Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 233 243 [Changing American Horror Films, Time Magazine Interview]

Inside the company's screening room.

Li Yishu met Li An, whom she hadn't seen for a long time.

At this moment, he was in high spirits and was obviously happy that he could direct a movie worth tens of millions of dollars next.

Li Yishu walked forward with a smile and said, "Haha, I heard from Amy that your movie is so good that she doesn't dare to go home to sleep at night. She even has to check the power supply again and again before taking a shower."

Hearing this, Li An glanced at Amy beside him and said with a smile: "Manager Amy, you are joking. No matter how good the film is, it cannot be separated from the support of your script, Director Li."

"The script is just a form. How the film is shot still depends on the director."

Li Yishu waved her hand, not paying attention to the other party's compliments, and introduced Gong Li next to her: "This is the mainland actress Gong Li."

"Hello, Ms. Gong Li. I have seen your performances in Red Sorghum and Qiu Ju Goes to Court. Your performances are so good."

"Director Li An, you're too polite. By the way, the movie you shot, The Wedding Banquet, is also the best ethical family film I've ever seen."

After the two of them got to know each other, Li Yishu introduced Xu Suo who was beside him: "This is Xu Suo, the general manager of Tomson Pictures."

"Director Li, Manager Xu and I are old acquaintances."

Li An smiled and said, "Manager Xu, long time no see. Thank you for your help with the Pushing Hands project."

When Li An chose to return to Taiwan from the United States to develop his career, he participated in an excellent script competition organized by a news bureau at the time. Xu Suo was one of the judges and was very optimistic about the script "Pushing Hands" written by Li An.

Who would have thought that a few years ago, he was just an unknown new director, but he won the Golden Horse Award Special Jury Award and was nominated for the Director Award with his film "Pushing Hands", and his second film "The Wedding Banquet" directly won the Berlin Golden Bear Award.

In terms of the degree of overnight fame, probably only Li Yishu is more exaggerated than him. In his senior year, he filmed "The Mountain" and won the Venice Golden Lion Award. After that, he was unstoppable and won many major awards. He also won the first Golden Palm Award for a Chinese and achieved amazing results in the field of commercial films.

"No, no, this is mainly because you, Director Li An, have talent..."

Xu Lu didn't expect that Li An actually remembered it. She herself was about to forget about it. After all, in that script competition, she was just going through the motions. She thought Li An's script was good, so she voted for it.

The group of people exchanged greetings for a moment, and then at Amy's invitation, they all sat down and prepared to watch "Final Destination" directed by Li An.

Gong Li initially thought it was an American horror film, so she was very surprised when she saw the plane explosion at the beginning of the film: "Isn't this a horror film? Why does it look like a science fiction film?"

"You'll know when you watch it later." Li Yishu smiled. This "Final Destination" is an alternative way to subvert the style of American horror films.

There were roughly three types of American horror films in the past. One was the plasma type such as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", one was the supernatural type such as "The Exorcist", and the other was various monster types such as "Alien", "Jaws", and "Predator".

These three types are widely seen all over the world, and Final Destination could be classified as a supernatural type, but there are no ghosts or spirits in the movie, and everything is just a coincidence. It can be classified as a blood-thirsty film, and it seems to be somewhat related, after all, some scenes are quite bloody, such as being split in half by the glass of a billboard from above...

However, these genres cannot fully cover "Final Destination", because it is a Chinese horror film style. If the King of Hell calls you to die at three o'clock in the morning, he will not let you live until five o'clock. The order of death has been determined through the mouths of the characters in the first half of the movie.

Everyone thought that they could avoid death by following the order, but in the end they found that they could not escape it at all. The feeling of having death all around them, which they could not get rid of or leave, was the most horrifying and desperate thing.

Looking at the various "accidental deaths" in the movie, Gong Li couldn't help swallowing her saliva, and Xu Suo's face turned a little pale.

The movie is not very bloody, nor does it have the usual soundtracks and sudden flashes of horror scenes used in horror films, but a breeze can easily pass through all common objects in modern society and unknowingly take the lives of the characters in the movie, revealing thriller and fear in its ordinary form.

When Gong Li saw one of the main characters taking a bath in the bathroom, with a close-up of an electrical appliance port that was obviously suggestive, and a woman taking a bath in the bathtub, her heart was lifted.

