Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 285 296 [Kitano Takeshi's Samurai Dream, Huo Wenxi is Really Hungry]

The concept of the music studio proposed by Li Yishu is actually similar to the artist studios in mainland China later. As long as Being Music Company, where Izumi Sakai works, agrees to Li Yishu's investment in the studio, everyone will be happy.

If they don't agree, Li Yishu will buy out Izumi Sakai's contract and acquire a small or medium-sized music company.

It just so happens that the mainland music market is booming right now, and records are frequently being broken in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Last year, Zhang Xueyou's "Kiss Goodbye" sold 400 million copies worldwide, with sales in Taiwan alone reaching 136 million copies, setting a record for the highest-selling record in Taiwan's history.

Although Li Yishu has not paid much attention to it, when she was filming "Nobody" in Shancheng, the streets and alleys were full of "I kiss you goodbye, in that empty night". You can imagine how popular records are now, and the fame of singers is no less than those movie stars.

Now we can acquire a small or medium-sized music company and sign Izumi Sakai. In the future, we can try to discover new talents or even sign singers from the mainland. As long as we can be self-sufficient, there will not be any big problems.

When Universal Music began to acquire music companies around the world in the millennium, I might have made a fortune by selling my company to Universal.

Just as the two were chatting animatedly, someone knocked on the box door.

"Come in!"

Kitano Takeshi and his wife pushed the door open and walked in.

After entering, before Li Yishu could speak, the couple immediately knelt down and bowed: "Supervisor Li!"

"Kitano Takeshi, what are you doing!?"

Li Yishu was stunned for a second, then quickly stood up and walked over to help the two of them up.

"Supervisor Li, thank you so much."

Kitano Takeshi's eyes were red as he said, "I heard from my wife that when you came to visit me, you also promised to give me a year to recover. I really don't know how to thank you for this kindness. Only kneeling down can express my gratitude."

"There's no need to do this. We are old acquaintances. There's no need to do this."

Li Yishu didn't expect Kitano Takeshi to be so grateful to her, so she had to wait until the other party finished his greeting before pulling him up.

At this time, Izumi Sakai also came over and helped Mrs. Kitano up.

"Okay, okay, come sit down and chat. If you want something to drink, I'll ask the waiter to get it."

"We can drink anything, Director Li."

"Latte then."

Li Yishu also rang the electronic bell, and the waiter came in and ordered two lattes.

After the waiter left, Li Yishu was able to see Kitano Takeshi's current appearance face to face. The skin color of the left half of his face was obviously different from that of the right side, a bit like after a burn. Overall, he looked OK, except that his skin color was a little lighter.

"I see that Kitano-san has recovered very well, and there aren't many signs of surgery on his face."

"Thanks to Supervisor Li, I recovered well. The doctor said that I was very lucky to recover like this without any infection. But... the nerves on this side of my face died, and I will never be able to move again."

Kitano Takeshi is in pain at the moment. In addition to being a movie actor, he is also a comedian. Now half of his face cannot move, which is equivalent to facial paralysis. In this case, how can he use facial expressions to act in movies and amuse the audience?

Hearing this, Izumi Sakai felt very sympathetic towards Takeshi Kitano. Although she was not an actor, she was a singer. Having half of her face paralyzed was equivalent to a singer losing her hearing. No matter how beautiful her voice was, she would gradually lose her sense of pitch in the future, and eventually even her pronunciation might become unclear.

Li Yishu said: "Don't be discouraged, Kitano-san. A good actor is not only about facial expressions, but also about eyes and temperament. I believe that you will be able to take a different path in the future. And who told you that you can't act well in a movie if you lost nerves on half of your face?"

Kitano Takeshi said painfully: "Thank you for choosing me to play this role, but I... I don't have confidence. This time, I hope that Director Li can change someone else to play the role. I... I am ashamed of Director Li's kindness."

Hearing this, Li Yishu pondered and said, "I believe that you can interpret the script of "Fireworks" in a different way. Kitano-san, you have experienced the great terror between life and death, and your future is definitely bright."

He remembered that "Fireworks" seemed to be the script that Takeshi Kitano wrote after he became paralyzed on half of his face, just to help those who laughed at him. He showed his best acting skills ever and also won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival.

dong dong——

Just then, someone knocked on the door of the box.

