New Art City has made many attempts in the field of commercial films and has achieved miraculous success in the mainstream film market. "The Best Partner", "The Best Partner: The Queen's Secret Order", "A Better Tomorrow" (Film Studio/New Art City
) and "Eight Stars Announcement" have successively broken Hong Kong box office records and created a series of myths in the highly competitive film and cultural market. The success of New Art City is no accident. Behind the myths it created is a self-contained system
, a market strategy that is in line with the trend of the times.
1.
Topic selection strategies and type strategies
After the Hong Kong New Wave Film Movement, a series of major changes took place in the Southeast Asian film market, which Hong Kong independent production companies relied on for their survival: Singapore began to invest mainly in Hong Kong TV series, and Thailand due to the impact of the world economic crisis and restrictions on import quotas.
Hong Kong films have struggled, and the Vietnamese market has been completely lost due to political reasons. Therefore, Hong Kong independent production has fallen into a trough, and films with strong artistic and ideological qualities but weak commercial qualities have lost the soil for survival. Hong Kong films have entered a more commercialized stage.
, a historical period in which market competition has become more intense. In such a harsh ecological environment, the most important topic selection strategy adopted by Xinyi City is to closely follow the popular themes in the world film industry to ensure box office profits. Since 1962
The first 007 movie was released to the public. By 1981, 12 007 movies had been produced and became popular all over the world. Since 1981, New Art City has parodied 007 movies and launched the "Best Partner" series.
New Arts City's adaptation and remake of popular themes in the world of cinema does not simply move the space where the story takes place to Hong Kong. Then replace the characters in the film with Hong Kong people. Take "The Best Partner" as an example, the series
It did not stop at a simple imitation of the 007 movie, but adapted it locally from the spiritual core. The protagonist of the 007 movie, James Bond, is a deified hero and one of the protagonists of "The Best of Us".
One is a bald man with a ridiculous appearance. He speaks a sloppy dialect (in the version released in Hong Kong, he speaks Chaozhou dialect; in the version released in Taiwan and other places, he speaks Shandong dialect).
). He and the other protagonist King Kong are witty and cunning, but they are by no means brave and fearless heroes. In short. "The Best Partner" deconstructs the 007 movie with pragmatism, opportunism, utilitarianism and hedonism philosophy of life.
The heroism, romanticism and elitism showed strong local cultural characteristics of Hong Kong, and initially showed the post-modernist tendency of Hong Kong films in this period to subvert all authority. This tendency was later reflected in the films of Wang Jing, Stephen Chow and others.
The centerpiece has been continuously strengthened and has become one of the prominent cultural features of Hong Kong films around the 1990s.
The "Best Partner" series was a great success in the market. Since then, localized adaptations and remakes of popular themes and blockbuster films in the world of cinema have become one of New Art City's commonly used topic selection strategies. Take "Alang's Story"
For example, the inspiration for this film comes from a Korean movie called "My Most Beloved". During the remake process, New Arts City paid special attention to the film's resonance with Hong Kong and even Asian audiences in terms of values and aesthetic tastes. This is
It can be called an effective "borrowingism" in Hong Kong movies.
New Art City not only adopts popular themes and blockbuster films in the current world film industry, but also is good at finding nutrients from the treasure house of world cultural heritage. "Funny Times" learned from Chaplin's character creation and artistic style.
The script of "The Best" draws inspiration from Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". "The Taming of the Shrew" tells the story of a man taming a shrew. "The Best" involves a bald man conquering a man's wife.
A plot line. "The Cryptozoologist" is adapted from Molière's famous play "The School of Madames". As for Mecca, he has benefited a lot from Italian bachelor comedies.
In terms of film types, New Arts City focuses on comedy films and has made extensive, in-depth and diversified attempts in this field. Comedy films have a long history in Hong Kong. As early as the 1950s, Phoenix Pictures filmed a
A batch of urban comedies. In the 1970s, Shaw Brothers' "72 Tenants" and films such as "The Ghost Horse" and "Half a Category" directed by Xu Guanwen further set off the craze of "citizen comedies". Therefore, Hong Kong's success in the field of comedy films
With a mature creative team, rich production experience and a stable audience base, New Art City focuses on comedy films, which is a wise strategy to maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses.
New Art City's early works were mainly small-person comedies, such as "Funny Times" and "Happy Fairy Nest" starring Shi Tian. These films can be traced back to the "little citizen comedies" in Hong Kong in the 1970s, and can be traced back to Zhuo Zhuo.
