[ 《外太空的莫扎特》目前豆瓣评分滑落至4.9分，根据猫眼专业版预测，其内地总票房为3.97亿元。 ]
As the summer season picks up, new top films continue to join the battle, and the filmmakers behind them are now happy and sad.
As of July 19, two billion-dollar films have been released in the summer of 2022, namely “Jurassic World 3″ and “Life Events”. Last weekend (July 16 and 17), the single-day box office exceeded 140 million yuan.
While the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still volatile, the market has shown no signs of retaliatory movie viewing. Audiences are more cautious in their choices, and most people will check the word-of-mouth of the movie in advance before buying tickets to watch the movie. In this case, films with high quality that were not favored before their release are more likely to achieve a counterattack by virtue of their outstanding word of mouth, while films with high expectations but a decline in word-of-mouth will have a serious reduction in box office expectations.
Among various indicators, the attendance rate is positively related to the reputation of the film. On the evening of July 18, a reporter from China Business News found in a movie theater chain in Songjiang District, Shanghai that “The Detective War” still maintained an attendance rate of about 30% despite the current limit of 50%. The subsequent screening of “Mozart in Outer Space” in the same theater had only three audiences.
Among the new summer films released in the past two weeks, the literary film “Hidden in the Dust” performed well, and the attendance rate was at the forefront of the films of the same period. The police and gangster film “The Detective War” exceeded expectations. After 12 days of release, the single-day box office still maintained the first place, while “Mozart in Outer Space”, which was released for only 5 days, may become the film with the lowest reputation and box office among director Chen Sicheng’s works.
Chen Sicheng’s new work crumbles at the box office
“Mozart in Outer Space” was originally regarded by the industry as the seed player to ignite the enthusiasm for watching movies in the summer.
The configuration of the film can be called an all-star lineup. The main actors are Huang Bo, Yao Chen, and Rong Zishan, a newcomer who has risen through the resources of “The Hidden Corner”. Even the supporting roles are powerful actors such as Fan Wei, Mei Ting, and Huang Jue. In order to match the theme of music and art, the film also invited Lang Lang to make a cameo appearance. There are as many as 6 screenwriters and 10 producers. In addition to Chen Sicheng’s company Yitong Legend, there are also leaders such as Wanda, Ali, China Film, and Shanghai Film. movie company. Investors generally have high expectations for Chen Sicheng, who has won nearly 9 billion yuan at the box office with the “Detective Chinatown” series.
The genre labels of “Mozart in Outer Space” are comedy, sci-fi, family, but it actually doesn’t have much to do with sci-fi, and is closer to fantasy. The story tells that Ren Xiaotian, an astronomy enthusiast, lives in the shadow of his father’s control, practicing the piano he doesn’t like all day long, and is forced to give up his dream. The arrival of the alien “Mozart” relieved the tension between the father and son, and also made the father and son understand the meaning of family affection, respect and tolerate each other’s dreams. Judging from Chen Sicheng’s previous interviews, the original intention of the film was to reflect on family education and intergenerational conflicts, but the development of the story gradually deviated from the main point.
On the first day of the film’s release, Douban failed to score, and the trend continued to decline. It fell to 4.9 points in 5 days, and the film arrangement also fell from 35.7% to 23.8%. According to the forecast of Maoyan Professional Edition, its total box office in the mainland was 397 million yuan. As of 19:00 on July 19, the cumulative box office of the film was 132 million yuan. Some viewers described the look and feel of the film as “like a stick in the throat, like a mang in the back, like sitting on pins and needles”. Criticisms are mainly concentrated on the plot is low, vulgar, etc. “Primary school students feel naive”, some netizens commented.
Objectively speaking, the story of the film is fast-paced, with a high degree of completion, and some special effects scenes also have a fantastic beauty, which is already an excellent work among the 5-point films. But as a children’s film, it doesn’t show much innocence and childlike innocence, as a sci-fi film, it doesn’t shock people’s imagination, and as a comedy film, the function of most of the clips is just to make people laugh. In the various types of directions mixed in the film, they have been relatively unsuccessful. Not only did they fail to meet the needs of audiences of all ages, but they also offended many audience groups.
One of the protagonists of the film is an avatar, the alien Mozart, who is possessed by an ugly panda doll to communicate with friends on Earth. This image is easily reminiscent of the alien Qizai in “Changjiang No. 7”. But Mozart has nothing to do with cuteness in appearance or voice, and some of his expressions are even a bit wretched. The character is dubbed by Chen Sicheng himself. When he opens his mouth and talks about the truth, he is like another “father” in the film, full of preaching and tiresome.
The main creator’s portrayal of women’s images is also relatively flat. In addition to the small actors, Yao Chen, the leader of the fraud gang, is greedy, vicious, and ruthless. The people at the bottom who were deceived and brainwashed by the fraudulent organization were originally desperate victims and were treated as villains in the film. They were portrayed as stupid, blind, and without empathy. The image was also deliberately exaggerated and ugly to highlight The light and wisdom of the positive image.
