Rao Shuguang: "The Great Wall" is Zhang Yimou's industrial experiment and creative game

As an in-depth cooperation between China's film talents and capital and the Hollywood film industry,"The Great Wall" is more like Zhang Yimou's exploration of the Hollywood system in the context of the current transformation of China's film industry. The active advantages of production power and cultural export have become the focus of continuous game between China and the United States in the process of cooperation.

With the release of "The Great Wall", Zhang Yimou and his films have once again become the center of the storm in film criticism.

As the leader of the fifth generation, the initiator of China-style blockbusters and the director of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, Zhang Yimou's multiple identities have attracted much attention in the field of cultural public opinion, and even assumed the role of spokesperson of China culture. This all-round impression has also attracted audience criticism of "The Great Wall". However, in fact,"The Great Wall" is undoubtedly the most important creative game in Zhang Yimou's career as a qualified experiment to borrow water from Hollywood industry.

Since the new century, the Chinese film industry has been redrawn, and only a handful of Chinese directors have entered Hollywood. Zhang Yimou is the first director in mainland China to reach an A-level commercial genre cooperation with Hollywood."The Great Wall" is also the largest Sino-US co-production film by far. film.

As a project that Legendary Pictures has been preparing for 7 years, the English script has been signed by five authors, the manuscript has been changed in seven years, and the actual filming has been carried out for three years. The team has more than 100 Oscar-level winners and nominees, and the special effects are also provided by top-level "Vita Studio" and "Industrial Light and Magic" assisted in completing it.

Zhang Yimou's suppressed creative power in "The Great Wall" makes it different from previous authorship identification. Hollywood's industrial standards greatly limit director power. From this perspective,"The Great Wall", as a front-line Hollywood heavy industry product, is itself de-personalized. Personal aesthetic interests need to seek breakthroughs within the strict producer system.

Zhang Yimou also admitted that there are limited things he can control during the production process."The Great Wall" must first be a qualified Hollywood industrial product in order to carry the export of China culture and values. This contradiction is highlighted in the difficult connection of the film's narrative level. Western perspectives, simplified stories, lack of curvature of characters, compression of values, and spectacle of style elements are all reasons why this film has attracted criticism.

However, in the limited narrative space, Zhang Yimou still balances and improves the collective will and personal values, the emotional difference between the male and female protagonists, and the presentation of the China spirit to the characters 'personalities within the framework of Hollywood. At the same time, Zhang's image style is still clearly visible in "The Great Wall".

The film grabs the artificial miracles of the East with the Western magic genre. Zhang Yimou bargains with Hollywood within the framework of a monster movie, allocates as many exotic China elements as possible, and inherits the expression of China style. Although it was severely criticized by some viewers as a "group gymnastics" spectacle, the China landscape presented in the film is no longer an imagination from a purely Western perspective.

With the help of a typical China stage such as the Great Wall, the film shows the ancient China special forces with a strong sense of technology, the Kikat cold weapon war scenes and the visually oppressive gluttonous herd. Judging from the industrial technical indicators and visual effects, it is undoubtedly the most prominent international attempt in Chinese films in recent years.

In fact, weak narrative and high degree of spectacle are major "original sins" of high-concept films. They are essentially conservative creative behaviors caused by cultural differences and capital risks in the production and dissemination of high-concept films to the global market. High-concept films strive to open up the market as much as possible at the lowest price of cultural discounts. The artist's self-expression is not an essential element of high-concept films, and artistic innovation cannot be used as its only evaluation indicator. This is a common contradiction in the cultural industry. The representative monster films "Pacific Rim" and "Godzilla" produced by Legendary Pictures in recent years have also been criticized to varying degrees in terms of drama and style.

Even so, high-concept films are still the strongest carrier of current film economic and cultural output, and are also an important indicator of the development level of the country's film industry.

In 2016, the growth rate of China's film market slowed down, and the film industry was facing transformation pressure. It was urgent to optimize and adjust the product structure to achieve the transition to quality-based growth.

