Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

"My Date with Spring" is the first work of Media Asia Films, and its success can be said to be a miracle.

As mentioned earlier, the boss of Media Asia is called Zhuang Cheng.

Zhuang Cheng, Zhong Zai Si, Ma Fengguo, Feng Yong, Liao Yongliang, Chen Ziliang and Nick James were originally employees of Star TV.

In 1994, Hong Kong films had already shown signs of decline. Except for a few people like Yang Ye and Chen Long who were still successful, even big stars like Liu Hua lost a lot of money.

However, the seven of them decided to start a business against the market trend and established Media Asia.

They discussed with Shi Nansheng, the distribution manager of Baiyang Films: "We are planning to leave Star TV. Can we give you the distribution rights for the movies we make in the future?"

Seeing that they were all talented, Shi Nansheng agreed and gave them a small deposit.

These seven people started their own business differently from others. Other companies are usually started by directors, actors, etc. who become successful and then go out on their own.

There are neither directors, actors, nor screenwriters among them. Their previous positions were in distribution, finance, publicity... all in logistics.

People like them naturally couldn't get any investment, and the deposit Shi Nansheng gave them was very small, not enough to make a movie.

They pooled their own money, and together with the deposit given by Shi Nansheng, they raised a total of more than one million.

At this time, the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre wanted to adapt its stage play "My Date with Spring" into a movie.

But there is a requirement, that is, the four female lead actors in this drama must play the leading female roles in the movie.

Hong Kong movies are all about selling stars. If you don’t have any stars, who will you sell this movie to? That’s why those film companies are unwilling to invest.

However, Media Asia came knocking on the door, and the two sides hit it off. The drama troupe established a "Spring Film Company" and also paid more than one million yuan.

The two sides pooled three million yuan and started filming without a single star, with the four leading actresses making a movie for the first time.

Finally, when the movie was released, because there were no stars, no one was interested in it and it didn't get any screenings. The box office in the first weekend was only 18.9.

In addition to advertising in newspapers, Zhuang Cheng took several people from the company to the cinema and waited there. When young people came to buy tickets, he would come forward to recommend the film.

Since there aren't many theaters showing their movies, they have enough manpower.

When the audience saw there were no stars, they didn’t want to watch it: “Our time is precious, who knows if it’s good or not.”

Zhuang Cheng patted his chest and promised: "This movie was made by our company. I guarantee it's good. I'll wait here. If you say it's not good, I'll refund you the money."

When the group of young people came out of the movie, Zhuang Chengzhen was waiting at the door. They said to Zhuang Cheng, "It was really good."

In this way, relying on word of mouth, the film lasted for five weeks. As word of mouth spread among the audience, the number of theaters showing the film increased to more than 20, and the screening schedule finally started.

In the end, the film was released for 142 days, making it the longest-running Hong Kong film in history.

It grossed 2140 million at the box office, higher than Jet Li's "Shaolin Grandmaster".

Because of the success of this movie, Media Asia became one of the most successful film companies in Hong Kong.

……

Yang Ye came down from the stage and returned to his seat. He saw Zhang Xiaoxian sitting not far away and waved for her to come over.

"Xiao Xian, contact the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre and buy the copyright of "My Date with Spring". Adapt it into a TV script and let Chen Shisan be the main writer."

Chen Shisan is the screenwriter of "My Date with a Vampire", and "My Date with Spring" is Chen Shisan's famous work.

These two TV series made the leg beauty Gigi Wong extremely famous, and Chen Shisan also became acquainted with the leg beauty because of this. In the end, he won the beauty and married Gigi Wong to be his wife.

Zhang Xiaoxian agreed and sat back down.

The award ceremony continued, and "The Matrix" won the Best Action Direction and Best Visual Effects without any suspense.

The Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design awards went to "Ashes of Time".

Later, "Ashes of Time" won the Best Cinematography award.

The King of Sunglasses won three prizes in a row, showing his great power and actually suppressing Yang Ye.

The photography of "Ashes of Time" is indeed magnificent, and Venice also awarded it the Best Cinematography Award. Yang Ye has nothing much to say.

Fortunately, Lin An'er won the Best Editing Award, helping "The Matrix" to make a comeback.

Subsequently, "The Matrix" won the Best Sound Effects and Best Screenplay awards, winning five trophies in one go.

All the technical awards have been given out, and the four most eye-catching awards are here. The competition this time is much more intense than the original one.

Because in 1994, there were so many masterpieces of Chinese-language films, and the Academy Awards judged films from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong together.

The finalists for the Best Actress award are: Anita Yuen for "Stormy Girls", Joan Chen for "Red Rose, White Rose", Ching Xia Lin for "The Matrix", Wang Fei for "Chungking Express", and Gong Li for "To Live".

Filming a movie for King of Sunglasses is a very tiring job. Many actors cried and doubted their lives during filming, except Wang Fei.

Wang Fei felt that filming Wong Kar-wai's films was very relaxing, just like taking a vacation.

