National Tide 1980.

What is even more unexpected is that after "The Gem of the Sea", "Death Song", which was released in mid-September, had a stronger box office.

This police and gangster film, which cost only 200 million yen to produce, actually sold nearly 650 million yen at the box office in Japan, becoming a small hit.

Why is this so?

In fact, it is mainly due to the fact that the action scenes are far more exciting than before.

It turns out that when Akira Okamoto was planning this movie, the filming of "The Bodyguard" had just started.

In order to estimate the shooting costs as reasonably as possible, Akira Okamoto, who knew that he lacked production experience, visited the shooting site many times and spent a lot of time observing the on-site shooting to learn, especially focusing on understanding the particularities of action scene shooting.

As a result, when he met Yuen Woo-ping on the set, he was unsurprisingly impressed by the action design skills of this "Eighth Master".

He felt like he had seen a new world, and eagerly requested Yuen Woo-ping to stay in Japan for a few more days after finishing the film.

No matter what, he wanted Yuan Heping to be the action director of his "Death Song".

To this end, in addition to offering Yuan Heping a treatment no less generous than that of the director of this film, he was even willing to overthrow the leading actor who was originally a burning artist but had no action foundation in accordance with Yuan Heping's requirements.

Instead, they re-selected Japanese artists based on their experience in sports and martial arts.

Finally, after negotiations with Toei's agency, Shinichi Chiba, who graduated from Nippon Physical Education University and studied Kyokushin Karate, was invited to play the male lead of this movie.

At the same time, he also accepted Yuan Heping's recommendation and brought the already famous Japanese female action stars Nishiwaki Michiko and Oshima Yukari into the crew to play the female villains opposite Chiba Shinichi.

As a result, Yuan Heping, who felt it was difficult to refuse the kind offer, had no choice but to serve as the action director of "Song of Death".

You have to know that the original level of Japanese action scenes was limited, and they were always just random fights with no artistry at all.

What's more, the rivalry scenes in Japanese action movies are basically fights between men.

Apart from Japanese swordplay films where the actors use samurai swords to hack and slash, modern police and gangster films are all about car chases and shootings.

It should be said that apart from the "Red Peony Gambler" series shot by Junko Fuji in the 1960s, there have been few female action stars in Japanese film history.

As a result, thanks to Yuen Woo-ping's suggestion, this movie suddenly had two beautiful girls playing villain roles.

Whether their moves are sinister or nimble and varied, it can be said that Yukari Oshima and Michiko Nishiwaki, who were trained in the Hong Kong film industry, are adept at action performance and each has their own characteristics.

But in the end, they all fell into the hands of the brave detective played by Shinichi Chiba.

Just thinking about this kind of plot makes people feel exciting.

This even inspired the director of the film - he temporarily changed the script and added a female killer who used seduction and poisoning as her means of killing.

Since this role focused on breathtaking beauty and elegant and delicate figure rather than physical strength, it was finally decided by Akira Okamoto to let the former "Nikkatsu's No. 1 Japanese Beauty" - Setsuko Ogawa, play the role.

This makes this movie almost a special show of Shinichi Chiba's "brutal destruction of flowers".

Although this film suffers from clichés in genre and a conservative plot, what is commendable is that its fighting scenes are quite innovative and groundbreaking.

Especially for the Japanese market, it is a real eye-opener for Japanese audiences who have only watched "Shaolin Temple" and "A Chinese Ghost Story" and have little knowledge of Chinese Kung Fu films.

On the day the film was released, Japanese audiences who walked into the theaters were all surprised to find - Hey? Why are Japanese police and gangster films different?

Ah! Our actors are so good at fighting scenes.

It's not worse than the ones shot in Hong Kong and mainland China...

Objectively speaking, this movie will not bring any sensational visual effects to these audiences.

But it is still refreshing and enjoyable to watch, at least male audiences generally approve of it.

So, through word of mouth, the box office exploded.

Speaking of which, it’s a bit like the feeling that mainland Chinese audiences had when they first watched Wolf Warriors 1.

In fact, even Ning Weimin thought it was good after watching it.

