Some people may find it strange that as a director, there is nothing wrong with studying movie knives, but you can study Fuso films...... Is it necessary?

However, in fact, it is really necessary.

Among the few film countries, Fuso is one of the most powerful films, its annual output of feature films has set the world's highest record, its film quality has represented the highest level in Asia, and there are also masterpieces of Fuso films among the ten best films in film history. However, in recent years, the Fuso film industry has been in a very dangerous state, which cannot but be worrying. Although it has been 20 years since the decline of Fuso films, there has not yet been the current grim situation that is close to "embattled", and after several painful struggles, there is still no sign of improvement.

Thirty years ago, the sluggish Fuso film industry was called the "sunset industry", but recently there has been a more pessimistic argument that Fuso films are terminally ill and incurable, and that the end of life is not far off. Film is the youngest, the most massive, and at the same time the most vibrant art, for the history of an art, a hundred years should be just a short moment, but why has it lost its vitality so quickly in many countries? With the exception of Hollywood, the film industry in almost every country is trudging along a rough road full of thorns, and it is unclear where it leads.

Looking back at the history of Fusang films, the film was introduced to Fusang in the second year after its birth, and was quickly loved by the Fuso people who were willing to accept new things from outside. Three years later, Fuso began producing his own films. In the early days, the Fuso people were only keen to use cameras to photograph traditional Kabuki and new theaters imported from Europe. This kind of stage play, which was filmed scene by scene with a fixed camera, almost completely occupied the screen.

This state of affairs continued for a long time, and it was not until 1922 and 1923 that Eizo Tanaka produced the "epoch-making" works "Kyoya Collar Shop" and "Dance of the Skeleton". The significance of these two films is not because of their high artistic creativity, but because they are the first works in Fuso films to realistically depict the life of Fuso people.

The advent of "Kyoya Collar Shop" and "Song of the Skeleton" raised a banner for the fledgling film reform movement. In the following ten years, the quality of Fusang films has been rapidly improved, a very distinctive national style has been formed, and a group of film creators with high artistic attainments have emerged.

In 1936, Fuso, which was becoming more and more popular, began to implement strict film control, and films were included in the track of "serving the national policy of realizing the great Fuso Empire", and film creation has entered an extremely difficult period since then.

Under the flood of ideology and the tremendous pressure of the military department, most artists consciously or against their will have filmed a lot of films that praise and beautify the war of aggression, and for a time, the screen was full of clumsy "national policy" movies such as "Militarian Lullaby", "Roaring to China", "Steel Helmet in Dreams", "Shanghai Marine Corps" and so on. Of course, there are also some directors who are forced to shoot some films that glorify the invaders, and create a small number of works that express the lives and emotions of ordinary people.

Although there were very few excellent works left behind during the decade of the wartime film ban, Akira Kurosawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masashi Imai, Sao Yamamoto, Minoru Shibuya, and others who later became masters entered the film industry at this time, and although they were not yet able to make works that expressed their thoughts, they were tempered and matured during this time.

In 1945, when Fuso was finally freed from the *******, film artists were finally able to create in the air of freedom. However, in the first two years, there were no shocking works that were deafening, and the artists were deeply reflecting and carefully groping. It was not until 1947 that Safu Yamamoto, Akira Kurosawa, Kozaburo Yoshimura and others directed excellent works such as "War and Peace", "Worthy of Our Youth", and "The Dance Party of the Anjo Family", which had strong anti-war ideas and expressed the desire for human peace, and the climax of the creation of Fuso films after the war also came.

In the 1950s, Fusang films had begun to enter the most glorious period, but it was extremely incommensurate with this, Fusang films were still unknown internationally, because Fuso's film enterprises had always arbitrarily believed that foreigners did not like the national style of Fusang films, and could not accept the kind of Fusang films with slow pace, rigid composition, and long periods of showing a family kneeling on a tatami or wearing clogs and wielding a knife to fight, so Fusang films had little chance to be exported abroad or participate in international film festivals.

