Huayu: Director started with art films

"Crack!"

Li Yishu, who had no idea that she was being targeted, shouted immediately when she saw the scene was over.

"This section is over. All departments should clean up the scene. Captain Liu, you should change your clothes quickly to avoid catching a cold."

Although it was quite warm inside the hall, the dancers did not wear much inside except for the Hanfu costumes in order to look good. In addition, the palace gates were open and the cold wind was howling, so they were already freezing.

"Okay, Director."

A gust of cold wind blew, and Liu Xiaoli shivered. She immediately took the team members to the locker room to change clothes.

After finishing his performance, Bao Guoan looked up at Li Yishu who was communicating with the assistant director, and strode over: "Director, is my scene just now okay?"

"No problem, it's a great performance."

Li Yishu gave a thumbs up and said, "Teacher Bao's performance as Cao Cao was really amazing. If Cao Cao wasn't like you, I would have suspected that the history books were written nonsense."

Hearing this, Bao Guoan did not react at first, but Jiang Qinqin and a few other girls who were watching the show nearby suddenly burst out laughing.

Bao Guoan said with a smile: "Director, you are too kind. To be honest, Cao Cao in history books is not as good as me."

Bao Guoan, who played the role of Cao Cao twice, naturally read a lot of relevant history books, and he especially remembered the parts about Cao Cao by heart.

Sun Sheng, a historian of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, recorded in "Wei Shi Chunqiu" that "Cao was short in stature but had a brilliant mind", which meant that Cao Cao was short in stature.

"That's true. Mr. Bao is indeed taller than Cao Cao."

Looking at Bao Guoan, who was about 1.75 meters tall, Li Yishu nodded. Whether in history books or "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the tallest description of Cao Cao was only seven feet tall.

According to the Han Dynasty measurement of 23 centimeters per foot, it is only about meters.

Jiang Qinqin asked curiously, "Brother Yishu, how tall is Cao Cao?"

Li Yishu smiled and said, "You'll have to ask Teacher Bao about this. I heard from Director Shen and Director Wang that in order to play Cao Cao well, Teacher Bao read almost all the historical books and literary works about Cao Cao."

He remembered that there was related news on the Internet later, saying that archaeologists seemed to have discovered Cao Cao's tomb, and the corpse inside was only about 1.5 meters long. However, Li Yishu could not remember clearly whether it was true or not.

Hearing this, Jiang Qinqin looked at Bao Guoan: "Teacher Bao?"

"I don't really know how high it is."

Bao Guoan pondered for a moment, recalled some historical records, and said:

"The Eastern Jin Dynasty's Weishi Chunqiu records that Cao Cao was short, but the Romance of the Three Kingdoms says that Cao Cao was seven feet tall. However, seven feet was the normal height for men in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, so the real Cao Cao was definitely not seven feet tall. Otherwise, there would not be any historical records specifically recording Cao Cao's short stature. It is estimated that he was about five or six feet tall. Converted to modern times, he should be only about 1.5 meters tall."

"One and a half meters!"

Jiang Qinqin didn't expect that the famous Prime Minister Cao Cao in history books was only 1.5 meters tall. She was immediately disappointed.

And Alyssa Chia standing next to her gestured and it seemed that Cao Cao was not as tall as her.

You should know that Alyssa Chia is the shortest among the three girls, only 1.6 meters tall.

Li Yishu glanced at Jia Jingwen who was gesturing beside him and said with a smile: "The height in ancient times is definitely incomparable to that in modern times. Even if Cao Cao was short, he was still the founder of the Cao Wei Dynasty."

"The director is right."

Bao Guoan nodded heavily: "I have read a lot of books about Cao Cao, and I found that Cao Cao is really amazing. Whether it is his ability to command troops, his literary ability in poetry and songs, or his political management, he is a leader in the Three Kingdoms era. He is truly capable of both literature and martial arts."

Hearing the other party praising Cao Cao so much, Li Yishu laughed heartily and said, "It seems that Teacher Bao supports the Cao Wei camp?"

"I play Cao Cao, so naturally I support him."

Bao Guoan was smiling. The movie themselves was adapted from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. During their breaks, everyone liked to get together and talk about the Three Kingdoms. These days, most people supported Liu Bei of the Shu Han camp.

After all, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is centered on Liu Bei of the Shu Han camp.

"Then Mr. Bao has to be careful of our Master Guan."

Li Yishu said with a smile: "Master Guan is a loyal minister of Shu Han!"

