Films such as "Silent Killing" and "Catching Dolls" in the summer are gaining momentum, breaking through the 1 billion mark one after another, but at the same time, some films that seem to have a luxurious lineup and are quite expected are quietly falling behind, among which the costume action film "Legend" starring Jackie Chan is the most typical example. After more than ten days of release, the box office of the film was difficult to break 100 million, and in the end, it was likely to stop at the box office of 80 million, which is indeed a big surprise.
Another manifestation of poor performance is in the word-of-mouth of the film, "Legend" Douban only has a score of 5.3, failing, and if you go back to other works starring Jackie Chan in recent years, "Furious Sandstorm", "Dragon Horse Spirit", "Pioneer", "The Mystery of the Dragon Card", "Detective Pu Songling", "Blood of the Machine", without exception, are all failing scores, and the relatively good reputation of "British Showdown" is already a work seven years ago. In the past few days, the topic of "why Jackie Chan movies are gradually losing their box office appeal" has appeared on Weibo hot searches, and many viewers may also be puzzled, as the former box office elixir and the light of the Chinese, why did the market and word-of-mouth performance of Jackie Chan movies fall into such a situation? What are the underlying reasons behind this?
What the audience wants to see is a more realistic Jackie Chan
Let's start with the recently released "Legend". The film is a sister chapter of "Mythology", which tells the story of Professor Fang's excavation of a mysterious shaman ancient jade during archaeology, which leads Professor Fang and his assistant Wang Jingmeng to return to the Western Han Dynasty, incarnate as a brave and warlike Han army general, fight in the boundless Hexi grassland, lead the cavalry to resist the Xiongnu to protect the homeland, and start a past life relationship with the Xiongnu princess Mengyun that spans thousands of years. In order to find the truth, Professor Fang and his assistant invited their friend Lei Zhen to go deep into the 10,000-year-old glacier to find the sacred land of worship, and wanted to uncover this unknown legend that spanned the ages, but was blocked by the shaman expert Hebber......
The reason why "Legend" was born is largely because of the "Myth" Zhuyu. "Myth" was released in 2005, which can be described as a double harvest at the box office, and it also conformed to the boom of Sino-Korean co-production at that time, and the theme song of the movie "Beautiful Myth" has been sung to this day. Of course, this is also related to the popularity of the setting of "time travel" in those years, and now looking back, "Myth" can indeed be called one of the iconic works of costume travel movies.
It's just that when "crossing" is mentioned again today, the public's curiosity has been greatly reduced, and even if there are works with "crossing" as the core selling point, they will be branded as old-fashioned and cheesy evaluations. "Legend" does not continue the true feelings that transcend time and language in "Myth", but only rudely takes the shell of crossing, the core is empty, and many places emphasize the connection with "Myth", it is difficult not to doubt that it is selling feelings.
We summarized the evaluation of the film by netizens on the Internet, and the controversy is mainly in the following points: the text is simple, the sense of cinema is too weak or even inferior to online movies, the effect of AI restoring young Jackie Chan is not ideal, and the acting skills of young actors are too poor, etc. As for the selling points of the film's previous main marketing, such as the actual shooting of the galloping scene of ten thousand horses, it was also ignored because the problems mentioned earlier were too serious.
As some critics have pointed out, "Legend" has made great efforts to restore the young Jackie Chan with AI technology, covering the faces of young actors, which is completely putting the cart before the horse. Not to mention the completion of AI restoration, it is a natural thing for an actor to get old, Jackie Chan at this age naturally has his current charm, but a lot of time in the movie is showing the charm of "young Jackie Chan", or is it an AI version, which seems to be throwing questions to all audiences: Jackie Chan is old, can he still eat?
In fact, the charm of Jackie Chan and his action comedy lies in his ability to intersperse laughter and scolding belonging to ordinary people in his clever action design. For example, his early masterpieces "Police Story", "Plan A", "Drunken Fist", etc., without exception, are all from the perspective of small people, even in the new century, films such as "Baby Plan", "Big Soldier", "Shinjuku Incident" and other films have not been separated from the category of small people, and "Myth" is already a movie far from the Jackie Chan that the audience expects to see. But in recent years, most of the movies that Jackie Chan has starred in have been too "deified", and there will even be situations like "Legend" that use Jackie Chan's appearance when he was young as a marketing gimmick, it can be said that the audience likes the real Jackie Chan, rather than a young version of Jackie Chan that has been restored with technology.
