Yao Yao Jiang: Who has Feng Xiaogang offended in recent years? What has he been through?

This episode provides a detailed overview of the life and career of renowned director Feng Xiaogang, tracing his journey from a youth in a military compound to the 'King of New Year Films,' his collaborations with Wang Shuo and the 'Beijing Clique,' his struggles with film censorship, the heavy price of valuation adjustment mechanisms, and a review of the box office failure and controversy surrounding his 2025 film 'Catching Spies.'

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Hello everyone, I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. On the evening of June 17th this year, at the Beijing Exhibition Center Theater, the film 'Catching Spies' premiered. 68-year-old Feng Xiaogang put on his reading glasses and went on stage, telling the audience below: You are the first group of people to see this film, and for us, this is also a major test. He did not pass this test. The final box office for the film was 119 million, while he stated the cost was 165 million. Three months later, he said to the camera: I am very sorry to the investors. Twenty-nine years ago, this same person made the first New Year film in mainland China and later became the first director to have an individual box office exceed one billion. He and Wang Shuo had bought the story for 'Catching Spies' back in 1993, waiting over thirty years to film it. But by the time he made it, the audience was no longer buying what he was selling. When he was young, the group of children in the Beijing military compound gave him a nickname: 'Feng the Pants.' How did a young man looked down upon by the compound children become the 'King of New Year Films,' and how was he eventually abandoned by the audience? The story begins in an auditorium in the western suburbs of Beijing.

The first movie I ever watched was the opera film 'Dream of the Red Chamber'.

I saw those people wearing ancient costumes, and the music was that kind of loud gong banging.

I was scared to tears, and my mom took me away.

Later, for a long time, I didn't want to watch those people in ancient costumes. In the compound of the CCP Beijing Municipal Party Committee School in the western suburbs of Beijing, there was an auditorium. In front of the auditorium stood a screen wall with the words 'Serve the People' inscribed by Mao Zedong. Every Friday, the canteen sold movie tickets for five cents each. The children in the compound would finish their dinner hastily, run in groups to the auditorium, and step on the chair backs to grab seats. The first movie Feng Xiaogang ever watched in his life was in this auditorium: the opera film 'Dream of the Red Chamber.' The people on the screen were all wearing ancient costumes; he was scared to tears, and halfway through, his mother took him out. His favorite was another film called 'Rooster Crows at Midnight,' which tells the story of a landlord who mimics a rooster crowing at midnight to force his laborers to start working early. He thought the film was both funny and imaginative. Decades later, he wrote in a book, recalling that this was the best gift that auditorium ever gave him. His later love for making comedies started right there.

On March 18, 1958, Feng Xiaogang was born in Beijing, and his home was right in this Party School compound. His father, Feng Fei, was from Xiangtan, Hunan, and had studied at the National Southwestern Associated University in his youth. During the Civil War, he served as an officer in Fu Zuoyi's troops before defecting. In 1950, Feng Fei graduated from the Department of Western Languages at Peking University and taught at several universities in Beijing. Feng Xiaogang's mother was a health doctor at a printing plant. Every weekend, there were ballroom dances in the lobby of the auditorium; his father loved to dance, and his mother detested it, but sometimes she would take Feng Xiaogang and his sister to the dance. Feng Xiaogang later guessed that his mother went to keep an eye on his father. When he was about five years old, his parents divorced. Feng Fei later said that the divorce happened because he had been labeled a 'Rightist.' His mother was thirty-five that year, raising Feng Xiaogang and his sister, Feng Xiaojun, on her own.

In 1965, Feng Xiaogang entered elementary school. The following year, the Cultural Revolution began, lasting until his high school graduation in 1976. The films most frequently shown in the auditorium were newsreels. His family did not have a refrigerator. In the summer, his mother would pick a few tomatoes without blemishes every day, soak them in a washbasin, and chill them with tap water. When Feng Xiaogang came home from school, picking a big one and taking a bite was the happiest thing in his day. When Feng Xiaogang was in middle school, he made a joke: if they let him be the president of the state, they would have to agree to three conditions—eating at least five tomatoes every day all year round, having as much chocolate as he wanted, and having an endless supply of dried sweet potatoes. Even in his old age, he still loved eating boiled rice soaked in water with leftover dishes, saying this was the taste cultivated by poverty in his childhood. He was very distant from his father. Later, he told reporters that he was raised by his mother and was very unfamiliar with his father, unable even to utter the word "Dad." Yet he also said that his personality was most like his father's—passionate and outspoken without restraint.