Not only did he discover that Shinichi Chiba, Michiko Nishiwaki, and Yukari Oshima were all familiar faces from Hong Kong movies, he couldn't help but wonder how Akira Okamoto put together such an action team. He also felt like he was watching a dark version of "Charlie's Angels".

Let's put it this way, the elements of commercial films are fully displayed in this movie. Although it is a popcorn movie that does not require any brains, the two points of "cool fighting" and "pleasing characters" are very outstanding and are enough to satisfy the appetite of the audience who like this type of film.

Moreover, based on his experience, he can even be certain that the market for this type of movie video tape usually has great potential and is likely to earn more than the local box office.

So for this reason, he had to admit that Okamoto Akira was not only lucky, but also had some brains.

This guy is able to learn with an open mind and make the best use of talents, which is why he won the first battle and achieved such good results.

Ning Weimin has even decided that as long as this guy doesn't become too inflated because of this.

Then the profits from these two films can be left to him next year, allowing him to operate the film projects at will.

To be honest, Ning Weimin's biggest hope for Akira Okamoto is that one day, even if he no longer needs to plagiarize anything, the self-sustaining ability of Kiri Studios led by Akira Okamoto will be enough to maintain its position as the "sixth largest" in the Japanese film industry.

From the current perspective, Okamoto Akira seems to have a certain ability to achieve this, and Ning Weimin will naturally spare no resources to train him.

In short, the actual achievements made by Fog Studio this year are indeed gratifying and uplifting.

Not only has it maintained the reputation that it worked so hard to earn in the first two years, but it also seems to be entering a virtuous cycle.

Especially in terms of economic benefits, it is almost unbelievably good.

After all, all the film and television projects invested and produced by Wu Studio throughout the year were profitable, and no work was a lag.

So far, the profits generated by film and television dramas are estimated to be around 9 billion yen, which is more than 70 million US dollars.

Even among the "Big Five" in the Japanese film industry, not every one of them can achieve this level of revenue.

Nikkatsu and Toei have not released any hit movies this year, so I'm afraid this year will be tough. After all, revenue is one thing, and profit is another.

However, this is not the entire profit of the industries under the name of Matsumoto Keiko. If we add in the box office share generated by the French film library that Ning Weimin bought for Matsumoto Keiko and the licensing fees paid to TV stations for broadcasting, the total is more than 500 million yen.

Add to that the 300 million yen in revenue that Taurus earned from music publishing this year.

There is also the artist management share of Matsumoto Agency, which is around 1.6 billion yen.

The entertainment business under the name of Matsumoto Keiko has currently been calculated to have generated revenue of 15.5 billion yen, which is equivalent to 130 million US dollars.

Even if the interest costs that Keiko Matsumoto needs to pay for bank loans are deducted, the final annual profit is expected to reach 150 million US dollars.

In this day and age, it is rare to find a film and television company or a music company that can make so much money within three years of its establishment.

Even if we look at the world as a whole, the several companies under Keiko Matsumoto's name should be considered to have astonishing profits, no less than the high-quality assets of those well-known production companies.

To put it bluntly, an entertainment group based in the film, television and music industries has begun to take shape. Although it is still in its dormant development stage, I believe that as long as it maintains this development trend, it will surely develop into a multinational industry giant in the near future and have a share of the global entertainment market.

Of course, Ning Weimin also knows that there is still a long way to go before he can finally achieve this goal.

In addition to the need to continuously produce good works every year, in order to achieve this, it is also important to spend a lot of money and accumulate resources in advance.

This not only means recruiting outstanding artists and directors, and excellent technical talents in the Internet industry, but also means acquiring the copyrights of various classic film and television works and music works, and even the copyrights of literary and comic works.

For example, a large portion of the film and television works produced by Hollywood every year are scripts derived from novels.

Among them are big-budget classic movies such as the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings series.

Superhero movies based on Marvel, as well as Japanese movies and TV shows adapted from comics or even video games, will become common phenomena in the future.

After all, the future is the era of the Internet and the era of big IP. These intangible cultural assets can not only create amazing economic benefits in themselves, but also serve as resources for the re-creation of literary and artistic works.

Some Hollywood companies even have a fixed expenditure of around 10% of their annual revenue on purchasing scripts.

Hollywood's "Big Seven" have all established their own script libraries, and then spread the cost of this money among the production costs of each film.

