Look, I'm going to swear in this episode

Buckle up

I've been agonizing over how to properly convey the terribleness of this movie

And I think I got it

I'm going to show you one verse

Just ONE VERSE

Of its theme song...

Ready?

"Into Into Into Showbiz"

"Biz Biz"

"Biz Biz Biz Biz"

"Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz"

"Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz"

"Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz"

"Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz Biz"

The whole f**king song is like this!

For those of you who are unaware

Pure Hearts: Into Chinese Showbiz is widely regarded as one of the worst Chinese movies

To ever grace the silver screen

Of nearly 88,000 votes on Chinese review site, Douban

96% of them gave this movie a one star rating

It has a 1 star out of 10 on IMDb!

Look at that damn poster!!

Sigh...

Needless to say, this movie became an Internet sensation in China

Not in a "so-bad-it's-good" sort of way

"Anyway, how's your sex life"

But rather, everyone despises this movie

From the film itself

To the drama behind the scene

And everything it stands for

But I don't want to just make fun of this movie

Plenty of channels already did that

And comedy is not why you are here

You want a video essay

So I'm gonna dig into this pile of sh*t with my bare hands

To show you how and why this movie is so bad

And so offensive

Welcome, to the worst Chinese movie ever made

Let's start with the writing...

If you can call it writing

Pure Hearts: Into Chinese Showbiz tells the story of a class in an acting school

And everyone's struggles and sacrifices in the pursuit of their dream career

And by everyone, I mean EVERYONE!

The film has whooping 11 plotlines

One minute we see this girl

Whom I'll name "Purity" (you'll know why later)

Having a crush on his teacher

"I have never fallen in love with anybody"

"But it so happens"

"That I seem to have a strange feeling on Mr. Wen"

Next minute, we are looking at these two "Chads"

Walking around, hitting on girls

That's all we know about them, by the way

No, as in, for the rest of the movie

And a minute later, two "Stacys" show up

And start talking about how they date older rich men

To get ahead in life

Not to mention the dance sequences

Yeah, dance sequence

Uncomfortable yet?

The movie has no structure

Summarizing it is practically impossible

But I'm going to try anyway

The main story, I think...

Is about the teacher

Played by the writer-director--

(Are you f**king surprised?)

His girlfriend leaves him one night

Because he's a failed artist and poor

"Also, that's actually not my home"

"Only a leased apartment"

To gain back her love

The teacher decides to, what else, make a movie with his students

In the process of funding his project

Multiple of his students were sexually harassed and assaulted

By perverted directors and producers

...Of course

So it's pretty much a story of him saving his students

Sprinkled with unrelated plotlines

Like this "Pretty Boy" getting into a relationship with a sugar mama

Or this "Good Boy" losing his legs in a car accident

And that's it, that's the entire character arc

He shows up twice in the movie

Once to establish him as a lone son in a poor single parent household

Then he comes back later in the movie to lose his legs

Trust me, there is just about as much info in my narration

As in the movie

Because, let's get to the heart of the problem here

The movie is just a quick amalgamation of tropes

Forbidden love between a teacher and a student

Sexual bribery

The starving artist

The Tragedy

Sugar mama

Mobsters

Perverted Director

Perverted Producers

Rape

Suicide

These are not stories

They are sh*t that the director finds fascinating

And inserted into the movie with no care whatsoever

The movie has no interest in further exploring these topics

The forbidden love bothers no one whatsoever

The sexual bribery takes Stacey zero seconds to make the commitment

Suicide comes and goes with no ill effects on the characters

The director has nothing to say about any of these things

How could he?

There are overused tropes from popular media

Digested versions of stories from other films and TV shows

It is not the director's personal experience

As a result, the characters and events are detached from reality

The film has no nuance or genuine emotion

It doesn't want to ask the hard questions

It is not interested in the substance of good movies

It just wants to... LOOK like other good movies

All it wants

Is to keep up an image

Keep that in mind as we go forward

When a movie is recognized as bad

It's more often than not aesthetically bad

And that's the fun part

I mean, how do you come to the conclusion that this looks good?

But if we take what we learn from our discussion on the film's writing

Suddenly, this film's questionable aesthetic choices

Make a lot more sense

Let's start with the title screen

Gold...

And diamond...

