Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 158 Can’t wait anymore
This time at Cannes, Lu Kuan did not go to the screening with Feng Yuanzheng.

Knitting?

With a beautiful woman in my arms, and in such a beautiful coastal city, how could I not think straight and still go to work?

This is a joke. The truth is that the films in this year's Cannes are so lame!
Without being modest, there was nothing worth Lu Kuan's personal experience to learn and observe.

The kind that he wouldn't even want to copy when I gave it to him.

This year's Cannes Film Festival has been criticized in history, and even the French media have used words such as "mediocre", "dim", and "unoriginal" to describe it.

It depends on whether "Shoplifters" can throw a huge rock into the dull lake and create ripples.

The premiere of Shoplifters will be the day after tomorrow, and publicity personnel from Wenjie and China Film are intensively promoting the film.

This time, Lu Kuan also publicly agreed to interviews from many media outlets from Europe and China.

Generally speaking, if journalists at the three major European conferences want to interview well-known directors, they must make an appointment through the official organization of the conference.

That is why last year in Venice, the conference staff showed arrogance and prejudice in making things difficult for domestic journalists and refusing to issue press passes.

Interviews with some top actors and directors even require payment.

Given Boss Lu's reputation as the youngest Golden Lion Award-winning director, I believe that once he releases the news and opens the door, many reporters will come to him.

These will become his full-service loudspeakers and the amplifiers for "Shoplifters" at Cannes.

The two drove along the Cote d'Azur, and the moist sea breeze blowing on their faces made people forget the troubles in the world of fame and fortune for a while.

This coastline is lined with seaside cities suitable for vacation, including Monaco, Nice, Antibes and Cannes from north to south.

However, many beaches with beautiful scenery and excellent locations have been privatized. They are either designated as private beaches for villa areas by wealthy people, or owned by hotels and resorts.

In the car, Boss Lu denounced the decadent system of capitalist private ownership, which made Fan Bingbing laugh.

"Director Lu, what do you think I should wear on the red carpet?"

Boss Lu recalled the charming scene of the beauty changing clothes in front of him yesterday, but his mind was full of Nako at that time, and now he has no impression of it at all!

"Well, Bingbing, you also need to consider the resources and self-packaging of the fashion industry and plan your own development path."

"For example, the dresses you have for a film festival aren't very presentable."

She is not the only one in this regard. All actresses except Gong Li are similar. These days, there is no concept of celebrities seizing and utilizing fashion resources to package themselves.

The domestic version of "Harper's Bazaar" was only founded in 2002.

The last red carpet dress worn by Liu Yifei in Venice was designed by Liu Peiji, the personal stylist of Hong Kong's Mei Yanfang.

In the early days of the domestic entertainment industry in the 20s, due to the imbalance in entertainment capital strength between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong, the fashion trends and concepts of the Hong Kong circle became the objects of imitation for mainland female stars.

At that time, when people praised a mainland female celebrity for being fashionable and stylish, they would say that she was very Western, or "very Hong Kong", and had a Hong Kong style.

In addition, due to the social atmosphere in the mainland, most female celebrities dress relatively conservatively, presenting a gentle and pure image to gain public favor.

But with the advent of the new century, joining the WTO, all-round opening up and the development of the Internet industry.

More and more mainland female stars are beginning to realize the importance of fashion resources.

They opened their eyes and suddenly realized that the Hong Kong entertainment industry also learned from Europe and the United States, so I might as well just copy Europe and the United States!
Fashion and celebrities are parasitic and inseparable propositions that depend on each other.

Among these actresses who "open their eyes to see the world", Fan Bingbing and Liu Yifei are relatively two teams that have done relatively well.

But many people fail to realize the importance of this point.

A negative example is the US dollar.

She became famous for her image of the clean-mouthed girl, and her team positioned her as a pure girl.

As a result, when she attended the Berlin Film Festival with Wang Xiaoshuai's "Seventeen Years Old Bicycle", she actually went there wearing sportswear!

If the foreign organizers hadn't been unable to bear it, she would even want to walk the red carpet with a backpack.

It was not until after the Olympics that Da Meiyu's team began to make various plans for her to watch shows and appear at fashion weeks. She began to break away from her unchanging pure image and gained some titles such as fashion goddess.

Fan Bingbing has been under Wang Jinhua's command for several years and has never heard of the terms fashion resources and fashion routes.

"Director, what do you mean by planning a route?"

"For an actress, the most important thing is her work. That's the number one. Everything else, like advertisements and commercials, is zero. You have to recognize this first."

"After you have a few representative works and a certain level of national recognition, you should start to consider your own direction based on your appearance, acting skills, personality, etc. This is related to your future acting path and image."

Fan Bingbing smiled and said, "Then choose the international route, the high-end route. What else is there to consider? Isn't this the highest mountain?"

Lu Kuan stopped the car and the two sat on a bench at the beach.

"I'm going to analyze your appearance from a film director's perspective, but don't be angry, okay?"

Fan Bingbing said disdainfully: "Whatever you say, I have the confidence."

Boss Lu smiled and said, “Let me talk about your shortcomings first.”

"From a bone structure perspective, your brow bones are slightly crooked, your head is slightly triangular, and your temples are wide."

