Xu Wangqiu did not rush to publish an article to fight back, and their counterattack was to announce the box office of "A Game of Chess That Didn't End". In this era, there was no habit of announcing the box office, because only the films of the export company would be counted at the box office, and other films would be counted by the number of people. Now, in order to counter the attack of the literary and artistic circles, Xu Wangqiu and their "Workers' Daily" jointly publish the box office statistics of "A Game of Chess That Has Not Been Finished" in the entertainment sector every week, and analyze the future trend.

Every time Xu Wangqiu and the others released the data, the elites and intellectuals who criticized Xu Wangqiu seemed to hear the "snap" slap and felt that their faces were hot. No matter how they attacked Xu Wangqiu and how they attacked Xu Wangqiu's movie, they couldn't stop the audience from entering the cinema, and the people gave the best answer with movie tickets.

Elites and intellectuals have no choice but to scold in private that they are really a bunch of fools, shaking their heads and lamenting that Chinese movies are hopeless and China is going to be finished. They can only pretend not to see it, and continue to criticize Xu Wangqiu ideologically, and criticize Xu Wangqiu's movies from an artistic point of view.

Just when the elites and intellectuals were vigorously criticizing Xu Wangqiu and Hollywood's line, Wu Zhiliu's film "Bloody Capture of Demons" was officially released. "Bloody Demon" passed the review in early September, and it was supposed to be released at the end of September. But in order to avoid conflict with "A Game of Chess That Hasn't Been Finished", China Film Company put the film in late November. At this time, "A Game of Unfinished Chess" has been shown in various provincial capitals and began to be screened in second-tier cities.

This film, starring Zhou Lijin and with the slogan "The Legend of Yan Shuangying's Father", was warmly sought after by the audience on the first day of release. Cinemas in provincial capitals across the country line up early in the morning, which can be said to be overcrowded, and everyone wants to walk into the cinema for the first time.

The audience came for Zhou Lijin and Yan Shuangying's father, and when they walked into the cinema, they were not disappointed. The scene of "Bloody Demon" is not as big as "Falcon", but it is very well shot, the whole movie has a clear context, layer by layer, smooth narrative, tight rhythm, and the whole movie has a strong sense of presence, which looks very enjoyable.

"Bloody Demon" won the favor of the audience and received rave reviews. After watching the movie, the audience recommended this movie to their relatives and friends, and for a while, everyone in the north and south of the country was talking about this movie, as if they had not seen this movie, they were already OUT.

"Bloody Demon" achieved a box office of 4.13 million in the first week of its release, shocking the entire film industry. After Xu Wangqiu, there are young directors who can make this kind of Hollywood type of movie, not one, but four.

In the following weeks, "Bloody Demon" performed very steadily and continued to harvest the box office. The weekly box office data released by the "Workers' Daily" has also changed from one to two.

The elites and intellectuals used to be slapped once a week, but now they are slapped twice, and they are depressed in their hearts. What makes them most depressed is that criticizing Xu Wangqiu and the line he represents, they can launch an iconic character as Xu Wangqiu's opposite, but they can't find such a person.

In the last generation, when the film industry and the literary and artistic circles criticized the Xie Jin model, the praise of Chen Kaige appeared almost at the same time. The whole public opinion is "belittling Xie and praising Chen", and those who criticize Xie Jin believe that movies like "Yellow Earth" are the future of Chinese films.

But now Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang have just graduated, and they have not yet made feature films, and the fourth-generation directors Xie Fei and Zhang Nuanxin have not yet found their own style, and the artistic level of the film cannot be compared with Xu Wangqiu at all.

The elites and intellectuals are very depressed about this, and can only complain to Nortel in their hearts, how do you educate students, and the ones you have cultivated are all directors who ask for money and shame.

Fast forward to 1983, and in the latest issue of Film Art, an article titled "Movement, Movement!" was published. The article, written by Su Bai, directly equated the criticism of Xu Wangqiu with the movement, and caused an uproar after its publication.

The article wrote: "On November 10, 1965, Wen Wei Po published "Commenting on the New Historical Drama", which was not an academic criticism, but a political manifesto, and this article also became the fuse of the movement. More than 10 years later, the unwilling to be lonely "Wen Wei Po" jumped out again, setting off a wave of Xu Wangqiu. These articles are crude and have no academic value, they are all slogans, some kind of "cultural colonization" and "anti-May Fourth spirit". These articles are big-character posters in the new era, and when I read them, I felt as if I heard a group of people shouting, 'Movement! 'Movement'......

After Su Bai's article came out, the elites and intellectuals who criticized Xu Wangqiu were like cats that had been stepped on by their tails, and they were completely enraged. They began to frantically put political hats on Xu Wangqiu, saying that Xu Wangqiu was a remnant of the movement and a lackey of Jiang Qing.

Xu Wangqiu and Jiang Qing couldn't fight each other, but Su Zhensheng came out of the magic film circle, and Jiang Qing was also in the magic film circle. These people seized on this point to make a big fuss, saying that Su Zhensheng has a close relationship with Jiang Qing and has always been a loyal lackey of Jiang Qing's black line, and Xu Wangqiu's advocacy of learning Hollywood is to summon Jiang Qing's soul and engage in a counterattack.

