Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 353 364 [The collapsed producer, Chen Kaige's final stubbornness]

Jiang Qinqin, who had met a new art student candidate once last year, was now looking at the list of successful candidates and discussing with Jia Jingwen, Xu Jinglei and others which of these art student candidates was better and more suitable to be recommended to Sister Xuan.

Among them, the best-looking one is definitely the girl named Sun Li. She has a standard oval face and a pair of big eyes. She looks smart and playful.

And I also learned classical dance!

During the art exam, the three of them followed Yu Feihong and sneaked into the exam site. I have to admit that Sun Li is very outstanding, she is beautiful and can dance very well.

The second one is the girl named Zuo Xiaoqing, an athlete of the national gymnastics team. She is very flexible and performed a gymnastics on the spot and got full marks in body shape.

The third one is Yu Yi. Her performance is very good. Although she is a freshman, she has excellent acting skills.

As for other art candidates, most of them are mediocre, and among the male candidates, there are not many who are good-looking.

"How to say?"

Xu Jinglei asked: "Qinqin, is it Sun Li and Zuo Xiaoqing?"

"Let's wait and see. Sister Xuan asked us to pay more attention to the male freshmen."

Jiang Qinqin said, "It is said that the company is now dominated by women and lacks men. There are a lot of actresses, but the male actors are only middle-aged men like Chen Baoguo and Zhang Guoli. They asked us to pay more attention to the male students in school. Can anyone recommend any good ones?"

Jia Jingwen asked: "Male classmates? How about those in our class?"

“All signed.”

Jiang Qinqin pouted and said, "But they are pretty average. They look average, their acting skills are average. I don't think it will be easy for them to become popular in the future."

It's not that Jiang Qinqin has high standards, but the boys in her class are indeed very average. Compared with the girls in the class, they are not even a little bit inferior.

Xu Jinglei said: "Take your time, there's no rush. If it doesn't work, go to the Central Academy of Drama."

Jiang Qinqin blinked: "The Central Academy of Drama? Do you have any acquaintances there?"

"Yeah, I have a pretty good relationship with Liu Mintao who is in the same grade as me at the Central Academy of Drama. There are a few boys in their class who are good at acting. One is called Wang Qianyuan. I heard from Liu Mintao that he is a drama fanatic who practices in the performance studio until the evening every day. There is also a guy called Xin Baiqing who is also a drama fan..."

"How about we meet at noon tomorrow?"

"Sure, but what excuse should we give? Should we just say the company wants to sign a new person?"

"Let's say that Director Lee Ye-seo's Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms needs new actors. How about we find some suitable people?"

Hearing this, Xu Jinglei's eyes lit up: "Qinqin, Director Li is back?"

"Yes!" Jiang Qinqin said with a smile, "I came back two days ago, but I didn't come to Yanjing. I went to Hengdian World Studios in Jinhua. I said I wanted to see the filming location, and then I will go to Inner Mongolia."

Jia Jingwen asked: "When will the crew of "Three Kingdoms Red Cliff" start filming?"

"It seems to be mid-June. I didn't ask the exact time, but Yishu promised me that he would let me play Sun Shangxiang!"

Jiang Qinqin raised her beautiful chin. Since entering college, perhaps influenced by several girls in the same dormitory, she began to slowly reduce her food intake. Also, because of regular body shape training, her face, which originally had a bit of baby fat, gradually became a standard oval face.

After experiencing the romance with Li Yishu, Jiang Qinqin lost her youthfulness and gradually gained more feminine beauty. Now, she has become the real campus belle of Beijing Film Academy, and people send her love letters every day.

"Sun Shangxiang!"

It would be a lie for Xu Jinglei to say that she was not envious. This is a 500 million blockbuster movie. Although Sun Shangxiang is not an important character, she still has a separate scene during the Battle of Red Cliffs.

Compared to "Red Cliff", which is an entirely male drama, the female character Sun Shangxiang is already very important, second only to Wu Guotai, who appears most frequently.

The role of Wu Guotai is played by Jiang Qinqin's godmother Zhao Xue. They really are mother and daughter both in and out of the play.

Jiang Qinqin said, "Don't worry, I will take you two to the crew when the time comes. You two will play the maids beside me, and you will have lines."

"Thank you, Qinqin." Jia Jingwen's face lit up with joy. It was great to have a role with lines.

Xu Jinglei also hurried to express her gratitude. In such a big production, it was great to have a role with lines. She couldn't compare to Jiang Qinqin, who had a stronger background.

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore. Leilei, go contact your friends at the Central Academy of Drama and ask them to meet at Wangfujing tomorrow at noon."

