Millennium director

The reason why he did not choose a "blockbuster" is not that Wu Yuan doesn't like making blockbusters, but that there is really no suitable one at this stage.

To be honest, there are really no blockbusters in the mainland market.

It’s funny to say that in the mainland film market in the first decade of the 21st century, blockbusters were emerging one after another. Starting from Zhang Yimou’s “Hero”, there are historical machinations epics with hundreds of millions of investments every year, and they are full of big scenes.

But after 2010, the explosion of the mainland market also pointed out a way for mainland film practitioners to make money.

That is comedy movies and youth movies.

These two genres of movies are both low-cost, short-production-cycle, but highly profitable.

Most of the box office dark horses and big-money movies in recent years are comedies and youth films.

And those movies that are branded as 3D blockbusters, such as "The Legend of White Snake" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", although they are profitable in terms of box office results, their profits are higher than those of comedy films at all.

As a result, investors voted with their feet, and a large number of comedies, youth films, and comedy romance films were approved for filming. Chinese-language blockbuster projects were difficult to attract investment, and the number dropped sharply.

Especially after "Love Comedy" once again took the country by storm, investors from all walks of life have become somewhat superstitious about the magic of romantic comedies.

In 2013, only one real blockbuster was released, namely "Detective Dee: The God of Dragon King" by Xu Ke. He still insists on making fantasy movies.

Magic and fantasy themes are also the only relatively strong blockbuster themes in China.

As for Xingye's "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", strictly speaking, it is a gray comedy. Although there is also a big scene in the second half of the movie where the Demon King Sun Wukong fights the demons and the Buddha, it is not inferior to the Hollywood special effects blockbusters. But the main tone of the movie is comedy.

And its style is still a magic and fantasy film.

But the embarrassing thing is that in the next few years, there will be no blockbusters with good box office performance in mainland China.

Whether it's "Youth" or "Beijing Meets Seattle", or "We Will Never See You Again" or "The Breakup Master", they can't be called blockbusters.

There are even variety shows like "Where Are We Going, Dad? The Movie", which have a box office of 695 million.

Putting variety shows directly on the screen, Mango Channel relies on the boldness of talented people.

What's even more frightening is that they managed to do it, dominating the Spring Festival period and taking in nearly 700 million in box office.

The mainland film market in the next few years will be impetuous, crazy, and so exaggerated that it cannot be understood with common sense.

Under such circumstances, it is impossible for Wu Yuan to make a blockbuster like "The Wandering Earth". The risk is too high, and the stimulation to the market is not great.

He also hopes to make a film that is in-depth and meaningful, which can cool down the temperature of mainland movie fans and relieve their boredom when domestic movies are "dancing with demons".

So in "Dangal!" When "Dad" and "I'm Not the God of Medicine" were temporarily unable to be filmed, he set his sights on the two movies "Dear" and "The Orphan".

First of all, the main characters and stories of "Dear" are based on real "anti-trafficking" incidents.

Secondly, this kind of parent-child theme itself is a "big tear-jerker".

Finally, it is very painful for the family who lost the child, and when the child is rescued, the family who later adopts the child also suffers the pain of losing the child.

This is the unknown world that the film wants to show the audience in addition to "anti-trafficking".

Once abduction occurs, no matter whether the family that lost the child can eventually find the child, for both the lost and adopted families, one family will definitely be hurt and suffer.

In the movie, the pain that the audience has accumulated along the way of Huang Bo for losing the child and the hatred for the traffickers are reversed at this moment by the "stepmother" who also loves the child deeply and is in pain because she does not want to be separated from the child. .

What seemed like the resolution of one tragedy turned out to be the beginning of another tragedy.

However, "Dear" strives to please the audience from beginning to end, trying its best to sensationalize the audience in the hope that they will shed tears.

Such over-the-top screenwriting makes this movie more like a TV series.

Whether it is Huang Bo and Hao Lei who are looking for children, or the village women who secretly take care of their children, or the story-filled man looking for children, Zhang Yi, there are many stories and their own helplessness, and the characters are constantly reversing. Turn and reverse.

There were too many conflicts and contradictions about family and blood ties packed into the two-hour story, so that several protagonists had to weaken their plots and accommodate the overall story development. Such accommodations made the characters that could have been fuller. becomes somewhat distorted.

Before the audience had a deep enough understanding of these characters, one after another of sensational and emotional dramas was staged, making it impossible for many viewers to resonate and integrate, and the emotions that should have exploded could not be directly conveyed.

In this regard, another film with a similar theme, "The Lost Orphan", handles it very well.

Compared with the storytelling of "Dear", the focus of "Lost Orphan" is to write about people.

Through the pair of character lines of the father who is looking for the child and the child who is looking for his parents, the tragedy of child abduction and trafficking is depicted on the fate of both the parents who lost the child and the abducted child.

The story of this film is not complicated and can be summarized in eight words: lost orphan - found orphan - met orphan - became orphan.

"Lost Orphan" does not exaggerate the suffering of the protagonist Liu Dehua, but uses a map, a motorcycle that is about to be scrapped, and the dark and cracked skin wrapped in ragged clothes to let the audience understand his 15 years of searching for his son. The road traveled, the hardships endured.

I have to admit that female directors are indeed much better than male directors in controlling delicate emotions and film details.

But Peng Sanyuan, the director of "Lost Orphan", is not as good as "Dear" in controlling the plot of the movie.

The characters and story framework of "Lost Orphans" are composed of three clues. Unfortunately, the entire movie does not have a good grasp of the overall structure of the three clues, and it feels completely disconnected.

"Lost Orphan" is more like a prose or a poem.

Scattered and scattered, although beautiful, they do not make up a complete story.

Every single scene is either picturesque or with simple folk customs. Liu Dehua has been looking for a son for 15 years. He has suffered many blows but he is always on the road. He also keeps meeting kind-hearted people to help. However, there is no central breaking point and he only relies on good people. A mix of good things, the story seems loose and not gripping.

The lyricism and symbolic empty shots that are out of rhythm throughout the film make the entire film seem messy and disorganized in terms of narrative. The result is that it eliminates the cruelty but fails to ignite the audience, making it an embarrassing work that cannot rely on both ends.

It can be said that "Dear" and "Lost Orphan" each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Both movies have obvious advantages but also obvious shortcomings, so the box office of these two movies is around 4 to 5 billion, and their reputation is mixed.

But coincidentally, the advantages of these two movies are complementary. If the advantages of these two movies are combined, the shortcomings are eliminated, and integrated into one movie, it will definitely be a great "anti-trafficking" movie! (End of chapter)