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The summer season once again proves the cruelty of the film market.

In July, the low-budget suspense film "The Silent Killer" successfully broke through. Due to the continuous fermentation of word-of-mouth, the box office has exceeded 600 million in 8 days after its release. It currently accounts for 37% of the screenings. The media predicts that the final box office will reach more than 1.5 billion, making it a dark horse in the summer season.

On the other hand, the fantasy blockbuster "Legend" starring Jackie Chan only grossed 6.67 million on the first day of its premiere, which was completely crushed by "The Quiet Place" and was even worse than the Pixar animation "Inside Out 2" which had been released for 20 days.

The media predicts that the final box office of "Legend" will barely exceed 100 million.

Bona Film Group invested 50 million US dollars (equivalent to 364 million yuan) in this film, and this time it is sure to lose all its money.

It is said that Jackie Chan's salary is 50 million, which means that the 100 million box office, minus the theater's share, is not enough to pay Jackie Chan's salary.

Seeing that "Legend" is about to become the "No. 1 box office disaster" of the summer season, we can't help but ask, is this movie really useless?

If not, what is the problem?

01、

The sequel to the 2005 Sino-Korean fantasy blockbuster "The Myth" features international superstars Jackie Chan and Stanley Tong working together again, with top mainland stars Zhang Yixing and Guli Nazha joining in. The film was shot at great expense to create the ancient battlefield of the Hexi grasslands of the Western Han Dynasty.

Bona Film Group was already very confident about this "summer blockbuster", which is why it started previews in major cities across the country before its release.

Little do people know that preview screenings are a double-edged sword.

Small-scale previews before the release of the film can allow word of mouth to ferment among the audience, create heat and discussion for the film, and then trigger topics across the entire network, affecting the first round of screenings, and ultimately completely detonating the theater chain.

The most successful case is "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" in 2019. The audience's expectations were not high at first, but after three rounds of previews, it quickly gained popularity and eventually sold 5 billion yuan at the box office.

Last year's summer movies "The Octagon", "30,000 Miles from Chang'an" and "Fengshen" all followed this pattern and achieved great success in both word-of-mouth and box office.

On the contrary, if the quality of the movie is not good, the preview will expose the shortcomings of the movie in advance.

Judging from the situation after the preview of "Legend", its negative impact is even greater.

"Legend" grossed 36.19 million yuan at the preview screening. It has not yet been officially released, but it has received a lot of negative reviews online. Even with several big V film critics cheering for it, it is of no avail.

To be honest, "Legend" is not without its merits.

Pigo feels that there are at least three highlights in the film, and the handling of the plot even surpasses its predecessor "The Myth".

Similar to the "ancient line + modern line" story pattern of "Myth", "Legend" is also divided into two lines, ancient and modern.

But its ancient line, set inThe history of the famous Western Han general Huo Qubing opening up the Hexi Corridor, which adds a bit of historical authenticity to the film.

Tang Jili has the ability to control large scenes, and Bona Film Group is not short of money. The scenes of the two armies confronting each other on the Hexi grassland and thousands of horses galloping were all real shots.

The armor, horse equipment and weapons used by the Western Han Dynasty cavalry soldiers are all very particular. The visual impact of the horse battle scenes is very strong, and the action design of the fighting scenes has also reached the level of a blockbuster.

In the modern drama interspersed with flashbacks, Jackie Chan also tells the audience about this period of history as "Professor Fang Shilong" and introduces the most precious combat resource on the battlefield at that time - the Ferghana horse.

This unremitting "popular science" also allows the audience to see the intentions of the main creators, as if they were watching a spin-off of the TV series "Emperor Wu of Han".

The ancient drama in "The Myth" revolves around three people: Qin Dynasty General Meng Yi (played by Jackie Chan), Princess Yu Shu (played by Kim Hee Sun) and General Nangong Yan (played by Shao Bing).

Princess Yu Shu has many roles in the film but she is just a big vase; General Nangong Yan is just a big supporting role who always protects (has a crush on) Princess Yu Shu.

The ancient drama in "Legend" also has three protagonists: the Xiongnu princess Mengyun (played by Nazha), generals Zhao Zhan (played by Jackie Chan) and Hua Jun (played by Zhang Yixing) beside Huo Qubing.

Replacing Kim Hee Sun with the popular young actress Nazha is actually the wisest choice for the crew. Not only is she beautiful, has a great appearance and temperament, and good acting skills, but she is also very good at action scenes.

