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The sponsor of the film is the renowned Hong Kong star, Andy Lau, here pictured with director Ning Hao. |
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In recent years China’s film industry has turned out big budget productions with producers betting that high production values would generate strong box office numbers. However, this summer a low-cost film generated a big buzz and evoked a broad debate on the future of film making in China.
Within two weeks after its release, Crazy Stone, produced for about 3.1 million yuan ($386,000) generated more than 10 million yuan ($1.2 million) at the box office. For a low-cost film without big stars and big publicity campaign, this achievement was considerable. More surprising is that the films promotion was mainly achieved through word-of-mouth among friends and colleagues.
Crazy Stone, a modern black comedy, tells the tale of several competing groups endeavoring to plan and execute the theft of a precious stone. The story is set in southwest China’s ChongqingMunicipality, and all the characters speak varying dialects. Crazy Stone resolutely foregoes the traditional narrative structures of Chinese film and adopts a lively rhythm and absurd tone. According to many of its fans, the highlight of the movie is the marvelously humorous story, with a fantastic but believable plotline and true-to-life performances.
Public praise has proven to be the strongest driver of publicity for the film. The rapid word-of-mouth promotion exceeded the expectations of the film’s distributor. Although Crazy Stone evidenced good prospects from the start, cinemas were caught off guard by the large and expanding crowds. “At the beginning, the audience only took up half a hall, and later we had to change to a hall of 80 seats, then 157 seats. Now we project it in the largest hall with 237 seats, and the hall is always full,” said the manager of a cinema in Beijing, “Many come to see the film more than once. They really like the film and invite their friends to share it with them, at the same time introducing the plot to friends.”
For most it was unexpected that Crazy Stone would creat such a craze. According to Shi Chuan, professor of the School of Film and Television Technology of Shanghai University, one of the sorrows of Chinese film is that the audiences lost confidence in domestically produced products. They feel that most Chinese films are too removed from reality to resonate with the audiences and to touch them at heart. “However, Crazy Stone, without high-tech special effects and super stars, shows the joy of film to the audiences and draws them to the cinema.”
Nanfang Metropolitan News notes that one of the commendable qualities of Crazy Stone is that it captures the daily life of common people. Those film directors who aim at for huge productions with big budgets often ignore reality and sincerity. So their films don’t draw audiences at the same level.
With strong box office numbers and great audience enthusiasm, Crazy Stone exemplifies the best of homegrown Chinese cinema. According to some in the industry, China’s filmmakers would be wise to take inspiration from Crazy Stone - to abandon unnecessary extravagance in favor of strong storytelling and creative shooting technique. Some believe that luxurious externality and shallow content should be abandoned, while genuinely affecting stories should be adopted.
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A still from Crazy Stone.
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A still from Crazy Stone. |
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Crazy Stone in production.
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