Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 354-365 [The first domestic blockbuster, a fairy tale for adults]

This morning.

Beijing Film Studio.

Yu Feihong drove Jiang Qinqin here. They came today to see the first edition of "Fireworks in the Daytime".

“Yeshu-ge!”

As soon as she got off the car, Jiang Qinqin threw herself into Li Yishu's arms.

Li Yishu looked at Yu Feihong who was getting off the car, smiled at each other, and then he rubbed Jiang Qinqin's hair in his arms and said, "Okay, Qinqin, there are a lot of people watching us."

Hearing this, Jiang Qinqin noticed that many people around were looking at her curiously. She immediately blushed and loosened her arms that were tightly around Li Yishu, but she did not move away. Instead, she stood beside him and whispered, "There are so many people."

Li Yishu nodded: "Yes, the main creators of the crew came to watch the film."

Today is not only a screening of "Black Coal, Thin Ice", but also a screening of Zhang Yimou's "Raise the Rock, Raise the Rock"

Assistant director Zhao Fei, Huang Lijia, leading actor Wang Zhiwen, supporting actor Li Chengru and others have all arrived.

Among them was Yu Feihong's best friend Wang Qian. Although she only played a small role of less than three minutes at the beginning, she had not had much to shoot recently. After learning from Yu Feihong that Director Li had returned to hold a film screening, she rushed over with great interest.

Seeing that the time was almost up and the leading actress Yu Feihong had arrived, Li Yishu waved her hand and invited everyone to go to the small screening room of the Beijing Film Studio first.

He himself was waiting at the door for Zhang Yimou and others to arrive.

I didn't wait long, about five or six minutes, before I saw two cars approaching.

All the main actors including Zhang Yimou, Gong Li, Li Baotian, Li Xuejian and others were there.

Li Yishu strode forward and extended her hand enthusiastically: "Director Zhang, long time no see!"

Zhang Yimou showed his signature farmer-like smile, "Yes, Director Li, long time no see. I heard that your new film was released in North America and the box office was very good?"

"It's OK, a musical, a small attempt."

Li Yishu smiled. The North American box office of "Chicago" has already exceeded 6000 million US dollars. There is still half a month left for its release. If the trend continues, it will be no problem to break 8000 million US dollars.

This box office result far exceeded Li Yishu's expectations. Even Harvey, who was far away in the United States, was grinning from ear to ear. The $8000 million not only recovered the film production costs, but also made a huge profit. The subsequent overseas box office was almost pure profit.

According to this trend, the final profit of "Chicago" will be at least over 1 million US dollars. After deducting taxes and profits, Artbook Entertainment Group will be able to get more than million US dollars.

Moreover, the copyrights of peripheral videotapes, VCDs, etc. in the future will bring a steady stream of profits to the group. The original soundtrack has already been recorded in cooperation with the record company. It is indeed very rare for an art film to achieve such a great success.

That is to say, Li Yishu is not in North America now. I don’t know if the media reports in the United States are almost touting Li Yishu as the "first independent film producer." (Art film)
After all, in recent years, eight out of ten films shot by Li Yishu were independently produced, and the copyright fees were sold at very high levels, and almost all of them made huge profits.

"Speaking of which, my movie also has some singing and dancing scenes. I'd like to ask Director Li for some advice later."

Zhang Yimou has not seen "Chicago" and is not sure what kind of movie it is. However, after reading overseas reports reprinted in China, he knows that this movie invited Tom Hanks, this year's popular Hollywood star, to star in it, so he thinks the quality of the movie must be good.

Li Yishu laughed and said, "Haha, Director Zhang is too polite. I don't deserve your advice. Let's learn together. I am also very interested in the theme of the Paramount Nightclub in the Shanghai era. I will definitely try it if I have the chance in the future."

After the two directors exchanged greetings, Gong Li, an old acquaintance, simply said hello and then started chatting with Li Baotian and Li Xuejian.

This year, Li Baotian participated in the production of the TV series "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo" invested by "Beijing Art Film and Television Company", and played the absolute male lead Liu Luoguo in the play. The TV series is still in preparation and will start shooting at the Huairou Film and Television Base in one or two months.

Li Baotian took a special leave to come here today.

Li Yishu had never met him before, but since they met this time, she naturally had to have a good chat with him and made an appointment to visit him on set if she had the chance.

He then turned his gaze towards Li Xuejian, an actor he liked very much, and took the initiative to extend his hand and said, "Teacher Li, I especially like your films "Desire" and "Jiao Yulu". They are so well made. Your performance of Jiao Yulu is touching and impressive."

