Under the publicity campaign of the number one giant system in the summer vacation, and even the number one giant system of the year, "Tangshan Earthquake" has already made people's appetites high. Super confidence in the quality of the video. The strong contrast here is that when "Tangshan Earthquake" was really tested by the audience on the big screen, the author found that the film was far from the expected value of the publicity, even though the author's expectations for "The Great Earthquake" were not. Gao, the film still fell below the bottom line of the author's expectations, and I was even more surprised that this film is actually a deceitful work that sells dog meat and pulls the banner of tiger skin. If you remove the huge publicity offensive in your mind As well as the influence of Feng Xiaogang's director's name on your preconceived ideas, you will find that "The Great Earthquake" is a complete "pseudo-blockbuster"!
As a disaster film, the earthquake special effects of less than 5 minutes at the beginning flash by, the technical level is rough, and it can't compare with Hollywood disaster blockbusters, even compared with Japanese and Korean disaster films, there is a big gap; as a long time span Family films that have been around for decades, the film's storytelling is extremely poor, revealing Feng Xiaogang's inadequacy in storytelling. Family love scenes often stay in the expression of shouting slogans, or the hoarseness of TV drama routines makes people cry, and the main emotional line It seems very weak in the whole film, lacks vivid and delicate emotional expression, and even makes people feel that the plot is dragging on and off for a long time, it seems that it is to end the scene where Xu Fan and Zhang Jingchu recognize the mother and daughter, but in fact it does not take time. It plays the role of making the audience's emotions continue to ferment and ferment to the climax. Although the mother-daughter recognition drama is easy to tear, the climax effect is not strong. In addition, decades of changes in the times and social transformation have not been well displayed in the film, which makes the film's field of view extremely narrow, and the props and costumes that reflect the times are full of loopholes, making the film's "epic film" banner a complete failure. Sadly, "Tangshan Earthquake" has no artistic sense and personality in the lens language and montage group. The banner, which actually sells TV dramas, has the audacity to raise movie ticket prices according to blockbuster standards, which is evident from the mentality of Feng Xiaogang and Huayi Company to make "national hardships"! If you still have hope for "Earthquake", the author can give you a slogan to "promote" the film - spend the money of the movie to watch TV series, "Earthquake" is a good choice for you!
"Tangshan Earthquake" tried its best to package itself as a special special effect disaster blockbuster. In the videos about "Great Earthquake" that the audience could see before the release, all of them highlighted the scenes of the Tangshan earthquake, giving the film the main focus of the earthquake scene. In fact, the 1976 Tangshan opera in the film was only 15 minutes long, and the special effects scene of the earthquake was less than 5 minutes. Most of the other parts of the film were about the dozens of Xu Fan's family after the earthquake. Years of life and emotional stories, from the overall style, this film is not a disaster blockbuster at all, but is more inclined to the concept of feature films in the 1980s. Moreover, just looking at the 5-minute earthquake special effects scene, there are still many problems. First of all, in terms of the structure of the film, the story quickly entered the earthquake scene not long after the story started. Whether it is the familiarity and understanding of Xu Fan's family, as well as the atmosphere before the earthquake, the audience lacked time for emotional brewing, so when When the disaster comes, it is difficult for the audience to be worried and worried about Xu Fan's family. Moreover, the disaster scene starts quickly and ends quickly. The audience is not addicted to watching it. It's like Zhu Bajie eats ginseng fruit and swallows it without tasting it at all. It can be seen that the director's ideas and design of disaster films are quite amateur. Thinking about the various preparations and foils of Hollywood disaster films before the disaster, you can easily see the gap between "Earthquake". Take "2012", which was a big hit in the mainland last year, for example, even though the film has so many and such shocking disaster scenes, the director did not throw it out immediately at the beginning, but spent a lot of pen and ink to foreshadow, using cracked ground , the evaporating lake to create a sense of imminent disaster, and at the same time highlight the emotional collision between the protagonist and his children. Since then, when the disaster comes, the audience's already brewing emotions can be immediately attracted by the disaster scene, and the safety of the protagonist's family also affects people's hearts at all times. . "Earthquake" didn't make much effort in this regard at all. It only played a "car shock" followed by an "earthquake", so it could not achieve the same effect of attracting audiences as Hollywood disaster films. Moreover, the overall earthquake scene and the post-earthquake scene are only aimed at the experience of Xu Fan's family, and lack the overall presentation of the Tangshan earthquake. From this point of view, the title of the film "Tangshan Earthquake" is not worthy of its name.
The 5-minute earthquake special effects scene also has many shortcomings in the details. The delicacy and realism of the special effects are far from enough. The fish jumped out of the fish tank, the cracks in the walls were shaken, and they jumped from the upstairs and then fell down by the rocks. The computer effects can obviously make people feel rough and fake. There is also a scene with obvious bugs. At the beginning of the big earthquake, a long-range lens showed a celestial phenomenon, and a strong earthquake attacked. At this time, if you look closely at the square in this scene, there is a person still strolling in the courtyard, you can see the shooting In this shot, it was not designed to be the beginning of a major earthquake, so the person in the square was not asked to panic and avoid. With such a level of special effects, Feng Xiaogang dared to boast everywhere that "the special effects are more expensive than "2012", which is either bragging or being taken advantage of by others. In fact, the level of special effects for Chinese blockbusters is as good as the audience's psychology. Few are willing to spend a lot of money to play special effects, and special effects blockbusters or disaster blockbusters are money-burning machines. The more money you spend, the better the effect. "The Great Earthquake", considering the Japanese and Korean disaster films together, the Asian film's idea of making disaster films at a "discounted price" can only show the gap between itself and Hollywood.
