Hollywood Lover

   Zhang Dongcheng flipped through a few pages, and soon came across Ebert's film review, and this time, of course, he did not disappoint him, as the big title reads.

   "Epic masterpiece - Lord of the Rings!"

   Ebert wrote in the comments:

  Whenever I see a big Hollywood movie coming out in the newspapers and magazines, my instinctive reaction is to scoff. Hollywood has piled it up with money and public relations skills. Some people say it is cultural garbage. I think it is a little bit harsh, but it is not too much to say it is bubble gum. These films show off computer special effects, big scenes, props and guns like nouveau riche showing off their wealth, but they forget to spend money on a good script or hire a good director.

   "The Lord of the Rings Part One - The Fellowship of the Ring" is one of the very few blockbusters that has not been blown out. It is an epic film in the true sense. Its greatest achievement is to create an atmosphere that is rich in details but shocks the senses with grandeur.

   It is difficult to imagine the difficulty of bringing the contemporary fantasy masterpiece "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" published 40 or 50 years ago to the screen.

  The world of Middle-earth in the story is a realm where magic is more than reality.

  Recreating this realm requires high technology, but what is valuable is that the film does not show off high technology, but integrates CG, models, and the magnificent natural scenery of New Zealand's location. In the process of watching the movie, except for two or three places, I basically did not notice obvious traces of the computer; after watching it, I thought about it carefully, and most of the scenes were not the product of CG, but should be combined with miniature models and computers.

  How to grasp the mythical atmosphere of the story is the biggest challenge for this type of film.

   It did not disappoint me. Every shot of "The Fellowship of the Ring" exudes a kind of "nothingness" and "ride" that I imagined when reading ancient books.

  It has put a lot of effort into the details, ranging from the construction style of the huts and dark caves where the hobbits live, to the small ornaments worn by the characters, and the level of detail is no less than that of "Titanic".

   However, all the costumes and props in "Titanic" are based on evidence, while "The Fellowship of the Ring" is completely a product of imagination.

  Create a world where you can be lazy and take it for granted, or you can be meticulous and refined because not every audience will pay attention to these aspects, but the overall effect is very different.

  Photography plays an important role in expressing this realm of virtuality and reality. The lens processing of the film is amazing, almost every shot is condensed with amazing beauty, and every angle is the result of repeated thinking. Even if you can't understand a word of the lines, the picture of the film will convince you. The close-up shot of the ring alone has appeared many times, but every time it is full of ingenuity, from the slow motion of the protagonist falling on his back to grab the ring, to the faint future events of the ring, a seemingly ordinary gold ring suddenly appeared on the screen. Unleash the power of the throne.

  The ring in "The Lord of the Rings", like the ring in Wagner's tetralogy opera "The Ring of the Nibelung", symbolizes unlimited power, and also confirms the famous saying that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

  In fact, the story of "Lord of the Rings" has shadows of various European myths and legends. The protagonist of the story is Frodo of the Hobbit tribe. With the help of his elf and wizard friends, he and his fellow harpy friends took the ring back to the original casting place and destroyed it; meanwhile, the original caster of the ring, the Dark Demon Jun Sauron kept sending people to chase, kill and rob. One after another, thrilling and bizarre, just turning danger into safety, and the enemy is at hand, but this process is not going around in circles, but allowing the characters' personalities to continuously show and evolve.

  In the first part, there are nine characters with very different heights who form an "alliance", hence the term "fellowship" in the English title. It is no easy task for audiences not familiar with the original work to understand these nine characters, especially without the use of big stars; Remember the names of all people, and also remember their characteristics.

  The protagonist Frodo, played by Elijah Wood, has many years of experience in the film industry and has never had any outstanding features or achievements. However, no one is more suitable for this role than him. The round face, big eyes, that innocence, that bewilderment, are all so real, you can even feel the shadows starting to appear in his heart. He did what the Harry Potter actors failed to do, win the audience's heart, but at the same time show multiple layers of psychology. The tall wizard Gandalf, played by veteran acting master Ian McLean, fully expresses the character's extraordinary temperament. He and Saruman, the white-robed wizard played by another old British actor, have the aura of omnipotent magicians in fantasy novels. The tone of their speech and the slightly exaggerated movements all show that they are similar to those in Middle-earth culture. Fantastic coincidence.

