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As the "rescue work" of the 2024 summer season, "Catch dolls》lived up to expectations and was a box office success.

At the same time, there are some hot topics both inside and outside the play. For example, some people think this movie is the "funniest" in history, for example, this movie also helped Shen Teng and Ma Li break the record, and for example, it is rare that a comedy also triggered the audience's thinking - the discussion of educational issues has practical significance.

Surprisingly, Lu Chuan, who has nothing to do with the film, is the funniest. Therefore, we have summarized the seven "best" points.

the following--

1. The funniest

Many people commented that "Catching Dolls" is the funniest film produced by Happy Twist (although it is not actually a Twist movie). For example, Han Han said at the premiere that "I have laughed the happiest I have ever laughed in a movie theater in my life."

However, I remembered Han Han once said, "If you like something, you will be unrestrained; if you love something, you will be restrained." Suddenly... I understood something - such an "unrestrained" evaluation should mean that you don't like this movie. Otherwise - that chicken soup is fake.

Coincidentally, another director, Lu Chuan, also made a comment on "Catching Dolls", which seemed to be the opposite of Han Han's. No wonder, these two are "dead enemies" and had a notable verbal battle that broke out in the past.

The feud between Lu Chuan and Han Han originated from his father Lu Tianming, which also led to the latter's famous saying: the literary world is a piece of shit, no one should pretend to be a piece of shit. I won't go into the details of this matter, but those who have witnessed the verbal battle still find it hard to imagine that one day Han Han will be so smooth and versatile.

Very good, this is - ripe.

2. The most embarrassing

Let’s talk about Lu Chuan.

On July 16, his account with the same name on Toutiao posted a comment under the hashtag #Is the movie "Catching Dolls" worth watching#, writing:

"It is a cultural tragedy that Mahua's low-quality, highly alkaline comedy films dominate the Chinese film market."

In fact, I don’t really know what “low-quality, strong alkalinity” means, but this phrase is quite similar to “high-quality, strong acidity”.

Immediately, it attracted attention, and the term #Luchuan harshly criticizes catching dolls# became a hot search.

On the afternoon of July 17, Lu Chuan’s company “Ape Power Entertainment Pictures” issued a statement denying that it had posted such a post, and used the excuse that almost all celebrities use after making inappropriate remarks on social media - the account was hacked.

Later, Lu Chuan reposted it, saying, "Lao Shen is a buddy, Xiao Shi is one of the male protagonists in my last movie, and he is my younger brother. Every movie has the hard work and attitude of the creators, and they all deserve respect. I wish the movie a big hit."

At 6:45 p.m. that day, Toutiao’s “Toutiao Security Center” also spoke out, pointing out without naming names that Lu Chuan’s team’s claim of “theft” was untrue because “the information of the mobile device used to log in, post, and delete posts were all the same.”

So embarrassing.

In fact, before becoming a director, Lu Chuan, like Han Han, was a writer, a screenwriter, and also wrote film reviews. He used to hang out on online forums, criticizing and making friends with a bunch of film critics. So, it is conceivable that he has the habit of writing film reviews.

Therefore, it is highly likely that Lu Chuan "cut to the wrong trumpet", but he had no way to face his "brother", so he could only choose "being stolen".

Otherwise, another possibility is that someone from the team wrote it for me. But I can’t talk about this.

After that, no matter how Lu Chuan tries to smooth it over - it's time to test the team's PR ability! Most likely, it will just be left alone, and the film producers probably won't mind. This will only make the story more popular.

Therefore, Lu Chuan, like his former "enemy" Han Han, jointly contributed the biggest behind-the-scenes story of "Catching Dolls". Han Han seemed to be praising, but in fact he was mocking, and Lu Chuan seemed to be criticizing, but in fact he wanted to add fuel to the fire.

Well, it’s all well-intentioned.

3. The most advanced screenings

"Catching Dolls" was officially released on July 16, but some viewers said that it felt like it had been released for "a week".

Many people feel the same way. The reason is that on July 13, the first day of the preview, the screening rate was close to 30%, and on the third day of the preview, it was as high as 37.3%. What does this mean? The screening rate of the official movies is less than half of that of the original movies. For example, Jackie Chan's "legend”, only 11% of the screenings were scheduled on the first day.

The dark horse of the 2023 summer seasonput all one's eggs in one basket》 had a maximum screening rate of only 24% during the preview period.Octagonal Cage》pre-screening reached a peak of 21.3%; evenConferred Gods Part 1》 only had 17.8% of the screening time on the first day of its release.

Therefore, it can be seen how strong the preview of "Catching Dolls" is.

As a result, "Catching Dolls" also set a record - the movie with the most preview screenings in history.

4. The summer box office is the highest

The preview is so strong, let alone the official release?

On July 16, the screening of "Catching Dolls" reached 40%, and the box office share exceeded 72%. It won the "Four Grand Slams" of daily box office championship, daily number of moviegoers championship, daily attendance championship, and daily pre-sale championship for four consecutive days.

