China Entertainment special effects started in 1997

The next day, all major mainstream entertainment media in China reported the news of the advance screening of "Lion Camel Ridge", and all of them were full of praise.

Due to the limitation of length and review, the language description is still a bit restrained.

But on forums such as Mop, Tianya, Shuimu Tsinghua, etc., it can only be described as "blowing up".

"I dare say that Lion Camel Ridge is definitely the best Chinese commercial film in the next ten years. If there is a better one, it must be directed by Jiang Heng!"

"I disagree. Not every director can surpass his own masterpiece. Chen Kaige's recent films, The Emperor and the Assassin, and Feng Yue, are far behind Farewell My Concubine!"

"I agree with the second floor. Zhang Yimou's best work is To Live. The works in the past two years are really not that good!"

"Then I still hope that Director Jiang Heng's works will become more and more exciting!"

"I don't think so. In fact, the themes that can carry special effects blockbusters are very limited. They are nothing more than myths, science fiction, disasters, and monsters. The latter themes are more often shot in Hollywood, and they always feel a bit weird when shot in China. The most suitable theme for Chinese special effects blockbusters is myths after all.

Among the mythological themes, the most famous and literary one is Journey to the West, and even Investiture of the Gods is not good enough.

The most famous scene in Journey to the West is naturally the havoc in Heaven, but from the perspective of film structure, I think it is difficult to make a better movie than Lion Camel Ridge. Unless you set the ending to Sun Wukong jumping out of the alchemy furnace and killing everyone, and then end it directly.

But everyone knows that Sun Wukong's final ending is to be pressed under the Five Elements Mountain, so it is not difficult to design a super-burning ending.

And if you force it to change, it is likely to become a weird one.

The plot of Lion Camel Ridge is superb, and the special effects are explosive. Really, I am going to watch it again when the film is officially released!

"Speaking of the heart, I am also going to watch it again with my girlfriend. She was excited throughout the whole process and her palms were sweaty when it ended!"

"Did the two people on the sixth floor really go to the movie?"

"Let's watch it again!"

"Let's watch it again! "

"Seventh Floor, you are such a fool...!"

...

Excluding the film's creators, guests, and media reporters, there were only two hundred ordinary audiences who bought tickets for the first preview.

Among them, even fewer were accustomed to surfing the Internet.

But these twenty or thirty ordinary audiences left crazy messages and discussions on forums such as Mop and Tianya, comparable to the later water group masters.

In the following days, Jiang Heng took the creators to Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an and other places to carry out advance preview publicity.

Later, they were too tired, so they divided the creators into three groups, with Jiang Heng, Hong Jinbao, and Wu Jing each leading a team to go to various places for publicity.

Originally, in history, the conscious media publicity before the release of mainland films began with "Hero" in 2002, and in the following years, it was Zhang Yimou, When Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang's blockbusters are released, they will go to BJ, Shanghai, and Guangzhou for premiere promotion. Later, they will occasionally add cities with high box office such as Shenzhen and Chengdu.

As for large-scale "roadshow" promotion, it has only started since 2012.

For ordinary domestic films, there is no such a big fuss.

The reason is simple. First, the budget is limited, and second, celebrities generally don't give you this schedule to cooperate.

But for Jiang Heng, this is not a problem at all.

He knows the importance of publicity too well. How many domestic bad movies have earned billions of box office with super marketing and publicity!

It's not easy to make a movie that may trigger a viewing craze, so why not promote it desperately?

Budget, take it!

As for the actors' schedules , that's even easier.

With his reputation as the most successful commercial blockbuster director in China, countless artists have tried every means to establish a relationship with him.

Now that he has spoken of large-scale publicity, the actors are also trying their best to squeeze out their schedules to cooperate. Even if they can't follow the whole process, they will always follow two or three cities, and the publicity effect will come out immediately!

Everywhere they go, there are crowds of people near the cinema, and it is surrounded by people.

After watching the movie, most of these audiences become "tap water", frantically recommending "Lion Camel Ridge" to their relatives and friends, saying how good this movie is, whether it is the plot or the visual effects, it is far better than "Titanic", "The Matrix" and other films.

As for forums such as Mop and Tianya, they are occupied by "tap water" of "Lion Camel Ridge". Every Every day, people post about how great the movie is, saying it beats Hollywood blockbusters.

As a result, on the day of the May Day release, there were queues of people in front of the theaters in the busy commercial streets of major cities across the country.

Even theaters that are slightly remote have a large number of viewers.

Because there was no midnight show this time, many people came early to queue up to watch the first show in the theater.

In Beijing, many students from Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama also came early to queue up to see what this so-called "best commercial special effects blockbuster in China" is like.

Yao Chen, Du Chun and other students from Beijing Film Academy in 1999 went to a theater near the school together. When they arrived, they were shocked by the scene.

"Didn't they say that no one watches movies now? How come there are so many people!"

"This scene gives me confidence in my future career!"

"How good must this movie be to have so many people come!"

...

All major media outlets had predicted this scene.

In Beijing, the movie channel sent out film crews early to interview in front of major cinemas in Beijing.

What surprised them was that there were not only many students and white-collar workers queuing, but also many elderly people.

“Uncle, are you here to watch a movie too?”

“Nonsense, I’m not watching a movie, I’m here to get eggs!”

The female reporter looked embarrassed, but the camera was recording, so she decided to continue asking.

"Why did you think of coming out to watch a movie?"

The old man is also a chatterbox. "Hey, didn't my grandson tell me when he was on vacation that there was a director named Jiang who made a movie about Tang Monk and his disciples crossing the Lion Camel Ridge. It was very good and asked me to come and watch it. I thought I couldn't understand other movies, but I could understand the Monkey King's movie! When I looked here, wow, my goodness, everyone in Beijing is here! It's almost as good as when I watched "Shaolin Temple" when I was young!"

"Have you watched "Shaolin Temple"?"

"Nonsense, I watched it seven times!"

"The old man really likes watching movies!"

"The main reason is that the factory gave us movie tickets at that time, and some people watched it without buying tickets. They had to pay for it themselves. Where can I go to complain!"

At this point, the old man remembered that there was a camera on next to him, and hurriedly said, "Don't broadcast this part!"

The female reporter didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and said to the cameraman next to her, "This part is cut!"