3.709 billion, 3.404 billion, and 458 million are the ultimate expectations for the mainland box office given by Maoyan on the second day of the Lunar New Year for the movies "Manjianghong", "Wandering Earth 2" and "No Name". This kind of achievement may only be regarded as good compared to the box office piled up when Chinese films were soaring, but it is enough to wipe away the depression in the industry for the whole year of 2022, so that Chinese filmmakers and audiences can see hope. Also before the opening of the Spring Festival this year, the hot sports biographical film "Chinese Ping Pong: The Jedi Counterattack" officially joined the battle group in the third day of junior high school.
As the saying goes, football is the "national sport", let alone the national game of ping-pong, which has turned the "big ball" of Sino-US relations. Therefore, it is a big deal, so you must read it. "Chinese Ping Pong" was released in the hot film market atmosphere in the Spring Festival, which is just to keep warm with salary, and everyone gathers firewood. Let’s not talk about small balls. The whole movie is about the early 1990s, before and after the establishment of the socialist market economy, the whole society was full of vigor and vitality. Public opinion. These are two observations of "Chinese Ping Pong" and China's large economic market and small film market. And "dryness" is exactly what the people are looking forward to.
Poster of "Chinese Ping Pong: The Jedi Strikes Back"
"The premiere of "Chinese Ping Pong" was full of twists and turns. A competitive film can inspire everyone in this way, especially in the difficult period of Chinese film in the past three years. Everyone is actually saving their energy." This is a Chinese film director. The chairman of the association, well-known director Li Shaohong said.
Three years ago, "Chinese Women's Volleyball" was postponed and renamed "Win the Championship" before it was released. This time Deng Chao and Yu Baimei directed "Chinese Ping Pong". The names and surnames of the characters in the play were changed again and again, which also made the creators almost cry on the spot at the premiere...
Director Deng Chao
In China, it is not easy to make a good sports film, so it is rare. And making sports films with obvious biographical colors is even more difficult, knowing the difficulties and taking risks. Just like Dai Minjia, the head coach of the Chinese male soldiers in the film, in order to improve the team's performance, he hopes that the leaders of the General Administration will allocate funds to purchase the most advanced training video equipment in the West, so that the players can find gaps and make up for the shortcomings.
How to solve the financial problem, the coach went to the battle and drank a lot of wine to get sponsorship, the players turned somersaults and played performance balls at the hall to impress others... It was this long song that was crying everywhere and "begged" everywhere, which solved the urgent need. And what is this? It is the true portrayal of the era of reform spirit that "it doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."
There is no first in literature, and no second in martial arts. Sports movies have their own knowledge system and experience threshold. How to combine training and competition schedule with plot and character creation? It must be that the tighter the stitching, the more veritable the genre, and the more exciting the plot. Table tennis is a national sport in China. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Chinese male soldiers were repeatedly overwhelmed by Swedish male soldiers, and missed the Swaythling Cup several times. How to fight this turnaround? It is the main theme of the movie.
The head coach played by Deng Chao in the film corresponds to the famous Cai Zhenhua. There is a powerful line in the film, "As long as you can revitalize the Chinese table tennis game, it doesn't matter who you give up, including me." It is obvious. , reform is not a dinner party, gentle, courteous and frugal so that you can't get the national flag raised on the podium to play the national anthem. Without my determination and means to kill myself, it is not impossible for the male soldiers to degenerate into the current national football team. If you only see him wearing a gold watch and a gold chain swearing at Fang Qiu in the film, you don’t see him focusing on the Western style of play and advanced training level, enduring the delay of surgery for severe back pain, and letting Chinese male soldiers straighten their backs again. . Either ignorant or unscrupulous.
The "Five Tigers" of Chinese table tennis in the film, Bai Minhe, Huang Zhao, Hou Zhuoxiang, Dong Shuai, and Gong Feng, corresponded to the famous Ma Wenge, Wang Tao, Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui, and Ding Song at that time. Their portrayal in the film also has its own charm.
As the main force of the former national team and the heir of the head coach, Bai Minhe is proud of his talents and must walk a tortuous road. In the heavy rain, he took the teacher's self-criticism book that his wife found out from the box, and stopped the car in public to recite it aloud. Created the first small climax in the whole film that makes people smile, but also slightly bitter and gratifying.
Huang Zhao is an older player specially recruited by the head coach. With a wealthy family, he originally planned to retire and study abroad. In the movie, there is a section of "Lonely Defeat" that sends him to play in Western Europe. Without the comfort zone of the past, in addition to training and competitions, he has watched the classic Hong Kong film "The True Colors of Heroes" of the 1980s by heart, and "forced a Beijing man to speak Cantonese". It is the highlight of the burst of laughter and tears in the plot setting.
Gong Feng is the inheritor of the traditional Chinese chopping style of play. His achievements are not so dazzling compared with the players of the mainstream style of play, but he is an eternal legend in the table tennis world. In the film, he has been hidden as a "secret weapon". It is not only a mysterious mystery in the script structure, but only to be "unbuttoned" at the end. What is impressive is his demeanor before being selected by the head coach - not only brings out the vigor of the times and the freshness of the region, but also shows the emotional intelligence of a Shanghai player who "receives Lingzi" and who will never "carry on". Clear" IQ.
Hou Zhuoxiang and Dong Shuai are the new forces of "more than one trophy" in the future. In recent years, the small video of Liu Guoliang being able to accurately send the table tennis ball into the matching glass has already spread all over the country. The movie not only reproduces this stunt, but also allows them to use their innocuous "smartness" to adjust the tense and suffocating rhythm of training and competition. The full name of "Chinese Ping Pong" also has a "Zhi" character, which means "Jedi Strikes Back". Just like Hou Zhuoxiang's sentence at the end of the film, "everything has just begun", which seems to reveal the ambition of the main creator to make this into a "ping-pong series" in the future.
The movie ends with the Chinese team's Grand Slam at the Tianjin World Table Tennis Championships in 1995. That event is a classic that will never fade in the memory of many people. I like the clothes of the national team players at that time, such as the sneakers of the People's Rubber Factory they wore in training and games. Another example is the blue-based award-winning uniforms supplemented by black and white stripes, and their more personalized suits in color and design in the competition, all of which make people infinitely reminisce about the good old days.
Brothers and nationalities are the essence of new mainstream commercial films in recent years. If "Chinese Ping Pong" only stops here, it can only be regarded as following at best. Let's revisit Cai Zhenhua's encouragement to Wang Tao at the end of the film, "let go of the outcome and enjoy the game". This sentence was shocking back then. Under the national system, it is inevitable that the championship doctrine of winners and losers is in power, and can say such words that respect individual values and highlight the value of life. It makes sense now!