"Old Lu, that's right, but I saved Liu Bei's life when we were filming the TV series a few years ago. As his younger brother, he won't cause trouble for me."

Bao Guoan laughed.

Li Yishu didn't understand at first, but then she remembered something and immediately started to laugh.

Xu Jinglei was curious: "Teacher Bao, did you save Liu Bei's life?"

"Yes, a few years ago, Lao Lu and I were filming the TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms. One night, I was resting in the tent when I was suddenly woken up. When I came out, I saw Lao Lu and Lao Li yelling and saying that their eldest brother Liu Bei had been captured..."

Seeing the three little girls looking curious, Bao Guoan also talked incessantly about how Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei stole corn at night and were later discovered by local farmers. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei ignored the Peach Garden Oath of Brotherhood and ran away alone, leaving Liu Bei alone and being captured.

Li Yishu listened with a smile. It was quite interesting to listen to "Cao Cao" talk about this.

Liu, Guan and Zhang stole corn in the middle of the night, and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei escaped alone!

Jiang Qinqin and the other two girls were dumbfounded when they heard about these interesting stories on the set.

So a few days later, when we were filming the scene where Guan Yu flooded the Seven Armies at Hengdian Artificial Lake,
When the three girls saw Lu Shuming, the actor who played Guan Yu,
Everyone has a weird expression.

For this senior who looks like "Master Guan Erye", there is a sense of idol collapse.

You should know that with the popularity of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in 94, by this year, the TV series has already moved from its premiere on CCTV to TV stations across the country.

The extremely high level of filming and the actors' acting skills have caused a huge sensation in the country over the Three Kingdoms fever.

The most unforgettable among them must be Lu Shuming, the actor who played Guan Yu. The degree of his resemblance to Guan Yu was so great that almost all the statues and pictorials of Guan Yu in China were portrayed based on him.

Just like Xiao Liu Ling Tong, the actor who played Sun Wukong, Lu Shuming's Guan Yu has become a classic of his generation.

Even though it is not as classic as it was more than a decade ago due to the blessing of nostalgia, Lu Shuming is now very popular across the country thanks to the role of Guan Yu.

Now it was revealed that he actually went to steal corn with the actors who played Liu Bei and Zhang Fei in the middle of the night. That would be fine, he was just hungry, but he ran away without loyalty. This is really jaw-dropping and I don't know what to do. On February 2, Jiang Qinqin, who had been playing in Hengdian for ten days, couldn't stand the urging of her parents and took Jia Jingwen back to the mountain city by plane.

Xu Jinglei watched helplessly as her good sisters left together. She could only carry her suitcase and return to Yanjing alone.

Yu Feihong originally wanted to go back to Yanjing first, but her parents called and asked her to spend the New Year with her grandmother. After saying goodbye to Li Yishu, she flew back to Yuhang the next day.

After the four women left, the filming progress of the crew officially stopped.

Because Chinese New Year's Eve is on the 18th, and considering that many people have been filming with the crew for more than half a year, Li Yishu simply took a holiday early.

On February 2, Western Valentine's Day, the crew of "Red Cliff" stopped filming, and the main creative team left Hengdian and went home to prepare for the Chinese New Year.

Li Yishu did not stay in Hengdian and flew back to her hometown in Sichuan that day.

By the time we arrived at Sichuan Airport, it was already afternoon and Qingxia came to pick us up.

After leaving the airport lobby, Li Yishu got into Qingxia's car with her suitcase and sat down on the passenger seat. Looking at Qingxia, whom she hadn't seen for a few months, she smiled and asked, "Are your parents and big brother used to staying here?"

Qingxia smiled and nodded: "It's fine. During this period, my mother and I took them to the panda base, the Wuhou Temple, and also to..."

This year, Qingxia's parents and brother's family also came to Sichuan to celebrate the New Year.

The main thing is to meet the in-laws.

Li Yishu: "You'll get used to it. How long will big brother and the others stay?"

"We agreed to stay in Taiwan on the fifth day of the new year and stay for more than ten days." Qingxia said this, glanced at Li Yishu sitting in the co-pilot seat, and asked, "What about you? How many days off does your crew have?"

"We will go back on the third day of the New Year and officially start work on the fourth day."

Li Yishu said, "The filming progress has been pretty good recently, and it should be finished before April. After that, we'll take a month off, and then we'll fly to the United States again. You can go with Tuantuan then."

Qingxia was surprised and asked, "You have a new movie in the United States?"

