"Yunnan Worm Valley" has a score of only 3.2 points and a box office of only 150 million. Why is it so popular?
The just-released "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: Yunnan Worm Valley" has received a lot of buzz. The reason is that the director was unskilled and completely misunderstood the core of the "Ghost Blowing the Lantern" series.
What is the core of the "Ghost Blowing Lamp" series? Tomb robbing adventure is the definition of the entire genre. If you really want to analyze it in depth, "Ghost Blowing the Lamp" is a tomb robbing adventure type with Chinese culture that combines traditional Chinese folk culture, Feng Shui culture, funeral culture, folklore, fantasy, etc.
The "Ghost Blowing Lamp" series written by Tianxia Zhenchang has two books and eight works, namely "Jingjue Ancient City", "Longling Mysterious Cave", "Yunnan Worm Valley", " "Kunlun Shrine", "Huangpizi Tomb", "Return to the Ruins of the South China Sea", "Angry Qing Xiangxi" and "Wuxia Coffin Mountain".
Although the eight works of "Ghost Blowing the Lamp" have different regions and backgrounds, the various genres are more mixed with each other. But in general, it cannot be separated from the core of folk customs, Feng Shui, funerals and traditional culture.
There are two books in the "Ghost Blowing Lamp" series. It is recognized that the level of the four parts of "Ghost Blowing Lamp 2" is not as good as the level of the four parts of "Ghost Blowing Lamp 1". But among the four "Ghost Blowing Lanterns 1", the third one "Yunnan Worm Valley" is recognized as the most classic, grandest, weirdest, most bizarre, and anyway the best written one.
As a loyal fan of the "Ghost Blowing Lamp" series, Quan Guang has not revisited the original novel for a long time. But as long as we talk about the "Ghost Blowing Lamp" series of novels, I can only remember sporadic fragments of the plots of the other novels.
Only "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: Yunnan Worm Valley", the narrative structure before and after, and then the plot advancement, the various creatures encountered by the protagonist group, and the weird process of tomb robbing have always been unforgettable.
To briefly talk about the plot of "Yunnan Worm Valley", the protagonists are Hu Bayi, Shirley Yang and Fatty Wang. Because of the curse of the ghost cave, I got the map of King Xian's Tomb in Yunnan from Chen Xiazi, and went to find the Muchen Bead in King Xian's Tomb.
The three-person group first arrived in Yunnan. On the way to the inn, they bumped into a clay figurine and saw fat maggots swarming inside. After a temporary stay, the trio entered the mountains and encountered a trap through the underground river, which caused a fight between fat maggots, giant snakes and piranhas.
The three protagonists are just mixed in, which is one of the dangers. After the protagonist group left, they rested at night, and then encountered the "ghost signal" of a plane crashing. During the nighthawk fight, they got a prop from the tree to pass the level.
Then, the weirdest scene in "Yunnan Worm Valley" appeared. That is, the protagonist group once again entered the underground, and the evil magic mechanism in the tomb of the king was presented, the giant toad, the woman used for sacrifice drifted to death, and the ancient giant beast was sealed.
The description in this paragraph can be described as turning after turning, reversing after reversing, bizarre and strange. Bo Guang still remembers how shocked he was when a half-human, half-insect monster was born from a woman's death because there was no ancient giant beast to eat her, and he called Shirley Yang his mother.
For the above plot, Bo Guang has not read the original work for many years and just wrote it from memory. Although I don’t remember many terms clearly, the overall impression is very deep.
The subsequent plot of "Yunnan Worm Valley" will not be described in detail. But the entire volume of Worm Valley is filled with half-human monsters called Shirley Yang’s mother. This kind of weird and strange thing contains Yunnan evil arts, ancient witchcraft, folk customs, funeral culture and weird creatures. The combination of various types, but The shocking feeling of incomparable harmony.
Feixing's movie "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: Yunnan Worm Valley", like "Nine-Storey Demon Tower", Lu Chuan took China's unique tomb robbing adventure and finally made it into an alien war, story structure, loopholes There are a lot of things happening, the plot advances, and it's confusing.
As for "Insect Valley of Yunnan", the weirdness of the original work has been completely eliminated (I don't know if it is related to censorship, and it is difficult to restore the original work to pass the review). It turned it into what it is now, a very pure Hollywood monster movie.
The ones that appear in the whole movie are crocodiles, giant snakes, piranhas, ancient monsters, etc. Occasionally there is some tomb robbing knowledge mixed in, but compared with the original work, it is simply a world of difference.
The most critical thing is that the special effects level of the movie "Yunnan Worm Valley" is not to mention the top level in Hollywood. Compared with the domestic 2015 "The Secret of the Dragon", it is full of serious CG cheapness. . The overall production level of "Yunnan Worm Valley" feels better than Hollywood B-level monster movies, but it is not as good as domestic top special effects movies.
You can tell that the director is very professional and worked very hard in the filming of "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: Yunnan Worm Valley". However, the castration and removal of the essence of the culture of "grave robbing" in the original work, along with the repeated beating of monsters, only made it feel vulgar and boring.
In contrast, the problems of several unknown actors in "Yunnan Worm Valley", such as the male protagonist deliberately imitating Chen Kun, the female protagonist having a weak lineup, Fatty Wang being too mediocre, etc., are not that big of a problem. .
In the end, the reputation of "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: Yunnan Worm Valley" took off. Director Fei Xing made the same mistake as director Lu Chuan of "Nine-Storey Demon Tower". It was obviously a fantasy tomb robbing adventure film, but in the end it was changed into something nondescript and the essence of the original work was lost.
Although it completely restores the "heavy taste" description of the original work, there are certain reasons why it is difficult to pass the review. But compared with the movie "The Secret of the Dragon" and the web drama "Jingjue Ancient City". Without violating censorship, reasonable additions and subtractions can be made without losing the essence of the original work.
Fei Xing's "Yunnan Worm Valley" and the adaptation of Lu Chuan's "Nine-Storey Demon Tower" are not called tomb-robbing movies at all. The score of "Insect Valley" is lower because the level of special effects, story plot and actors are not as good as "Nine-Story Demon Tower".
ps: The film copyright of "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: Yunnan Worm Valley" belongs to the first four books of the first part, and the copyright was sold to Dreamer Pictures. This company, Dreamer Pictures, approached China Film Group Corporation to cooperate with "Nine-Storey Demon Tower". After the failure, it kicked Lu Chuan out, and then approached Huayi Brothers to cooperate.
The director is bad, and this "Yunnan Worm Valley" was shot together with two other movies. Now that "Yunnan Worm Valley" is so bad, it is foreseeable that the box office will be poor. The last two films, "The Mysterious Cave of Longling" and "Kunlun Temple", may have bad luck.