Browsing through various forums, especially the main battlegrounds of fans and critics, the scene could only be described as a field of corpses.

And these “corpses” weren’t from recent fierce battles, but rather dug up from their “graves.”

“I heard this film doesn’t appeal to Chinese people or foreigners? Got it, Cannes must not be run by foreigners.”

“Critics have revoked Cannes’ foreign status. I suggest our country adopt the homeless Cannes, move it to Jingzhou, and rename it the Tenda Film Festival.”

“Tenda Film Festival? Are you implying that Tenda used its wealth to bribe the jury? Congratulations, you’ve found the truth! (dog emoji)”

“This film truly became popular purely through marketing. When the overseas box office was poor, they went to Cannes to win an award. The marketing is confirmed! (dog emoji)”

“Looking back, ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ indeed had a good release slot. If it had been released during an even better period, it probably would have completely outshone several other popular films.”

“The big-budget films that avoided clashing with ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ must be sliding on their knees in celebration in their living rooms right now. They should be feeling increasingly scared in retrospect.”

“Can you repeat that joke? Which one? The one about the foreign blockbuster. ‘Star Journey! A true foreign blockbuster has arrived!’ Hahahaha!”

“I heard foreign audiences don’t fall for this approach, yet today foreign theaters not only extended ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’s’ screening period but also increased its showings. Once again, a solemn announcement to all foreigners: watching this film risks having your citizenship revoked, please watch with caution!”

…

Similar comments were visible throughout various forums. The previous critics’ comments and posts were dug up and repeatedly mocked.

Many critics, beaten into hopelessness, either deleted their comments, turned off commenting, or, most commonly, just played dead.

There was no help for it—the results were the best comeback!

Previously, critics had seized on ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’s’ poor overseas box office performance to create an extensive narrative, almost confirming that only domestic audiences liked the film while foreigners didn’t.

But the award at Cannes was too prestigious, directly reversing the situation. All previous criticisms had collapsed without needing to be attacked!

Pei Qian leaned back in his executive chair, speechless.

It wasn’t that he wanted to see these things, but he really had no choice!

The entire internet was discussing it. Even when he tried to check out some pretty girls on Weibo, he would come across related content. It was a 360-degree penetration with no blind spots. The critics’ “corpses” were hung everywhere and repeatedly flogged—truly heartbreaking for those who heard about it and tearful for those who witnessed it.

Pei Qian silently mourned for these brave warriors in his heart.

“I’m sorry you had to suffer! The next film will definitely clear your false accusations! Please believe in me once more!”

After browsing through some popular discussion threads, Pei Qian wondered if the ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ matter would finally fade away.

The popularity had been too persistent!

He never imagined a film could have such lasting power. Since its release in February until now, the online buzz has never stopped.

Most fatally, each wave of overwhelming online attention increased the purchases and viewership of ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ on AiLiDao.

Pei Qian was very puzzled—how could there still be new viewers at this point?

This reminded him of that famous meme: Who hasn’t bought GTA5 yet?

Fortunately, the nightmare was finally almost over.

All the nightmares that needed to happen had already occurred. They had even won an award at an international film festival—surely things would quiet down now?

All the angles for excessive praise had been exhausted. Couldn’t they finally let this film rest in peace?

Pei Qian decided to stop paying attention to this matter and let the buzz gradually dissipate.

However, just as he was about to close the webpage, Pei Qian inadvertently glimpsed a post.

“Why Did ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ Win the Jury Prize?”

Pei Qian couldn’t help but sigh—another post with the usual excessive praise.

He had seen too many such posts already.

When ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ successfully won the Jury Prize, various self-media outlets riding the popularity wave had already published many similar posts. They typically explained the importance of Cannes and the Jury Prize, described the previous time a domestic film won this award, analyzed why ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ matched the Cannes jury’s taste and successfully won this major award, and finally revisited the film’s spiritual connotations and artistic value.

Pei Qian had seen many such articles and wasn’t particularly interested.

However, seeing that this post had unexpectedly high popularity, Pei Qian hesitated, then clicked on it.

Yet after reading just the first sentence, Pei Qian felt like he might faint.

…

“Seeing this title, do you think I’m going to explain why ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ won an award?”

“Wrong!”