Times are changing, and so are audiences' viewing preferences
belongs to the peak moment of Jackie Chan's commercial achievements, and it is necessary to return to the Spring Festival file in 2017, when "Kung Fu Yoga" starring him finally won a box office of 1.748 billion, which is still a very good result today. The film only scored 5.0 points on Douban, but at that time, the Chinese film market's emphasis on star effect and the pursuit of visual effects was still a relatively popular phenomenon, so in the Spring Festival file that year, "Kung Fu Yoga", which was the most joyful in style, stood out and became the final box office champion of the Spring Festival file that year.
In fact, in those years, Jackie Chan's name can be said to be a very loud golden signboard, and a new work will be launched almost every year, although the quality is uneven, but the box office results are good. "Jedi Escape" 887 million, "Zodiac" 881 million, "Heavenly General" 742 million, "Railway Flying Tiger" 699 million, "British Showdown" 539 million, "Police Story 2013" 534 million.
However, after 2017, the commercial feedback of Jackie Chan's movies gradually became less than ideal, until this time "Legend", it was very difficult to even break 100 million. In addition to the poor quality and old-fashioned ideas of the works themselves, they are actually closely related to the viewing preferences and creative trends of Chinese audiences.
On the one hand, since the box office explosion of "I Am Not the God of Medicine" in 2018, reality-themed films have become the mainstream of audience viewing, and the two major genres of action comedy and costume comedy that Jackie Chan is good at have gradually lost the trust of the audience, and the audience hopes to see more films that resonate with real life and emotions. In the past two years, "emotional topic movies" have become popular, and most of Jackie Chan's movies lack topics with social discussion except for Jackie Chan himself, so it is difficult to get out of the circle.
On the other hand, Jackie Chan, as a representative of Hong Kong filmmakers, although most of them have been co-productions in recent years, it is undeniable that the box office appeal of Hong Kong filmmakers in the mainland has declined greatly as a whole. Not long ago, Chen Luochao, the producer of "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", revealed that many mainland film companies will suspend the development and production of Hong Kong films in the future, because in recent years, Hong Kong films or works starring Hong Kong filmmakers have mostly fallen short of expectations at the box office. The post-00s audience is becoming the new main moviegoer, and there is still a certain sense of distance between the old Hong Kong stars and these young audiences, which is also a change that is quietly taking place in the market.
In fact, as Jackie Chan himself, I can see that he has worked hard to give newcomers more opportunities in his works over the years, Jackie Chan no longer occupies most of the length of the movie, and sometimes he is not even the male lead, he hopes to use his influence to set off the performance of more young people, but for the audience who walked into the theater and came to Jackie Chan, it was definitely not enough to be satisfied, and when the film's reputation and box office were not ideal, Jackie Chan naturally became the target of public criticism, and even before the university roadshow of "Dragon Horse Spirit", There are also viewers who sharply criticized the film in front of Jackie Chan. For Jackie Chan, who is over seventy years old, these hustles and bustles will definitely not affect his acting career, but for all film companies and creators who work with Jackie Chan, they need to be carefully evaluated.
How to play the "Jackie Chan" card well?
Even so, Jackie Chan still has many works to be screened, including "New Police Story 2", "Strange Family", "Plan P", etc., among which "Plan P" may be set for the National Day, and this time the theme is still an action comedy, looking at the story synopsis is very similar to the combination of "Kung Fu Yoga" + "Zodiac".
In recent years, Jackie Chan's best word-of-mouth work is still the "British Showdown" we mentioned earlier. This is not a comedy, in the movie Jackie Chan plays a father who wants to avenge his daughter, and there is a film comment that is very interesting: "This time Jackie Chan put away his smile, and we smiled." "Today's Jackie Chan has actually had the precipitation of the years, and he can create a more profound and three-dimensional character, not just playing treasure in the story or becoming a mascot-like existence.
Of course, there are also some young creators who are inspiring more possibilities in Jackie Chan, such as "Strange Family" in which Jackie Chan wants to play an old man with Alzheimer's disease, and many netizens are looking forward to it, because many people like Jackie Chan not only as a martial arts star, but as an actor. Since you are an actor, you need to bring a more comprehensive and rich role to the audience, rather than always staying in your comfort zone.
And if we broaden our horizons, since June, films such as "Negotiators" and "Customs Front", which are also led by Hong Kong movie stars, have not performed well, the essence is that the script is too routine, it is difficult to resonate with the audience, and at the same time, the leading actors who have reached a certain age have had aesthetic fatigue, which shows that Jackie Chan's problems are not only for Jackie Chan himself, but for "Jackie Chan" to face problems.
After all, this is an era that does not lack a sense of feelings, and what the audience wants to see more is freshness and breakthroughs, otherwise in the face of the business model that is updated day after day, those who can't keep up can only be ruthlessly and cruelly abandoned.