When did China's blockbuster era begin? Probably Zhang Yimou's "Hero".
The so-called "blockbuster", in the eyes of ordinary moviegoers, means bigger investment, bigger actors, bigger scale and higher box office.
And to talk about the era of Chinese blockbusters, we have to start with Ang Lee.
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese and later went to the United States to develop. After ten years of hard work, he has become the most popular Chinese director in Hollywood. In 1999, Ang Lee was preparing for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". In Ang Lee's heart, the most perfect candidate to play Li Mubai should be Jet Li. Because Jet Li has practiced martial arts since childhood, he is well versed in various martial arts routines and is also familiar with various weapons. Therefore, Huang Feihong, played by Jet Li, really has the style and temperament of a generation of masters.
Li Lianjie met Li An, and the martial arts instructor of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was Yuan Heping, "the best martial artist in the world", and he and Michelle Yeoh had already had a perfect partner in "Tai Chi Zhang Sanfeng". This is definitely the best combination.
However, that year Li Lianjie's second wife, Li Zhi, was pregnant at home. Li Lianjie, who loves his wife, agreed to Li Zhi, and refused to accept any movies during this period, so he declined Li An. Therefore, it was replaced by Chow Yun-fat.
In 2000, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was released and achieved unprecedented global success. It became the first foreign-language film in American history to exceed 100 million at the box office, with a final global box office of 217 million US dollars, and won four Oscars. We have no way of knowing what impact Jet Li will have on his future and worth if he takes over this job. This has become a permanent regret in the hearts of fans.
The success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" gave Chinese directors an opportunity at that time, and soon the first large-scale investment film appeared. That is "Hero" directed by Zhang Yimou.
In order to make "Heroes" big enough. Zhang Yimou invited Tan Dun from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Jet Li who missed the lead role, Cannes actor Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung from Berlin Silver Bear, Zhang Ziyi from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", senior domestic actor Chen Daoming, and Donnie Yen recommended by Jet Li.
This lineup is actually far beyond "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
To this day, there are still many people who don't like "Hero" and think it's a very pretentious movie. However, this is my movie enlightenment, and even the blockbuster enlightenment of many people.
The plot of "Hero" may seem complicated, but it is actually very simple. In order to take revenge, Zhao Ren, played by Jet Li, practiced a sword for ten years and joined forces with Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung to assassinate the King of Qin. As a result, because of Liang Chaowei's higher ideological persuasion, he gave up the assassination.
This year, Zhang Yimou has a new movie, "Shadow" starring Deng Chao and Sun Li, which also tells the story of assassins in the Qin Dynasty. Chinese directors really have a soft spot for the role of "Qin Shi Huang". Judging from the current trailer, this should be a work within Zhang Yimou's artistic level.
The fate of Chinese directors is basically the intersection of art films and bad films, because you have to make money for investors to make money for you to make art films, even for big names such as Zhang Yimou. And "Hero" should belong to the category of art films.
The biggest difference between Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is lightness.
Ang Lee has been experimenting with new themes so far. He is a director who really loves movies, but no matter what subject he shoots, he is still inseparable from the role of "human". "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" seems to be about martial arts, but in fact it is more about the relationship between the hero and the heroine. The emotion, forbearance and restraint under the traditional Chinese Confucian culture. Therefore, there is no need for a big scene, starting from the heart of a person, it can still show a big pattern.
The general pattern of Zhang Yimou can basically be described as "multiple, neat, and beautiful".
From "Hero" to "Golden Armor", from the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games to "The Great Wall", Zhang Yimou really embodies this perfectly. No matter whether it is useful or not in the movie, there must be a lot of people. As long as there is more of anything, and then use the panoramic view to skip it, it will give people the feeling of being very vast and magnificent. Everyone made the same movement, neat and uniform, completely like a gymnastics meeting, which is Zhang Yimou's Qi. Zhang Yimou was born as a photographer, so he is really paranoid about the use of color. In "Hero", it is almost one scene with one color, which is the most criticized place by moviegoers.
However, in terms of Chinese style, Zhang Yimou has done a great job. Ang Lee still uses emotion as a cultural symbol to represent China. Zhang Yimou uses composition to complete the artistic conception of an ink painting.
The story of "Hero" is not necessarily brilliant. But it makes people love it, because every frame in it has the charm of traditional culture, which is really a lot of effort. For example, the bronze swords of the warriors of the Qin Dynasty can be bent, the chessboard on which Donnie Yen plays chess, the nineteen ways of writing "sword", and so on.
In addition, all the fighting scenes in it are very exciting, especially the part of Jet Li and Donnie Yen. This is the second time the two of them have collaborated. The first time was in 1991's "Men Be Self-improvement". Li Lianjie's graceful skills, with a sword, could not be better. When Tsui Hark was planning to film "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", Zhao Huaian used a sword in the original category of martial arts guidance, but not everyone can grasp this sword clearly. When he learned that Jet Li was playing the role, the martial arts instructor said that he could design moves with confidence.
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero" can be watched together, the former is about the inner child, and it is about emotions. The latter is the face, watching is the action.
The global box office of "Hero" eventually reached 177 million US dollars. For the Chinese film market in 2001, this was like a forced injection to spawn more blockbusters.
Although more than ten years have passed, this movie is still occasionally taken out to see. I miss the afternoon of eating melons and blowing fans to watch movies in front of the TV.
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WeChat public account: Li Weiwen
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