Belin's little character comedies all reflect the ridiculous and pitiable situations of little characters struggling to survive in society, making the audience "tears smile". Since "Ghost Horses and Intelligent Stars", New Art City has tried modern luxury comedies,
The main characters are no longer as ridiculous and pitiable as the characters in small-person comedies, but have constant romantic encounters (such as the private detective "Ye Lai Xiang" in "The Ghost Rider"), or are ambitious and arrogant to do something big (
For example, the gang leader Capone in "The Big Brother", King Kong and the bald guy who dared to confront the Italian mafia in "The Best Partner"). Since 1982, Xinyi City has created another series with "The Little Life",
There are ghost comedies represented by "The Spirit", school comedies represented by "Happy Ghost" and "Happy Ghost's Summer Vacation", and family comedies such as "Eight Star Announcement".
Another of the most mature genres of Hong Kong films is action films. New Arts City has integrated the genre elements of comedy and action films and produced urban action comedies such as "Ghost Riders" and the "Best Partner" series, achieving the genre
A strong alliance in the sense. Previously, the martial arts films, kung fu films and Jackie Chan's action comedies by Chang Cheh, King Hu, Bruce Lee, and Yuen Woo-Ping all had asceticism to varying degrees, and women were basically vases and decorations. Perhaps it was influenced by the 1970s.
Inspired by Li Hanxiang's popular romantic comedy, New Art City abandoned asceticism in the urban action comedy and added a large number of love stories, jealousy, flirting, and sexually provocative scenes. In
In the fighting scenes, New Art City usually does not imitate Bruce Lee's hard-hitting and hard-hitting, but uses movie stunts and mechanical props to create big scenes and create visual spectacles; although the characters on the front are agile, they can do three punches.
Two feet, but often do not rely on real skills, but rely on high-tech equipment to win, or rely on wisdom or even cleverness to defeat the enemy, or use pranks to trick the opponent, create jokes, and amuse the audience.
New Arts City has also produced some tragedies. Among them, "The Wrong Ride", "Why Do You Have Me" and "Alang's Story" also won Sun Yue, Zheng Zeshi and Chow Yun-fat respectively the Taiwan Golden Horse Award and the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor.
.Compared with comedies, the number of tragedies produced by New Art City is very small. This reflects the conservative side of New Art City's genre strategy.
New Art City's topic selection strategy and genre strategy are based on accurate judgments of the market. Since the 1970s, with the prosperity of the economy, the consumption power of Hong Kong teenagers has increased rapidly. This has led to the age structure of the audience becoming younger.
, teenagers aged 14 to 25 have become the main consumers of movies. New Art City responds to this change keenly and produces a large number of movies with teenagers as the target audience. Movies suitable for teenagers can easily become family-style movies. So from the 70s
Since the late 1990s, Hollywood has produced many family-friendly movies such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Alien". Similarly, New Art City has also filmed "The Age of Funny Times", "Happy Fairy Nest", and "Ghosts and Horses".
, the "Best Partner" series, "Scared for Little", "Happy Ghost" series, "Family Portrait", "Dao Ma Dan" and "A Lang's Story" and a large number of family-style movies. At that time, New Art City's family-friendly movie "
"Happy Ghost" was released at the same time as "Provincial and Hong Kong Flag Soldiers" produced by other companies (showing crime and violence, not suitable for teenagers to watch). Audiences of "Provincial and Hong Kong Flag Soldiers" often only bought one or two tickets each, while "Happy Ghost"
"Most of the viewers bought six or seven tickets. As a result, "Happy Ghost" became the most profitable movie in New Art City at that time. Obviously, family-style movies can easily achieve the goals of maximizing the market and maximizing profits.
New Art City's topic selection strategy and genre strategy are based on accurate judgments of the market. Since the 1970s, with the prosperity of the economy, the consumption power of Hong Kong teenagers has increased rapidly. This has led to the age structure of the audience becoming younger.
, teenagers aged 14 to 25 have become the main consumers of movies. New Art City responds to this change keenly and produces a large number of movies with teenagers as the target audience. Movies suitable for teenagers can easily become family-style movies. Therefore, from 70
Since the late 1990s, Hollywood has produced many family-friendly movies such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Alien". Similarly, New Art City has also filmed "The Age of Funny Times", "Happy Fairy Nest", and "Ghosts and Horses".
, the "Best Partner" series, "Scared for Little", "Happy Ghost" series, "Family Portrait", "Dao Ma Dan" and "A Lang's Story" and a large number of family-style movies. At that time, New Art City's family-friendly movie "
"Happy Ghost" was released at the same time as "Provincial and Hong Kong Flag Soldiers" produced by other companies (showing crime and violence, not suitable for teenagers to watch). Audiences of "Provincial and Hong Kong Flag Soldiers" often only bought one or two tickets each, while "Happy Ghost"
"Most of the viewers bought six or seven tickets at one time. As a result, "Happy Ghost" became the most profitable movie in New Art City at that time. Obviously, family-style movies can easily achieve the goals of maximizing the market and maximizing profits. 8