Chapter 438 Spring Festival Gala and Spring Festival Schedule
On New Year's Eve, almost the entire Liu Zhou family was mobilized, some putting up Spring Festival couplets, some preparing dinner, and celebrating the Spring Festival happily.

Before six o'clock in the evening, the family started to eat the New Year's Eve dinner.

After dinner, it was only seven o'clock.

Because we are in Beijing, my parents don’t have any friends or colleagues here, so there is no place to play mahjong.

After dinner, the family chatted for a while and then sat together waiting for the Spring Festival Gala.

At eight o'clock in the evening, the Spring Festival Gala began on time. It was still the familiar hosts and the order of the performances was almost the same.

There was a song and dance at the beginning, festive songs, and then Feng Gong said, "Dear audience friends, I miss you so much."

This year's Spring Festival Gala has quite a few good song programs and many gimmicks.

The princess made a comeback and sang "Legend". The Little Tigers reunited after many years, and their medley brought countless people born in the 1970s and 1980s to tears.

These two are undoubtedly the most eye-catching song programs. The songs performed by other groups, such as the veteran mainland queen Mao Amin, national team player Tan Jing, Hong Kong's new singing god Chen Yixun, and the three popular groups from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Rong Zuer, and Wang Lihong, are not as good as the first two.

As the most popular female singer in the Chinese music scene, although everyone talks about Wang Fei's love life, there is no doubt about her strength and popularity.

The song "Legend" made a strong comeback, turning Li Jian's less popular work into the most popular song of 2010, and also making the song an enduring classic.

The gimmick of the Little Tigers' reunion has become the most eye-catching point of this year's Spring Festival Gala.

You have to know that the Little Tigers were the first generation of top-tier Chinese boy band. They were extremely popular in the 90s and could compete with the Four Heavenly Kings at their peak.

The three little boys of tfboys are still popular in later generations, but their musical works are limited, and they do not have the momentum that the Little Tigers swept everything back then.

At least in the eyes of Liu Zhou, who experienced the Little Tigers era, TFBoys is of a lower level than the Little Tigers.

Liu Zhou still remembers that he was in junior high school when the Little Tigers were at their most popular. His relatives and some female classmates were crazy about the band and listened to their songs every day. There was no one of their peers who couldn't sing the song "Love".

Moreover, the canteens and stationery stores sold stationery and posters related to the Little Tigers, which were immediately sold out.

Although Liu Zhou was more obsessed with some Hong Kong stars at the time, the Little Tigers were so popular that he also followed them for a while.

Because you don't pursue them, you don't have much to talk about with the girls in your class.

Compared with the eye-catching song programs this year, the skits in this year's Spring Festival Gala were rather mediocre.

The vast majority of the works are mediocre, and the occasional highlights are not particularly outstanding.

Even the skit performed by Zhao Benshan, the mainstay of the Spring Festival Gala, was the same. It was not outstanding among the many skits this year, let alone compared with his previous Spring Festival Gala skits.

This year he is still working with his apprentices. Facts have proved that although the apprentices are good, they are far behind the Iron Triangle and Song Dandan.

The popularity of "Not Short of Money" and Xiao Shenyang is an isolated case and it is difficult to replicate it again.

In fact, many of Zhao Benshan's apprentices are quite talented, such as Xiao Shenyang, Song Xiaobao and Dapeng.

Like "Liu Neng and his wife", they are famous performers of Northeast Errenzhuan, and they have real skills.

Liu Neng was the "CD King" in Northeast China back then. It was said that his Errenzhuan CDs, both genuine and pirated, sold tens of millions of copies, and his momentum was very strong.

Liu Yingma, nicknamed "Black Mountain Old Demon", was once the most outstanding female crosstalk actress in Northeast China. She was good at serious dramas and her song "Splashing Water in Front of the Horse" was very famous.

They are both the mainstays of Liu Laogen's stage.

Liu Zhou was once invited by Zhao Benshan to go to Northeast China to watch a performance at Liu Laogen Grand Stage. He was deeply impressed by the performances of three actors.

One is Xie Guangkun's "Shen Diao", one is Liu Neng's "Bao Gong's Duan Hou: Bie Yao", and the other is a female actress named Dong Mingzhu, who collaborated with his brother on "Cowherd and Weaver Girl".

This Dong Mingzhu has the same name as the one from Gree. She is Zhao Benshan's 70th apprentice. She has been learning Errenzhuan since she was a child, and is particularly good at Errenzhuan and Pingju opera. However, she did not enter the film and television industry like Zhao Benshan's other disciples.

So in Liu Zhou's eyes, the strength of the Zhao Family Class is far stronger than that of Guo Degang's Deyun Club, which is often compared with them.

However, in the end, the development of these two comedy groups did not meet expectations. After Zhao Jiaban grew old, perhaps because their scale had grown, they began to live off their past glory and just muddle through.

