Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

Good things also need marketing!
The song "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies" immediately became more appealing after being adapted to the movie's plot.

After the premiere, all the bigwigs invited by Yang Ye attended it. After returning, they praised the film and highly recommended it.

Especially Huang Zhan, he has columns in several newspapers. He not only writes film reviews of "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies", but also writes music reviews of "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies".

Recommending the movie and the song together was very powerful and attracted many readers to go to the cinema to watch it.

After a lot of hype, "Boundless Sky" successfully took over "Farewell My Concubine" and earned 1900 million in box office within two weeks of its release.

After winning the Golden Leaf Award at Cannes, "Farewell My Concubine" returned to Hong Kong for promotion. After its release in June, it earned more than 1700 million at the box office, nearly double that of the original film.

Among the cast of "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies", the only popular one is Wang Fei, who is a singer. The fact that the film has such high box office sales is enough to attract the attention of the film industry.

More importantly, the two songs "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies" and "Lover" became popular. Baiyang Records took advantage of the opportunity to change the name of Beyond band's new album, which was originally named "Music and Fury", to "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies" and it sold out as soon as it was released.

The two title songs topped the three major radio stations, RTHK, Commercial Radio and Metro Radio, and remained high in the rankings.

Three months later, sales exceeded 30 copies, reaching six platinum. Beyond became one of the top singers in Hong Kong and became completely famous.

As the movie "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies" was released overseas, the album of "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies" was also sold well.

Yang Ye made a movie specifically for an album, and then used the movie to promote the songs in the album, thereby boosting the album's sales. This operation method became a classic case of commercial operation in later generations and was studied and imitated by many people.

……

After the release of "Boundless Oceans", the box office was very good, but it was basically just over 20 million, because "Kung Fu" was finally about to be released.

The release date of "Kung Fu" was carefully chosen. At that time, Chen Long's blockbuster "Crime Squad" had been released for three weeks and was about to be taken off the screen.

Stephen Chow's "Flirting Scholar" has been released for more than half of its run, while "Jurassic Park" is still half a month away from its release.

During this half month, "Kung Fu" was the only movie that dominated the market, while all the movies released at the same time as it failed miserably.

The box office of "Super School Overlord" was cut in half after one week of its release, and the final box office did not break 10 million, only half of the original time and space.

Even "A Chinese Odyssey: Part One" did not meet expectations. It grossed over 28 million in its original release period of days, but is now down by more than million.

This is because it was released earlier, so the release date conflict was not serious. If it was released at the same time, it would also be hit hard.

It's not that "Flirting Scholar" is not excellent, but after watching "Kung Fu", people feel boring and can't arouse any interest in the poor special effects and fighting moves in Hong Kong movies nowadays.

The special effects in the previous fighting scenes were all very fake and crude light pollution.

It's nothing more than some very low-quality lightning and various colorful waves.

"Kung Fu" has made the special effects physical. The sound of the piano can be transformed into a knife, a fist, or even a hideous evil spirit wearing armor and holding a knife.

When Huoyun Evil God performed the Toad Skill, he really looked like a toad.

When the Lion's Roar and Tathagata's Palm were used, the damage caused and the trajectories of the flying brick and stone debris were all in line with the laws of physics.

The low-quality special effects in previous Hong Kong films were simply light effects and did not cause any damage to the environment, which was very fake.

Yang Ye previously filmed "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" and "The Myth", and the use of special effects was only in the rendering of the scenes, and the movements of the characters themselves were still normal fights.

So that kind of shock is completely different from the shock brought by "Kung Fu".

Not to mention that Yang Ye's version of "Kung Fu" also sold a lot of sentiment at the end of the movie.

"Kung Fu" took only two days to break the HK$1000 million box office, becoming the fastest movie to break the HK$ million mark in the history of the Hong Kong market.

Two weeks after its release, Kung Fu's box office reached a staggering 4500 million Hong Kong dollars.

At this time, "Jurassic Park" was released, and the momentum of "Kung Fu" slowed down.

"Jurassic Park" brought the prehistoric beasts back to life on the big screen, giving the audience a different kind of shock.

Throughout the summer season, all the films released at the same time as these two movies were slaughtered, even Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was no exception.

The Hong Kong market, which was extremely prosperous during the summer season last year, suddenly collapsed this year, and the entire Hong Kong film industry was in mourning.

It is not correct to say that there is an avalanche. This year's summer season is actually more prosperous. Judging from the box office revenue, it is undoubtedly the strongest in history.

It’s just that all the box office revenue was sucked up by these two movies, leaving no one else to even get a share of the profits.

In Hong Kong, the battle between "Kung Fu" and "Jurassic Park" is fierce.

