Take "Disappearing Her" to briefly talk about Chen Sicheng's model

During the Dragon Boat Festival just this past holiday, I ran two trips to the theater, except for "I Love You!" In addition, I also watched "Disappearing Her" - this is the only movie in the schedule that has a box office hit, which has exceeded 620 million yuan.

To be honest, my impression of the film is okay, and the comprehensive quality is also passable (otherwise it will not be favored by the market), but it seems that it is not exciting to write a long article for it...

Originally, it passed, but in recent days, many discussions and salvas around the film have attracted my attention, and I still want to say a few more words about it.

At present, the "weird phenomenon" presented by "Disappearing Her" is that the film's expected box office continues to rise, soaring from 700 million + at the beginning to 1.6 billion +, but the film's reputation is gradually declining, and Douban was 7.5 when it opened with a score, and now it has fallen to 6.9.

Another interesting phenomenon is that although the directors of the film are Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, the audience's discussion and controversy are almost all focused on Chen Sicheng, the producer and screenwriter.

I think that the latter phenomenon can largely explain the former phenomenon: the imprint of "Pan Chen Sicheng" on "Disappearing Her" is too heavy, and the commercial success of the film will inevitably be accompanied by a lot of criticism.

Nowadays, Chen Sicheng is always criticized on the Internet - I personally have no feeling for him, but I probably understand why he has such a good comment: firstly, as a creator, he is not very talented, and he should not be popular enough, and secondly, his character in some other aspects is not well received.

If it's just like this, things are still simple, but Chen Sicheng's results after devoting himself to the production of commercial films are ridiculously good: except for last year's "Mozart in Outer Space" overturn, the rest of the films he directed are box office hits, and the total box office of the three films in the "Detective Chinatown" series has exceeded 8.7 billion yuan.

At the same time, Chen Sicheng also found a set of models that can mass-produce commercial films: using new directors trained/discovered/promoted by himself, relying on the doctrine of buying foreign film copyrights, finding actors with acting skills or appeal, and committing adultery in (pan)Southeast Asia.

"Disappearing Her" is already the third work in this mode, and there are two "Manslaughter" before -

Ke Wenli, Dai Mo, Cui Rui and others were originally not famous (the previous two filmed Tang Tan's online dramas), which is more in line with Chen Sicheng's style;

Buying copyright can ensure that the script foundation will not be too bad, "Manslaughter" is a remake of "Manslaughter", "Manslaughter 2" is a remake of "Imminent", "Disappearing Her" is a remake of "The Trap for the Bachelor" (there are many other suspense films in these movies);

Putting the background abroad can also avoid some objective resistance and problems, so that the presentation of story content is more "flexible".

It can be said that Chen Sicheng has found a genre film track that is not "lively" but very competitive: mainly suspense and crime, but more emotional relaxation and immersion in watching movies.

Facts have proved that this model is effective, the box office of "Manslaughter" is 1.334 billion yuan, the box office of "Manslaughter 2" is 1.028 billion yuan, and "Disappearing Her" currently seems to be a 1 billion + problem, relative to their shooting costs, undoubtedly very successful.

Returning to the controversy, it is not difficult to understand that the box office and word of mouth of "Disappearing Her" have gradually split: all the more knowledgeable (or consciously knowledgeable) audiences who have some reading volume are a little unimpressed with the film, and even scoff at it, after all, this "basic" type of film is difficult to say excellent.

But it has done what many good movies cannot, pulled many audiences who don't usually watch movies back to the theater, and may bring out more mature fans in the future.

A while ago I was still saying that "Hollywood movies are not good to sell in China", in fact, domestic films are not much better, in the environment where more people are beginning to lose interest in movies, it is not easy to revitalize the "cloud audience" with a work that steps on the threshold.

Of course, the above ideas are more from the perspective of the market, if you look at it purely from the perspective of film, there are more films that are "lazy in pure creation and more commercial", whether it is good or bad or two.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that a considerable part of the bad comments in "Disappearing Her" do not come from the judgment of the quality of the film, but from dissatisfaction with some "value orientation" in the film.

Although I do not advocate a "guardian" value critique of literary and artistic works, I also need to admit that this "Disappearing Her" is unusual, playing a very new thing (male and female perspectives are exchanged, even a bit of "female fist" tune), catering to some negative emotions - personally feel, anyway, it is all a story, how to arrange it, but it can't stand that some viewers feel physically uncomfortable after watching it.

And this situation should have more benefits than disadvantages for boosting the film's box office.

Chen Sicheng is an excellent product manager, and "Disappearing Her" once again proves his business vision and profitability, but the many abnormal noises at the moment are destined to face more and more bumps in this seemingly bright road.