South Korea’s hot IP movie Busan Tour launched the sequel "Busan Tour 2 Peninsula" on July 15. Before going to Busan 2 you must put aside the preconceived notions of "Tour Busan 1", because the two films have nothing to do with the main characters and film types except for the story background. They are not a series from the audience’s point of view. Film. But even if evaluated as an independent film, "Journey to Busan 2" is only a qualified zombie-themed action commercial. Last week 8.17-8.23 single-week "Busan Tour 2" has fallen to sixth place in the South Korean movie box office rankings, and the cumulative number of movie viewers barely exceeded 3.8 million. In the same period, Huang Zhengmin and Lee Jung-jae joined forces with "Evil in the Evil". "Save Me" easily surpassed 4 million visits. "Travel to Busan 2" may not even exceed 4 million viewers in the final movie. In the Korean film market, it is definitely a double failure in the box office reputation. The failure of Busan Tour 2 precisely reflects the plight of the Korean film industry. The scale of investment in commercial films is limited, and it is difficult to reach the scale of investment in world-class commercial blockbusters. Without attracting foreign capital from the United States and China, South Korean film companies will not be able to produce world-class commercial blockbusters based on South Korea's single film market.
"Travel to Busan 1" is a commercial case of an extremely successful commercial film in South Korea that tried to be included in a textbook. With an investment of 10 billion won, about 60 million yuan, 93.1 billion won and about 540 million yuan of movie box office were obtained, and the investment income was 10 times as high as the myth level. If it is changed to the stock market, it is an absolute big winner and bought 10 times the big cow. share. "Tour to Busan 1" has long been ranked tenth in the historical Korean movie box office. The Korean movie box office champion is the national war film "Liang Minghai Battle" with 135 billion won and about 780 million yuan. If this box office is placed in China's top ten consecutive years Movies are not included, and they are even more famous in the global film market. In 2019, the box office threshold for the top ten Chinese films is 1.5 billion yuan, while the threshold for the top ten top-grossing films in the global film market for American films is 1 billion U.S. dollars and about 7 billion yuan. The data is cold enough to show that South Korea's single box office market does not have the ability to consume world-class commercial blockbusters in its own country, and cannot provide basic box office support for the promotion of the pioneering film industry in South Korea's main industrial cultural output to the level of global commercial blockbusters. The producer of "Travel to Busan 2" has a clear understanding of the difficulties in the Korean film market, and because of this, the purpose of the production of "Travel to Busan 2" is very clear. The reputation accumulated by "Travel to Busan 1" is used to play Busan. Under the banner of IP, strictly control costs and make a quick profit. The plot of the film always reveals that the director is very nervous about cost overruns, reducing the special effects of the early stage, and spending all the limited funds on the blade of the final racing war.
Since this film has little to do with "Tour to Busan 1", I won't talk about the comparison of the two films here too much. "Tour to Busan 1" is about the virus outbreak just after the manga "Seoul Station". The movie scenes are mostly concentrated in the high-speed rail carriages, and the special effects scenes are very limited. The main shocking zombie scenes are also completed in low-cost group performances. Therefore, the film investment cost is as low as 60 million yuan, which is understandable. The story background of "Travel to Busan 2" is different. It is the kingdom of undead zombies that the entire South Korea has been reduced to ruins 4 years after the virus outbreak. The plot and scene of the film will inevitably be more ambitious. The scene is in the ruins of South Korea. It is conceivable that all kinds of special effects are piled up by money. The Unreal Kingdom and the zombies know that they will burn money when they think of the picture. Similar to the movie scene of "Busan 2" is the commercial blockbuster "Zombie World War". The investment cost of "Zombie World War" is 700 million US dollars and about 4.9 billion yuan. "Travel to Busan 2" does not need to show the world as in "Zombie World War", only South Korea is enough, so I want to shoot " "Zombie World War", the world's top commercial blockbuster production standard, will also invest 300 million US dollars and 2 billion yuan. If you invest 2 billion yuan in the movie box office of "Travel to Busan 2", at least 5 billion yuan and 860 billion won will not lose money. So what is the concept of the 860 billion movie box office in South Korea? South Korean box office champion "Mingliang Sea Battle" only got 135 billion won in box office with 17.61 million movie viewers, and 110 million movie viewers at the box office of 860 billion movies. It is important to know that the total population of South Korea in 2020 is 52 million, which means that the whole country of South Korea, men, women and children all go to the cinema for the second time to support Hollywood-level commercial blockbusters without losing money. If you want to shoot "Travel in Busan 2", you can only add special effects to achieve Hollywood level investment, which is impossible for Korean film and television companies. The public report on the investment cost of "Travel in Busan 2" is that the production cost of "Travel in Busan 1" has doubled to 120 million yuan and about 20.6 billion won. The largest investment in the history of Korean film, "Mingliang Sea Battle" is also 20 billion won. Line 2 has reached the investment limit of the Korean film industry. It is not difficult to understand that the director is careful not to overspend after the production side puts everything in.
