The Best Director

In the theaters of 3025 cinemas, the exciting sounds of roaring engines, speeding cars, and heavy collisions echoed, as two black Dodge race cars dragging a giant black safe were chased by squad after squad of siren-blaring police cars on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The cars sped wildly down the streets, crashing and smashing everything in their path. With a loud bang, the safe obliterated a roadside phone booth and sent pedestrians screaming and scurrying for cover.

The audience was going crazy! Their blood was boiling, and many had their eyes wide open, not wanting to miss a second of this almost perfect combination of speed and power. As the two cars turned into a narrow alley and the massive safe swept through the bottom floor of a building like a bulldozer, the cinema erupted with exclamations of awe. Their hearts, which had been racing all evening, were about to explode! On the big screen, Eliza Dushku, giving remote instructions, exclaimed in surprise, “Oh guys, you took out the safe?”

“Wow, God, this is so cool.” Clair couldn’t help but mutter a laugh. The young people around her were gossiping excitedly—this was just too cool! Unlike ‘Juno,’ which had a unique kind of cool among peers, this was the uninhibited, arrogant coolness and tension of ‘MIT-21-TEAM,’ combined with the sheer exhilaration of a bold chase. If ’21’ was an intellectual action film, building atmosphere through editing, performance, and camera language, then ‘Furious Cars’ was direct—that explosive spectacle and wild imagination!

The tagline on the poster didn’t lie; this was the ultimate thrill!

“Bang bang bang!” Two motorcyclists from the pursuing police force fired at Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson, but they were easily flipped over by the superior driving skills of the two men. Clair’s boyfriend, Adam, beside her, was rubbing his hands together in excitement, shifting in his seat and exclaiming, “This is what a racing action movie should be! Oh! Unbelievable…” It was even more thrilling than playing ‘Need for Speed,’ definitely worth the ticket price. He was determined to recommend it to his buddies; missing it would be such a shame.

Soon, the two race cars reached a bridge and, due to sacrificial choices, split up. Dwayne Johnson acted the hero, dragging the safe alone and wrecking the police cars one by one. As the wrecked police cars rolled off the bridge, the audience, exhilarated by the climax of the film, boiled with excitement. But being overexcited might not be good, as Evelyn clenched her chest with furrowed brows, gasping, “Oh… I can’t really handle this.”

“Don’t scare me.” Her best friend, Kelly, looked as if she had seen something horrific, grinning wide. Not long ago, two people had died because of ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ and this one had a record too! She hurriedly asked, “Should I scream for help? Oh my God!” Evelyn, who was resting with her eyes closed, waved a hand dismissively, “No need, rest assured! If I die in a movie theater, it would definitely be while watching a film directed by the incredible Yang. This one’s just a little bit short of that, oh…”

“What the heck is wrong with me?!” This question popped up over the heads of the audience in another cinema at 3051 theaters. Why were they sitting here watching this… whatever it was? ‘Lucky Card Player’? Marcus yawned, watching Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore by the gambling table on the big screen. He rubbed his tired and irritable eyes, wondering if he was the silly one or what—what on earth was this film about?!

It wasn’t only Marcus who felt sleepy; yawns could be heard from all corners of the theater. As time wore on, the audience that couldn’t take it anymore began to leave early, one after another… Marcus shook his girlfriend, Selena, and said drowsily, “Let’s go! It’s better to take a walk outside and get some fresh air than to sit here… watching this crap! Unbelievable!” He flung his arm in agitation, “Haven’t they seen ‘MIT-21-TEAM’? Crap! How could they make such a terrible movie!” Selena, however, hesitated a little, “But we spent money.”

Both of them originally had little interest in blackjack, but since they saw “MIT-21-TEAM” last year, they became completely fascinated with blackjack and card counting. They still vividly remember the classic scenes from “21”: the confrontational exchanges between Jeff Ma and the tough team leader at the beginning, the MIT team’s brash conquest of Sin City, toying with the female detective, and the cascading slot machines at the end… And those sharp, interesting lines that became popular among the youth: “Because-We-Can.”, “Winner-winner, Chicken-dinner!”, “Only losers play the slots.”…

Then this year, Warner Brothers released “Lucky Card Player,” almost writing on the poster “Better than ‘MIT-21-TEAM’!” with the promotion. They were lured in with great excitement, only to watch a bunch of crap. The protagonist is a guy obsessed with gambling, who also becomes estranged from his father because of it. The appearance of the female lead makes him see his problems, and in the end, he wins love, repairs the relationship with his father, and wins the poker game…

The movie wasn’t over yet, but they had already completely guessed the ending, and what’s worse, the director turned it into an intolerable pile of crap—nothing but disappointments, loathsomeness, and anger!

“Ha! What’s wrong with you? Yes, we all spent money, but we didn’t pay to torture ourselves!” Seeing the absurd and embarrassingly bad “gambling skills” again on the screen, Marcus was outraged. Taking a deep breath and still unable to hold back, he muttered under his breath in anger, “If you want to stay because you feel you haven’t wasted a few bucks, then stay! I can’t take it anymore! I’m out of here, damn it!”

