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Wuershan always wears a pair of signature red thin-framed glasses, a silver earring on his left ear, a small beard, sharp eyes, and a face that always shows a peaceful and stable expression.

This rough Mongolian man spoke in a low voice.

The movie "Under the Alien" released on July 26th once again brought Wuershan to the top of the traffic charts. He is a director who actively chooses to come in front of the public and is accustomed to using his own lens and narrative language to tell oriental mythology.

Wuershan has always wanted to make a Chinese supernatural comic movie. When he saw Mi Er's "Under One Person" comic, he was extremely excited. Mi Er drew everything he wanted to achieve in the movie on paper. "After finishing the "Fengshen" trilogy, I told myself that I must make this movie."

Having entered the industry for 20 years, from "Painted Skin 2", "Mojin: The Legend", "Fengshen Trilogy" to the current "Under the Strange", Wuershan is obsessed with fantasy adventure films, and his ambition is to create an epic masterpiece of Chinese mythology.

The three words "Wulshan" mean forward and advance in Mongolian. This word has profound meaning in Mongolian culture, symbolizing bravery, courage and firm spirit.

Wuershan is an extremely rational person with a quick mind. At the same time, he has mastered this ability and has produced a few works, which have repeatedly created box office miracles.

Different from other creators who work out their works in pain, Wuershan is a self-consistent director who is never twisted.

There is no doubt that Wuershan is now a loyal supporter of the Chinese film industry. He has gained the trust of capital and has a place in the Chinese film industry.

Wuershan never thought of being an artist whose music was too highbrow for the masses; he has always been among the crowd.

On July 26, the movie "Under the Alien" directed by Wuershan was released, starring Hu Xianxu, Li Wanda and Feng Shaofeng.

As a super IP with comics, animations, TV dramas and movies, the national popularity of "Under the Aliens" is self-evident.

The original novel "Under One Person" is the pinnacle of Chinese comics. It has been serialized for eight years and has received over 30 billion hits. Since the official announcement of Wuershan's film, the number of viewers who want to watch it has remained high.

Poster of Under One Person

Talking about the original intention of filming "Under the Alien", Wuershan said: "I hope to fill the gap in Chinese film genres and make our own Chinese-style superpower movie."

This is a huge movie with many characters. Zhang Chulan, who has been hiding his identity as an alien, has been drawn into the vortex of fighting between different alien sects since he met Feng Baobao, who has a mysterious background.

"Under the Alien" reveals vigorous vitality and youthfulness in its camera, character setting, and aesthetic elements, which can be called a visual bombardment.

Movie clip of "Under the Alien"

Fantasy blockbuster productions are a type of film industrialization, with grand scenes, careful research, and excellent masterpieces... This is also what Wuershan has been doing.

He often said that myths are public dreams and dreams are private myths.

The film "Under the Alien" is full of fantasy elements such as Qimen Dunjia, Yin and Yang, Five Elements, Miao witchcraft, etc. It is worth mentioning that these elements take place in modern cities, and the alien skills are integrated with modern music, which is both second-year and passionate.

Just a few days after the movie was released, word of mouth was clearly polarized.

Some people think that the action scenes and special effects are quite enjoyable, and the storyline has no barriers to entry, so viewers who have not watched the anime or drama can also watch it.

Some people also complained that it was "a vulgar and rustic carnival with too many sexual references to be uncomfortable, and Lao Deng's aesthetic, from the perspective of the original work, completely abandoned the essence and took the dregs."

Movie clip of "Under the Alien"

Breaking down dimensional barriers is always full of unknowns and risks. As a director, how could Wuershan not know this?

The premiere of "Under the Alien" was only 39.1 million, with a similar "hell start" to last year's "Investiture of the Gods". Wuershan said calmly during the roadshow:

"You'll get used to it. There are similarities between "Under the Strange Man" and "Investiture of the Gods". They are both innovative works in the Chinese film genre. The former is an attempt at a mythological epic, while the latter is a Chinese-style superpower comic adaptation movie.

They are quite new to the innovation of Chinese films and the audience, and they feel a little unfamiliar. I hope everyone can go to the cinema to experience it. What others say is not important, what is important is to go and see it yourself."

