The final scene of the movie showed an old notebook with yellowed pages. The wind blowing through the window caused the pages to flutter gently, revealing the bold and powerful handwriting on the calm paper.
At this moment, the frame froze, the colors slowly faded, turning into black and white.
It took a long time for the ending credits song to start playing. Fans of Lin Jingque would not be unfamiliar with this song, titled “Deeply.” It was a song Mr. Zhuang wrote for her the year they got married. Every time she sang this song, her beautiful eyes sparkled like stars.
As the movie ended, Xu Wei sat in her seat in the theater without moving for a long time. Her eyes were swollen from crying too long. The screen had already gone dark, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off it. She didn’t even want to leave, as she had no strength to even stand up.
The tissues in her bag were long used up, but the tears kept flowing uncontrollably. Xu Wei couldn’t remember the last time she cried so much.
It was evident that she was not the only one with this reaction. Throughout the vast theater, there were sounds of sobbing and choking, with no other sound present. No one spoke, and no one left.
Due to it being the premiere, the cleaning staff responsible for the theater had never seen this situation before. Five minutes had passed since the end of the movie, and not a single viewer had left after standing at the entrance.
They were worried that something had happened inside the theater and reported it to the on-duty manager. After taking a look inside, the manager silently left.
“It’s okay, let them take their time. Consider it overtime today; we’ll close later.”
In the rush to release this movie, the majority of the communication was usually done by the film’s public relations team with the theaters. However, this time, it was said that the producer and director personally came to discuss.
Documentaries had little market value and were not box office hits, as is well known. The theaters valued profits over artistic value. Documentaries did not even have the qualification to compete with commercial films.
In the past, the scheduling of documentaries was based on the director’s reputation and the connections of the production team. If the director was well-known and the production company was a big one, the scheduling could still be decent. However, if it was an unknown director with no connections, the scheduling could be a disaster to watch.
The manager had been working in this theater for over twenty years. He had seen the worst-case scenario of a documentary screening for two weeks with so few screenings that he could count them on one hand.
And the movie “The Most Beautiful,” in terms of its screening requirements, was not overly demanding. After all, with Director Sang’s reputation and the strong backing of the Jiang family, the expected screening rate was reasonable.
However, the unfortunate thing was that the timing of the release of “The Most Beautiful” was just not ideal. Let’s take a look at what other films were released around the same time as this movie.
Renowned martial arts film director Wan Hong, working with the top domestic martial arts superstar Ji Minghui in “The Unprecedented Treasure 3,” whose two previous films had a total box office of three billion, had a high national recognition and box office foundation.
The domestically famous IP “Martial Saint,” with an investment of one billion, was a large-scale production with a star-studded cast. The first-day box office easily exceeded one billion, showing a promising future.
The brilliant female director known for romantic comedies, Ming Le, returned after five years with the new film “This is My Youth,” starring the popular young actor Wei Qing. Although it did not have the high recognition of the first two films mentioned, it also had a commendable performance in the box office in its first week.
Looking further, there was also the debut film “Eternal Day” by Shen Wen, the son of the award-winning actor Shen Fanggang. Shen Fanggang, who had been away from the screen for many years, personally played an important role in the film to support his son.
In the midst of such intense competition among these highly competitive films, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that “The Most Beautiful,” a documentary, was struggling to survive. It had almost no competitive edge.
In this fierce competition, the director of “The Most Beautiful,” Ye Zhou, finally managed to secure an internal screening for the film.
As a key member of the cinema staff, the manager was fortunate enough to be invited to attend this screening along with the cinema executives.
How to describe this screening? The manager only remembered that after the movie ended, those usually somber senior executives of the company were in tears one by one, especially the cinema owner among them who cried the hardest.
The reason was simple—many years ago, he was also a fan of Queen Lin, and now those long-forgotten emotions were revived because of this movie.
The manager had never seen his boss in such a state of emotional turmoil. Of course, he himself was not much better. After the movie was shown, although they didn’t agree to Ye Zhou’s proposed screening ratio, they did increase the screening rate by three percent on the existing basis.
Don’t underestimate this three percent. In a movie market with such fierce competition, this three percent was enough to make numerous film companies fight over it.
Apart from this cinema chain, the remaining few cinemas that had collaborated with Director Sang or Ye Zhou on multiple occasions also showed a certain level of sincerity.
Of course, the highest screening rate was provided by Jiangshui Cinemas from the Jiang family. Ye Zhou didn’t need to say much to Mr. Jiang; a hug was more than enough to convey his gratitude.
After Ye Zhou crossed over to this world, he also worked as a director, but his mindset changed significantly compared to his past life. He no longer chased after fame and money as before, but instead, he devoted more time and energy to the films he loved.