At this moment, the phone rang. The woman stood up to answer it, but suddenly her foot slipped, her right hand grabbed randomly, and her body leaned backward. At this moment, her neck was entangled by the shower pipe. The sudden feeling of suffocation made the woman even more panicked. She grabbed randomly with both hands, but accidentally grabbed the hair dryer next to her.

sizzle...

Along with the electric current, the woman was directly electrocuted into a roasted suckling pig, with a faint smoke emanating from her body, and the ringing of the phone outside stopped abruptly at this moment.

Gong Li swallowed her saliva with a gurgling sound and turned to look at Li Yishu: "Yishu, is this the script you wrote?"

"Yeah." Li Yishu nodded without blinking.

I have to admit that Li An's camerawork is still very powerful. Up to now, the strong elements of "carelessness" and "accident" are captured so well.

This movie feels like a reconstruction of an "accidental" death case.

If there weren't so many camera switches and only a single surveillance-like shot was used, people would really think that this was a collection of "accidental deaths" in reality.

"How did you come up with so many ways to die...accidentally?"

Gong Li looked at the screen with a little fear. Are these ways of accidental death really something a human could think of?
The worst thing about these accidental ways of death is that they feel as if they could really happen.

"Dangers are everywhere in life." Hearing this, Li Yishu turned to look at her and said in a sinister tone, "Sister Gong Li, you should know that people can choke to death while drinking water, not to mention the dangers in modern society, which are no less than those in ancient primeval forests! Look at the chandelier above our heads, if it falls down, we will either die or be injured."

"Stop scaring me!" Gong Li snorted coldly, turned her head away and continued watching the movie.

Li Yishu didn't care and continued to watch the movie with a smile. The horror of this movie was really different. The dangers were everywhere, and they were the most common things people saw in their daily lives, such as billboards, hair dryers, nails, kites...

After watching this movie, people with paranoia will probably never dare to go out again in their lives. Their homes will be even more empty, and they can only eat with their hands, for fear of accidentally sticking a fork into their throats or chopsticks into their throats.

Gong Li glanced at Li Yishu, and seeing that he ignored her, she also stole a glance at the ceiling. Although there was only the light from the screen in the projection room, she could still vaguely see the chandelier above.

The small chandelier seemed to have become a scourge at this moment. Gong Li was secretly sweating, hoping that Li Yishu could do a better job when renovating it so that it wouldn't fall down.

Half an hour later, the movie ended. Li Yishu stood up and applauded, looking at Li An beside her with a smile: "Director Li An, you made a wonderful horror movie. It's really chilling and creepy!"

"Haha, Director Li, this is all thanks to your good script writing, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of such a wonderful story."

Li An is also very satisfied with the quality of this film. Although it is a horror film, the effect of the film is very good. This also made Li An think about shooting more films with different themes. Perhaps horror films, a genre that is not recognized by most mainstream directors, actually have more room for exploration. It is probably not just about blood and the supernatural, but can also bring people different thoughts.

Amy has asked someone to turn on the lights.

With a click, Gong Li couldn't help but shiver. She looked up and found that it didn't fall, so she breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Yishu next to him suddenly found it funny, but didn't say anything. After all, Xu Suo was in the same situation. Both of them haven't come out of the movie yet and are suffering from the aftereffects.

It really scares everyone who sees it!
After watching the movie, Li Yishu asked someone to take Gong Li and Xu Lu to continue to visit the company, while he brought Li An and Amy to the office to discuss the release of the movie.

"Boss, I've already contacted Columbia Pictures about the film's distribution. Their people will come to see the film tomorrow. According to the distribution contract we signed earlier, the quality of this film is so high that it should be able to get a lot of screens..."

Amy gushed.

After hearing this, Li Yishu nodded slightly and said, "I'm not worried about the distribution. Director Li An shot the film very well. As long as the people at Columbia are not blind, they will definitely find a way to arrange more venues."

"But in terms of publicity, you can work with Columbia to find some cases of people who survived accidents in the United States, then encountered accidents again and died tragically... Find dozens of cases and have the media report them to spark discussion and topics about the 'God of Death'..."

Hearing this, Amy and Li An were both stunned, but they soon reacted and understood Li Yishu's intention. Amy was even more surprised and said, "Director Li, your promotion method is great. First use these special events to create topics, and then release the movie. I believe that many people will be attracted to the cinema."

"Try to find out if there are people who died in a similar way to the accident in the movie, spend some money on their families, get the rights to the adaptation, and then use the gimmick of adapting it from some real events."

