The second Man Jianghong?, The Vanishing She Movie | Audience | Vanishing She
The film market has seen a phenomenon level dark horse again. According to data from Cat's Eye Professional, as of 18:47 on June 28th, the movie "The Disappearing She" broke through 1.2 billion yuan at the box office six days after its official release, and has now risen to fourth place on the annual box office chart. On social media platforms, the film is constantly trending. According to the Cat's Eye Professional Edition, as of 2:00 pm on June 28th, the total number of hot searches for the film has reached 1188. Topics such as "Thai pregnant woman falling off a cliff case, parties talking about the movie" The Disappearing She "have spread the focus beyond the movie, creating a trend of nationwide discussion. The Cat's Eye Professional Edition has raised its forecast for the total box office in mainland China to 3.3 billion yuan.
At the recently concluded Shanghai International Film Festival, how to persuade audiences to enter cinemas to watch movies has become a topic of common concern for Chinese and foreign filmmakers. From the box office perspective, "The Disappearing She" has won over numerous Hollywood blockbusters such as "Transformers: The Rise of the Mighty Warrior" and "Spider Man: The Universe", as well as far surpassing domestic films of the same period such as "I Love You!". However, the slightly floating story and excessive market pleasing elements in the remake have caused controversy in the film's reputation. Does the market need more "The Disappearing She" to bring the audience back to the cinema?
Who did she learn from?
The movie "The Disappearing She" is produced by Chen Sicheng and directed by Cui Rui and Liu Xiang. It stars Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni, and Wen Yongshan, with Du Jiang specially invited to star. It tells a Rashomon style story triggered by the mysterious disappearance of his wife while on vacation overseas.
The suspenseful plot rhythm and layers of twists and turns in the story are a major selling point of the movie "The Disappearing She". The film company does not deny that it is not original, but a remake. According to official sources, the film is adapted from the 1990 Soviet film "The Trap Set for Singles", which was not even introduced in Chinese on Douban. Some veteran fans also point out that the blueprint for this story can be traced back to the 1940s theatrical creation, and there are other adaptations, such as the 1986 American television film "The Mystery of the Disappearance.".
In "The Disappearing She", He Fei's wife Li Muzi suddenly disappears on his wedding anniversary trip. While he is struggling to find a solution, the wife played by Wen Yongshan suddenly appears, but He Fei insists that the woman in front of him is not his own wife. Just as both sides were arguing, the golden lawyer Chen Mai intervened in the case, seemingly helping to uncover the truth, but in fact, she was the person behind the bigger plot.
Both "The Trap Set for Single Men" and "The Mystery of Disappearance" are essentially stories of police officers fighting suspects. By comparing the plot, it can be found that "The Disappearing She" is only consistent with the main storyline of the disappearance of her wife, the appearance of imposters with accomplices, and the fact that the seemingly harmless informant is the real culprit, but in reality, it is far from the same.
Some people believe that "The Disappearing She" drew inspiration from the Spanish film "The Invisible Guest". For example, the misleading perspective of the Rashomon style, the scene where the victim's relatives act as lawyers to induce the protagonist to reveal the location of the corpse, and especially the scene where Ni Ni tears off the tattoo tape that covers her chest, are very similar to the shocking scene at the end of "Salute" and "Invisible Guest" when the victim's mother takes off her glasses and wig.
"The Disappearing She" brings the story of the underdeveloped era of the internet to the present, and it is difficult to justify how fake wives impersonate real wives on many levels. The precise central stage completed by the police has been changed to be completed by a top theater director with a group of professional theater actors, which also makes everything seem somewhat illogical. But for the audience, "The Disappearing She" has made a clever localization adaptation of the original work. It is better to give up the authenticity of the story and pursue emotional resonance, as such films can better satisfy the taste of mainstream audiences today.
The localized adaptation made to cater to the taste of Chinese audiences also gives the work a more distinct characteristic of Chinese classical drama. In "The Disappearance of Her", Chen Mai cleverly punishes scumbags to avenge his best friend, which can also be seen as a modern adaptation of the Yuan Dynasty drama "Zhao Paner's Wind and Moon Saves the Dust". Even if the ending is not a popular reunion, elements that are popular among the public, such as intellectual battles with scumbags, romantic methods, and women's mutual assistance, are precisely touched upon.
