalu" (川大路), which meant his crooked path!

He was so angry that he was shaking all over: "What's the meaning of the name Lu Dachuan? What's the meaning of Shen Santong? It's too much!"

When did Shen Santong start making movies? What was Shen Santong doing when he became famous?
Some people even scolded him for asking the Japanese soldiers to repent, comparing it to asking Qin Hui to recite "Man Jiang Hong".

Lu Chuan was speechless. He just didn't have the ability and didn't want to be a traitor. There was no need to scold him like that, right?
(End of this chapter)