The story background of "Travel to Busan 2" had problems from the very beginning, and the film format was obviously smaller. In order to control costs, there are only less than a hundred people living in Busan in the ruins. The film underestimates the survival ability of human beings, making it unacceptable for viewers who are used to watching similar zombie films. You must know that in European and American films, humans can survive tenaciously in a small town. Up. The absolute protagonist of the zombie film, the zombie, is unprecedentedly weakened in this film. The zombie cannot be seen or smelled at night and can only be distinguished by the sound. The survivor is safe if he hides in the car without making a sound. The zombie is survived. The person is playing round and round. The zombie film that made the audience unable to fear is definitely a zombie film that failed completely. The audience's IQ was also molested by the director. The audience couldn't help but ask such a weak zombies that the U.S. military was also afraid? In order to control costs again, two-thirds of the film's plots are shuttled in the survivor camp. There are no zombies chasing, no ruin doomsday scenes, and only a boring performance by a group of close-to-crazy soldiers. Most of the time in the film, what zombies and ruins do not exist is a gun battle between people. People and people hit the audience. If you get tired of watching the film, the more you watch it, the more boring and boring you watch. "Travel in Busan 2" is worth seeing is the battle of escaping the zombie drag racing at the beginning and the climax at the end, and the only thing to watch is "Mad Max". From the end of the film, "Travel in Busan 2" It became a zombie version of "Mad Max". The director himself also knows that "Take Busan 2" is to be made into a commercial action film, so the Korean movie in "Take Busan 1" has a dark society style and the multiplicity of humanity to be expressed. This also allows the audience. unbearable. The only human entanglement in "Travel to Busan 2" is also to maintain the film's action and commercial rhythm to the end. After Jiang Dongyuan knew that his mother and daughter were saved by the family that he couldn't save four years ago, the painful struggle in his heart was suddenly broken by the heroine's words. Back then, 30 people passed by and couldn't save them. Before the catastrophe, there was nothing to blame for the selfishness of human nature for self-protection. It was not that Jiang Dongyuan didn’t save people alone. Everyone who passed by didn’t save people. You don’t need to feel guilty if you don’t have time to save yourself. . The film also does not deliberately express maternal love and affection, and it is better to survive in despair as to torture of human nature. The heroine in the movie often tells Jiang Dongyuan that if you feel ashamed, we will save my daughter. It is not living in the past to blame Jiang Dongyuan, but living in the present and trying all means to escape. It is maternal love that makes a housewife change. Become a Jagged Warrior. The UN soldier Jane who appears at the end of the film is obviously not the NATO soldier Jane mentioned by the crazy grandfather, but a symbolic technique of the director to convey that we must have hope in life. At the end and "Busan "Line 1" the hero Kong Yoo is the same out of motherly love and the heroine sacrifices herself in order to protect her children. The difference is that at the moment when the heroine committed suicide in despair, hearing her daughter's cry awakened her inner survival instinct. With the help of Jiang Dongyuan, the heroine changed her fate and escaped. This ending is not the director’s compensation for the death of Kong Yoo in "Travel in Busan 1" or the happy ending of the commercial film. "Travel in Busan 1" is the virus outbreak, the end of the world is approaching, and the deeper despair is still behind. Kong Yoo's sacrifice is inevitable. The only way to express hope is through the survival of Zheng Yumei and the child, but it is far away. The end of the world in "Travel in Busan 2" has come, and the surviving people have adapted to a desperate life. Humankind has sacrificed enough that there is no need to sacrifice a great mother to sensationalize. Just as the line at the end of the film is not bad without the new world I am familiar with, it is this line that touches the most people in the film. The film conveys that the zombie world is not terrible, terribly giving up hope of survival.
"Busan Tour 2 Peninsula" strictly controls costs and cannot produce a world-class commercial zombie film, only pure quick money. In order not to lose money at the box office, the actor activated Jiang Dongyuan. There are only a handful of male movie stars with commercial box office appeal in South Korea, and Kang Dong-won is the youngest among them. In those days, Jiang Dongwon alone managed the box office of the Korean fantasy commercial film "Tian Uji". In terms of box office results, the director and production company won, and word-of-mouth has made a lot of money by relying on the hot IP and the first wave of Jiang Dongyuan's movie-watching craze. "Busan Tour 2 Peninsula" was released in three weeks, the global box office exceeded 40 million U.S. dollars and about 280 million yuan. The cost has been recovered, and the problem of earning more and less. I don't think the director and production company are willing to spoil the Busan IP without career ambitions. The director and production company are restricted by the scale of investment and exhaust all their power. They can only shoot at this level and make a quick money. The failure of Busan Tour 2 is worthy of reflection by Korean film practitioners. If it does not attract foreign investment, it will not be based on the global film market. Korean commercial blockbusters will never be able to match the top level of Hollywood in the world.
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