Group actor Chen Xiaomeng (Xiao Yang) and killer Zhou Quan (Andy Lau) exchange lives
Andy Lau's play-in-play pays tribute to the classics of the past day
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Li Li
"Yes, the schedule is really miserable... I hope that the theater side can give us some more opportunities to squeeze one or two gold fields on the existing number of games. Late at night on the first night of the Chinese New Year, Rao Xiaozhi, director of "Surging Crowds", asked for a schedule on Weibo. On the same day, "Detective Chinatown 3" set a record for a single-day box office of 1 billion yuan, but "Surging Crowds" only got 43.17 million yuan, ranking at the bottom of the box office in 7 Spring Festival movies released on the same day.
Isn't "Crowded" bad? The answer is no. As of 11:00 on the third day of the New Year, the Film's Douban score was as high as 7.4 points, and "Hello, Li Huanying", which was only below 8.3 points, ranked second in the Douban score of the Spring Festival file with "New God List: Nezha Reborn". Most of the audience who have watched the film expressed their disappointment, and the acting skills of the lead actor Andy Lau once rushed to the Weibo topic hot search.
Don't blame the theater, there are fewer pre-sales so there are fewer scheduled films
As early as the early morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year, director Rao Xiaozhi had anticipated the next encounter of "Surging Crowds" in the Spring Festival file. At 00:27 on the same day, he posted a screenshot of the first day of the Maoyan Professional Edition of the Spring Festival box office on Weibo, saying: "We are finally at the bottom, this is the first news of the first day, seeing this screenshot is actually solid, since it has reached the lowest point, I think there should be no worse news than this." The beginning is already like this, then fight again, if you have a point of hope, you can fight for a point, and the worst is just that. The screenshots he sent show that before the official opening of the Spring Festival file, the box office of "Detective Chinatown 3" had reached 684 million yuan, while "Surging Crowds", which was the last in the pre-sale box office, only got 27.686 million yuan.
Although he asked the theater line to give him a chance, Rao Xiaozhi understood that the box office was ultimately the choice of the audience. In addition to the bottom of the pre-sale, the 24.2% attendance rate of "Surging Crowds" on the first day of the New Year also ranked last among the 7 Spring Festival blockbusters, which shows that even if the theater gives more scheduling, the audience that the film really attracts is limited. Therefore, in a Weibo posted late at night on the first night of the New Year, Rao Xiaozhi said that he "understood the pain of the theater very well" and only asked the theater to "squeeze one or two golden fields" or "don't completely cut off our number of times". On the evening of the second day of the Chinese New Year, Rao Xiaozhi sent another Weibo, stressing that "asking for a schedule" was his last resort, not a "moral kidnapping" of the theater. He introspected: "Failed to attract a large number of first-wave audiences, this strange film party and I did not do a good job, there is no need to blame anyone else." He said that he hopes that the audience who has seen it will spontaneously spread word of mouth, attract more people to enter the theater, and finally achieve "mutual fulfillment" between the film party and the theater.
Not commercial enough, into the Spring Festival stalls slightly risky
In Douban, where movie fans gather, "Surging Crowds" scored 7.4 points, which is better than 67% comedy films and 66% crime films, which is already a middle and upper-level masterpiece. In the public ticketing platform Maoyan, the score of "Surging Crowds" is also second only to "Hello, Li Huanying", ranking second in the 7 blockbusters in the Spring Festival file. This shows that most of the audiences who have watched "Surging Crowds" think that the film is not bad. But why aren't more people buying tickets? Judging from the results of the contradiction between word of mouth and box office, "Surging Crowds" may have fallen into the dilemma of niche art films. In other words, the current Spring Festival stall market is not ready for its arrival.
In terms of genre, "Raging Crowds" is actually a crime comedy like "Detective Chinatown 3". However, after 6 years of market cultivation, the "Detective Chinatown" series has formed a well-known IP. In contrast, the marketing of "Surging Crowds" seems to be lively, and even the lead actor Andy Lau has specially settled on a short video platform to promote the film, but its film positioning has not really reached the audience, coupled with the lack of commercial performance of director Rao Xiaozhi's famous work "The Unknown Generation", most ordinary audiences have no bottom in their hearts about whether their new film style is suitable for spring festival viewing. In contrast, "Surging Crowds" is neither like "Detective Chinatown 3", "Bear Haunting Wild Continent", "Samurai Order", "New God List: Nezha Reborn", each with its own IP base, nor like "Assassination of a Novelist" has Yang Mi and other traffic stars to support the pre-sale box office, nor is it like "Hello, Li Huanying" when you look at the starring lineup of Jia Ling and Shen Teng, you know that it is a comedy... Relying on Andy Lau's trump card alone to participate in the 2021 Spring Festival competition with a large number of masters seems to be a bit sloppy.
