China News Agency, Beijing, October 5 (Reporter Gao Kai) From the undisputed box office leader to the lack of power in the future, from the expected quasi-explosive to the disappointed work, the domestic animation blockbuster "Jiang Ziya" has been unable to replicate The brilliance of the previous work "The Devil Boy of Nezha".
To be precise, the expectations of Chinese people for "Jiang Ziya" began in July 2019.
That summer, the national comic film "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World" stunned the big screen.
The film relies on the well-known story of the Gods in the Kingdom of God, but has performed a brand-new shaping of the characters. In this process, the characters' behavior logic is given a modern interpretation.
As a result, "My life depends on me" completely became popular. "Nezha's Devil Boy Comes into the World" not only created the box office myth of domestic animation in the mainland film market, but also triggered people's new expectations for the rise of Guoman.
In an animated film world that is almost "Disney", Chinese audiences have been looking forward to Chinese stories for a long time. In 2015, "The Return of the Great Sage" was due to its oriental aesthetics and a new interpretation of Monkey King in "Journey to the West" This kind of expectation reached a climax. However, the subsequent national comic films such as "Big Fish Sea Hall" and "Little Door God", despite the exquisite pictures, failed to reach the level of "The Great Sage Returns" in terms of the story and the completion of the entire film. .
Until "Nezha" four years later, when the mythical figures known to women and children once again reached an "empathy" with the audience on the big screen, people automatically retracted their critical eyes on film animation production and other aspects, and devoted themselves to this movie. Applause for imperfect sincerity.
The "Jiang Ziya" egg that appeared at the end of "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes to the World" at that time has become a new surprise that is still unfinished.
With the same production team and characters from the Fengshen Kingdom, "Jiang Ziya" has naturally become the new hot spot of the "Nezha" fire in the audience's hearts, and even began to look forward to the expansion of the grand "Fengshen universe".
With the "burning" of "Nezha" first, "Jiang Ziya", which claims to have a longer story and a higher production level, has attracted great attention. Although the Spring Festival file that quietly disappeared at the beginning of this year, it moved to the National Day 8 months later. The audience still actively poured into the cinema to prove their enthusiasm for the film has never faded.
The first film on National Day, the first animation film in the Mainland with a box office of over 200 million on the first day, refreshing the box office record for the first day of the animation film, the single-day record, and the single-day single-day box office record in 2020?
As expected, the beginning of "Jiang Ziya" was very "burning", but shortly after its release, whether word-of-mouth or box office went all the way up and down, it finally proved that this "burning" may be more of "Nezha".
On the third day of the release, the single-day box office of "Jiang Ziya" was surpassed by its rival "My Hometown and Me". On the fourth day, the total box office was surpassed. On the 5th day of the release, the film ranking ratio had dropped to 27%, almost only accounting for "Me and My Hometown". Half of "My Hometown".
From the craze to disappointment, the reason for the decline in audience enthusiasm for watching movies is undoubtedly the movie itself.
Relying on traditional myths and stories, it is also a re-reading of the character's experience and inner heart. Compared with the previous work "Ne Zha", the biggest problem with "Jiang Ziya" is that it fails to grasp the foundation of the movie-the story.
Although the opening suggestion for audiences over 8 years old to watch the movie, it seems to have predicted the complexity of its story, characters, thoughts and meanings, etc., but throughout the film, the reason why creators find it difficult to communicate with the audience is not "complexity" or depth. , But failed to show a "nuclear" story.
From "Heaven and earth are not benevolent, or everything is like dust" to "Heaven and earth are silent, but you have to find a way to Kunlun", from "One person is like dew, and the common people are like the sea" to "Everything is by oneself but not by God"... In "Jiang Ziya", similar looks There are a lot of philosophical lines, but without the support of strong stories and characters, it is inevitable that people feel vain and rootless, and there is no way to talk about "empathy" with the audience.
In this regard, Rao Shuguang, president of the Chinese Film Critics Society, pointed out that “animated films should be highly conceptual, that is, to be able to clearly explain the main line and theme of the film story in one sentence, so that the audience can know it at a glance without repeated thinking and debate. From this From a point of view, the film "Jiang Ziya" wants to express a lot, making the audience a little confused for a while."
A Lang, a well-known film critic, believes: "The biggest problem with "Jiang Ziya" is that it has always been reasoning, not storytelling."
Although the audience generally agrees that "Jiang Ziya" has made new progress in special effects, its declining box office and a score of 7.0 on Douban ("Nezha: The Devil Boy" 8.4) have already announced that this movie has a long period of time. The national comic blockbuster failed at some level.
For a long time, the audience has proved their attention and support for Guoman movies with practical actions, and this disappointment in "Jiang Ziya" is another kind of expectation.
Nowadays, domestic animation has become more mature at the technical level. With this kind of audience enthusiasm, it is not difficult to speculate that as long as there is a good storytelling, the next "popular" may not need to "wait".
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