Along with its success at the box-office, the debate and criticism that Feng Xiaogang's latest movie Personal Tailor triggered have never stopped. On Sunday, this war of words evolved to another level when Feng expressed his disgust with some film critics on his Sina Weibo account.

Ever since Personal Tailor hit the big screen on December 19, the endless criticisms about Feng's failure were sprawled media and the Internet. An article on ifeng.com gathered some harsh criticism. One named Daqihupi wrote: "Personal Tailor is not respecting movies and looking down on audience, only advertisements, the only worthy things are some jokes."

On Sunday morning, Feng wrote seven posts on his Sina Weibo defending his movies and expressing his strong dissatisfaction with critics. In one post, Feng wrote: "I'm not afraid of offending you, and I will be always be irreconcilable with you. The second story in Personal Tailor is exactly satirizing you."

In another of his posts, he also referred to those film critics as "big tail wolf," a term coined in northern China that denotes an empty minded person who pretends to know it all.

While those remarks are crazily spreading and have caused a tremendous amount of concerns, Feng still showed up as planned at the press conference for Personal Tailor on Sunday afternoon, together with the stage veterans of this movie Song Dandan, Fan Wei, and Li Chengru.

Bittersweet reality

Feng explained the causes for his anger and what led him to make these remarks.

A film critic, Zhou Liming, unlike other critics, gave the film a positive review.

"They hated the social commentary embedded in the film. For me, it is a sign of Feng's social conscience which, despite the uneven treatment, deserves credit." Zhou wrote.

He also went to a discussion held be China Film Museum, during which audience participated gave different opinions and gave an average 7.5 points.

This positive review caused a backlash, with some claiming that Zhou's flattery was a result of a bribe given to him by the makers of the movie.

Zhou suffered from a wide range of criticism due to his relatively positive review. "Never have I cared about whether my take on a film belongs to the majority or minority, whether it agrees with the elite or the masses. I only care that it speaks my mind," he wrote in his Weibo account on December 23.

Feng could not bear this unfair accusation so he stood out to speak for Zhou, as well as for his movies.

Breakthroughs

"Not all comedies will make you laugh out loud, some comedies are satirical," Feng said.

In this movie, Feng continued to satirize reality. In the first plot, he satirizes corruption in the government, which is a courageous move. Since his movies contain plots such as this, some are unlikely to be given the green light by the censorship board.

During the press conference, Feng said that this movie pushed the limits and made satirizing the government an acceptable topic in movies, and no other movies could set this trend.

In fact, most of his works face a similar situation, pushing the boundaries for topics. He stressed that A Sigh (2000) broke the taboo of extramarital topics, A World Without Thieves (2004) allowed thieves to become main characters, Assembly (2006) changed the way humanity was portrayed during wars, Back to 1942 (2012) was an reinterpretation of China's dark history and Personal Tailor satirizes the powerful status.

"I did my responsibility as a director of Chinese movies, whether it be for the purpose of creativity or marketing," Feng wrote.

He also said at the press conference that he has no conflicts with audiences and that he could tolerate their comments since they already paid to watch the movie. But he could not bear the "so-called film critics" who pretend to have a knowledge of movies and give harsh comments when they do not understand at all.

Most of those who criticized the film noted the similarities to his first hit film Dream Factory (1997), which made Feng famous, and said that Personal Tailor could not compete with its success. However, Feng revealed that Dream Factory was suffering from exact same criticism from critics when it first released.

This dispute goes on. Some said that Feng is small-minded and that his language was inappropriate. Actress Song Dandan, also a friend of the director, described him as sincere.

"People should protect their attitudes and sincerity," Song said.

"If one day they keep silent, it's sad for our times."

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