Wuershan is as good at marketing as ever. This time, his new movie "Under the Alien" is linked with "Fengshen", and he invited Fei Xiang, Huang Bo and others to support the show.

The film contains scenes that pay tribute to "Fengshen" and Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu". In the final battle at the end of the film, "Under the Strange Man" recreates the scene of "Rulai Palm".

Unfortunately, the famous director made a mistake. "Under the Alien" has been released for 5 days, the box office has just exceeded 100 million yuan, and the Douban score is 6.1. The hot review reads: "Ten years of sins are now atoned for."

There are also fans of the original novel who commented: "The whole film is full of 523 male gazes from the perspective of marginal welfare bureau, and in order to promote Xia He played by Na Ran, Sister Bao'er's fighting power was reduced to the center of the earth. How can this not be another form of self-destruction from the original work?"

The overall performance of the movie was lower than expectations, and its current reputation is not as good as the TV series. This result may not have been expected by Wuershan.

A few years ago, when reading the comic "Under One Person" by Mi Er, Wuershan saw his own long-lost youth in Zhang Chulan's youth.

He felt dazed and began to recall his youth.

It is not difficult to find that the temperament that Wuershan possesses today bears the mark of his past.

Wuershan is an orthodox Mongolian. His father is a singer, and singing and dancing are his family's daily routine. Mongolians like to talk about life, especially about things that are far away.

People seek happiness from rough poetry. The nomadic culture and the family atmosphere of singing and dancing give Wuershan a bold and adventurous spirit.

Later, Wuershan's famous work "Mojin: The Lost Legend" was filmed on the grasslands of his hometown in Inner Mongolia. The picture shows Huang Bo and Chen Kun

When he was 4 years old, Wuershan moved with his parents from Hohhot, Inner Mongolia to Beijing. He grew up in a military compound and became a typical compound child.

He was not talkative and liked painting and reading. He was admitted to the High School Affiliated to the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Wuershan's adolescence coincided with the influx of Western literature, art, and philosophy into China. In middle school, he was obsessed with reading Freud, Jung, and Kafka.

He also deeply loves Chinese literature. After reading "Records of the Grand Historian", Wuershan felt full of energy and vigor. He enjoyed reading the ancient people riding horses, fighting wars and expressing their true feelings. He also developed an imagination and yearning for the world of classical mythology.

During his long youth, Wuershan might have been destined to present the Chinese people's own stories as an artist in the future.

Wuershan in his youth

In 1992, Wuershan entered the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he painted from morning to night and even slept in the studio.

Wuershan paints Western oil paintings every day, but even if he puts everything into his creations, he is still defeated by an inexplicable feeling of powerlessness.

In his sophomore year, Wuershan dropped out of school and entered the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy, where he found the career he wanted to pursue for the rest of his life.

After graduating from Beijing Film Academy, Wuershan worked as an advertising director and contemporary artist for nearly ten years. His pure art works such as video and installation have been exhibited many times in art galleries at home and abroad, and he has also won many heavyweight advertising awards.

In the early years, as a pioneer in advertising, Wuershan’s resources were so good that his peers were deeply jealous: Nokia, China Mobile, China Unicom, Alps, Nestle…

In 2007, Wuershan shot "Original Cool" for Nokia, which was regarded as a masterpiece by the advertising industry. It was also known as "What is HIPPOP" and was considered to be the most avant-garde creativity in mainland China at that time.

Nokia Original Cool clip

The advertisement "Thief" he made for Xtep sports shoes, a short film of less than a minute, was completely promoted using film language, with full drama and conflict, and even some nonsensical rivalry.

This has a lot to do with the era in which Wuershan lived. He was hailed as a "visual advertising director."

Wuershan, who is full of ambition, is certainly not satisfied with this. In 2004, he began to make movies wholeheartedly and filmed the independent film "Soap Opera", which won the "International Film Critics Award" at the Busan International Film Festival.

This film was not released in China, so naturally it had no box office success to prove itself. Wuershan decided to shift from niche art to popular films.

In Wuershan's opinion, it is never too late to start making movies.

In 2011, Wuershan's first theatrical film "Da Jianxiao" was successfully released. It tells the story of a butcher who falls in love with a prostitute, but is humiliated when he expresses his love. He aspires to become a hero and unexpectedly obtains a peerless magic sword that has been circulating in the martial arts world for a long time.