The Party School compound was considered a large compound in Beijing, but it was not a military compound. At that time, children in Beijing were clearly divided: those living in military compounds such as the Navy, Air Force, and General Logistics Department were the proper compound kids, wearing military uniforms and speaking with confidence. Those living in the hutong mixed-use courtyards were street kids. The children of the Party School compound were sandwiched between these two groups. A family where the father had been labeled a rightist and the mother single-handedly raised two children had little weight in the compound. Feng Xiaogang loved to cry since childhood and was unremarkable in appearance; among a group of children, no one took him seriously. He later said that back then he had a crazy desire in his heart for everyone to value him and to include him in whatever they were doing. In that era, the thing that could make people look up to you the most was a military uniform.

In 1978, twenty-year-old Feng Xiaogang joined the army. He entered the Beijing Military Region's Comrade-in-Arms Song and Dance Troupe. The troupe included a song and dance troupe, a drama troupe, and a Peking opera troupe. He was assigned to the art group of the Comrade-in-Arms Peking Opera Troupe as a trainee, painting stage backdrops. Three years later, he was promoted to a Grade 23 cadre and became an art designer. In that era, military cultural troupes were very glamorous places. Feng Xiaogang later wrote that there were no decent tycoons back then, and military artists were just as popular as computer elites today, wearing full woolen military uniforms, gabardine coats, and three-joint leather shoes, looking more decent than anyone else. The pretty female soldiers in the cultural troupe were all in the song and dance troupe. The Peking Opera troupe only had older sisters who were already married. In a later interview, Feng Xiaogang described a scene: at noon, the female dancers of the dance troupe finished showering, each holding a washbasin, chatting and laughing as they walked past him, carrying the scent of shampoo. He desperately wanted to make eye contact with them, but didn't dare to look. To see them a few more times, he took his mess tin to the cafeteria; if he didn't run into them, he would make another trip, sometimes going back and forth three times. Nearly forty years later, these scenes were filmed by him in the movie Youth.

Just after New Year's Day in 1984, the political commissar of the troupe smilingly asked to speak with him, and Feng Xiaogang understood as soon as he heard it: he was going to be demobilized and transferred to civilian work. In those years, the entire military was streamlining and reorganizing, and many people were being transferred. But Feng Xiaogang said the real reason he was on the list was a girl. He had fallen in love with the daughter of an old comrade in the drama troupe. The old comrade discovered his daughter's unusual feelings, investigated all the way, found Feng Xiaogang, and sternly warned him. The girl, however, continued to contact him enthusiastically, resulting in her being severely beaten by her father—it was said even a mosquito net pole was broken over it. Feng Xiaogang was so moved his blood boiled, and he almost rushed to her house to say, "If you want to hit someone, hit me." Later he found out that the girl actually liked a handsome young man in civil aviation. She often appeared in front of Feng Xiaogang just to provide cover. The old comrade did not know this, approached the political commissar of the troupe, and took advantage of the streamlining and reorganization to put Feng Xiaogang on the demobilization list. Feng Xiaogang didn't want to lose face in front of his comrades-in-arms, so he pretended to be completely indifferent. The day after talking with the political commissar, he moved out of the military region compound. He was assigned to the propaganda section of the Xizhimen Grain Warehouse, and his comrades laughed at him, calling him the "Prefect of Xiliang." He walked around the wall of the grain warehouse, declined the assignment, did not report for duty, and began asking everywhere for another job.

For about the next half year, he kept waiting for news. He and two friends who were also demobilized hung out together every day, walking on the street in military uniforms with the collar badges removed, often drawing envious glances from passersby. He went to Zizhuyuan to bask in the sun, went to the Weigongcun free market to buy groceries, and his culinary skills improved by leaps and bounds, able to make a table of unique dishes for ten yuan. It was also during this period that he danced close-contact dancing for the first time. That night at a comrade's house, the desk lamp shade was covered with gauze, and the recorder played songs by Teresa Teng and Feng Feifei. At that time, Teresa Teng's songs were still regarded as decadent music on the mainland and were not allowed to be played publicly. Several female soldiers from the PLA Art Academy also came, and when the party broke up, he begged every which way until he secured permission to accompany one of the female soldiers back to the PLA Art Academy.

When his demobilization allowance was about to run out, the job he had been seeking through connections showed signs of promise with two options. One was to become a staff officer at the PAP (People's Armed Police) Academy in Langfang, which would allow him to keep wearing the military uniform; the other was to be an officer in the labor union of the Beijing Urban Construction Development Corporation. The Urban Construction Development Corporation was the largest real estate company in Beijing at the time, offering a monthly bonus of over a hundred yuan and promising to allocate an apartment. He chose the latter. Around that time, Feng Xiaogang got married. His wife, Zhang Di, was a nurse. On the night before reporting to work, thinking about how he would become an ordinary citizen the next day, he put his military uniform back on, attached his collar tabs and cap badge, had his mother sit down, and gave her a military salute. His mother said, no matter what you wear, nothing looks as good as a military uniform. That night, wearing his military uniform, he smoked all night. After dawn, he removed the collar tabs and cap badge and handed them over to his mother for safekeeping. In the labor union, his work involved publicity and cultural-sports activities, which was far from what he wanted to do. Later, he entered the Beijing Television Art Center as an art designer, where he met someone who would help him get his foot in the door.

