Nobody knows movies better than me

Chapter 90 We Are Not the Same

Chapter 89 We Are Different

Winters in Harbin are very cold, but people who work and live there have gotten used to it.

Xu Yan and Zou Xuegang took their daughter Yingying out to eat. After having a meal of stewed goose in an iron pot, they felt quite lazy.

Zou Xue suggested, "Honey, let's go see a movie?"

"There's nothing good to watch lately!"

Xu Yan just wanted to go home and lie down: "Last time you said 'The Promise' was good, so we went, but Yingying and I fell asleep halfway through."

Don't you think so, Yingying?

Yingying nodded cutely: "Daddy is right, I'm asleep."

Zou Xue retorted, "Aren't Jang Dong-gun and Nicholas Tse quite handsome? You two don't know how to appreciate them."

Xu Yan disagreed: "I'm a grown man, I'm not sick, why would I go to see handsome guys? Yingying won't understand either, she'd be more interested in watching Calabash Brothers."

"Isn't there Cecilia Cheung? Isn't she pretty?"

Xu Yan, a man well-versed in the ways of survival, immediately declared seriously: "What Zhang Baizhi? I don't know her at all. In my eyes, you are still the most beautiful, my wife."

Zou Xue was quite satisfied with this answer, giving her a look that said, "You know what's good for you."

However, she still wanted to see the movie: "This movie is different. It stars Uncle Benshan and is directed by Zhang Jun. It's bound to be good."

"Zhang Jun?"

Xu Yan said the name sounded familiar: "Isn't he the director of 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'About Time'?"

"Yes, that's him."

Zou Xue nodded: "Can we go see this now?"

The couple were casual fans of Zhang Jun, and they knew about his legendary experiences by surfing the internet, so they were naturally interested.

"We definitely have to go! Come on, there's a movie theater up ahead!"

Although "Sherlock on the Plains" belongs to the Northern comedy genre, Shanghai, an international metropolis, is able to embrace any humor culture.

The theater was filled with laughter as Uncle Benshan and Fan Wei, these two rural versions of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, showcased their unparalleled comedic talent.

More importantly, beneath its comedic foundation, the film's story logic is very complete, with no flaws from beginning to end.

Another point worth praising is the cinematic language.

Zhang Jun's cinematic language has been praised by countless media outlets and industry professionals, but this film still showcases his excellent cinematic skills.

With this level of skill, one could not possibly reach this level without more than ten years of experience.

Zhang Jun's ability to do this only proves two things: that he had someone helping him, but this point has been largely ruled out by the extensive searches by the media and netizens.

Another point is that Zhang Jun is truly a genius.

Most people have never met a genius because the industries geniuses work in are either low-profile or require secrecy, such as scientific research projects.

Most people have no idea what geniuses in scientific research projects are like; they can only imagine that scientific giants like Einstein are what geniuses are like.

But Zhang Jun is different; he works in the film industry, a field with extremely high media exposure, which immediately made him famous as a genius.

Cheng Che, a third-year student majoring in directing at Shanghai Theatre Academy, came to see the movie "Sherlock on the Plains" today and gave it a very high rating.

In fact, most students majoring in directing at Beijing Film Academy, Central Academy of Drama, and Shanghai Theatre Academy, where he studied, felt envy and jealousy towards Zhang Jun.

Cheng Che had participated in several film analysis sessions organized by the directing department, focusing on Zhang Jun's films. However, his classmates completely dismissed these two films as worthless.

In Cheng Che's view, this was because Zhang Jun, as someone roughly their age and an outsider, had achieved something they could hardly imagine, so they were jealous.

Because of jealousy, one cannot maintain an objective and impartial stance, so all one sees are flaws.

Cheng Che thought differently. He believed that Zhang Jun, as an outsider to the directing industry, must have his own unique strengths to achieve such great success.

The first two films have already proven that Zhang Jun is a rare talent among Chinese-language film directors.

Perhaps it is precisely because he is an outsider that he has a different perspective, which is why he has been able to make a series of movies that audiences like.

Take "Sherlock on the Plains" for example. It's a simple story, but Zhang Jun incorporated a lot of his own thoughts into the film.

Unlike previous films that focused on the suffering of rural people and the worst aspects of human nature, the rural people in Zhang Jun's film are kind, warm-hearted, resilient, and wise beyond their years.

Cheng Che felt that if this film were submitted to international film festivals, it would not receive any nominations and would instead be heavily criticized by Western critics.

The reason is simple: foreigners can't stand seeing any beautiful places in China. In their eyes, it should be a barbaric and uncivilized land, a place rife with evil.

Your film "Sherlock on the Plains" portrays rural China so well; it must be due to oppression from your relevant departments, not your true expression.

China is terrifying; there's oppression everywhere, even extending to the film industry.

However, Cheng Che believed that Zhang Jun must be the kind of director who didn't care about international awards at all. Looking at the audience in the theater who were being amused, Cheng Che seemed to understand.

For Zhang Jun, the audience is the most important thing.

"We can't continue this discussion with these insects."

