news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

1. "Shenyang-Mao Group", a rescue move

The box office exceeded 1.3 billion in 5 days. The movie "Catching Dolls" finally activated the cinemas that had been silent for a long time.

The reunion of the "Shen Teng and Ma Li combination" confirms the stable appeal of the national comedian. According to Maoyan Movie's forecast, the total box office of "Catching Dolls" is expected to exceed 3.7 billion yuan. If the goal is achieved, "Catching Dolls" will surpass "Hot and Sizzling" which earned 3.46 billion yuan during the Spring Festival, and "Speeding Life 2" which earned 3.398 billion yuan, and become the box office champion in 2024.

▲ (Image source: Screenshot of Maoyan Professional Edition)

More importantly, after surviving the "worst Dragon Boat Festival period in a decade", theaters that are in a drought are in urgent need of a shot in the arm.

In a group of hundreds of cinema managers, Shijie saw that the popularity of the film, which had been sluggish for a long time, was being revived. One manager lamented: "Without 'Catch the Dolls', the screening side would be in trouble." "Without 'Catch the Dolls', the summer season would not be able to hold up."

The industry was caught off guard by the cold wind. During this year's Spring Festival, the box office revenue of 8.016 billion yuan broke the "Spring Festival box office record in film history", and theater managers were excited and thought that the theater chain would be fully warmed up. Unexpectedly, the situation soon took a sharp turn for the worse.

According to Maoyan Professional Edition, in June, which opened the summer season, the box office was only 2.23 billion yuan, setting the lowest June performance in the past decade except for the special periods of 2020 and 2022.

Entering the Dragon Boat Festival, the situation has not improved. The total box office of 383 million yuan is completely broken compared with last year's box office of more than 900 million yuan - even more dangerous is the extremely low attendance rate. Although the number of screenings scheduled during the Dragon Boat Festival this year has set a record high. However, according to Maoyan Professional Edition, the attendance rate of the top three box office films is only about 5%, with an average of less than 7 people per show.

Amid the widespread grief, there was no movie with a box office of over 1 billion yuan in the five months starting from February. Therefore, the sudden appearance of "Catching Dolls" was given the much-anticipated significance of being a "market rescue film".

On July 14, during the preview of "Catching Dolls", Li Ying bought a ticket to watch the movie early. She recalled to "Shijie" that although it was a preview, the theater was full. She thought that as a comedy, "Catching Dolls" was well-made, with dense laughs and non-stop laughter throughout. "It's not easy for everyone to laugh together in the theater."

▲ (Photo source: Douban)

The popularity of "Catch the Doll" is also a bit of a surprise to the market. After all, before the preview, the number of people who wanted to watch "Catch the Doll" on the client was less than 400,000. In comparison, the number of people who wanted to watch "Twinkle, Twinkle Star", which did not have a bright box office during the New Year's Eve, was more than 2 million.

A cinema manager from Hunan told Shijie that the film company did not provide any material or preheating to the cinema before the release, and the crew's roadshow was arranged after the preview. He found out after the release that "Catching Dolls" was actually the long-rumored "Successor Plan" (the original name of "Catching Dolls").

"On the first day of the preview, I was still hesitating whether to schedule more screenings for the re-screening of Your Name."

It was not until the first day's preview box office of 156 million yuan that many theater managers woke up from their dreams - it turned out that the "Shen Ma combination" still had such a strong audience and appeal.

Compared with many movies in recent years, which were kept secret and released on Douban several days after their release, "Catching Dolls" was released two days after its preview. More than 70,000 people gave the movie a score of 7.5, slightly lower than "Charlotte's Troubles" with 7.9, and higher than "The Richest Man in Xihong City" with 6.6, which is the second highest score among the "Happy Twist" series of movies.

2. The perception is twisted and the reputation is torn

Although many people would classify "Catching Dolls" and "Shen Ma Combination" as part of the Happy Twist system, in fact, the main producer of "Catching Dolls" is Xihong City Films, in which Happy Twist holds a 15% stake. Although the film's directors Yan Fei and Peng Damo were from the early creative team of Happy Twist, they "went solo" in 2016.

Yan Fei and Peng Damo are considered a golden pair in the comedy circle. When they were in Happy Twist, they became famous for their joint creation of "Charlotte's Troubles". After "going solo", the two also created films such as "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and "The Killer Is Not So Calm". Their creative techniques can also be traced: they often rely on "fictional" reality, identity dislocation, etc. to create contrasting contexts to produce comedic effects.

Judging from the density of jokes alone, "Catching Dolls" is undoubtedly a success. "Poor dad, hard-working mom, shabby yard, broken him", the slogan of the promotion covers audiences of all ages and is full of "laughters".

