On the screen, the male and female protagonists went through multiple misunderstandings with each other, overcame various difficulties, finally conquered the temptation of money and fame, and separately shook off the second female lead and second male lead, successfully walking together.
As the heroine happily put on her wedding dress on the screen, the whole picture seemed to be getting brighter and brighter. Li Qian couldn't help but clasp his chin, lost in thought.
He has seen nearly a thousand films, including those he watched in cinemas, bought or rented on disc, and even sneaked into film schools to watch. These include domestic and foreign films, from the silent era to works by fourth- and fifth-generation Chinese directors, as well as online micro-movies and low-budget films that only made it to DVD. He has his own set of criteria for evaluating good or bad movies.
In his opinion, although the plot of this film is old-fashioned and the camera work is clumsy, at least its main line is not a problem, and the rhythm has not gone off track. At that time in 1995, it can be considered a qualified movie.
It's just that this film, which is still passable in quality and can help young couples kill their weekend love time, has a very cold scene - there are only about ten people sitting in the entire hall, including Li Qian and Wang Jinglu, among whom one person started snoring soon after the opening, and two more left halfway through!
Although it's an 8:30 show on a Saturday, this result is obviously not good-looking, and the audience's reaction has directly given the entire movie a "box office bomb" label.
So, when he walked out of the screening room, Li Qian's eyebrows were tightly furrowed.
"Do you think it looks good?" he asked Wang Jinglu.
"It's so great! Qianqian finally married Li Mingyuan! So happy!" she said.
Li Qian is covered in black lines all over his head.
Is this really the standard by which girls judge whether a movie is good or not?
…………
Twenty minutes after the first game ended, both of them went to the bathroom separately, and then it was the second game "Pride".
Unexpectedly, this movie's box office is still very poor!
It was already 10:10 at the start, and it was Saturday, and it was a big American movie, and it had just been released domestically for a short time...... The whole theater only had thirty or forty people!
"This is Schwarzenegger's muscle!"
Smooth storyline, sharp editing, and the pure adrenaline rush brought by Schwarzenegger's muscles and fists... Although Li Qian doesn't particularly like this typical American muscle film, he still thinks it's worth the ticket price.
Even in Li Qian's view, putting aside the differences in subject matter, whether from a cinematic artistic perspective or technical perspective, the strength and sincerity presented by this film are enough to crush the previous "Love Will Not Lose".
However, the audience is still not buying it.
"Do you think it's good-looking?" After watching the movie, Li Qian threw the same question to Wang Jinglu again.
Wang Jing furrowed her brow and thought for a moment, looking conflicted.
"What...do you think?" she asked back.
Li Qian was speechless.
"It's me who is asking you!" he said.
Wang Jinglu hesitated for a moment before reluctantly saying, "Anyway... I don't really like this kind of movie, all that fighting... But the story is still pretty good! The male lead is really strong!"
Li Qian was speechless again.
As he walked out of the screening hall, he was a bit distracted. But then, when he and Wang Jinglu went to line up for the third session of "White Robed Swordsman", he was stunned on the spot!
A sea of people!
After entering and before screening, Li Qian deliberately stood up in the auditorium to take a look - at least 70% of the seats were occupied!
This suddenly stirred up Li Qian's heart!
Director: Zhou Kuiyuan, starring: Bian Fang, Lu Youming, Chen Bin, Sun Yuanyuan.
With full of expectation into the story, then Li Qian was dumbfounded again!
That feeling, made Li Qian feel as if he was in 80s Hong Kong! That is... the feeling of other martial arts films from TVB in 80s Hong Kong, apart from a few classic Jin Yong dramas!
But audiences just buy it!
During the movie, someone occasionally whispered in admiration -
"My grass, so handsome!"
"That's awesome!"
"Good! Well played!"
This is man and boy.
"The border guard is really handsome! Look at him jumping onto the rooftop, it's so cool!"
"Chen Bin is so handsome too, and the role Chen Bin played is the most powerful!"
This is for girls and women.
Li Qian's eyelids were jumping wildly, and his head was full of black lines.
…………
1:45 pm, at the rice noodle shop.
When two bowls of rice noodles were served, Li Qian was still a bit distracted.
Wang Jinglu eats very elegantly. She picks up a few strands of rice noodles with her chopsticks, blows gently on them, and waits for them to cool down before sucking them into her mouth quietly, without making any noise.
After taking a bite, she saw Li Qian stirring the rice noodles in his bowl while being distracted, so he took the initiative to say: "You seem to be out of spirit?"
Li Qian looked up at her and seemed to have caught the scent of rice flour, he suddenly gained some energy, lowered his head and picked up a pair of chopsticks, shoving them into his mouth. Wang Jinglu hurriedly shouted, "Be careful not to burn yourself!"
Li Qian was stunned for a moment, then put the rice flour back.
"After some thought, he said: 'I don't know what's wrong with me either, it's just that I feel a bit...unsettled! Mainly because the situation in these few movies is a bit...beyond my imagination, so I feel a bit dizzy!'"
"Oh!" Wang Jinglu didn't quite understand what he was stunned about, so she picked up a few more with her chopsticks, blew on them gently, and then sucked them into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before speaking again. "What are we doing this afternoon? How about we go to the audio store?"