Whether making money or how others judged him became irrelevant.
Apart from his first film, “A Farce,” when he first transmigrated, Ye Zhou rarely ran around for screenings anymore or cared about box office numbers. After finishing a film, he acted as if he had washed his hands of it, occasionally contemplating new projects. The number of screenings and box office figures were just numbers to him, hardly touching his nerves anymore.
However, “The Most Beautiful” was different. Ye Zhou wanted this film to be seen by people because it deserved to be seen. Director Sang exhausted himself in the busy set despite his illness; the special effects team toiled repeatedly revising and rebuilding scenes, and the whole crew persevered day and night. It was a beautiful story that moved people to tears, a profound and warm love… all of which deserved to be seen by more people.
If possible, Ye Zhou hoped that more people could see it, not for fame or profit, but simply because he didn’t want it to be buried and unknown due to various reasons.
He once heard a saying, “Death is not the end; being forgotten is.”
Throughout the filming of this movie, Ye Zhou kept thinking about what he could do for the film, for the characters in the story, and for those outside the story. After much thought, he believed that the only thing he could do for them was to try to make it seen and remembered by more people.
So, Ye Zhou stepped in. He personally negotiated with the theaters as both director and producer, even leveraging Mr. Jiang’s name to increase the number of screenings. Fortunately, although the final screening rate was not high, it was much better than expected.
During the premiere of “The Most Beautiful,” the number of viewers was not high, with many theaters not even filling up all the seats. The box office was pitifully less than 20 million, a figure that nearly broke Ye Zhou’s record for the lowest opening box office among all his films.
However, contrary to the declining box office, this film had no premiere, no awards, and was rushed into theaters, yet the online reviews soared. Several influential film websites and forums in China rated “The Most Beautiful” with high scores of 9, 9.3, and 9.5, respectively. Such unanimous praise was rarely seen in the industry in recent years.
What’s more terrifying was the film’s staggering 93.16% positive rating, which was truly insane and terrifying.
After the movie premiere, the box office saw a significant surge. Looking at the data provided by several online ticketing apps and cinema box office systems, a more exaggerated situation than the high praise rate appeared. The repeat ticket purchase rate for this movie reached an astonishing 50.31%.
What did this mean? It meant that nearly half of the audience who watched the movie on the premiere day chose to watch it for a second time, and some even for a third time.
How to judge a movie’s quality? Apart from various data analyses, the opinions of film critics were also an indispensable part. Thanks to Director Sang’s reputation, despite the lack of external publicity for this movie, it consistently attracted high attention from industry film critics.
Apart from Director Sang’s esteemed standing in the industry as a veteran director, what drew the most attention was his controversial choice of collaborating with Ye Zhou to co-create the film.
Many industry film critics were eager to see the two fail, but to their dismay, not only did they not witness any failure this time, but they could hardly find fault or criticism for this movie due to its high quality and completeness.
During the premiere of “The Most Beautiful,” the group of critics waiting to mock fell silent, but those who held Director Sang and even Ye Zhou in high regard did not stay quiet.
Renowned film critic Jun Yi, who had stood up for Ye Zhou several times before, was the first to publish an extensive 3,000-word review praising the movie, expressing his excitement through the detailed review.
Jun Yi attended the midnight premiere. Upon returning home after the premiere, he smoked two packs of cigarettes, sat in front of his computer, wrote and deleted, struggling over each word. Although he usually wrote effortlessly, today, every word and sentence needed careful consideration.
It was not because the movie was bad, but because it was exceptionally good. As a film critic with significant influence, Jun Yi was well aware of his impact, knowing that many fans regarded his reviews as the standard for evaluating a movie’s quality.
With great power comes great responsibility. Faced with such a movie, Jun Yi had to be cautious with every word he wrote, afraid that he might not accurately portray the movie’s excellence to his fans.
The lights were still on, a sleepless night.
Jun Yi V: Fans often ask me, what makes a good movie? Is a high box office indicative of a good movie? When marketing tricks flood everywhere, does it make a movie good?
I used to struggle to answer this question because it encompasses so much, to the point where I couldn’t provide a precise response, so I put the question aside.
But today, I believe I have finally found the answer and have earned the right to respond.
Can box office numbers, marketing, or fake reviews truly determine if a movie is good or bad?
I want to tell everyone, that’s not the case. A genuinely good movie doesn’t need anyone else to judge it for you, nor do you need to seek anyone else’s opinion.
Just step into the cinema, and the movie will naturally provide you with the answer. After watching it, you will have a clear and unwavering understanding.
That, is a good movie.
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