(The following may contain spoilers)

The story of "Catching Dolls" is not complicated: Shen Teng and Ma Li play a wealthy couple in Xihong City. In order to train their second son Ma Jiye to become a top student at Peking University and Tsinghua University and grow him into a qualified heir to the company, they artificially "create" a poor family. As a result, there are many laughs in the plot of concealing the truth, exposing tricks, and solving loopholes.

▲ (Photo source of "Catch the Dolls": Douban)

From the structure setting, we can see that what Yan Fei and Peng Damo want to target or criticize is the unique educational values ​​of East Asian parents, such as raising children in poverty, guilt, and control. The structure setting of the parents played by Shen Teng and Ma Li, who searched for actors to play in order to let their son grow up in a poor environment, is also easily reminiscent of "The Truman Show" starring Jim Carrey, which was released in 1998.

"But if you go to the theater with the intention of watching the 'Chinese educational version' of The Truman Show, you will most likely feel cheated," said Zhou Jing, a viewer, after watching the movie. "Every time you think it might be ironic, a joke is quickly added, diluting your thinking."

This is a Chinese comedy that has the shell of The Truman Show, but its core is extremely torn. It is even described by many as a Chinese educational horror film.

The scary thing about it is that the whole film uses a kind of "Chinese warmth" interspersed with jokes to wrap up the thinking on profound issues, and makes an extremely dramatic presentation of several classic education issues, but with almost no critical power.

The core of comedy is tragedy, not just "fun". The "comedy" of "Catching Dolls" relies on funny skits, using exaggerated character actions, homophonic puns, and stereotypes to tickle the audience's armpits. This kind of laughter is almost subconscious, without thinking or thinking.

The reason why classic films in film history can be passed down forever and be constantly "tributed to" is that in addition to the innovation in the form of story arrangement, the core must be the common emotions and thoughts of human beings.

In The Truman Show, at the end of the film, Truman drove a sailboat, overcame his fear of the sea, and finally reached the end of the "world". He heard the voice of "God" above his head dissuading him: the outside world is just as scary, wouldn't it be better to stay in this utopia I built for you?

▲ (Still from "The Truman Show", Image source: Douban)

Truman answered by stepping into the unknown, real, and not-so-good real world without hesitation. In the real world, audiences around the world who were watching the live broadcast burst into cheers - this was a hymn to courage, a recognition of the pursuit of free will, and the strongest and most intuitive expression of the creator's authorship.

But the camera turned, and the audience who were still in tears and cheering for Truman in the last second looked at the cut-off snowflake screen and asked: "What show are we going to watch next?"

For countless viewers, they just ended a 30-year-long "chasing drama", but this is Truman's life under surveillance and arrangement for half of his life. So far, irony and sadness fill the blank at the end of the work. The film has completed what it ultimately wanted to express, leaving reflection to the audience.

However, the movie "Catching Dolls", which "pays tribute" to its setting, constantly undermines the profundity of the core of the play with skit-style jokes and blurs its reflective nature.

▲ (Photo source: Douban)

When the second half of the film enters the plot of "exposing lies", similar jokes become dense and glaring. For example, when the "grandma" played by the education expert in the play pretends to be dead, she is also arranged to be a "corpse resurrection" joke. Only the children who are kept in the dark cry with real sadness, and have to listen to the last words left by the "grandma" that "I will fly to the sky above the Business Administration Department of Peking University and Tsinghua University to wait for you."

"There was laughter in the theater, but I felt very uncomfortable," Zhou Jing, who was "disgusted", cried in the theater. "Your happiness, anger, sorrow and joy are all controlled and calculated. It's really cruel."

At the end of the film, when the son discovers the truth and is deeply shocked, the exasperated father looks at his proud "work" that is about to get out of control, and blurts out the typical grievance of Chinese parents: Do you think we control your life and you control our lives?

And when the son, like Truman, pushed open the door of the hypocritical studio, and the rhythm of the film reached its highest point, the father interjected at the right time: "Are you coming home for dinner tonight?" - These classic "Chinese questions" all weakened the tragedy of the son Ma Jiye and eliminated the painful blank.

In the final Easter egg, the couple sat in front of the TV, admiring their son who repeated a year and was admitted to a sports college with a score of 705. At this time, the mineral water bottles scattered on the ground attracted their son's attention. He showed a twisted and fascinated expression, gave up the game and turned to pick up the bottles.

In this heart-wrenching moment, the couple's reaction was to tease each other: Oh, what if this leaves a psychological trauma on the child? He doesn't want anything, so what if we give him a younger brother or sister?

The parents' deception went unpunished, leaving behind a wounded, torn child. The awkward jokes also polarized the reputation of "Catch the Doll" a few days after its release.

Some viewers questioned that "Catching Dolls" "only presents, but has no attitude" towards the problems of Chinese families who believe in hardship education and high-intensity control education. Some netizens even made sharp comments: Parents will not reflect after watching it, and only children with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) will feel uncomfortable.

