Lucas's many years of experience in the film industry were not groundless. He had watched this movie before, so from the moment he sat in the theater, his attention was focused on the audience around him.
Whether the audience was glued to the screen, whether the audience contributed their laughter to the jokes in the movie, whether the audience could feel the tension of the plot, these were all key factors in judging a movie.
However, from Lucas's point of view, the majority of the audience had been watching the movie very attentively, and they enjoyed it very much. They would give sufficient feedback on every joke and every plot point in the movie. It could be predicted that the audience would definitely give the movie a very high rating after watching it, and its reputation would definitely be very good!
Lucas's professional judgment was not wrong.
The audience was even more engrossed in the plot after that!
The amazing thing about this movie was that it was able to incorporate very interesting and high-level jokes in various situations, not only from the characters, plot, but also from the action direction.
In the movie, after Grandpa Ren died, Lin Zhengying was imprisoned by the young lady's cousin. The cousin even used a branding iron to threaten Lin Zhengying with the word "rape", which was a foreshadowing. After that, Grandpa Ren's corpse turned into a zombie, and Qian Xiaohao finally managed to use a talisman to temporarily stop the zombie, but he did not expect the young lady's cousin to come in and start a series of tricks. This series of tricks was very funny, including him accidentally dropping the talisman many times, and because of a series of mistakes, Qian Xiaohao burned the word "rape" on his chest with a branding iron, which coincided with the foreshadowing.
The most interesting thing was that in the plot, Qian Xiaohao did not purposely mess with the Ren family's young lady's cousin. It was just that when he was attacking the zombie, the young lady's cousin sat on the sharp tip of the knife, then jumped up, and accidentally suffered the branding iron from Qian Xiaohao. It was a complete retribution for his evil deeds.
After that, the scene where Xu Guanying and the Ren family's young lady dealt with the zombie was also very tense and funny. The audience was very excited and nervous at the same time.
After that, the scene where Lin Zhengying brought her disciple Qian Xiaohao to subdue the zombie showed how professional the Zombie Taoist Priest was.
During this process, Xu Guanying's other disciple was bitten by the zombie and poisoned. After that, the plot was divided into two parts. On one side, Xu Guanying helped Xu Guanying control the poison, and on the other side, Qian Xiaohao met the female ghost again. In the plot, the unscrupulous merchant played by Wu Ma purposely mixed 15 kilograms of sticky rice with the 50 kilograms of glutinous rice he sold to Qian Xiaohao, which was another foreshadowing. There was also a clever plot where Qian Xiaohao's weather was controlled by the female ghost, and he kept having sex with her.
There were many plot lines, many foreshadowing, many burdens, and many characters. All these elements were mixed together, but the pace was very tight, and it was not messy at all. This was extremely rare. Furthermore, there were many ways to carry the joke. Not only were they able to naturally incorporate jokes into the plot, they even incorporated many interesting jokes into the action scenes. Even though this was just a comedy movie without any depth, these points were enough to show that the staff behind this movie were very skilled.
Following that, the plot where Lin Zhengying fought the female ghost was also very tense and interesting. The fighting scenes were intense and interesting. There were also a lot of Taoist practices and the way they used magic tools, which showed their professionalism and persuasiveness.
In the plot of fighting the female ghost, the female ghost was defeated by Lin Zhengying and escaped. The originally beautiful courtyard suddenly became a desolate and dilapidated courtyard. Lin Zhengying returned with his disciples, but one of them was poisoned by the zombie, and the other was bewitched by the ghost. Lin Zhengying could only deal with them one by one. He helped Xu Guanying control the zombie poison while setting up a formation to wait for the female ghost.
The female ghost's role in the movie was not purely a villain. On the contrary, because she had fallen in love with Qian Xiaohao, she gave all her actions an explanation that was acceptable to the audience, which made her relatively more positive. After the intense fight, Lin Zhengying did not kill the female ghost. Instead, he let Qian Xiaohao make the decision himself. Qian Xiaohao's actions did not disappoint the audience. He removed the restraints on the female ghost and let her go. After the female ghost escaped, the audience also heaved a sigh of relief.
Although the crisis of the female ghost had been resolved, the real boss, which was the zombie that Master Ren's father had transformed into, had yet to be dealt with. Therefore, the last part of the movie was a fight with this zombie boss.
At the crucial moment, Lin Zhengying's junior, who appeared at the beginning of the movie, once again led a group of zombies to save the scene. The structure of the movie was also very interesting. The audience had a deep impression of these zombies and Lin Zhengying's junior, who was wearing a striking Taoist robe. Therefore, when they saw him appear with zombies again, everyone was especially happy.