When Tim Yip watched "Blades of Sin", he felt his eyes brightened. "Using the aesthetics of ugliness to create beauty, I think it is rare in China."

Stills from the movie "Blades of Smiley"

"Blades of Sin", starring Zhang Yuqi, Ando Masanobu and You Benchang, has a humorous and absurd avant-garde martial arts comedy style. It won Wuershan the Golden Horse Award for Best New Director and made him a commercial film director.

This year, he was 39 years old.

He has no age anxiety and continues to make great progress.

Soon in the following year, Wuershan brought the oriental magical romance film "Painted Skin 2" to the audience. This was his first time making a fantasy blockbuster.

The film tells the story of the fox demon Xiaowei, General Huo Xin, and Princess Jing, "Humans and demons have different paths, your heart for my face."

Stills of Chen Kun and Zhou Xun from the movie Painted Skin 2

For this film starring Zhou Xun and Chen Kun, Wuershan has captured extremely precise positioning, aiming to impress the female group, "to make women love to watch it, and to make people who love women love to watch it too."

As expected, after the movie was released, it brought tears to the eyes of many female audiences.

"Painted Skin 2" broke the box office record for Chinese-language films, and its score of 726 million was a dark horse, making Wuershan famous overnight.

Chen Kun and Wuershan

“I hope my works will have this tendency of worshipping culture, worshipping nature, worshipping life, and worshipping heroes.”

Wuershan, who loves the ancient Chinese temperament, delivered the action-adventure movie "Mojin: The Last Dragon" in 2014. He reproduced the ecology of Chinese immigrants in the United States in the 1980s, allowing the audience to see new possibilities.

It took four years to complete, and by then Wuershan already had market appeal, so the actors in this film were all popular movie stars: Shu Qi, Chen Kun, Huang Bo, Xia Yu, and Liu Xiaoqing.

Stills from the movie "Mojin: The Lost Legend"

During the two years of preparation for the film, Wuershan visited many tombs and museums, and studied Feng Shui and learned about extreme sports under the guidance of experts.

"Mojin: The Lost Legend" was made with an investment of 250 million yuan. Wuershan believes that the most valuable thing is to find the most suitable theme for adventure movies: discussing whether brave people have fear in their hearts.

He succeeded.

"The Mojin: The Lost Legend" won box office and word of mouth, and is regarded as a benchmark work for measuring the level of China's film industry. It also won Wuershan the Best Director Award at the Hundred Flowers Awards for Popular Films.

That year, he was 42 years old.

Chen Kun and Wuershan

In the world of Vanity Fair, Wuershan rose to fame, and his works filled the genre gap in Chinese films.

Under the impact of Marvel and Western science fiction films, Wuershan, as a director, gradually realized that he needed to make some truly entertaining films that could be shown in theaters and seen by the general public, while not losing their spiritual and aesthetic value.

In Wuershan's view, the themes expressed by Hollywood are always love, warmth, and optimism. We also have compassion, tolerance, and benevolence.

After the success of the movies "Painted Skin 2" and "Mojin: The Lost Legend", Wuershan solidified his title as "the first person in Chinese fantasy movies".

However, his movements were always slow.

Wuershan is not a prolific director. In 10 years, he only made 3 films, all of which are masterpieces. His film aesthetic style and fantasy narrative ability have gradually gained popularity.

He insists on polishing and making every work well, and his ambition is growing.

After being a director for nearly 20 years, Wuershan decided to do something risky and spend 10 years shooting "The Investiture of the Gods Trilogy".

It is based on the well-known Chinese classical novel "The Investiture of the Gods", which tells the story of a protracted mythological war between humans, immortals and demons three thousand years ago.

In the winter of 2020, Wuershan made a vow that he would not drink until "The First Part of Investiture of the Gods" was released.

During those three years, Wuershan, who always loved to drink whiskey, didn't even drink fermented glutinous rice. On July 20, 2023, when "The First Part of the Investiture of the Gods" was released, he finally drank that glass of strong liquor.

It took Wuershan 10 years to shoot "Fengshen".

Mythology and epics are one of the most difficult genres in the film industry, with high technical requirements, large and complex departments, and complex management...