After entering Wang Shuo's circle of friends, his hands were constantly busy attending banquets.

Mo Xing's status was mainly because she came from an ordinary family while everyone else had a military compound background.

Wang Shuo and Yejing were neighbors and trained in the same military compound.

Headquarters Compound, full name Chinese People's Liberation Army General Training Department, ranked second among the eight departments. In December 1985, Feng Xiaogang worked as an art designer for a TV series called Great Primeval Forest in the primeval forest of Jianfengling, Hainan Island. The art designer's work was mainly concentrated before shooting started. Once filming began, he had nothing to do, so he took the initiative to cook for the entire crew. Zheng Xiaolong, the director of creation at the Beijing Television Art Center, came to the crew to visit. Zheng Xiaolong came from a military compound background, had served as a soldier, and was admitted to the Chinese Department of Peking University. Every afternoon, Zheng Xiaolong would lie on banana leaves laid out by Feng Xiaogang to read literary magazines. After finishing, he would hand the magazine to Feng Xiaogang and say the author was a buddy of his named Wang Shuo. That novella was called Floating Out to Sea.

In the summer of 1986, following the address given by Zheng Xiaolong, Wang Shuo found Feng Xiaogang's home in Sanlihe. As soon as they met, Feng Xiaogang praised Wang Shuo profusely, making Wang Shuo blush and turn pale. That night, Feng Xiaogang cooked braised pig's trotters in soy sauce and shredded chicken with Sichuan peppercorn oil. From that day on, he and Wang Shuo became friends. Wang Shuo, Zheng Xiaolong, Yejing, and Jiang Wen—these people all grew up in military compounds. The novels Wang Shuo wrote were about themselves. Feng Xiaogang followed behind them, running errands, serving tea and water, doing any chores. Yejing was a childhood friend Wang Shuo grew up with. People in the circle later said that the nickname "Feng Pants" first originated from Yejing's mouth. Many years later, when Yejing directed the TV series Days Associated with Youth, he named a character who followed behind the military compound youths "Feng Pants". Wang Shuo saw it and said, why not just name him Feng Xiaogang directly? Yejing's evaluation of Feng Xiaogang was unsparing; he said that the Feng Xiaogang he knew was eager for success, dreamed of fame, would drop any pretense to get things done, and was very adept at dealing with people. He also said that Feng Xiaogang had cried bitterly in front of Wang Shuo many times, and several times in front of Yejing himself.

In November 1989, Wang Shuo called Feng Xiaogang and said that Zheng Xiaolong had gathered several writers to put together a comedy about an editorial office for the Beijing Television Art Center, asking if he was willing to join. At that time, Feng Xiaogang was still just an art designer at the center. A few days later, several people checked into the Friendship Hotel. The room was full of writers, and Feng Xiaogang felt insecure inside, not daring to look anyone in the eye. When discussing the degree of satire, some worried that avoiding hot topics would make viewers lose interest, while touching on deep issues might cause trouble. Feng Xiaogang proposed a principle: only touch upon social issues, not systematic problems, and carry out good-natured satire of current ills. Hearing this, Wang Shuo had someone write down these words and even called Feng Xiaogang Master Feng. Feng Xiaogang later wrote that being recognized by great writers made him feel exceptionally happy. This show was Stories from the Editorial Board.

In 1990, the daughter of Feng Xiaogang and Zhang Di was born. After the child was born, she always choked when feeding. Upon examination, the doctor found that the child had a congenital cleft palate. The doctor asked him if he wanted to give up on this child. According to the one-child policy at the time, if parents did not want this child, they could hand her over to the hospital for processing, and the hospital would issue a certificate allowing them to have a second child. Without thinking much, Feng Xiaogang said, I will not give up. The child's aunt named her Feng Siyu, hoping that she could speak like other children in the future. At a year and a half old, Feng Xiaogang hardened his heart and had surgery performed on her at a stomatological hospital. After the surgery, the child spoke quite fluently, and he changed his daughter's name to Feng Siyu. After Stories from the Editorial Board was broadcast, someone wrote an intentional complaint letter stating that this show intentionally opposed the higher-ups, and it was briefly at risk of being banned from broadcast. Before the 1992 Spring Festival, Li Ruihuan, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, visited the Beijing Television Art Center for New Year greetings. Feng Xiaogang stood up to ask a question, asking if he had watched Stories from the Editorial Board. Li Ruihuan said there were no political problems. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Beijing Daily published these words on the front page.

