Chapter 373: Huge debate and public opinion on the verge of getting out of control

On June 21st, "Jinling Jinling" began to be released nationwide.

On this day, with Star Media Group spending a large amount of money, the hottest news was the release of this movie.

Even though the box office of "No Man's Land" exceeded 100 million yuan, it did not make any splash, although this was also because Golden Harvest did not promote it.

However, "No Man's Land" is also one of the most popular movies in recent times, with box office exceeding 100 million yuan in four days. Even if Golden Harvest does not promote it specifically, there should be many media interested in this news.

But now, we hardly hear any related reports, which shows how fierce the publicity campaign of "Jinling Jinling" is.

The promotion of the movie is not only large-scale, but also full of gimmicks.

For example, when the movie box office exceeded 200 million, the director Lu Chuan ran naked, and the stills of female college students appearing naked were exposed.

Although many media outlets have criticized the "Jinling Jinling" crew for their vulgar promotional methods, it has to be said that the promotional effect was very good.

So even though the subject matter of the movie is relatively heavy, it still attracted a large number of audiences to go to the cinema to watch it thanks to its topic effect.

On the first day of its release, the movie grossed 26 million at the box office, which was better than that of "No Man's Land".

However, despite good performance on the first day, the film's reputation was severely polarized.

Now with the increasing development of the Internet, the reputation of a movie can be revealed in one day if the distributor does not vigorously control the reviews.

Even if you control the reviews, they will only last for three days at most. If the movie has a very bad reputation, it won’t be covered up.

Those who approve of "Jinling Jinling" believe that it can be summed up as follows:

The movie is very shocking. It shows inhumane massacres and abuses, Chinese soldiers fighting to the death, ordinary people desperate to survive, brutally ravaged Japanese and Chinese women, Germans rescuing refugees, and traitors who live in shame.

All of this is presented with extreme calmness, and it is a shocking masterpiece.

But more people believe that "Jinling Jinling" is a failed work that reversed the Chinese people's sense of right and wrong and values.

Well-known film critic Chen Junzi commented on his Douban account:

The technology of "Jinling Jinling" is very powerful, and each scene is awesome when taken individually, but as a whole it is very fragmented. In layman's terms, the whole movie looks like a piece of shit.

Professor Cui Weiping of Beijing Film Academy even wrote an article criticizing the film, saying that "Jinling Jinling" is a science fiction film that puts the theme first and ends with the conclusion!

What this sentence means in simple terms is that except for the theme and the final conclusion of the movie, the rest of the content is almost fabricated and does not conform to the facts at all.

So during the roadshow on the second day, Lu Chuan faced a lot of doubts.

However, facing these questions from reporters, Lu Chuan had already prepared her response.

"I want to tell our audience what kind of opponent we lost to back then!"

"I have consulted a lot of information and am completely objective. Movies have no national boundaries!"

Afterwards, Lu Chuan kept emphasizing that his film was describing objective facts, constantly saying what it showed here, what it meant there, and what it highlighted.
I have to say that sometimes those who claim to be cultured people are really thick-skinned.

However, some media questioned it, and of course some media praised it.

Especially this time, Lu Chuan’s idea that movies have no borders was widely publicized.

What makes people feel a little sad is that there are some people who think this sentence makes sense.

Liu Zhou couldn't help but take action when he saw this shameless statement. He wrote on his Weibo:
“Movies have no borders, but filmmakers do!”

Although Liu Zhou is a director, he has no fewer fans than those popular stars.

In particular, Liu Zhou occasionally interacts with fans on his blog and Weibo, so now the number of Liu Zhou's Weibo fans ranks among the top ten on Sina Weibo.

At that time, there was no such thing as buying fans, so most people’s fans were real.

Liu Zhou's words were obviously a response to Lu Chuan, so as soon as he finished posting on Weibo, the comment section below became lively.

"Movies have no borders, but filmmakers do. Well said!"

"That's right. Science also has no borders, but scientists do. Otherwise, why did Mr. Qian give up the United States, where scientific research conditions are better and technology is more advanced, and return to China after all the hardships?"

"You're just going to be a blackmailer, right? Are you willing to lose face to make more money for No Man's Land?"

"What do you mean by hard black? Isn't what Liu Zhou said true?"

"Don't shout here. Wait until the box office of Nanjing Nanjing exceeds that of No Man's Land before you speak."

"Oh my god, there's another one of Rikutaro's lackeys. I looked around the Internet and found a lot of people whitewashing Rikutaro."

"Riutarou? Ah...hahaha...this description is really apt, hahaha!"

"You are so talented. You really touched my heart."

"If he didn't have a crooked butt, how could he have made such a stupid movie like 'Jinling Jinling'? Lu Tailang, there's nothing wrong with the name."

"I agree. I'm from Jinling. I didn't know this movie was going to be this bad. If I had known, I would have gone to block him on the day of the premiere. It was so infuriating after watching it!"

"I feel sorry for Jinling's brothers and sisters. Lu Tailang is just rubbing salt into their wounds."

