Audiences are looking forward to the return of "good stories", which is a milestone in China films

Content, the core connotation of film, is undoubtedly the real driving force for China films to continue to move forward. Therefore, returning to the content and returning to the story is a milestone that China films are more valuable than box office records.

. The success of "Wolf Warrior 2" once again proves that after being bombarded by large investment, marketing, and IP in the previous stage, the audience still needs stories, connotations, and bones. Works.

Milestone is a word that cannot be avoided when talking about China films recently.

After 13 days of release,"Wolf Warrior 2" exceeded the 3.6 billion yuan mark at the box office. The day before, it had surpassed the previous "Mermaid"'s 3.392 billion yuan, bringing the box office of the China film market to a new height. Judging from the current pre-sales situation, the enthusiasm of the audience is likely to push the box office record of "Wolf Warrior 2" to staggering figures. What makes the industry even more happy is that the box office championship in China's film market has been won by domestic films for three consecutive years with "Monster Hunt" in 2015,"Mermaid" in 2016, and the record has been continuously refreshed for three consecutive years.

China's film history records one championship a year, and the champions are all domestically produced. Of course we are willing to applaud and praise it. But praise is not all dedicated to numbers. We would rather applaud the return of "Wolf Warrior 2" and the collective performance of several films this summer. When most of the past box office champions in China relied on screen growth, industrial investment, and technological upgrades, this time the champion was better than the previous ones, and the breakthrough lies in content. In other words, the say in determining the success or failure of a film is no longer limited to financial investment, but based on content.

Content, the core connotation of film, is undoubtedly the real driving force for China films to continue to move forward. Therefore, returning to the content and returning to the story is a milestone that China films are more valuable than box office records.

Each industry signpost after another records the process of industrialization of China's films

and the iterative history of China's film box office records. We can clearly see the accelerating pace of domestic films. In 2002,"Hero" directed by Zhang Yimou brought China films into the era of 100 million yuan for the first time with a box office of 250 million yuan. Exactly ten years later,"Lost in Thailand" directed by Xu Zheng brought China films into the 1 billion yuan era with a box office performance of 1.267 billion yuan. The time interval for upgrading from 1 billion yuan to 2 billion yuan for "Monster Hunt" is only three years. After that, one step a year.

By sorting through the domestic films on the box office rankings in recent years, we can find road signs for the industrialization process of China films: "Monster Hunt" combines computer-assisted animation with real-life images for the first time;"The Quest for the Dragon" provides a correct demonstration of special effects for fantasy adventure films;"Mermaid" achieves the superposition effect of "big production" and "big characters"; even "Jue Ji", whose quality has been questioned, has actually taken a step forward in the exploration of real-life animated films.

It is certainly a good thing to increase the box office, but if you look closely at the trajectory of the increase, it is not difficult to find that the success of some films has caught a ride on the rapid development of the industry as a whole. "Lost in Thailand" has landed on the 1 billion yuan platform, actually enjoying the dividends released by the surge in the number of screens;"Monster Hunt" not only enjoys the continued growth of screen support, but also benefits from the film's own technical improvement;"The Mermaid" is even more so. During the Spring Festival, it almost covers the benefits of industrial development: hot period, multi-screen, and large-scale production. However, if we compare these past box office champions based on the connotation of the film, there is no obvious progress from "Lost in Thailand" to "Monster Hunt" to "Mermaid". Their box office records rely more on four words-"Born at the right time."

Without relying on IP or sky-high stars, audiences will never miss meaningful works

. Compared with previous champions,"Wolf Warrior 2" reached the top of the list. Its investment is not earth-shattering:"Monster Hunt" invested 350 million yuan,"Mermaid" invested 390 million yuan, and "Wolf Warrior 2" invested 200 million yuan. Its lineup does not come with huge traffic. In addition to director and starring Wu Jing, the main actors also include Wu Gang and the unknown Lu Jingshan. It can be said that its box office miracle lies in the quality of the film and the audience's expectation of patriotic enthusiasm. Standing on the high ground based on content, this champion is even more worthy of cheering.

During this summer vacation, many word-of-mouth works appeared: "Embroidery Spring Knife 2" is exquisite and smooth,"Flash Girl" is inspirational, and "Gang Renbo Qi" is plain and profound. Like "Wolf Warrior 2", they are all original scripts without exception and do not rely on so-called traffic actors or sky-high stars. As main themes, martial arts films, youth films, and art films, they have obtained market passes with neat completion in their respective fields.

Looking back further, similar changes have actually been implicit in the development of China films, and every once in a while, the core position of the content is confirmed with a sudden emergence. For example, 2014 's "Fireworks in Daylight", 2015 's "Return of the Great Sage" and "Burning Sun", 2016 's "July and Ansheng" and "Operation Mekong River", etc. Although these movies that are obsessed with "good stories" will be overshadowed by the brilliance of big IP for a while, they will not be let down by the audience in the end. Nowadays, the success of "Wolf Warrior 2" once again proves the choice of China film audiences-after being bombarded by big investment, big marketing, and big IP in the previous stage, audiences still need those with stories, connotations, and bones. Works.

At the moment when a new milestone has been established, it is advisable to revisit some of Wu Jing's concepts: for scripts, we don't want to follow the trend and only focus on connotation; for actors, we don't choose expensive ones, but only the right ones; for production, we must do whatever it takes, but seek Exquisite-every item is the essence of content-dominated. If you do it all, the audience will "repay it hard".

Editor: Mary