備受爭議導演郭敬明《小時代3》票房高居榜首
Love him or hate him, 31-year-old Chinese writer-turned-director Guo Jingming knows how to pack a theater. Tiny Times 3, the third installment in Guo’s popular romantic comedy series, premiered at No. 1 at the Chinese box office on Wednesday, taking in more than 100 million yuan ($16 million).
Guo’s movies are all based on his best-selling novels. The Tiny Times series follows the exploits of four female undergrads in Shanghai obsessed with dating, fashion, and shopping.
Courtesy Le Vision PicturesIn 2009 he told NPR that the secret to his success was channeling the aspirations and insecurities of his generation: “Before me, Chinese authors were pretty old. And today’s young people don’t understand life depicted by older authors. So they like my work because it’s by a writer their age about stuff very close to their lives.”
Guo grew up near the southwestern city of Chongqing, the son of a bank clerk and an engineer in a state-owned enterprise. He attended college in Shanghai, where he became a keen observer of the ways in which money and materialism shape values, ambitions, and the arcs (and dissolutions) of friendships.
After the success of his novels made him one of China’s richest authors, he happily flaunted his new wealth, showing up to interviews in Hermès belts and Gucci caps and posting photos of himself decked out in Dolce & Gabbana accessories.
His novels and films’ dangling of luxury brands as plot devices—from Louis Vuitton to Dior —marks his oeuvre as a sort of Sex and the City meetsThe Great Gatsby. (F. Scott Fitzgerald was 28 years old when he published his satirical bestseller.) But in Guo’s accounts, there’s no moralizing or condemnation of young people pursuing a luxury lifestyle; nor is he interested in history or politics.
Guo has appeared on annual lists of both the top-grossing authors in China and the country’s most-hated celebrities. Assessments of his films are equally polarized. Fans say the movies humorously capture their daily anxieties, while critics worry about what the exaltation of consumerism says about modern Chinese culture.
In response to Tiny Times 3’s opening, Xuan Lang, an associate professor at Shanghai Ocean University, wrote on his Sina Weibo account: “The reality is that many people [in China] are still poor, with too little to eat and not enough money to afford school. Celebrating decadence could encourage many bad social habits, from waste and corruption to a dismal future for our country.”
Another Weibo user, calling herself NB-Cloverdoll, sung the film’s praises: “No matter what your life is like … we all share many common emotions. You quarrel and sometimes hate your close friends. You may start a ‘cold war’ with someone you love, but you also won’t abandon her when she is hurt. Tiny Times 3 captures these common experiences.”
Tiny Times 4 is already in the works, with a planned release date during the 2015 Spring Festival—aka Chinese New Year—holiday week.不管你愛他還是恨他，這個31歲的、作家出身的中國導演郭敬明知道如何“包攬”電影院。7月22日，郭敬明的流行浪漫喜劇第三部《小時代3》首映票房超過1億人民幣（摺合1600萬美元），高居中國票房榜首。
郭的電影以他的暢銷小說爲藍本。《小時代》系列講述了四個女大學生在上海沉迷於約會、時尚和購物的故事。
2009年，郭告訴美國國家公共電臺（NPR)稱，他成功的祕訣在於將他這一代人的渴望和侷促不安連接起來。“在我之前的中國的作家都已經上了年紀。如今的年輕人都不理解那些老作家所描繪的生活。而我是一個與他們年齡相仿的作家，很多東西都和他們的生活相近，所以他們喜歡我的作品。”
郭在中國的西南城市重慶長大。父母分別是銀行職員和國有企業工程師。他在上海上的大學，在那裏，他成爲了一個敏銳的觀察者。他發現了在金錢和物質主義的作用下形成的價值觀和野心，以及友誼在金錢和物質作用下不堪一擊。
小說的成功使他成爲中國最富有的作家之一，隨後，他向世人炫耀他的財富：在採訪中炫耀愛馬仕的腰帶、古奇的帽子，展示他戴着杜嘉班納配飾的照片。
從路易威登到迪奧，奢侈品牌始終貫穿於他的小說和電影的故事情節中，使得他的作品有種《慾望都市》撞上《了不起的蓋茨比》的感覺。（《了不起的蓋茨比》這本暢銷書出版時，作者弗•司各特•菲茨傑拉德（F. Scott Fitzgerald）28歲。）但是在郭的描述中，沒有對年輕人追求的奢侈生活方式有任何的道德說教或譴責，也沒有顯示出他對歷史或政治的興趣。
郭不僅出現在中國最賣座作者的年度名單上，還出現在中國年度最可恨名人的名單上。有關他電影的評價也同樣兩極化。粉絲們說電影幽默地抓住了他們的日常焦慮，但同時，批評者則擔心消費主義的提高會影響現代中國文化。
對於《小時代3》的首映，上海海洋大學副教授宣朗在他的新浪微博中寫道，“現實情況是，在中國還有很多的窮人。當下多少人吃不上飯，上不起學。一味強調享受財富會造成社會掀起超前享樂之風、遊玩糜爛之風、貪污腐敗之風，對祖國的未來百害無一利。”
另一位自稱“NB-Cloverdoll”的新浪用戶對電影稱讚道，“不管你的生活是什麼樣……感情都是共通的。你可以和閨蜜吵到恨死對方。你可以對愛人生氣冷戰，卻無法在她脆弱時離開她。《小時代3》帶來的就是這樣的情感共鳴。”
《小時代4》的拍攝工作已在進行中，預計將於2015年春節——中國的新年假期週上映。