Hmm... I wonder what joke I'm goin--

"We were inspired by the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles"

Pompous

That's how I'd describe this movie's aesthetic

From the John Wick inspired typography

To the tacky variety show chapter screens

This movie is again, a buffet of--

Wait, what the f**k?

F**k?

Despite the film's focus on troubled artists

And the half-hearted lesson on not taking shortcuts in the road to success

"Put it back on"

The movie is hellbent on putting up a "wealthy" display

From the landscape drone shots

To the boats, wines and babes

To race cars

To the inclusion of a skydiving scene at the end of the movie that serves no purpose

Other than to blow the budget, I guess

Even though the story tells us we are in a sleazy area

The camera is practically licking this sexy DJ

In other words, the film doesn't even believe in its own message

It wants to look rich

And it's taking every shortcut to do so

And if you are still unconvinced

In the end credits, you can see the movie flaunts its expensive production

Helicopters

Race cars

Skydiving

Pop stars

Jackie is proud of his stunts

That's what you see in his movie end credits

Stephen Chow is proud of his characters and jokes

That's what you see

This movie doesn't want to show you the acting

All it cares about is looking expensive

Keeping up the appearance

Now, we know how is this movie bad

It's one big buffet of tropes

But the real question is, "why"?

First, why is this bad?

Well, obviously, it's lazy

But then, why is laziness so bad?

Well, let's take a closer look:

Purity here has no character arc

Her entire point in the story is to be saved by the teacher

From being sexually assaulted

Her purity and virginity become the most valuable and characteristic aspect of her

"I guess you are still a virgin?"

The Pretty Boy decides to leave his Sugar Mama

Not because of his conscience

As he was using the Sugar Mama's money

But to pursue another girl

He leaves, because he is under too much pressure from cheating

"I'm stressed out everyday"

His mistake almost kills his teacher

And his regret is enough to gain back the love of his girlfriend

And the teacher's love interest

She is not a real character

She exists as a roadblock and a reward

She has no ambition

Her only ambition is for the teacher to git gut

So that she can marry him

And have a good life

"What I need is a real home"

"And a real man I can rely on"

Because when the director is too lazy to think about his story

Unintentional messages begin to emerge

It's all because acting schools are said to be a world of pretty girls"

Often, they are problematic views

Internalized by a director who's unwilling to challenge himself

"Plump as she may be"

"I really like her so much"

In this case, it's misogyny

Manifested on, practically every single female character in this movie

When your desire in life isn't to pursue the substance

When you only want to keep up the image

Your worst qualities will never go away

And they will manifest

"And this suit of clothes cost 8,000 yuan"

But there is one character that's flawless

Who does no wrong

"Mr. Wen is pretty young"

"But he is very talented too."

Played by the writer-director

The teacher's love interest is widely considered to be the most photogenic of all the actresses

Coincidentally, they are the only couple to have a kissing scene

All actors in this film are alledgedly unpaid volunteers

Most of them, at the time of filming, were still students

They were frequently overworked

9 actors chose to leave the production because of this

Actors were given extra duties unrelated to the film

The night before Chinese New Year

The director called and gathered them up for group activities

After only 3 hours of sleep

The director woke everyone up

To participate in the flag ceremony

Behind the scene dramas are numerous in this production

That's why the film is so notorious

"I feel like that's not a music video"

"It's an album for future blackmailing"

When pre-release reviews were released

With quote-unquote "experts" giving hollow, non-specific compliments

"The chapter titles are very well done"

Chinese audience understandably gets suspicious

A short investigation reveals that the film festival this movie was shown in

Is nothing more than an award farm

Finally, as soon as the film is released to the public

The reviews show the film as what it truly is

A piece of sh*t

Instead of accepting the criticism

The director sue the review site for suppressing review scores

This movie isn't just bad

It is offensive

A narcissistic director

With delusion of grandeur

Who refuse to accept criticism

And fails to see his moral failure

And I don't just hate the movie

I hate what it stands for

Searching had a budget of 880,000 dollars

Halloween, 325,000

The Following, 6000

This movie cost over 3 million!

And they can't even find a font that works properly

Half of the characters reverted back to the default font

Somehow, even the attempt at keeping up the appearance is half-assed

Just really shows you how much the director cares about this vanity project

Then again, what do you expect from an artist who's too lazy to challenge himself