Maoyan Professional Edition estimates that the final cumulative box office will reach 3.75 billion, which is 100 million less than the actual box office of last year's summer champion "All or Nothing". But it surpassed the previous film of the Shen Ma duo, "Lone Moon” (3.1 billion), it still wins in horizontal comparison.

Unsurprisingly, this movie will be the champion of this summer's box office, and may even become the "annual champion", but it is hard to say whether it can break through 4 billion.

5. The most controversial

Compared with other films of the Shenma duo, or films of Happy Twist, this film not only has comedy function, but also has some value - reflecting on the poverty-oriented education.

As a result, it gained a rare "topic" discussion space in the comedy field - to put it bluntly, it caused controversy. The most obvious one is that the audience thinks this is "Chinese horror", and this label once jumped to the top of the hot search list (most likely it was actively marketed by the film company to increase the audience).

But some viewers took it seriously. For example, they put themselves into Xiao Ma's perspective and felt it was too suffocating. As one Douban netizen said, "Almost all the jokes are based on deceiving children. They killed Ma Jiye."

Of course, there are also viewers who will put themselves in the parents' perspective. In other words, this movie makes both sides unhappy.

In fact, talking about a movie by putting oneself in the role of the character can only be regarded as an ordinary review, rather than an interpretation of the core of the movie. In layman's terms, it means that one does not quite understand the production of the movie.

The real problem with "Catching Dolls" is not here.

From the perspective of a middle-class family (or just an ordinary family) who can afford to watch the movie, this movie is very successful in terms of "raising values". It is indeed not right to treat children like this. Children should be allowed to develop freely rather than being subjected to a repressive "poor-style education".

However, if we take a step back and stand in the perspective of the truly poor (imagine how many families have an annual income of less than 1,000 yuan), we will find that the movie has conducted an "in absentia trial" on this group of people - they have no chance to go to the cinema at all, and "defying fate" education is their only way out (otherwise they will continue to fall to the bottom). We should respect this effort to change their fate in order to escape from the ant class, rather than ridicule it.

The director certainly didn't intend to do so, but the finished film is superficial - in other words, for many reasons, it fails to really get to the core of the issue.

The specific explanation was mentioned in an article published by "Entertainment Spring and Autumn" on July 15, so I will just supplement it here.

When many netizens refuted us, they would say “it’s all for laughs, what’s the point”. This is quite interesting – the movie itself has values ​​and discusses family education, so commentators are not allowed to raise values?

In fact, we hope that someone will have a serious discussion rather than just have a laugh - I believe that the director also does not just want to have a laugh.

Moreover, in the movie, there is indeed such a space for discussion on the issue of wealth and poverty - if one is willing to discuss it. However, it seems that many people refuse to discuss this issue, and the silent majority can only remain silent.

6. The most confusing

Another thing that puzzled the audience was why the film was titled “Catching Dolls”?

The title of this film is indeed quite mysterious, and it also breaks away from the usual style of Mahua-style comedy - homophonic puns and continuation of classics.

For example, "The Troubles of Charlotte" is obviously a variation of the famous novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther";This killer is not very calm”, and the film history classic “This killer is not too cold》Head-on-head, this style also includes 《Thelma and Madness” (actually it was not directed by Mahua, but was directed by Mahua) is a parody of Thelma & Louise.Li Mao replaced the crown prince” (not even Mahua’s) will be deducted points directly...and the earlier pure Mahua drama work "The Count of Wulong Mountain" was undoubtedly inspired by "The Count of Monte Cristo".

At present, the creators have not yet explained the title of "Catching Dolls", but our understanding is that it may be related to a line at the end of the movie, where Lao Ma said to Xiao Ma -

“You think you are in control of your life, but aren’t you in control of our lives too?”

"Grasp" means "control".

In addition, there is another explanation. Just like the "claw doll" game that everyone has played, the "doll" is caught by the crane arm, but it is not firm and always falls halfway. In fact, everyone who has played the "claw doll" game knows that it is a matter of probability. The background sets a number of times to catch the doll within a time period to ensure that the doll caught by the player is much lower than the cost. In other words -

Whether you can catch it or not is not decided by you, but by the system.

7. Shen and Ma become the highest-grossing actors

As of July 18, "Catching Dolls" has exceeded 800 million yuan at the box office, and this achievement has helped Shen Teng surpass Wu Jing to become the highest-grossing male actor in Chinese film history. In total, the total box office of Shen Teng's personal starring movies has exceeded 34 billion yuan.

In addition to supporting Shen Teng, it also gave Ma Li an opportunity to break a record - becoming the first actress to have a box office of over 20 billion.

However, I remember a performing artist with both moral integrity and artistic talent once said that box office data is not important, what is important is quality.

It is true and not empty words.