In recent years,"China-style blockbusters" have declined, and Hollywood blockbusters represented by superhero films have occupied the domestic mainstream market. It is not a long-term solution for China films to rely solely on small and medium-cost "dark horses" to create box office miracles. If China's film industry wants to establish a complete film industry model, it must ensure the competitiveness and dissemination of local high-concept films. At present, China films are unable to continuously produce high-quality special effects blockbusters for the local market, let alone dissemination in the international market.

In the context of China becoming the world's second largest film market,"The Great Wall" is a risk case of Sino-US film cooperation and the first super blockbuster in in-depth cooperation between China and the United States. The Chinese creator directly learns from Hollywood. Its value lies in learning from Hollywood's industrial system, production model and technical standards. If the market responds well, it will be possible to promote continuous exchanges and in-depth cooperation between Chinese films and Hollywood at the level of heavy industry. In turn, improving the industrial level of the entire Chinese-language film will become an opportunity to rebuild the model of China's blockbuster films.

"The Great Wall" is a Hollywood product. More than half of the English dialogue is used in the movie. Its global market positioning is self-evident.

In fact, due to structural barriers in culture and language, the current connection of China films with overseas markets, especially the North American market, is an difficult task to complete in the short term. After "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero", the influence of Chinese-language films in the world's mainstream market has continued to decline, and they lack the right to speak in the mainstream Hollywood market. In sharp contrast, Hollywood high-concept films continue to use China as a superhero to gain mysterious power or the landscape of post-Cold War science fiction confrontation, and even launch a "China Special" version to please the market.

In this context,"The Great Wall" uses the Hollywood system to implant English creation, allowing direct dialogue between Eastern and Western cultural discourse systems in the film, reducing the gap with foreign audiences, and seeking common recognition of values. It is also a new attempt.

The film basically abandons the conflict and confrontation between Chinese and Western cultures, especially the ideological level. Under the guidance of Hollywood narrative laws, it tries to influence the narrative through China elements as much as possible, attempts to reverse export values, and attempts to use "trust" as a foothold. Find universal value recognition between Chinese and Western cultures, and use sacrifice to fight greed.

Although the "subtraction" operation weakens the tension of the drama, it also attempts to connect China's collectivist aesthetics with Western individualistic values to a certain extent. The exchange, integration and export of this mainstream values is also an important proposition for China's films to "go global." In this sense,"The Great Wall" can be said to carry the exploratory significance of the overseas cultural dissemination of China films. The film will be released on a large scale around the world early next year, which is something to be seen.

The good development prospects of China's film market are undoubtedly the direct driving force for Hollywood to actively seek cooperation on the "Great Wall" project. The current market performance of "Great Wall" is also the focus of attention from all parties, and the results will surely affect the film industry and cultural cooperation between China and the United States. Follow-up trend.

The game at the creative level also corresponds to the game between the film industry and the market. China films are facing severe challenges of further opening up to Hollywood. China film industry will also enter competition in the global film market. How to maintain the creative advantages and market share of local films in the competition with Hollywood will be the key to the future game.

In contrast,"The Great Wall" has become the first hot event in this year's New Year holiday in China, and the carnival of criticism against Zhang Yimou and his films has once again arrived. The polarization of new media evaluation has set off a scuffle of public opinion from all parties. The criticism contains no lack of constructive insights, but it is also full of emotional and one-sided complaints that even spill beyond the film, lacking a scientific and professional approach to the film itself. Objective understanding.

"The Great Wall" is a "Hollywood film" with the intervention of Chinese filmmakers and film capital. It is not a "Zhang Yimou movie" itself. It makes a purely negative judgment on the film based on its understanding of Zhang Yimou's past personalized film works, and the words of blindly criticizing and belittling the film regardless of the development status of China's film industry seem particularly misplaced in the noisy marketization background.

Film criticism should give a reasonable evaluation of films within an appropriate historical and aesthetic coordinate system. Any irrational and illogical emotional venting will not help the progress of China films. This also exposes that the top priority for China films is to establish a new evaluation system for the developing film industry and corresponding products while promoting the upgrading of the film industry. Only rational and responsible film criticism can play a positive role in promoting the sustainable development of China films, especially local high-concept films.

Editor: Nancy