Although he replaced all his curse words with “Shoot” instead of “Shit,” and “Darn” instead of “Damn,” making it less offensive, this was a movie theater auditorium, where the film was being played! What awaits a person who yells out loud? If it was next door at “Furious Cars,” it would surely be curses and eye rolls, but here, several young people of the same age around him gave thumbs up, echoing in agreement: “Spot on!” “I’m not watching this crap either, damn it!”… And several other viewers continued yawning, watching the screen with a bored gaze.

“Maybe we can treat it as a spoof comedy…” Seeing the crowd’s uproar, Selena, not wanting to waste even a single penny, cleared her throat and cleverly suggested as she pointed to the screen, “You know… compared to ’21,’ it might actually be pretty funny.” Marcus and the others lit up with curiosity. It was a promising suggestion and, hearing her say that, it did seem ridiculously funny. Immediately, some couldn’t help but laugh out loud: “Haha, haha…”

“Warner Brothers really think we’re idiots. Shame! I actually bought this ticket.” After laughing for a while and feeling bored again, Marcus was especially indignant at the thought of tonight being a sheer waste of money and time. He was determined to go online later that night and make a few sarcastic remarks about this pile of crap, warning others not to watch it. He turned to an unfamiliar young white man beside him and vented, “Honestly! If I had known it was like this, I would have been better off staying at home and watching the ‘MIT-21-TEAM’ DVD.”

The white man immediately showed his anger too, stuffing a handful of popcorn in his mouth, angrily eating and cursing, “Yeah! I regret it! If I knew earlier, I would’ve gone to watch ‘Furious Cars,’ heard it was produced by Wang Yang.” His white girlfriend immediately complained, “I told you! No one can make a movie about blackjack better than the amazing Yang, now do you believe me?” The white man helplessly covered his forehead, “I just didn’t expect it to be this bad…”

“Yeah! It’s incredibly bad.” A female viewer’s voice rang out from the back row; they all turned to look, and the woman wearing a fisherman’s hat was chewing gum and shaking her head, “Why does a movie fail? There can be all kinds of reasons, but you can find them all here! Wow… really missing the amazing Yang.” The crowd deeply related to her last words, especially at this moment being tormented by a bad movie, repeatedly expressing: “Exactly!” “Really miss him.”

Marcus nodded and shrugged in annoyance, “Why isn’t there a movie from him this summer? ‘Firefly’ won’t be released until next year, what a jerk.” Selena let out a long sigh, “I want to see ‘Firefly’…”

When the 125-minute “Furious Cars” ended, followed by the 124-minute “Lucky Card Player,” along with screenings of “Clone Wife,” “Interstellar Legends 2,” and more, the groups of audiences that emerged from the theaters had markedly different expressions—some were chatting and laughing about the exciting moments they had just seen, while others were gritting their teeth over the previous boredom and awfulness. Both regular moviegoers and film critics didn’t hesitate to express these feelings in their reviews of the films.

With a 3.5 rating on IMDB and 75 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes yielding freshness scores of 12% and 10%, respectively, and a mere 16% approval rating from 56,584 viewers, that was the kind of feedback “Lucky Card Player” received, not to mention comments as if they were confronting the murderer of their father. Kirk Honeycutt from “The Hollywood Reporter” said, “It is monotonous, stiff, and dull.” Leah McLaren of “The Globe and Mail” commented, “It’s rare for a movie to be this bad, especially when it had successful examples to follow.”

These were the polite remarks. A sporadically starred review by a user named Svmainus, whose avatar is a white man with black hair, read, “This is a star-studded cast, Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth, director Curtis Hanson, Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore… they joined hands to produce a pile of stinking dog shit, disjointed and clichéd content, insincere gambling tables, and dialogues that are both laughable and pathetic… How did they manage to do that?” Another one-star review from Marcus-D wrote, “It’s hard to believe they managed to make a game like blackjack so dumb and simple. Do they think the audience hasn’t seen ‘MIT-21-TEAM’? If that’s the case, who would give another glimpse at this pile of dog shit?”…

“If you consider it the top choice for weekend relaxation, then what a miserable life you must lead!” Not just the general audience was full of mockery, as “Variety” put it. Yahoo Entertainment, giving it a D-, said, “It ruins everything it could possibly ruin, a complete disaster.” Connor Brennan from the BOM site shared the same sentiment, adding mockingly, “Now Warner Bros.’ promotion for it seems so ridiculous; it can’t even compare to the little toe of ’21.’ After watching this trash, I’m certain I started to miss the magic of Wang Yang.”

