Entering the Chinese entertainment industry is like entering a deep sea

Chapter 839 Hurun's Third Scholar, Opening Film "Ne Zha"

For some of the outcomes, those in the industry had actually anticipated them.

Everyone knows that Gege and her husband are the second largest shareholders of a certain film company, and everyone knows that Rong Chen and the film company parted ways with Youku.

Therefore, it is not surprising that news broke that the couple's net worth had shrunk.

What caught the attention of many in the industry was the wealth of Li Chen and Liu Yifei, a married couple.

Sina Entertainment News

"Recently, some media outlets released the 2016 list of the 500 richest people, with Wanda's father and son regaining the top spot with a net worth of 1982.6 billion yuan."

"Among the most eye-catching families in the entertainment industry, the Li Chen family of the Rong Chen Group is the seventh richest family in China last year, with Li Chen and his wife ranking seventh on the rich list with 965 billion yuan."

"This year, due to the sudden emergence of Douyin under ByteDance, Liu Yifei's net worth skyrocketed, and Yixin Media was listed in Hong Kong. Li Chen and Liu Yifei, with a net worth of 1675 billion yuan, surpassed Tencent's Pony Ma to take the third place on the rich list, second only to Wanda's father and son and Ma Yun."

"In addition, the couple who starred in 'Princess Pearl' have fallen out of the top 500 richest people list, with their net worth shrinking from 50 billion to 30 billion. About 20 billion of their wealth evaporated in one year, which is presumably due to the impact of holding stocks that plummeted recently."

"The minimum threshold for entering the rich list this year has increased to 65 billion. In addition, the two are the second largest shareholders of a film company, but the stock price dropped sharply from HK$4.9 per share at the end of last year to HK$1.92 per share."

"This caused the couple's net worth to evaporate by about 20 billion yuan instantly, which is why they missed out on the rich list this year."

As soon as the rich list was released, Li Chen and Liu Yifei once again became the focus of attention.

Liu Yifei's friends in the industry have been teasing her on Weibo.

Zhou Xun: "Everyone else is from the same faction, how can you two be so shameless? One is from Rong Chen's faction, and the other is from ByteDance's faction! You only managed to get third place by outnumbering everyone else, I'm even embarrassed to say I'm from Rong Chen's faction!"

Yang Mi: "Rich guy, I don't want to be your best friend anymore, I want to be your sugar daddy!"

Shu Chang: "The Hurun Rich List is just Hurun, I don't believe your wealth is almost catching up with my brother's! I hate rich women! I want to be a rich woman too! Ahhh!"

Meng Ziyi: "Sis, the speed at which you and the boss are rising is terrifying! Will you become the richest people next year? The gap is huge! I haven't even saved up the down payment for a property yet. Waaah, my mind is so chaotic, I need some peace and quiet!"

Fan Bingbing: "I don't want to marry into a wealthy family, but can you marry me instead?"

After posting this Weibo post, Fan Bingbing gently patted her lower abdomen.

"Brother Guang, what should I do?"

Mu Xiaoguang's eyes were complicated. After a moment of contemplation, he said, "Only you can make this decision."

Fan Bingbing sighed softly, her mind in turmoil.

Sina Entertainment News

"Recently, Fan Bingbing appeared at a venue with a slightly protruding belly. To avoid being photographed, she hid behind people and the area was cleared to prevent her from stopping. She was carefully helped by her assistants when going on and off the stage."

When Liu Yifei saw Fan Bingbing at home, dressed in a red dress and loafers, with a slightly protruding belly, she pointed it out to her husband in surprise: "Could she be pregnant?"

Li Chen glanced at Fan Bingbing's photo: "I can't tell, but even if she is pregnant, it wouldn't be surprising, she's not young anymore."

Liu Yifei suddenly remembered something and pulled her husband aside, saying, "I felt something was off about her when she came to our house that day. You know what? She didn't even plan to go to Cannes this year, while Li Bingbing has already said she's going."

