It should be said that "Love in the Rain", the first film directed and acted by Tsao Chi-keung, although the plot is not complicated, the pictures and music are impeccable, and it is really in line with the aesthetics of the Japanese people.
No, we cannot say that the Japanese people, but people in the entire East Asian cultural circle, will like this "Love in the Rain".
The movie "Love in the Rain" was originally from an animated film "Garden of Words" by Cao Zhiqiang in his previous life. It also combined some Chinese elements and added several popular songs. It was shot with real people and used by Cao Zhiqiang. Some post-production was done in the audio-visual production dream space.
The effect presented in this way is that the picture is like a dream and the sound is like an illusion, both like a live-action movie and a CG movie.
To put it simply, in this era, this movie can give people a soul-shaking experience in terms of pictures and sound effects. Coupled with the excellent storyline and rich character settings, it is definitely a good commercial movie. .
Yes, Cao Zhiqiang positioned this movie as a commercial film, not a so-called literary film.
However, in view of the teacher-student love in the storyline, as well as the special love between an older female teacher and an underage male student, in this era, it can also be regarded as an art film.
Because in 1983, whether in China or Japan, the social atmosphere was still relatively conservative, and teacher-student love was still relatively taboo, so this can indeed be regarded as an art film.
Needless to say, in China, teacher-student love in high school is not only a provocation, but also a serious violation of discipline.
Even in Japan, teacher-student romance is prohibited in high schools at this time, because students are underage and are disadvantaged compared with teachers. Therefore, teacher-student romance in high school has always been disgusting to Japanese parents of this era.
But the 1980s was the most rebellious era for Japanese teenagers. They liked to subvert all traditions and create rebellion against all traditional thinking.
Therefore, the storyline in "Love in the Rain" is actually most in line with the preferences of Japanese young people, especially teenagers.
[In view of the general environment,
It stands to reason that this kind of storyline, even in Japan during this period, should be banned. At least it cannot be classified as G-rated for all ages. It should be the kind that minors cannot watch.
But the storyline of this movie coincidentally happens to be that in addition to describing the love between teachers and students, and describing the love between teachers and students beautifully, it also writes about another theme, that is, tolerance and restraint.
Throughout the movie, although everyone can see that the male and female protagonists like each other and heal each other, the two never take the taboo step from beginning to end. Everything is just in their hearts and ends with etiquette.
In other words, although the male and female protagonists like each other and know that the other party likes them, they do not break the constraints of tradition and etiquette, but instead try their best to restrain themselves.
Needless to say, the heroine was restrained, and the male protagonist was also restraining himself. Until the final explosion, the two just hugged each other tightly.
Touching like a hug is naturally not enough trouble.
Even if you can say that the two of them must be having sex in private, that's just what you think. At least it's not shown in the movie. The male and female protagonists don't even kiss in the movie.
Of course, you can also say that the male and female protagonists restrain each other for their own reasons.
For example, the heroine's restraint was because she had been criticized for something involving a certain student and did not want to cause trouble for the male protagonist.
The male protagonist's restraint is that he still has younger brothers and sisters to support, so he cannot make mistakes and does not dare to make mistakes. After all, he is not alone.
The general environment in China does not allow this kind of teacher-student romance in high school. This is understandable. After all, most of the students are underage and immature in all aspects. If we let the teacher-student romance open, there will be big trouble. .
Therefore, the restraint and forbearance of the hero and heroine are not only like holding back the ultimate climax, but also avoiding the fate of being difficult to judge within a certain range, and pointing out another way, or in other words, telling people in a subtle way Another truth for others.
Then
It is true love that must stand the test of time and is not just about pursuing short-term happiness and momentary happiness.
The final ending, in which the heroine leaves and the hero reads the letter, actually indicates this truth.
In other words, for true love, age is not a gap, distance is not a problem, and even education and work are not barriers.
As long as both of them care about each other, lovers will eventually get married one day.
For example, the male protagonist, he was a minor when he fell in love with the female teacher. Go after that female teacher again.
The same goes for the female teacher. Although she left temporarily, she also left the controversy and turmoil. She could go to a place where she didn't know her and start over, waiting silently.