In 1993, Wang Shuo handed the TV script "One Dish of Chicken Feathers" (Yi Di Ji Mao), written by Liu Zhenyun, to Feng Xiaogang to direct. The show was originally being filmed by director Zhang Yuan, but it was halted by the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television. The producer inquired and found the issue was not with the script; he guessed it was because Zhang Yuan was known for making underground films with forbidden themes. Feng Xiaogang took over and started from scratch. One evening in September of that year, he called the dormitory of the Beijing People's Art Theatre and asked an actress named Xu Fan to come out for a chat. During their second meeting, he downed three bowls of white liquor at the dinner table, got so drunk that he lay on Xu Fan's lap the whole way home, and vomited all over her. The next evening, Xu Fan called to ask if he was feeling better and told him not to drink like that again. He felt that this meant their relationship was no longer ordinary. That November, the two went to Guangzhou together to attend the Golden Rooster Awards; both were nominated, and neither won. At the airport, he introduced Xu Fan to everyone he met as his girlfriend. At that time, Feng Xiaogang was not yet divorced, and his daughter was only three years old. His marriage to Zhang Di would drag on for another six years. At this point, Feng Xiaogang was thirty-five and had already established a foothold in the Beijing film circle. He and Wang Shuo had partnered to open a company, preparing to make their own films.

Cooperation with Feng Xiaogang started from this "Stories of the Editorial Department".

Feng Xiaogang's greatest intelligence is his special ability to utilize people who are smarter than him.

For example, Wang Shuo. But many people have this ability, and I have this ability too.

I am not saying this is a unique quality of his, nor do I think it is a bad thing; it is just that many people know how to utilize others.

Actually, the best director is someone who draws on the strengths of others. The company owned by Wang Shuo and Feng Xiaogang was called Haomeng (Good Dream) Company, with an investment of 100,000 yuan. Wang Shuo served as chairman, and Feng Xiaogang as general manager. The business scope on the business license listed a long string of items, and the one Feng Xiaogang remembered most clearly was the last sentence: "Except for fireworks and firecrackers." The first show the company took on was called "Good Dreams Offered to You." The script was to be written by Feng Xiaogang. He wrote for eight or ten days and couldn't even finish half an episode. Wang Shuo said, "You simply can't write it, don't struggle with yourself. Switch to something else, adapt my novel 'Forever Lost My Love,' and I will help you write it." In 1994, Feng Xiaogang filmed his first movie, which was "Forever Lost My Love."

Around this time, he read a novel by Zhang Ce called "Unrepentant Tracking," which told the story of a police station chief after 1949 who suspected his neighbor, a primary school teacher, of being a latent spy, and kept him under surveillance for decades. In 1993, he and Wang Shuo bought the film adaptation rights to this novel. The following year, he asked screenwriter Shi Jianquan to write the script, tailoring it for Ge You and Chen Daoming. In 1996, Wang Shuo wrote a script for Haomeng called "Living a Disheveled Life," about a writer who has a family but falls in love with someone else, with Feng Xiaogang as director. Just 10 days after filming began on April 1st, the Beijing Film Studio notified Feng Xiaogang and Wang Shuo to immediately meet with the studio head, Han Sanping. In the director's office, the entire leadership team of the Beijing Film Studio was present. Han Sanping personally read an urgent document sent by the Film Bureau that morning, which stated that the script took pleasure in discussing improper relationships between men and women and exposed ugliness without criticism. It suggested that the Beijing Film Studio choose another subject or rewrite it from the ground up; otherwise, it would not pass even if it were finished. Feng Xiaogang said they had already spent over a million yuan. Han Sanping smoked for a long time and said, "Stop it." Wang Shuo asked if they could finish filming first. Han Sanping said it wouldn't pass even if finished. Han Sanping also told them that of the more than 20 films produced by the Beijing Film Studio that year, eight had already been killed, including Wang Shuo's "I Am Your Father." With the two films combined, five or six million yuan went down the drain. That afternoon, the crew was disbanded. That night, Feng Xiaogang got drunk and collapsed outside a restaurant. The next morning, when he looked in the mirror, a thumb-sized patch of alopecia appeared on the right side of his head, which people in Beijing call "ghost shaving." He went and shaved his head bald.

Haomeng Company's last work was the TV series "The Dark Side of the Moon," adapted from Wang Gang's novel, about two college students who were blinded by money and eventually reached a dead end. It was finished in 1996 and was also banned. Haomeng Company produced five and a half works in total, and only three met the audience. No one dared to invest in them anymore, and people in the industry walked around them when they saw them. One day, Wang Shuo said to Feng Xiaogang, "Let's split up. They are targeting me; you still have a chance to survive, don't die together." Soon after, Wang Shuo went to Southern California in the United States, and Haomeng Company closed its doors. According to reports, the company was short of money, and Feng Xiaogang sold the script of "Unrepentant Tracking" to the Beijing Television Art Center, which was later made into a TV series. The story he wanted to film himself ended up in someone else's hands just like that.

