Dorian is a professional film critic. His current job is as an associate professor of film studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. He also reports and writes reviews for the Boulder Weekly's international film series.

As a professional film critic, a Netflix membership is a must. Although most of the movies Dorian reviews can be seen in theaters, he usually makes film reviews after watching the movies in the theater. After all, he himself is

As a fundamentalist of theater movies, he is extremely disgusted with the "theater is dying" remarks advocated by some streaming media, but the reality is that many foreign films cannot be seen in American theaters, and his column is about international film reports.

You must know that there are about 600 to 700 movies released in North American theaters a year, and the vast majority of them are Hollywood movies. Foreign movies account for a small proportion. After all, Hollywood produces at least more than 700 movies a year, and all of its own movies are ranked

Not finished.

Moreover, Hollywood, as the only film industry in the world, has a crushing advantage over other countries' film industries. It is not easy for foreign films to get a share of the North American market, especially in the field of commercial films.

However, there are actually many excellent films from foreign countries, including Europe, South America and East Asia. Most of the films cannot be seen in North American theaters. At most, they are available to North American audiences in the form of videotapes. However, with the global expansion of Netflix,

Movies from outside North America can also get more exposure here. From this perspective, Dorian's attitude towards Netflix is ​​somewhat love-hate. Put aside Netflix's clamoring desire to end theaters.

It still contributes to the exchange of international films.

At this time, Netflix had a TV program section for regions outside of North America. Spanish-language movies and TV series were in a separate section, and movies from other regions were in other sections.

Dorian clicked into other areas with a familiar movement, and saw a new face appearing in a row of TV shows under the movie posters on the homepage.

A comet with a silver tail streaked across the quiet night sky.

The Night of the Comet

If translated directly into Chinese, it would be Night of the Comet.

The English name of "The Night the Comet Came" was decided by Chen Jingxing a long time ago. Of course, the original Coherence was not used. This name was insisted on by the original director. Chen Jingxing and Netflix used this name after their brains were burned out.

It turns out that the influence of Chinese films overseas has been declining for more than ten years. You still named the film Coherence, which means you don't want people to watch your film at all.

jingxingchen basically didn’t find any useful information. Thinking that the director was Chinese and his surname was at the front, Dorian changed it to chenjingxing. There wasn’t much information found, some of it was in Chinese. It took about five minutes, and finally

Found the director's Wikipedia.

The second is to try to abandon their own cultural characteristics and use modern and post-modern content to produce universal cultural products. They must have the ability to move the background of film and television dramas to any modern country without violating the rules.

Because art usually does not fall from the sky, it must come from life experience and learning from social humans.

It suddenly dawned on me that only young people of the Millennial generation can make such world movies in foreign countries.

If a disadvantaged culture wants to spread film and television works to a dominant culture, the first way is to use the uniqueness of its own culture to produce foreign cultural products. Of course, foreign countries are relative to the dominant culture, and use the novelty-seeking aesthetic or Orientalist perspective of the dominant culture to gain recognition.

In Dorian's impression, there are no Chinese films and TV series on Netflix yet. It is very likely that this movie is the first Chinese film and television series to be launched on Netflix.

But in the past ten years, Dorian has watched a lot less Chinese movies. He is not a researcher of the Chinese film industry. His main research areas are European movies and Latin American movies, so he has "understood" Chinese movies in the past few years.

The reason for "invisibility" is not well understood and has not been explored in depth. After all, even when Chinese films had the greatest commercial influence, he was not a fan of martial arts movies and was indifferent to the decline of the martial arts trend around the world.

The reason why Dorian can become a professional film critic recognized by Rotten Tomatoes and review overseas films is that he has very little Orientalism and a curious appreciation of other cultures.

Ninety minutes passed quickly.

There is no doubt that "Comet" is such a movie, otherwise Netflix would not have been able to purchase a movie in China for the first time and broadcast it on all platforms.

Dorian has become familiar with this operation. Dorian, who reviews foreign movies, especially reviews and introduces many unpopular movies, is already very good at searching for information in different countries and languages ​​on the Internet.

Dorian's evaluation of this movie is that it is a world movie without any cultural characteristics or barriers. This kind of movie is not unusual, but the director is Chinese, which is a bit strange.

What is shocking is that anyone at the age of 22 can support such a complete and exquisite film structure. It would be incredible to anyone. Dorian himself also tried to make movies when he was young, short films to be precise. Of course, in the end he realized that he had no director.

Because of his talent, he knew that shooting a complete feature film was not an easy task.

Dorian put the director's name into the search engine with great interest. He is a film critic who is very good at observing directors. Once he sees a movie that surprises him, he will check the creator's information and track it.

Subsequent creation is his job as a professional film critic.

The works created by a filmmaker usually have a context, and the style develops and changes. When a film critic makes a film review, he not only evaluates the film itself, but also combines the thoughts and styles of the director and screenwriter to conduct a more in-depth analysis.

Movies, while observing the different works of outstanding filmmakers in different periods, and analyzing the ideas and changes in their artistic creation is also a great pleasure.

But Dorian himself has no prejudice against China. He is even an anti-orientalist. When martial arts movies once set off a craze in North America, he publicly commented that the pursuit of a certain martial arts movie was inappropriate.

, is overdone, seriously overrated, and is the result of Orientalist gaze.

"Is it still a Chinese movie?"

But the fact that the director of this film was only 22 years old still left him a little shocked and a little surprised.

When the plot began to advance, the slightly shaky camera and the chatting of several people in the room made Dorian nod frequently. This is a work under the trend of pseudo-documentary. Although this style is not uncommon on Netflix, it is used in movies outside North America.

This shooting style still makes Dorian feel a little novel.

As a professional film critic and the author of the Boulder Weekly international film series reporting column, Dorian is no stranger to Chinese films. The fifth generation of Chinese directors used to be relatively active in the international film industry, and many of their films have won international awards.

Recognized by well-known awards, Chinese martial arts and action films have also had a greater influence in the field of commercial films.

Dorian's feelings are very contradictory. He likes film and television works created by various countries and regions based on their own unique cultural languages. At the same time, he himself tries to avoid staring at these foreign works with a novelty aesthetic, but he also deeply understands that if a weak culture wants to truly make a difference,

Cultural export must use universal cultural works as a pioneer, and this will weaken the local cultural aesthetics of the work itself.

For example, "Comet" places the story in New York, London, Tokyo, and Seoul without any sense of inconsistency. It is a movie completely based on modern culture, just like skyscrapers in the city.

generally.

Dorian recorded the Chinese and English names of "Chen Jingxing" and "chenjingxing" into the notepad on his computer. There were hundreds of files in the folder, all of which were directors he was following, mostly foreign directors.

Putting aside his curiosity about the director, Dorian began to write movie reviews. With many years of movie-watching experience, he could predict that this movie might achieve certain success on the Netflix platform. Young Netflix users like this type of movie very much.

, whether it is science fiction, suspense or thriller, all of them have accurately hit the G-spot of Netflix user portraits. This is good, maybe it won’t be long before he can see the new work of this young director from China.
Chapter completed!