Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

Since Hong Kong's theater chains are independent, Hong Kong films pay great attention to their schedules.

During the four major schedules every year, major film companies will produce their most important movies to compete with each other.

Some awesome movie stars will even occupy the best schedules.

In 1992, Wing Sheng hit the revival block with Chow Sing-chi's "Fight Back to School 2", "The Deer and the Cauldron" hit the summer block, and "The No. Warriors Su Qier" hit the Lunar New Year block.

The following year, "The Year of the Dragon Celebrates the Rooster" and "Tang Bohu Spots Autumn Fragrance" were released for the New Year and summer seasons.

At the same time, Oriental Cinemas is targeting the New Year schedule with Chow Sing-chi's "Family Happiness", and Shaw Brothers is targeting the summer schedule with Chow Sing-chi's "The Judge Advocate."

In a very short period of time, the sensational "Myth of Zhou Xingchi" was created.

But there is no one like Yang Ye who releases a blockbuster movie during the most unpopular period of the year.

Ignoring the schedule, it still succeeded. This alone is enough to shock the industry.

However, for Yang Ye, the industry has become accustomed to it.

This time, Yang Ye gave up the most popular summer time and went to the coldest months of September and October to screen the film. Everyone should be grateful to him.

Therefore, when "Wushe Uprising" was released this time, almost no one said weird things. When everyone talked about it, they all praised it to death.

In particular, "Film Fortnightly" touted "Wushe Uprising" as a breakthrough for Hong Kong war movies, and that it raised this genre to its peak once it was released.

The actors in the movie, newcomers such as Liu Dekai and Ma Jingtao, suddenly became hot stars, with various roles constantly being booked.

Even actors in movies such as Xu Feng, Sylvia Chang, and Hu Huizhong suddenly received a lot of invitations.

In fact, they are just popular celebrities and have nothing to say.

However, these people are not in a hurry to take over the job for the time being and follow Yang Ye on road shows every day. Xu Feng didn't follow, she was taking care of her baby at home.

Roadshows have a very obvious impact on box office growth.

According to later statistics, every time a film's creators go on a road show, the film's box office revenue at nearby cinemas can increase by 30%.

Moreover, running road shows will not only increase the box office, but also increase the cohesion of fans, making them very loyal.

Even so, at this stage, only a few actors such as Yang Ye and Chen Long will run road shows, while other Hong Kong actors will not run road shows.

They have to shoot a lot of movies a year. After shooting this movie, they will shoot another movie immediately. They even have to work with several crews at the same time in one day, and they simply can't find time to do this.

Newcomers such as Liu Dekai and Ma Jingtao are not stupid. They know that following Yang Ye on road shows has great benefits.

Interacting more with the audience will go a long way in increasing your reputation.

After running in Hong Kong and Macau, Yang Ye led the team to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, where they ran two games each in local partner theaters.

I also visited the "Radio Asia" in both places and met with the employees.

Speaking of which, after I packaged and acquired these radio stations, I acted as a hands-off shopkeeper. Apart from sending people to check the accounts regularly, I did not take care of them at all. The employees of the radio stations were really happy.

On the eve of the Double Ten Festival, Yang Ye led the team to Taipei and officially started their road show in Taiwan.

Since this is a film about the Sidek people's resistance against Japan, in addition to the traditional locations of Taipei and Kaohsiung, two scenes were specially arranged in Yilan and Hualien, the hometown of the Sidek people.

……

Taipei, Ximending.

As early as 1896, there was the first theater "Tokyo Pavilion" here.

In the 1930s, there were many theaters and it developed into a famous movie street.

It was here that Lin Qingxia went shopping, was discovered by a talent scout, and became a superstar.

Yang Ye has not appeared in public in Taiwan for a long time.

As soon as this road show started, people immediately knew what the superstar style of riding a horse is.

More than 10,000 people gathered outside the China Film Theater, so crowded that the city government had to dispatch a large number of police officers to maintain order.

China Film increased the ticket price to NT$300 per ticket, and as soon as the tickets were released, they were sold out instantly.

Nowadays, scalpers can sell them for NT$1000 each, while the movie ticket price in Taiwan is only NT$60.

Soon, a float slowly drove over, with four big characters written on the front: Thank you everyone!

Yang Ye led a group of actors and stood on the float, waving to the crowd constantly, and the crowded crowd immediately became excited.

Countless little girls shouted Yang Ye's name desperately and crowded towards the float. Fortunately, the police had already pulled up the isolation belt, otherwise something might really happen.

Arriving at the entrance of the theater, a tattooed old man led two girls, holding a Seediq national costume in both hands, and stood waiting at the door.

Yang Ye quickly jumped out of the car and saluted the old man.

The old man said loudly: "Mr. Yang Ye, thank you for using the movie to recreate the forgotten history of fifty years ago and telling the story of our Seediq people to the world. You are our Seediq people's eternal friend." !”