In fact, there are a lot of discussions like this on Douban, Tianya, and Zhihu. The movie has been released for almost two days, and many people have already watched it.

However, Lu Chuan also hired a lot of internet trolls to whitewash her, but his methods were not very sophisticated.

On the Internet, in the film and television sections of various websites, there are many posts by Internet trolls, all of which have titles like "Those who say that "Jinling Jinling" is a glorification of a person have not understood the movie at all." If there were not many such posts, people might still take a closer look, but these are a bit overwhelming, and even a fool can tell that they are posted by Internet trolls.

All I can say is that Lu Chuan doesn’t understand the Internet at all.

There are also many controversial points about the movie "Jinling Jinling".

For example, the belittlement of Rabe, and the use of one person as the main perspective.

However, the biggest controversy of the entire movie is indeed what many viewers feel, that the movie glorifies one person.

At the end of the movie, officer Kadokawa not only let the two Chinese go, but also committed suicide to apologize.

This ending with ambiguous human logic has caused a lot of criticism and is the most direct manifestation of people's belief that the film glorifies one person.

Therefore, on the second day of the release of "Nanjing Jinling", Zhao Zhengang, a survivor of the Nanjing Massacre, said that she could not accept this:
"I have never met such a kind-hearted soldier. This treatment is not only inconsistent with history, but also has a taste of forgiveness."

Grandma Zhao Zhengang’s words quickly became popular on the entire Internet in just one day.

As someone who has experienced it personally, their words are of course more convincing.

As a result, less than two days later, Star Media was unable to suppress public opinion.

Liu Zhou did not expect the effect to be so good.

In fact, Jiahe didn’t do much. At the beginning, it was mainly just guiding, and the big moves later hadn’t been released yet.

But even if it was just to guide public opinion, Xingmei was already overwhelmed.

This can only mean that the audience has accumulated too much anger towards "Jinling Jinling", and once it is ignited, it will immediately spread like wildfire.

Moreover, Liu Zhou felt that even if Lu Chuan hired a navy to whitewash himself, he was still putting on a high-handed attitude.

He always blames the audience, saying that the audience can't understand or see what he is saying.

It would be fine if one or two viewers didn’t understand it, but is it possible that everyone didn’t understand it?

"Farewell My Concubine" is artistic enough, why do audiences understand it?
Isn’t Hollywood’s “Forrest Gump” artistic enough? Why is its box office so high?

So Liu Zhou thought of asking Golden Harvest to make a greater effort tomorrow to completely destroy the reputation of "Jinling Jinling".

The day after tomorrow, when China Film Corporation starts cutting the number of film screenings, it will be able to completely defeat the company.

However, things could not all go according to Liu Zhou's plan. Xingmei was of course aware that public opinion was on the verge of getting out of control, and immediately reported it to Qin Hong.

"Boss Qin, what should we do now? If we continue like this, the negative news about Nanjing Jinling will be out of control by tomorrow at the latest."

"Haven't you invested so much money? Why did you only last two days?"

"Mr. Qin, we are controlling comments, but we found that there are also people who are guiding public opinion, which greatly increases our costs."

“Do you know who is guiding public opinion?”

"I don't know, but it's most likely someone from Jiahe."

"That's right. Apart from Jiahe, there shouldn't be anyone who would specifically target us now."

"Boss Qin, what should we do next?"

"If you want to continue to control the negative public opinion about the movie, you need to invest more money, right?"

"Yes."

Hearing this expected answer, Qin Hong couldn't help but take a deep breath.

To be honest, the way things turned out made Qin Hong even more angry with Lu Chuan.

If he didn't have so many ideas and just made a good and proper movie about the Nanjing Massacre, nothing would have happened.

But he got into a dilemma because of all the mess.

He has already invested nearly 100 million yuan in this movie, and the sunk cost is too high, which makes him reluctant to give up easily.

But if you don't give up, it will cost more money.

"How much will the movie gross today?"

"It's already 10 o'clock in the evening. Even if the subsequent box office increases, it won't increase much. Today's box office should be around 26 million."

In this case, the box office of "Nanjing Nanjing" can reach 52 million in two days after its release, and if the results are similar in the next two days.

Then "Jinling Jinling" can also break the 100 million yuan box office in four days like "No Man's Land". With some promotion at that time, it won't be a problem for the total box office to break 200 million yuan.

Even if the movie box office exceeds 200 million, he will not be able to fully recover his costs, but at least the data will look better.

For Star Media Group now, the most important thing is good data. After all, this is the first movie invested by the company and it needs to have a good start.

Thinking of this, Qin Hong gritted his teeth and was about to agree to continue investing funds when suddenly another person came over with an anxious look on his face to report on his work.

"Mr. Qin, I just got the news that China Film Group has decided to gradually reduce the screening schedule of "Jinling Jinling" from the backend, including the China Film Star Cinema Line."

PS: I owe you 1,000 words, I will pay it back tomorrow
(End of this chapter)