When everything settles, no one talks about her anymore, and the male protagonist has grown up, she can naturally find him again.
Leaving is never the end, just the beginning of a journey.
When encountering resistance, don't push forward rashly. Taking a step back tactfully may be a better way to deal with it.
Well, at least this idea of taking a step back and waiting for the opportunity is very in line with Japanese tastes and is also very educational.
Many film critics saw this and made a lot of comments about it.
Of course, film reviews at this time could only be published in magazines and newspapers, and could not be posted to the Internet in real time. However, this method is actually more meaningful and lasts longer.
The result is that due to the excellent quality of the film itself, the follow-up of many film critics, and the fascination of some young audiences, this "artistic film" from China has sold out the theaters even though the schedule is obviously not very good. .
After the release of this "Chinese literary film" became very popular, the film studio decisively increased the number of screenings, and even many midnight theaters began to show the film.
In addition, the cultural festival happened to be the first three days, and many people were on vacation, which finally made the movie explode.
Many people actually watched it not just once, but three or four times, and cried every time they watched it. It was a tearjerker.
So much so that when I go to watch a movie later, the theater staff will hand out a pack of tissues first, which is both considerate and a psychological suggestion.
Because the movie theaters handing out tissues is a hint that this movie will make you cry. You have this psychological expectation in advance. When you see the touching place, you will not be able to help crying when others start to cry.
Due to the popularity of the movie, it was only six days after the movie was released. Other theaters couldn't help it anymore and negotiated with Toho Film Company and Warner Bros. to introduce the film and release it in their own theaters.
Let me say here that the Japanese theater chains in the 1980s were actually in the hands of several major film companies, and different theater chains had different territories.
In other words, unlike China, where the whole country plays a game of chess and all cinemas have to listen to instructions, Japanese cinemas belong to different film companies. Many movies are not shown in major cinemas across Japan, but are usually screened in certain local theaters. Released at a location.
Unless your movie has negotiated with major theaters in Japan in advance, it can be released nationwide. However, such movies are often blockbusters, such as Japanese blockbusters or American Hollywood blockbusters.
Some local low-budget films or Chinese artistic films generally do not receive this kind of treatment.
However, if a movie has a particularly good response during the release period of a certain theater chain, other theater chains can also follow up in time and negotiate with the theater chain and the film producer to discuss the introduction of the film.
In this way, although a lot of money will be allocated to new theater lines, on the other hand, this is equivalent to expanding the scope of screening and expanding the scope of sales.
In particular, Japan has done a good job in protecting intellectual property rights. Whether it is a movie or a video tape, it is basically difficult to find pirated copies. Therefore, expanding the number of theaters and sales scope is the most profitable for producers.
Therefore, since other theater chains also want to take a share of the pie, Cao Zhiqiang will naturally not refuse.
It's a win-win situation.
As a result, after other theaters began to show the movie, the theaters were still full, and the popularity of the movie did not decrease due to the increase in theaters.
Many people analyzed that the reason for this is because many people went to watch it continuously.
Because the biggest selling point of the movie "Love in the Rain" is not the storyline or even the characters, but the exquisite pictures and wonderful music.
For 1,800 yen for adults and 1,000 yen for students, you can go in and enjoy an ultimate audio-visual experience, just like watching a scenic documentary or concert. This is a very cost-effective price.
Needless to say, this statement is still very popular, and it also hit the point unintentionally.
Because this movie directed by Cao Zhiqiang originally learned from Lao Mouzi, which means the pictures are beautiful and the music is nice.
In terms of images, although many of the scenic spots photographed were taken from Jinling, there are also some locations taken from the Jiangnan water towns.
Of course, it's just a pure real-life scene. In this era, it would definitely be a mistake, but if some post-production special effects are added to make the picture more refined, it will be different.
This is just like the various dancing videos of young ladies on video platforms later.
Regardless of whether it is Douyin or Kuaishou, there are many young lady anchors in it, and none of them is fair, beautiful and has long legs.
Especially long legs, basically all anchor girls have long legs.