Yang Ye solemnly took the national costume from him and put it on on the spot, and the crowd burst into cheers.

In fact, Yang Ye doesn't like to engage in this kind of battle, but there is nothing he can do if China Film requires it.

After all, this is their territory, and the second young master wants to achieve political success.

Taiwanese are divided into four major ethnic groups, those from other provinces, natives, Hakkas and aborigines.

The indigenous people were bullied by people from their own province. As a result, when people from other provinces came to Taiwan, they started to suppress the people from their own province because they had weapons in their hands.

The aborigines were so happy that they became staunch supporters of the Blue Camp.

This is also the reason why Yang Ye's filming of "Sediq Bale" received strong support from China Film.

For a movie to have such a battle, the treatment is even more awesome than the later "Wolf Warrior 2", and the box office can only be described as a smash hit.

So far, if a movie released in Taiwan is a phenomenal hit, it will only cost about NT$4000 million, with about moviegoers.

The ceilings for Taiwanese local films and foreign-language films are similar, so Yang Ye has exceeded NT$5000 million with "ET", a movie suitable for all ages and suitable for the whole family.

Speaking of which, considering Taiwan's population size, this box office is actually very unqualified.

Hong Kong's population is only one-third that of Taiwan, but its movie box office is twice that of Taiwan.

One problem here is... movie tickets in Taiwan are too expensive.

The average ticket price in Hong Kong this year is about NT$9, while the average ticket price in Taiwan is NT$60, which is about NT$12 when converted into Hong Kong dollars.

At this time, Taiwan’s per capita population was only half that of Hong Kong.

Watching movies is a very cheap pastime, and if the ticket price is too high, it will affect the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies.

For example, in mainland China in later generations, the most prosperous time for the film market was in the three years from 2016 to 2019. At that time, the ticket purchase website had a large number of ticket replenishments, and sometimes it only cost yuan to watch a movie, causing box office records to be constantly refreshed.

This is how the box office myth of "Wolf Warrior 2" came about, with 1.4 million moviegoers, an average of 37 people per game.

Later, although "Changjin Lake" surpassed "Wolf Warrior 2" at the box office, it only had 1.2 million moviegoers, with an average of only 22 people per game.

It's far worse than "Wolf Warrior 2", it just relied on high ticket prices to make it happen.

The ticket price is too high, and people are not that enthusiastic about watching movies. Who is willing to be a leek and be harvested by these grandsons?

Talking back to "Wushe Uprising", the treatment of this movie in Taiwan is almost the same as the treatment of the later "Wolf Warrior 2" in the mainland.

With official endorsement and popular support from the public, the box office soared. In just one month, it exceeded the 50 million mark and set a new box office record.

There are few theaters in Taiwan, and a popular movie needs to be sold for at least two months, and sometimes it will be re-released repeatedly within a year.

In the next few months, it can earn at least more than 10 million in box office.

This is just the upper part, there is also the lower part!

The second "Rainbow Bridge" is scheduled to be released on New Year's Day, because movie ticket prices in Taiwan will increase again next year, with the average price reaching NT$75.

Although Yang Ye understands that the price of movie tickets should not be too expensive, he can't make the decision. This movie is dominated by China Film in Taiwan.

Yang Ye spent a week traveling around Taiwan from south to north. Everywhere he went, he was warmly welcomed.

After the Kaohsiung road show, Yang Ye was preparing to go to Japan, when Yang Dengkui from the Northwest Gang suddenly came to visit.

"Haha! Mr. Yang, I haven't seen you for many years, and you are becoming more and more charming!"

Yang Yexin said, Damn, he finally came to the door.

In order to conquer Xu Feng, Yang Ye owed Yang Dengkui a huge favor.

In order to avoid future troubles, Xu Feng's cheating husband Ding Deyang was also drowned. This was also done by Yang Dengkui.

However, although Ding Deyang's future trouble was gone, Yang Dengkui became his trouble again.

After that incident, apart from Yang Ye going to Kaohsiung to help Yang Dengkui hold two concerts, the two parties had no other interactions.

Yang Ye shook hands with Yang Dengkui warmly and said, "Boss Yang, long time no see. I was just thinking about going to you for a drink, and you came."

"Young Master Yang, you are the pride of us Chinese people. How could you come to see me? Of course I should come and visit you!"

The two greeted each other politely for a while, and then Yang Dengkui said to a young man behind him: "Aping, this is your idol Young Master, why don't you come and meet me."

The man quickly stretched out his hands to shake hands with Yang Ye, and said with reverence: "Hello, Mr. Yang! I, Zhu Yanping, am a director. I have filmed all your movies over and over again and studied them dozens of times."

Taiwanese movies are mainly literary and artistic films, but Zhu Yanping is one of the few who makes commercial movies, and the box office is not bad. He is known as "Taiwan's Wang Jing", but his level is far behind Wang Jing.