He later wrote that from then on, he became superstitious, believing that there was a hand in the dark manipulating people's destiny, which had nothing to do with your efforts, talent, or virtue. In the autumn of 1996, Feng Xiaogang locked himself in his home in Tongxian. It was an unfinished villa area surrounded by farmland, with no streetlights and weeds as tall as a person. He often wrapped himself in a military overcoat and stood on the second-floor balcony, looking toward Beijing. That November, Zheng Xiaolong asked him to write a TV series for the Spring Festival, which was a sequel to "Stories of the Editorial Department." During the 1997 Spring Festival, the show was broadcast.

Just after the Spring Festival, Han Sanping sought out Feng Xiaogang for a talk. Han suggested that Feng make a comedy—a New Year's comedy—as comedy is the easiest genre to satisfy leaders, audiences, and creators alike. Han also proposed a theme: the re-employment of laid-off workers. Feng replied that laid-off workers were in no mood to watch movies; those suffering in reality needed to find relief in cinema. He thought of a short story by Wang Shuo titled "You Are Not a Vulgar Person," which tells the story of a few people who open a company called "Good Dream One-Day Tour" to help others fulfill their dreams. He called Wang Shuo, who was in the United States, to request the adaptation rights for the story. To make it easier to pass censorship, he added one condition: Wang Shuo's name would not appear in the opening credits. Wang Shuo thought about it and agreed. Before submitting the script for review, Feng asked Han Sanping what he should do if it didn't pass. Han replied, "If it doesn't pass, it's either your luck that's run out, or mine." A few days later, a deputy director of the Film Bureau called Han Sanping for over an hour, discussing revisions word by word, and finally gave approval in principle. In his book, Feng wrote about his feelings at the time: "Drink! My brother's script passed! Whoever says the Film Bureau is bad again, I'll fight them!" The investor was Beijing Forbidden City Film Co., Ltd., led by General Manager Zhang Heping, who negotiated with Feng: the director would not take a salary upfront but would instead take a share of the box office. Eager to make the film, Feng signed. The film title "The Dream Factory" (Jiafang Yifang) ... [text omitted] ... On August 14, 1997, filming began, and it wrapped up on September 30. During the review, a deputy minister of the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television felt that a piece of background music, the erhu piece "The Sky is Full of Stars," carried a mocking tone and suggested changing it to "River Water" or "Moon Reflected on Second Spring." With only twenty-five days left until the release, the Beijing Film Studio ordered all production to make way for "The Dream Factory," rushing out 150 prints in fifteen days. On December 20, the film was released nationwide. Feng Xiaogang took the lead actors to twenty-one cities in seventeen days, so exhausted that when he stood on stage in Chengdu, he started by saying, "Hello, friends in Nanjing." "The Dream Factory" grossed over 30 million yuan, becoming the champion of domestic films that year. It was the first New Year's film in mainland China and the first film where the director took no salary but instead took a share of the box office.

In the following years, Feng Xiaogang made one film a year: "Be There or Be Square," "Sorry Baby," "Sigh," and "Big Shot's Funeral." "Sigh" was the film previously halted under the title "Living a Wretched Life"; it was renamed and passed censorship four years later. Censorship also had its moments that left him both laughing and crying. In "Be There or Be Square," Ge You tells of a plan to blast an opening in the Himalayas to let the warm winds from the Indian Ocean blow into the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, thereby removing the label of backwardness... [text omitted] ... This idea was something Feng had heard from an investor. After the film's test screening, several scientists who were members of the CPPCC wrote a letter to the Central Committee, claiming the idea was plagiarized from them. Han Sanping had to go to the editing room himself to cut that line of dialogue. However, in the later released version, one can still hear Ge You talk about blasting a 50-kilometer-wide opening in the Himalayas.

In 1999, Feng Xiaogang divorced Zhang Di. On September 19 of that year, he married Xu Fan. Later, the two adopted a daughter from an orphanage and named her Xu Duo. 2001 was his most difficult year. On the morning of May 13, while filming "Big Shot's Funeral" at the airport, he had just finished a shot when he suddenly felt empty inside and sat in the director's chair unable to speak. His blood pressure was 160 and his heart rate was 150; he was rushed to the emergency center. At 2:30 PM, he returned to the set with a pale face and finished the day's shooting. For a long time after that, he carried heart-saving pills with him. It was also in this year that his mother passed away. His mother had suffered a cerebral thrombosis at the age of 57 and had been bedridden for sixteen years. In her later years, every time she saw Feng Xiaogang, she would cry silently. The doctor said it was Alzheimer's. Feng felt it was the grievance in her heart. On the morning she passed away, his mother was very clear-headed. She said to Feng, "Son, I have tasted all the suffering for you. You have achieved something, so my pain was not in vain." Feng wrote on the funeral couplet: "Mom, you've worked hard, please rest now." He bought a cemetery for his parents in the Western Hills of Beijing. On the day of the burial, Xu Fan taught him every single ritual step by step.

