Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 221 Four Little Flowers, Two Ice Stars, and One Concubine

Lu Kuan can no longer remember what the state of domestic entertainment was like after the Spring Festival in 2004 in his previous life.

But obviously, in this life, because of the existence of his butterfly wings, all kinds of news have been flying around since the first day of the Lunar New Year.

For example, "Zhu Xian" has officially confirmed its cast.

Hu Ge plays Zhang Xiaofan and Zhu Yawen plays Lin Jingyu.

The three main female characters: Fan Bingbing plays Bi Yao, Liu Yifei plays Lu Xueqi, and Su Chang plays Tian Ling'er.

Several female supporting roles:

Su Ru, the wife of Zhang Xiaofan's master Tian Buyi, is gentle in appearance but strong-willed by nature. She is played by Yu Feihong.

Jin Ping'er, a disciple of the Hehuan Sect, appears later in the play. She is good at using the art of seduction, is pretty, charming and alluring, and is played by Gao Yuanyuan.

Zhou Xiaohuan, Zhou Yixian's granddaughter, is innocent and has few roles. She is played by Eagle King artist Cai Zhuoyan.

The Sky Fox Xiaobai has few roles and is played by the newly signed actress Tong Liya.

Some male supporting roles:

Zhang Guoli guest-stars as Monk Puzhi;
Wu Gang, who just starred in the TV series "Lush", plays Tian Buyi;

Xin Baiqing, who had worked with Tian Zhuangzhuang in 2002's "Spring in a Small Town", plays Wan Jianyi;

Looking at the entire cast list, there are talented actors, veteran actors, new generation actresses, and middle generation actresses.

Whether in terms of ratings appeal or actual business capabilities, it is a very suitable lineup.

Except for a few main actors who must be with the crew from July to October, the other supporting actors can take turns filming or have free time.

此外，上映超过25天的《疯狂的赛车》也是票房狂飙，因为错开了2003年12月12号上映的《无间道3》。

In this life, Pants' "Cell Phone" is not very compact in plot and structure because of Boss Lu's mischief. Many netizens even went to the Douban discussion group to find bugs and loopholes after watching the movie.

As of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the box office of "Racing" closed at 5500 million, and it is estimated that it will barely exceed 6000 million in the remaining days.

Another successful marketing, a successful sequel, and a successful roadshow release.

News from the world came one after another.

Next up is "Super Girl," which will begin in early February, and "Love Is Not Blind," which will be released on Valentine's Day. Elevator advertisements are a constant presence.

All the bosses and business line managers of domestic entertainment companies were suddenly awakened during the first month of the year.

The world has grown to this level!
"Alien Land" has not yet been released, but it has already dominated the headlines for a week after the Spring Festival!
As long as domestic entertainment is alive and well, the hype will never die out.

With the collaboration of Lu Yao from the Artist Management Department of Wenjie Culture Media, Zhong Lifang from the Media Operations Department, and Blog.com, a popularity voting activity for male and female actors in the domestic entertainment industry was officially launched on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year.

That is, the selection activity of the four young actresses and four young actors in mainland China.

In the domestic entertainment industry, the title of the Four Little Flowers first appeared in the early 2000s.

It was not until 2002 that Nanfang Metropolis Daily first referred to four post-70s actresses, Yan Zi, Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Zhou Xun, as the Four Little Flowers.

As these people grew older, the titles of the Four Dan Actresses and the Four Little Freshmen for male actors emerged in later generations.

In fact, this is a common hype method and bundled marketing under the entertainment trend in the literary and art circles.

Just like the issue of acting careers of Bai Baihe and Wang Luodan mentioned by Mr. Lu, actors of your type are blocked by those with better resources and who debuted earlier.

What?

Either bundle and hype, or pull others down to get to the top.

Bundling hype is a common tactic used by Hong Kong and Taiwan, which once led the domestic entertainment industry for 20 years. The most classic example is the Four Heavenly Kings.

It has been marketed from the 90s to the present day, but the domestic entertainment industry has innovated the bundling hype and is almost making it more creative.

There are several classic methods, the first of which is bundling on the same route.

The Tang people praised Liu Shishi and created a cousin named Liu Yifei.

Later, there was the little Zhao Liying - Zhao Lusi, and the little Zhang Baizhi - Song Zuer.