However, the other one took the wrong path and ruined his reputation by getting involved in the fan circle. Recently, I heard that the rich second-generation disciple of Deyun Club may also have his reputation ruined.

On the contrary, the up-and-coming comedy team Happy Twist took advantage of the opportunity and has been developing very well in the future, even taking Happy Twist public.

In this life, Happy Twist fell into the hands of Liu Zhou early on, or it can be said that Happy Twist was founded by Liu Zhou, but now it is not called Happy Twist, but Zhoushan Repertory Theatre.

Zhoushan Repertory Theatre was jointly established by Liu Zhou and Zhang Chen, the former boss of Happy Twist, in which Zhang Chen holds a 10% stake.

Zhoushan Repertory Theatre is also managed by Zhang Chen on a daily basis. After several years of development, Zhoushan Repertory Theatre has become one of the largest and most well-known private drama troupes.

Under Zhang Chen's management, the comedy characteristics of Zhoushan Repertory Theatre have become increasingly prominent.

However, unlike the original Happy Twist, in addition to its comedy features, Zhoushan Repertory Theatre's serious dramas are also very well-known in the industry.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to gain enough respect in the industry just by performing comedy dramas.

This is the case with Happy Twist. When talking about private drama groups, the first thing that comes to mind is Meng Jinhui Studio, not Happy Twist.

Happy Twist really became popular thanks to the sketches performed by Shen Teng and others.

However, Liu Zhou feels that it is time to give Happy Twist a push. We can see the team operating Zhoushan Repertory Theatre participate in the Spring Festival Gala next year.

Next year will be Zhao Benshan's last time to participate in the Spring Festival Gala. He is indeed old. Coupled with the conflicts with the Spring Festival Gala program team and the constant off-site turmoil, it has caused a lot of controversy and made him decide to withdraw from the Spring Festival Gala.

In fact, Zhao Benshan is already having considerable conflicts with the Spring Festival Gala program team. The quality of the work he brought this time is much worse, which is also due to the restrictions of the Spring Festival Gala.

After leaving the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, Lao Zhao performed several skits with Song Xiaobao and Zhao Si, and the results were actually quite good.

Therefore, arrangements were made in advance to get Shen Teng and others to appear on the Spring Festival Gala to see if they could take over Zhao Benshan's banner. However, this should be difficult. In the previous life, Shen Teng and others were so famous, but no one thought that their sketches could be compared with Zhao Benshan's.

However, after Zhao Benshan, the only domestic skits that are more impressive are those by Shen Teng and others, and some of Song Xiaobao's works are also OK. In fact, in recent years, some old faces of the Spring Festival Gala have gradually withdrawn from the stage of the Spring Festival Gala, and the Spring Festival Gala also appointed a new chief director who returned from overseas in 2012, and the style of the Spring Festival Gala will slowly move towards the direction of sensationalism.

Although the quality of Zhao Benshan's sketch "Donation" this year was not very good, it is worth mentioning that this sketch had a lot of embedded advertisements, which made CCTV and Zhao Benshan a lot of money.

After all, Zhao Benshan's skits on the Spring Festival Gala were watched by hundreds of millions of people, so the advertising effect was amazing.

The name of the video website that appeared in it was Sina Video, mainly to give face to Liu Zhou. Of course, Sina also paid a lot of advertising fees.

Only Zhao Benshan dares or has the ability to insert advertisements into works performed on the Spring Festival Gala stage. Even Feng Gong has never done so.

Among this year's sketches, apart from Zhao Benshan's "Donation", Bald Guo Junjie's "A Matter of One Word" is quite interesting.

The sentence "If you use lies to verify lies, what you get are definitely lies" was later changed into a popular sentence.

In addition to songs and sketches, there are two other programs in this year's Spring Festival Gala that are worth mentioning.

One is that Liu Qian, who became famous last year for his magic performances, once again appeared on the Spring Festival Gala stage, and this time he collaborated with his best partner, host Dong Qing.

Although this magic show is not as influential as last year, it is still one of the most popular programs this year.

Then the other one was Feng Gong’s apprentice Jia Lin’s first appearance on the Spring Festival Gala stage, which was also the beginning of her fame.

No one would have thought that this chubby girl who performed crosstalk on the Spring Festival Gala stage for the first time would become a celebrity in the entertainment industry in the future.

This time, Liu Zhou watched the Spring Festival Gala from beginning to end, which was rare. Liu Zhou's father and mother went back to their room to sleep halfway through the show.

In fact, if Zeng Li had not been so energetic and seemed to be enjoying the show, Liu Zhou would have given up watching it a long time ago. However, in order to accompany Zeng Li, he watched with her.

The next day, New Year's Day, the news about the Spring Festival Gala once again dominated the headlines. Just as Liu Zhou had expected, Wang Fei's "Legend" and the Little Tigers became the focus of media coverage.