Yang Ye smiled and said: "I'm interested!" and asked Yang Dengkui: "Bring a director here, is it..."

Yang Dengkui said: "I recently established a Dengkui Film Company and want to develop into the film industry. Mr. Yang, you are a big boss in the industry, so I came here to ask you for advice. I hope you can help me check it!"

"I see, it's time for dinner, why don't we chat while eating!"

"Well, if you're kind enough, I'll do the hosting and show you my kindness as a landlord!"

Yang Dengkui entertained Yang Ye with good wine and food, and then asked Zhu Yanping to take out a movie script and said: "Mr. Yang, we have a movie now, and we hope to invite Miss Lin Qingxia to star, but we learned that she has left the film for the time being. I have no choice but to come to you, hoping to invite Miss Lin to come out."

Yang Ye asked: "What movie?"

Zhu Yanping said: "This movie is called "Pink Corps". It is an anti-Japanese film. It tells the story of seven female generals who come together to destroy the Japanese army's biochemical city. We plan to invite seven popular Taiwanese female stars to star in this film. For the film, we have successfully invited six of them so far, leaving only one leading actress, and this is naturally Miss Lin."

"Pink Corps" is a big bad movie, the kind of bad movie. The main attraction is the seven beauties in the movie. In addition to Lin Qingxia, there are also the generation of diva Ye Qianwen, the innocent goddess Peng Xuefen, etc.

Yang Ye flipped through the script casually and said, "It's interesting, but I'm sorry, Qingxia won't be filming any movies for the time being."

Yang Dengkui didn't expect that Yang Ye would directly reject him, and couldn't help being stunned.

Yang Ye patted Yang Dengkui's shoulder and said: "Boss Yang, it's not that I don't give you face. Qingxia has really quit the film industry, let alone you. I want to hire her for my new film, but it won't work."

Yang Dengkui had no choice but to say, "Is it okay with Miss Lin Fengjiao?"

Yang Ye shook his head again and said: "The same goes for Fengjiao, she and Qingxia quit together."

Yang Dengkui was speechless. Isn't this too nonsense?

Two popular female stars suddenly retired quietly?

Yang Ye said helplessly: "Can I find someone else for you?"

Yang Dengkui said: "Does Mr. Yang have any recommendations?"

"Hu Huizhong, who participated in my movie some time ago, is also very famous in Taiwan, and her image is quite similar to Qingxia, and she is relatively cheap. How much is your investment in this movie?"

Yang Dengkui said: "It's a small fight, NT$500 million."

An investment of NT$500 million is not bad for Taiwanese movies. Many movies cannot sell this amount at the box office.

Moreover, this guy is involved in the underworld, and the prices he offers to those female stars are not market prices. He can pay half of the salary, which is already very respectable.

Yang Ye said: "With this little money, there will be nothing left after hiring Qingxia, and you won't be able to start work. Aaron's new movie is about to start shooting. Why don't you exchange Taiwan dollars for Hong Kong dollars and invest in Aaron's movie!"

Yang Ye decided to tie Yang Dengkui to his chariot and develop him into his partner in Taiwan.

In less than ten years, Taiwan China Film Group will decline, but this guy will be a godfather-level figure in Taiwan's entertainment industry in the future.

Yang Dengkui was stunned: "Is it okay?"

Yang Ye said with a smile: "What's wrong with this? Anyone who votes can vote, but I want to state in advance that Aaron is filming a Western film this time. The Western film "The Killer's Trench" he helped Jiahe film last year was rejected. of."

Five million Hong Kong dollars was not a small sum for Yang Dengkui, but the guy didn't even think about it and said directly: "I don't think you will cheat me, Mr. Yang, I'll invest the money!"

Yang Dengkui is a smart man. He knows that as long as Yang Ye is willing to cooperate with him, there will be many benefits.

So he didn't act like a black boss at all. He kept his attitude very low and had discussions with Yang Ye.

"Then it's settled. I will go to the United States to promote the movie on the eve of Thanksgiving. Then you can come with me and sign a contract with United Artists. Now Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest are investing in making movies in the United States, and we will also Go join in the fun.”

Yang Ye arrived in Japan in late October, by which time "Wushe Uprising" had already been painted in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.

The box office in Hong Kong was 2100 million, maintaining Yang Ye's status as a big boss; the box office in Po County was 130 million Singapore dollars, which is equivalent to more than 298 million Hong Kong dollars. The Malaysian box office is million ringgit, equivalent to more than million Hong Kong dollars.

The box office in the three places was very good, but it did not break the record. The main reason is that the movie has too many war scenes and the various beheading scenes are extremely bloody, which discouraged many parents with children.

Although they are all Chinese, there is still a difference between fighting on the mainland like Taiwan.

On the contrary, it was Japan, a foreign country where the war was fought, but the box office was so high that it was so popular that Yang Ye was dumbfounded. (End of chapter)