Plot
A child encounters a legendary hero, but he doesn't know that the hero is no longer the hero he used to be. The two fell in love with each other and killed each other all the way, and they worked together to resist the enemy at the critical moment. When the final battle is over, the hero saves the world and himself. And the child is the one who helped him complete the redemption.
Such a story outline is actually not uncommon in Hollywood scripts, but it is not easy to tell a good story, otherwise everyone would be a screenwriter, and there would not be so many bad movies.
The great thing about this film is that the storyline remains largely intact, although unfortunately somewhat fragmented and ambiguous, and the motives of the characters unclear. This may be due to the time limit of domestic animated films, or because there is no professional screenwriter in the team (the director said that the script is all polished by the team) - that is to say, this film has a lot of amateur elements in it.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the film also uses a lot of Hollywood-style "three vulgar" jokes (such as Jiang Liuer's snot flowing into the mouth of the mountain demon, and the great sage not letting silly girls watch three people pee). In this way, the first half of the process is full of laughter, and the second half of the process creates tears-although the tears are made in a hurry, the effect is not as good as the laugh, but the audience's nerves have been touched, and the feelings have overwhelmed the rationality at this time-this is That's what the film needs to achieve.
The production
is more brilliant than the plot, which is probably the main reason why "The Return of the Great Sage" is so popular besides the feelings - there are very few domestic animations that are so "like" Hollywood animations. Overall, the film is a more Western-style cartoon. Various exaggerated appearances such as the "horse face" of the great sage and Jiang Liuer's round head are quite the shadow of Pixar. In contrast, the previously unpopular "Kuiba" series is more Japanese-style, characterized by well-proportioned and handsome characters. But it turns out that Pixar's exaggerated cuteness is better to create a family animation, because the "imperfection" of the characters can shorten the distance with the audience.
In addition to the overall style, in terms of the expression techniques of various plots, the film also draws on the strengths of others, paying tribute to and borrowing (or imitating) many famous works.
Marketing The marketing
of this film is also a classic case, which perfectly explains what is called "word-of-mouth marketing".
The director of "The Intruder" released this year, Wang Xiaoshuai, once complained that the theater line's arrangement of "The Intruder" was too low, because these low-cost films, niche films, and literary films were not promoted enough for large-scale productions, so the audience was small and could not be given to them. Movie theaters make money. This seems to be the inevitable fate of Chinese art films in the era of Chinese commercial films.
However, "The Return of the Great Sage" used a very commercial mind to achieve "low-cost publicity", and the trick used was large-scale screening, so as to make the film's reputation as viral as possible before it was released. If you don't have a high degree of confidence in the quality, you would never dare to do so.
When will "domestic" come back?
"The Return of the Great Sage" is well-made and lacks plot, which can be regarded as a top-notch work. But the reason why it has received so much attention is that domestic animation and movies cannot meet the growing cultural needs of the people. People can't help but ask: When will the "domestic" come back?
Take another very famous (unfortunately negative) animation in the summer - "Automobile", it is simply the quality of the shortcomings of domestic animation to the extreme, and shamelessly and crazy plagiarism from Hollywood. Well-known works, also known as "the first scheming bitch of domestic animation", the director has hundreds of netizens greetings under each Weibo. I wanted to put a poster of it, but I thought it was an insult to everyone's eyes.
According to netizens, the significance of this work is to obtain subsidies from the Xiamen government. If this is true, then this is a classic market catastrophe caused by government failure. The original intention of the government to encourage the animation industry is good, but it has caused bad consequences.
On the other hand, the birth of films like "Warring States" and "Dwelling in Fuchun Mountains" is probably related to some exchange of interests and capital operation, which can be understood as a certain degree of market failure.
Both the government and the market have failed to such an extent that it is not difficult to understand why bad films are flooding and dramas have become disasters.
To put it aside, Hollywood commercial films are also for making money. They have produced a lot of good films and also produced a lot of bad films for the purpose of making money. Those TV stations also broadcast a lot of bad dramas - Chinese audiences can't see them because of them disappeared within their own country. But these bad movies and bad dramas are natural products and can be selected naturally; in China, there are often no choices.
Under the malfunctioning system, a good story is not needed to make money, so the situation where bad money drives out good money is staged again. After all, consciousness cannot be eaten.
So to a certain extent, the representative of "The Return of the Great Sage" in "good money" is quite sad. From the current situation, it is an anomaly. It's done well, but it's ironic that there's a fair amount of luck involved in its success.
Sometimes I think about it, isn't the great sage Monkey King a true portrayal of the current state of "The Return of the Great Sage"? They are all different, different. Even those chattering rotten movies are similar to those of Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals.
We seem to see a black void again, where 100,000 soldiers and generals are arrogant in the clouds, intending to teach the disobedient wild monkeys a lesson; the Great Sage Monkey King, with a few sticks on the top of the mountain, vowed to clean up all the bulls, ghosts, snakes and gods in the world. Clean heaven and earth.
No matter how many 100,000 Heavenly Generals he comes, I will stand alone.
View more about Monkey King: Hero Is Back reviews