"Yeah, I'll make the call now."

time flies.

A few days later.

Li Yishu returned to Yanjing from an inspection in Hengdian. He first went to the Beijing Film Studio with Han Sanping, and then brought the producer arranged by the August First Film Studio to discuss the filming of the crew.

After everything is settled, we decided to leave for Inner Mongolia the day after tomorrow to check out the horse farm.

Cao Cao's eastern expedition to the Wuhuan was a big drama, and a circus had to be prepared for the crew of "Empress Dowager of Liao". Naturally, Li Yishu had to go to Inner Mongolia in person to take a look.

After returning to Yanjing, Li Yishu naturally wanted to accompany Jiang Qinqin, Yu Feihong and others.

But before Li Yishu could go find Jiang Qinqin, she received a call from Chen Hong, who had just returned from the filming of "New Dragon Inn".

At Chen Hong's home.

After opening the door, Chen Hong saw that the person coming was Li Yishu, and she rushed over excitedly. She hadn't seen him for almost three months, so she naturally missed him a lot.

Faced with the passion of the beauty, Li Yishu naturally had to try his best.

More than half an hour later, Chen Hong lay on the bed, panting.

Li Yishu played with the two little white rabbits and asked, "The filming of New Dragon Inn has been completed. Are you going to take a break for a while, or what?"

"Manager Yong arranged a crew for me, and I felt it was pretty good, so I agreed."

"What crew?"

“The New World.”

Chen Hong looked up at Li Yishu and said, "I heard from Manager Yong that you wrote this script?"

"I wrote this, and you're going to star in this movie?"

"Yes, it's a small supporting role with not many scenes. I didn't want to take it at first, but Manager Yong said that it was written by you, Director Li. I also wanted to take some movies, so I agreed. I will join the crew next week and will be finished in three days before I can rest."

Chen Hong touched her face and said helplessly, "The ultraviolet rays over there are really strong. It's not very hot, but people who get sunburned still get darker and they don't look good."

"The ultraviolet rays in Ningxia are quite strong. It doesn't matter. It will be fine after a few days."

Li Yishu pinched Chen Hong's nose and said with a smile: "Don't worry, even if you get a little darker, you are still the most beautiful woman in the mainland in my mind!"

Hearing this, Chen Hong felt very happy. There is no woman who would not like others to say that she is beautiful.

He suddenly remembered something and asked, "By the way, have you ever seen a zombie movie from Hong Kong?"

"I've seen a little bit. Some of it is quite interesting, and some is a bit scary."

"Asia Television in Hong Kong is planning to film two TV series in the mainland, one is called "Mr. Vampire" and the other is called "New Fist of Fury". I am planning to let you play an important role in the crew of "Mr. Vampire". Are you interested?" "What role?"

"The descendant of the Ma family, a family of exorcists!"

When in Taiwan, Li Yishu talked about this TV series with Huo Wenxi who came over. "Mr. Vampire" is definitely a classic of the generation, but if we really talk about the target audience, the later "My Date with a Vampire" by Joey Meng is more attractive to the audience.

So he mentioned it briefly and added the setting of South Mao and North Ma in advance, so that it would be easier to lead to the next TV series later.

"Forget it. I'm not interested in zombie movies."

Upon hearing that it was a TV series about zombies, Chen Hong shook her head.

Li Yishu said, "Forget it if you don't like it. I remember that the company is going to film "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo" soon. You can go and see if there is a role you like."

Chen Hong said eagerly: "Actually, I would rather participate in the filming of your "Three Kingdoms Red Cliff"."

"Then there's no chance."

Li Yishu said regretfully: "In the Battle of Red Cliff, even Lu Bu died. You have no chance to play the most beautiful Diao Chan. If you were to play another role, the audience would probably still think of you as Diao Chan."

In 1994, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was popular in mainland China, and the role of Diao Chan played by Chen Hong also became a classic of the generation.

After hearing this, Chen Hong was about to say that I could play Sun Shangxiang or Xiao Qiao, but she held it back.

Glancing at her, Li Yishu smiled without saying anything. Chen Hong had some serious thoughts. To use a phrase from the internet later, she was a bit of a green tea person.

You can't agree to whatever she wants, and you have to give her what she doesn't want.

This is the only way to temper her green tea nature.

"Have a rest?"

"Ok?"

"Then let's continue!"

"what?"

Everyone has a different personality and body structure. Experiencing different beauty is Lee Ye-su's original intention of becoming a great director, and it is the true nature of a man.

Li Yishu continued to fight in Chen Hong's nine-turn corridor.

Inside the editing room of Beijing Film Studio.

