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When watching Jackie Chan's movies, you can never just watch those from mainland China and Hong Kong.

but"legendThere are actually reasons why the box office performance of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" in mainland China is not satisfactory. There are three main reasons: one is Stanley Tong, two is Bona, three is Jackie Chan, and four is Hong Kong films.

1. Jackie Chan doesn’t want to change

Jackie Chan's appeal in mainland China is indeed not as strong as it used to be. The biggest selling point of his movies is action comedy.

As Jackie Chan gets older, his sales naturally slow down, and he is unwilling to take on films like "British Showdown》or feature films, I don’t want to just be behind the scenes.

Otherwise, with his directing ability and the strength of the Cheng family team, it would not be a problem for him to make some good action movies. Instead, he always cooperated with some mediocre people to produce "Vanguard》《Dragon Horse Spirit》《Kung Fu Yoga》 and other bad movies like "Rumble in the Bronx" and "New Police Story 2" in the future. The quality of the finished products can be imagined.

As a result, many young audiences who have not watched Jackie Chan's previous movies will form an impression that Jackie Chan equals bad movies. When a movie featuring Jackie Chan is released, its appeal will definitely be greatly reduced.

But Jackie Chan is already 70 years old and has been filming movies all his life.Chinese Zodiac》He has not changed since then, and it is impossible to expect him to change now, so the probability of Jackie Chan making a good movie in the future is very low.

But what makes Jackie Chan different from other Chinese-speaking actors is that he has a huge overseas market.

There are also countless fans abroad, many of whom are willing to support Jackie Chan's movies, regardless of whether they are good or bad, similar to a fan circle.

For example, the overseas copyright of "Legend" has been sold for 5 million US dollars, and "Dragon Horse Spirit" has recovered its costs just by relying on the overseas copyrights in some regions and countries. The copyright of "Vanguard" has been sold to 145 countries and regions, and the epic bad movie "Raging Sand" quickly topped Netflix's popularity list as soon as it was released.

This is one of the main reasons why Bona, Tang Jili, and local cultural and tourism industries are leveraging Jackie Chan, because if they want to go global, they still have to rely on Jackie Chan.

2. Tang Jili, a man of average ability

Audiences who have watched "Legend" know that Jackie Chan's role in the film is only about 20 minutes. The costume drama uses AI face-changing, and the real protagonists are Zhang Yixing, Nazha, and Aarif Lee.

In other words, Tang Jili used Jackie Chan's name to make a movie, but he was too superstitious about the old routines, and his own level was extremely limited, and he didn't understand the current market preferences.

In addition, the previous film of the same genre, "Kung Fu Yoga", was the champion of the 2017 Spring Festival, and "myth》 was so popular that he mistakenly thought that he could do it again, but the audience voted with their feet.

Legend cannot be likeSilent Kill》It cannot provide emotional value like “My Altay”, and it cannot focus on the beautiful scenery and use the story as an aid to make people want to go there.

Three things you can't do likeCatch dolls》 is just as hilarious, four, the story is old-fashioned and boring, five, the actors’ acting is a bit awkward, and six, Jackie Chan’s funny and creative juggling moves are gone.

But there is almost nothing to watch. The only real-life shots and scenes of thousands of horses galloping were not from Tang Jili's hand, but were local resources in Xinjiang. Tang Jili just needed to set up a camera.

Another highlight is AI Jackie Chan, but how effective is the face-changing effect? ​​Everyone knows it well.

Tang Jili said that he used 20%-30% of the cost of "Gemini Man", but judging from the current appearance on the big screen, the expressions are wooden and there are no emotions. It is most likely the face-changing technology used in short videos. The highlight has become a point of criticism. What else is attractive about "Legend"?

Tang Jili is no longer the same as he used to be. His coordination and screenwriting abilities in "Police Story 3" are long gone, but Jackie Chan still chose him, destroying his own reputation. Although every movie can be sold abroad, overseas fans and copyright holders will wake up one day after watching too many bad movies.

The nostalgia for the three Hong Kong films is no longer useful

In recent years, Hong Kong movies released in mainland China are basically police and gangster films. Pure action films like "Kowloon Walled City" are rare, and even feature films like "The Hard Knocks" are rare.

But what is the final result? Nine out of ten are bad movies, and every time it is a combination of old people such as Louis Koo, Lau Ching Wan, Lam Ka Tung, Andy Lau, Francis Ng, etc., or the director is Herman Yau.

When promoting a product, they always play the emotional card. It may work once or twice, but if it happens too often, it becomes a story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."

Audiences are no longer easily fooled, and Hong Kong films have been labeled as bad movies, which is difficult to change no matter who endorses them.

On the other hand, although "Legend" is a co-production, it stars Jackie Chan as the main character, so everyone's first impression of it is that it is a Hong Kong film. So labels come to mind, and the first choice is to exclude "Legend".

It is because Hong Kong films are not enterprising and are living off their resources that the overall environment has deteriorated. Under the same conditions, when mainland films and Hong Kong films are released at the same time, most people will choose the mainland.

Firstly, Hong Kong has not had any new successors in the past 20 years, while the mainland has had a constant stream of successors, and the movie-watching groups have changed again and again. Hong Kong films have not kept up, and it is difficult for moviegoers to attract new ones. Secondly, Hong Kong films have brought this upon themselves.

"Legend" is very old, Jackie Chan and Kim Hee Sun are old, and "The Myth" was 19 years ago, but "The Myth" at least had a song "Beautiful Myth". "Legend" has nothing, and the feelings cannot have a positive impact but instead aggravate the negative effects.

Fourth, Bona’s strategic mistakes

The external cost of "Legend" is 350 million, but this number is very false. Bona's main work is "Operation Jiaolong”, at first a lot of codes were indeed added to “Legend”, but in the process more than 100 million was withdrawn for “Operation Jiaolong”, and the publicity and promotion costs of “Legend” were also cut a lot.

The big scenes in the film are all about resource exchanges, such as the Tianma Festival and the mountains and rivers, which are all cooperation between local cultural tourism and Bona. Bona borrowed their resources, and they borrowed Jackie Chan in "Legend" to allow the local beauty to be promoted in the mainland and abroad to attract more tourists. This reduced the cost of "Legend" by more than half.

As for Jackie Chan's salary, Jackie Chan doesn't have many scenes, so he won't get the full price. It should be a friendship price. The expenses in this regard are less. Zhang Yixing, Nazha, Li Zhiting and others' salaries are not high, which does not account for much of the cost. As for AI technology, as long as the audience has eyes, they know that this thing does not cost much. What about the publicity and promotion costs? "Legend" is not overwhelming.

All in all, the cost of "Legend" is not as high as people say.

But Bona has always told people that "Legend" is a costume action blockbuster with an international vision, but when you see it in the theater, the difference is huge. The audience feels cheated, and it is impossible to increase the box office.

During the same period, "The Silent Killer" was making steady progress, "Catching Dolls" was unstoppable, and "Legend" had actually reached its end. It would have been better for it to go to the Spring Festival to attract some audiences over 30 years old. The summer season is obviously not the place for "Legend".

From this we can see that the failure of "Legend" is an overall problem. Jackie Chan's appeal in the mainland is just not as strong as before, but it would be biased to completely deny Jackie Chan's influence.