253. Breaking the Fourth Wall
May 1st is supposed to be a day for taking a break and relaxing.
But everyone in the film industry felt the situation was very serious.
Lu Ban's film is more than just a box office hit.
The clues conveyed behind this film are surprising.
On the popular role-playing website Did You Get It?, under the question "How do you evaluate ' The Mouth of the Madman '?", several more trending replies have been added.
[Filmmaker Aping]: I retract my previous comment. "The Mouth of the Madman" is groundbreaking for the horror film genre, and even for Chinese films in general. Its content is not limited to the work itself, but extends beyond it. This technique of combining reality and illusion and blurring the boundaries is very novel. It can be said that the viewing experience of the entire film reached its peak in the final revelation. To be honest, I am now a little curious whether we are actually living in a novel, just characters in the novel, being manipulated by others?
[My name is Teacher Zhao]: I think that only a minority of people can rationally evaluate this movie right now. Most people are still in a state of confusion, as if their brains have been stirred up. If you think about it carefully, Lu Ban, who is shocking us and changing our understanding with one movie after another, is very similar to the novelist in the movie. After watching this movie, I seriously considered the possibility that I am a fictional character. Of course, if this is the plot of a novel, then perhaps Lu Ban is the absolute protagonist of this plot, and I am just a faceless extra praising him.
[Deep Blue Melancholy: My face hurts a little. I originally thought that at the normal production speed, Lu Ban's movie wouldn't be available for at least two years. I didn't expect it to be released in just six months. Did this guy secretly stockpile a dozen movies and release them one after another? This leaves no room for other directors. Someone can make good movies and do them fast. How can others compete with him? It's unreasonable!]
However, many people are still deeply moved by the impact of the film.
Before Lu Ban's films, the discussion of the Fourth Wall was very superficial. In most of the films, the actors ignored the audience and were completely immersed in the worldview of the film, so the audience did not feel that the relevant film themes were "acted".
However, in "The Mouth of the Madman," the interaction between the novelist and the protagonists, and the main plot of the film, clearly break the Fourth Wall of horror stories in movies, connecting reality and illusion. Viewers can think of the film as the story of the novel "The Mouth of the Madman," with the novelist detached from the story, or they can think of the novelist as part of the story, a film about how a novel is made.
This easily leads to a question: are the audience watching the movie also characters in an event called "The Mouth of the Madman"? Is the world we live in real?
When Bai Qiquan returned from the premiere, he was completely dumbfounded.
He got up very early today. He barely slept last night, dreaming of spiders crawling all over people's bodies, men in suits with their heads twisted, and vicious dogs with heads that were tentacles exploding.
When Bai Qiquan woke up in the morning, he rubbed his eyes.
He suddenly saw a man in a suit standing in his dormitory room.
Upon hearing Bai Qiquan's movement, the other person turned their head.
Holy crap!
Bai Qiquan sat up as if he had been electrocuted, his head almost hitting the wall. A shiver ran through his body, and he even felt his hands and feet twitching.
"What are you doing? You look like you've seen a ghost."
The man in the suit asked a question.
Bai Qiquan then realized that this was his roommate.
"Why... why do you wear a suit all the time?"
He asked, his voice trembling slightly.
"Oh, I had an internship interview today, so I wore a suit."
My roommate laughed.
"Oh"
Bai Qiquan was finally relieved.
Then I fell into that inexplicable sadness again.
"Do you think it's possible that we're just characters in a book, and the whole world is fictional?"
He suddenly asked his roommate.
"Ah?"
The other person didn't understand and asked a question in return.
"Never mind, you wouldn't understand."
Bai Qiquan shook his head.
He now felt like the first scientist to grasp the heliocentric theory, while everyone else remained ignorant, and only he had glimpsed the truth.
He lay in bed, picked up his phone, and searched for information about the end of the universe, the end of time, and the destruction of Earth.
Do you know?
Bai Qiquan then asked his roommate.
"Know what?"
My roommate is confused again.
"The sun will expand into a red giant in five billion years, at which time the earth will be completely swallowed up, and human civilization will be destroyed!"
Bai Qiquan said earnestly.
"Oh, five billion years? That's still a long way off."
My roommate suddenly wondered if Bai Qiquan had fallen seriously ill.
"Are you really okay? Should we go see the school doctor?"
"It's okay, I'm fine."
Bai Qiquan waved his hand, lay down again, and searched for some thought experiments such as the Brain in a Vat Ship of Theseus. He became melancholy again.
This situation continued throughout the night.
Bai Qiquan played a few games with his roommates during their regular gaming session. After losing five games in a row, he completely forgot about things like the end of the universe, the end of time, and the Brain in a Vat.
"Damn it, I'm not going to sleep until I win a game today!"
Bai Qiquan the mouse to start the next round.
Then he stayed up all night again.
On May 1st, "The Mouth of the Madman" grossed 170 million yuan, setting a new domestic record for the highest-grossing opening day for a horror film.
Furthermore, as the holiday continues and word-of-mouth spreads, its box office continues to climb.
The next day, "The Mouth of the Madman" grossed 200 million yuan, and on the third day, the figure reached 250 million yuan. This is a rare achievement for a film that has seen its box office continue to rise despite sufficient pre-release publicity.
It's worth mentioning that before this, the highest-grossing domestic film was a military-themed movie, which grossed over 5 billion yuan, while the lead actor's total box office exceeded 8 billion yuan.
According to current data calculations, Lu Ban's "The Mouth of the Madman" is likely to gross over 3 billion yuan, reaching 4 billion yuan. Combined with "The Crying," he could almost become one of the top five directors and actors in terms of total box office revenue in China.
In this context, mainstream media also began to follow the trend of Lu Ban.
After the Golden Week holiday ended and Lu Ban's "The Mouth of the Madman" grossed one billion yuan at the box office, he received a phone call.
The other party was the head of the program team of Xiangnan TV Station, who invited Lu Ban to participate in an interview program to talk about his creative experience.
Lu Ban readily accepted.