In 2013, during the script stage, Wuershan took all the circumstances into consideration and told his wife that he would spend 10 years filming The Investiture of the Gods. His wife supported him very much: "Just do it if you like it."

These words gave Wuershan courage.

As early as his youth, Wuershan read "Records of the Grand Historian" and "Strategies of the Warring States", from which he felt the passion and firmness of a nation's adolescence and its flamboyant attitude towards life.

The warriors dared to say to the king, "Within five steps, I will splash my blood on the king." As common people, they can challenge authority. They are insisting on the integrity of their personality and humanity.

This kind of thing touched Wuershan, and he finally presented this kind of beauty of humanity in the "Investiture of the Gods Trilogy".

In the huge mythological system, Wuershan focuses the story on two pairs of fathers and sons: Yin Shou and Yin Jiao, and Ji Fa and Ji Chang.

Stills from the movie "The First Part of Conferred Gods"

The conflicts and entanglements between the father and son are actually changes in the two families.

Wuershan found these two narrative subjects, placing power and emotion on specific people, in order to explore popular issues such as kinship, growth, and family.

This topic is the emotional connection point with the current audience.

The deep emotional bond between father and son, the so-called good and evil, are no longer abstract, but rather a question of whether the right thing is done when faced with human choices.

Stills of Li Xuejian from the movie "The First Part of the Conferred Gods"

All the difficult equestrian and action scenes in "Fengshen Trilogy" were performed by the actors themselves.

After both the man and the horse have received systematic training, they begin to practice together and eventually complete the difficult equestrian shots in the movie.

After Fei Xiang joined the crew, every day he was either filming, rehearsing, or training in martial arts, horse riding, and body shaping... The filming started for 18 months.

Xunzi describes King Zhou as follows, "He is tall, handsome and beautiful, the best in the world; his muscles are very strong, he can defeat a hundred people."

Wuershan said frankly that after reading these descriptions of appearance, he immediately thought of Fei Xiang and no one else.

Stills of Fei Xiang from the movie "The First Part of the Conferred Gods"

From the moment Fei Xiang finished reading the script of "Fengshen Trilogy", he was convinced that director Wuershan would be successful.

"He is very willing to accept everyone's participation in his creation, which is very rare. I have been an artist for more than 40 years and have met all kinds of directors. Wuershan is very rare."

Fei Xiang and Wuershan

Huang Bo, who plays Jiang Ziya in the film, has worked with Wuershan before, just like Fei Xiang, and has great confidence in him.

During the filming, Huang Bo was deeply shocked by the hundreds of carpenters who worked on the carved beams and painted buildings, and the countless design drawings and props in the art workshop. "How these are used on props, costumes, and weapons is actually a complete aesthetic system. The crew's approach is just like that of the older generation of filmmakers."

The crew of "Fengshen" is half engaged in art and half engaged in engineering.

Wuershan personally created a dreamy and magnificent world of Chinese mythology, allowing the audience to truly feel the history of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, mythological figures and Chinese aesthetics.

In the end, the movie "Fengshen I: Chaoge Fengyun" won many heavyweight awards including the China Film Golden Rooster Awards and the Popular Film Hundred Flowers Awards.

Director Guo Fan once visited the set of "Fengshen Trilogy" in Qingdao, and after returning he exclaimed: "This is industrialization worth learning."

With nearly 10,000 cast and crew members, the team is huge and complex, and management is difficult as you can imagine. Under such circumstances, there are new difficulties every day. Wuershan, as the backbone, remains extremely stable.

He would help everyone solve problems and never vent his emotions. He believed that yelling in front of everyone was a sign of incompetence.

Wuershan is a smart man with a very high emotional quotient. He is good at managing his emotions and rarely loses control. He joked that when he was an advertising director in his early years, he was repeatedly tortured by the client, which tempered his character and taught him to think from the perspective of others.

He always believed that directors are both artists and not artists.

Artists don’t need to think from other people’s perspectives; they can just be themselves and let others interpret their work. However, a director’s job is extremely complicated. Apart from the artistic aspect, he or she also has to be a project manager, capital operator, marketing expert, etc.

It is more difficult to enter the world than to leave it.

Wuershan firmly believes that every film has its own destiny, and he will do everything he can first.

