Great movies don’t mean bad movies.,It may be the beginning of more trouble if domestic films spend a lot of effort but can’t empathize with the audience.

Text/Pang Hongbo

Dull.

This is the most gathered evaluation of Railway Hero in the past week. Although the word-of-mouth of the film is not bad, "dullness" obviously affects the market performance of the film. At present, the box office performance is even less than half of "Door Lock", but from the first day of release to now, the proportion of films given to movies is quite large.

About this film, the two words that director Yang Feng mentioned most were "truth". Although the story prototype of the film is "flying tigers", it is closer to the historical truth by consulting a lot of historical materials. And from photography to artistic style, it has a strong texture. For domestic main melody films, intensive clustering inevitably requires innovation and new incisions, and it is also natural to improve the texture.

But the problem with Railway Hero is that it avoids the shortcomings of the main theme as much as possible, but it doesn’t have many advantages in innovation.The overall style of the film is too dull, and the characterization of several people in one person and a multi-line narrative can’t make the audience empathize.

To some extent, the problem with Railway Hero is that it is not "cool" enough. Of course, it can be explained by "director style". However, if domestic films ignore the instinctive feelings of the audience for a long time because of the "director style", the sense of alienation between the audience and domestic films may become heavier and heavier. This is not just a question that needs reflection in Railway Hero.

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—"selling point" is

You have to pull the audience into the cinema first.—

What is the real "high texture"?

In fact, the film still has a good texture from the whole audio-visual style.However, this kind of texture is more about the lens and art. These external "design feelings" have really improved the texture of the film, and it is indeed very important. But for now, the improvement of these textures may not be very obvious for Railway Hero.

The advantages of film texture can’t cover up the shortcomings of the film itself, which is actually different from Zhang Yimou’s Above the Cliff. The overall temperament of Railway Hero is actually very similar to Above the Cliff, but the core selling point of Above the Cliff is "Zhang Yimou". Just the name of Zhang Yimou can make the film attract more audiences, so the improvement of texture is only "value-added service", and the selling point of Above the Cliff is far from the so-called "texture".

However, for Railway Hero, it is undeniable that Zhang Hanyu and Fan Wei are excellent actors of the strength school. But if they want to drive the box office, their market appeal is actually not ideal. And extended to characters and stories, it is far from the effect of breaking the circle. On this basis, although the film has a good texture in terms of lens and artistic style, it has little attraction for ordinary audiences.

For Railway Hero, the biggest selling point is flying tigers.This story is very penetrating, and it is the "axis" that the film can instantly attract the audience, but the film does not mention this point too much in the whole marketing. In fact, this was also explained in Yang Feng’s previous interview, because the core of Railway Hero is an original film adapted from real historical materials.

Moreover, the director has done a lot of historical research and collected a lot of data when he was creating. From the director’s statement, we can also see that we don’t want to associate more with the previous "flying tigers". The implication is that "Railway Hero" is a "new theme movie" based on historical truth, which is different from the old "flying tigers" story.

This is understandable, and the aesthetic fatigue of the audience also requires a lot of innovation in the domestic main melody. But this does not mean that the film should give up its biggest "selling point", which is not in conflict.Especially when the market is bleak after all, how to attract the audience to pay attention to this film is the key.

Then, it is self-evident which is more likely to attract the audience, a domestic theme starring Zhang Hanyu and Fan Wei, or a story of "flying tigers" starring Zhang Hanyu and Fan Wei. Although I fully understand that the director wants to jump out of the original inherent impression and look at Railway Hero with new eyes, there is a premise that both the new eyes and the old eyes are interested in this film first.

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—The "Basic Quality" that Domestic Films Need to Find Back—

Rhythm

I don’t know when it started, but there seems to be a gap between the creator’s "rebellion" and the audience.A large number of realistic works appear, which makes many creators feel that they should express themselves through some surreal methods. The reason is that "there are too many markets for such realistic things"; The combination of main melody and commercial genre films makes most domestic main melody works have a strong fast rhythm and many action scenes; To this end, "Railway Hero" has gone to the other extreme: dull and depressing.

"Railway Hero" is not without action scenes. There are many action scenes when the action team picks up the train and the climax of the final battle between the two sides. However, the film seems to be unable to make the audience feel the temperament of "cool film" in handling. Action scenes are depressed and hard to remember. This is in stark contrast to Jackie Chan’s "Flying Tiger on the Railway". Jackie Chan has his own action system, and "Flying Tiger on the Railway" naturally maximizes Jackie Chan’s action comedy.

