this year's National Day file, Wu Jing, Zhang Ziyi, Xu Zheng, Shen Teng co-directed the movie "My Father and Me".
Since the National Day file in 2019, " Me and My Motherland " sold at the box office, the "Me and My" series has also become a National Day repertoire, one every year, never absent.
However, with the routineization of the story content, this "segmented movie" creative form has begun to make audiences feel repelled. Compared with the two works of "My Motherland and Me" and " Me and My Hometown", " Me and My Fathers" is behind in word of mouth and box office, which makes us intuitively feel At this point, the audience resisted the frequent sequel of the "me and mine" series .
In this issue, we will not talk about "content", only "form". Let’s talk about the development of the years and the changes of the times on the Chinese-language big screen, such as the "Me and My" series of segmented movies .
origin ".
Actually, this kind of "segmented movie" creative form is not uncommon on the Chinese big screen. In the 1990s, Hong Kong horror films often used this form. Wang Jing, Ma Weihao, Ye Weimin’s "Strange Talk Association", Qiu Litao, Tan Langchang, and Zheng Weiwen’s " Yin Yang Road" series are all segmented port of terror movies_ span2span The representative of .
Segmented movie The creative form of originated in the United States. In 1916, the movie giant David Griffith filmed the movie " party with the same defeat ".
In this work, David Griffith divides the film’s story into 4 paragraphs, namely: ": the fall of Babylon", ": the crucifixion of Jesus", and "the Saint of France". The Bartolomi Religious Massacre", "The labor conflict in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century". Although these four stories happened in different eras and different countries, they are all closely linked to the movie theme of "the party is the same but the difference is the same."
After "Parties Are Different", this "segmented movie" creative form has begun to be imitated by more and more European and American directors. In 1924, the Ukrainian director Leo Bilinsky and the German director Paul Leni jointly filmed the fantasy horror film "The Wax Man Hall".
This "Wax Man Museum" tells about the opening of a "wax museum", but there have been no guests. The owner of the wax museum invited a writer to write some bizarre stories for the wax people in the wax museum. This serves as a gimmick to attract tourists. Thus, the writer wrote 3 bizarre horror stories.
The story structure of "The Wax Man Museum" is very unique. The writer's 3 horror stories divide the movie into 3 fragments. The story between the owner of the wax museum and the writer not only runs through the whole story from beginning to end, but also constitutes the fourth horror story in the movie.
In 1996, Wang Jing, Ma Weihao, and Ye Weimin collaborated on "Guaitan Association", which imitated the 1924 "Wax Man Museum" in structure.
In 1924, after the "Wax Man Museum" was released, it won double praise from word of mouth and box office. The creative form of the segmented movie ,Later it became a patent for European and American horror films.
1945's "Night of the Dead", 1963's "Black Sabbath", and 1968's "Epic" in the international film world, set off one after another "segmented horror film" creation craze .
At the end of the 1960s, under the influence of international film trends, Chinese filmmakers also began to experiment with "segmented movies". In 1970, four famous directors, Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan , Li Xing, Bai Jingrui , teamed up to film the movie "Joy, Fury, Sorrow and Joy". The film also became the pioneer of segmented Chinese film .
Behind the birth of the "Happy, Fury, Sad and Happy", there is an interesting story.
Li Hanxiang in the early 1960s, with the support of " ", filmed "A Chinese Ghost Story", " Yang Guifei ", " Wu Zetian " and other classics. These works have allowed Li Hanxiang to be nominated for the "Cannes Palme d'Or" three times. Among them, "Gui Fei Yang" won the "Technology Award" at the Cannes Film Festival for its magnificent palace scenery and costume design, and became the first Chinese film of to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival .
After becoming famous internationally, Li Hanxiang left "Shaw Brothers" to develop his own business independently, and established the film company "National United Films".
In 1964, "League of Nations Pictures" invested heavily in filming the movie " Xi Shi ". Although this film won a lot of awards, the box office was extremely bleak. After "Xi Tzu", "National League Pictures" filmed " Xin Shisi Niang ", " Sunset Red ", " The Pride of Heaven ".
At the end of the 1960s, Li Hanxiang's "National League Pictures" was caught in a development crisis. At this time, several friends in the movie circle reached out to Li Hanxiang to help. They are Hu Jinquan, Bai Jingrui, and Li Xing .
For the three people who helped, the resumes of the film industry are more vigorous than the other.
Hu Jinquan Needless to say, viewers who like to watch martial arts movies should be familiar with him. "The Drunk Man", " Chivalrous Girl", " Dragon Inn", " Yingchun Pavilion Storm", " Loyalty Figure", "" Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" "Pocahontas",They are all classics of Mr. Hu.
It is worth mentioning that Hu Jinquan and Li Hanxiang are still brothers , brothers have difficulties, so naturally, brothers should not stand by.