Compared to the original, the background color is warmer after adaptation
Many ordinary viewers do not know that "Surging Crowds" actually has the foundation of the original work, so the foundation of the script can be called solid. The Crowd is based on the Japanese film The Method of Stealing Keys, written and directed by new Japanese director Kenji Uchida, who was nominated for "Best Picture" at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2012 and won the Japan Academy Award for "Best Screenplay" the following year. Whether it is the Japanese version or the Chinese version, the main story line of the film is the "life exchange" between a top killer and a lonely group actor. But compared to the Japanese version of pure black humor, the Chinese version has a much warmer background.
There are actually three protagonists in "The Way to Steal the Key", in addition to the memory-losing killer Kondo and the failed young actor Sakurai, as well as the elderly young woman Mizushima Sanae played by Ryoko Hiromi. All three of them are people on the margins of society: Sakurai lost his career, dreams, and girlfriend, and was so desperate that he almost committed suicide because the rope was broken; the killer uncle Kondo, although he made a lot of money, was actually a sad person who was abandoned by his ex-wife; Sanae Mizushima wanted to marry herself before her father died, but she never fell in love, she didn't even know how her heart felt... Because of a fortuitous event, the fates of the three are intertwined. "The Method of Stealing Keys" has a cold style, few character lines, and the overall black humor of realism. But by the time of "The Crowd", the mutual redemption of the three became the ultimate goal of the script, and the actors had more comedic performances in their performances. Among the three characters, the heroine's personality changes particularly greatly, and the Japanese version of the awkward and hateful married woman becomes a single mother Li Xiang in the Chinese version, whose more robust personality setting makes her eventually become the connection point between the killer uncle and the real world. Although it shattered the more complete dramatic setting of the original "Three Losers", "Crowded" also has a richer emotional element and life atmosphere than the original. From a certain point of view, this is also the reason why "Surging Crowds" is quite suitable for the Spring Festival stall in the spiritual core. Many people love to say "a new year has a new beginning", but how exactly does it start? In the midst of the crowds, who is the person you should cherish the most? From this film, the audience can be inspired.
The acting skills are highlighted, and Andy Lau's drama is eye-catching
In "The Way to Steal the Key", the young actor is Played by Masato Sakai, and the killer is Played by Teruyuki Kagawa, who is the "Green Leaf" of the Japanese showbiz industry. In fact, not only the Japanese version, but also the Korean version of "Lucky Key" that was later remade, the killer's actor Liu Haizhen is also not proud. Playing such a role with an ordinary appearance, a rigid personality, and even a little dullness when amnesia is a challenge for Andy Lau, who has his own male protagonist light. But after the film was released, his performance did not disappoint. Director Rao Xiaozhi also posted on Weibo to support Andy Lau, who is 60 years old this year: "Even if someone doesn't like me as a director, they will definitely perceive Hua Ge's acting skills in "Surging Crowds". ”
As the director and the film's first screenwriter, Rao Xiaozhi apparently tailored the role of "Zhou Quan" for Andy Lau. Many of the scenes in the film can see the traces of tribute to Andy Lau's past classic works, such as a scene in the film where Andy Lau rides a motorcycle, and the tribute is to Andy Lau's film "Heavenly Love", but at that time, he was sitting behind Wu Qianlian instead of Xiao Yang. In the film, Andy Lau played by Zhou Quanjiao Xiaoyang played by Chen Xiaomeng, a line undoubtedly said the voice of many viewers: "Some people really experience the role from the body, some people shape the shape of the role, some people dryly read the lines, and some people just regard the performance as a false transaction." And Guo Fan, who made a cameo appearance in the film, said "Thank you for your contribution to Chinese films" to "group performance" Zhou Quan, which is also believed by many fans to be Rao Xiaozhi's role to pay the highest respect to Andy Lau who has been an actor for decades.
Source: Yangcheng Evening News