Li Chen scoffed, "What does that prove? Li Bingbing isn't the only one going; Gong Li, Nini, and others are all going too."

Liu Yifei frowned and said, "That's right, but there's something else. I don't know if she did it intentionally or unintentionally, but she told me that she won't be joining any productions for a while. The earliest she'll join is at the end of December next year. It's about Teacher Cao's 'She Kills'!"

Li Chen understood what his wife meant: "You mean, she hasn't been on set for almost a year and a half because she's going into labor?"

Liu Yifei released her husband's arm: "What's so strange about that? Wasn't Huang Shengyi the same way before?"

“She would post a few sets of photos she had taken before, claiming that she was on a film set abroad, but in reality she would secretly go abroad to give birth and then come back, without anyone knowing.”

Li Chen nodded: "That makes sense. No wonder Li Chen said those things on the closing red carpet of the Beijing Film Festival. It turns out he's planning to get married because he's pregnant."

His wife's analysis wasn't without merit; judging from Fan Bingbing's demeanor, it's possible he really is pregnant.

It's just that she probably didn't give birth. Actually, whether she did or not, we can find out by seeing if she cooperates with Guo Jingming's promotion of "L.O.R.D.: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties" at the end of the year.

Perhaps this factor was involved in why the two got engaged but didn't get married.

"Your industry is a fucking mess," Li Chen said with a shake of his head and a laugh.

Liu Yifei chuckled: "Don't try to absolve yourself of all responsibility, acting like you're an outsider. If you dare to flirt around or chat about scripts with any girl who wants to improve her career in Cannes this time, you'd better watch out!"

Li Chen laughed heartily upon hearing this, without refuting it, thinking to himself, "I'm surrounded by your people, who am I supposed to talk to!"
The following day, news also broke that the "Tomb Raiders" crew was going to Cannes. Lu Han was in the "The Demons Strike Back" crew, so only Jing Boran was going.

However, compared to "Ne Zha", the official announcement of "The Lost Tomb" was too low-class.

Li Chen informed Han Sanping, La Peikang, and others of this news in advance.

This made Han Sanping very happy.

China Film Report
"Cannes makes a stunning choice! Chinese animated film 'Ne Zha' is selected as the opening film of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival!"

"On April 21, 2016, the Cannes Film Festival Organizing Committee officially announced that the Chinese animated film 'Nezha: The Devil's Birth' will be the opening film of the 69th Cannes Film Festival."

"This marks the first time since 'Up' in 2009 that the Cannes Film Festival has chosen an animated film to open the festival, and it is also the first time in the history of Chinese animated films that this honor has been received."

"This groundbreaking choice marks the official entry of Chinese animated films into the highest hall of world art cinema, and also demonstrates Cannes' high recognition of the artistic and industrial achievements of Chinese films."

"At the press conference, the festival's artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, explained the underlying reasons for this historic decision."

He praised "Ne Zha" as a visual revolution with a universal core, and saw the maturity of the Chinese film industry in this animated film.

When the news that "Ne Zha" would be the opening film reached China, it quickly became a hot topic on social media. Especially a few days earlier, when "Parasite" was nominated for the main competition, Li Chen was criticized by some netizens, but now it was all being praised.

"Who dares to say that Leonardo DiCaprio's heart is elsewhere while he's in China! This is the first time a non-Western animated film has opened the festival, breaking the monopoly of Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks!"

"Leonardo DiCaprio has broken another record. For the first time, a Chinese film has been chosen as the opening film at Cannes, and it's an animated film at that. This is a historic breakthrough for Chinese-language films at Cannes."

"Leonardo DiCaprio is ruthless and doesn't talk much. Those haters said that he was in the Central Plains but his heart was elsewhere. The next day, he released 'Ne Zha,' so who needs to say anything more!"

Unexpectedly, a small film called "Ne Zha" instantly boosted Li Chen's reputation to a new level.

The Film Bureau and Beijing Film Studio both sent congratulatory messages.

Meanwhile, the voice actors of "Ne Zha" also trended on social media.