"CD store? What for? Whose song do you want to buy?"
"There's no need to buy anything from anyone, I just want to go for a stroll! Anyway...I don't want to go home right away."
"Oh."
"Right, right, you also like listening to Zhou Xun's songs, don't you? How many of her albums do you have?"
"Three discs? "Daydreamer", "River of Sand", and... Ah yes, "Fireworks"."
"Ah, then you don't have as many as I do. I also have her "Liu Li Cup" and "Crossing the River Without a Bridge", which are also great to listen to. Do you want to go back and borrow them?"
"Alright!"
…………
He slurped and burped, Li Qian finished a bowl of rice noodles in just a few minutes.
Then he walked away with a distracted look on his face and waited for Wang Jinglu to finish eating.
After she finished eating, the two of them settled the bill and went out. Li Qian suddenly stopped at the door and said: "How about... we go see another movie this afternoon? I have something on my mind that I don't quite understand, and I want to see another one!"
"Oh, okay, then let's go watch it. Anyway, I don't have anything else to do! Watching a movie is quite fun!" she said.
Then the two of them went back to the cinema again, Li Qian asked and the ticket seller said that there were still tickets available for the 3 o'clock showing of "Alien 3", so he quickly bought two more tickets.
This is another imported film, said to be shown for the last week, and will be withdrawn after this weekend.
This movie is very popular because I have seen it before in memory, and it was with Liu Qiang and others, but Li Qian still plans to watch it again.
It's science fiction movie!
Because he knew this was probably the highest level of 1995 Hollywood movie technology in this time and space!
Li Qian felt that this movie might help him resolve some of his inner doubts.
…………
2:45, "Alien 3" starts checking tickets and entering the venue.
Before going in and before the screening, Li Qian took a look at the seating situation as usual.
Although it was the last week of screening, there were still about 30-40% of seats occupied in the cinema. Considering the miserable state of "Love Will Not Lose" and "Pride and Prejudice" he saw with his own eyes that morning, Li Qian knew that this film had made a huge profit.
This made Li Qian recall the Hollywood movie invasion of his previous life.
Before the 1990s, the entire Chinese cultural circle, namely East Asia and Southeast Asia, was dominated by Hong Kong films. Due to differences in cultural orientation, values, aesthetics, etc., except for Japan, which has always tried to integrate into European and American cultures, Hollywood-style blockbusters had little influence in this circle. This also enabled Hong Kong, with a population of only a few million and a local market, to develop into the largest film and television production base in Asia, achieving great success for Hong Kong-made films.
However, with the development of technology, as Hollywood's technical capabilities and production modes gradually matured, and with the basic completion of resource integration within Hollywood, in the last decade of the 20th century, so-called American blockbusters began to impact this market one wave after another with an extremely fierce momentum. Finally, following the release of Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" which formed a truly overwhelming trend, and subsequent big hits like "Titanic", Hong Kong films collapsed, and from then on declined, and the entire Chinese cultural circle became a box office base for Hollywood blockbusters.
This situation continued until Li Qian's rebirth, when domestic films seemed to be rising, also relying on a few urban and comedy films to get good box office results. However, in the entire market, they were still weak, especially since they faced the heavy pressure of Hollywood blockbusters, domestic filmmakers couldn't come up with anything innovative, everyone was making movies with the mentality of just trying to make a quick buck, to the point where the world's first so-called variety show movie appeared!
Moreover, even if domestic films start to gain traction, their box office and influence are still limited to the smaller Chinese-speaking market. Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and other regions have long been Hollywood's backyard.
In this time and space, Li Qian had not yet heard of "Jurassic Park", let alone "Titanic", but the development trend of "big investment, big return" formed by technological advancements and market maturity was unstoppable. Hollywood's technical capabilities have improved day by day after nearly a century of development, its production model has become increasingly mature, and no one can change it. So, although there is no "Jurassic Park", "Alien 3" arrived on schedule.
…………
In the screening room, Li Qian stretched out his hand and grasped his chin, concentrating on staring at the big screen.
The story of humans and aliens becoming friends and fighting against evil aliens is nothing new to Li Qian, who has seen many Hollywood blockbusters in his previous life. The current special effects, which still seem a bit rough, also give him a feeling of "not being satisfied" and "being a bit fake". However, it must be admitted that the filmmakers in Hollywood are indeed very good at telling this kind of science fiction story beautifully!
And for today's audience, especially Chinese audiences, this level of special effects is already good enough and shocking enough. This kind of alien story is also creative enough!
So when the cute alien No. 3 on the big screen showed off his superpowers to the male lead, Li Qian clearly heard the waves of "wow" in the projection room...
When the male protagonist was teased by his alien friend and repeatedly embarrassed, he also clearly heard the surrounding laughter that rose and fell...
And when the alien warship descended upon Washington, the grand and magnificent scene also made many people involuntarily gasp in shock, straightening their backs...
Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Li Qian knew that Hollywood blockbuster has really arrived!
What should China rely on to resist? Wuxia movies?
He rubbed his chin again and again where there was no beard, and fell into deep thought once more.
