The film “Dream of the Red Chamber: The Golden Years of Jinyu” (referred to as the new “Dream of the Red Chamber”), which cost 200 million yuan and claimed to have taken 18 years to shoot, premiered in mainland China on August 16, but the box office performance has been disappointing. As of August 25, the film’s final box office tally was only 5.31 million yuan, making it a major box office disaster in the history of Chinese cinema. At the same time, the film’s rating on “Douban” also dropped from 4.0 to 3.8, and Chinese internet celebrity and professor Yan Feng sharply commented that the film was unbearable to watch.
According to reports from Chinese media, the production cost of the new “Dream of the Red Chamber” exceeded 200 million yuan, making it a “proper domestic blockbuster.” However, just 9 hours after its release on August 16, the film only grossed 900,000 yuan; by 10 p.m. that evening, the total box office for the first day was only 1.64 million yuan; as of 9 p.m. on August 20, the daily box office had dropped to 198,000 yuan, with a screening share of only 1%, and the total box office after 5 days of release was only 4.5 million yuan; by August 25, the box office had stopped at 5.31 million yuan. Since its release, the film has been receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews from internet users.
The failure of the new “Dream of the Red Chamber,” directed by the acclaimed director Hu Mei, has led to introspection among those who adapt classic IPs. Well-known Chinese internet celebrity and professor Yan Feng from Fudan University in Shanghai, after watching the film, posted on Weibo on the 25th, commenting: “This time, the internet users are correct.” And the “correct” here refers to the overwhelming negative reviews by the internet users as mentioned earlier.
Yan Feng commented on the film: “It’s like a plot summary of a ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ TV drama on Bilibili, only lacking the voice and subtitles of the explainer.” He expressed that the new film, which is less than two hours long, covers the major events of the original “Dream of the Red Chamber”: Daiyu’s bereavement, entering the Jia Mansion, Grandma Liu visiting, dreaming in the illusionary realm, delivering flowers to the palace, the fragrance of jasper, reading the Western Wing, presenting a handkerchief, building the Grand View Garden, Princess Yuanshun’s visit, the loss of Jia Baoyu, switcharoo, burning the manuscript, getting married, mourning Ling… and it abruptly ends.
He pointed out: “With so many events condensed into 2 hours, each event can only be touched upon briefly, showing only glimpses, simplifying the complex, flattening the three-dimensional into two-dimensional, and fragmenting the organic whole. It’s difficult for those unfamiliar with the original work to understand the cause and effect of these events, and die-hard fans of the original work find it hard to accept such a crude operation.”
Looking back at previous adaptations, Yan Feng said that whether it’s the 1987 TV series version or the 1989 film version, they both have a considerable length. The 1987 TV series has 36 episodes; the 1989 film version consists of six parts totaling eight episodes, with a total duration of over 730 minutes. Yet, even with this duration, they still did not fully showcase the content of the original work.
Some viewers gave feedback that the new “Dream of the Red Chamber” is only 116 minutes long, yet it aims to present the entirety of the original work, which is equivalent to summarizing a movie in three minutes. But this is not a short video, it is a feature-length film.
Yan Feng also sharply criticized the film: “If it’s considered a drama, they added some seasonings, like the Jia family swallowing the Lin family’s massive wealth to make up for the deficit and to build the Grand View Garden. This seems like watching too many palace struggle dramas.” He believes it is a “cliché and melodramatic switcharoo scheme”, “an insult to the intelligence and emotional quotient of all the major characters in the original work.”
Previously, some netizens criticized that the new “Dream of the Red Chamber” adopted the perspective of “Jia swallows Lin’s wealth” and turned it into a type of “conspiracy and love” film; they believe “Jia swallows Lin’s wealth” is a distortion, “this classic masterpiece has been turned by Hu Mei into a youth drama of heartbreak, undoubtedly trivializing ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’.”
Some netizens lamented: “The disastrous reputation and box office failure of the film ‘Dream of the Red Chamber: The Golden Years of Jinyu’ seem to have been predestined. It appears that despite the 18 years spent and the massive investment, there was fundamentally no understanding of ‘Dream of the Red Chamber.’ Without reverence and respect for the classic, only blindly catering to the market and chasing profits, it finally ended up crashing.”
Although Professor Yan Feng also mentioned there were moments in the film that touched him, in his view, “It’s not a successful adaptation, but the greatness of the original work ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’.”