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Chapter 154 A Handful of Bitter Tears
"Are you sure you won't all leave as soon as I get over there?" Huang Ze asked with a smile.

"Of course not!" Zhang Yimou said with certainty, "There are still two big scenes to shoot. It will take at least two weeks to finish them."

"Come over and play for a few days."

"Please help me check it by the way. This is my first time as a director, and I feel guilty!"

"Okay, then give me an exact address and I'll go there in two days!" Huang Ze still wanted to see the filming of "Red Sorghum". No matter how many people think that this movie vilifies Chinese people or something like that, its status in the history of domestic cinema is absolutely indelible.

It was a Golden Bear announcing to the world that Chinese-language films were coming.

After that, it was as if the door was opened for Chinese-language films to enter the three major European theaters.

He won a big award, had influence, served as a judge, served as the chairman of the jury, and then continued to support domestic films.

Many directors make their living by participating in European film festivals.

Don’t say that we don’t make commercial films. The mortality rate of commercial films in the domestic market at that time was too high.

The cost was strictly controlled, and later it was relaxed a bit to sell copies. But do you know how many copies were sold?

It’s not about how much it is.

As for the era of box office sharing.

The distribution companies are far away and the head office may not be able to control them. You get what you report as the box office. If you report less, I can make more.

Well, I won’t take too much from you and make you lose all your money. I will always give you a figure that can barely recover the cost so that you can continue to make movies and we can continue to make money, thus achieving a win-win situation. That means I win twice.

The one who suffered the most bullying was Chen Xiaoer, who opened a private film and television company early on.

Without relying on the art film market and making money from Europe, it is possible that there will not even be enough talents to go around as directors and crew members as in the past.

Of course, I have my own life in this life. "Flavor of Cherry" has become one of the three pioneers of Chinese-language films in Europe, replacing the significance of "Red Sorghum".

But Huang Ze still has different feelings about this movie.

I always feel like if I don't take a look, I'm missing something.

So, I stayed with the crew of "Huang Feihong" for another two days, and carefully instructed the crew members, asking them to carry out their work in an orderly manner according to what I said and the settings in the storyboard.

As for the cooperation with Shanghai Film Studio, my father and Director Xu were there. We had also cooperated with China Film Studio once before and had experience, so we reached an agreement quickly and everyone signed the contract.

There was no need for him to keep an eye on the place all the time for the time being. The team he had worked with several times could operate smoothly, so Huang Ze left Shanghai.

……

Shandong Province, Gaomi.

Sunjiakou Village, Xiazhuang.

The transportation here is pretty good. The village is about 30 kilometers away from the nearby Gaomi County, Jiaozhou City which was upgraded from a county to a city this year, and Pingdu County.

Many clips of "Red Sorghum" were filmed in Zhenbeibao, Xingqing Prefecture, but the scenes related to sorghum fields, Qingshakou, etc. were all shot here.

In recent days, there has been a film crew staying here, which is very rare for ordinary people.

Look, four more cars are coming.

Thanks to the recent crackdown on crime, and the fact that he brought more than a dozen bodyguards with him, Huang Ze was not afraid of bandits and drove all the way to Gaomi, 800 kilometers away from Shanghai.

After settling down in Gaomi County and having a meal, we arrived at Sunjiakou around two or three in the afternoon, stopped outside the filming location of the crew, and walked towards the location where the camera was placed.

Gu Changwei is adjusting the camera.

Zhang Yimou and a bald, slightly plump man who was almost fifty years old came over.

It is the end of September, but it is not too cold. Today it is even a little hot. Zhang Yimou is wearing a big red vest, a green military uniform, and a pair of Liberation shoes. He is almost forty years old, and his face is full of wrinkles. If you don't know him, you might think he is an old farmer from Guanshan.

"Hahaha, Old Huang, you're being a bit over the top!" Zhang Yimou pointed at the four off-road vehicles not far away.

"Hey, these are not mine, these are all company cars." They are indeed the company's cars. They belong to the film and television city management company, although the company owns them.

but!

Huang Ze, who used to play Paradox games frequently, remembered a sentence deeply.

My vassal's vassal is not my vassal.

My daughter’s daughter is still...

Stop!

All in all, it's all company-owned.

“I just have the right to use it.”

"Three hundred and sixty-five days of all-weather use rights, right?" Zhang Yimou patted Huang Ze's arm and introduced the person next to him to Huang Ze, "This is..."

"No need for introductions, hello, Director Wu! I've heard a lot about you!" How could Huang Ze not know the director of Xi'an Film Studio? He smiled and extended his hand.

"I should be the one saying this, right? I've heard of you for a long time! Haha." Wu Tianming shook hands with Huang Ze with one hand and patted the back of Huang Ze's hand with the other hand. "If you think there's anything wrong, you can point it out. Let's try to make Red Sorghum better."

Wu Tianming likes Huang Ze, a young director who has already gained great fame.

But he also knew that this was the director he couldn't get, so he let go after shaking hands for half a minute.

"Come this way!"

Walking next to the camera, there stood a little guy with the same unkempt look and wearing a vest.

"This is Mo Yan." Zhang Yimou introduced him. "He wrote the original novel of this film and is also the screenwriter of this film."

"Hello there!"

"Hello."

The two men were not familiar with each other, so they just greeted each other casually. Huang Ze then looked around to admire the scenery. He looked at the sorghum blown by the wind, and could not help but let out a "yeah".

"What's wrong?" Zhang Yimou and Wu Tianming thought Huang Ze had seen some loophole, so they quickly turned to look at Huang Ze and asked nervously.

"Nothing." Huang Ze smiled, "I just think that this sorghum doesn't look like the same variety!"

"Stop talking about this."

"I feel like crying when I talk about it!" Zhang Yimou smiled bitterly.

"It's a long story. I first contracted 100 mu of land for local farmers to grow sorghum, and all the harvests belonged to them."

"But I have one request. We must plant this kind of green sorghum that is thin and tall, the kind that sways in the wind. We must not plant the high-yield red sorghum."

"The farmers agreed to it, but when the time came, the local villagers thought it was a waste to plant too much low-yield sorghum, so they planted high-yield red sorghum on half of the land."

"The season has passed, and it's too late to plant again. I can only bite the bullet and accept it, and go to Zhenbeibao to shoot the scenes there first."

"We were going to shoot here in July, but there was a severe drought. The sorghums were all wilted, like tall leeks."

"It's strange, the sorghum in the villagers' fields is fine. They haven't taken care of these 100 acres of sorghum since they planted it."

"Mo Yan and I just used all our connections to ask for help. We got five tons of fertilizer and hired a fire truck to water the plants."

"The result, the result..." Zhang Yimo was already speechless with a bitter smile, and made a gesture of wiping his face, "A handful of bitter tears!"

(End of this chapter)