In the year after his mother passed away, the dormitory building of the Party School compound was to be demolished. The group of children who grew up in the compound, now all over forty, returned from various places and took a group photo in front of the building. After the photo, everyone walked toward the auditorium in unison. In 2002, he prepared to film "A World Without Thieves," about two thieves protecting a migrant worker carrying 60,000 yuan on his way home. When the script was submitted for review, the censorship department hoped he would change the subject, arguing that it was inappropriate to have thieves as protagonists. He wrote in his book: "It is easy to persuade thieves to be good, but difficult to persuade censors to be lenient." This film was only made two years later. By this time, Feng Xiaogang was already the highest-grossing director in the country. However, some people in the circle still looked down on his films. Jiang Wen once said something to him that broke him out in a cold sweat. Jiang said, "A film should be wine; even if it's only a small sip, it must be wine. What Feng Xiaogang makes is grapes—very fresh, even covered in frost—but from beginning to end, it's just grapes; it hasn't been fermented into wine."

Feng Xiaogang also wanted to make wine. He still had a bigger script on his desk, "Remembering 1942"... Someone said, "You and Zhang Yimou... I don't know if this is fair..."

Nine

The more you shoot, you see A Touch of Zen or something, and later it gets more and more comedic. You go from comedy entertainment... "Back to 1942". "Back to 1942" is a novel by Liu Zhenyun about the 1942 Henan famine, where thirty million people were affected and three million did not survive. In 1994, Feng Xiaogang proposed to Liu Zhenyun to adapt it into a film. But the subject matter was too sensitive, and it couldn't get off the ground. During the 2000 Spring Festival, he and Liu Zhenyun drank a crate of beer and decided to pick it up again. The two went to Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Chongqing, interviewing people along the way, and even made a special trip to Cairo. The script took another two years to write. When the script was finished, he said he had to wait for the right moment. Over the years, he became Huayi Brothers' top director. In 2008, he became a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In 2009, Huayi Brothers went public, and the shares in his hands suddenly became worth just over two hundred million. In 2010, he directed "Aftershock". This film was selected to represent China and entered for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

On August 26, 2011, the CPPCC held a consultative meeting on cultural system reform. Feng Xiaogang spoke at the meeting, saying that current film censorship was severely harming and fettering film creation. For the sake of censorship safety, everyone swarmed to shoot historical themes. He called for the restoration of the relaxed literary and art policies of the 1980s. He also did the math: Huayi Brothers' net profit from films in 2010 was around eighty million, and the film special fund paid to the state alone was forty million, accounting for half. In this year, "Back to 1942" finally started filming. To capture the appearance of disaster victims, Feng Xiaogang demanded shooting in script order, with the actors fleeing famine along with the plot. Zhang Guoli lost twenty-four pounds after filming. In November 2012, the film was released; reviews were mixed, and the box office fell far short of expectations. During that period, Feng Xiaogang wrote on Weibo that his love for film was fading more and more, and he was beginning to feel disgusted with such a life. In 2013, CCTV invited him to be the chief director of the Year of the Horse Spring Festival Gala. He accepted. Before the Gala was broadcast, he told netizens that his changes to the Gala were far from comparable to the changes the Gala brought to him.

In 2015, he starred in Guan Hu's film "Mr. Six", playing Lao Ye, an old street punk in the hutongs of Beijing, and won Best Leading Actor at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. He didn't go to Taipei on the day of the awards ceremony; instead, he was at the "Mr. Six" concert at the Beijing Workers' Stadium, singing a song called "The Price of Love". In 2016, he directed "I Am Not Madame Bovary", adapted from Liu Zhenyun's novel about a rural woman who petitioned for ten years over a divorce case, appealing all the way from the county level to Beijing. This film had a rough start from its project approval; originally scheduled for the National Day holiday release, posters had already been pasted on bus stops when the schedule was temporarily changed, dragging it out until November for release. I want to know, however, if it helps you, what benefits can I get?

I told Ang Lee, Las... if you can with Las... let alone beating people, even three people is a difference...

Then let's break it up. At a screening exchange session, a college student asked him if he encountered difficulties passing censorship. Feng Xiaogang said, hearing you worry about this makes me very sad; if our college students already have so much self-censorship awareness while in school, they truly have no future ahead. This film won him the Golden Horse Award for Best Director.