Until 1951, when Daiei reluctantly sent Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" to Venice, Italy, it did not even send a single person to the festival at the same time. Unexpectedly, this well-made, rich and philosophical film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The award of "Rashomon" was like a spring thunder, which greatly shocked and inspired Fuso filmmakers. In the short years that followed, a series of films such as Kenji Mizoguchi's "The Girl of the Nishizuru Generation" and "The Tale of the Rainy Moon", Gosho Heinosuke's "Chimney Forest", Akira Kurosawa's "Living" and "Seven Samurai", Ichikawa Kun's "The Harp of Burma", Hiroshi Inagaki's "The Life of the Lawless Amatsu", and Kaneto Shinto's "Naked Island" have won awards or major awards at major international film festivals.

At the same time, a number of important works in the history of Fuso cinema have come out one after another, such as Yasujiro Ozu's "Mai Qiu" and "Tokyo Story", "Floating Clouds" by Yoshio Nari, "Turbidity Current" and "Dark Day" by Masashi Imai, "Hakone Wind and Cloud Record" and "Song of the Plate Car" by Safu Yamamoto, and "Conditions for Being a Man" by Masaki Kobayashi. It was also during this period that after years of competition and elimination, the Fuso film industry formed a monopoly on the film market by several large companies such as Toho, Daiei, Shochiku, Toei and Nikko.

With the rapid development of Fuso's economy at the end of the 50s, the social environment has also undergone great changes, the high popularity of television, the expansion of various subcultural influences, and the powerful offensive of Hollywood films have made Fuso films retreat from their former territory. Despite the efforts of the film industry to find various countermeasures, it was unable to contain the sharp decline in the number of audiences and theaters, and by the end of the 70s, the number of audiences had dropped from 1.2 billion in 1958 to 150 million to 60 million, and the number of cinemas had dropped from 7,600 to 2,300. However, the artistic level of Fuso films has not yet undergone much decline. In the early 60s, under the influence of emerging film genres such as Italian Neorealism, French New Wave and Left Bank, a group of young and middle-aged directors in Fusang also began to explore new film languages and styles.

After the 1970s, there was a marked decrease in the number of such films, and the mainstream were social films that exposed the shady scenes of finance and politics and criticized the ugly phenomena of society, as well as lyrical films that expressed the pure feelings and life styles of laborers and ordinary people. Due to the continued recession of the film industry, film companies have been forced to take measures such as reducing production costs, reducing the number of films, and reducing the number of various types of films.

In 1978, there were signs of reform in the film industry, which had been hovering in the trough for a long time. The number of audiences plummeted to an all-time low of 130 million after a rebound, the annual output of mainstream film companies fell rapidly, the young and middle-aged directors who had achieved brilliant results in the past decade seemed to have run out of talent, and could no longer make films comparable to their early films, and the new works of the older generation of masters were mostly disappointing. Once again, the Fuso film industry has fallen into a deep trough, and it shows no signs of improving.

So what's the problem?

Although there are various reasons for the decline of the Fuso film industry, the main problems probably come from the following three aspects:

The first is the depletion of talents and the serious outflow, resulting in a situation of lack of successors and successors.

The second is that the film industry in the market economy has adopted some short-sighted and utilitarian measures for its own survival, often forming a vicious circle with serious consequences.

The third is that the film lacks effective countermeasures in the competition with television and other electronic visual forms, and is in a situation where it can only be passively beaten but has no power to fight back.

Take a closer look, hey, isn't this similar to the situation in our country?

Yes, the hardships that the Huaxia Film Festival has experienced now have also been experienced by Fusang back then. Therefore, Fusang's countermeasures may have some reference significance in China? The first response that Fusang did was a blockbuster strategy.

Hollywood blockbusters have swept the global film market and become the vane of global film production. Under this trend, many countries have set their sights on blockbuster production, and Fuso is certainly no exception. Blockbusters such as "Goddess of the Storm", "Yamato of Men", "Fuso Sinks", "Blue Wolf", "Tsubaki Jushiro", "Anpanman Theatrical Version", "Pretty Girl of Light", "One Piece 3D", and "From the Slope of Poppy" have appeared.