Even Mist Studios itself is based on the authorization of all the works of Seicho Matsumoto.

Ning Weimin, who has a long-term vision, naturally knows how to take action in advance. Just like when he bought the film library in France, he is also willing to spend some money as a favor and try his best to help his wife accumulate some high-quality cultural resources in Japan.

For example, his primary target was Haruki Murakami, the most dazzling star in the Japanese literary world that year, who triggered a literary boom.

Haruki Murakami started writing at the age of 29, and his first work, "Hear the Wind Sing", won the Japan Gunzo Newcomer Award.

In 1988, his fifth work, Norwegian Wood, was a bestseller as soon as it was released, making him famous and becoming a truly famous writer.

To date, sales in Japan have exceeded three million copies.

Ning Weimin also knows that this work is just the beginning. In the future, "Norwegian Wood" will change from a best-selling novel to a long-selling novel, and will be adapted into movies and released in various countries.

Even since then, almost every work of Haruki Murakami has been a best-seller, influencing a large number of young literary and artistic people and writers in East Asia.

In particular, Haruki Murakami is actually a staunch anti-war activist.

Unlike most Japanese, he was unwilling to face the sins committed by the Japanese during World War II. He even felt that he was not worthy of eating Chinese food because his father had participated in the war against China. He publicly expressed many times that he was ashamed of his father's crimes.

Such values ​​and stance also impressed Ning Weimin, so in late October, Ning Weimin began to contact him.

Not only did he represent Fog Films in proposing to bring "Norwegian Wood" to the screen, he also demanded to buy out the filming rights for the novel.

Moreover, Ning Weimin, based on his Chinese identity and his status as the owner of Huiwentang Bookstore, proposed to purchase the Chinese copyright of this work, and planned to translate the novel into Chinese and sell it in mainland China.

As expected, Haruki Murakami showed great patience and kindness towards Ning Weimin who took the initiative to visit him.

According to Japanese industry practice, for a best-selling novel like "Norwegian Wood", asking for 6 million yen for the filming rights is not excessive. The copyright of the novel is calculated by multiplying the number of copies printed by the list price and then by 7% or %.

But at that time, because the Republic had not yet joined the World Copyright Convention, it was unable to grasp the sales situation in mainland China. Murakami Haruki should have filed a claim based on Japanese copyright. In this case, the total price of 80 or 90 million yen would have been reasonable.

As a result, Murakami Haruki chose Ning Weimin precisely because he is Chinese, and considering that Ning Weimin had to hire someone to translate his novels in China, and that mainland China is a third world country with a low level of consumption.

Therefore, as he attached more importance to the influence of his work, he took the initiative to give Ning Weimin a big discount.

For an offer of 50 million yen, the filming rights of this best-selling work and the distribution rights of the Chinese version of the novel were given to Ning Weimin.

Ning Weimin was delighted by such kindness.

So he also returned the favor, saying that since Murakami-san was so sincere, he decided to expand the scope of cooperation and simply ask Murakami Haruki to hand over all five completed works to him, and then negotiate a package price.

In this way, the two parties finally reached a deal at a price of 110 million yen, and Ning Weimin bought out the filming rights to all of Haruki Murakami's works and the distribution rights to his Chinese novels.

As for the future, that goes without saying.

Given the pleasant foundation between the two parties, this cooperation is probably just the beginning.

Whenever Haruki Murakami has a new work, he will definitely give priority to continuing his collaboration with Ning Weimin.

In addition to literary works, there are also comic works. In addition to working hard for the Mist Film Studio, Ning Weimin has not forgotten his local fellow villagers.

The comic book "Chibi Maruko-chan" was serialized in 1986. The animated adaptation was completed in 1988 and started to be broadcast on TBS TV in October. It was only when Ning Weimin saw it that he remembered that this was a very popular work in the mainland.

So I was able to get in touch with the animation company and the comics company through TBS.

Then, with their cooperation, on the grounds that the Republic had not yet joined the World Copyright Convention, all rights to this animation and comics in mainland China, including commercial applications, were bought out for only 40 million yen.

It must be said that this is a case of using power to pressure others, and using TBS to take advantage of new authors. (End of this chapter)