On the Taiwan side, the fighting situation is also very stalemate.

"Kung Fu" was released in Taiwan one day later than in Hong Kong, but 120 copies were distributed on the premiere day, setting a record.

On the first day of its release, the box office exceeded NT$2500 million, breaking the box office record.

Afterwards, it took off and broke all the box office records in Taiwan over the years.

The cinema was packed with people, advance tickets were sold out, additional screenings were added until four in the morning, and all major cinemas were fully booked with lights on.

Many people in Taiwan's entertainment industry have come out to endorse Yang Ye, saying that "Kung Fu" is Yang Ye's milestone masterpiece after "Terminator 2".

"Jurassic Park", which was released later, was not to be outdone and has been catching up closely behind "Kung Fu". It is still unknown which movie has a higher box office.

The eight major film producers in Taiwan were all grinning from ear to ear. To build publicity and momentum, they even fanned the flames, describing this box office battle as a "showdown between China and the West" and "Chinese Kung Fu versus prehistoric dinosaurs."

In fact, both films were directed by Yang Ye, but in one film he stood in the front stage, while in the other he hid behind the scenes.

The two movies were a huge hit at the same time, and the one that benefited the most was Central Motion Picture Corporation, because many of the leading cinema chains in Taipei are owned by Central Motion Picture Corporation, so they naturally made the most money.

When Xu Liguo, general manager of China Film Corporation, was interviewed by the media, he praised Yang Ye as the "God of Movies".

In mainland China, since "Jurassic Park" was not released at all, "Kung Fu" naturally dominated the market.

……

Yang Ye has been very busy this year. He was filming "Speed", doing the pre-production work for "The Matrix", and the post-production work for "Terminator 3" at the same time.

He doesn't even have time to mess around with women. Every day he's either on the set or at Ziqi Company.

Due to lack of time, she had to not participate in the promotion of "Kung Fu". Even the premiere in Taiwan was attended by Teresa Tang on her behalf.

The fact that Yang Ye had many children was exposed by Fei Li a long time ago, and many media outlets denounced and criticized him at the time.

But as the White Dragon King suddenly jumped out and said that Yang Ye was the reincarnation of the Purple Star, and then Fei Li died mysteriously, the voices cursing Yang Ye became smaller.

Folk beliefs in Taiwan are very strong, with 80% of the people believing in some form of traditional Taiwanese folk beliefs or Taiwanese religions mixed with elements of Buddhist beliefs.

Many people really believe that Yang Ye is the reincarnation of Ziwei Star, otherwise how could he be so awesome?

There are more than 200 gods worshipped by Taiwanese in temples. Although the belief in Ziwei Emperor is not as strong as that of Mazu, Guanyin, and Wangye, it is still among the top.

Based on the principle of "it is better to believe it than not to believe it", those media stopped scolding Yang Ye.

Deng Lijun openly brought her two children to the event, and no one said anything.

On the contrary, many people are very envious, because Yang Ye is truly the richest Chinese.

Men envied Yang Ye for being surrounded by beautiful women and having endless luck, while women envied those female stars who could marry into wealthy families and have unlimited wealth. In late September, Kung Fu was officially taken off the screen in Hong Kong two months after its release, with a box office of 6123 million Hong Kong dollars, breaking the box office record and topping the list.

"Jurassic Park" was also taken off the screen shortly afterwards, with a box office of over 5800 million. Due to the interference of "Kung Fu", it did not break the 6000 million mark.

In the later stages of the box office war, Yang Ye's fans did not want him to lose to a Western film, so they rushed to the cinema to rewatch the movie to lend him a hand and help him suppress The Great Dinosaur.

In the Taiwanese market, both blockbusters have broken the NT$200 million mark. Since they have not been released yet, they can remain in theaters for another month.

"Kung Fu" has achieved breakthroughs in traditional Chinese-language film regions such as mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and has also achieved success in the Japanese and Korean markets.

Everywhere we go, it's a close fight with "Jurassic Park".

But overall, in the Asian market, "Kung Fu" generally suppressed "Jurassic Park".

In the European and American markets, "Kung Fu" also performed very well.

The box office appeal that Yang Ye has accumulated year by year is not comparable to that of Zhou Xingchi in the original time and space.

When Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu" was first released in North America, the box office on the first day was only 8.8 US dollars.

The audience didn’t know Stephen Chow at all. Columbia even had to use Chen Long to promote the movie, releasing stills of Yuen Qiu and saying that she was Jackie Chan’s senior sister.

Fortunately, "Kung Fu" had a good reputation, and with Columbia's unremitting promotion, the final box office reached more than 1700 million US dollars.

And with the help of Yang Ye's super popularity, this version of "Kung Fu" broke 2000 million US dollars in just one weekend.