It takes several years for each movie to be shot, but "Chungking Express", in which Wang Fei played the leading role, was completed in just two months.

This time and space was only filmed for forty days, because Lin Qingxia was filming "The Matrix" with Yang Ye. It was a miracle that Yang Ye could let Lin Qingxia film another role, so he didn't dare to drag his sunglasses.

As for the other female lead, Wang Fei, each shot was only filmed once.

She claims to have released her energy and if you don't receive it, that's your problem.

If Wong Kar-wai disagreed, she wouldn't care. She would walk straight to her minivan, start the car, and drive away under Wong Kar-wai's dull gaze.

Even so, she was nominated for Best Actress. She is so damn talented.

In the movie, she has fluffy short hair, beautiful calves, dark eyes, and she sways with the music, shakes the bottle, and looks casual...

That kind of relaxation is something many actors will never be able to achieve in their entire lives, but she was able to do it in her very first filming.

Maybe it was because she didn't have much utilitarianism when it came to filming, she just wanted to have fun and was naturally relaxed.

Among the five finalists, Wang Fei doesn't care, while Gong Li and Chen Chong feel that their chances of winning are slim.

Because it is very difficult for mainland actors to win the two acting awards at the Academy Awards, Gong Li has only won it once in more than a decade, and she didn't expect to win it twice.

The favorite to win the award is Anita Yuen. She was the Best Actress last year, and if she wins it again this year, it will be her second consecutive year.

In addition, she also won the Best Newcomer award the year before last, three times in a row with one click. This is unprecedented and will be difficult to surpass in the future.

Yuan Yongyi was very nervous. As the camera swept across the finalists' faces, she didn't even hide her expression.

The award presenter on the stage read out the list of winners: "The winner of Best Actress is... Gong Li!"

"To Live" is a top-level Chinese-language film. Ge You and Gong Li both contributed superb performances in the film. It can be said that Gong Li's award was well-deserved.

Gong Li was confused at first, but then she was ecstatic. She had actually won the Best Actress award for the second time.

She happily walked up to the stage to receive the award and gave her acceptance speech. Several losers felt very disappointed, especially Anita Yuen, who was very depressed.

The competition for Best Actor is even more intense, with candidates from Yang Ye for "The Matrix", Ge You for "To Live", Liang Caowei for "Chungking Express", Zhang Guorong for "Stormy Boys", and Zhou Xingchi for "From Beijing with Love".

Except for Yang Ye, the other four are all top-notch actors in Chinese-language films.

Among the five people, Yang Ye didn't care about winning the award. He just sat there and watched the show.

Zhang Guorong has won the Best Actor award twice for Xu Zai and Cheng Dieyi, but he is still very nervous. No one thinks that the award is too many.

Zhou Xingchi was also very nervous because he didn't want to be considered a clown who only knew how to make people laugh. He hoped that his acting skills would be recognized.

Ge You won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival last year for his performance in To Live, and he is highly expected to win the Academy Award this time.

But he understood that since Gong Li had already won the Best Actress award, his chances of winning the Best Actor award were very slim.

It is impossible for the members of the Academy Awards to vote for mainlanders for both the Best Actor and Best Actress. Despite this, he still has a hope in his heart.

The most nervous one was Liang Caowei.

Three years ago, when the White Dragon King came to Hong Kong, he had told him that he would have a turning point in his career within two to three years.

In Liang Caowei's opinion, he is an actor, and that means nothing more than the movie he stars in being a box office hit or winning a big award.

Since he mainly makes art films, the commercial films he takes on are small-scale productions that are unlikely to be big hits at the box office, so the only thing he can do is win awards.

Just last year, he won the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor for "Chungking Express".

But in the era when Hong Kong films were king, the Golden Horse Awards were not as good as the Hong Kong Film Awards after all.

White Dragon King's words were only half fulfilled.

Despite this, Liang Caowei has become very convinced of the White Dragon King.

Liang Caowei was nominated for Best Actor this year for his role in "Chungking Express", and he is particularly looking forward to it.

Today at the Academy Awards, in order to hide his nervousness, he even wore a pair of sunglasses, making himself look like Wong Kar-wai.

On the stage, award presenter Zhang Min announced the list of winners: "The winner of Best Actor is... Liang Caowei!"

In an instant, Liang Caowei was so excited that his whole body was shaking.

It turned out to be true!
The White Dragon King’s words…came true.

Liu Jialing beside Liang Caowei was even more excited than him. The two hugged each other and kissed passionately, which immediately caused a burst of booing from the people around them.

Liang Caowei went on stage to receive the trophy. He was so excited that he was a little incoherent. Then he thanked Liu Jialing in public.

Liu Jialing in the audience looked shy.

In Liang Caowei's heart, he was completely in awe of the White Dragon King.

The subsequent competitions for Best Director and Best Film were another battle of the gods.

For these two awards, the five nominated films are the same.

They are Yang Ye's "The Matrix", Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express", Wong Kar-wai's "Ashes of Time", Zhang Yimou's "To Live", and Li An's "Eat Drink Man Woman".

