介绍:
Since the beginning of October, China's film market has been dominated by local films. Normally the box office figures reveal little beyond the capricious tastes of Chinese moviegoers, but this time the disparity among the forerunners can serve as an indicator of some sort, or at least as a lesson for certain filmmakers.
Top earner "Lost in Hong Kong" is the work of actor and director Xu Zheng, whose ingenuity and unblemished record in the market guaranteed attractive content, generous funding and efficient publicity campaign. Second placed "Goodbye Mr. Loser" is based on a popular stage comedy, whose straightforward storyline has now reached a nationwide audience. Both films have accumulated more than 1 billion yuan each, leading by a large margin the third place contender "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe," whose income of over 650 million yuan seems slightly out of proportion with public expectations.
"Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" director Lu Chuan is an established figure in the business known for his willingness to experiment. His last outing "The Last Supper" has been habitually considered as a stain on his record, but was nonetheless a rather innovative and stylish interpretation of historical events. His new creation is loosely based on best-selling novel "Ghost Blows out the Light," but for local policy reasons, the original story about tomb raiders and superstition had to be heavily redacted.
Lu Chuan's approach to the tricky plot was to overthrow the premise completely. Instead of ghosts and tomb raiders, Lu Chuan wrote a new story about aliens and explorers. This can't be good news for the fans of the original novel, but it seems the director is not keen on pleasing first-time viewers either, since he insists on rubbing the audience his own way.
But in this case, Lu's way is similar to that of Michael Bay. Expending hardly any noticeable effort on telling a convincing story, the filmmakers have exhausted every bit of their capacity for post production. What they achieve is visual grandeur that looks rather expensive. Huge behemoths lurking under water, flaming bats torching people to ashes, vicious trolls pushing everyone to the last stand, plus the stunning beauty of China's wild frontier, all together 1500 shots underwent intensive editing to bring up the wow effect.
But quite surprisingly, this movie which looks rather expensive was built on a moderate budget of less than 100 million yuan. Perhaps the affordable cast contributed to the cost management. Among young actors and actresses such as Mark Chao, Feng Li, Li Chen and Tiffany Tang, the only A-lister is Yao Chen, who seems to have been hijacked by the rest of the cast members and taken to a mysterious land of mindless wanderers.
The emphasis on the images has lead to the best special effects money can buy, but also a failure to exploit a very popular text. Recently Chinese filmmakers have developed a fondness for adaptable best-selling stories, but they must realize that alone is not guarantee for success. As for Lu Chuan, it is fine to continue experimenting, but following the steps of Michael Bay won't be necessary.
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