Li Xuejian said: "Director Li, you are too polite. I just played Jiao Yulu. What really moved and impressed people was Jiao Yulu who eliminated the three evils!"

Li Yishu couldn't help but say, "Yes, Comrade Jiao Yulu is great and worthy of our learning, but it is Teacher Li's interpretation that can vividly show Comrade Jiao Yulu's spirit of serving the people wholeheartedly."

At first, Li Xuejian thought that Li Yishu was just being polite, but when he said that, he couldn't help but say:

"I have personally been to places where Comrade Jiao Yulu participated in work. When local people heard about him, even though more than 20 years had passed, they were so excited that they shed tears. I told myself at the time that I must play this heroic role well, otherwise it would be a discredit to the hero!"

His powerful words moved Li Yishu deeply.

People in this era still respect heroes. It is nothing like the Internet era more than 20 years later, when internet celebrities, in order to gain traffic, make fun of the deeds of heroes.

The emotion was only temporary. The changes of the times were not something Li Yishu could control. He suppressed his emotions and warmly invited everyone to walk into the screening room.

Han Sanping saw Zhang Yimou coming and walked up to him enthusiastically to talk to him.

The film production business of Beijing Film Studio has been developing very well in the past two years. In addition to the co-production in which Li Yishu participated, it also cooperated with many Hong Kong film companies, including Jet Li's "The Kung Fu Emperor Fang Shiyu" and "The New Shaolin Five Ancestors" and other films.

This year they also collaborated on a movie called "A Letter to Dad". Several co-productions in a row were a huge success, making Han Sanping famous.

The two crews exchanged a few simple greetings and within two minutes, the screening room became dark.

The movie is officially released.

The original film of "Fireworks in the Daytime" has a total running time of 106 minutes. In order to show Oh Ji-jeong's role in more detail, Lee Ye-su added an extra 6 minutes of monologue for her to expand the story of this complex woman who is both good and evil, exudes charm in her every move, and is calm on the outside but turbulent on the inside.

Well, it was actually Lee Yi-su who was preparing for Yu Fei-hong's Best Actress nomination.

He had originally planned to take the film to the Cannes Film Festival, but time was a bit too late, so he decided to take it to the Venice Film Festival.

However, Takeshi Kitano's "Fireworks" has been confirmed to participate in this year's Venice Film Festival.

Lee Yi-su was not in a good position to bring another film to participate, so after much deliberation, she decided to participate in the Locarno Film Festival held in Switzerland. The Locarno Film Festival is known as one of the "Four Major European Film Festivals" along with Cannes, Berlin, and Venice. It is known as the "Prince of Film Festivals" and its highest award is the Golden Leopard Award.

The Locarno Film Festival was still quite famous in China in the early 1980s. However, after the three major film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice successively awarded awards to fifth-generation directors such as Zhang Yimou and Li Yishu, its fame was not as high as before.

However, it is still very famous in Europe and has a certain influence in North America, but it is quite average in Asia.

Lee Ye-seok, the godfather of Asian films, has entered his film into the competition. Perhaps in order to increase the popularity of their own film festival in Asia, the organizers of the Locarno Film Festival will give out a few major awards.

It was for this reason that when Lee Yi-su went to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year, she inadvertently revealed during a media interview that she would attend the Locarno Film Festival in August.

Give the organizers of the Locarno Film Festival enough time to negotiate and discuss.

Looking at the character of Wu Zhizhen in the movie, Gong Li nodded in agreement and looked at Yu Feihong and said, "Feihong, you acted well!"

"I can't compare to Gong Li. If Gong Li played this role, she would definitely perform better. It's mainly because Director Li trained me well."

This was also the first time that Yu Feihong saw this film on the screen. After seeing her own performance, she was a little surprised at how good her acting skills were.
“I’m not suited to this role.”

Gong Li smiled and said, "If I were to act, I'm afraid I wouldn't be as good as you."

Gong Li has never played this kind of role before. Although she is confident that if she gives herself some time, her acting will not be worse than Yu Feihong, in terms of the cold and beautiful image, Yu Feihong is more suitable for "Wu Zhizhen", a woman full of charm and mystery.

Jiang Qinqin, who was standing next to them, was watching the movie intently while listening to the conversation between the two. She couldn't help crying in her heart, wondering when she would be able to have such acting skills.

The 112-minute film ended very quickly.

Zhang Yimou had someone take a copy of "Grandma's Bridge" to the screening room to prepare for its replacement.