After watching the movie, Cheng Che muttered to himself, "I want to go to Beijing to develop my career, learn from Zhang Jun, and become a director that audiences like."

Perhaps due to the positive word-of-mouth accumulated from the previous two films, or perhaps due to Uncle Benshan's strong appeal, "Sherlock on the Plains" grossed 2885 million yuan in its first four days of release.

This box office figure is nothing compared to the more than 70 million of "The Promise," but don't forget that "Sherlock on the Plains" only had a budget of 3 million.

Zhang Jun has once again achieved great success with a small investment, and there is still box office revenue to come.

The Beijing News stated: "Through three comedy films of different genres, Zhang Jun has proven himself to be one of the best comedy film directors after Feng Xiaogang."

Perhaps we could give it a special name: "Zhang-style comedy."

Sohu News listed the styles of the three films: "From the road comedy 'Little Miss Sunshine' to the romantic comedy 'About Time', and the suspense comedy 'Sherlock on the Plains'."

Zhang Jun proved that he can come up with a lot of tricks in the field of comedy.

Of course, the performances of Uncle Benshan and Fan Wei deserve praise, as does Liu Peiqi, who has a small role.

Three veteran actors joined forces to deliver a brilliant story, proving that a film can succeed simply by relying on its plot and comedic moments, even without beautiful women and handsome men.

This comment is clearly directed at the film "The Promise".

Online discussions are also lively. On Douban, a newly established website, there is a constant stream of discussions about the movie.

All three of Zhang Jun's films made the list. Douban also has a rating system; "Little Miss Sunshine" received a score of 7.7.

"About Time" received a score of 8.1.

Sherlock on the Plains has just been released and already has a score of 7.5.

While it's unclear whether the newly established Douban has any unspoken rules about automatically deducting a point from domestic films, many Douban users believe that the ratings for these three films are somewhat low.

Zhang Jun personally doesn't care much about the ratings. He thinks Douban is full of pretentious, eccentric people. Audience reviews are what really matter.

During the release of "Sherlock on the Plains", he asked He Xuan to commission a specialized company to conduct surveys in theaters and interview frontline audiences.

Ultimately, among the more than 3,000 survey reports collected, viewers gave "Sherlock on the Plains" a high score of 8.7.

In contrast, Zhang Jun secretly had a research company investigate the reputation of "The Promise," which ultimately received a score of 5.3, consistent with Zhang Jun's assessment of the film.

It seems that audiences today are still very demanding of movies; some films, despite box office success, remain harshly criticized.

In the era seven or eight years later, when even bad movies could sell well, one reason was the influx of new viewers into theaters. Audiences, who had been thirsty for movies for so long, found everything appealing.

On the other hand, it is also related to the rise of fan culture. After all, even if the brothers make bad movies, the fans will definitely think they are not bad.

So after the market was bombarded with a lot of bad movies, the audience, who had matured, had improved their appreciation skills and gradually lost interest in bad movies, leading to a winter for the film industry.

After 2020, many people attributed the slump in the film market to the pandemic. There is some connection, but it's not the main reason.

Short videos and short dramas have distracted viewers, but the film market still exists, which is not the main reason.

The main reason is that there are too many bad movies and too few good ones. Not to mention masterpieces, there are too few even qualified commercial films. Otherwise, "Ne Zha 2" would not have soared to more than 150 billion yuan at the box office.

Objectively speaking, "Ne Zha 2" is a decent commercial animated film, but it wouldn't be accurate to call it a masterpiece.

However, due to the lack of qualified films in the theatrical market, audiences were so hungry that this film contributed the highest box office revenue for a Chinese-language film in history.

Understanding this will help you understand Zhang Jun's current situation.

Although the film market is not as large as it will be twenty years from now, the situation is similar.

Do you think Zhang Jun's films can be compared to those that rank among the best in film history? Probably not.

However, there were very few good films produced by film companies and directors in this era, so when Zhang Jun presented a film of quite good quality, it immediately caught the attention of the audience.

Even if someone wanted to suppress it, they couldn't, because the audience does need good movies, and the box office results speak for themselves.

In the era of the film market, box office results speak for themselves, and Zhang Jun is naturally invincible.

Uncle Benshan was very happy with the success of this collaboration. After the first week's box office results were released, he held a celebration banquet, but Zhang Jun was unable to attend due to work commitments.

Uncle Benshan personally called Zhang Jun to express his gratitude: "I want to thank you again this time. The success of this movie has put our Benshan Media on the right track."

Zhang Jun said politely, "You're welcome, Uncle Benshan. Your fame is the guarantee of our movie's great success."

Uncle Benshan said, "I know I got the better deal this time, so I owe you a favor. If you ever need any help in the future, just let me know."

I will definitely not refuse to do what I can.

Uncle Benshan's promise is not unfounded; after all, once you leave Shanhaiguan, the saying "If you need anything, just ask Benshan" has become widely known.

While I don't know about other regions, Uncle Benshan's appeal is extremely strong in Northeast China. This time, the Northeast region contributed a significant portion of the box office revenue for "Sherlock on the Plains."

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