1980 My literary era

"The five-star red flag is fluttering in the wind

How loud the victory song is

Sing our dear motherland

From now on, we will become prosperous and powerful

…”

At about 20:00 on June 30, 1997, a leading unit of the People's Liberation Army garrison in Xiangjiang entered Xiangjiang. At 23:42, the Sino-British Hong Kong regime handover ceremony officially began.

At the same time, thousands of miles away in Yanjing, countless citizens spontaneously poured into the streets early.

In Tiananmen Square, the number on the countdown sign erected by the Chinese government to resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong is decreasing by the minute.

As the numbers on the countdown card continued to beat, the crowd began to chant in an orderly manner.

"10, 9, 8..."

With all the people united, the mountains roar and the tsunami roars.

Scenes like this happen in every city in China, and the broad and loud voice spreads all over the country.

At 0:00:00 on July 1, 1997, the national anthem of the People's Republic of China was played on time, and the five-star red flag fluttered in the wind at the Golden Bauhinia Square on the bank of Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong.

When the five-star red flag waved over the harbor of this city that has been away from home for 154 years, countless Chinese people burst into tears.

On this afternoon, a grand reception was held in the People's Hall. More than 4,000 people from all walks of life attended. Lin Weimin had a "state banquet" with everyone.

That night, another "Conference from all walks of life in the capital to celebrate Hong Kong's return to the motherland" was held at the Yanjing Workers' Stadium.

The celebration meeting lasted for two hours and ended at around nine o'clock in the evening.

During the return ceremony last night, Lin Weimin was so excited that he couldn't sleep all night and followed the large troops on the street for half the night.

He went home to rest for a few hours in the middle of the night, and then went into the sea again this morning. The constant excitement for more than 20 hours made him exhausted. Now that the celebration was over, he just wanted to go home and have a good sleep.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out as he wished. Before he could leave the stadium, he was called back to the sea by a comrade from the general office. Tonight, the leaders also had a private celebration to watch "Heroes" in advance.

It was almost early in the morning when the movie screening ended, and Lin Weimin couldn't help but yawn when he went to sea.

"The movie is very well made, and it's just right to release it at this time."

He recalled the big boss's comments after watching the movie, with a somewhat relaxed smile on his face.

Just based on this evaluation, an extra 50 million at the box office is not too much, right?

July 1 is not only the day when Hong Kong returns, but also the day when "Hero" is released.

The overwhelming publicity campaign for more than a month before its release has already made "Hero" a hit before it was released.

Especially with the blessing of the concept of "gift film", even many people who were originally not interested in movies have paid attention to this movie.

Today is the first day of the screening of "Hero". Before evening, long queues of ticket buyers have formed in front of cinemas everywhere.

The scene was even more popular than when "The Opium War" was first released. Even when many imported blockbusters were released, they had never reached this level of popularity.

"The wind is rustling and the water is cold, and a strong man will never return once he is gone." The concept of "Hero" was derived from this sentence.

Watching "Heroes" in the cinema is a treat.

The assassin in red is majestic and bold, as strong as fire, Ansai's waist drum resounds through the sky, and the loess ditches and ravines on the plateau are crisscrossed.

Three years ago, Feixue Canjian joined forces to assassinate Qin. The huge Qin Palace was filled with green curtains, and hunting sounds were made with the moves of the three people. The floating curtains enhance the movie scene and touch the hearts of everyone watching the movie.

They are failed assassins who eke out a living, but the blood in their hearts is not cold.

Three years later, the unknown assassin returns. This time, he brought the heads of three of his companions as certificates of submission, and he was destined to never come back.

The Qin Palace is vast, and the black palace city is a place made of blood. King Qin conquered Liuhe, ambitious to dominate the world, and was about to complete his hegemony by stepping on countless bones.

The black Qin Palace is oppressive and solemn, giving people a strong sense of oppression, and the decisive battle is imminent.

But the people of the world have been fighting hard for a long time. If one king of Qin is killed, the world that is about to be unified will fall apart again, war will arise, and all life will be ruined.

At the last moment of the movie, Wuming let go of his obsession and sacrificed himself for the sake of the world.

Feather arrows filled the sky, and the eternal assassin finally became a dead ringer.

At the end of the film, Wuming was carried out of the palace by many Qin troops. Under the background of grand and sad music, the audience felt sad.

The Chinese people understand very well the compassion and righteousness that is for the sake of all people in the world. Throughout the dynasties, China has never lacked such righteous men.

I have a good heart, and even though I died nine times, I still have no regrets.

The movie is over, the credits are still rolling, but the audience in the screening room is still immersed in the emotions woven by the movie.

At this time, the lights came on, and a gorgeous and magnificent time and space journey ended.

The audience, separated from the movie, spontaneously applauded, and a moment later the applause was thunderous.

After a few minutes, the audience began to leave, and everyone was still excitedly discussing the movie that had just ended.

"This movie is so exciting!"

"It's good, but the ending is too sad."

"You know a hammer, this is called sacrificing one's life for righteousness. You have learned history and Chinese in vain, this is called Chinese romance!"

…

The first day of the release of "Hero" is over. During the night, movie theaters everywhere were almost full. Even without statistics, people in the theater can see the box office potential of this movie.