As the "Kingdom of Anime", Fuso has a quality and standard of animated blockbusters. Judging from live-action films such as "Men's Yamato" and "The Sinking of Fuso", its skill, grand scenes, and smooth narrative are all masterpieces of cinema, although they effectively imitate Hollywood. In the process of globalization of the film industry, like many countries, Fuso's blockbuster strategy is an option to adapt to the development trend of the world. The shooting of blockbuster films is not only to satisfy the sensory and psychological needs of the audience, but more fundamentally, it is driven by economic interests.

Although not every Fuso blockbuster can be successful, in general, the blockbuster has contributed to the prosperity of the entire Fuso film market.

Then there is the extreme development strategy of the animated genre film.

Genre films are an inevitable product of the development of the market economic system. In a way, genre cinema means the brand of the film. The more mature the economy, the stronger the need for a type system.

Fusang has done a relatively successful job in genre films, not only the development of horror films, romance films and other genre films is relatively mature, and has produced a certain influence in the world film market, but more importantly, Fusang can develop the genre of animated films to the extreme according to the characteristics of the country's own culture, and become the banner and important pillar of the local film industry. Basically, three or four of the top 10 local grossing films in Fuso each year come from the animation industry. The film "Princess Mononoke" created by the famous director Hayao Miyazaki defeated "Titanic" when it was released in 1997 and became the domestic box office champion of Fuso.

In 2001, "Spirited Away", which won the Golden Bear Award at the 52nd Berlin Film Festival, caused a huge sensation, topping the box office of Fuso with 3 billion yen, and even "Avatar" was released in Fuso many years later failed to break this record.

"Howl's Moving Castle" and the 2008 local box office champion "Ponyo on the Cliff" also outperformed "Avatar" at the box office. And the traditional animated theatrical version of the Big Three, "Doraemon", "Detective Conan", and "Pokemon", basically handed over a box office report card of 100 million US dollars every year. It can be said that animated films have become the genre films with local characteristics that Fuso can best compete with and win with Hollywood.

The main reasons for the success of Fuso animated films are as follows:

First, behind Fuso's animation is the strong support of its animation industry and national policies. As we all know, Fuso is the kingdom of animation, and after decades of accumulation, it has a very mature industrial chain, whether it is production, production, distribution, talent training and other links are very smooth. At the same time, the strong support of the Fuso national government for the animation industry has also made Fuso animation develop rapidly.

Second, Fuso animation has a profound cultural accumulation and a strong foundation for comics, and the development of animation driven by comics has become a feature of the development of Fusang's animation industry. It is not an exaggeration to describe the status of comics in Fuso's social culture as "comics for all". Fuso has a famous slogan: "Let people from three to eighty years old have cartoons to read." "The wide animation audience provides a guarantee for the Fuso animation film market.

Thirdly, Fuso animated films have been widely recognized by the world for their originality, local culture, novel content and unique style. Among them, the animation master Osamu Tezuka not only improved the artistic quality of animation, formed a unique Japanese animation style, but also laid the basic model of the Fuso animation industry chain. Masters such as Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii also inherited the tradition of Fuso animation and carried it forward.

Fourth, Fuso Animation's overseas marketing strategy is relatively successful. Under the guidance of Fusang's content industry development strategy, Fuso's overseas export plan has been implemented well. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Fuso uses the "Cultural Free Aid Fund" in the annual "Government Development Assistance" to purchase animation broadcast rights from domestic animation producers and provide them to developing countries for broadcasting free of charge. After these countries become dependent on this "free lunch", they will realize normal animation export trade. At present, Fuso has become the world's largest animation producer and exporter.

Therefore, why did Cameron ask Yang Mingjue to study Fusang films? The reason is this, Fusang's films, especially their unique characteristics, are themselves in the circle of Chinese civilization, and have an inseparable relationship with Chinese civilization...... is just one of the cornerstones of success, Yang Mingjue wants to become a truly successful director, there are still too many things for her to learn. What Cameron can play, after all, is only a guide, and more learning, growth, and research still depend on Yang Mingjue to grasp it himself.

Of course, if she is determined to enter the Hollywood circle, then it is no problem to follow Cameron. But if she wants to return to China and develop, or even want to develop all over the world, according to the requirements given to her by Cameron, it is the right way to study and accumulate step by step.