According to the statistics of Maoyan Professional Edition, from December 30, 2023 to 7 p.m. on January 1, 2024, the total box office of New Year's Day has exceeded 14900 million yuan, setting a new record for the same period in Chinese film history. Among them, "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star" performed eye-catching with a box office result of 600 million yuan, and the comedy "Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" starring Dapeng and Bai Keunexpectedly became a dark horse. In addition, "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3" starring Ge You and ** not only directed by Feng Xiaogang, but also invited Fan Wei, Li Chengru, Yue Yunpeng, Yao Chen, Chang Yuan and other well-known actors to help. Feng Xiaogang, as a pioneer of the Lunar New Year stalls in the mainland, is known as the "King of Lunar New Year stalls", and his "If You Are Honest, Do Not Disturb" has set a peak in the history of domestic film box office, and "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 2" has also become a hit in the Chinese New Year stalls that year. However, the box office performance of "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb 3" during the schedule was very weak, only 53 million yuan (as of press time, the box office has reached 69 million yuan), almost becoming the bottom of all New Year's Day films. Did Feng Xiaogang make a mistake?Many viewers can't help but go back to the first two parts when they ** "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3".
According to director Feng Xiaogang's style, since the first part came out, "If You Are Honest, Do Not Disturb" has continued his unique "poor humor". Unlike traditional Fung Chinese New Year comedy films such as "Party A, Party B" and "See You Again", the stories told in this series do not follow the secular "citizen route". The theme of "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 1" is marriage, Qin Fen, played by Ge You, met flight attendant Liang Xiaoxiao (**) in a series of "blind date adventures", and the two fell in love after traveling together in Hokkaido, Japan. and "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 2" tells the story of Qin Fen and Xiaoxiao who broke up after trying to get married, but after witnessing the divorce and serious illness of their friend Li Xiangshan, the two got back together, but they didn't dare to promise the future. The first two "If You Are Honest, Do Not Disturb" took the topic of marriage and love as the "entry point", leaving many classic scenes and golden sentences, and also creating box office stories. As the final chapter of the series, the plot time of "Do Not Disturb 3" jumps to the future of 2031. Qin Fen and Xiaoxiao parted ways for many years after receiving the certificate without completing their honeymoon, in order to understand Qin Fen's lovesickness, Lao Fan (played by Fan Wei) helped Qin Fen customize an artificial intelligence Xiaoxiao. The main jokes in this film come from the process of Qin Fen getting along with real and fake smiles. Posters for the entire "Do Not Disturb" series.
The audience's response to "Do Not Disturb 3" was not as expected. Although the previous "Do Not Disturb" series has won a good reputation, causing many viewers to look forward to the sequel of this IP, after the release of the film, the disappointment has become even more apparent. Audiences think the film is emotional, but the overall look is not ideal. The narrative did not bring an unexpected climax, nor did it bring anything new than expected. In addition, the film's overly strong "dopamine" color scheme has also become a point of criticism from the audience. Some viewers commented that the plot of Qin Fen and the intelligent person getting along for a long time seems to have evolved into "real and false smiles and jealousy for Qin Fen" in the second half of the film. In addition, the story line of the intelligent person who is loyal to Deyun Club played by Yue Yunpeng did not add color to the main line, and his role only told a few jokes. In the "easter egg" at the end of the film, Qin Fenhe Xiaoxiao simply "turned back" to Ge You and **, looking back on this movie dream spanning 15 years from an outsider's perspective, and bidding farewell to their respective roles. Ge You admitted that it was not suitable to play the role of romance and love again, and suggested that the director find a "young Qin Fen" for Xiaoxiao, and the story ended here.
Feng Xiaogang tried his best to continue the style of the past in "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3", so that Qin Fen could "amuse" and "play poor" with real and false smiles, however, Ge You and ** have lost the appeal of young audiences, and the story script cannot cater to the tastes of young people. "Who would want to see the story of 66-year-old Ge You and 47-year-old ** falling in love?Some netizens raised such questions. Although a number of theater managers in Beijing said that "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb 3" was a blockbuster in Beijing, judging from the box office data of Maoyan Professional Edition, Beijing's box office was almost 3 times that of the second place Shanghai, which shows that only the Beijing market really recognizes the combination of Feng Xiaogang and Ge You, and recognizes the "Beijing-style humor" presented by Ge You. However, on a national scale, the competitiveness of "Do Not Disturb 3" is extremely limited. China News Weekly's analysis pointed out that Feng Xiaogang's traditional Feng New Year comedy movie became a "feast" for the common people on New Year's Eve in the 90s of the last century, not only because of the lack of film and television entertainment products at that time, but more importantly, Feng Xiaogang used real life as the background to criticize in a humorous and witty way. Ge You's comedic effect and "Beijing-style humor" interpretation complement each other, often causing resonance and laughter from the audience, while also conveying some profound meanings and thoughts.
