As the end of the Chinese New Year holiday draws near, the cinema is undoubtedly the liveliest part of the festival. Among the movies released during the Spring Festival this year, there are three unexpected surprises that many audiences have not expected.
First of all, what catches the eye is that Jia Ling's new film "Hot and Hot" has sparked heated discussions on the Internet before it has been released. The duel between the fat version and the thin version of Jia Ling in the film has attracted countless eyeballs, especially Jia Ling's feat of losing 100 pounds in order to shoot this film, which not only shocked the audience, but also deeply touched their heartstrings. Although the film has only been released for 8 days, the box office has exceeded 2.6 billion, showing strong market appeal and audience love.
Secondly, the sequel "Flying Life" directed by Han Han returned strongly with the original cast of Shen Teng and Yin Zheng, although Han Han chose a low-key strategy in publicity this time, but this did not prevent the film from achieving good results. Up to now, "Flying Life" has achieved a box office result of more than 2.3 billion, easily surpassing the total box office record of the first part.
Moreover, with its realistic theme, "Article 20" directed by Zhang Yimou successfully counterattacked as a dark horse in the Spring Festival stalls full of comedies and commercial films. At first, given that although the film has no shortage of humorous elements, its serious core does not seem to match the common entertainment atmosphere of the Spring Festival stalls, so it is not favored by the outside world. However, it turns out that excellent films will eventually be recognized by the audience, and although "Article 20" had a flat start, it performed strongly in the later stage, continued to rise at the box office, and won the support of more audiences near the end of the holiday, showing a gratifying upward trend.
Among these three films that brought unexpected surprises, perhaps the most unexpected is Jia Ling's "Hot and Hot". Compared with the success of Zhang Yimou's new film, it is predictable, and it is not easy for Jia Ling's works to achieve such brilliant results. Since "Hello, Li Huanying", Jia Ling has been under great pressure, and some people think that her success is caused by accident or luck, but now it seems that the success of two consecutive movies fully confirms Jia Ling's strength and talent, and she must not be underestimated.
A detailed study of the reasons why Jia Ling's self-directed and self-starred "Hot and Hot" can win a full house, and the following four advantages are indispensable:
After the movie "Hot and Hot" was released during the Spring Festival, in the face of a number of competing films such as a forest of strong players during the Spring Festival, senior critic Hu Xijin also personally commented on it and took it as a key recommendation object, and even put Zhang Yimou's "Article 20" behind, which undoubtedly played a significant role in boosting the rapid spread of the word-of-mouth of "Hot and Hot". You know, according to Hu Xijin's past aesthetic tendencies, people would have expected him to support works like Article 20.
However, Hu Xijin broke the routine this time and recommended "Hot and Hot" instead, which was an unexpected move that couldn't help but inspire netizens to have stronger curiosity and attention to this movie.
With the release of the movie, the publicity offensive of "Hot and Hot" has not slackened, in addition to the major ** platforms full of content to build momentum for the movie, it has also continued to innovate, and through the release of various humorous jokes and new publicity calibers, it has successfully guided the majority of netizens to participate in the promotion and help the popularity of the film continue to rise.
Personally, when I opened social media during the Spring Festival, I was almost overwhelmed by the information about Jia Ling's "Hot and Hot": some people shared their viewing feelings, some people enthusiastically recommended it to friends, and there were also official highlight clips, etc., in this atmosphere, my friends asked one after another whether the film was worth watching, as if everyone was eager to try it and wanted to join this movie-watching craze.
Such a large-scale and heated discussion has made "Hot and Hot" compete with last year's smash hit "Man Jianghong". Of course, a good publicity strategy is not a bad thing, after all, "the smell of wine is also afraid of deep alleys", and movies as a commodity, especially commercial films, it is necessary to invest a lot of resources in publicity and promotion. As long as these investments can lead to higher box office returns, then from the perspective of investors, such an approach is understandable. After all, the money belongs to the investors, and we don't need to worry too much about their decisions.
In the face of many ** audiences, the size of the movie's publicity does not completely affect their viewing choices. Some people will be attracted to the enthusiastic publicity, but there are also some viewers who may deliberately avoid it because of excessive publicity. In the final analysis, whether a movie is wonderful or not depends on the audience to judge it in person.
The success of Hot and Hot is not only dependent on excellent publicity strategies, but also on the quality of its story. Excellent publicity can attract more eyeballs, but if the quality of the film itself is not up to par, the audience will only be disappointed and the reputation will decline, and the excitement will not last for a while. This domestic masterpiece shows a very high standard in terms of storyline.
Regarding the main story line of "Hot and Hot", although many viewers have already seen it, spoilers are not so important, but in order to better serve everyone, I will give a brief introduction based on the content of the official trailer. To put it simply, the film tells the story of a lazy and ordinary chubby girl who meets her true love after being tired of her idle life and is determined to change the trajectory of her life, but the way she chooses is not to find a job or seek psychological counseling in the traditional sense, but to resolutely devote herself to the fighting industry and aspire to become a boxer.
Dense jokes and dramatic conflicts aside, the core of the story of "Hot and Hot" - how an ordinary fat girl becomes a professional boxer through hard work is extremely attractive and interesting in itself. What is particularly rare is that the film does not start from the perspective of the elite, but takes the lives of ordinary people as the starting point, which makes many audiences at the moment more empathetic, especially for those who are eager to ** but lack perseverance, the movie is more motivating.
In addition, the cast of "Hot and Hot" is strong, and Jia Ling, Lei Jiayin, Qiao Shan, Zhang Xiaofei, Yang Zi, Sha Yi and other acting schools all appeared. Throughout the movie, each actor played his due professional level and achieved full acting skills. Among them, Jia Ling shines even more with her profound comedy skills and relaxed and natural performance style. There is no trace of deliberateness in her performance, every detail is handled just right, whether it is a daily life scene or an emotional climax, it can make the audience resonate strongly, sometimes laughing, sometimes moving to tears, which greatly enhances the viewing and appeal of the film.
Although on the surface, "Hot and Hot" seems to be facing fierce competitive pressure, after all, there is no shortage of blockbusters at the box office champion level during the Spring Festival schedule over the years, such as "Detective Chinatown" and "Hello Li Huanying" in 2021, as well as the follow-up "Changjin Lake", "Miracle Stupid Child", "Four Seas", etc. In the Spring Festival in 2024, there will be "Flying Life" with the same type of theme to compete with it, and the realistic masterpiece "Article 20" directed by Zhang Yimou will follow, and the family animation "Bear Infested" series will compete with each other. At first glance, "Hot and Hot" seems to be surrounded by a lot.
However, after in-depth analysis, it will be found that in fact, "Hot and Hot" has already laid out the Spring Festival market in advance. The film became popular before it was released, and the overwhelming publicity offensive won it wide attention. After the release, the appearance of the "thin version" Jia Ling sparked heated discussions, adding another fire to the promotion of the film. At the same time, the film skillfully blends funny and inspirational elements to meet the needs of audiences of different ages, which is an incomparable advantage for competitors in the same period.
For example, although "Flying Life" is also a comedy genre, it is slightly inferior in terms of promotional highlights; Although "Article 20" is well-made, due to its realistic subject matter, during the Spring Festival holiday, more audiences may be inclined to choose light-hearted family films rather than serious and profound works. Therefore, "Hot and Hot" actually opened up a unique track in the Chinese New Year and became one of the most suitable film works for the Spring Festival atmosphere, although the future box office trend is still uncertain, but at least during the Spring Festival, "Hot and Hot" can be said to have come into being.