The Projector | Bi Gan is blazing a trail for other indie Chinese filmmakers despite big marketing fail

Aimed at couples seeking a roman­tic New Year’s Eve, Huace Pictures’ high-risk marketing strategy for Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey into Night faced a swift backlash.

Ahead of the film’s release in China on December 31, the production company had issued a public statement requesting cinemas to schedule screenings at 9.40pm, so that the 140-minute film would end exactly at midnight, and encouraged audience members to lock lips in the final scene, copying the protagonists.

“Audiences could spend a most comme­mo­­rative night with the most important per­son in their lives,” went the promotional blurb. “A kiss which marks the leap into the new year!”

But Long Day’s Journey into Nightis not the mainstream romcom many viewers had been expecting. With a stellar cast that includes Tang Wei, Huang Jue and Sylvia Chang Ai-chia, the film has a non-linear structure, dark and dank atmospherics, multiple voice-overs and an hour-long 3D depiction of a dream. Bi’s second film is, in effect, a big-budget reprise of his debut, Kaili Blues (2015).

Unsurprisingly, online portals were inundated with vicious comments from viewers who’d obviously had no inkling of the director’s background or his trademark aesthetics. Cinema proprietors reacted by slashing screenings of the film, with the number of shows dropping from 118,500 on its opening day to just over 45,000 the day after. Ticket sales plunged 95 per cent to 12 million yuan (HK$13.7 million).

Backlash aside, however, the 29-year-old director has left an indelible mark on contemporary Chinese cinema. Whether you love or hate his fan­tas­tical mise-en-scène and warped time­lines, Bi – or, more specifically, the critical acclaim he has received on the inter­national festival circuit – has allowed rookie mainland filmmakers to dare to dream of a future beyond the gritty social realism of their forebears.