“What I want to ask is, why did ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ win the Jury Prize and not the Palme d’Or?”

“As everyone knows, this year’s Cannes awarded the Jury Prize to ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ and gave the Palme d’Or to ‘Journey of the Soul,’ a Southeast Asian film.”

“Many people were overjoyed simply because ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ won the Jury Prize, but they don’t seem to have considered this question: why didn’t ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ win the Palme d’Or?”

“A simple comparison reveals that ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ and ‘Journey of the Soul’ have many similarities.”

“‘Journey of the Soul’ tells the story of a poor farmer who, after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, sees the souls of deceased family members and follows these souls to discover his past life. The film uses non-professional actors, and the characters’ dialogues are mostly improvised, with minimal editing and extensive use of long takes.”

“Although ‘Journey of the Soul’ presents an exotic atmosphere and some supernatural elements, seemingly more aligned with the Cannes jury’s taste for artistic value, it must be said that compared to ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow,’ this film doesn’t have such a clear advantage even in terms of artistry and depth.”

Conversely, ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ addresses concerns about wealth disparity, the alienating effect of money, how capital manipulates technology to control people’s lives, and people becoming mere data. Compared to ‘soul,’ it clearly evokes more widespread resonance, with deeper connotations.”

“Many people in China, due to their unfamiliarity with Cannes, instinctively believe that domestic films naturally wouldn’t appeal to those jury members, so not winning the Palme d’Or is normal. This is absolutely a misinterpretation!”

“In my view, compared to ‘Journey of the Soul,’ the jury must have also highly regarded ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow.’ According to inside information, the Palme d’Or actually went through three rounds of voting before the final decision.”

“Clearly, what seems like a settled award ceremony actually involved many twists and turns in places we couldn’t see.”

“Considering that ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ won the Jury Prize, effectively making it the second place in the main competition, it must have been a contender in these three rounds of voting.”

“That’s why I raised the initial question: why didn’t ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ win the Palme d’Or?”

“If you agree with the above conditions, please continue reading.”

“In my opinion, there are two noteworthy reasons why ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ lost to ‘Journey of the Soul’ by the narrowest of margins in the final Palme d’Or selection.”

“First is the unwritten rule common to international film festivals. As is well known, these international film festivals, in order to compete for better film resources and better maintain the value of their own awards, tend to favor films premiering at their festivals.”

“Some films that have already won awards at other festivals or have already gained extreme recognition are often not given evaluation eligibility by festivals like Cannes, because this would be like using their own popularity to benefit others, which is unfair to those ‘favorite directors’—that is, directors who premiere their films at the festival for several consecutive years.”

“Exceptions are made only for exceptionally outstanding films.”

“And ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ had already been released overseas. Fortunately, due to ineffective marketing and low attention, it was lucky enough to be selected for the main competition and won an award based on its own excellent quality.”

“But regardless, not premiering at Cannes made ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ lose significant points in the jury’s evaluation.”

“The second reason is mainly my speculation—take it as you will.”

“Actually, the first part of ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ should have been very much to the jury’s taste, but the problem is… do you remember the easter egg at the end of the film? The handgun someone left at the protagonist’s door?”

“As for whether this easter egg would appeal to the jury… you can judge for yourselves.”

“Perhaps without this easter egg, ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ would have had a higher chance of winning.”

“Finally, let me mention something interesting.”

“Do you know that in 1998, another film won the Cannes Jury Prize? Thirteen years ago, it won the same award as ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow.'”

“This film was called ‘Life is Beautiful,’ ‘La vita è bella’ in Italian.”

“And the English name of ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ is ‘Tomorrow is Beautiful.'”

“After thirteen years, two equally excellent works with similar names won the same award—there seems to be some mysterious connection.”

“Interestingly, although ‘Life is Beautiful’ only won the Jury Prize, its reputation among domestic film fans far exceeds that year’s Palme d’Or winner.”

“In conclusion, we should be happy that ‘A Beautiful Tomorrow’ won at Cannes. However, we shouldn’t feel regretful just because it only won the Jury Prize. This film definitely deserves more acclaim than we imagine. Let’s look forward to the ‘light of domestic cinema,’ Fei Huang Studio, creating more and better works for us in the future!”