Source: Xinhua News Agency
Now three years have passed, and we have finally ushered in the critical time node of countdown 1,000 days. 1,000 days later, on February 4, 2022, the torch of the 24th Winter Olympics will be lit in Beijing.
As the enthusiasm of the whole nation to prepare for the Winter Olympics continues to rise, recently, many sports films such as "Chinese Table Tennis", " Chinese Women's Volleyball Team ", and "Li Na" have also announced the news of project establishment and promotion. Sports-themed films may usher in the long-awaited "hot period" of the industry.
Sports theme film and television concentration blows up
htmlOn April 26, the first poster of the sports movie "Chinese Table Tennis" led by General Administration of Sports was revealed, and it is expected to meet the audience in 2020.video is written by Zhang Yimou 's official screenwriter Li Feng . He carefully polished the script for three years. This is also the work of Li Feng reappearing after " Hero " and " Ten-side Ambush ". It is not difficult to see from the poster that "Rush Hour, National Glory" will be the core theme of the film.
According to Ma Shuang, the film producer Hengye Film Development Department, the script is still being revised and finalized at this stage. The main line of the story focuses on the growth and counterattack of a table tennis boy, telling the story of players from both countries' competition and life off the court, and their achievements in bonds and entanglements.
In addition to "Chinese Table Tennis", there are currently many "national ball"-themed film and television projects that are under development.
is directed by former director Zhang, former . The TV series " Gold Winning " tells the story of the 1960s table tennis champion has been completed last year and is waiting to be released. The online drama "Table Tennis" starring Xu Weizhou and Bai Jingting was also started filming last year.
adapted from Deng Yaping’s real experience, with Han Sanping as the director and Deng Yaping himself as the chief planning, and the web drama "My Friend is called the Champion" is also expected to be broadcast this year.
In addition, the movie "Chinese Women's Volleyball Team" directed by Chen Kexin has also attracted much attention. The filming of the film has officially started recently and has been announced to be released nationwide on the first day of the 2020 Lunar New Year.
According to Chen Kexin, the movie will be set in the true stories of several generations of Chinese women's volleyball teams, with a time span of 40 years. It will tell the story of their tenacious struggle and winning glory for the country, and also cheer for the Chinese women's volleyball team to compete for next year's Tokyo Olympics.
Not long ago, Chen Kexin's other sports-themed film "Li Na" was finally officially completed and entered the post-production stage.
It is reported that the movie "Li Na" focuses on the life journey of Chinese tennis star Li Na who has accompanied tennis for 30 years, and reflects the process of China's sports and social development through several key time nodes.
As Chen Kexin said, this is not just a biopic of Li Na, but "Film "Li Na" is also a microcosm of the changes in this era."
At present, the cast of "Li Na" has not been fully exposed. What is known is that Hu Ge will play Li Na's husband Jiang Shan . Li Na's final opponent , Chibulkova, when she won the Australian Open in 2014, will also make a guest appearance, recreating the final scene of that year.
Li Na's final opponent when she won the Australian Open, Chibulkova made a guest appearance in
. This year's National Day holiday, the story of the Chinese mountaineering team climbing Mount Everest in 1960 can also be regarded as a sports-themed movie.
video is produced by Tsui Hark , directed by Li Rengang , Wu Jing , Zhang Ziyi , Zhang Yi , Jing Boran , Hu Ge, Wang Jingchun and other all-star lineups, which is quite exciting.
What is the difficulty of sports movies?
Starting from " Sports Queen " directed by Sun Yu in 1934, Chinese movies have many classic sports-themed movies in all eras, such as " Women's Basketball No. 5 " and "Sisters on the Ice" in the 1950s, " Sandou " in the 1980s, "Fierce Fight" and "Roll" created by Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years! Ashin, " Breaking the Wind " and " Points and Five Steps " and so on.
Although these movies have good reputation and have achieved some success in major film festivals, such as Zhang Jiahui and won the Best Actor Award for "Fierce Battle". "Roll! Ashin" has also been nominated for many Golden Horse Awards, but they are not exceptionally unable to escape the dilemma of being cold at the box office.