"With a pointed chin, the whole figure would look a bit like an inverted triangle if it weren't for makeup and hairstyle."

"This is quite disadvantageous in filming. The same beam of light hitting your face and Zhang Ziyi's face will produce different effects on the big screen."

"Also, the distance between your eyebrows and eyes is a little wide, and your eyes are not narrow enough, which makes you look a little dull." Fan Bingbing looked at him in disbelief!
You find so many faults on my face and you keep fussing over me all day long, you beast?
You say the food is not tasty, but you don’t leave a single grain of rice, right?

"I'm ugly, okay? Then don't ask me over tonight!"

This facial flaw of Fan Bingbing's is not too fatal and can be solved with a little makeup.

From "Returning the Pig" to "The Flying Dagger of Xiao Li", we can see a very obvious change:
Draw thick eyebrows and heavy eye makeup to improve the distance between eyebrows and eyes, and then use hairstyle to modify the triangular head.

Perfect. (Compare to the pictures below)

Boss Lu smiled and put his arm around her shoulders: "Look at you, you're anxious again!"

"Then let me tell you about your strengths."

"You have a strong complexion, which makes you look very heroic. Your eyes are particularly charming, and your nose bridge is high and distinct, which makes you look very three-dimensional on camera."

It is high-end and charming.

"With these characteristics, it's very easy to play aggressive roles that allow you to freely display your beauty and charm."

For example, the daughter in "Shoplifters" is a girl working in a brothel, who is both pure and charming.

Fan Bingbing's anger turned into joy: "Then how should I plan the route?"

Boss Lu stroked the girl's slender waist with his right hand while making a promise.

“To find your own route, you also need to look at who is ahead of you on this road.”

"For a starlet like you, Zhang Ziyi, Zhou Xun, Xu Jinglei, and Zhao Yanzi are all competitors."

There is no need to mention Gong Li, she is a later-level figure.

Fan Bingbing curled her lips. She couldn't reach any of them now.

"If you develop step by step, even with world-class resources, you can't guarantee that you will be able to overtake others without any problems."

"If no one else talks about it, just talk about Zhang Ziyi."

"If Zhang Yimou were to make a costume palace film, his female lead would be either Gong Li or Zhang Ziyi."

"If Chen Kaige were to make an art film about Mei Lanfang and wanted to cast Meng Xiaodong, he would definitely choose Zhang Ziyi, both in terms of acting and image compatibility."

As mentioned earlier, Zhang Ziyi's face seems to be born for movies. The biggest reason why she was able to enter Hollywood is that both Chinese and foreigners can see the beauty of her face.

In later generations, some faces that foreigners consider high-end are often aesthetically unacceptable in the eyes of Chinese people, and vice versa.

This is the aesthetic gap between China and the West, but Zhang Ziyi's appearance smooths out this aesthetic difference.

Fan Bingbing was almost losing confidence after hearing what he said. He was a genius director and a little immortal from Mount Mao. Was his path really so difficult?
Not to mention Zhang Ziyi, she could only just see the taillights of Zhao Yanzi, Zhou Xun and others.

Or it was because Lu Kuan reserved for her the role in this Cannes-nominated film.

"Then what should I do?"

The entertainment industry is a pyramid, and limited resources cannot satisfy so many stars vying for power, especially actors with similar acting styles, looks, characteristics and personalities.

Prominent examples are Bai Baihe and Wang Luodan.

The latter took off with "Struggle", but Bai Baihe relied on her husband Chen Yufan's resources in the Beijing circle to become famous from "Love is Not Blind" and became a representative of chick flicks.

Since then, Wang Luodan's acting career has been blocked. Whenever there is a role of this type, the first person the director looks for is Bai Baihe.

For example, after the "Yanzhao Gate" incident broke out, popular Hong Kong male and female artists such as Edison Chen, Nicholas Tse, and Cheung Pak-chi were affected and their resources were greatly reduced.

Amidst these ups and downs, people like Huang Xiaoming and Deng Chao from the mainland have risen strongly.

This is the same reason as the subsequent surge in young people in mainland China after the collapse of Ke Zhendong in Taiwan and the Canadian electric eel.

There are countless competitors on every road in the entertainment industry. If you don’t squeeze out the people in front of you, you will never reach the top.

"Your image and temperament can completely go for a purely fashionable route, avoiding direct confrontation with these big names and saving the country in a roundabout way."

Most of the current domestic entertainment stars have not yet realized the importance of fashion resources. This is a good opportunity for Fan Bingbing to overtake others.

Watching shows, magazine covers, high-end luxury, haute couture, street shots and hype surrounding fashion themes.

Of course, the premise of all this is to have a few outstanding works, otherwise it will be as fragile as castles in the air.

Fan Bingbing's eyes sparkled when she heard this. She had given herself to Lu Kuan at the beginning, and the latter had promised her that he would provide her with movie roles and tailor a character for her.

It seems that my efforts have paid off and were not in vain.

She pecked the man on the cheek: "Do you want a reward? I can promise you that today..."

Boss Lu was very interested: "What? Go back to the hotel now?"

Seeing that there was no one around the beach, the girl reached into Boss Lu's trouser pocket while talking.

"No, I can't wait any longer."

She rubbed her crossed legs.

"Come on, get in the car with me!"

(End of this chapter)