Although the movie takes place on an island in Southeast Asia, it essentially tells a Chinese story. As of June 27th, "The Disappearing She" has won the box office daily championship for 7 consecutive days and exceeded 100 million yuan in box office for 6 consecutive days, undoubtedly achieving market success. It is expected to follow the industry's previous prediction and walk a strong long tail curve in the summer box office. Just like this year's Spring Festival, Man Jianghong, which took less than 60 days to shoot and was not set in a large courtyard in Shanxi, successfully counterattacked the science fiction heavy industry masterpiece Wandering Earth 2 by relying on simple traditional dramatic stories and strong emotions.
The feeling of being alive is ultimately too heavy
While box office continues to rise, the reputation of "The Disappearing She" continues to decline, dropping from 7.5 on Douban to 6.7. Audiences who want to watch suspense films are disappointed with the early "playing cards" in the story, while others are dissatisfied with the film's overly laid out audio-visual language and the accumulation of commercial elements. Director Cui Rui once said, "We want to make a different suspense film, hoping to bring new feelings to everyone in this genre." While "The Disappearing She" focuses on suspense crime types, it also incorporates different elements such as racing, horror, and adventure, making the film genre appear complex and diverse. But some elements are clearly redundant to the story itself, such as Ni Ni's racing show, which seems to have been added for visual and auditory stimulation, and Zhu Yilong and Wen Yongshan's close fitting hot dance on the beach, which is not very meaningful except for showcasing the actors' appearance.
At the 2023 Shanghai Film Festival film project venture capital, director, screenwriter, and producer Ulsan, who served as the annual recommendation chairman, once said that the type is an agreement with the audience, "tell me it's love, you want to tell me about love; tell me it's comedy, if you really make me laugh; if it's suspense, you have to make me rack my brains to guess the result.". Although many movies nowadays like to label composite types, it seems that the more composite elements there are, the greater the market space. "But in fact, if you find a single type and achieve the ultimate, perhaps the success rate will be higher."
The pursuit of commercial selling points and the expansion of genre fusion in "The Disappearing She" have brought about a certain degree of word-of-mouth backlash, but from box office feedback, it may not necessarily be a bad thing. Since the release of the film, the parties involved in the Thai pregnant woman falling off a cliff case have been trending on topics such as the movie "The Disappearing She", the deformed show, and the recovery of their love brain after watching "The Disappearing She", attracting many viewers to come to the cinema to explore the truth. It is not difficult to explain why the suspenseful color of the story is not as strong as imagined, after all, the suspenseful audience is only a niche, and relying solely on suspense is difficult to achieve the effect of expanding circle. Douban's 8.8 point "Invisible Guest" only grossed 172 million yuan in the Chinese market.
After "Man Jianghong", "Disappeared She" once again verified that high box office movies may really be calculated accurately. Previously, Chen Sicheng's experience in producing two films in the "Miskill Series" that grossed over 1 billion yuan at the box office was clearly applied in "The Disappearing She" - both with Southeast Asian backgrounds, remakes of the script, and an emotional core wrapped in suspense. Moreover, "The Disappearing She" also had an additional market safety net: high attractiveness and popular actors leading the way. Including deliberately finding popular case parties for "prototype" authorization, and rendering Southeast Asian deformed shows with a curious color, all seem to be foreshadowing the hot search for the movie's "going out of the circle".
At the Shanghai roadshow, Chen Sicheng told the audience, "I hope that we filmmakers can work together to truly bring all viewers back to the cinema." As a Dragon Boat Festival film, "The Disappearing She" not only achieved more than half of the scheduled box office, but also continued to earn over 100 million yuan in single day box office on weekdays after the holiday, driving the overall market to break 200 million yuan in single day box office on Monday and Tuesday, which is truly rare. At least, it has achieved the goal of returning the audience to the cinema, which is undoubtedly beneficial for the upcoming summer season.
Nowadays, domestic films seem to be exploring a mature market model similar to Hollywood blockbusters. The elements that can be controlled and accurately converted into box office are becoming increasingly clear. Comedy, emotion, action, serialization, universalization, etc., combined with a good or bad routine story, are indeed a way to quickly win back audiences. However, is that all?
