News on September 10 (Reporter An Qing) On September 8, Beijing time, the movie "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood", directed by Marielle Heller and starring to two Oscars for best actor Tom Hanks and Emmy Award for best actor Matthew Reese, debuted at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival. Based on a true story, the film tells the story of friendship between the famous American host Rogers and the journalist Tom Junonot. After the premiere, fans and the media responded enthusiastically, saying that "the story heals", "warms people's hearts", "Tom Hanks is going to compete for the third little golden man", the metacritic review website gave a high score of 80, and the Freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes was 100%. "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is co-produced by Tencent Pictures and Samsung Productions in the United States, and is another important work of Tencent Pictures' "International Exploration Series".
(Picture 1: Group photo of the film's creators on the red carpet of the premiere)
Melting the cold barrier with sincerity and kindness, humanistic care works show the original intention of Tencent Pictures
Inspired by the film's story in 1988, award-winning Esquire journalist Tom Junonot published an article about American child icon Fred Rogers, "You Are... Heroes? 》（ can you say... hero?), tells the story of cynical journalist Lloyd (Matthew Reese) who is wary of child idol Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) in an exclusive interview, not believing that there is really a "saint" like Rogers in the world, and trying to expose the "hypocrisy" of this celebrity. However, in the process of getting along and communicating with Mr. Rogers, he gradually became impressed by Rogers's way of doing things. As a new father, Lloyd actually had a fragmented childhood and has been tormented since adulthood. Rogers used his sincerity and kindness to reverse Lloyd's cynical attitude, opened his heart, allowed him to gradually reconcile with himself, overcome the psychological troubles brought by his original family, and pay attention to and care for his family.
(Picture 2: Film stills – journalist Lloyd meets Mr. Rogers)
The film melts the cold barrier with sincere kindness, and the warm and healing narrative style immerses the audience. As the global co-producer of "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood", the original intention of Tencent Pictures' content creation is to use works to convey humanistic care and use good stories to "enrich life, warm people's hearts, and touch humanity".
An excerpt from the word-of-mouth reviews of the critics and media who watched the screening is as follows:
(Figure 3: Word-of-mouth excerpt)
The theme types are rich and diverse, and Tencent Pictures continues to deepen its international exploration layout
"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is another representative work of Tencent Pictures' six major cultural product series - "International Exploration Series". Since its inception, Tencent Pictures has been actively integrated into the global film and television industry system, and has participated in the global production, creation and marketing of overseas projects such as "Warcraft", "King Kong: Skull Island", "Wonder Woman", "Ready Player One", "Venom: Deadly Guardian", "Aquaman", "Bumblebee", "Alita: Battle Angel" and other overseas projects, and gradually built and improved its own capabilities in production, publicity and creation.
In terms of work types, whether it is a commercial blockbuster that represents Hollywood's top industrial standards, such as "King Kong: Skull Island" and "Aquaman", or the creation of innovative and exploratory IP, such as "Venom: Deadly Guardian", or the film and game crossover IP work "Warcraft" and "Ready Player One", the sci-fi classic reboot IP work "Terminator: Dark Fate", and the "Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" full of humanistic temperament and humanistic care, it is the content direction that Tencent Pictures' "International Exploration Series" continues to pay attention to.
At the same time, Tencent Pictures has also further connected the world's outstanding creative forces, and began to create oriental stories led by the Chinese team, such as "Whistleblower", the English film "My Name is Bai Xiaofei" adapted from Tencent Animation IP, the "Raging Sandstorm" co-starring Jackie Chan and the American professional wrestling champion John Cena, and the seasonal drama "Tibet Code", which will be jointly created by international creative forces, hoping to tell the globally shared Chinese story with a global perspective and a more co-world film and television language.
(Picture 4: On the red carpet of the premiere, director Marielle Heller and lead actor Tom Hanks)
(Picture 5: Stills from the film – Mr. Rogers and the Muppet Daniel Tiger)
Continue to invest in good content, more humanistic temperament works are worth looking forward to
Humanistic temperament works have always been an important type that Tencent Pictures pays close attention to, continues to support and invest in. Last year, "The Unknown Generation", co-produced by Tencent Pictures, depicted the life of small people at the bottom of society, and under the cloak of absurd comedy was the helplessness and cruel truth of life. After the release of the film, the audience's reputation went straight up, with a Douban score of 8.1, ranking second in the rating of Douban's 2018 cinema domestic films, and finally obtained 794 million box office, which was once praised by the audience as the "Dark Horse Film of the Year". This year's only Chinese-language work "The Party at the South Station", which was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Cannes International Film Festival, the plot is adapted from real events and has achieved the ultimate of the black suspense genre, telling the story of a small person who turns the escape of survival into a death-seeking run, and redeems himself, the film has been scheduled for December 6. "The First Parting", which won the Best Film Award of the International Jury of the New Generation Unit of the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, shows the audience the long-lost childhood pictures of urban life and the pains and sorrows experienced by growing up through the children's parting stories. The film will also meet the audience soon. The two films, Tencent Pictures are co-producers.
(Picture 6: The only Chinese-language film shortlisted for this year's Cannes main competition unit, "The Party at the South Station", is set for December 6)
(Photo 7: The award-winning "First Parting" at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Film Festival in Berlin, Tokyo is about to be released)
Next, Tencent Pictures will also bring the realist absurd comedy film "The Eleventh Time" directed and starring Chen Jianbin, starring Zhou Xun, Dou Jingtong, Chunxia, Dapeng and Song Jia, focusing on middle-aged men; adapted from Rao Xueman's novel of the same name, directed by Wang Weiming, produced by Huang Zhiming, starring Ma Sichun and Huo Jianhua, telling the understanding of love of different people, "About Winter"; the romantic comedy film "Love" produced by Xu Zheng and directed by Yang Zi.
As an open content platform focused on high-quality film and television works, in the future, Tencent Pictures will continue to connect with high-quality partners in the industry to bring more good works that "enrich life, warm people's hearts and touch humanity" to global audiences.
The film "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is co-produced by Samsung Productions and Tencent Pictures Worldwide, and produced by Wei'an Pictures/mr. youree. Directed by Mariele Heller and starring Tom Hanks, Matthew Reese, Susan Callidge Watson and Chris Cooper. It is produced by Cheng Wu, Chen Hongwei, Bogan Swanson, Noah Happst and Micah Fezeman-Bloe. Producers Yuri Henry, Peter Saraf, Mark Tulleterb, Leah Holzer; Micah Fezeman-Blough and Noah Hapst as screenwriters, Howard Parr as music director, music producer Nate Heller, costume designer Arjun Bassin, editor Anne McCabe and Ace, Jed Healy as art director, and Jody Lee Lipes as director of photography. (End)