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On August 16, "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Perfect Match" directed by Hu Mei was released. When the project was first developed a few years ago, it was not well received and the outside world had very low expectations. After the finished product was released, it received even worse reviews.

On the second day after its release, the popular short reviews on the movie’s homepage on Douban were all one-star - this is quite rare.

Many movies have mixed reviews, but not all of them are one star, and they all seem to be meaningful rather than emotional. Moreover, most of those who are dissatisfied with this movie are netizens who like the original novel of "Dream of Red Mansions".

On August 19, the fourth day of its release, the box office for the first weekend was only 4 million yuan. It is said that the cost of the film was 200 million yuan, so the total box office must reach 500-600 million yuan to break even. At around 10:30 that day, director Hu Mei suddenly spoke out on Weibo, angrily denouncing the self-media that criticized the film and slamming two UP hosts.

In the blog post, Hu Mei angrily questioned, "It's just a movie, it's just been released, where does your deep hatred come from?" Then, she said, "No matter how the box office is, this work is the one I have invested the most effort in my life. We made this movie by absorbing the essence of our predecessors' filming time and time again, and we went through a difficult creative process of 18 years of innovation."

Hu Mei then changed the subject and questioned whether someone was deliberately smearing her movie. She said that some critics' accounts were registered only a few months ago, "and it seems that they were specifically created to smear or attack this movie. There are even some who make personal attacks and insults, with a deep hatred, and feel that making this movie is a heinous crime. Isn't this a bit strange?"

At the end of the article, Hu Mei criticized two short video platform users and said: "I have entrusted my lawyer to preserve the evidence. This is precious information, please do not delete it!" This means that she is going to sue the critics.

One of the accounts named by Hu Mei, "The City Lord's Dream of Red Mansions", has had its movie review video posted deleted by the platform. The video's title reads: "As expected, the box office of "Dream of Red Mansions" was dismal." The reason for the deletion was that it "involved content that was inappropriate to display."

Another person named was "Qi Ye Movie Review". The content posted on Bilibili is still there, and its title is quite fierce - "Rotten! A taste of the poison of "Dream of Red Mansions: The Golden Jade Marriage". I have never seen such a vicious "Dream of Red Mansions" movie." Although we don't like titles with strong tendencies and offensiveness, as well as emotional words such as "rotten" and "vicious", after watching this blogger's 5-minute film review video, we found that it was not as sensational as the title said. Relatively speaking, it was all meaningful - a comprehensive evaluation of the movie from the aspects of plot, visuals, characters, etc.

In fact, this falls completely within the scope of normal film reviews - at least it is not a street-swearing type.

In the above-mentioned blog post, director Hu Mei also said, "Although I am a professional director, I am just an ordinary person walking on the street. Is it necessary for the big names to worry so much?" However, these two bloggers are not big names. The most has only 100,000 fans, and the number of views is not high. Why are they called "big names" by Hu Mei?

Perhaps, in her opinion, these two critics were bought off by other "big names", implying that her competitors were blackmailing her.

In fact, if we talk about "big names", the investors of "Dream of Red Mansions: The Golden Marriage" Bona and Alibaba Pictures can be regarded as the "big names" in the industry.

Moreover, before the film was released, it had no sales prospects. Although the competition in the summer season was fierce, there was no other film that could rival it. Therefore, Director Hu Mei was indeed overthinking.

Of course, director Hu Mei is not without reason to be furious. According to her, she spent 18 years of hard work on developing "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Perfect Match", starting in 2006 and ending in 2017 when the project was finally approved. It took four or five years to shoot the film, which was indeed a lot of effort - this is why she finds it hard to accept the box office failure now.

Although, at the premiere on August 11, Hu Mei acted nonchalant, saying, "The box office of the movie can be whatever it wants, no matter what. Anyway, I have done my best for "Dream of Red Mansions" in these 18 years." But it is obvious that she still hopes for higher box office.

Not only did she put a lot of effort into it, but the top two producers were both companies related to Hu Mei. The major shareholder of the first producer, Jinde Pictures, is Hu Mei (55% of the shares), and the screenwriter He Yanjiang is also one of the shareholders; the second producer, Longtai Jinde, is a subsidiary of Jinde Pictures. The industry leaders such as Alibaba Pictures and Bona Pictures, which participated in the production, only ranked fifth and eighth respectively.

