Tycoon's son blasts 'Gone with the Bullets'
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, December 26, 2014
The angry words of a Chinese tycoon's son on Christmas may be the last straw to break the camel's back for Jiang Wen's widely panned "Gone with the Bullets."
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After Wang Sicong gave a bad review of "Gone with the Bullets," the movie team's official Sina microblog account posted a photoshopped poster with Wang in it, mocking the rich entrepreneur and escalating the dispute. The photoshopped poster has since been deleted. [Photo/Sina.com] |
Wang Sicong, a board member at Dalian Wanda Group and chairman of Prometheus Capital, commented on his microblog on Thursday that "Those who haven't seen 'Gone with the Bullets,' congratulations.... you have avoided the disaster."
"Gone with the Bullets," directed by and starring Jiang Wen and also starring veteran actors Ge You, Zhou Yun, Shu Qi, Wen Zhang, and Wang Zhiwen, was billed as the "most anticipated Chinese film of the year, if not of all time." It was set to make a series of Chinese box office records after its release, but the anticipation turned to disappointment after its premiere met with waves of criticism.
Wang Sicong was just the latest to join in criticizing the "phenomenon-to-be" movie, but his words caused a tsunami on social media because of his social status. He is the only son of China's richest man, Wang Jianlin, Wanda's chairman. He currently owns a 2 percent stake in his father's empire, a Chinese conglomerate with operations and investments in real estate, tourism, hotels, and entertainment. Wang was described, mostly in jokes, as the nation's richest young man who can do and buy whatever he wants with money he gets from his super-rich father. Wang Sicong's followers, many of them women who dream of having such a wealthy man by their side, directly and jokingly call him "my husband" on the Internet.
But Dede Nickerson, head of production and strategic development at Sony Pictures China, one of the studios that helped produce "Gone With the Bullets," shot back soon via an interview on Sina.com.cn. Nickerson said she felt that Wang very intelligently realized that the film mocks the nouveau riche, so Wang must have feel uncomfortable because the film implies that those nouveau riche "have empty hearts," and Wang "must see himself in it."
Later, the film's official Sina microblog account also posted a photoshopped poster with Wang in it captioned "Sicong as Wu Qi." Wu Qi is a character in the movie, one of the annoying "nouveau riche" Nickerson described.
Wang Sicong angrily responded with strong and explicit words: "In this era, a rich guy can't even dislike a movie, LOL.... 'Gone with the Bullets,' f**k your mother, the film was made like s**t, and you don't want people to say something? I don't even have an appetite to comment on this film. Please be quick about ending screenings and don't insult audiences."
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