In June 2017, at a forum during the Shanghai International Festival, Feng Xiaogang said something that was dug up countless times later: with so much garbage in Chinese cinema, is it because there are many garbage audiences that so many garbage films are formed? That year, he directed "Youth", which tells the story of a group of young people in a military song and dance troupe in the seventies. Is this film driven by the entire era's atmosphere giving you passion, or is it something about this person's...

that kind of personality, or something that makes you have such a strong impulse?

This cannot be said.

This was the last item on his wish list that he mentioned, depicting his own youth. When he chose actresses, they had to be able to sing and dance, and could not have undergone plastic surgery. "Youth" was originally scheduled for release on September 29. With only a few days left before release, it was suddenly pulled from theaters. In October of that year, the CCP held its 19th National Congress. The film was finally dragged out until December 15 for release, grossing over 1.4 billion at the box office, making it his highest-grossing film ever. This was the peak of his box office success.

In September 2015, Feng Xiaogang registered a company named Dongyang Mela with a registered capital of five million, where he held ninety-nine percent. Two months after the company's establishment, Huayi Brothers forked out 1.05 billion yuan in cash to buy seventy percent of the company's shares. At the time of the acquisition, Dongyang Mela's total assets were 13,600 yuan, and its net assets were minus 5,500 yuan. What Huayi Brothers bought was not this company, but Feng Xiaogang himself. The condition was a gambling agreement: from 2016 to 2020, Dongyang Mela's annual post-tax net profit could not be less than 100 million, and had to grow by fifteen percent each year. If failed, the shortfall would be made up by Feng Xiaogang in cash. Someone calculated the math: adding up the five-year profit targets, it was about 670 million. Even if Dongyang Mela didn't make a single penny in five years, Feng Xiaogang would lose at most that much. Yet Huayi paid 1.05 billion, subtracting the two ends, he could still pocket nearly 400 million.

In 2016 and 2017, relying on I Am Not Madame Bovary and Youth, Dongyang Mela barely met its targets. In May 2018, Feng Xiaogang prepared to direct Cell Phone 2. Cui Yongyuan stood out, stating that the original Cell Phone had harmed him and his family, and proceeded to expose the yin-yang contracts of celebrities. We covered this matter in detail in the episode dedicated to Cui Yongyuan and will not expand on it here. As a result, the State Administration of Taxation intervened in the investigation, Huayi Brothers' stock hit the lower limit in a single day, evaporating more than two billion in market value, and Cell Phone 2 was shelved. That year, Dongyang Mela failed to meet its performance goals, and Feng Xiaogang paid sixty-eight million out of his own pocket to make up the difference.

In 2019, while listening to his songs with frustration, he directed Only Cloud Knows, a love story set in New Zealand. That year, Dongyang Mela had to achieve a profit of one hundred and fifty million, which entirely depended on this film. Four days after its release, the box office had just crossed one hundred million. Feng Xiaogang posted on Weibo at midnight to thank the audience, saying that since you spent money, scolding a few words to vent your anger was entirely deserved, and added that the hero was growing old. He even brought the lead actor Huang Xuan into the livestream room of e-commerce anchor Viya to sell movie tickets. The final box office was just over one hundred and fifty million. In 2020, he did not direct any films, and Dongyang Mela's net profit for the year was only five million six hundred thousand. After five years of gambling on performance, Feng Xiaogang paid over one hundred million yuan back and forth to Huayi Brothers. On the film slate released by Huayi Brothers for 2020 to 2021, there was originally a new film directed by Feng Xiaogang called Spring at Age One, ranked behind the new films of directors Lu Chuan, Stephen Chow, and Jia Zhangke. This film never received any news again. Huayi Brothers itself could no longer hold on, its market value falling by more than eighty percent compared to its peak in 2015, and chairman Wang Zhongjun began selling paintings to repay debts.

In 2022, someone photographed Feng Xiaogang and Xu Fan on the streets of Los Angeles in the United States, and rumors began to circulate online that their entire family had immigrated. Their adopted daughter Xu Duo was studying in high school in the United States at that time. Feng Xiaogang came out to clarify, saying he was merely sending his child to school, but rumors of immigration continued to spread for several years. In early 2025, during the Los Angeles wildfires, someone fabricated a story that his luxury mansion had been burned down, forcing him to come out and state that he had been filming in Haikou all along. In January 2023, the roster of members of the new Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was announced, and Feng Xiaogang's name was no longer among the 112 people in the culture and arts sector. Jackie Chan and Feng Gong were also not on this list. At the end of that year, he directed If You Are the One 3. If You Are the One from fifteen years ago was one of his highest-grossing films. This time, the box office was only one hundred and two million. During the Qingming Festival period in 2025, he directed Sunflower, starring Zhao Liying, telling the story of how several women survived after being released from prison. The original title of this film was The Story of Women Released from Prison. The box office revenue split was just enough to cover the production cost.