When netizens took a look, they exclaimed, "Wow, whether it's the English dubbing or the Mandarin dubbing, there's not a single minor character!"

The voice actor for Nezha in the Mandarin dub is Jiang Guangtao, who also voiced Jack in Titanic. The voice actor for Lady Yin is Ji Guanlin, who also voiced Zhen Huan and Mi Yue.

This lineup alone has generated immense anticipation among domestic audiences.

Upon the release of the news, Yixin Media's stock price surged by 40% at the opening, and its market value once exceeded HK$620 billion, setting a new historical high.

With audiences eagerly anticipating the release, other production companies for the summer season are facing a dilemma.

Especially Guo Jingming, if we calculate it this way, Rongchen Group has at least three films coming out strong during the summer season, excluding "So Young 2".

One of them is Xue Xiaolu's "Finding Mr. Right 2," which is relatively easy to get along with.

The most terrifying ones are probably Happy Twist's "Never Say Die" and this "Ne Zha". The former is a comedy and has the support of the previous two films "Charlotte" and "Tomato".

The latter animated film is Rongchen Pictures' big-budget production, "Nezha," the first installment in the Fengshen series, which took three and a half years to develop. Everyone knows that animated film tickets are almost always sold by the family, and the summer season is a paradise.

Guo Xiaosi was extremely worried.

"There's no way to avoid it. With Rong Chen's current strength, there's no way he can be absent from prime domestic release dates." Zhang Zhao had no choice but to wait for "Ne Zha" to announce its release date and try to stagger it by a week from "Ne Zha" and "Never Say Die".

"I'm afraid Li Chen will do something underhanded again. To be honest, I'm really scared." Guo Xiaosi was sitting on the left side of the conference table, with Zhang Zhao, the head of LeTV Pictures, in the middle.

He had never been so afraid of anyone in his life. The main reason was that Li Chen's words of "children's words are innocent" when he looked down at him at the Shanghai International Film Festival that year left him with a psychological shadow.

In the dead of night, he dreamt of being shrouded in Li Chen's shadow.

"Probably not. He Rundong isn't Ke Zhendong. We confirmed with him repeatedly when we signed the agreement! Didn't he also swear to God that he never gambles, prostitutes, or smokes?"

Guo Xiaosi smiled and said, "You're right. I'm just being paranoid and scaring myself." Actually, Guo Xiaosi was very unsure about LeEco. A while ago, the boss's wife of LeEco had a fight with Youku, and in the end, even the Crown Princess Zhang Tianai turned against them.

Guo Xiaosi actually wanted to back down, but when she thought of Li Chen's terrifying face, she was unwilling to give up.

Guo Xiaosi thought Li Chen's face was terrifying, but the outside world didn't think so.

Sina Entertainment News

"The results of the 2016 YouGov poll, which asked people to vote for the most respected celebrities in the world, have been released. The poll separated male and female celebrities. The most respected man was Bill Gates, and the most respected woman was Angelina Jolie."

"Among the male celebrities, Chinese stars performed exceptionally well, with Li Chen, the famous Chinese director who walked out of the Oscars in protest against racial discrimination, ranking second only to Bill Gates."

"Action star Cheng Lung ranked 4th, possibly due to his global fame. Andy Lau, known as the people's Chief Executive of Hong Kong, ranked 17th, followed closely by Liu Yifei in 18th place, and Taiwanese singer Jay Chou also made it to 19th place."

When this foreign media list was released, Li Chen's millions of fans were overjoyed. Even Cheng Long was surpassed, and Li Lianjie didn't even make the list.

Li Chen has become the spiritual leader of the Chinese entertainment industry, and his global fame has even surpassed that of Cheng Long because of his withdrawal from the Oscars.

Even Li Chen himself was caught off guard.

“I wasn’t planning on going to the Oscars again, but do you think if I go again next year, I might surpass Bill Gates?” Li Chen was preparing to leave for the premiere of “Song of the Phoenix”.