But the fact is that those are the effects of beautification, such as lengthening legs, slimming, whitening, etc.
The scenes in "Love in the Ancient Pavilion" or "Love in the Rain" are also in a similar situation, and they are all beautified by special effects.
The result is that the sky is bluer, the clouds are whiter, the water is clearer, the grass is greener, and even the rainwater is sparkling and crystal clear, which makes people feel comfortable just looking at it.
Even if it is overcast, the dark clouds in the sky have been softened, giving people a dreamlike feeling.
The characters, too, have all been beautified.
For example, the male and female protagonists have their legs slightly elongated and their skin whitened, resulting in both male and female protagonists being incredibly beautiful.
Especially when the heroine is crying, her tearful face is softened and looks particularly beautiful, making people feel the same and want to hold her and take good care of her.
To put it bluntly, the entire movie looks normal, and it seems to be a good picture selected after many choices, but in fact it is all about technology and hard work, and it is all technology pictures that have been processed by beautiful pictures.
It's just that this kind of picture that has been processed by beauty pictures is processed more naturally, and it is on a medium such as film, and uses an ordinary projector of this era, so there is basically no problem in the picture that comes out.
Because according to the technical level of this era, if we strive for excellence, select the best lighting and the best scenes, shoot one lens dozens or hundreds of times, and select the best picture, we can achieve this level.
As for the character's appearance, it can also be achieved through careful makeup.
Even subtle changes in height and figure can be solved by changing the shooting angle.
In other words, no one noticed that this movie added too many special effects. Everyone thought that this was a real picture and real characters. It was just that the shooting techniques and shooting angles were different, and it created a beautiful love story. story.
Compared with the special effects on the screen, there are actually many special effects on the sound.
The sounds here include not only all kinds of pleasant background music, but also various natural sound effects such as rain, wind, thunder, frogs, cicadas, etc.
During the actual filming, many natural sound effects were not available. Most of the sounds were sound effects added by Cao Zhiqiang later.
With the addition of various natural sound effects and the interludes and theme songs played and processed by Cao Zhiqiang himself, the effect is naturally unique.
Of course, there will be no problem with these sound effects, because they can be considered as a contribution to the sound collection.
If you spend a lot of effort to collect various sounds, and then carefully insert them into the movie, you can achieve the sound effects in the movie, which is much easier to hide than the picture.
In this way, in just 15 days after the film was released, which was just over two weeks and one day, the total box office revenue exceeded 3 billion yen.
This achievement was unparalleled among foreign films released in Japan during the same period.
Even compared with Japan's local movies, this box office performance can definitely enter the top ten of this year's box office performance.
In Japan, movie box office is divided into total box office and rationed box office.
The total box office is the statistical data after the theater sells tickets, that is, the total sales.
Rated box office, also called distribution box office, refers to the money that distributors and producers can get.
The rationed box office is generally half of the total box office, so if the total box office exceeds 3 billion yen, the rationed box office will be as high as 1.5 billion yen.
In the rationed income, not to mention other allocations, the producer, that is, Hongguang Film Studio, can allocate 15% of the rationed income no matter how it is divided.
In other words, as of the 15th day of the film's release, Hongguang Film Studio, which is privately contracted by Cao Zhiqiang, can get 225 million yen from this movie alone, which is more than 1.87 million yuan in RMB.
Don't underestimate the 1.87 million, this income is already very good, because if you broadcast it in China, you can get 900,000 RMB on the first day. Now the income is more than double, and it is still foreign exchange, and it is not over yet. Properly bring glory to the country.
It can be said that even if this movie is released now, Cao Zhiqiang personally will make a lot of money and gain both fame and fortune.
More importantly, the box office results are so good, the enthusiasm for watching movies remains unchanged, and the theaters are still almost sold out.
If this momentum continues, if this film can be released normally for one month and thirty days without any accidents, the final total box office is estimated to be more than 5 billion yen. If this is true, it will definitely be the best Japanese film this year. No. 1 in the box office rankings!
Therefore, purely based on this result, it is not an exaggeration to say that the box office is fierce.
