Special feature of 1905 film network In recent years, although action movies have been criticized as "green and yellow", they have attracted enough attention in the early stage of each release, and often the market will give a lot of surprise feedback.
This year’s 51 ST gear counterattack has become an annual explosion. Even the summer movies are expected to break through the 300 million mark. Although it is not a big explosion, it can be said to be a little dark horse in the schedule.
The surprise of the two films is that some familiar actors have more opportunities to stand in front of the audience as the leading role and let everyone see them.
This phenomenon is particularly obvious in the online movie market. More and more action actors let the audience see their changes, and at the same time, action movies also have the opportunity to glow with different vitality in online movies.
For example, in recent years, he once again entered the audience’s field of vision with two series of IP, and he became famous young. Now he has successfully transformed and gained more market attention and recognition.
Only with attention will there be new opportunities. Iqiyi also paid attention to the high feedback from users of action movies on this platform, and launched a brand-new movie brand "Action Master Season" at the beginning of the year. Among them, the first season brought four works: Arresting Evil and Stopping Horses to Grab Knives.
These four works emphasize the "chivalry" at the core of China’s action movies. In the second season, they continued to focus on the diversified expression and innovation of action types, and launched three works, namely, Fighting Black, Seeing the Sun Again and Fighting to the Death, focusing on modern crimes and showing the life contest between the police and robbers.
In particular, the newly-launched movie "Fighting Black", produced by the action director of "Impersonal 2" and the director of "Northeast never to lose" series, vividly presents the danger and fierceness in the process of eliminating black and evil.
Once launched, "Sweeping the Black" won the first place in the new film list of major platforms on the first day, and won the popularity of the whole network. As of August 27, the box office revenue of the whole network exceeded 10 million. The film has made Aiqiyi’s "action master season" more intense, and the watch continues to "explode". As the finale of the second season of "Action Master Season", "Fighting Black" has made a new dimension definition for this brand.
01. "Fighting Black" is fierce enough.
If you use one word to describe the movie "Blacking out", it is "fierce"!
As the title of the film shows, the story is the theme of eliminating evils and takes place in Northeast China. From the whole world view, Fighting Black is similar to Pengfei Qin’s another Violence Control, both of which are derivative works of Northeast never to lose.
The story begins with a vicious violent demolition case. Not long after the opening, a fierce battle appeared.
It’s just that there is black behind the evil, and the story doesn’t hide too much suspense, so it directly presents the black hand behind the scenes to everyone — — Wei Tianlang (Bao Beier), the richest local man.
If Wei Tianming is vicious, the performance here is not enough. The director used a more direct confrontation to make him go mad. Through several simple scenes, the film shows the audience a cruel and fierce villain image from indirect to direct.
Lei Yang (played by Ashton Chen), as a criminal policeman assigned to investigate Wei Tianlang’s involvement in the underworld, was soon dismissed by the other side — — The address was leaked and the bed was covered with money. This sets the stage for many oppositions. After all, if Leiyang’s address is not leaked by the mole, how will the other party know?
Leiyang was not deterred by this. He not only challenged Wei Tianlang head-on, but also followed the lead and found a series of evidences, as well as other people in the bureau, especially Cheng Lin (Shanshan Qu), the proprietress of the ballroom.
In this process, the director met with Wei Tianlang twice, once Leiyang went to the door directly, and once he just arrived at the ballroom, and behind the mirror was Wei Tianlang hiding in the secret room. A confrontation in which I am in the light and the enemy is in the dark is permeated with the evil factor of horror and fierceness, which is chilling.
The premise of the story is here, in fact, it makes the title of the film more concrete. Why should we use "beating" instead of just "sweeping" in this crackdown?
As the creator of many explosive online movies, director Pengfei Qin knows well the narrative rhythm and plot of online movies and how to catch people. Start with the most direct content, and constantly strengthen the evil side of the villain. At the same time, when the villains are bad and bad to the extreme, the difficulties and dangers of this action emerge, and the decent fortitude becomes more three-dimensional.
The most important thing is that the whole film maintains a fast-paced narrative mode, and there is no literary drama. At the same time, it uses one realistic fight after another to push the plot to the climax of wave after wave and detonate the hormones of the audience.
