Chapter 64 Crazy Propaganda
The next day, all major mainstream entertainment media across the country reported the news of the advance screening of "Lion Camel Ridge" with all their praises.

Due to space and review limitations, the language description is somewhat restrained.

But on forums like Mop, Tianya, and Tsinghua University, it can only be described as overhyped.

"I dare say that Lion Camel Ridge is definitely the best Chinese-language commercial film in the next ten years. If there is a better one, it must be directed by Jiang Heng!"

"I object. Not every director can surpass his or her best work. Chen Kaige's recent films, The Emperor and the Assassin, and Temptress Moon, are far inferior to Farewell My Concubine!"

"I agree with the second post's point of view. Zhang Yimou's best work is To Live. His works in the past two years are really not that good!"

"Then I still hope that Director Jiang Heng's works will become more and more exciting!"

"I don't think so. In fact, the themes that can carry special effects blockbusters are very limited. They are nothing more than mythology, science fiction, disasters, and monsters. The latter are more popular in Hollywood, and it always feels a bit strange when it is shot in China. The most suitable theme for Chinese special effects blockbusters is mythology.

Among all the mythological works, the most famous and the most artistic one is "Journey to the West", even "Fengshen" is inferior to it.

The most famous scene in Journey to the West is of course the havoc in heaven, but from the perspective of film structure, I think it would be hard to make a better film than Lion Camel Ridge, unless you set the ending to Sun Wukong jumping out of the alchemy furnace and killing everyone, and then end it directly.

But everyone knows that Sun Wukong's final fate is to be pressed under the Five Elements Mountain, so it is not difficult to design a super exciting ending.

However, if you forcefully change it, it will probably end up with something that is neither here nor there.

On the other hand, the movie "Lion Camel Ridge" has a great plot and amazing special effects. Really, I plan to watch it a second time after it is officially released!

"It hits the nail on the head. I'm also planning to take my girlfriend to watch it again. She was so excited the whole time and her palms were sweaty when she finished watching it!"

"Did those two people on the sixth floor really go to the movies?"

"Let's go for the second swipe!"

"Let's go for the second swipe!"

"Seventh Floor, you big fool...!"

……

Excluding the film's main creators, guests, and media reporters, there were only two hundred ordinary audiences who bought tickets for the first preview screening.

Even fewer of them have the habit of surfing the Internet.

But it was these twenty or thirty ordinary viewers who left messages and discussed crazily on forums such as Mop and Tianya, comparable to the later big names in water groups.

In the following days, Jiang Heng took the main creative staff to Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an and other places to carry out advance screenings and promotions.

Later, they were too exhausted, so they divided the main creators into three groups. Jiang Heng, Hong Jinbao and Wu Jing each led a team to go to various places for publicity.

Originally, in history, mainland China began to consciously carry out media promotion before the release of films starting with "Hero" in 2002. In the following years, when the blockbusters of Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang were released, they would go to BJ, Shanghai and Guangzhou for premiere promotion. Later, cities with higher box office such as Shenzhen and Chengdu would occasionally be added.

As for the large-scale "road show" promotion, it only started after 2012.

As for ordinary domestic films, it is impossible to make such a big fuss.

The reason is simple. First, the budget is limited, and second, celebrities generally won’t cooperate with you in this schedule.

But for Jiang Heng, this is not a problem at all.

He knows too well the importance of publicity. How many bad domestic films have earned billions at the box office thanks to strong marketing and publicity!

We finally made a movie that has the potential to trigger a viewing craze, so why not promote it as hard as we can?
Budget, take it! As for the actors' schedules, that's even simpler.

With his reputation as the most successful commercial blockbuster director in the country, countless artists have tried every means to establish a relationship with him.

Now that they’ve announced large-scale publicity, the actors are trying their best to squeeze out schedules to cooperate. Even if they can’t complete the entire process, they’ll at least visit two or three cities, and the publicity effect will come out immediately!
Wherever we went, there were huge crowds of people around the cinema, and it was packed with people.

After the movie, most of these viewers became "tap water", frantically recommending "Lion Camel Ridge" to their relatives and friends, saying how good the movie is, and that both the plot and visual effects are far superior to "Titanic", "The Matrix" and other films.

As for forums like Mop and Tianya, they are completely occupied by fans of "Lion Camel Ridge", with posts every day praising the film for being so great that it beats all Hollywood blockbusters.

As a result, on the day of the film's release on May 1, there were long queues of people in front of cinemas in the busy commercial streets of major cities across the country.

Even cinemas that are slightly remote are flooded with viewers.

Because there was no midnight show this time, many people came early to line up in order to watch the first show in the cinema.

In Beijing, many students from Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama also arrived early to queue up, wanting to see what this so-called "best commercial special effects blockbuster in the country" is like.

Yao Chen, Du Chun and other students from the Class of 99 of Beijing Film Academy went to a cinema near the school together. When they arrived, they were shocked by the scene at that time.

"Didn't they say that no one wants to watch movies now? Why are there so many people here?"

"After seeing this scene, I have confidence in my future career again!"

"This movie must be so good to have so many people coming!"

……

All major media outlets have predicted this scenario.

In Beijing, the film channel sent out a film crew early on to interview in front of major cinemas in Beijing.

What surprised them was that there were not only many students and white-collar workers queuing up, but also many elderly people.

"Uncle, are you here to watch a movie too?"

"Nonsense, if I don't want to watch a movie, I'm here to get eggs!"

The female reporter looked embarrassed, but the camera was recording it, so she decided to continue asking questions.

"What made you want to go out to the movies?"

The old man is also a chatterbox. "Hey, didn't my grandson tell me when he came home on vacation that there was a director named Jiang who made a movie about Tang Monk and his disciples crossing the Lion Camel Ridge. It was very good and he asked me to come and watch it when I have time. I thought I couldn't understand other movies, but I can understand the Monkey King's movie! But when I looked here, wow, my goodness, everyone in Beijing is here! It's almost as good as when I watched Shaolin Temple when I was young!"

"Master, have you also watched Shaolin Temple?"

"Nonsense, I watched it seven times!"

"That old man really likes watching movies!"

"The main thing was that the factory gave out movie tickets, but some people watched the movie without buying tickets. But they still had to pay for it themselves. How could they seek justice?"

At this point, the old man remembered that there was a camera on nearby, and hurriedly said, "Cut this part and don't broadcast it!"

The female reporter didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and said to the cameraman nearby, "This part has been cut!"

(End of this chapter)