So, let Van Diesel thank China again, after all, no one knows if there will be such an opportunity next time.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “NorthPark” (ID: northpark2018), author: Wang Xiaoben.
“The people who came out of the slum actually flew into space.”
This is the line that impressed me the most after watching the zero-point premiere of “Fast and Furious 9”. I am afraid that only the car goes to the sky can it end. This was originally an ironic ridicule after the audience watched the outrageous “Fast and Furious 8”, but it became a reality in this movie, even if the car goes to space. The whole process seemed like that kind of child’s play. As for the laws of physics, this is obviously not a question to be considered in this series of films.
In order to show the so-called plot echoes, the movie even buried a lot of Star Wars stems, and then I think that the most important work of director Lin Yibin besides the rapid excitement is the “Star Trek” series. It seems that the entire movie is It exists in order to complete this flying bridge section.
It’s obviously not just the part of the car going into space. The characters’ behavioral motives are chaotic, the action scenes lack new ideas, and they still sell feelings uncontrollably. The shortcomings of this movie are so many that I don’t know which one to pick first. One to complain. At present, the Douban score of “Fast and Furious 9” is only 6.0. This score is not only the new low of the Speedy series, but also the new low of Lin Yibin’s directorial career. It can be seen that even the audience will not take it before watching “Fast and Furious 9”. The expectation is too high, but the content in front of you still breaks through everyone’s bottom line of patience.
Last month, Lin Yibin said in an interview with the media that he and his team “did not treat it as an action movie” when filming “Fast and Furious 9.” So far it is indeed very suitable, because we really dare not use action movies to describe this movie, science fiction or superhero movie? I’m afraid it can be closer.
Recently, I have read a lot of inventory review of SuJi series, and I suddenly discovered that SuJi is already an “old IP” with a history of 20 years. In May 1998, “VIBE” magazine published an article about the story of a young Dominican racer Rafael Estevez playing street racing in Manhattan, New York.
This story was discovered by the staff of Universal Pictures, and Universal Pictures recommended it to Gary Scott Thompson, a screenwriter familiar with car culture. He was in University of Southern California.Yes, at that time he noticed the local young people’s enthusiasm for importing small cars, so he set the original story of Su Ji in Los Angeles.
In 2018, Kristen Lee, author of JALOPNIK website, once wrote an article titled “The Underground Street Racing Scene in Los Angeles and How “Fast and Furious” Was Born”, which reviewed in detail the prevalence in Los Angeles in the 1990s “They like racing. In the early 1990s, there was no more suitable location than Los Angeles. That was the Rodney King era (a black male who was killed on the street by four hundred policemen. His death caused a large-scale death in Los Angeles. Racial riots), crime, racial confrontation and police violence were all at a boiling point.”
Looking back, in addition to promoting the subculture of street racing to the public, the birth of “Fast and Furious” has another meaning that has now been forgotten: the commercial genre is increasingly “monochromatic (” Monochromatic)”, it emerged because of the diversity of skin color and ethnicity. “It did not employ many actors with different ethnic backgrounds to’play Asians’ or’play Hispanics’, so as to deliberately highlight diversity. Portray them as people.”
Papadakis, a representative of the street racing culture in Los Angeles, said that in the early 1990s there was a strong sense of connection in the street racing industry, despite the racial differences between them, because it was a community-based culture. Once the same At the meeting point, they can collide together.
Of course, what we are talking about are the stories from when “Fast and Furious” was first born. At that time, it was still a B-level commercial film with strong subcultural attributes. The cost was only 38 million U.S. dollars, but 200 million U.S. dollars. The global box office made it suddenly become an important commercial IP in the eyes of Universal Pictures. Even if the second and third films are not successful at the box office, this spiritual attribute is still retained.
As for the later addition of Lin Yibin and Wen Ziren, the film has jumped from a B-level to an A-level commercial blockbuster, and Paul Walker’s unexpected death triggered the “Fast and Furious”7” movie watching boom, the global box office exceeded 1.3 billion US dollars and other stories, presumably everyone is familiar with it, and behind this series of success, the film is gradually going outrageous in genre and elements, and the character becomes an immortal superhero. Drag racing becomes an airplane, tank, and submarine.
If we regard the first three parts of the “Quick Exclamation” series as the presentation of street or underground racing culture on the big screen, then this kind of culture was originally because of its inherent freedom, uninhibited, and diversity. The spiritual traits attracted young people, but after it was successful, it was quickly commercialized and even over-commercialized by capital. It was empty of the body of the past, but was filled with endless other elements, so that the original spiritual core was early It has disappeared, and it has become a product of four differences. Such stories of popular culture or subculture being incorporated and transformed by commercial capital are constantly being played out almost every day.
So much so that Boss Tang said the word Family in “Fast and Passion”, just like Feng Gong said “I want to kill you” in the spring evening, we know he will say, he also knows we know he will say, This word was originally a condensation and symbol of the importance of family and community connection in street racing culture, but today it has become an empty slogan.
It’s even more ironic that Van Diesel’s news about the tyrants came out before and after “Fast and Furious 8”, which caused Dwayne Johnson to go for a quick rumor, and Paul Walker was still alive. There are rumors of being robbed, but after his death, his elements have been “looming” in the movies time and time again. Apart from selling his feelings, does Family really still exist?