Following that, the setting of Lin Zhengying's junior controlling a group of zombies to fight with a zombie boss was also beyond the audience's expectations. Originally, they thought that with eight zombies against one zombie, this big boss would die at the hands of its own kind. Unexpectedly, these eight zombies and Lin Zhengying's junior were equivalent to a big fake. The eight zombies only managed to resist for one round before they were defeated. This was unexpected, but also reasonable.
At the end of the movie, everyone fought bravely against the zombies and finally burned the zombie boss to ashes. This also echoed what Lin Zhengying had said to Master Ren in the first half of the movie. The safest way to prevent zombies was to cremate them. At that time, Master Ren refused to agree no matter what. In the end, he lost his life and the National People's Congress went to great lengths to save his father, but in the end, his father was still burned to ashes. This small detail was somewhat ironic.
At the end of the movie, the scriptwriter even revealed a burden. The few zombies that Lin Zhengying's junior brought along to help were all burned to ashes. These eight fake zombies had a wave at the beginning and another wave at the end, and in the end, they were completely dead. They also adhered to the professional ethics of "fake zombies" and gained a sense of humor …
After this final burden was revealed, the entire movie came to an end. Lucas looked at the reactions of the audience around him and was so excited that he almost cheered out loud.
What he did not expect was that after the movie ended, someone in the theater took the lead to applaud. As a result, the applause, cheers, and whistles were all mixed together, and the atmosphere was exceptionally warm.
Although this movie was very old, the picture quality was average, and the special effects were extremely weak, its plot was compact and coherent. The various plots, jokes, burdens, and foreshadowing were all combined just right. Every character had their own unique characteristics, every plot was explained, and every burden was revealed. During these 100 minutes, the audience was nervous, excited, interesting, and engrossed in watching the movie. This allowed them to have a deeper understanding of the many characteristics and background of "Hua Xia's zombie." Therefore, the entire movie was extremely complete in the eyes of the audience, and the experience was also very perfect.
When the theater was over, many of the audience still wanted to see more. They rarely watched Hong Kong movies, so they did not expect this movie to be fast-paced, intense, exciting, relaxed, and interesting. It even had a very exotic flavor to it, which made the National People's Congress exclaim in excitement. As the audience left the theater in twos and threes, they were still discussing some of the plot in the movie. Lucas stood in the crowd and listened attentively.
Some people were talking about the unique characteristics of Hua Xia's zombies. For example, zombies could only jump, and zombies could determine a person's location based on the breath they exhaled. For example, although zombies were afraid of the Zombie Taoist's talismans, magical artifacts, and spells, they were not completely suppressed. The Taoist's spells and magical artifacts would also lose their effect when they encountered a powerful zombie. This was very interesting, and also relatively reasonable. It was not like many American supernatural legends or movies, where even the most powerful vampire would die after his head was chopped off, and even the most powerful werewolf would die after being stabbed by a silver dagger.
There were also people discussing the Taoist priest played by Lin Zhengying in the movie. This character was especially likable in the movie, not only because he looked like a very decent person, but also because of the "professionalism" he displayed in the movie. Most importantly, his worldview was very much in line with the setting of the main character in the movie. Although he looked meticulous, he knew what was right and what was wrong. That was why after he spent so much effort to subdue the female ghost, he did not insist on killing her. This made him seem even more real.
There were also some audience members who felt sorry for the female ghost. They felt that this character was very well-developed and three-dimensional. She fell in love with Qian Xiaohao because of his kindness. Later on, she tried several ways to get close to him and spend the night with him, but she did not have any intention of harming him. Even when Qian Xiaohao was in danger, she desperately broke through the formation set up by Lin Zhengying to save his life. She even took the initiative to warn Lin Zhengying when Lin Zhengying, who had always wanted to kill him, was in danger. Such a character was especially pitiful in the eyes of the North American audience, who were used to watching romantic dramas like Ghost. Many audience members even hoped that she would end up with Qian Xiaohao in the end.
Lucas eavesdropped on the movie with an excited heart. After leaving the theater, the first thing he did was call Li Mu.
It was two o 'clock in the morning in New York, and it was two o' clock in the afternoon in Yanjing, which was 12 hours away from New York.
Li Mu was in a closed-door meeting with a group of people in Yanjing, discussing the specific plans for the film base. He was so focused on the meeting that he had forgotten about the North American premiere of Zombie-Master. When he received Lucas' call, he did not want to answer it at first, but after a moment of hesitation, he paused the meeting and picked up the phone.
"Hello, Mr. Lee!" Lucas greeted Li Mu excitedly as soon as the phone was picked up.
Li Mu said, "Hello, Lucas. Why are you calling me at this time?"
Lucas' voice trembled with excitement. "Mr. Lee, 'Zombie-Master' just finished its premiere at midnight, and the audience's reaction was excellent. I think the word of mouth for this movie will definitely explode after tomorrow, and its box office will definitely be much higher than we expected."
Li Mu asked him, "How high can it go?"
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