However, as a result, the word-of-mouth of Flying Tiger on the Railway was not successful because the action scenes in the film were too "entertaining". In "Railway Hero", the action scenes are restrained and forbearing, and the so-called fighting actions should pay attention to "actual combat", so all the so-called tricks are removed.However, this has caused many viewers not to enjoy it, especially this film should be a male-oriented film in terms of positioning.

But this can’t be completely blamed on the director’s problem. It seems that the domestic main melody film with this theme must be a "cool film" with famous fighting scenes, fast pace and opposition between good and evil. Because about this issue, it is not a question of binary opposition. In fact, from suspense films to crime films to theme films like Railway Heroes, one of the more worrying trends is "restraint". Suspense crime movies infinitely magnify the little people’s "crime" in the dark and wet city, while "Railway Hero" is based on "flying tigers", but it hopes to show the so-called anti-Japanese war context through the Jin-Pu railway.

However, for cinema movies, one of the driving forces that cannot be ignored is "genre appeal". A core of suspense crime movies and action movies is "fast".In fact, from the actual market feedback, these two types of domestic films are more "fast" and easier to get the audience’s love.

Although the audience is prone to aesthetic fatigue under the long-term bombing of the same type, it cannot ignore the audience’s "demands". If the audience’s "genre appeal" cannot be satisfied, it is likely that the film will not give the audience the original driving force for watching movies.

Although the rhythm of "Railway Hero" is dull and depressing, it can also be explained by "director’s style difference", but it is indeed a big problem that the performance of this film is obviously declining so far.

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—Stories need to be "simplified"—

Simple and clear.

For Railway Hero, the story is not complicated. The film is different from the traditional "flying tigers" in the whole story, and it focuses on "relationship". Zhang Hanyu’s captain, Lao Hong, is mainly responsible for carrying out the task, Fan Wei’s lurking inside the enemy is played by Fan Wei, and the villain’s big boss rattan principle is played by Moribo. The three men are in an "iron triangle" with the aim of the action team destroying the Japanese action.

In fact, the story context of the film is consistent with the traditional "upgrade and fight against monsters", and the success-failure-rally of the action team is very clear in the whole context.However, there are actually problems in the way the whole story is told. First, the characters are relatively flat and lack characteristics. The most memorable character in the film is "Lao Wang" played by Fan Wei, but there are not many information points that can be revealed before Lao Wang’s identity is exposed. This has led to a very protracted narrative of the whole film. Before the whole "Armageddon", the narrative of the film lacked obvious "purpose".

Second, it is difficult for the switching of narrative subjects to resonate with the audience’s emotions. For this kind of movies, audience resonance is the most basic "narrative task". No matter what story is told or what character is created, the audience should have emotional resonance, which can be either human concern or patriotic feelings.

In the first half of the film, the narrative perspective is more on the captain Lao Hong, but Lao Hong is cold, restrained, forbearing and rational, and even in the face of failure and casualties, he does not show too much emotion, but silently reorganizes the action team to continue to act; In the second half, all the emotional pressures were concentrated on Lao Wang, especially An Zi, who had been obsessed with calling him "Dad". Lao Wang tried his best to be kind to him, in fact, it was a kind of inheritance of the war of resistance.

But it wasn’t until Lao Wang was put on the bus by the Japanese army that An Zi finally shouted out the sentence "Dad", but the mood broke out pale and powerless. The reason lies in the lack of reliable foundation for their feelings. It is not enough for An Zi to shout "Dad" by showing their relationship with the scenes of getting along with each other in the previous scenes.

Although multi-perspective narration is not abrupt in such a story, the inconsistency of narrative subjects makes the audience unable to empathize with the characters all the time.Even if Lao Wang finally dedicated himself with explosives, it is hard for the audience to cry because of this "dedication." The reason is that there is no emotion between the characters and the audience.

In addition, the villain who spent a lot of space to show did not show any "personality". Then, the story line of such a villain is like "dividing pork".

It seems that three people and three story lines finally fight, but it seems to be a "pork in the story." Not moved, not deep, not empathetic.

Just like the black-and-white historical video materials of the opening credits, the director bought them from abroad and made great efforts to repair the 8mm film. However, can the audience really see it? The film has done a lot of historical research on narrative, but it can’t make the audience empathize with the details. In lens aesthetics, we collectively create a sense of atmosphere by snowing. This kind of heavy snow really exists in Shandong in history. However, shooting in the northeast also makes the audience question the "fake" of this snow scene.

All the efforts that the film hopes to make can see the intention of the film itself. However, because the audience’s instinctive demands are ignored in details, the intention of the film is the least easy to see.

Domestic films need "cool films", not telling directors to give up thinking and innovation, so as to completely give up business and shoot bad films. Instead, it is necessary to clearly locate and identify the selling points, otherwise the audience will not walk into the cinema. Who will see the significance of innovation?