{"id":2789,"date":"2012-12-17T09:14:08","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T09:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ft-agency.com\/wordpress\/?p=2789"},"modified":"2012-12-17T09:14:08","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T09:14:08","slug":"water-armies-there-has-been-an-increase-of-on-line-film-rating-wars-like-in-any-war-does-anybody-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ft-agency.com\/wordpress\/water-armies-there-has-been-an-increase-of-on-line-film-rating-wars-like-in-any-war-does-anybody-win\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWater Armies\u201d There has been an increase of on-line film rating wars..like in any war does anybody win?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently the Chinese films\u00a01942<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Last Supper<\/em>\u00a0were released and allegedly set off a war between \u201cwater armies\u201d (\u6c34\u519b) \u2013 groups of people who are paid to leave negative reviews online.<\/p>\n

Water armies have shown up in other business rivalries like\u00a0the \u201c3Q\u201d war<\/a>\u00a0between 360 and QQ, as well as\u00a0between the two dairy companies<\/a>\u00a0Yili (\u4f0a\u5229) and Mengniu (\u8499\u725b). Guo Degang (\u90ed\u5fb7\u7eb2), a popular Chinese comedian, has said this practice shows \u201cbald hatred among people in the same industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Film is an especially popular industry for water armies, as word of mouth is playing an increasingly important role in the market. When these people go to movie review sites in droves and leave one out of five stars for a given film, it can actually influence box-office performance.<\/p>\n

Li Jing (\u674e\u9759), director of a documentary called\u00a0Matters of Life and Death<\/em>, shed some light on the practice through her Weibo. She admitted that she led a counter-water army for\u00a0The Last Supper<\/em>\u00a0to balance out those who\u2019d been hired to attack it. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to hide,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the water army didn\u2019t start it so crazily, our team wouldn\u2019t have joined in.\u201d<\/p>\n