Although there are all kinds of outrageous problems, it seems that “Fast and Furious 9” is still selling in the mainland. On the first day of its release, its share of film rankings reached a staggering 60.3%. So far, the box office on the first day has exceeded 300 million. Although there is still a big gap with the box office on the first day of “Fast and Furious 8”, but considering the post-epidemic situation The overall situation of the film market in the period, this number has been quite eye-catching.
But what formed a huge contrast with the box office performance was the audience’s reaction after watching the movie. The day of the zero-point premiere coincided with 5.20. There were many couples who came to the cinema for dating, and there were also young people who rushed to the cinema to watch the movie. But after the show, all I heard were disappointment and complaints about the movie. , “This can also be called a movie?” “What the hell did this act?” “I fell asleep for a long time.”
“Fast and Furious 9” was released in China a month earlier than North America. Van Diesel said in a video link for Chinese audiences,”Chinese audiences have accepted the Speedy Series as their own series. The Chinese audience has also become part of our family. Therefore, earlier this year, we asked the company to do something unprecedented. We asked the company to let the “Speed and “Passion 9″ was released in China first, one month ahead of our own brothers and sisters. This is our way of’thank you China’.”
Although this sentence is only a partial fact, because “Fast and Furious 9” has been released in several major markets outside of China, and has set box office records in South Korea, Russia and other places, we can also learn from this In the words, it was said that Universal Pictures and the speed crews attach great importance to the Chinese market.
The great success of SuJi 7 and 8 in the Chinese market (both were the box office champions introduced that year) made their attention and even “flattering” seem logical. They really need “Thank you China” and hope that SuJi 9 can continue to kill the Quartet in the Chinese market in the post-epidemic era.
Maybe it is still possible. After all, the box office forecast given by the Maoyan Professional Edition is 2.176 billion. In the context of great uncertainty in the US market, the Chinese market has definitely become the world’s largest ticket warehouse for this movie. .
If Universal Pictures “killed” the theater window period last year and directly streamed “Magic Genie 2”, causing them to collapse with AMG theaters, it was just a “helpless move” under the epidemic. At the end of last year, Warner announced that all new movies in theaters this year will be launched directly on HBO MAX, which is a reshaping of the entire North American film distribution model, and it is obviously not a reshaping for the better.
For these A-level blockbusters that have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in streaming media, it is almost impossible to recover costs and even make profits. At this time, the Chinese market where restrictions are released and normalcy is restored has become a Hollywood movie player. The last straw in the world.
But the reality is obviously not so good. Last year, the top ten in the mainland box office rankings did not have an imported film. “Mulan”, which is considered to be closely connected to the mainland market, had only 278 million at the box office. The former box office of 610 million “Wonder Woman 1984” had only 167 million at the box office. These Hollywood blockbusters are no longer in movies with more than 500 million or even 1 billion.
Looking at the Hollywood blockbusters that will be released this year, whether it’s the Marvel Universe’s “Black Widow” that has begun to weaken after the peak of “Avengers 4”, or the industry’s much anticipated, but mainland audiences lack the text The accumulated “Dune” does not seem to have the potential to flex its muscles in the mainland market.
So “Fast and Furious 9” is more like the last carnival of this series and even Hollywood blockbusters in the Chinese market, and this carnival is more like the accumulation of a past movie-watching habit, if the pure sensory stimulation has been If you can’t inspire the enthusiasm of the audience, we can hardly imagine the magic weapon of Hollywood blockbusters, which can make mainland audiences willingly buy tickets and enter the movie theater as in the past.
After all, this is an era in which countless new forms of entertainment have continuously raised the threshold of ordinary people’s sensory stimulation. Simple boomomboom really doesn’t work anymore. As for the depth, look at the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy after the release. How many one-star reviews you have received, I am afraid it is difficult for you to be optimistic.
The epidemic has changed the audience’s viewing habits. In April and May, the box office in the mainland market reached a record low in several years for several weeks. The audience’s enthusiasm for entering the cinema was not comparable to the past, but this time we watched What happened was that Chinese-language movies like “Hello, Li Huanying”, “My Sister”, and “Above the Cliff” began to surface.
These movies themselves have their own problems, but like “Hello, Li Huanying” has a strong emotional resonance because of the mother-daughter relationship, “My Sister” has aroused enthusiasm because of facing female issues and original family issues. Discussion, or “Above the Cliff” as a pan-themed movie expressing the feelings of home and country, these movies have a natural closer connection with our audience, and they will naturally gain more repercussions and attention in the field of public opinion. The advantage is obviously unmatched by Hollywood movies. As the overall quality of Chinese movies rises, there will only be more and more stories like this in the future.
We have talked about the tide of anti-globalization many times. As a hugely influential mass cultural consumption, it has never been possible to stand alone. Once we “opened our eyes to see the world” in Hollywood blockbusters and felt the shock brought by the highest industrial level on the screen, but when one day, “we are the world” is no longer an exaggerated slogan, the story will naturally move towards another. one direction.
So, let Van Diesel thank China once more, after all, no one knows if there will be such an opportunity next time.