Chapter 643: Tiger Brother’s Film Review |
On the first day of *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2*’s public release, it successfully leaped to the top of the daily box office, firmly holding the number one spot in the Spring Festival slot.
Hot on its heels was another family comedy, *Bomb Bumpers*, starring a veteran Award-Winning Actor who has dominated the Spring Festival slot for years. Right behind that was the big-budget, spectacle-filled action film *Eagle Chase*, while in fourth place sat our familiar gatekeeper—a certain animated feature film.
Although the competition for the box office crown still looked fierce given the current situation, *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2* maintained a significant advantage, even managing to suppress the other films to a certain extent.
After the first day of screenings had settled in, viewers who had already watched the movies began posting their opinions on various platforms one after another.
The audience’s old friend for film reviews, Tiger Brother, also followed his well-worn routine by releasing his latest video during the eight o’clock prime time slot.
Today, he went all out as well, watching all four movies in one go. Aside from skipping the fourth-place animated film on the grounds that it was the gatekeeper, he also checked out the fifth-place tearjerker.
This time, he learned from his last mistake and deliberately saved the movies he thought were good for last, ensuring he could still have a perfect viewing experience after choking down the “garbage”—instead of closing his eyes at night and hallucinating an endless sea of crap, completely unable to escape.
After finishing the last movie, *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2*, Tiger Brother rushed home without a moment’s rest and started drafting his script and producing the video.
Way back when the Spring Festival films first began their marketing campaigns, Tiger Brother, like other bloggers, had already put out his trailer predictions in advance, pre-ranking the festival’s films.
Now that *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2* sat comfortably at number one, and while the third-place action film *Eagle Chase* couldn’t outpace second-place *Bomb Bumpers*, it was still hot on its heels and boasted the highest opening scores, Tiger Brother finally let out a long sigh of relief.
After watching all the films, Tiger Brother gave a very objective rating in his video.
“Overall, for this Spring Festival slot, if you want the best quality, the best viewing experience, and crave big scenes with punch-to-punch action, I strongly recommend *Eagle Chase*. With this action film, I can tell the production team really put their heart into it—no forced sentimentality or deliberate dumbing down, and the entire cast’s performances were spot-on… If you’re interested, don’t miss it.”
“As for the ultimate box office champion, I’m still betting on *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2*. This work perfectly embodies Director Zhuang’s style—it’s an incredibly polished popcorn blockbuster. Fast pacing, dense laughs, grand spectacles, plenty of twists—you don’t need to rack your brain digging into the plot. It’s just satisfying, lively, and stress-relieving to watch, perfectly matching the Spring Festival slot’s goal of whole-family enjoyment for pure fun. It doesn’t have any profound literary depth or deeper meaning. This is Director Zhuang’s comfort zone, and I think there are very few domestic directors right now who have such a clear head like him.”
“Zhuang Hongyi is a director, but he’s also a businessman. He creates whatever the audience likes, perfectly hitting the sweet spots that resonate with the majority of moviegoers. I think that’s exactly why he’s become a ten-billion-dollar box office director. For us, it’s actually a good thing, but for other directors, it might be a point worth criticizing… Ahem, I won’t go into detail here about each director’s artistic pursuits.”
“Actually, way back during *Phantom Thief 1*, everyone should have already vaguely guessed his ambitions. He used *Phantom Thief 1* to set up the world background of the Master Thief Alliance, then used *Phantom Thief 2* to let us glimpse a hidden corner of that world. The settings layer on top of each other, and the world-building is complete and grand. I have to admit, even I’ve been hooked by him and am starting to look forward to the third installment.”
“I think as long as he can maintain his current level, the *Phantom Thief* series is bound to become one of the most successful series in the Spring Festival slot…”
Maybe because the quality of these few films was pretty decent, Tiger Brother analyzed quite a bit, going all the way from the actors and plot of *Eagle Chase* to the main characters of *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2*. Finally, he paused and broke into his familiar smile.
“As for *Phantom Thief 2*, my longtime fans should already know who I’m about to talk about. He’s also a regular on our channel—that’s Xiao He.”
“To be honest, I’ve already gone over a lot of his roles. The fact that he’s made it this far is something me and the audience have watched from the very beginning. Every time I see his new work, I’m still blown away. This guy really keeps improving and works incredibly hard.”
“And when you think about it, back during *Phantom Thief 1*, I really did watch him rise up from a small role. When he shot *Phantom Thief 1*, he was just an ordinary cameo, appearing on screen for less than three minutes, with precious little dialogue, much of it dubbed in later. But even then, his entrance amazed a lot of people.”
“I have to say, Director Zhuang really has a knack for finding gold. When he first signed Xiao He for that cameo, he probably never imagined the guy would become a Dual Best Actor. Now that *Phantom Thief 2* is out, his role has shot up in screen time, officially joining the world rankings as a named character.”
Seeing an actor he had been high on from the start go from a minor cameo to a major supporting role with substantial screen time, Tiger Brother felt a swell of pride.
Who gets it?! He’s been following Xiao He since the *Killing Life* days!
Back then, that Zhu Third Brother role—because the mask of hypocrisy didn’t look much like Xiao He himself—was often overlooked by fans when they did role retrospectives. In fact, because it was so long ago, many newer fans didn’t even know that role was played by Xiao He. But Tiger Brother was different—he got to know Xiao He starting from that very point!
So, rounding it all up, he could pretty much count himself as one of Xiao He’s early benefactors. How was that not spotting a gem with a keen eye?
“Now, I’m really looking forward to the third installment. I feel like *Phantom Thief 3* will properly expand a lot of the important world-building and plot. Plus, the White-haired Hacker Blank’s role should get even more focus. Maybe he’ll officially become a permanent member of the main team.”
“The only pity is that the place name mentioned in that extra scene is really hard to identify. I don’t know if any lip-sync experts out there have figured it out yet. Where will the next story of *Phantom Thief 3* take place? Feel free to share your thoughts in the bullet comments or the comment section below. Let’s discuss it together.”
As soon as Tiger Brother’s video was released, its heat skyrocketed across all platforms.
Actually, there was one point Tiger Brother didn’t analyze: the traffic and heat brought by the main cast of *Phantom Thief 2* was the highest in this Spring Festival slot.
No matter which film in the later ranks brought in popular young stars or established actresses, none could match the combined heat of the actors in *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2*.
If, before, it was just Xie Jingshi’s own heat and Chen You’s National Recognition propping up the film, then Xiao He, coming from behind, had undoubtedly pushed the movie’s heat to another level entirely.
Even the comment section below was basically full of discussions about *Phantom Thief 2*, with the names of the protagonist Lu Xiaokong and Shi Ji appearing the most, followed closely by the White-haired Hacker Blank. From this, it was easy to see that *Phantom Thief 2*’s Spring Festival box office would likely surpass even Tiger Brother’s predictions.
Without a doubt, having Xiao He cameo in the Phantom Thief series was one of Zhuang Hongyi’s most successful investments.