It can be seen that Hu Mei’s personal financial investment in this movie should be considerable (but it is not known whether she received any external investment).

No wonder she couldn't sit still.

Although not many people born after 2000 know Hu Mei, she is no ordinary person in the film and television industry at the age of 66. She has directed TV series such as Yongzheng Dynasty (1999), Emperor Wu of Han (2005), and Qiao Family Courtyard (2006), all of which are classics. Especially Yongzheng Dynasty, which has a Douban score of 9.4, created the peak of imperial dramas in the last century.

But in the film industry, Hu Mei has never been able to do well. As early as 2010, she filmed the movie "Confucius", starring Chow Yun-fat, which received a Douban score of 5.6, which is not good enough. However, when "Confucius" was released 14 years ago, it still had a box office of more than 99 million yuan. Now, the "Dream of Red Mansions" which cost 200 million yuan, can hardly break 10 million yuan. The comparison between the two naturally makes it more difficult for director Hu Mei to calm down.

But as a well-known director, it is unheard of for him to hang up on small bloggers, and it is even the first time to hear of him suing critics - when it comes to covering one's mouth while reviewing a film, Director Hu Mei has set a precedent and broken a record.

Perhaps, at the moment, there is an atmosphere that gives her confidence - criticizing a movie may be seen as a "sinner" who destroys the domestic film market. As of August 17, the 2024 summer season has accumulated a box office of over 10 billion yuan - only half of last year's 20 billion yuan. There is only half a month left before the end of the summer vacation, and the total box office is bound to be much less than that of 2023. Therefore, the industry is generally pessimistic.

Therefore, under various critical articles (not just "The Golden Marriage"), some people denounced, "The market is so cold, and you still want to criticize it, your motives are ill-intentioned!" Others questioned, "It's good enough as long as the audience likes it, is it necessary to dig deeper into the meaning?"

Of course, we are very disgusted by "clickbait" and meaningless insults; we are also against denying a work from an ideological perspective - for example, the lack of this or that sex; and we especially cannot tolerate unwarranted escalation.

We respect the freedom of creation, but we also value the freedom of commentary based on facts, rather than silencing the audience. You can praise, you can criticize, you can praise, you can criticize, let a hundred flowers bloom, as long as you have something to say.

In this world, the best movies will have critics - otherwise why would "The Shawshank Redemption", which ranks first in IMDB's world film history, have only one star? Not to mention the current commercial films in the domestic entertainment industry.

The truth becomes clearer through debate, let alone literary and artistic works that are open to different opinions?

Moreover, movies that are accepted by the general public will not suffer much commercial damage due to meaningful criticism. For example, we have previously criticized "Catch the Dolls" and discussed its shortcomings in detail from multiple angles. Other major media have also given negative reviews, but it did not prevent it from being accepted by the public. In the cold 2024 summer season, the box office has exceeded 3.1 billion, and we are also happy about it. Many times, the purpose of criticism is just to make it better - or to have expectations.

Of course, compared to the comedy films that Shen Teng and Ma Li are familiar with, Dream of Red Mansions is indeed not easy to shoot. Hu Mei's classmate Li Shaohong from the Beijing Film Academy's directing department in 1978 filmed a TV series version in 2010, which also received mixed reviews. (However, after the film version of her old classmate Hu Mei was released, many viewers said they wanted to apologize to director Li Shaohong.)

Being difficult to shoot should not be used as a shield to prevent criticism.

I admire directors’ courage to challenge classics, but directors must also have the courage to accept opposing opinions (no matter how mild or fierce).

Although Hu Mei said in her blog post that “I will listen carefully to all opinions and warmly welcome them all”, judging from the Weibo post that opened the “Comment Selection” and the harsh condemnation of the two bloggers, she did not want to “listen”. This makes the situation look extremely absurd.

It is not something a big director would do to sue critics - it just means her defenses have broken down.

Since Hu Mei chose to sue for the negative reviews, a netizen who likes the original version of Dream of the Red Chamber used his own method to retaliate against the author, asking a soul-searching question:

"Can we sue her for insulting the original work?"

Written by | JackA
Planning | Entertainment Spring and Autumn Editorial Department