"Yes, there is a new film, a collaboration with Cheng Long, which has been delayed for more than a year. It must be filmed."

Li Yishu rubbed his temple and said, "After finishing this film, I will return to China to do the post-production editing of "Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms"."

“Yishu, there’s no need for you to be so tired.”

Seeing Li Yishu's exhausted look, Qingxia said with a bit of heartache: "You are not short of money now. I heard from Sister Xu in Shanghai that our building has been sublet and we can get hundreds of millions of yuan in rent every year. With your media group, you don't need to release so many movies a year."

"I know."

Li Yishu smiled at Qingxia, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took out a cigarette, rolled down the car window, lit it and started smoking: "After "Three Kingdoms Red Cliff" and Cheng Long's "Rush Hour" are finished, I will take a two-year break and focus on my work in TV series and TV stations."

With the rapid development of the Art Media Group and the success of Asia Television in the beauty pageant, Li Yishu's attention gradually shifted to business.

Judging from the current situation of the film industry in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, the market has begun to shrink across the board.

A few days ago, Han Sanping called and talked about the total box office data for the whole year of 1995 in mainland China, which was only 9.5 million, less than 10 billion RMB.

In 1994, although many of the data were not accurate, preliminary statistics showed that it was about 13 billion RMB.

In just one year, the box office revenue dropped by 3 million RMB, and with ticket prices increasing significantly, the number of moviegoers has dropped even more.

This is the case in mainland China, and the situation in Hong Kong is even worse. Amy told me that more than half of the film companies in Hong Kong went bankrupt because they could not sell their films.

This year, there may be more bankruptcies.

Under such circumstances, even if Li Yishu produced some classic commercial blockbusters of later generations, it would probably be difficult to get high box office in China, unless he could now make a "The Wandering Earth", which, with its amazing pictures and imagination, would probably attract a large number of audiences.

But this is unrealistic. Even the United States does not have this level of movie special effects.

So it’s impossible to make movies, so we can only invest more in TV series and open a school to train a group of students with a basic understanding of the film industry, and then we can talk about it after the millennium.

"It's good to take a break." Qingxia drove the car with a smile: "You haven't seen Tuantuan for several months. He almost doesn't recognize you as his father."

Li Yishu smiled and said, "Haha, this brat, how could he not acknowledge me as his father?"

"If you keep filming like this, and only see him once every few months, he's sure not to recognize you."

When Qingxia said this, she suddenly remembered something and said, "Oh, Yishu, Xu Ke's film 'The Blade' was taken off the screen last week. It only made over 300 million in Hong Kong and over 500 million in Taiwan. Xu Ke called me and said that he would come to you in person to apologize after the New Year."

Li Yishu said calmly, "He should apologize. We gave him a budget of 1000 million, but the box office sales were less than 800 million."

Qingxia, who was driving, glanced at Li Yishu from the corner of her eye and saw that he didn't seem angry, but rather calm. While wondering, she thought of a possibility, "You didn't know that this movie would lose money when you first read the script, did you?"

"It's not that exaggerated. How could I know it would lose money just by looking at the script? The main reason is that although the subject matter is novel, the audience will not accept this kind of martial arts film."

Li Yishu thought to herself: Why do I need to read the script? I can tell whether I will make a profit or a loss just by looking at the movie title.

Under the circumstance that the big history remains unchanged, movies that are supposed to lose money will inevitably still lose money. Movies that lose money are either bad or too advanced.

Just like Stephen Chow's "A Chinese Odyssey", if it was released more than ten years later, its box office would probably be much higher than "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons".

Xu Ke’s "Sword" has a great film texture. The western swordsman and the sharp sword techniques are more realistic than traditional martial arts films.

But nowadays, people are used to watching flying heroes, and prefer free and unrestrained knights rather than swordsmen like American cowboys.

Later, the same thing happened with Xu Ke's "Seven Swords", which was also a movie full of dark yellow western tones. The plot was not as good as "The Blade", and the box office was also terrible. Xu Ke almost fell from grace due to the loss.

If it weren't for the later movie "Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame", Xu Ke would probably have been completely forgotten like Wu Yusen after filming "The Crossing".

Qingxia was curious: "Then why did you invest in the first place?"

"The script is a good one, the story is a good one too, I've invested, and I don't just rely on Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland to make my money back."

Li Yishu smiled and said, "I'll call Amy later and ask her to bring this movie to the United States. Americans should be interested in this kind of Western cowboy-style martial arts film. As long as it sells for one or two million dollars, it will be able to make a profit." (End of this chapter)