Despite this, the performance of "Kung Fu" in the European and American markets is still far behind that of "Jurassic Park", with box office results less than one-third of the latter.

No matter how awesome Yang Ye was, he could not completely break through the barriers of skin color, language and culture.

……

Some people laugh, and some people cry.

Behind the success of "Kung Fu" are countless failed movies.

Even "Journey to the West", a joint effort between Stephen Chow and Johnnie To, was not spared.

Both Stephen Chow and Johnnie To like to control everything, and want to inject their own will into the movie. The final outcome is that the movie is very twisted and makes people feel very painful to watch.

The box office in the original time and space did not meet expectations, and it was even worse in this time and space under the double pressure of "Kung Fu" and "Jurassic Park". The local box office did not even exceed 20 million, which can be called Stephen Chow's Waterloo.

Even worse was the situation for the Taiwanese film producer, Wang Yingxiang of Longxiang Pictures, who purchased "Journey to the West" at a sky-high price of 3000 million. After its release in Taiwan, the film was met with a collective suppression, with the box office taking in just over million, resulting in huge losses.

At this point, the Taiwanese film producers, who had long held grudges against the Hong Kong film industry, finally exploded.

Around 1993, because it was so easy to make money from movies, Hong Kong filmmakers expanded unprecedentedly. They took advantage of the fact that Taiwanese film businessmen were rich and stupid, and defrauded them in various ways.

The pay of stars keeps skyrocketing, but the production quality keeps declining.

Shoddy production, single genre, blind following of trends and inflated costs led to box office failure and heavy losses for the film producers.

That would be fine, as long as they accept the loss, but many Hong Kong producers took money from Taiwanese film producers to sell trailers but were unable to deliver the goods.

So far, a total of 250 Hong Kong films have not been delivered as scheduled.

This is fucking a scam, they think the Taiwanese film producers are the fools.

This was intolerable. In anger, the eight major Taiwanese film producers united and came to Hong Kong, vowing to seek an explanation.

This was the "Eight Major Film Producers Forced the Emperor" incident that caused the Hong Kong film industry to take a sharp turn for the worse.

The eight major film producers jointly launched an attack on Hong Kong films, and they put forward four major demands:

First, the Hong Kong film industry should complete the 250 films that were not delivered on time as soon as possible.

Second, the pay of Hong Kong stars is too high and must be curbed.

Third, distributing Hong Kong films in Taiwan requires a service fee, 1000% for films under NT$20 million. For films over NT$1000 million, only 15% can be charged.

Fourth, the purchase price of Hong Kong films is limited to no more than 1750 million.

How did the Hong Kong film industry react to the pressure from the eight major film companies? They didn't care much about it.

For Hong Kong filmmakers who are having a blast making money, they think that the Taiwanese are doing this because they are jealous of us making so much money and want to lower the price.

No one realized that this was a danger signal.

Even so, since they have put on such a big show, we still have to give them some face.

Chen Rongmei, Xiang Huasheng and Huang Baiming went to the Peninsula Hotel where the eight major film producers were staying, intending to ease the anger of the Taiwanese film producers.

Xu Liguo from China Film Group was very dissatisfied when he saw that only three people had arrived.

They hope to meet Yang Yip, a leading figure in the Hong Kong film industry.

Who knew that not only Yang Ye didn't come, but even Xu Feng didn't come.

Xu Ligong asked, "Didn't Director Yang and General Manager Xu come?"

Chen Meirong was a pampered young man, and said arrogantly: "The three of us can talk to you."

……

Yang Ye was busy filming a movie and had no intention of stopping this.

His eyes are no longer on this small pond of Hong Kong.

In a dilapidated subway car, Yang Ye hugged Guan Zhilin and kissed her passionately.

"Crack!"

"I declare that the filming of Speed ​​has been successfully completed!"

Amidst applause and cheers, Yang Ye pulled Guan Zhilin to her feet, and then instructed, “Clean up the scene, and we’ll have the wrap-up banquet tomorrow.”

Then he said to Chen Musheng: "Ah Sheng, I'm leaving first. I'll leave the scene to you!"

"Yes, sir!"

Chen Musheng was very excited because he thought this movie was awesome!

"Brother Ye, where are we going to eat tonight?"

"Not today, Jiahui, I have something else to do, I'll take you home first!"

Guan Zhilin pouted, but still agreed reluctantly. The act of being spoiled by someone because of their favor didn't work on Yang Ye.

Yang Ye sent Guan Zhilin home, looked at the time, and drove to the airport.

Not long after, the car door opened and Lizhi got into the car with a woman and a little girl.

The little girl looked at Yang Ye and timidly called out, "Dad!" (End of this chapter)