However, with the changes of the times and the diversification of audience needs, Feng Xiaogang's film style seems to have solidified, and it is difficult to adapt to the current market and audience. Feng Xiaogang seems unwilling to compromise, he gave an example of the Japanese movie "The Undertaker" in an interview, expressing the kind of film he wants to shoot: "After the content is cut, after filming, I look back and feel confident in my heart. ”。These words are also correspondingly expressed in Feng Xiaogang's memoir "I Dedicate My Youth to You", in which he wrote: "A film that needs to be compromised everywhere, even if it is made, loses its due meaning." ”。Historically, Feng Xiaogang took the initiative to transform and compromise with the market, and it seems that word-of-mouth and box office are difficult to "take into account". Since the Chinese New Year comedy has won a series of successes, Feng Xiaogang has transformed into a series of films. It can be seen that Feng Xiaogang attaches great importance to "1942", although it has a good reputation and has won numerous awards, but the investment of 200 million yuan has only been exchanged for 3600 million yuan at the box office, which hit Feng Xiaogang's mood hard. Subsequently, he filmed "Private Custom", which played the slogan of "Perfecting Others, Disgusting Yourself", and said bluntly when promoting: "The audience only needs to watch it happily, and other issues don't need to be considered at all." ”。
Although "Private Custom" finally achieved a box office of 700 million, it lost its reputation in the eyes of film professionals, and was also named the most disappointing film award by the "Golden Broom Award". Since then, Feng Xiaogang's film works have been "tangled". Audiences will always need comedy. Regarding the "New Year's Day file" that will set a record in film history in 2024, screenwriters and distributors in the film industry told China News Weekly: "Incredible". "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star" created a box office miracle with the network marketing of "Snow Field", and won 300 million box office in the pre-sale stage. The much-talked-about movie "The Annual Meeting Can't Be Stopped!".The producers of the film talked more about the film in an interview. Many screenwriters believe that although the film looks like a comedy, it's actually a workplace story. Not only does the film make modern office workers laugh, but it also shows the reality and details of the workplace that the audience can relate to, so it's worth digging into. The film industry generally believes that comedy will always be the "just need" of the market, and even the current film and television works of various types are consciously incorporating some comedy elements to achieve "pan-comedy" to a certain extent.
Many research reports show that more than 80% of the current audience of cinema movies are between the ages of 18 and 30. Therefore, today's film and television directors and screenwriters must have an in-depth understanding of the preferences of young people, and how to make young people laugh". An interviewed screenwriter told China News Weekly: "The growth process of the current young group coincides with the development of mobile Internet and short **. Under the influence of Internet culture, the 'jokes' that accompany young people to grow up may not come from cross talk sketches and traditional film and television works, but are more likely to come from some popular short**, barrage and other 'two-dimensional culture'. Therefore, if the screenwriter only writes jokes in dialect to be funny, or piles up jokes, without showing concern for reality, it will be difficult for young people and even national audiences to resonate, recognize and support. In recent years, filmmakers such as Shen Teng, Huang Bo, Xu Zheng, Wang Baoqiang, and Jia Ling have presented satisfactory and pleasant comedy works to the audience. One screenwriter interviewee said: "The works loved by young audiences don't actually have a fixed formula of 'routine output', but the excellent works of the past have at least some commonalities.
Whether it is based on dialects, exaggerated body movements and special effects, the premise is still that it must be designed and arranged on the basis of a solid story, even if it is an absurd story built on the framework of 'utopia', it is necessary to continue to dig out jokes in the story narrative and different scenes, and constantly use jokes to show the personality of the characters. This tests the screenwriters' understanding of the market, as well as their skills and techniques. "As for the future, will people still support Feng Xiaogang's work?This is a topic of great interest. Reference: Feng Xiaogang announced his retirement: "I basically stopped shooting if I could shoot or not" (Southern Weekly).