"Yeah, I know what to do, boss."

Amy's face was filled with joy, she had not expected her boss to have such a talent in publicity and promotion. This "adaptation from a true story" would surely attract a large number of curious audiences to the cinema to see if there really were humans being hunted by the god of death.

Li An on the side seemed to be thinking about something. No wonder others could become big directors. They were much better at publicity and promotion than ordinary people. They could even think of such an outrageous way to promote horror movies.

The most important thing is that this kind of accidental death is very common all over the world, not to mention the United States. If you can't find one in a year, then find one in ten years. You can always force a "real event" out of it.

After talking about the follow-up promotion of "Final Destination", Li Yishu also looked at Li An and asked: "How is the preparation of the crew of "Sense and Sensibility" going?"

“It’s already started.”

When talking about this, Li An said with a smile on his face: "Ms. Monica called me yesterday and said that they have started recruiting actors in the UK and are waiting for me to go over and select the actors."

"Well, you don't have to worry about Final Destination. Just go to England and prepare the crew to start filming."

"Okay Director Li, I'll go after I finish attending the Golden Globe Awards."

Although Li An had just finished all the post-production of "Final Destination" and had not rested at all, he did not feel tired because he had been resting for too long. He started resting after graduating from college and had been lying down for six years.

Now that he finally has the opportunity to direct a movie worth tens of millions of dollars, which is an adaptation of a famous British novel, Li An is naturally 100% cautious and excited.

I originally wanted to go there as soon as possible, but the movie he filmed, The Wedding Banquet, was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globe Awards, so this time I could compete face to face with Lee Yi-su.

Both films have won major awards at the three major European film festivals, the Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or. It remains to be seen which one will win the "Best Foreign Language Film".

When Lee Yi-su learned about this, she couldn't help but sigh that it was fortunate that it happened now. If it happened 20 years later, the public opinion on the Internet would probably explode. Who knows, someone might say that whoever won the Best Foreign Language Film would be the best director.

After chatting for a while, Li Yishu asked Li An to go back first. He still had to discuss the release matter in detail with Amy.

"Director Li, I have also been trying to establish a distribution channel recently. I have reached cooperation with some community theater alliances in Los Angeles. However, with the strength and film supply capabilities of our film company, it is difficult to get a better distribution share ratio than Columbia..."

There are a large number of cinemas in the United States today, with more than 8000, making it the country with the largest number of cinemas in the world.

But because of antitrust laws, movie theaters in the United States are very scattered. Except for a few giants, most movie theaters are opened by private owners.

In order to be able to negotiate better with film companies and distribution companies, these cinemas often form theater alliances, and gradually the community theater alliance organization is formed.

"Don't worry. Our first priority is to reach a distribution cooperation with the cinema alliance. It's okay to give up a little profit. We can increase it slowly later."

Li Yishu shook his head. Big stores bully customers, and big customers bully stores. This is an eternal truth. Now the "Golden Lion Pictures" under the Art Group is still very weak. It is definitely the weak party in negotiations with those theater alliances, but as long as they can cooperate, they can become strong in the future.

Amy nodded. "I think so too, boss. Right now, we at Golden Lion Pictures don't produce many horror films. Once the number increases, we will be able to discuss cooperative distribution with these theater chains."

The cinema alliance is like a platform in the Internet era. They are more willing to cooperate with film and television companies that can output products more stably.

If the Art Group did not have the great director Lee Ye-seo and the movie The Sixth Sense which sold 4 million USD worldwide,

It was impossible for the people from the Los Angeles Theater Alliance to discuss distribution cooperation with Golden Lion Pictures, a company that had only been established for less than half a year and had not yet produced any works.

Just because the interests are not equal.

dong dong——

Just then, there was a knock on the office door. Amy looked towards the door and said, "Come in!"

With a click, the door opened and a female receptionist walked in. When she saw the boss was there, she said quickly, "Boss, Manager Amy, I just received a call from Time Magazine. They hope to interview Boss for an exclusive interview."

"Interview me?" Li Yishu was slightly startled and asked in astonishment, "Did they talk about interviewing me about that?"

Li Yishu did not expect that Time magazine would come to interview her.

The female receptionist said, "It seems to be because of the Chinese film that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Boss."

Come for "Farewell My Concubine"?

Ballon d'Or?
(End of this chapter)