The jeers came firstly because both films were of the same genre, and secondly, during the promotion of “Lucky Card Player,” there were multiple attempts to reach out to “21” to gain attention, with the creative team even implying that “Lucky Card Player” was leagues ahead in quality: “We discussed a lot about the relationships and impacts between gambling, life, and family, which you can’t see in other Las Vegas movies.” At the time, their audacious challenge to the king of Las Vegas films was already met with ridicule from numerous movie fans: “The other movies aren’t gambling; they’re just doing math problems.” “It looks like another Oscar masterpiece is born.”…

Now that the situation was quite clear, they didn’t hesitate to provoke this Oscar masterpiece. Roger Ebert temporarily joined the Wang Yang fans again, taking a trip to their camp. Writing in his column for the “Chicago Sun-Times,” he penned, “The best way to reward a person is to show him ‘MIT-21-TEAM’; the best way to torture a person is to show him ‘Lucky Card Player.\'” After a series of detailed sarcastic comments, he didn’t forget to show off his foresight, “I’ve said all along that ’21’ was a peak that couldn’t be surpassed. Wang Yang has mastered this genre; why do some people still not believe it?”

“Whoever watches it will regret it!” Wesley Morris of “The Boston Globe” kept his Rotten Tomatoes comment short and to the point; Kyle Smith of the “New York Post” said, “Staying at home playing solitaire would be more fun than watching it.”…

“Lucky Card Player” faced the craziest of criticisms, with film reviewers and user comments filled almost entirely with how “21” was this and that, while this movie was unbearably awful. Yelverton’s words seemed sympathetic yet mocking, “I remember a few days ago at the MTV awards, Drew Barrymore watched as ’21’ took the Best Screen Team. I believe she must be quite upset now.” While “Lucky Card Player” was having a tough time, the other new releases each met their fate.

“Interstellar Legends 2,” with 29% and 12% freshness, had a 73% approval rating but failed to create hope for a new sci-fi classic. Mick LaSalle said, “An empty movie, with laughably overdone atmosphere.”; “Clone Wife” fared even worse, with only 36% approval, a freshness of 26% and 30%, Jeffrey Chan commented, “How pitifully sad, a complete mess.”; The indicators for “Garfield” weren’t much better either, at 15%, 12% and 54%. Richard Roeper remarked, “A film without energy, without spirit.”

Did all the new releases this week face a wipeout? Flamemovies have already lost four times in a row in the film critic world, and even Wang Yang lost his unbeatable status. However, as people across North America opened the newspapers to a new day, they found that “Furious Cars” had received widespread acclaim.

“When the film ended, a young guy sitting behind me said, ‘That was awesome!’ He was satisfied, and that’s right.” – David Denby, The New Yorker; “Director Justin Lin has a ghost supporting him to find a string of exaggerated actions, even if for this, he breaks every principle of physics.” – Brandon Fibbs, ; “Furious Cars is by far the most sincere, most fun movie from Hollywood this year.” – Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe; “It tells you how to make a summer movie.” – Elizabeth Weisman, New York Daily News…

The freshness of 78 film reviews was 87%, 85%; while the audience approval from 65,281 users was 94%, with a 7.9 score on IMDB. Its ripe red tomato ended the losing streak of flames in the world of film reviews, and it garnered applause from audiences, becoming the only new film this week to achieve great success with critics.

“Furious Cars is one of this year’s coolest, most outstanding action movies, and by far the best racing film, truly leaving the track and easily beating the Fast & Furious series. The heists aren’t completely believable, forget what physics tells us, it makes a very deep impression! Astonishing action scenes, humorous dialogue, a pleasing cast—I guarantee it exceeds all expectations.” said Asenio G, who gave it five stars.

As for the praise Furious Cars received, Wang Yang, who was in Canada filming the exterior scenes of Firefly, wasn’t surprised at all, simply because a bomb that’s lit is bound to explode. Lin Yibin is a UCLA Institute graduate, his direction fundamentals are absolutely solid, but having fundamentals doesn’t equate to on-set capability. Furthermore, the downside of staying too long in the academy is carrying too many rules and the Spiritual Energy being suppressed by doctrines.

From the beginning, Wang Yang made it clear to Lin Yibin, multiple times, “Let your imagination run wild, don’t shoot according to what the academy taught us. Don’t think about what’s possible or impossible first; think first about what’s incredible and exciting enough to drive people crazy, then figure out how to make these shots possible.” Ignore physics, ignore too much rationality, until Lin Yibin almost fully unleashed his inner madness did they start filming Furious Cars.

Clearly, this accelerated Lin Yibin’s growth. Though still green, he was no longer ridiculed as a “college student director” who measured his work with a ruler like he had been with his 2006 second directorial work Annapolis, which received due to its being “basically a military recruitment advertisement,” a 10%, 3% freshness, 63% approval rate. Now in 2004, the market’s demand for fiery, car-racing movies is far from what it was in 2011 with Fast & Furious 5. Furious Cars emerged as a violent disruptor, directly grabbing the “cool” nerve of young people.

As June 11 to 17 hastily became the past, the new week’s North American box office results were out, and poker cards did not take over the magic flag, Nicole Kidman encountered a Waterloo, Harry Potter 3 was unable to continue its top spot momentum, and it was bumped off the champion throne by two black sports cars.

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PS: In need of monthly tickets! Monthly tickets! Recommendation tickets! Walley is asking everyone to protect our ranking, thank you! (.)