The literary era since 1979

After Gong Xing joined the crew, Fang Yan deliberately reduced the frequency of her visits to the "In the Mood for Love" crew to give them enough space for free creation.

I have put more time and energy into "Yenching People in New York" and have already started writing the first draft.

Time passed day by day, and in the blink of an eye it was March, when the doorbell suddenly rang.

I originally thought that it would be Li Zhi, Wang Zuxian and others who came to visit, but I didn't expect it to be Xu Ke and Shi Nansheng who I haven't seen for a long time.

"Mr. Fang, excuse me for disturbing you."

"No, no, you are a rare guest."

Fangyan smiled and told Wu Ma to make tea, then asked the two of them to sit in the living room.

Everyone exchanged a few simple greetings, but the atmosphere soon became awkward in the silence.

"You came to see me this time, it must be not just to drink tea and chat with me, there must be something, right?"

Dialect looks left and right.

"That's exactly what happened."

Shi Nansheng and Xu Ke looked at each other.

"Just speak up if you have anything to say. With our friendship, is there anything we can't be honest with?"

Fang Yan smiled knowingly, "If you want me to help you with something, I will definitely help you if I can."

"Now that you've said that, it would be pretentious for me to be shy."

Xu Ke said that this matter was not a big deal, but not a small one either. In fact, he just wanted to ask him for advice on the script of "A Better Tomorrow 3".

"Isn't it right?"

Fang Yan frowned. "I remember the newspaper reported a few days ago that you and Rainie Wu were working together on A Better Tomorrow 3? Could it be that the news was false, or that something had happened to the entire A Better Tomorrow 3 project?"

"Your guess is absolutely correct. There was indeed an accident."

Shi Nansheng hesitated to speak, not knowing how to start.

"Let me tell you, this story starts with A Better Tomorrow 2."

Xu Ke slowly said that when "A Better Tomorrow" was a big hit at the box office, the "League of Losers" all made a comeback.

This made him think of making a sequel to make money while the popularity was high, but Wu Yusen did not agree with making a sequel. But because Tsui Hark was the "boss" and had been kind to him, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and write the script for "A Better Tomorrow 2". He had originally planned to write a prequel to Mark, but Tsui Hark considered that the original cast of "A Better Tomorrow" seemed to have better box office performance, so he let Chow Yun-fat be resurrected as Mark's younger brother.

The result was that during the filming, various unpleasant things happened due to different filming concepts, and the two began to have a rift.

Although "A Better Tomorrow 2" achieved equally good box office with the help of the IP popularity of "A Better Tomorrow", Wu Yusen began to deliberately distance himself from Xu Ke's studio, and the two sides gradually drifted apart, especially when they were preparing to launch "A Better Tomorrow 3", Wu Yusen simply refused to be the director.

Not only did he leave Xu Ke's studio and start a new one, but he also prepared to bring his own film "A Better Tomorrow" to the big screen.

In this way, "A Better Tomorrow 3" and "A Better Tomorrow" became the "movie showdown" after Tsui Hark and Yu-Sen Ng parted ways.

"That's right..."

Fangyan took a sip of tea and smiled playfully.

"I'm afraid no one can tell who is right and who is wrong in this matter, and who is wronged by whom."

Shi Nansheng said: "But now some media are deliberately fanning the flames, putting him and Yu Sen, "A Better Tomorrow 3" and "Hard Boiled" on opposite sides, and it is clear that they want them to compete with each other, but he doesn't want..."

"I won't lose to Wu Yusen!" Xu Ke suddenly interrupted, his eyes firm, as if he wanted to prove that without him, Xu Ke, Wu Yusen was nothing!

Fangyan could understand his feelings very well. He felt that he was stabbed in the back by Wu Yusen, whom he had promoted. The two sides had already fallen out.

"Did you bring the script?"

"it's here."

Shi Nansheng quickly took out the script of "A Better Tomorrow 3" from his bag.

I casually flipped through the book in dialect and had no interest at all. After all, no matter how good the story and subject matter are, they cannot withstand such "fleecing".

If we look at "A Better Tomorrow 3" independently, it is still a good work. The core of the story is "the deep love between young men in troubled times", the most classic chivalrous spirit of young men in Hong Kong films, and Xu Ke has mastered this point quite well.

However, as a sequel to the "A Better Tomorrow" series, the theme of the story suddenly changed from "brotherhood" to "love between young men and women", which is obviously off topic. The domestic "A Better Tomorrow 1" and "A Better Tomorrow 2" have nothing to do with it. It is purely a name-dropping and IP-using work.

Compared with Wu Yusen's "Hard Boiled", this script is far inferior in both concept and style.

You know, "A Better Tomorrow" has taken the so-called "aesthetics of violence" to the extreme, not to mention the appearance of the classic pigeon element.

"Fang Sheng, what do you think?"

Shi Nansheng's tone was full of curiosity.

"It's just barely passable. If we can make good use of the appeal of Zhou Runfa and others among movie fans, the box office results should not be bad."

He spoke in a euphemistic dialect.

"If we want to change it, where should we start?"

Xu Ke said with a fiery gaze.

"If I were to start writing, I might as well start from the beginning."

Fangyan smacked his lips. According to his own principles, he would never make any changes to a work like this that was a poor imitation.

"This this……"

Xu Ke was startled, but Shi Nansheng, who was watching nearby, was the first to hear his hidden meaning and went down the stairs to ask.

"If Fang Sheng were in charge, I wonder what kind of "A Better Tomorrow 3" he would write?"

"Rather than calling it 'A Better Tomorrow 3', it's more like another 'A Better Tomorrow' story."

Fangyan looked around.

Xu Ke and Shi Nansheng looked at each other, their eyes full of expectation, just like when they were looking forward to "A Better Tomorrow 1".

Fangyan knocked on the table and spoke carefully: "Ah Hai, Ah Zhan and Hong Dou were orphans. They were adopted by an adoptive father with ulterior motives and trained to become international antique thieves. One time, at the instigation of their adoptive father, they went to France to steal a precious world-famous painting. Unexpectedly, their adoptive father set a trap in secret to kill them and hide the truth. The three of them experienced a fierce pursuit and were forced to separate..."

“This story is good, but it seems to have nothing to do with A Better Tomorrow.”

Xu Ke showed a conflicted look on his face.

"It's not as if, it's not!"

Fang Yan said: "A Better Tomorrow is a gangster film, while this one is about thieves. If there is any similarity between the two, it is that they are both crime films, and both contain elements of gunfire, friendship, revenge, romance, etc."

Then he handed the script back to me, "If you were asked to choose, would you like A Better Tomorrow 3 or this story?" (End of this chapter)