Liu Yifei tied her husband's tie: "When you get there, observe more, listen more, and speak less."

Li Chen laughed and said, "Don't worry, although I'm not a fan of this producer, I still have a lot of respect for the older generation of directors, otherwise I wouldn't have gone today."

Liu Yifei nodded slightly. At today's premiere, almost all the famous directors from Beijing Film Academy will be there to show their support.

This co-producer, Fang Li, nicknamed "Master Fang," took on the publicity and distribution on his own initiative. Yesterday, he even went live and knelt down to beg theaters for more screenings, which his husband found very distasteful.

She was afraid that if her husband went to the premiere, he would be unable to resist criticizing her.

When Li Chen arrived at the CPPCC Auditorium, he happened to meet Tian Zhuangzhuang, and the two of them went inside together.

"Should I play peacemaker?" The master and apprentice entered the inner area and saw Chen Kaige, Feng Xiaogang, Gu Changwei and several others gathered together, chatting and laughing.

"Forget it, teacher. We're not on the same page. Go say hello, don't worry about me." Li Chen didn't want to put Tian Zhuangzhuang in a difficult position, so he walked towards Chen Kexin and Zhang Yimou on his own.

Chen Kaige spotted Li Chen from afar and thought to himself, "He actually came. He really knows how to behave!"

Li Chen chatted with Zhang Yimou and Chen Kexin for a few minutes, and then Fang Daxia, the volunteer promoter, came over.

"Director Zhang, Director Li, Director Chen, welcome to our show today."

“Of course, I had to come no matter what, it’s Professor Wu’s posthumous work.” Zhang Yimou shook hands with Fang Li and said sincerely.

Fang Li then looked at Li Chen and smiled, "I hope Director Li will also give us more support. It would be even better if you could post a Weibo message."

"I know what I'm doing, Mr. Fang." Li Chen meant that he didn't need Mr. Fang to teach him how to do things.

Li Chen would definitely support it because they are all alumni of the Beijing Film Academy and because of Zhang Yimou's influence, but he didn't want to be held hostage by others.

Fang Li smiled awkwardly: "Okay, okay."

After Fang Li left, Zhang Yimou said, "Old Fang has had a tough time too. He's over sixty years old. Last night he knelt, cried, and begged. Li Chen, if you can help him out, please do so. Teacher Wu is also one of our Beijing Film Academy members."

Li Chen nodded: "I heard you're planning to book the entire theater, Director Zhang?"

"Yes, back then, Teacher Wu was the director of Xi'an Film Studio. Huang Jianxin, Gu Changwei, and I all received his kindness."

"How about this, Director Zhang, I'll book twenty more screenings in your name and ask all the employees in our company to go and watch them. I won't post it on Weibo."

"This won't do, Li Chen."

"Don't refuse, Director Zhang. The cost of booking twenty shows is nothing to me. Consider it a token of my appreciation."

Zhang Yimou also understood Li Chen's meaning. Given Li Chen's current status, everything he did would be subject to various interpretations.

Doing nothing is the same; he has never interacted with Teacher Wu, and his hasty Weibo post in support seems more like a show.

Southern Metropolis Daily
According to Taiwanese media reports, Fanny Liu, the former leader of the girl group "F4", recently went to the mainland to film a movie. Unexpectedly, because of her sexy figure with H-cup breasts, she was hinted at to be "sexually harassed" by the director and producer, and received three "invitations" to sleep with him at once!

“Make her face contort into three lines, and then bombard her on Facebook with 'These scumbags only intended to sexually harass you for one day,' it's absolutely awful!”

For a young actor wanting to become famous, this method is extreme.

Firstly, the director and producer's names were not revealed, making it difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Secondly, the fact that the director and producer were clearly identified as being from mainland China is truly disgusting.

Do you really think mainland filmmakers have never seen big breasts before?

The highly anticipated drama "Ode to Joy" has finally premiered, and on its first day of release, it broke viewership records on Hunan TV and Dragon TV.