In addition to Hu Jinquan, the names of Li Xing and Bai Jingrui are also memories of an era in Chinese film. As the "Godfather of Taiwanese literary films", "Mute Girl Affectionate", "Duck Raising Man", " Autumn Decision", "A Boat in the Ocean", "Lonely Seventeen", "The Bride and Me" Li Xing and Bai Jingrui have left a strong mark in the history of the development of Chinese-language films.
was influenced by the foreign segmented horror film , Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan, and Bai Jingrui decided to shoot a Chinese-style horror story. As the chief planner of Li Hanxiang , he also focused his attention on the classic "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio".
Originally, this "Happy, Fury, Sorrow, and Joy" was called "The Joy, Fury, Sorrow, and Joy". However, Hu Jinquan, who came to help, didn’t cooperate. He insisted on shooting martial arts.Shoot the inn and fight. Li Hanxiang had no choice but to take his own brother, so he deleted the word "Liao Zhai" and named the movie "Happy, Angry, Sad, Happy."
The first story of the movie "Hi", directed by Bai Jingrui. In this story, Director Bai made a mockery of Li Hanxiang.
In 1960, Li Hanxiang was nominated for Cannes Palme d'Or with the film "A Chinese Ghost Story". The love story of "the scholar and the female ghost" has also become a classic handed down. In "Hi", Bai Jingrui also designed a story about "the scholar and the female ghost". It's just that this time the handsome scholar encountered an extremely ugly "female ghost". The "girl ghost" fell in love with the scholar at first sight, but the scholar looked disgusted. Between this "one person, one ghost", the spark of love finally failed, but a farce was staged.
The second story "Anger", directed by Hu Jinquan, is the story of "Ren Tanghui Sanchakou Rescue Jiaozan", which is the story in the Peking Opera "Sanchakou".
The third story "Sorrow", directed by Li Xing, tells the story of a man who wants to get revenge. It turns out that the whole family of the enemy has been "killed".
The fourth story "Le", filmed by Li Hanxiang, directly filmed the story of the chapter "Wang Liulang" in "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio".
After the release of "Happy, Fury, Sorrow, and Joy", it received a good market response. In the Chinese film scene in the early 1970s, also set off a wave of "segmented movies" creation .
developmentLi Hanxiang has made a new exploration of "segmented film". In 1971, Director Li filmed the segmented market comedy " scam " with the theme of "deception".
Segmented short stories, curious scam traps, comedy story themes , the convergence of these elements has made "The Deception" received a good market response. In 1972, Li Hanxiang filmed a sequel to the film-"The Grand View of Deception", which won again after its release.
In the early 1970s, " " relied on Bruce Lee's Kung Fu films to rapidly rise above the Hong Kong film market. And "Shaw Brothers" also gradually fell into a passive state under the market pressure of "Jiahe".
In 1972, "Shaw Brothers" Zhang Che, Cheng Gang, Yue Feng three directors, inspired by Li Hanxiang, also intend to create a "segmented movie" form, Come up with some new tricks. As a result, the three teamed up to shoot a segmented martial arts film "The Heroes", hoping to use this new creative form to compete with Bruce Lee's kung fu film at the box office.
This "Gathering of Heroes" is composed of three martial arts stories, "White Water Beach", "Rouge Tiger" and "Iron Bow".A large number of stars such as Dillon , Jiang David , Luo Lie , Yue Hua , Shi Si Jiang Hongying and others.
"Buy a ticket and watch three movies" has also become a publicity stunt when "The Heroes" is released. However, the filming of this movie "Gathering of Heroes" was not considered a success, and the word-of-mouth and box office were very average.
saw that Zhang Che, Cheng Gang, and Yue Feng were not good enough. In 1972, "Shaw Brothers" paid a lot of money to invite Li Hanxiang back, hoping to use Li Hanxiang's "segmented movie" to fight against "Jiahe". Bruce Lee Kung Fu Movie".
In 1972, Li Hanxiang returned to "Shaw Brothers", and successively filmed "The Strange Story of the Moon", "The Romance of Love", " The Bull Ghost Snake God", "The Oddity of Deception", and the Northland Rouge" 5 works. These 5 works still continue the creative form of "segmented movies", expressing some interesting things in the market.
Of course, in order to cater to the market audience, Li Hanxiang also designed a lot of "fengyue elements" in these film works. Although the works such as "Storm of Wind and Moon", "Dark Ghost and Snake God", "Demonstration and Oddity", and " Northland Rouge", they did not rank No. 1 on the box office rankings like Bruce Lee's " Jingwumen". .1, but these works are high-volume, low-cost, and high-box office ’s production features,But let the "Shaw Brothers" take the risk in the Hong Kong film market.
In the early and mid 1970s, Li Hanxiang fell into a period of "segmented film creation," and began to rely on his own "segmented film". In the early 1970s, the "Shaw Brothers" was caught in a development dilemma due to the pressure of its competitor "Jiahe". In order to get rid of the dilemma, "segmented movies" have also become the main force of "Shaw Brothers" in the box office market.