Later, Wong Kar-wai won the Best Director award for "Chungking Express".

He himself felt it was a bit absurd that he worked hard for three years on "Ashes of Time" but did not win any awards, but he casually worked on "Chungking Express" for more than a month and won an award.

The Best Film award went to To Live!
"To Live" is one of the best Chinese-language films. It lost to "Pulp Fiction" at last year's Cannes Film Festival and won the second prize, the Jury Prize.

"Pulp Fiction" is a talented work that Quentin Tarantino copied from more than a hundred movies.

This talent is not irony!

As a video store salesman, Quentin watched thousands of movies and integrated them to make such a movie. He is truly talented.

"Pulp Fiction" is labeled "non-linear narrative". The movie tells three stories, divided into five paragraphs. The structure is clever and profound. Each paragraph has no beginning or end, the structure is complementary, and the beginning and the end are connected, suggesting that similar plots in the movie are always happening in reality and never stop.

"To Live" lost to it, and it was not unfair!
Last year, Kaizi Ge’s "Farewell My Concubine" lost to "Kung Fu", but this year Zhang Yimou’s "To Live" won over "The Matrix", which made Kaizi Ge feel very upset.

Because Yang Ye had said before the lottery draw this year that everyone should stop voting for him just to give him face.

If he wins the award every year, will the Academy Awards still be held?

Then everyone was tactful and didn't vote for him. Brother Kaizi felt that his luck was a bit bad. Why didn't you say this last year?

……

Gong Li and Liang Caowei were both signed with Yang Ji. They were awarded Best Actor and Best Actress, and Yang Ye held a celebration banquet for them.

All the important figures in the company were present, and Liang Caowei and Gong Li also invited their friends to attend.

At the celebration banquet, Yang Ye saw that Anita Yuan was in a bad mood and called her aside.

"Do you know why you lost?"

"My acting skills are not as good as Gong Li's."

Yang Ye shook his head: "Acting is only one aspect, the selection method of the Academy Awards is a member voting system.

Winning an award is not necessarily a matter of having good acting skills; popularity is also important.

Because Hong Kong actors are the local leaders in the Academy Awards, they have a great advantage in every selection.

In the past fifteen years, most of the Best Actress awards have been won by Hong Kong actresses, and the Best Actor award has never been won by anyone from Taiwan or the mainland.

Your personality is too carefree, which has offended many people unknowingly, so people will not vote for you anymore.

If you want to go further as an actor, you should learn from this lesson in the future!"

Because of Yang Yezhao, Anita Yuen became more arrogant and domineering than in the original time and space, and offended more people.

She was not as reflective as she was in the original time and space, and finally lost the title of Best Actress.

"I know!" Anita Yuan bowed her head and admitted her mistake. She was still quite a little woman in front of Yang Ye.

"You admit your mistake, but you may not be convinced in your heart. Tomorrow I will arrange a new agent for you to control you."

"what?"

Anita Yuen is extremely unwilling. Only a fool would want to be controlled by others.

Yang Ye ignored her protest and continued, "Tsui Hark is planning to start filming The Storm Riders, which is a bigger investment than Chinese Hero. He is currently looking for actors. I recommended you to him. Go find him for an audition yourself."

Anita Yuen asked curiously, "Isn't he preparing for the "Man Han Banquet"? "

"'Man Han Banquet' is an old script from 1988. He took it out to change his mind so that there would not be any shadow of 'Chinese Hero' when filming 'Storm and Cloud'."

"Oh!"

As the two were talking, today's protagonist Liang Caowei suddenly walked out quickly. Not long after, he respectfully led an old man in.

Anita Yuan took a look and said in surprise: "White Dragon King, why is he here?"

In the Hong Kong entertainment industry, everyone knows the White Dragon King. Yang Ye casually said, "The White Dragon King read Liang Caowei's fortune three years ago and said that his career would take a turn in the next two or three years. As a result, Tony Leung won the Golden Horse Award last year and the Golden Image Award this year, both of which were crowned Best Actor. The White Dragon King's words came true, so he naturally invited him over to show his gratitude."

Anita Yuen nodded: "So that's how it is. By the way, this White Dragon King is pretty powerful too!"

"Who knows!" Yang Ye remained noncommittal.

White Dragon King made accurate predictions, and all the entertainment industry professionals present were full of admiration for him.

So as soon as the old guy showed up, everyone gathered around and greeted him enthusiastically.

The White Dragon King responded to everyone's greetings calmly, showing his masterly demeanor.

Suddenly, several circles of people surrounded the old guy, all of them were big stars, and the atmosphere was very lively.

Yuan Yongyi also wanted to join in the fun, so she asked Yang Ye: "Aren't you going over?"

Yang Ye looked at him with disdain; "What's so good about a charlatan?"

At this moment, the charlatan pushed through the crowd and walked straight towards Yang Ye.

Under the gazes of countless people, he knelt in front of Yang Ye and shouted, "Greetings to the Purple Star Emperor!" (End of this chapter)