In just one hour, it broke the previous record for the fastest viewership of "Candle in the Tomb" on Youku to reach 100 million.

The three characters, Andy, Fan Shengmei, and Qu Xiaoxiao, played by Liu Yifei, Yang Mi, and Meng Ziyi respectively, quickly became trending topics.

This made Zhang Hanyun's Guan Juer and Yang Zi's Qiu Yingying seem a bit lonely.

In particular, the scene where Liu Yifei drives a red Ferrari and parks it in the garage, with her black business suit, neat short hairstyle, and 1.71-meter height, exudes an aura that drives her fans wild, who shout that the fairy sister has descended upon Shanghai.

It was 10:05 PM at the Hunan TV broadcasting center.

"It's broken 1! 15 minutes after the broadcast started, the CSM52 city ratings reached 1.02%!" A data monitor's voice suddenly rose.

Wang Xiaofeng, the purchasing director who had been standing with his arms crossed and brows furrowed, suddenly felt much less stressed and almost pressed his face against the screen.

When he saw the curve continue to rise and finally settle at 1.58%, Wang Xiaofeng let out a long breath, almost from his chest.

He subconsciously loosened his tie and said to the equally nervous backstage director beside him, "I can finally sleep tonight."

The director backstage chuckled to himself, thinking that the station manager was probably in the same boat; with 1200 million per episode, who wouldn't feel the pressure?

"Director, it seems this gamble paid off! I just don't know how things are going in the East."

"Never mind them, this show is filmed in Shanghai, so its ratings will definitely not be low."

After Wang Xiaofeng finished speaking, he said to the other person next to him, "Send a congratulatory message to Rongchen Film Industry immediately and urge them to speed up the production of subsequent promotional materials!"

Meanwhile, the same scene of relief was unfolding in the backstage monitoring center of Dragon TV.

Typically, TV drama ratings need to climb slowly, but "Ode to Joy" achieved instant popularity upon its premiere thanks to its top-tier cast and high-quality trailers, demonstrating its strong audience appeal. In short, its start was not the peak, but it was even better than the peak.

At this moment, Liu Yifei, Li Chen, and Liu Xiaoli, along with Liu Yifei's mother-in-law, had just finished watching "Ode to Joy," and the couple returned to their bedroom.

Li Chen held his heavily pregnant wife in his arms: "I still prefer you in a business suit. You know, I can't resist your uniform charm!"

"Get out!" Liu Yifei punched her husband's chest, her ears turning red as she recalled their past steamy moments.

Li Chen laughed heartily and kissed his wife on the cheek. With her due date still a little over a month away, Li Chen also began living like a monk, just to be on the safe side.

The following day, Li Bingbing came to the door with a large amount of pregnancy supplements and made a request: she hoped to ride on Li Chen's private jet.

She was invited to the Cannes opening ceremony red carpet. Gong Li and Li Chen didn't seem to have much of a relationship, and Liu Yifei wasn't there this time either. Fan Bingbing, for some reason, wasn't coming either, which conveniently made it possible for her.

Upon hearing this, Liu Yifei immediately agreed on behalf of her husband.

"That'll be perfect for keeping an eye on him for me."

Li Bingbing laughed and said, "Director Li doesn't need to look. If he really wanted to spend money, I couldn't stop him. I don't think Director Li is that kind of person. If you ask me, Director Li is the one who is pure and untainted by the mud. I admire him very much."

Liu Yifei was pleased to hear this, but said aloud, "Then you've all been fooled by him. He has the desire but not the courage!"

Li Bingbing chuckled: "Brilliant! It shows you're good at managing your husband. In the industry, I only admire two people: Sister Hong and you!"

"Look how well Sister Hong manages to keep Director Kaige under her thumb, and Director Li is completely under your control. Outside, who dares to give Director Li a hard time? I heard that at home, anyone can give Director Li a hard time! Is that true?"

Liu Yifei was utterly embarrassed: "No way, I'm also highly respected at home!"

(End of this chapter)