In particular, Scarlett Johansson is really beautiful, and the role of fairy princess is very suitable for her. When she jumps on the camera with a moon blade, my heart seems to be a few years younger. If I only have Twenty years old, I will definitely pursue her!

  She will be the sexiest babe in Hollywood!

The people who protect Frodo and his party all have very distinctive characters—the handsome archer, the dwarf with a two-handed axe, and the wild hero... but the hobbits who are supporting roles are not very personal. Obviously, it may have something to do with the fact that they have been avoiding during the fight.

   In dealing with tall and short characters, the film hardly uses computer special effects, and relies entirely on switching and back substitutes. As a result, when tall and short people coexist, there are only close-ups and long-range shots, and there is no frontal full-body lens. If the film had properly added several computer-generated general panoramas of hobbits with other tall people, the mythological effect of the characters would have been more pronounced.

  Like watching "Harry Potter", to fully appreciate "The Lord of the Rings", reading the original will be of great help. But movies are not supplementary teaching materials for literature appreciation courses. If reading the original works becomes the prerequisite for watching novels and movies, it can only prove that the director’s vision is too narrow, or he lacks the ability to grasp the visualization of words. The content of "Lord of the Rings" is very "thick", almost too thick to melt; it is obviously not feasible to adapt such a script to follow suit.

Fortunately, the director of the film, Smith Zhang, is the most legendary figure in recent years. All the films he made made me stick out two thumbs. In the Hollywood formula, it is vulgarized, but it is a tasteful choice. The film clarifies the clues of the plot through the voice-over, exaggerates the action scenes a little, and pushes the adventure to one small climax after another with a magnificent momentum.

   All in all, Lord of the Rings, a great movie!

  After putting down this press release, Zhang Dongcheng's phone rang again, and the familiar number above was naturally Adaman. This guy must have good news to tell him.

   "Hey, Adaman, good morning!" Zhang Dongcheng greeted Adaman while stuffing bread into his mouth.

   "Good morning! It's so good! Zhang Smith, we're going to get rich!" Adaman's overjoyed voice came from the microphone, and it sounded like he was about to fly.

   "Did the box office results of The Fellowship of the Ring come out? See if you're happy, so let's talk about it in detail." Zhang Dongcheng laughed.

"Haha, nothing can escape the palm of your hand. The Fellowship of the Ring officially opened at zero o'clock last night. 4,000 movie theaters were full. A single theater cost 15,000 US dollars. Our first day's box office exceeded 60 million US dollars. ! Going on at this speed, maybe it will exceed 100 million in two days! God, this is an unparalleled speed of absorbing money!" Adaman shouted crazily outside, even hoarse, so The results of this film are the most profitable one in Jang Dong-seong's film history, and also the most terrifying one!

"How's the Ping Lun on the official website?" Hearing the score of 60 million US dollars, Zhang Dongcheng subconsciously took a breath. He had always believed that the box office of The Fellowship of the Ring would explode, but he didn't dare to expect such an explosion. However, Soon he recovered from the colorful banknotes and began to care about the audience's reputation, which is the only indicator to maintain and continue the box office performance.

   Having been with Zhang Dongcheng for so long, how could Adaman not understand him? Adaman, who had been prepared for a long time, said quickly: "The official website of Lord of the Rings is already full. Countless people who were shocked couldn't hold back their excitement and wrote down their feelings on the official BBS to vent themselves and communicate with others. People who felt the same discussed with each other. According to statistics, after the screening last night, there were as many as 185,402 new posts on the official BBS within 12 hours, and the number of new comments exceeded 580,000 within 12 hours! This is the data from night to early morning. You know, when everyone wakes up from their sleep, the server of the official website might crash!"

   "Hehe, what are you waiting for? Ask the technical department to do a good job in service, so that every fan who wants to express their ideas can log in quickly!" Zhang Dongcheng was very happy and gave the order.

   "Don't worry, everything is OK with me here!" Adaman replied, indeed, with him here, Zhang Dongcheng doesn't have to worry about these trivial matters.

  The hard work finally paid off, but the frenzy is still going on!

   "The Fellowship of the Ring", which was screened in 4000 theaters, firmly holds the position of the weekend box office champion. Crazy as a wild horse, it received 11,024.35 million US dollars in box office in two days, breaking 100 million in two days!

   This movie accounted for 91% of the weekend box office (a total of 102 movies were released this weekend). In the history of movies, Zhang Dongcheng can also leave a strong mark.