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Miss Dong from Top Cinema (original from TopCinema, reproduction is strictly prohibited)

The four great classics are too difficult to adapt.

Thought ofThe latest movie "Dream of Red Mansions"It won't be particularly good, but I didn't expect it to be this bad.

The new version of the movie "Dream of Red Mansions Part Two" (hereinafter referred to as "Dream of Red Mansions"), which was prepared by director Hu Mei for 10 years and completed as early as 2018, was finally released this weekend after being delayed for 6 years.

However, it received negative reviews from the audience.

Douban was flooded with one-star reviews, with audiences calling it a ruination of the classic masterpiece. They could not accept the actors who played several major characters in the film, especially Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, whom they complained about crazily.

Bad word of mouth leads to bad box office.

On the first day of its release, the film had more than 20,000 screenings nationwide, but its box office share was only 1%. The box office on the first day was only more than 2 million, which was not as good as "The Decryption" which had more than 6,600 screenings. It only ranked 8th on the single-day box office list.

In other words, on the first day of its release, this new version of the movie "Dream of Red Mansions" had no presence in the cinema and the box office was a complete flop.

Five days after its release, the film has fallen outside the top ten in the screenings, with a cumulative box office of just over 4.3 million.

Director Hu Mei has always been a respected director. The TV series she has previously shot, including "The Yongzheng Dynasty", "The Emperor Wu of Han" and "Qiao Family Courtyard", are all excellent. This time she is bringing "Dream of Red Mansions" to the big screen, which is indeed exciting and admirable.

But such an adaptation is undoubtedly extremely difficult.

First of all, the 1987 TV series "Dream of Red Mansions" is already a classic that is difficult to surpass. The audience will compare all subsequent film and television adaptations with it, which makes it an extremely challenging task.

Secondly, to make a movie with so many characters and stories in "Dream of Red Mansions" and compress it into a length of about two hours, one must make choices, such as how to tell the story and how to grasp the key points and rhythm. The difficulty is even more difficult.

So, looking at the title, from the original "Dream of Red Mansions" to "Dream of Red Mansions Part One", you can tell that the movie itself has made a compromise.

Audiences who have watched countless films have long since summed up an "unspoken rule" in naming Chinese films: as long as you add XX-XXXX or something after the title, it is often easy to go astray.

This time, the addition of the four words "golden and jade marriage" has distanced it from "Dream of Red Mansions".

The story begins in flashback, with the main plot being conspiracy and love. Wang Xifeng betrays the love between Baoyu and Daiyu and makes Baoyu marry Baochai, which leads to Daiyu's death from tears. Various characters and famous scenes from the original novel are fragmented and spread out in the story, becoming insignificant embellishments.

Therefore, many viewers complained that Hu Mei's version of the movie "Dream of Red Mansions" turned the originally profound story into a frivolous costume idol drama and a painful youth love movie. Many people even said that they laughed while watching it.

One viewer's comment may have expressed the disappointment of many people:

"As much as I like Hu Mei's TV series, I hate this movie. It's beyond description to say it's a complete failure."

The casting of Hu Mei's version of "Dream of Red Mansions" has long been criticized. As a result, after it was finally released, many of the main characters were scolded, especially Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu in the film.

It was not easy for director Hu Mei to prepare the film "Dream of Red Mansions", and casting was even more difficult.

After the script was approved in 2016, the film began auditioning actors and selected seventy or eighty people out of 20,000 people. All of them were actors under the age of 20 at the time, and they received secret training for 9 months.

The most attention was naturally the casting of Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. In the end, three newcomers were selected: Bian Cheng (as Jia Baoyu), Zhang Miaoyi (as Lin Daiyu), and Huang Jiarong (as Xue Baochai). They were all still teenagers when they starred in the film.

Naturally, everyone will compare them with the casting of the 1987 version, but once compared, the gap becomes apparent.

Jia Baoyu is described as wooden and silly, while Lin Daiyu is dull and has a hollow look in her eyes, not to mention melancholy.

Looking at the styling in the film, Jia Baoyu's appearance is really a bit rustic, and the makeup is all on his face. The excessive makeup covers up the character's aura.

Not only Jia Baoyu is like this, but Yuanchun, played by Guan Xiaotong, also has an equally bizarrely heavy makeup.

There is no need to talk about acting and character presentation.

How did Jia Baoyu become an uneducated scoundrel?

How did Daiyu become a mean and rude person who loses her temper easily?

Baochai is not steady at all, she is just scheming...

Bian Cheng, who plays Jia Baoyu, admitted during the promotion of the film that he was under a lot of pressure at one point. It was only after a long period of training that he had the courage to challenge the role.

I just wonder if he has the courage to read the negative reviews online after the movie is released?

There are too many things to complain about, not to mention Qin Keqing, who "shocked" the audience in the trailer with her dress of gauze and flower petals covering her body.

Some viewers pointed out that Qin Keqing is romantic, not coquettish, while others complained that it seemed to have plagiarized classic scenes from "American Beauty".

Regarding the online reviews, director Hu Mei believes that someone is discrediting the movie.

On August 19, director Hu Mei posted a message saying, "No matter how the box office is, this work is the one I have invested the most effort in my life" and "it has gone through a difficult creative process of 18 years of innovation."

Regarding the film's reputation, she said: "Some people like it, some people criticize it, this is all very normal... It's useless for me to say whether it's good or bad, you just go and watch it and you'll know."

At the same time, director Hu Mei denounced the existence of black fans, saying: "Someone used AI virtual data to send out 1-point reviews in bulk."

Director Hu Mei also said: "Some accounts were registered several months ago, and it seems that they were specifically designed to attack this movie, with a deep hatred. It feels like making this movie is a heinous crime. Isn't this a bit strange?"

Finally, she listed the relevant "venomous" accounts for "the public to appreciate" and said that "I have entrusted my lawyer to preserve the evidence."

Afterwards, director Hu Mei posted another post, showing the film trailer and asking: "Is Hu Mei blind? Is this girl really ugly?"

She also issued a statement saying that someone had created fake pictures to discredit "A Dream of Red Mansions: Golden Jade Marriage".

Masterpieces are difficult to adapt, and classics are difficult to surpass.

I can only wish "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Perfect Match" good luck.

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