Before the next screening, there will be a half-hour break for everyone to smoke, chat, drink tea, go to the bathroom, etc.

Gong Li, Yu Feihong and other actors discussed the film's plot, the tension and personality of their characters.

Zhang Yimou followed Li Yishu and Han Sanping to the next office to chat.

As they chatted, they talked about Chen Kaige's new film and Li Yishu's new film.

Zhang Yimou asked curiously, "I heard from Director Xie Jin that the total investment for this film is a solid 500 million RMB, and it will also use nearly 100,000 extras?"

"good."

Li Yishu nodded and smiled, "There are indeed 100,000 extras, but not all of them appear in one scene. However, the largest number should be the Battle of Red Cliffs. We plan to shoot it in three major battlefields, and there will probably be 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers participating in the filming."

“What a big production!”

Zhang Yimou said with emotion: "To be honest, I have always wanted to try to make a commercial film. Especially after I learned that Director Li was going to shoot "Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms", I had an even stronger desire to shoot a big production."

The biggest change that Li Yishu brought after his rebirth, besides to himself, is to the entire mainland film industry.

Since "Sword Rain" sold 1.8 million US dollars worldwide, big-budget movies have gradually begun to gain popularity in mainland China.

Then there was "Rumble in the Bronx" co-starring Li Yishu and Cheng Long, which was released during the Lunar New Year holiday in mainland China this year and grossed over 100 million RMB!

Even though the film was released for nearly two months and ticket prices were high in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the box office achievement of 2 million is real!
This is also the first movie to break the 100 million yuan box office since the theater reform!

However, this achievement will not last long, as "True Lies" has already been released in mainland China.

If Li Yishu remembers correctly, this movie, directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, will become the first movie in China to gross over 100 million yuan.

"If Director Zhang wants to shoot, he can cooperate with our Beijing Film Studio."

Han Sanping didn't expect that Zhang Yimou also wanted to make a big production, and immediately said enthusiastically: "Our Beijing Film Studio has cooperated with Director Li and Director Chen on two big productions, both of which cost hundreds of millions of dollars. If Director Zhang has any ideas, he must contact our Beijing Film Studio."

"No problem, Director Han. If I really plan to make a big-budget commercial film in the future, I will definitely cooperate with the Beijing Film Studio."

Zhang Yimou nodded. He actually wanted to continue staying in the Xi'an Film Studio to make movies, but the Xi'an Film Studio had declined too quickly in the past two years.

The speed of the rise of Beijing Film Studio is astonishing. If Zhang Yimou really wants to make a movie in the future, he will probably have to cooperate with Beijing Film Studio.

After all, Beijing Film Studio is now the only studio in China that has participated in productions with investments exceeding 100 million yuan, and has produced two films with investments exceeding 100 million yuan.

When Li Yishu heard about Zhang Yimou's desire to make a commercial film, she couldn't help but think of the film "Hero", which was the pioneering work of the Chinese blockbuster.

It’s a pity that the title of this pioneering domestic blockbuster will probably fall on Li Yishu.

As for Brother Chen Kai?
Li Yishu was totally disdainful. He had already confirmed from Han Sanping that the "The Emperor and the Assassin" directed by Brother Chen Kai was most likely similar to the 1999 version he had watched in his previous life. The actors might have changed, but the plot would most likely be the same.

Having spent nearly 300 million RMB to make such an epoch-making epic masterpiece of Shakespeare, Li Yishu really wants to know whether the people at Kadokawa Corporation will be so angry that they vomit blood?

After chatting for more than ten minutes, Zhang Yimou couldn't help but ask, "Director Li, the PR matter of the Cannes Film Festival..."

"Director Zhang, don't worry. Sister Gong Li has already told me about this. Let's watch the movie first and then talk about it after the movie, okay?"

Li Yishu spoke very tactfully, and Zhang Yimou probably didn't quite understand, but Han Sanping looked at him thoughtfully.

Let’s watch the movie first and then talk about the Cannes public relations. It seems that Li Yishu is not optimistic about Zhang Yimou’s new film?
Facts have indeed proved that Han Sanping's guess was correct.

After resting for half an hour, they returned to the screening room and watched Rock and Roll: Grandma's Bridge directed by Zhang Yimou.

The name sounds like a fairy tale, but it actually tells a story about gangsters, dancers, the Godfather and Shanghai.

Maybe when Zhang Yimou chose this title for the movie, he wanted to express that gangsters, The Godfather, Shanghai, and cabaret dancers are just fairy tales for adults?
(End of this chapter)