At the end of the film, there is a preview that “Mozart in Outer Space” will also shoot a sequel. In fact, as early as the 2020 National Cinema Chain Domestic Film Promotion Conference, Chen Sicheng revealed his plan to shoot the “Outer Space” trilogy, focusing on the growth, family and parent-child stories of teenagers. The latter two are “Outer Space”. Chopin and Monet in Outer Space, similar in form to the Harry Potter series. It can be seen that Chen Sicheng has full confidence in this sci-fi series.
Although Chen Sicheng’s past works have high and low reputations, almost every film has at least achieved commercial success, and “Mozart in Outer Space” can be regarded as a reputation and a box office failure. The basis of IP development is high-quality content products, and it has ended in such a situation at the beginning, I am afraid that the development of the sequel will also be temporarily put on hold.
Hong Kong-made police and gangster films are full of insanity
The 40th Hong Kong Film Awards has announced the attribution of various awards. The biggest winner is director Chen Musheng’s posthumous work “Rage: Serious Case”, which won three major awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editing in one fell swoop. , to make up for the director’s five nominations before his death and the regret that he failed again and again. The film was also a dark horse at the box office last summer, with a total box office of 1.329 billion yuan.
Hong Kong-made police and bandit films have always attracted the attention of mainland audiences with their “everything goes too far, everything is crazy” style. From the perspective of plot and style, “The Detective War” and “Rage: Serious Cases” are similar in purpose.
“The Detective War” is written and directed by the 60-year-old Hong Kong director Wei Jiahui. He is the director and screenwriter of many classic Hong Kong dramas such as “The Big Times” and “Unforgiving”. They have maintained close cooperation with them, and the two have collaborated as golden partners in films such as “Detective”, “Goodbye Alang”, “Drug War” and “Blind Detective”. Wei Jiahui’s screenwriting talent is particularly outstanding. His works are usually guaranteed by word of mouth and have strong box office appeal. As of 19:00 on July 19, the cumulative box office of “Detective War” reached 435 million yuan.
“The Detective War” starring Liu Qingyun and Wei Jiahui have cooperated many times since “The Great Era”. In 2007, the “Detective” co-produced by the two left the audience with a long aftertaste. “Genius and lunatic are sometimes two descriptions of the same person”, this theme adds a layer of psychological thriller and psychoanalysis to the film in addition to the elements of police and bandits. Among them, the “magic detective” created by Liu Qingyun has also become a Hong Kong Unique character in film history. In “Detective”, Liu Qingyun once again played a former police detective who is both crazy and divine, but this time, it is more “crazy”, more “enchanted” and more destructive.
The two sides of the war in “The Detective War”, one side is the crazy “Detective” Li Jun played by Liu Qingyun, and the other is the terrorist organization “Detective” formed by the children of victims of unjust cases and wrongful convictions. Li Jun’s goal is to find out the leader behind this mysterious organization . Throughout the film, in addition to the flame of revenge, there is also the speculation of “when you stare at the abyss, the abyss is also staring at you”. This confrontation between the police and the bandits is not only a battle of light and evil, but also thought-provoking. The ambiguity and darkness in the depths of human nature.
However, some viewers pointed out that compared with “Detective”, “Detective War” has many loopholes in logic. The film is fast-paced, but it does not leave the audience thinking space. The intensive gunfights and explosions are exhausting because of the lack of design. Among the films of the same period, “Detective Wars” can still stand out from the siege with its extraordinary level, but compared with the previous works with similar themes, it is inevitable to sigh the decline of creativity. Liu Qingyun, who plays the leading role, is 58 years old this year. Lin Feng, who plays the opposite role with him, has taken over the role of the villain as a leader in the Mesozoic era, but his acting skills are still quite different from those of his predecessors. It is still one of the predicaments of Hong Kong cinema.
At this year’s Awards Ceremony, we paid tribute to 41 filmmakers who passed away in the past two years. Outstanding Hong Kong filmmakers such as Zeng Jiang, Liao Qizhi, Chen Musheng, Wang Yu, Chu Yuan, Luo Qirui, and Ni Kuang have left one after another, which is regrettable. However, in addition to the commercial genre films familiar to mainland audiences, in fact, a new generation of creators are also making their voices heard. Although “Drifting in Turbid Water” directed by the post-90s director Li Junshuo has not been affirmed by the Academy Awards, the reflections on social issues and the observation of marginalized people presented in the film can also show that young filmmakers do not lose the humanistic feelings of their predecessors. and directing talent.
On July 29, “The Band of Seven”, co-directed by seven representative Hong Kong directors, Sammo Hung, Xu Anhua, Tan Jiaming, Yuan Heping, To Qifeng, Lin Lingdong, and Tsui Hark, will be released soon. ” series is similar, one person draws lots and is in charge of one era, directs a story related to Hong Kong, pays tribute to Hong Kong, and the chapter “Lost” is Lin Lingdong’s posthumous work. On the same day, there was also the sci-fi film “Lonely Walking on the Moon” produced by Happy Twist. This film is also a long-awaited collaboration between Shen Teng and Ma Lixuan. The audience’s expectation is among the best in the summer archives. The Hong Kong sci-fi film “Tomorrow’s War” also Announced for August. The summer battle is in full swing. Return to Sohu, see more
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