The second most common type is CP speculation.

Sun Li and Deng Chao are always on the hot search list, and even the most trivial things between husband and wife are written about in great detail;

"Beijing Circle Princesses" Guan Xiaotong and Lu Han first started hyping up their relationship, and when the hype died down, they started hyping up breakup rumors. The trick is not new, as long as it works.

There are also various other varieties, and saccharin is enough to satisfy fans.

The third type is partner bundling.

The host combination of Kangxi Coming is more like the Running Man family and Extreme Men's Gang in later variety shows in the domestic entertainment industry.

The more high-end ones are the big directors and their favorite actresses, Zhang Ziyi, the "Mou Girl", and Liu Yifei, the "Lu Girl".

After two years of development, Blog.com has taken a leading position in the domestic Internet sector.

Its entertainment celebrity binding strategy at the beginning of its establishment has become a learning object for major portals and forums.

Xinlang Entertainment, Wangyi Entertainment and others have opened voting topics on their portal websites to follow the trend of selecting the two top male and female actors in the domestic entertainment industry.

Mao Pu and Tian Ya took a different approach and voted for titles such as the Four Most Beautiful Women in Domestic Entertainment.

For a time, the online beauty pageant world was extremely lively.

The half-month voting period has ended, and among the four originally planned young actresses, the popularity of the four former actresses remains strong.

In the past two years, Zhou Xun's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Misty Beauty" were hits, her album "Summer" was a big hit, and most importantly, she became a movie star by starring in the Cannes award-winning film "Thief".

Although Yan Zi's popularity has been greatly damaged after Qi Zi and Po Shi, she is still popular in the film and television capital as the first generation of traffic star.

She bid farewell to her comfort zone in search of a breakthrough, and starred in "Green Tea" and "Heroes of Heaven and Earth" in succession, collaborating with Jiang Wen twice.

Zhang Ziyi made her Hollywood debut through Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Rush Hour 2, and her art film Purple Butterfly was successfully shortlisted for the main competition unit of Cannes in 2003.

The most outstanding one with the most successful personality is Xu Jinglei. She continues to occupy one of the four major actresses with the reputation of being a talented woman and a beautiful girl, and her popularity on blogs is catching up with several top stars.

Unlike the other three, Xu Jinglei transformed into a director this year and planned to shoot "My Dad" with his personal appeal.

In September 2003, she announced that she would teach "Acting Studies" at the Beijing Film Academy, further establishing her image as a talented woman.

The age structure and consumption capacity of the fan groups of these four people are relatively stable, but what shocked everyone was the sudden rise of Fan Bingbing and Liu Yifei.

In 2002, Bingbing was still a mediocre second-tier actress and had just started working as a migrant worker in the Hong Kong entertainment industry.

Who knew that she would become popular because of a movie starring Lu Laoban and her own decisive transformation in fashion style.

The Best Supporting Actress award for "Thief" cracked her title of vase, and the cover of the October issue of "Harper's Bazaar" showed her fashion sense.

Next is Liu Yifei, an underage girl who was still an unknown in 2002 and has risen like a rocket in the past two years.

"The Story of a Noble Family" which was popular during the boiling point period, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" which attracted crowds of people, and "The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" which just came to an end this month.

The big screen also had a trial work with immature acting skills, "Whiplash", which won the Best Newcomer Award at the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards and the Best New Actor at the Golden Horse Awards.

The most popular news, of course, was the sudden revelation in October this year that he would replace the injured Zhang Ziyi in "Alien Land".

Her debut was the peak of her career, and she walked out a star path that she was the only one on. There were no obvious obstacles ahead, and it was a bright future.

Then, the voting results were announced. Apart from the four young actresses in the domestic entertainment industry, Fan Bingbing and Liu Yifei's popularity was catching up with the top four.

Li Binbin, the top actress originally promoted by Huayi, was unwilling to give up. Xiaolei, Dajun brothers and Wang Jinhua communicated and decisively carried out public relations, and finally all parties basically reached a consensus.

Among the female stars in the domestic entertainment industry, the pattern of four little beauties, two ice queens and one concubine has officially formed.

A new round of bundling hype has officially begun.

On February 2004, 2, just three days after the Lantern Festival, the crew of the first four episodes of "Zhu Xian" arrived at Shidu, Beijing.