02. Real Kung Fu
The "fierceness" of "Fighting Black" is far more than the plot design, but also the action and the "fighting".
Ashton Chen, who comes from a martial arts family, has a solid foundation in martial arts. In the past, shaolin popey series movies and Young Bao Qingtian series became childhood memories of many people.
When he grew up, he played a lot of roles, but this is the first time to play the people’s police. The image of a tough guy is not only reflected in the shape of Yinglang, but also in action and drama, which is very fierce.
What is most worth mentioning is the fierce fighting between Leiyang and the elevator.
In this scene, the one-on-two fight not only fully demonstrates the director’s scheduling ability, but also requires more actors in the extreme space. But it gave Ashton Chen a chance to show his posture perfectly.
Under the constantly scheduled lens, if the action is not real enough, the one-stroke pose will be exposed very obviously. However, in front of Ashton Chen, it is not a problem naturally. The fist and fist go hand in hand, and the skillful use of strength and inch strength is very in place. From the ornamental point of view, it is very enjoyable.
The director knows how to shape his image very well. When the elevator door is finally opened and the camera is shot from bottom to top, the sense of power of "Elevator God of War" comes directly. The whole scene is quite elegant in the name of the elevator, which depicts the ingenuity of action design very much.
In addition to this scene, Lei Yang’s fight on the rooftop and the fight between Wei Tianlang and the fishing ground at the end will carry on the "real fight", which perfectly embodies the infinite possibilities of this movie star in the field of action movies.
I have to mention the director Pengfei Qin.
Previously, his work "Northeast never to lose" was popular, to a great extent, he played the style of hard-core action movies, and incorporated realistic action drama styles such as close combat, traditional wrestling and judo into the whole play. This time, in "Fighting Black", the action drama draws lessons from the advantages of different venues, and realizes the perfect combination of spatial characteristics and movements.
Although the villain Bao Beier was not born as a star, he also contributed a lot of famous scenes in "Fighting Black" — — Not only is it brutal, but it is also "decompression" in being beaten. Especially in the final play, the two were evenly matched, never losing the battle, and were not suppressed by Ashton Chen at all, which pushed the whole movie to a climax.
03. Where is the "high" of the action master season?
Both Ashton Chen’s real performance and director Pengfei Qin’s arrangement in action drama perfectly fit the concept of "action master" in the brand name of "action master season" of iQiyi.
From the martial arts style in the first season to the diversified expression of action types in the second season, we can see both continuity and fresh blood.
Especially in the creative aspect, "Blacking out" is a new work by Pengfei Qin, director of "Arrogant 2"; The director of "Fighting Evil" returned strongly with "Seeing the Light of Day Again". In terms of action actors, in the first season, there were two stars from Xie Miao. In the new season, besides Ashton Chen, there were also stars from other countries, such as Japan, Japan and South Korea.
For action movies, the core is not only the "real stars" including these creative people, but also the "real kung fu" in essence. The "action master season" just strengthens this concept, takes it as the key point, and makes it more diversified, from the audience to the audience.
The origin of the brand "action master season" is based on the platform’s insight into users’ consumption. Judging from the portraits of users, male users have contributed more than 60% of the playing time to the iQiyi movie business, and they have a certain preference for action movies. Judging from the paid subscription performance of movie users in Cloud Cinema in 2023, the subscription number of action movies accounts for 91% of all movies.
However, the "action master season" is not just a simple and rude action movie, but a continuous self-innovation.
In terms of genre, from the origin of martial arts movies in the first season to the creation of pan-genre in the second season, especially "Seeing the Sun Again" combines comedy elements, which makes action movies have more possibilities, truly pursues a sense of breathing in inheritance, and creates stories that the current audience really likes and caters to the times.
Now, the popularity of "Blacking out" has drawn a perfect ending for the second season, but is it over?
No one knows, just like at the premiere of "Fighting Black", director Pengfei Qin said that maybe one day the team of "Fighting Black" and "Northeast never to lose" could be linked. Perhaps this sentence has laid more groundwork for the follow-up of iQiyi’s "Action Master Season".