Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 254 Explosion Story

Li Yu's "Beauty" was broadcast in rotation, sharing the same theater with other movies. Her movie was scheduled for the 10 o'clock show.

This is probably one of the best performances.

"Beauty" was originally scheduled to be performed at 6pm, but that time period was dinner time and the flow of people was relatively small.

Cao Yang coordinated it and scheduled it for screening at 10 o'clock.

Li Yu was still very grateful for this.

With a carousel like this, there’s no point in even thinking about holding a premiere or anything like that.

Cao Yang's arrival brought a lot of popularity to "Red Beauty".

Originally, only official media came to report the incident symbolically, but because Cao Yang was seen, a lot more media came, and some even rushed over after receiving the news.

At this Venice Film Festival, Marco Muller tried his best to embrace Hollywood. Even among the seven members of the jury, two were Americans.

Although the chairman of the jury is Italian, he has always been working in Hollywood.

However, even so, there were still not many Hollywood big names who came, not even a single superstar. The only famous ones were George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins and others.

Maybe it’s because Hollywood played a trick on them during the previous Venice Film Festivals, so no one wants to come?
Fortunately, Cao Yang came with "Black Swan", allowing a big director to participate in the Venice Film Festival, which somewhat saved some face for Lao Ma and the Venice Film Festival, so that they would not be without a big director with global influence.

So now wherever Cao Yang goes, he will bring popularity.

The story of "Red Beauty" is indeed a bit explosive.

Li Yu deserves to be called the queen of banned films in mainland China.

It has everything a movie should have, including plenty of exposed nipples and gimmicks.

Simply put, this movie tells the story of Xiaoyun, a girl from a small county in Sichuan Province who was expelled from school due to an unexpected pregnancy in the early 80s. After giving birth, Xiaoyun's mother told her that the child was dead, but in fact the child was adopted by someone.

Ten years later, Xiaoyun became a leading actress in the Sichuan Opera Troupe and met an adopted child named Xiaoyong. The two became friends. Eventually, after Xiaoyun learned of Xiaoyong's true identity, she chose to leave.

Seems like a normal story, right?

In fact, the content involves the heroine giving birth to a child, becoming a mistress after becoming a famous actress...

These are nothing.

The most unacceptable thing is that the heroine Xiaoyun and Xiaoyong actually developed feelings for each other!

Xiaoyong fell in love with Sister Yun. He couldn't wait to grow up so that he could marry Sister Yun. Sister Yun was old and no one wanted her, so he wanted Sister Yun. Xiaoyun also regarded him as a spiritual comfort.

Xiaoyong is actually the child that the heroine gave away ten years ago.

In other words, he is the heroine's son.

In the movie, the director has been hinting at this forbidden love in both explicit and implicit ways.

The female director is really awesome.

However, if we remove the ethical gimmicks, "Beauty" vividly depicts a county girl's journey from confusion and helplessness to her frustration with the cruelty of real society.

The heroine's final departure from the town also represents the awakening of female consciousness after repeated encounters with difficulties...

Well, at least that’s what Li Yu said in an interview after the movie.

And he also talked about his own experience.

"That year I liked a neighbor uncle very much. It might have something to do with my lack of fatherly love. I stayed around him all day and thought it was fun to talk to him. He bought me a red school bag..." (This is what she said in an interview.)
Art truly comes from life and is higher than life.

On the way back, Dong Xuan was silent for a long time, and then said to Cao Yang:

"If the movie removed the mutual affection between the heroine and her son, and changed it to Xiaoyong treating Xiaoyun as a sister and protecting her everywhere, it would also make sense. Why did the director insist on doing it this way?" Cao Yang had no answer. How could I know what the female director was thinking? Obviously, her storytelling ability is still very good.

If it was changed to what Dong Xuan said, the story would be just as exciting and make sense, but it would definitely not be as shocking as it is now.

Well, you can say it’s shocking, or you can say it subverts your worldview.

"Maybe Director Li Yu thinks this will win an award?" Cao Yang guessed.

Dong Xuan fell silent again. Even if he could win the award, there was no need to explode like this.

"Don't think about it. Let's go and watch your biggest competitor's movie, The Beast Within, starring Giovanna Mezzogiorno."

The film premieres today.

As a popular movie in the main competition unit, it is definitely treated much better than movies like Li Yu's "Red Beauty" which only entered the Horizon unit. It is not broadcast in rotation, and the screening hall is also very large.

Cao Yang put on a baseball cap and sunglasses, and led Dong Xuan quietly into the screening room.

"The Beast Within" has been showing for a while.

However, it does not affect the viewing experience.

Then, after they both finished reading, they fell silent at the same time.

I can only say that it is worthy of being a European art film.

The heroine's brother and sister have been harassed by their biological father's surname since they were young. This is a past that the brother and sister cannot bear to look back on...

Moreover, the heroine not only got married and had a husband, but she also had love with another woman who she grew up with!
This is about ethics and girls, as expected, from the perspective of perversion, European art films never disappoint.

OK, morality plays are popular in Venice this year, right?
"What do you think of the leading actress's acting?"

After a long silence, Dong Xuan finally broke the silence and asked Cao Yang.

She wanted to know how her competitor's acting skills were. At least she trusted Cao Yang's opinion.

"Not bad, she played out the heroine's confusion, helplessness and childhood trauma."

Cao Yang thought for a moment and said.

Dong Xuan was silent again. She felt that if the more perverted a movie was, the easier it would be to win awards, then "Black Swan" would not be a match for European art films.

Today she really had an eye-opener.

On September 9th, "Black Swan" held its premiere.

The organizing committee was quite considerate and arranged for the event to be held in the Sala Grande Theater, which has a capacity of 1036 people.

The Sala Grande Theater is the flagship hall of the Venice Film Festival. Located on the Lido Island of Venice, Italy, it is the venue for the film festival awards ceremony.

At seven o'clock in the evening, the venue was packed, and there were hundreds of media reporters and film critics.

The president of the Venice Film Festival, the president of the organizing committee, the president of the jury and all the jury members were all there, making it a grand occasion.

Li Yu is here.

Tsui Hark also came, bringing with him several actors from the "Seven Swords" crew. They rented a screening room and planned to screen the film until the last day of the film festival in order to sell as many copyrights as possible.

There was another crew from Hong Kong called "The Song of Everlasting Regret". Director Kwan Kam-pang came with Leung Ka-fai, Cheng Soo-wen and Hu Jun.

Almost all the directors and actors from Hollywood who came to attend the Venice Film Festival came, including the few big stars.

Everyone once again witnessed Cao Yang's influence.

(End of this chapter)