He still had one story left unfilmed, which was the script he sold thirty years ago. Unregretted Tracker was later made into a twenty-episode television series by the Beijing Television Art Center, receiving a rating of 9.4 on Douban. In 2024, Feng Xiaogang finally adapted it into a movie titled Catching Spies. He said the name was taken from a game he played as a child. The story begins on the day of the founding ceremony in 1949. Xiao Dalì, who had just entered the city and become the director of a police station, found primary school teacher Feng Jingbo in the same courtyard suspicious, determined that he was a covert agent left behind by the Kuomintang, and simply became his neighbor, keeping an eye on him for nearly forty years. Lei Jiayin played Xiao Dalì, and Hu Ge played Feng Jingbo. Alibaba Pictures provided a budget of two hundred million yuan, and Feng Xiaogang said the final settlement was 1.65 billion, saving more than thirty million. There is a scene in the film. Xiao Dalì catches Feng Jingbo having an affair with someone, pulls out his belt in one go, and Feng Jingbo has no choice but to pull up his pants and flee home in embarrassment. Some film critics wrote that Feng Jingbo at this moment was the director himself.

The premiere was scheduled at the Beijing Exhibition Center Theater. On the night of the premiere, after finishing the sentence that this was also a major exam, Feng Xiaogang said in front of more than two thousand people that he was particularly grateful to his wife Xu Fan. Singer Han Hong, who provided the film's score, also took the stage. She shouted to the audience: With a population of over twenty million in Beijing, can our Beijing brothers and sisters, men and women, show some face? Show some face? Get the first wave of box office going first, and then we'll have it! Showing some face is Beijing slang meaning to give face and show support. This video was uploaded online and met with curses. Some people said that watching a movie is buying a ticket with money, not giving a cash gift. Some asked, once the box office rises and you have it, what do we have? Some even dug up Feng Xiaogang's 2017 remark calling the audience trash, saying that since he scolded the audience as trash back then, he should apologize first now that he was begging the audience to give him face. Even Han Hong, who had been doing charity work for over a decade, was questioned, and people who had set up monthly donations to her foundation announced they were canceling their renewals. On June 19, Catching Spies was released during the Dragon Boat Festival period, and on its first day, its box office could not compare to Love Letter to Grandma, a dialect mini-film that had been released for fifty days. On June 30, Han Hong apologized on Weibo, saying her offhand remark was indeed too rash.

During this period, we have not found any public statement from Feng Xiaogang speaking up for Han Hong. Two months after the release of "The Spy," the box office reached 119 million yuan, failing to break even. On August 28, "The Spy" was released on online platforms. On Tencent Video, its popularity surged to the top of the charts, and a sentence often floated by in the bullet comments: "I owe Director Feng a movie ticket." In September, Feng Xiaogang accepted an interview with a column under Phoenix Weekly, talking about the film's losses for the first time. He said he felt very pained, adding, "I am very sorry to the investors; there are fewer and fewer such responsible investors now." He stated that the box office was interfered with by cyberbullying-style, irrational disruption, and said that his remark about "garbage audiences" back then was taken out of context. What he wants to say now is that high-quality films need high-quality audiences. He also admitted that even without the Han Hong incident, the film's box office might not have been very high, as audiences with life memories of that era are now less convenient to go to the cinema frequently. This year, Feng Xiaogang has not been idle. In March, he became the jury president for a section of the Beijing International Film Festival and played an official of the United Earth Government in "The Wandering Earth 3." In April, he joined the Art Committee of China Film Co., Ltd. alongside Chen Kaige, Wu Jing, and others. In August, the Changchun Film Festival invited him to be the jury president for the Golden Deer Awards. Official positions have been given to him one after another, yet the audience in the cinemas has not returned.

Looking back at Feng Xiaogang's life, he has always been looking for a place that would accept him, from the Party school compound to the Beijing circle, and then to the cinema. To get in, he would compromise and say nice things. When censorship killed his films, he would go on to make comedies that made everyone happy. Yet, he also said at the CPPCC meeting that censorship harms films. When he had saved enough capital to shoot "Back to 1942" and "Youth," the things he truly wanted to film, the censorship was still there, but the audience's tastes had changed. He once scolded the audience as garbage, and nine years later, he had to ask the audience to give him some face. In "The Spy," Feng Jingbo is indeed a latent spy left behind by the Kuomintang. Decades later, he runs into his former superior who arranged his infiltration at a wedding, but the other party no longer recognizes him. Hu Ge, who played Feng Jingbo, said that Feng Jingbo spent his whole life striving to be a model worker and winning various certificates just to prove to Xiao Dali that he could also be a good person. That is all for today. If this episode is valuable to you, please like,

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I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. See you in the next episode!