Film Name: 消失的她 / Lost in the Stars
I made two trips to the theater during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday that just passed, and in addition to Love Never Ends, I also saw Lost in the Stars – the only movie in that slot to blow up at the box office, which is now over 620 million yuan. Honestly, I was okay with the film and the overall quality was passable (otherwise it couldn’t have been favored by the market), but I really can’t seem to bring myself to write a long article about it ……
It was supposed to be over, but all the talk and spat surrounding the movie in the last few days has caught my attention again and I’d like to say a few more words about it. The “weird phenomenon” of Lost in the Stars is that the expected box office of the movie keeps going up, from 700 million+ in the beginning all the way to 1.6 billion+, but the word of mouth of the movie is gradually going down, with the opening score of 7.5 on Douban, which has dropped to 6.9 now. Another interesting phenomenon is that even though the film is directed by both Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, the audience’s talking points and controversies are almost all centered on Chen Sicheng, who is the supervising producer and screenwriter. I think the latter phenomenon largely explains the former: Lost in the Stars is so heavily branded as “Pan Chen Sicheng” that the movie’s commercial success is bound to be accompanied by a great deal of criticism. Chen Sicheng is a man who gets a lot of bad press on the Internet these days – I’m personally not a fan of him, but I can probably understand why he’s getting such a bad rap: first of all, as a creator, he’s not very talented, so he shouldn’t be popular enough, and secondly, he’s not very popular in other areas of his life, either. If that were the case, things would be simple, but Chen Sicheng’s success in commercial filmmaking has been outrageous: except for last year’s Mozart from Space, which flopped, the rest of his films have been box office hits, with the Detective Chinatown series grossing more than 8.7 billion yuan.
At the same time, Chen Sicheng has found a model for mass-producing commercial films: using new directors he has trained/discovered/promoted himself, relying on the fetishism of buying foreign film rights, and looking for actors with acting skills or appeal to commit crimes in (pan-)Southeast Asia. Lost in the Stars is the third installment under this model, preceded by two more Sheep Without a Shepherd films – Coventry, Dai Mo, and Cui Rui were all originally unknown (the first two made a Tang Tang Tang web series), and fit Chen’s style better; buying the rights ensures that the scripts will not be too difficult to write; and buying the rights will ensure that the scripts will not be too difficult to write. The copyright can ensure that the script will not be too bad, “Sheep Without a Shepherd” remake from “Visual”, “Fireflies in the Sun” remake from “John Q”, “Lost in the Stars” remake from “A Trap for Lonely Man” (you can find a lot of other suspense movies in these movies). (These movies can also be found in the shadow of many other suspense films); the background to foreign countries, but also to avoid some objective resistance and problems, so that the story content of the presentation of more “flexibility”. It can be said that Chen Sicheng found a not “lively” but very competitive genre film track: the main suspense and crime, but more emphasis on emotional relief and immersion in the movie. Facts have proved that this model is effective, “Sheep Without a Shepherd” box office of 1.334 billion yuan, “Fireflies in the Sun” box office of 1.028 billion yuan, “Lost in the Stars” seems to charge a billion + is not much of a problem, relative to their shooting costs, undoubtedly, are very successful. Very successful.
Returning to the controversy, it’s easy to see why Lost in the Stars has gradually split at the box office and by word-of-mouth: anyone who has read some films and is knowledgeable (or feels that they are) has been a little underwhelmed by the movie, even scornful, because after all, this kind of “basic” genre can hardly be considered good. But it did what a lot of great films can’t, bringing many of the usual infrequent viewers back to the theater, and possibly bringing out more mature fans in the future. A while ago, I was saying that “Hollywood movies don’t sell well in China”, but in fact, domestic movies are not much better, and in an environment where more people are starting to lose interest in movies, it is not easy to revitalize the “cloud audience” with a work that is on the threshold. It’s not easy to revitalize the “cloud audience” with a work on the threshold. Of course, the above thoughts are more from a marketing perspective, but if we look at it from a purely cinematic point of view, it is still hard to say whether it will be a good or bad thing if there are more of these “lazier in terms of pure creativity, and more commercial-oriented” films. It’s also worth noting that a good portion of the bad reviews for Lost in the Stars were not based on the quality of the movie, but rather on dissatisfaction with some of the “value orientations” in the movie. Though I don’t advocate “moralist” value criticism of literary works, I do need to admit that Lost in the Stars is uncharacteristically playing with something new (swapping male and female perspectives, and even a bit of “female boxing”), appealing to some of its critics. It’s also important to recognize that Lost in the Stars is uncharacteristically playing with something new (swapping male and female perspectives, even a bit of “female fisting”), and it’s appealing to some negative emotions – personally, I think it’s all about the story, so I’m fine with how it’s staged, but it’s just not going to be enough to make any viewer physically uncomfortable. And that should do more good than harm to the movie’s box office. Chen Sicheng is an excellent product manager, and Lost in the Stars has once again proved his commercial vision and profitability, except for the many noise at the moment, destined to face more and more bumps on this seemingly bright road.
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