"Okay Kitano-san, sit down first."

Li Yishu asked the other party to sit down, and then shouted to the outside: "Come in!"

The waiter pushed the door open with two cups of latte, and after putting down the coffee, he politely left.

After he left, Li Yishu said, "Kitano-san, don't you want to make those who look down on you and laugh at you regret it? They say that you, Kitano Takeshi, are useless, are you really useless? Act well, and I will take you to the European Film Festival and tell others that even if you, Kitano Takeshi, have facial problems, you are better than those people!"

After hearing this, Kitano Takeshi's heart surged. He stood up suddenly, moved his chair back, took two steps back, and bowed heavily: "Mr. Li, I'm so sorry that my aunt died!"

"We Chinese have an old saying, 'If you don't make a sound, you will be amazing once you do.' Now that you have recovered, I will contact Toho and ask them to start preparing for the film. Kitano-san, how about you serve as the assistant director and help with the preparations?"

"I am willing to serve Mr. Li!"

The deal was settled and both sides began to talk about the script.

Perhaps because he had gone through the test of life and death, Takeshi Kitano had a different feeling about movies and put forward many different interpretations of the ideas.

On this point, Li Yishu naturally agreed and recognized the other party. After all, this film was originally the script that Kitano Takeshi wrote on his own after he suffered a car accident.

The realization I have now is probably the key to writing these plots in my previous life.

This time, it can be said that Kitano Takeshi really understood the script of "Fireworks", and I believe he will be able to give a more exciting performance than his previous life.

"Mr. Li, Mr. Sakai, take care!"

After watching Li Yishu driving away with Izumi Sakai, Kitano Takeshi's heart could not calm down for a long time. He never expected that Li Jun would love him so much and not only let him continue to play the leading role, but also gave him the position of assistant director who could participate in the preparation of the crew.

At this moment, Kitano Takeshi thought of the traditional Japanese samurai who were willing to die for their lord.

After dealing with Takeshi Kitano's issue, Li Yishu first sent Izumi Sakai back, and then took a car to the hotel to meet Huo Wenxi.

This time, not only Huo Wenxi led the team personally, but also technical engineer Jiang Wanmeng came, and a group of technical talents and business team members accompanied them.

In terms of DVD technology development progress, Jiang Gong's side was earlier and faster, but after the Sony Group realized the changes that VCD might bring, they had already started to improve VCD technology with their large technical team. DVD is also in Sony's future research and development. This time, the two sides reached an agreement to jointly formulate DVD standards and also formed a cooperation of joint research and development and joint patent holding.

The reason why Sony Group is so generous is not because of Li Yishu's face. He doesn't have that much face now. It is mainly because of the internal meeting and discussion of Sony Group. According to the progress, Pioneer Electric's DVD is progressing faster. Even though Sony is conducting comprehensive research and development, many technical patents have been won by Pioneer.

It would take time to circumvent this patent. By that time, if Pioneer Electric cooperates with big brands such as Panasonic, Hitachi, and Toshiba, it would probably cost Sony even more to get involved.

So they simply agreed to the conditions proposed by Huo Wenxi. Anyway, relying on the Sony Group's global development, even if the DVD technology was shared, Sony would still be able to get the biggest piece of the pie. At most, the Chinese and a small part of the Southeast Asian market would be taken over by Pioneer.

But Sony is confident that it will be able to capture the Chinese market in the future simply because Sony Electronics is more well-known.

After listening to Huo Wenxi's words, Li Yishu frowned and asked, "Do you want me to go with you to the negotiation tomorrow?"

"No need, boss. If you go, it will be difficult for us to talk."

Huo Wenxi shook his head. The big boss behind Pioneer Electric Appliances was Li Yishu. If he showed up in person, it would mean that Pioneer Electric Appliances would lose first.

Li Yishu quickly understood the reason. This is just like signing an actor. It is originally the director's job, but the investor has to step in. In this way, everyone knows that the investor values ​​them, so the remuneration must be negotiated higher, right?
Li Yishu said with emotion: "Wenxi, you have made great progress now. You can really stand on your own."

"This is all thanks to the boss's teachings. Without the boss, there would be no Wenxi today."

Huo Wenxi smiled and threw herself into Li Yishu's arms. She drew circles on her chest with her slender fingers and said with a dazed look, "Boss, I'm hungry."