As long as the illusion of the disaster film "Tangshan Earthquake" is uncovered, when the earthquake disaster scene is over and you enter the life of Xu Fan's family for decades after the earthquake, you will discover the true attributes of this feature film, and even if it keeps pace with the 1980s and 1990s Compared with the prosperous period of mainland feature films in the 1990s, the level of storytelling and character shaping in "The Great Earthquake" is also exceptionally poor, which is the same as the general level of sensational family dramas and family dramas broadcast on TV today. The story is basically divided into two parts that are not connected to each other - the life and emotional experience of the daughter Fang Deng played by Zhang Jingchu, the life and emotional experience of the mother played by Xu Fan and the son Fang Da played by Li Chen, these two stories have nothing to do with each other. The close connection only occurs when the mother and daughter recognize each other at the end, resulting in the film's lack of a clear family line. The most terrible thing is that when I examine the two stories separately, there is no sense of brilliance, and there are no vivid and delicate details. There is no bright spot or spark in the love rivalry with Lu Yi. The story of the characters is not completely and smoothly displayed, and the sense of jumping is too strong, which makes people wonder how Zhang Jingchu was a tutor for a while, and then married a foreigner and went to Canada; The car is the boss. Some people joked that "Tangshan Earthquake" is an extra-long promotional film for the TV series of the same name that Huayi Company is planning to shoot, and it is an excellent ridicule for the film's bad story. This actually exposes Feng Xiaogang's shortcomings in the directing of comedies who are good at gag, but not good at telling stories. His most well-known comedies "Party A and Party B" and "See You or Not" are actually segmented films. Fragments that are not very tight make up the whole film, rather than a complete, fluid, cohesive story. "Assembly" also has wonderful war scenes, but when it comes to the plot that needs to be told after the war, the quality of the film drops rapidly. "If You Are the One" is the first time that Feng Xiaogang told a story smoothly and comfortably. As a result, "Tangshan Earthquake" quickly brought Feng Director back to its original shape.
In fact, the trailer for "Tangshan Earthquake" also reflects Feng Xiaogang's lack of confidence in the overall story level of the film. At present, the final version trailer of "The Great Earthquake" that everyone has seen on various video carriers is the trailer that shows the earthquake scene in a way of stepping back in time. According to Hollywood standards, it can only be regarded as a leading trailer. Released within half a year or three months before the release, it uses eye-catching lenses to reveal the tip of the iceberg of the film to the audience and fully arouse the audience's curiosity about the film. The final version of the trailer is a complete presentation of the general plot and style of the film. . The final version of the trailer of "The Great Earthquake" only shows the content of the Tangshan earthquake, which accounts for a very small part of the film, and the post-earthquake story, which accounts for most of the film's plot, does not have a single scene. This fully shows that the director and the producer only want to use the Tangshan earthquake complex and rendering special effects to fool the audience, and do not want the audience to see the fragmented and boring post-earthquake story. The author can't help but think, if I really want to cut a final trailer for the post-earthquake story, what kind of appearance will "The Great Earthquake" be presented to the audience? The kind of family conflict and emotional entanglement that audiences are accustomed to in TV dramas will completely reveal the true face of "The Great Earthquake"!
"Tangshan Earthquake" is most like a TV series in that it has no cinematic sense of photography and montage. If we simply divide the types of films into commercial films and art films, or commercial films and feature films, then "The Great Earthquake", which lacks commercial elements, definitely does not belong to the former, but should be classified as the latter. Since it is an art film and a feature film, showing the artistic personality and temperament through the lens is an indispensable means to show the value of the film and the level of the director. As a much-anticipated annual hit, if it performs poorly in this regard, it will undoubtedly be fatal to the film or the director's reputation, and "Earthquake" just handed over the worst answer. Many years ago, when Feng Xiaogang had not yet become today's "big director", his films were criticized by critics as "TV dramas hanging on the screen" and "only using lift lenses". It clearly shows that the photography of the whole film is mediocre, without the beauty of the lens. I can't see the director's creativity and ideas in photography, let alone the artistic temperament. It is basically the level of TV drama photography. Even in the picturesque Hangzhou and the post-earthquake reconstruction of Xintangshan, the beauty of these locations is not reflected in the lens. In addition, the montage of shots from shot to shot, as well as the transitions of shots from paragraph to paragraph, do not show that the director has any carefully designed components. Originally, the plot jumping back and forth on the stories of Zhang Jingchu, Xu Fan, and Li Chen was enough to be broken and tasteless. The director could skillfully use the lens to express the family connection between them in the transition of paragraphs to make up for the integrity and smoothness of the film. However, Feng Xiaogang didn't show the slightest bit of effort in this regard, making the film directly reduced to the level of close relatives of TV series.