3. The market needs hot products

Audiences who have come to their senses after laughing are re-evaluating the value of "Catching Dolls". As of July 20, the film's score on Douban dropped from 7.5 to 7.4.

Criticisms from the industry are endless. Recently, Lu Chuan directly commented on "Catching Dolls" as "Mahua's low-quality, highly alkaline comedy dominates the film market, which is a cultural tragedy." Although he deleted the comment in seconds, the incident remained on the hot search for two days.

To some extent, Lu Chuan, a representative of the orthodox academic school, disdains "Catching Dolls" and other films, which also reflects the limited space for serious films today, and the helplessness of comedy films that are becoming increasingly clichéd in order to attract laughs.

In 2002, Lu Chuan became famous with his debut film "Looking for the Gun". Two years later, with "Kekexili", Lu Chuan, who was only 33 years old, won 6 Best Picture/Best Director trophies and swept the Golden Horse Awards.

After a promising start, Lu Chuan's films Nanjing! Nanjing (2009), The Banquet (2012), and Nine-story Demon Tower (2015) all suffered box office and reputation failures. Nine-story Demon Tower only scored 4.4 points on Douban, and Lu Chuan himself has hardly contributed any new works in the past decade.

At the same time as Lu Chuan's final film, "Charlotte's Troubles" had a box office of 1.45 billion yuan with a cost of 21 million yuan, winning the box office championship during the National Day holiday, opening a new chapter of "comedy landing school". With this film, the "Shen Ma Combination" also jumped from theater partners and Spring Festival Gala comedians to the front line of the domestic film industry, and their popularity and commercial value soared.

But while the comedy under the Happy Twist system is popular, it is difficult for the audience to bring the level of thinking and enjoyment of the previous generation of serious filmmakers. In recent years, the style of the comedy under the Happy Twist system has become increasingly superficial.

Starting from "The Richest Man in Xihong City" in 2018, this movie, which was regarded as "money-worshiping at its core", eventually won a super high box office of 2.5 billion, and also made Happy Twist go deeper and deeper on the road of "fiction".

▲ (Stills from "The Richest Man in Xihong City", source: Douban)

In the next two years, the backgrounds and characters of "The Moon Walks Alone" and "The Professional" became more bizarre. In "The Professional", a killer in a fairy tale world was created; while "The Moon Walks Alone" used comedy to discuss grand topics such as life and the universe, which seemed inadequate. Audiences commented that Happy Twist has entered the stage of mechanically piling up jokes.

In fact, whether it is Happy Twist or a movie like "Catching Dolls", it is difficult to reverse the overall bleak trend of the entire film industry, the lack of blockbusters, and the inverted relationship between word-of-mouth and box office overnight.

In the first half of this year, the overall supply of high-quality, big-budget movies was insufficient, and the number of moviegoers continued to decline. The fact that a comedy like "Catch the Dolls," which was not expected to be highly anticipated by the filmmakers before its release, could soar to the top can also be seen as a result of the audience's helplessness in having few choices.

Under the premise of insufficient momentum in the first half of the year, the confidence of many big productions in "releasing" has been reduced, and the pace has become more conservative.

For example, Enlight Media's "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" was once seen as a work that could take on the "main responsibility" of the summer season. Its predecessor, "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World", was a phenomenal work in the 2019 summer season, earning more than 5 billion yuan at the box office and topping the mainland box office champion that year.

But this year, "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" has not been scheduled. Another Guangguang film, "A Chinese Odyssey", which was originally scheduled for the May Day holiday, was also withdrawn. Founder Wang Changtian said: The May Day holiday was too crowded, the proportion of films scheduled was low and the marketing cost was rising; on the other hand, "A Chinese Odyssey" was produced in a short time, the marketing had not yet been fully launched, and the popularity was insufficient - in the final analysis, lack of confidence was the core.

However, "Catching Dolls" has ignited the summer season, which will inject energy into the industry and hopefully encourage more films to follow suit and start promoting their films.

On August 9, "Reverse Life", directed and starred by Xu Zheng, will be released. The film is told from the perspective of a deliveryman and is another realistic film by Xu Zheng after "Dying to Survive". It is also regarded by the industry as one of the biggest highlights of the summer season.

Wuershan, who is working hard on the "Fengshen Trilogy", did not present "Fengshen 2" as scheduled in this summer's season, but brought a new movie "Under the Alien", which will be released on July 26.

In addition, Chen Sicheng, who reaped great rewards with "Gone Girl" last summer, also brought a new spy film "Decryption", which is adapted from the novel of the same name by writer Mai Jia. Chen Sicheng, who has been repeatedly questioned for only focusing on Douyin's hot searches to make movies, can try to see if he can handle serious themes this time.

(Li Ying and Zhou Jing are pseudonyms)