In the film, Princess Mengyun has a sword-dancing scene, which is comparable to the dance of Princess Yushu in "The Myth".

With her solid dancing skills, Nazha danced with the long sword in her hand with great vigor, slashing in the air with swiftness and power, and beauty in her elegance. Her dance was even more outstanding and more enjoyable to watch than Kim Hee Sun's dance back then.

Although she is not an action actor, Nazha has very good body flexibility and coordination.

The film arranges a large number of fighting scenes for Princess Mengyun, which Nazha can easily complete on her own without the need for a body double. This shows her professionalism on the one hand, and makes the presentation of the action scenes more realistic and beautiful on the other.

The action scene in which Princess Mengyun fights the Xiongnu leader Huduna (played by Aarif Lee) to avenge her mother's death is the climax of the film.

Compared to the brilliant sword-dancing scenes earlier, Nazha's sharp sword skills, which were filled with hatred, were more resolute, and in the end she died together with her enemy, which was also extremely tragic. It should be affirmed that Nazha has portrayed the character's image very successfully.

Let’s talk about the popular young actor Zhang Yixing. His movie “All or Nothing” earned 3.85 billion yuan during the summer vacation last year. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether the collaboration between Jackie Chan and Zhang Yixing is Zhang Yixing taking advantage of Jackie Chan’s traffic or Jackie Chan taking advantage of Zhang Yixing’s traffic.

As the second male lead in the film, he has quite a few roles. Not only does he bring the image of a young general to life, but his fighting scenes are also quite good.

Therefore, it was definitely the right choice for "Legend" to cast Zhang Yixing and Guli Nazha as the leading actors.

It is worth mentioning that the "ancient line" and "modern line" in this film developed in parallel and independently. There is no weird plot like in "The Myth" where Princess Yu Shu lay flat in a cave for 2000 years and traveled to the modern era. This also seems more reasonable.

02、

The above are the more prominent advantages of "Legend". Some people on the Internet said that if this movie only had ancient dramas, it would at least get a score of 60.

The problem lies with the other "modern line" and Jackie Chan, who is already 70 years old.

If we say that the 28-year-old Kim Hee Sun and the 51-year-old Jackie Chan were in love in "The Myth", it would be outrageous but still acceptable.

In "Legend", Nazha, who is 32 years old, is going to have a "grandparent-grandson love" with Jackie Chan, who is 70 years old. The age span is quite explosive!

Of course, neither Tang Jili nor Jackie Chan are fools. They also know that no one can stand this kind of "grandparent-grandchild combination".

So they racked their brains and finally came up with a solution, which was to use AI to "de-age" Jackie Chan, making him look like he was 27 years old.

There are cases where CG special effects technology is used to reduce the age of actors. Last year, Lucasfilm spent $295 million to make Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones look like a young man. The film eventually grossed $384 million worldwide, which was a good result but still difficult to make back.

The operation of "AI Jackie Chan" in "Legend" is bolder than that in "Indiana Jones 5". General Zhao Zhan in the "ancient line" is played entirely by Jackie Chan generated by AI.

"AI Jackie Chan" not only occupies the most scenes in the entire film, but even has more scenes than Professor Fang played by Jackie Chan himself in the "Modern Line".

In fact, as early as May 24 this year, at the 2024 Cultural Power Construction Summit Forum, Bona Film Group demonstrated on-site a 25-year-old Jackie Chan wearing a space suit restored using AI technology.

Perhaps no one realized at the time that they would be the "first to try" in the movie "Legend" and use "AI Jackie Chan" to replace Jackie Chan's own performance.

The image of the 27-year-old "AI Jackie Chan" version of General Zhao Zhan was also shown in the trailer and Douyin video released by the movie.

To be honest, at first glance, you will think he is very handsome; at second glance, you will think he is a little weird; at another glance, the uncanny valley effect will come up.

What is the Uncanny Valley Effect?

That is, when we see an object that resembles a human, as the object becomes more and more similar to a human, our favorability will increase;

But when it gets very close to humans, once it reaches a certain critical point, our favorability will suddenly drop drastically, and we may even feel inexplicable resistance, disgust, and fear.

The "AI Jackie Chan" in the film may look handsome at first glance, but then you will find that his eyes do not blink and he has almost no expression.