However, Zhao Benshan's sketch did not cause much waves.

However, Liu Zhou is not too interested in the news about the Spring Festival Gala. He is more concerned about the two movies produced by Golden Harvest that will be released during this year's Spring Festival.

During this Spring Festival, Zhang Yimou brought his first science fiction film with the power of the Olympics, which was highly anticipated by domestic movie fans.

But his opponent is not weak either. Xu Ke, who has won the Spring Festival box office champion for three consecutive years, once again brings the martial arts masterpiece "Sword Rain".

Although "Sword Rain" was not directed by Xu Ke, the director was just a newcomer, and Xu Ke was the producer, so the outside world naturally thought that this was his work.

This is not the first time that this has happened. The director of the previous classic Hong Kong film "A Chinese Ghost Story" was not Xu Ke, but the famous action director Cheng Xiaodong at the time, and Xu Ke also served as the producer.

But after this movie came out, no one would think that "A Chinese Ghost Story" was the work of Cheng Xiaodong, they all thought it was the work of Xu Ke.

He was also the producer of another classic martial arts film, "Swordsman", which was directed by the veteran Hong Kong director King Hu. However, the two later had a conflict of ideas, so Xu Ke took over the project himself.

Therefore, the director of "Sword Rain" Su Zhaobin was just a tool, and Golden Harvest also focused its publicity on Xu Ke.

The producer of the original time and space "Sword Rain" was Su Zhaobin's master Wu Baige. He also served as Wu Baige's tool and attributed the movie to Wu Baige's work during promotion.

Now Xu Ke's fame is no less than that of Wu Baige. Although the latter has the bonus of a successful resume in Hollywood, he has not achieved any outstanding results after returning to the mainland.

On the contrary, Xu Ke has produced hit movies during the Spring Festival for three consecutive years, which has directly increased his popularity in the mainland and greatly improved his status in the circle.

Especially during the Spring Festival period, Xu Ke has gradually formed a brand. After all, he has made an indelible contribution to the early development of the Spring Festival period.

So even though Zhang Yimou was very powerful, Xu Ke had the advantage of playing at home and was not afraid of the opponent at all.

With Golden Harvest's full promotion, "Moon" and "Sword Rain" also became the two most popular movies during the Spring Festival.

However, when "Moon" and "Sword Rain" were confronting each other, Cheng Long's "Little Big Soldier" was inadvertently defeated.

Although Jackie Chan can be considered the top superstar in China, people have begun to feel a little tired of his movies.

Moreover, at that time in the mainland, the appeal of actors was generally lower than that of big directors, even Jackie Chan was the same.

Not to mention compared with the most popular domestic directors like Zhang Yimou and Xu Ke, even compared with Feng Kuzi, Cheng Long's box office appeal may not be as good.

In addition, the distribution capabilities of Emperor Entertainment Group, the distributor of "Little Big Soldier", in mainland China are far inferior to those of Golden Harvest, so the popularity of its film is far from comparable to that of "Moon" and "Sword Rain".

Therefore, this year's Spring Festival period has also become an internal war within the Golden Harvest Group.

However, the final result was somewhat beyond everyone's expectations. People thought that the box office of "Moon" and "Sword Rain" would be very close, but within two days, the gap between the box office of the two movies widened.

"Moon" grossed 31 million on its first day of release on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Zhang Yimou's influence was fully demonstrated, and it took in 33 million again on the second day.

However, "Sword Rain" only earned 28 million on the first day, which is a very good result.

However, on the second day, the box office did not increase but decreased, earning only 23 million. The total box office for two days was 51 million, which was 13 million less than "Moon".

However, the reputations of both movies are very good, and their Douban scores are both over eight points.

The reason why such a result still occurs can only be that "Sword Rain" was born at the wrong time. Now the martial arts craze in the mainland has faded.

The reason why "Sword Rain" can still achieve such outstanding results is not only because of the strong appeal of the combination of Xu Ke + Qin Hao + Fan Xiaopang, but also because of Golden Harvest's strong publicity and promotion and the good quality of the film itself.

But even with so many favorable conditions, "Sword Rain" still failed to become as popular as "The Sword of Spring" did.

The distribution department of Golden Harvest also estimated the total box office of "Sword Rain". It should be no problem to exceed 200 million, but it is almost impossible to exceed 300 million.

As for "Moon", they predict that the minimum box office is 300 million, and there is a high possibility that it will exceed 400 million.

If "Avatar" hadn't consumed too much of its box office potential, the box office of "Moon" and "Sword Rain" would have been even higher.

Cheng Long's "Little Big Soldier" was just as impressive as he had advertised it to be, and was also far behind "Moon" and "Sword Rain" in terms of box office.

(End of this chapter)