Su Bai was so angry when he saw these articles: "My dad was so miserable in the movement, and these people still slandered him like this, it's so shameless." ”

Xu Wangqiu said helplessly: "It's not your fault, it was originally just a cultural dispute, but as soon as your article was published, the whole thing became politically critical." It's better to discuss anything with me in the future, and don't let it be nonsense. ”

Su Bai said embarrassedly: "People also want to help you!"

Xu Wangqiu hugged Su Bai and comforted him softly: "I don't blame you." In fact, even if you don't write this article, sooner or later it will become like this. Once this kind of thing starts, it is difficult to end without distinguishing the winner or loser. ”

A few days later, the magazine "People's Film" sponsored by the art center of the export company was officially launched. People's Film was originally a magazine sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, which was officially launched in late March 1976 and ceased publication after December 1978. The export company wanted to run its own magazine, so it found the department and asked for the name and issue number of "People's Film".

In the republication speech, "People's Film" clearly put forward its own concept of running a magazine, opposing elitism, and movies belong to the people. In this issue of the magazine, "People's Film" introduced the film being made by the export company, focusing on "Wulin Zhi".

Xu Wangqiu and his family founded their own magazine to speak for themselves and fight against anti-Hollywood trends. Now that the movement to criticize Xu Wangqiu and the Hollywood line is in full swing, this issue of "People's Film" is naturally indispensable for rebuttal articles. In this issue of People's Film, Xu Wangqiu published two articles, "Elitism and Populistism", and "Xu Wangqiu's Criticism and Authoritative Personality".

In the article "Elitism and Populistism", Xu Wangqiu introduced two schools of Marxism in Europe, the Frankfurt School and the Birmingham School. The influence of the Frankfurt School was very great, and the social movements in Europe in the sixties, the hippie and anti-war movements in the United States, and the global spread of "political correctness" in the new century were all supported by the theoretical support of the Frankfurt School.

Before the First World War, Marxists believed that if war broke out in Europe, the working class would contend with the bourgeoisie and trigger a communist revolution. It turned out that when the war broke out in 1914, the proletariat did not launch a revolution, but put on its uniform and fought for its country, and only Russia became a communist state.

Thus, Marxists began to study this issue, which eventually led to the Frankfurt School. These people initially focused on political economy and the history of the workers' movement, but after Horkheimer took over as director of the Frankfurt Institute, the research center gradually shifted to the study and social sciences, and "critical theory" became the guiding ideology of the institute. Since most of the important members of the institute were Jews, the Frankfurt Institute had to begin its exile in 1934 and temporarily settled in the United States in 1934.

In the United States in the 30s, it was the world of Hollywood movies, radio, and pictorial advertisements that affected the lives of Americans in all aspects. This attracted the attention of the Frankfurt School, and scholars represented by Adorno launched a critique of mass culture and put forward the concept of cultural industry. They believe that the cultural industry disseminates the ideology of the ruling class and is a tool for the ruling class to strengthen its rule. It has made the masses of the people impregnated in their daily lives by the cultural industry, thus losing the ability to reflect and becoming captives of the ideology of the ruling class.

After the end of World War II, Horkheimer, Adorno and others returned to the University of Frankfurt to rebuild the Institute of Social Research, and Marcuse, Fromm and others stayed in the United States and founded the theory of developed industrial society. Since the 60s, the Frankfurt School has become one of the important schools of Western philosophical sociology, and has been widely disseminated among the intellectual youth of the United States and Western Europe.

The Frankfurt School's critique of Hollywood is justified, and Hollywood films do have the problem of their critique. Later, Scorsese criticized Marvel movies, worrying about what the Frankfurt School criticized. Xu Wangqiu and his people's film movement had to theoretically refute the Frankfurt School, and their weapon of counterattack came from another Marxist school, the Birmingham School in Britain.

The theoreticians of the Frankfurt School were scholars in the study, called "critics in the study", "engaged in the revolution in the ivory tower", and were typical elitists. They believe that mass culture has no aesthetic value and are pessimistic about it. The Birmingham School, on the other hand, was populist, advocating the breaking of the boundaries between high and popular culture, believing that mass culture was a powerful weapon for mass subversion and rebellion against capital, and that it was a tactical victor in cultural guerrilla warfare, and was optimistic about mass culture.

In the article, Xu Wangqiu transferred the famous "encoding and decoding" theory of the Birmingham School, pointing out that the audience is not passive to accept the film, but has subjective initiative in the process of watching the film, and the production and viewing of the film is the process of encoding and encoding and decoding. At the same time, he pointed out that in popular culture, the audience itself can become a communicator, and the audience cannot decide the production of culture, but can choose the consumption of culture, and in the process can even create a new culture of its own.

After Xu Wangqiu analyzed the value of the film industry with the theory of the Birmingham School, he pointed the gun at the elites and intellectuals who criticized him. In the article, he pointed out that your various analyses and interpretations of my films are a process of decoding, and that your interpretation of "Confucianism" and "colonial thought" from my films is not my original intention, but a misreading that you have produced in the process of interpretation, and this misreading fully shows that the audience has subjective initiative in the process of watching the film, and also shows that the Frankfurt School's judgment on the film industry is incorrect.