However, after 1975, Li Hanxiang recovered his creative state and began to fade out the shooting of "segmented movies", and successively created "The Allure", " Yingtai Weeping Blood", " Qianlong" "Xiajiangnan" and other classic works.
After 1975, "Shaw Brothers" found a new development direction in the shooting of "Gulong martial arts films", so it also slowed down the shooting intensity of "segmented movies".
In a sense: the popularity of "segmented movies" in the commercial film market is a manifestation of the creative exhaustion and development difficulties of certain directors and producers . The meaning of
was once again verified in the Hong Kong film market in the 1990s.
In the early 1990s, Hong Kong films entered their final peak. "Huang Feihong", "Play Back To School", " Flying Eagle Project", " Spicy Detective", "Swordsman in the East", " New Dragon Inn", "Police Story" 3", " Serious Crime Group", "Jingwu Hero", "Western Journey" and other classic works emerge in endlessly.
However, none of these classics appeared in the form of "segmented" movies.
Time came to the end of the 90s, under the sluggish Hong Kong film market environment, " midnight ", "Ghost Talk Association", "Ghost in Office", "Yin Yang Road", "Three Watches" This kind of "segmented horror film" works became popular.
The creative form of "segmented movies", coupled with a very commercial story theme , seems to have become a common method for many Hong Kong film producers to keep the plight of the picture.
Transitions
After the new millennium, the rapid development of the mainland movie market. This "segmented film" creation trend , which was originally permeating the Hong Kong film market, also went all the way north to the mainland.
In 2010, Hong Kong film directors Xia Yongkang, Chen Guohui worked hand in hand to shoot the movie " Love in the City ". This film tells the love story of 6 couples of men and women in segments.And gathered Jacky Cheung, Rene Liu, Maggie Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu, Ruoxuan Xu, Charlene Choi and other big names.
After "Love in the City", the mainland director Zhao Tianyu also learned something. In 2011, he shot an urban love work " gravitation " in the form of a "segmented movie".
The inland movie market around 2011, there is no small town that sinks to the fourth or fifth line as it is now. At that time, the movie theaters were mainly concentrated in big cities, and the main consumer groups of movies were also migrant workers who worked in big cities.
So around 2011, "the love story of urban men and women" became the focus of many filmmakers. During this period, Louis Koo, Gao Yuanyuan filmed " Single Men and Women", the article, Bai Baihe filmed "33 Days of Broken Love", Andy Lau and Gong Li collaborated on "I Know Women's Heart", Xu Jinglei also self-directed Self-acted " Du Lala's promotion ".
In the "urban romance" market under the mud and sand, this "Gravity" has not achieved any decent market results. And the ordinary screen performance of "Gravity", became a microcosm of the decline and fall of the "urban romance movie" at that time .
After 2011, the development of the mainland film market has entered a peak period. "Thailand" in 2012 and "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" in 2013 quickly entered the "Billion Era" in the mainland film market. While the market box office is booming, the quality of Chinese-language movies has also entered a "period that is difficult to describe."
Between 2013 and 2015, the "box office myth" of the "Little Times" series has allowed more and more filmmakers to see the market potential of "painful love stories".
So in 2016, Zhang Yibai, Guan Hu, Zhang Meng , Teng Huatao, Gao Qunshu created a five-segment film "span2span ". Love".
This "Ben Love" tells the previous "pain love stories" of 5 couples through 5 stories. Different loves have different ways of pain.
Although the film has brought together Zhang Ziyi, Peng Yuyan, Tong Liya, Zhou Dongyu, Zhang Yi, Liang Jing, Wu Mochou, is a luxurious lineup after the release of Wang Qianyuan_span2. Very general. Maybe, this is . Human pain is not connected. The audience just thinks it is .
After "Ben Ai", this kind of "market love story" that began to lose the audience again. With the emergence of "Wolf Warrior 2", "Operation Red Sea", " Chinese Captain " and other works, new "commercial film types" began to dominate the mainland box office market.
"Me and Mine" series is also under this market trend, smoothly entering the audience's field of vision. From Chen Kaige, Zhang Yibai, Guan Hu, Xue Xiaolu, Xu Zheng, Ning Hao, Wen Muye, to Chen Sicheng, Yan Fei, Peng Damo, Deng Chao, Yu Baimei, and then to Wu Jing, Zhang Ziyi, Shen Teng.
The "Me and My" series "tested" the business capabilities of batches of mainland directors.
Span 1span set off the craze of creation in the early 1970s in the Chinese film "Span 1span". Half a century later, this craze has spread from south to north to the mainland movie market.
History is always surprisingly similar. The stories that happened in the Hong Kong film market seem to be staged in the mainland film market. And the current Wu Jing, Xu Zheng, Shen Teng and others,It seems to have also encountered the life dilemmas encountered in the early 1970s Li Hanxiang .
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