Although "Indiana Jones 5" spent a lot of money on special effects, most of the scenes in which the middle-aged Indiana Jones appears were arranged in night scenes, in order to use soft light to cover up the possible flaws of CG special effects.

"Legend" goes the other way. The scenes where "AI Jackie Chan" appears are all in broad daylight with plenty of light, and the cheap feeling of the "50-cent special effects" is fully exposed.

Especially in the scene where Princess Mengyun is healing Zhao Zhan's injuries, there are several close-up shots of Jackie Chan's face. His facial features look like they are painted on a flesh-colored egg, and his stiff facial expression is extremely eye-catching.

If we look closely, we can also see that the body proportions of the "AI Jackie Chan" are obviously very different from those of Jackie Chan himself. In other words, the "AI Jackie Chan" only borrowed Jackie Chan's facial features, but the "body" belongs to someone else.

There are rumors that Zheng Yecheng, who plays the soldier Ye Cheng in the film, is the stand-in for "AI Jackie Chan". Although he does not have many scenes, he is the real "hidden protagonist" of the whole film.

03、

As for the "modern line" part, it completely exposed the narrative shortcomings of Tang Jili and Jackie Chan's team.

The "modern line" tells the story of Professor Fang and his assistant Wang Jing (played by Zhang Yixing) who accidentally opened the Huns' sacred place for worshiping the sky during archaeological excavations, and then had a fierce fight with the shaman tomb robber Herber (played by Aarif Lee) and his gang in the underground palace.

Since most of the film's length is devoted to the "ancient line", the narrative process of the "modern line" appears to be very sloppy.

There is almost no character development, and the action scenes are choreographically arranged to accommodate Jackie Chan, who is already 70 years old and can no longer fight, by omitting those complicated and difficult moves, and the punches and kicks seem like playing house.

The literary scenes are not well-written, and the fighting scenes are not well-written. This "modern line" seems very useless in the movie, and it also drags down the whole film, eroding the audience's good impression of the "ancient line" story and the attentive performances of Nazha and Zhang Yixing.

But if we think about it carefully, the "AI Jackie Chan" with a stiff expression in the "ancient line" and this superfluous "modern line" are actually serving Jackie Chan alone.

Jackie Chan is the leading male role in "Legend", but he is also the most embarrassing presence in the movie and it is he who drags down the entire movie.

At this point we have to bring up the topic of "Jackie Chan is old" again.

As early as 2012, when "Chinese Zodiac" was released, Jackie Chan had revealed that he was considering retiring. Recently, there has been a voice on the Internet saying that if Jackie Chan had retired when "Kung Fu Yoga" was a box office hit in 2017, he might still be a legend in world cinema today.

In the past seven years, all the movies starring Jackie Chan, from "Bleeding Steel", "Detective Pu Songling", to "The Mystery of Dragon Seal", "Vanguard", "Dragon Horse Spirit" and "Raging Sand Storm", have been labeled as "bad movies" without exception.

The Douban scores are all below 7 points and the box office results are a complete failure.

It means that Jackie Chan's reputation as an "international superstar" is strong enough to attract so many investors, and even Bona Film Group is willing to give him money to "spend".

But Jackie Chan himself doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from his failures, nor has he figured out what the audience really wants to see.

This time he used cheap special effects to create an "AI Jackie Chan". Does he think that the audience likes movies like "Project A", "Police Stories" and "Project Condor" because they are attracted by his looks when he was young?

04、

The box office failure of "Legend" has once again verified Chen Sicheng's predictions about Chinese films.

Chen Sicheng once said at the 2020 Beijing Film Festival Forum that a successful commercial film must have one of the following two qualities:

One type is blockbusters like "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Fengshen" that can showcase the powerful film industry.

The immersive experience brought by the high-level audio-visual effects in the cinema cannot be replaced by ordinary streaming movies, so audiences are willing to spend money to watch it.

The other type is realistic films that can reflect profound social realities and hit everyone's soft spots.

Only when the audience can find emotional resonance will they be willing to pay to go to the cinema and experience "emotional resonance" with a group of strangers.

"Legend" has neither of these two qualities. The "AI Jackie Chan" can neither bring a good audio-visual experience, nor can the poor plot that is out of touch with reality resonate with the audience. The failure of the movie is therefore inevitable.

Text/PiPi Movie Editorial Department: Passionate and Loyal

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