The next day, today is Tuesday, which is usually the quietest time of the week in the cinema, but today the situation seems to be different.

10 o'clock in the morning is the earliest movie screening time at the Capital Cinema. Before the staff are ready, many viewers bought tickets and walked into the cinema screening room. All of these viewers came for "Hero".

The staff checked the movie tickets sold, and found that the 10 o'clock show, which usually had only three or five people, was a big seller, but nearly half of the audience was seated. This phenomenon surprised the cinema staff.

"The level of "Hero" is quite impressive. Half of the people in the screening room were full this morning, and it's only Tuesday!"

"I watched the movie yesterday. Zhang Yimou's filming was really awesome! I'm not surprised how many people came to watch it."

"real or fake?"

"Nonsense, believe it or not, just watch it for yourself."

Working in a movie theater does not pay well, but one benefit is that you can watch movies for free. Employees can not only watch the movies themselves, but also bring their families to watch. There is no need to buy tickets. Just bring people in and find a corner and a cat.

The 10 o'clock screening ended, and before the staff could take a breath, there were even more viewers in the cinema.

The vast majority of the visitors bought movie tickets for "Hero", a small number of the rest bought "The Opium War", and one or two spectators bought tickets for other movies that were being shown.

In the afternoon, this trend became more obvious, and the cinema manager decisively called the distribution company to request more copies.

It's only the second day since "Heroes" was released, but now even a fool can see the film's dominance.

"The Opium War", which has been released for 23 days, cannot survive a single episode under its hands, let alone other movies released in the same period. These movies were almost completely scrapped.

To increase the number of films, we must increase the number of films severely!

As the film schedule of "Hero" increases, the film schedule of other films released at the same time will inevitably decrease. Not to mention the cannon fodder, the one most affected is naturally "The Opium War".

"The Opium War" was released on June 9. It had good momentum in the first few days before its release, with a box office of 28.6 million yuan in its first week.

According to the past box office trends, the movie's box office should be at least 40 million in the second week, and the box office can exceed 100 million in almost the third week. This result is a bit disappointing to the producer, but it is still acceptable.

The investment in "The Opium War" is huge. If you want to rely on the domestic box office to make money back, you have to have at least 250 million in the box office. This is almost impossible in today's film market.

But if the screening is postponed, the final total box office should easily fall to 150 million. If the subsequent overseas release and copyright sales go smoothly, there is still hope for a return on investment.

But reality gave the producers of "The Opium War" a hard slap in the face.

The movie's box office in the second week was 16.4 million yuan, and in the third week it was 11.2 million yuan, with a total box office of 56.2 million yuan.

It was released for 21 days, and the box office exceeded 100 million, which is still far away.

The decline of "The Opium War" is so obvious that it is struggling to even get a box office of 100 million, let alone 150 million.

The movie's box office performance is not ideal, naturally because the audience doesn't buy it.

After the initial few days of modest success, the film's true popularity became apparent.

"The Opium War" is not a movie that can be entertaining and entertaining for both refined and popular audiences. In addition, "Hero" has become a raging fire as soon as it is released, which has almost ruined all possibilities for the subsequent box office of "The Opium War". For This movie is just adding insult to injury.

Three days after the release of "Hero", the number of films scheduled for "The Opium War" dropped off a cliff.

Of course, "The Opium War" was not the only victim squeezed out of the film schedule by "Hero".

In fact, as long as it is a movie of the same period as "Heroes", all movies suffer from it.

Cinema screening is the most brutal stage of market competition. For such a large cinema to be placed there, venue, labor, copying...everything is a cost. Cinemas naturally have to have a priority in arranging films.

Whoever can make me money will have more filming schedules.

On the third day of its release, the auditorium for the first screening of "Hero" in the morning was almost full. How could they not schedule a movie like this?

Not only give, but also give generously.

After all, movies like "Hero" don't come out every year, so movie theaters everywhere will naturally take advantage of this opportunity to make a lot of money.

There is no perfect statistical system these days, and no one knows what proportion of "Heroes" are in the nationwide film schedule.

But the number of copies sold does not lie. In the first few days after the release of "Hero", China Film and Yan Film Studio issued hundreds of new copies almost every day.

When the movie was released for just over a week, several distribution units combed through the data and found that the number of copies of "Hero" had reached 550.

Everyone was surprised when they saw this number.

We must know that there are only 600 cinemas in the domestic distribution system, and the number of copies of "Hero" can reach 550, proving that the scale of "Hero" has covered more than 90% of the movie screens in the country.

Moreover, according to the habits of many city and county-level distribution companies, they are reluctant to provide a separate copy of a certain film to one cinema. Usually, several cinemas share one copy of the film.

Anyway, there weren’t that many people watching the movie, so everyone dealt with it evenly.

You must know that cinemas these days are not like the chain cinemas that have developed in later generations. They often have several screening rooms. Nowadays, many cinemas usually have only one screening room.

The number of copies of "Hero" has reached 550, which proves that there must be a considerable number of cinemas showing this movie all day long. There is no room for other movies to be screened. This is the most terrifying thing.

We are all veterans who have been immersed in the film industry for many years. When we see this number, we will not understand the message behind it.

"Hero" sold like crazy!