Li Yishu asked, "Are you hungry? What do you want to eat?"

“I want to eat it.”

Huo Wenxi grabbed it.

hiss!
Li Yishu took a breath and said, "Wow, you're hungry in a different way, but I like it."

"Eat if you're hungry."

"Then I'll eat it!"

a long time.

"I am full!"

Huo Wenxi burped, wiped his mouth, stood up, and said generously:

"To express my gratitude, I'll treat the boss to a big meat bun."

In the next few days, Li Yishu accompanied Izumi Sakai on tours and listened to the negotiation results from Huo Wenxi's side.

Overall, it's all good. Sony doesn't want to drag it out. After all, in their view, even if the technology is shared, Pioneer Electric cannot compete with the Sony Group. At most, it will just have less market share in China.

Therefore, the negotiations between the two parties have been going smoothly, and Mr. Jiang also brought his technical staff to start cooperation with Sony's technical team.

Huo Wenxi also mentioned the issue of OEM, and Sony naturally would not refuse. Although the unemployment rate in Japan is very high now, the average wage here is too low. If Huo Wenxi is entrusted with the OEM, a lot of money can be saved in terms of cost alone.

Moreover, since both parties have contributed their technologies, they naturally don’t care about the issue of technology leakage.

The people at Toho Co., Ltd. attached great importance to continuing the cooperation with Lee Yi-su. Especially after they learned that it was going to be a Japanese-language film, they became even more enthusiastic and started preparing the crew together with Takeshi Kitano.

Li Yishu did not interfere too much in the casting. The core of this movie is Takeshi Kitano, and there are no major problems with the tone of the movie with him. So they planned to wait until Qingxia was out of confinement and start filming around the end of October, and it would take another half a month to complete it.

Being Music Company.

In the president's office.

"This... Supervisor Li, I'm sorry I can't agree to this regarding the studio."

President Nagato Daiyuki looked conflicted. He naturally understood that Li Yishu proposed the concept of the studio for the good of Izumi Sakai. Now everyone knows that Izumi Sakai is the girlfriend of the famous Asian Godfather.

Nagato Daiyuki also wanted to make things happen, but he couldn't set a precedent because if he did, not only other singers from Being Music, but also major Japanese music companies would not agree.

After a singer signs a contract with a company, in addition to the basic share of the profits, the company can make more money for itself by arranging high-intensity work for the singer.

But once a singer sets up a studio, his or her freedom is greatly increased, and there is no way to exploit him or her in the future.

This is also the reason why it is difficult for Japan and South Korea to develop studios, unlike in China where any popular actor can open his own studio.

After listening to Nagato Daiyuki's explanation, Li Yishu nodded slightly: "In this case... then I won't embarrass President Nagato, but I hope to buy the contract for the spring water, and I can slightly increase the price."

Nagato Daiko shook his head repeatedly: "No need, Supervisor Li, just pay the normal price. I just hope Supervisor Li can understand my difficulties."

"I understand, President Nagato."

Li Yishu smiled, then chatted with the other party for a few more words. After finalizing the contract to buy Sakai Izumi, he left directly and called Ichiro Tanaka, hoping to meet with him.

Previously, the Japanese Art Film Company was just an office. Now that they are planning to acquire a small or medium-sized music company, it is natural to merge with a regular company.

In this case, the previous person in charge, Juri Nagisa, was not suitable. After considering it, Li Yishu decided to invite Ichiro Tanaka to join the company and become the general manager of the Japanese Art Group branch.

Japan has always been an important box office for world films. If Li Yishu sets up shop in Japan early, she can introduce domestic films to be screened here in the future. The box office performance doesn't matter, as long as she can open up an overseas distribution channel.

When Ichiro Tanaka learned that Supervisor Li invited him to be the general manager of the art group's Japanese branch, he nodded and agreed without hesitation. He knew very well that his current position was due to Supervisor Li.

Without Supervisor Li, he is nothing.

After securing Ichiro Tanaka's approval and getting him to acquire a small or medium-sized music company, Li Yishu said goodbye to Izumi Sakai without waiting for Huo Wenxi and headed for Hong Kong.

Golden Harvest has already completed the post-production of "Rumble in the Bronx" according to Li Yishu's request, and he has to go over to see if there is anything that needs to be re-edited.

(End of this chapter)