Brother Chen Kai is having an intense communication with the editor.

This is not the first time the two have had a conflict.

Ever since the filming of "The Emperor and the Assassin" was completed and post-production began, Chen Kai began arguing with the editor about the editing of the film.

According to Chen Kai's idea, he wanted to make a Chinese Shakespeare to pass on art to everyone. The lines of the characters in the movie are the most important, and those war scenes are just to serve the plot of the movie.

The editor said angrily, "Director Chen, if you want to edit it this way, I won't do it anymore."

Brother Chen Kai didn't expect the other party to quit first, and he angrily said, "If you don't want to do it, get out!"

The editor was also very stubborn and just turned around and left.

Seeing the other party leave, Brother Chen Kai was so angry that he took out his mobile phone and immediately called the producer Li Shaowei, asking him to come to the Beijing Film Studio as soon as possible.

After half an hour.

Li Shaowei came to the Beijing Film Studio in a hurry, and heard Brother Chen Kai say, "Hurry up and find me a new editor!"

"Why do we need to change the editor for no reason?" Li Shaowei was confused, because the editor chosen this time was the one with the most experience in Beijing Film Studio.

"My philosophy is not in line with mine, so I just quit."

Brother Chen Kai immediately told the story in a fluent manner.

It turned out that Brother Chen Kai wanted to edit out the lines that he thought were wonderful, but the editor thought that there were too many lines, and if all of them were edited out, the total length would reach 180 minutes.

A full three hours!

Watching a movie for three hours is enough to make people want to sleep!

What's more, the dialogue took up nearly two hours.

Hearing this, Li Shaowei's scalp went numb. It was a three-hour feature film with dialogues in strange accents. Audiences went to the cinema to watch Qin Shihuang's conquest of the world, not to watch an art film.

Li Shaowei wanted to say something, but he knew what kind of person Brother Chen Kai was. Besides, it was Brother Chen Kai himself who raised the investment for this film. Beijing Film Studio only contributed part of the money. He could only bite the bullet and say, "Brother Kai, how about we cut some of the film? 180 minutes is really too long, and it's hard to schedule the screenings in the cinema."

Brother Chen Kai said stubbornly: "No, it must not be less than 180 minutes! Otherwise my story will not be complete."

"Yes, the story still needs to be told in full, but how about cutting out some useless scenes? 180 minutes is really too long."

Li Shaowei said a lot of things earnestly, and Brother Chen Kai was a little moved, but he still did not agree on the spot. Instead, he said: "Get me a new editor, one who must obey my orders, and he will cut it the way I tell him to!"

"Okay, let's switch."

Li Shaowei sighed inwardly. He participated in the filming of the movie throughout the entire process. As an experienced producer, he had a hunch that this movie might be a failure.

A blockbuster movie that cost nearly 3 million yuan took eight months to shoot, but seven months were spent on filming the plot and only one month was spent on filming the war scenes.

That would be fine, but what makes Li Shaowei most desperate is the dialogue and randomly changed settings of this movie, which are really hard to accept.

It is clearly stated in history books that Qin Shi Huang's mother was Zhao Ji, but in Chen Kai's setting, not only was Zhao Ji and Qin Shi Huang childhood sweethearts, but Zhao Ji was also allowed to take the risk of going undercover in the hostile State of Yan and pretending to instigate a plan to assassinate Ying Zheng.

In other words, Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin was just a trap set by Qin Shi Huang.

These are nothing, after all, it's a movie, the changes are interesting, and no one can tell clearly about history whether the assassination of the King of Qin by Jing Ke was directed and acted by Qin Shihuang himself, or whether Prince Dan of Yan really sent someone to assassinate him.

But what makes people speechless the most is that Zhao Ji was won over by Jing Ke's chivalrous demeanor, and the two fell in love. After Jing Ke's assassination attempt on Qin failed, Zhao Ji ran to Qin to be dealt with by Jing Ke. She also righteously criticized Ying Zheng's tyranny and was able to leave safely afterwards.

This plot made Li Shaowei collapse.

If it weren't for the funding of the crew, 99% of which came from the investment of Japan's Kadokawa Corporation, Li Shaowei would never agree to Chen Kaige's script being approved for filming.

Brother Chen Kai suddenly asked, "Is Li Yishu about to start filming?"

"Yes, it's coming soon. It should start filming in mid-June."

"In mid-June..."

Brother Chen Kai silently calculated that if the film is to be released, it will be at the earliest by the end of next year, and maybe not until the year after.

He gritted his teeth and decided that he had to put 200% of his energy into perfecting and polishing this film.

I swear to let people know who is the number one director in the country!
(End of this chapter)