It has to be admitted that initially, there was a threshold for ordinary audiences to watch "The First Part of the Investiture of the Gods".

The market's low expectations were directly reflected in theaters. On the first day of its release, the screening rate of "Fengshen I" was only 17.8%, and it did not recover until the weekend.

Wuershan understands the phenomenon of a cold start:

"Objectively speaking, our commercial selling point is not that obvious. Our film is not the most popular type right now, many of the leading actors are newcomers, and the director has not produced any works for many years."

Stills from the movie "The First Part of Conferred Gods"

As the first time in Chinese film history that three films were shot in a row, the big production meant more funds were needed, and Wuershan needed to strive for higher box office revenue for his films.

Although many people believe that "Fengshen" has exceeded expectations and achieved a box office turnaround, with a box office of 2.3 billion in one month, Wuershan is not satisfied:

"We will strive for 3 billion, the more the better, this money will be used as the production cost for the second part."

In order to achieve the small goal of 3 billion, Wuershan brought the main creative team to appear in front of the audience for roadshows.

Wuershan and the actors on the road show of the movie "The First Part of the Gods"

From being ignored to having his own fans, Wuershan, a new actor, has worked hard to keep up with the changes of the times.

Before the movie was released, he asked his assistant to help him download TikTok, started to learn about short videos, entered the sinking market, and found the most down-to-earth promotional method and entered the live broadcast room.

Last year, in Xiao Yangge’s live broadcast room, whenever Wuershan tried to talk about the more in-depth art of film, Xiao Yangge would immediately stop him and start the next interactive entertainment session.

Wuershan cooperated with everything with a smile, and this form of promotion became more and more fan-circle-like.

At that time, he did not expect that he would soon suffer the consequences of the fan circle traffic.

Wuershan spoke out what he had been holding back on when talking to Xiao Yangge, during a conversation with film curator Shadan. The consequences were serious and it triggered a public opinion crisis.

Shadan mentioned that some viewers questioned the fact that there were so many ethnic minority actors in the cast of "Fengshen".

Perhaps this question has been mentioned too many times, so Wuershan just said it all out.

He first refuted the argument that the film was Westernized and Japaneseized. Patricide is not unique to the West. There were many cases of fathers, sons and brothers killing each other in ancient China. Then he said that the term "Han nationality" actually came into being after the Yuan Dynasty. Before the Yuan Dynasty, people were called Shang people, Zhou people and Han people.

Wuershan was like a wild horse that had broken free from its reins, talking incessantly, little aware that his words had been taken out of context and were at the center of public opinion.

What he wanted to express was that there was no ethnic distinction during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Ultimately, in public opinion, Wuershan became a historical nihilist who denied the Han nationality.

No one cares what the facts are. The irrational minds of fans in the fan circle regard Wuershan as an imaginary enemy and attack him in groups. The rise of the movie "Fengshen" can be regarded as a dimensionality reduction attack in the domestic entertainment industry.

After three days of negative public opinion fermenting, the online trend was finally controlled. Wuershan can be said to have witnessed the power of the fan circle.

Later, when he talked with others, his words sometimes couldn't help but reveal the arrogance of elitism, but he had learned to control it. After all, he was a man who had suffered losses.

After all, people who are at the forefront of traffic do not have the freedom to speak their mind.

The film industry is Wuershan’s confidence.

In a social context like China, there are probably not many directors who can produce films with such meticulous industrialization.

Wuershan does not accept the contradiction between artistry and commerciality. There is no such thing as an art film, only the art of film, and he is well versed in commercial matters.

It is not easy to pursue something that appeals to both the elite and the masses.

This is what Wuershan has always insisted on doing. He will not completely cater to the audience and follow the trend, nor will he abandon the mainstream population and just be an artist who admires himself.

52 is the golden age for a director, and Wuershan is glad that he can still make movies for more than 20 years. He is the kind of person who endures humiliation and knows clearly what he wants.

For Wuershan, film is a profound emotional connection. He wants to make mythology a public dream on the screen through his lens.

Submission and alternative are two sides of the same coin. In Wuershan's more than fifty years of life, they come from the same source.

Decades passed like a dream.

Wuershan chose to continue dreaming, embrace the tide, and be accepted by the crowd.