"Breaking the Wind" and "Fierce Battle" both have only more than 100 million yuan in the mainland box office, which is not on the same level as the phenomenal domestic blockbusters. "Roll" released in 2011! Ashin" has only won 6.2 million yuan in mainland China's box office.
Compared with "short, flat and fast" comedy or romance films, sports movies put higher requirements on creators in all aspects such as screenwriter, cost, shooting, and actors.
First of all, the professionalism of sports films requires screenwriters and directors to spend several times more time and energy than other topics to break through professional barriers.
In order to write "Li Na", the screenwriter Zhang Ji , who never watches tennis, spent half a year studying game videos, biography of tennis celebrities and learning about tennis knowledge before writing the script.
"Roll! The director of Ashin" Lin Yuxian also spent three years shooting the gymnastics documentary "Roll! boy". He said that the reason he did this was to allow himself to understand gymnastics better, although the prototype of "Axin" was his brother.
In addition, sports movies also put forward higher requirements for the physical fitness of actors.
Before filming "Breaking the Wind", director Lin Chaoxian asked Peng Yuyan and Dou Xiao and others to receive a devil training for 11 hours a day for a month in order to make them close to the level of professional athletes in terms of body shape, physical fitness and skills.
At the same time, "pure sports movies" have high professionalism requirements for the audience, and the audience in China is still relatively narrow, making it difficult to become a hit.
These factors have caused sports movies to be of high cost, high risk and long cycle. In addition, the disproportionate box office returns are naturally difficult to be favored by investors for a long time. How to "break the wind" in
sports movies?
In 2017, an Indian film about the love between father and daughter of wrestling, "Wrestle!" "Dad" won a box office of 1.299 billion yuan, setting off a boom in Indian films and allowing practitioners to see the huge market potential of sports films in China.
This year's Spring Festival period, the box office of " Speeding Life " directed by Han Han reached 1.716 billion. Although strictly speaking, this is not a pure sports movie, its model of combining sports competition, warm and inspirational elements also provides new ideas for sports movies to "break the deadlock".
Film critic Tan Fei once said that the sense of substitution of is the key to audience buying tickets, and if sports themes are too professional, there will be barriers, and other types and elements should be grafted.
In successful sports movies, there are many people who integrate with action, comedy and other genres. One of the major reasons why boxing themes rank among the top in the box office rankings of sports movies is that even if the audience does not understand the rules, they can still see the visual enjoyment of the action movies. Combining sports films and action films to shoot a strong lens aesthetic in sports scenes is a great magic weapon to attract audiences.
and other Hollywood sports movies, although they have distinct sports elements, are still the core of Hollywood's family and inspirational films. What ultimately touches the audience is still "love" and "emotion".
"Wrestle!" The same is true for Dad. Under the guise of wrestling, father-daughter emotions and discussions on social issues are the core of the film and the fundamental reason for resonance with the audience.
Chen Kexin once said that hopes that the story of "Li Na" can have a higher social pattern in addition to its dramatic nature, and can have something that represents society and the times, including our past and our future. Many sports movies, including "Boxing Ali" and "Successful Things in People", use athletes' personal experiences to map the changes of the times, which is undoubtedly one of the elements of their becoming a classic.
General Manager of Propaganda and Distribution of Hengye Films also said, "There are good stories and real characters. Under the shell of sports competition, coupled with the emotions that can resonate with wonderful special effects, and shoot table tennis competitions that are different from daily life. We believe that the audience will be moved by the stories and characters. It is the same for today's sports movies. What the audience needs to see in the end are the characters, the stories that happen in the characters, and they will be touched by the spirit brought by the characters themselves."
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Winter Olympics held by Beijing and Zhangjiakou in 2022 have arrived one after another, and the sports industry will surely usher in a wave of golden development opportunities. This undoubtedly provides an opportunity for the outbreak of sports movies.
The so-called "breaking the wind" is a professional concept mentioned in the sports movie "breaking the wind", that is, in bicycle competitions, the "wind breaker" is needed to break the resistance so that the " line line" behind him can break through the line at a critical moment.
In recent years, many relatively successful sports movies have resisted a lot of resistance. At present, a good film that can both trigger reputation and box office will be needed to achieve the goal of "crossing the line".
As the Winter Olympics approaches, I believe this moment is not far away.
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