New Year's Day is approaching, and several movies have chosen to be released at this time. "Wading Through the Angry Sea" starring Huang Bo and Zhou Xun performed the best, and the box office has exceeded 300 million. And "Hot Search" starring Zhou Dongyu has a poor reputation, with a box office of only 5.12 million on the first day, and only 20 million after three days.
Recently, some movies have chosen to be released before New Year's Day, and there is relatively little competition during this period, which is more suitable for relying on word-of-mouth to attract audiences. Among them, "Wading in the Sea of Wrath" achieved the most outstanding box office performance with its highly discussed subject matter and strong cast. The film exceeded 300 million at the box office 8 days after its release, and may further hit the box office of 1 billion.
Another film, "Goodbye, Li Kele", starring Wu Jing cameo, Tan Songyun and Yan Ni, earned nearly 30 million at the box office in two days, and it is also the most recent film with a strong box office momentum.
In contrast, "Don't Get Separated" and the Hollywood movie "Napoleon" did not attract the highlights of the audience, so the box office response of both films was very lackluster, less than 10 million.
However, the movie "Hot Search" was a real surprise. Although its subject matter has a certain degree of discussion and the cast is very strong, the box office on the first day was only 5.12 million, and only 20 million after three days. Viewers' word-of-mouth reviews are almost always one-star bad reviews, and even now, the film has not received any ratings. It seems that "Hot Search" is destined to become a work with a decent reputation.
The story setting of "Hot Search" is very close to life, telling the story of Chen Miao (played by Zhou Dongyu), the editor-in-chief of **, who created a popular article on the hot search by gaining insight into the traffic password, but this article indirectly led to the suicide of a female student. Subsequently, Chen Miao accidentally discovered a ** case between a wealthy businessman and a female student through a request for help from a female student, and uncovered the hidden chain of interests behind it.
The whole movie can be said to be about the ** battle of the self-editor-in-chief Chen Miao speaking out for the weak, trying to fight big with small and confront capital. This movie integrates a lot of real cases, with a certain scale and plot highlights. And there are also many powerful actors in the starring lineup, such as Yuan Hong, who plays the role of a wealthy investor, and Song Yang, the actor who often cooperates with director Xin Yukun. The heroine Zhou Dongyu is also a Academy Award and Golden Horse Award winner.
However, it is easy for the audience to find that the heroine played by Zhou Dongyu is the key to the success or failure of this film. Since the whole story mainly revolves around the self-** editor-in-chief played by her, only Zhou Dongyu can deduce the image of a person in the workplace who is resolute and unafraid of power, which makes people feel a sense of substitution. But in the previous stills and trailers, you can feel that Zhou Dongyu is a little harsh and mean when she plays a strong woman in the workplace, and even wears heavy makeup like a female villain. She is more suitable to play the image of the victim, because most of the roles she has created since her debut are in this image, and she has received praise and various awards for these roles.
The most prominent feature of Zhou Dongyu is the natural little white flower temperament, so when she plays this role, she doesn't need to work too hard, she only needs to play her true colors, and she can perform the role very well. However, images such as the self-editor-in-chief in "Hot Search" or the female air force in the recently tried "King of the Sky" require her to make up for the difference in appearance through acting skills.
However, her acting skills are not enough to support these images, and it always makes people feel that she has jumped out of her comfort zone and does not have a clear positioning. So even in "Hot Search", which is excellent in all aspects, Zhou Dongyu is easy to become a failure. Only Zhang Yimou and Zeng Guoxiang really know how to use Zhou Dongyu, and without them, she became the "king of bad movies".
Initially, Zhou Dongyu entered the public eye with Zhang Yimou's movie "The Love of the Hawthorn Tree" and was selected by the director in the audition. There is no doubt that director Zhang Yimou's vision is accurate, and the role of Jingqiu in "The Love of the Hawthorn Tree" can be said to be tailor-made for Zhou Dongyu. Zhou Dongyu has a youthful and innocent temperament, which is very suitable for playing the role of a female student. At that time, she had just debuted, her face was pure, she had not experienced too much damage in life, and her innocent temperament made her look like an unspoiled person.
It is this temperament that is highly matched with the role that makes Zhou Dongyu highly praised, and her acting career is smoother than her peers because of Zhang Yimou's appreciation, which can be said to be successful all the way. She directly won the Best Newcomer Award at the China Film Huabiao Awards in this work. In just six years, Zhou Dongyu also collaborated with Zeng Guoxiang in "July and Ansheng", although on the surface this role seems to be very different from Jingqiu, but the temperament still has a taste tailored for Zhou Dongyu.
This work won her the Golden Horse Award for Best Actress and was nominated for awards such as the Academy Awards, the Golden Rooster Award and the Hundred Flowers Award. It's just that these two works promoted Zhou Dongyu to the top, and then "Young You" with Zeng Guoxiang, and "Solid as a Rock" directed by Zhang Yimou and joined by many powerful actors are all works that can be proud. Now it seems that if Zhang Yimou hadn't first discovered her to enter the film and television industry and supported her again in 2023, Zhou Dongyu would probably have become the "queen of bad movies".
Among the other works released this year, "Hot Search", except for "Parrot Killing" and "Burning Winter" cooperated with Zhang Yu and Liu Haoran, but also failed to achieve satisfactory ratings and word of mouth, and even the box office was very sluggish. Obviously, Zhou Dongyu's box office appeal was overestimated, and someone actually trained her correctly to give full play to her abilities. Such an actress is really not up to the task. What are your thoughts on this?What do you think of the quality of "Hot Search" starring Zhou Dongyu?