The shots and montages have no sense of brilliance and highlights, so the film strongly encourages the audience to watch IMAX has become a purely money-making behavior. IMAX has no stereoscopic effect, it just makes the screen bigger, the film quality is clearer, and the scene is more shocking. The effect of watching special effects blockbusters, action blockbusters and beautiful pictures is the best, but for general feature films, the effect is mediocre. Since there is no way to talk about the beauty of the "Earthquake" lens, these technical advantages of IMAX have all become water without source and tree without roots, and the advantages cannot be exerted at all. I am afraid that only the earthquake special effects of less than 5 minutes can be brilliant on the IMAX screen, but the audience spends a lot of money to watch IMAX just for the enjoyment of those 5 minutes. In addition, according to the author's on-site impressions, the film processing of "The Great Earthquake" is also very rough, the picture clarity and color sense are seriously insufficient, and there are even multiple blurred shots. It is difficult to believe that an annual blockbuster will have such a The problem, a person familiar with a theater chain revealed the truth to the author - for the purpose of earning money for quick success, the film began to be printed before the film was fully produced. In IMAX film, the above problem still exists! Audiences who do not believe this can pay special attention to the picture quality of the film when watching the film to see if what the author said is true. If so, do you think it is necessary to watch IMAX?
The plot of "Tangshan Earthquake" also does not reflect the maturity that a blockbuster should have. The plot is full of loopholes and props that do not match the times also appear to be very "television". There are many useless "waste bridges" in the film. It is the concentrated expression of this shortcoming. In addition to evoking the memories of strangers in the 1950s and 1960s and continuing the tragic emotions of the Tangshan earthquake, the scene of Chairman Mao's death has no effect on the plot. It seems to exist only for the purpose of sensationalism. Whether this goal can be achieved is also questioned. For the audiences born in the 1980s and 1990s, can the death of Chairman Mao have the emotional effect that the film wants to achieve? Li Chen's encounter with Chen Daoming in Hangzhou is a typical TV drama-style coincidence. There is no plot that echoes this scene, which makes this scene extraordinarily useless, and Li Chen tells everyone that his mother gave up his daughter. Baozi's disaster experience also seems too "Xianglin's Wife", is it necessary to emphasize so many times what the audience knows? In the later plot, there is also a plot where Zhang Jingchu took his daughter as a tutor, and her daughter was framed and smashed the host's vase. It seems to be just to highlight the difficulty of Zhang Jingchu's life with her daughter, and it is also optional for the overall plot. The appearance of a real survivor of the Tangshan earthquake at the end is even more abrupt. The role is only to show the monument to the earthquake through his eyes. Why can't this plot be completed by the characters in the film? Is it necessary to take pictures of the Great Earthquake Monument? I am afraid that there is more consideration to take care of the needs of the Tangshan Municipal Government!
Finally, I would like to express my dissatisfaction with Huayi's unscrupulous price increase for "The Great Earthquake". Recently, the media have announced the price increase measures for "The Great Earthquake". During the first round of screenings, the lowest ticket prices in various cities are: A-class cities are 35 yuan, B-class cities are 30 yuan, and C-class cities are 25 yuan, which is 5 to 10 yuan higher than the usual minimum fares. It is reported that the highest ticket price is likely to reach 90 to 100 yuan, and the fare of the IMAX version must be more than 100 yuan. This kind of price increase is not only unprecedented in Chinese-language films, but also Hollywood blockbusters have never had such a high "minimum ticket price". Let people not only ask "why"? If you are a commercial blockbuster with top star lineup and rich special effects scenes and action scenes, at least there is a reason to increase the price. Also indebted, what is the reason for the price increase? Even though "The Great Earthquake" had an investment of 200 million as advertised, Feng Xiaogang said that half of the money came from the Tangshan Municipal Government, so this film had to be called "Tangshan Earthquake", then the actual investment of the filmmakers was only 100 million, and There are a lot of embedded advertisements, which is equivalent to sharing a part of the investment. It seems that the investment of "The Great Earthquake" is not amazing, and there is no need for high ticket prices. Issue "national disaster wealth". "The Great Earthquake" was premiered in Tangshan by 10,000 people during the campaign, and the crew paid a moment of silence in front of the monument to the victims, emphasizing the attributes of civilians and family, but it was not so "civilian" at the box office, let the audience go to the theater to experience Simple family love has to pay such a high price in money, which undoubtedly reveals that the film is fake and close to the people and earns money. Taking advantage of the earthquake complex of the Chinese people to make money, can you be more shameless in "The Great Earthquake"? ? ? ! ! ! (Text / Levin)
There are still two related film reviews that will be released within a week, so stay tuned! :)
[The Second Batch of Great Earthquakes] Characters: Xu Fan is a little more exciting, the rest are all useless!
[Three Batches of Great Earthquakes] Emotions: Family love is not spoken with your mouth!
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