Shidu is located 70 kilometers southwest of the city. It is a natural scenic spot in North China characterized by karst peaks and river valley landforms.

Lu Kuan, accompanied by assistant director Wu Ershan and Ning Hao, scouted the locations and inspected the various scenes that had been set up in advance by the staff.

Behind the four people was Xu Zheng.

He is also a man who is good at socializing. After he made up his mind to follow Boss Lu into the director circle at a dinner party with the crew of "Stone", he has been looking for opportunities.

Having worked on Xue Xiaolu's "Love Is Not Blind", he decisively turned down several TV series contracts this year and volunteered to work as a production assistant on the set of "Zhu Xian".

This is the first lesson a director must learn: cost control.

"Old Xu, you won the Magnolia Award for Best Actor in a Comedy, and both of your TV series last year received good reviews."

"Isn't it a bit of a waste of talent to be a production assistant on Zhu Xian?"

Xu Zheng just finished filming a Qing Dynasty drama "Man Han Banquet" last year, working with Zhang Ting, Zhang Tielin and others. Now he simply shaved his head.

It was still the first month of the lunar year and the weather was very cold. He rubbed his hands and laughed when he heard this.

"Director Lu, in terms of acting I may be a college student, but in terms of directing I'm in kindergarten right now."

"It's already great to be able to follow the crew and learn from Director Ning. What's the point of wasting my talent, haha."

The first four episodes of "Zhu Xian" were directed by Lu himself, with the subsequent episodes being completed by Ning Hao and Wu Ershan. By the time "Zhu Xian" is finished, Wu Ershan will have basically graduated and become another new generation of mainland directors who are proficient in Hollywood filming processes and special effects technology.

"Okay, let's go back to the set. We'll check the costumes and props this afternoon, and have the actors do a reading to get used to the special effects shooting process."

There is no need to mention how attractive the plot of "Zhu Xian" is to audiences of this period. For a drama like this, more emphasis is placed on controlling the details.

For example, the rational use of special effects technology, the balance between talented actors and idol actors, and the important back-end support such as costumes and props.

"director."

"Road guide."

"Street!"

Lu Kuan walked into the set with the previously agreed-upon costume and props plan, and the actors also got out of the nanny car and RV and greeted him honestly.

Hmm? How did such an intrusive name sneak in?
In such a serious studio, facing the famous on-set fascists in the domestic entertainment industry, who is so bold?

It’s a pity that Director Lu’s sharp eyes failed to intimidate one of the concubines who had just become one of the “Four Dans, Two Bings and One Concubine”.

"On the set..."

Concubine Liu Yi smiled and said, "I know, I know. I'll call you a plant."

There were many people watching the fun around, but they were all looking furtively and listening attentively, and no one dared to confront them directly.

Yu Feihong and Fan Bingbing met outside. They had worked together in "The Flying Dagger of Xiao Li" and "Shoplifters".

He walked in chatting and laughing, and greeted Lu Kuan.

"Sister Feihong."

"Bingbing!"

Lu Kuan nodded to them and turned his attention to the two male actors in the company.

"Hugo will be a senior at the start of the school year. Shouldn't we be rehearsing the graduation play?"

"Yes, Director Lu, the department has already selected the scripts."

Lu Kuan was a little curious: "Oh? What notebook are you using?"

"'A Visit from the Inspector', directed by Zhang Yang."

Zhang Yang is also one of the sixth generation of directors in China. This film, "Inspector Calls," is also a work by British writer Priestley, who is often adapted and rehearsed.

Boss Lu nodded. He was not just chatting idly, but it was his first time working with Hu Ge and he wanted to make a judgment on his acting skills.

The three major art schools in China have different teaching focuses on performance methods.

"Yawen, Xiao Liu, have you both asked for leave from Teacher Wang Jingsong?"

Zhu Yawen: Yes.

Liu Yifei: What leave do you want?

She hasn't been to school for a long time...

The improvement of acting skills and abilities depends entirely on role training, on-set practice, and a half-baked Grotowski acting teacher Lu Kuan.

"It just so happens that you three young actors, one from the Shanghai Theatre Academy and two from the Beijing Film Academy, can exchange and discuss acting techniques together when you have nothing to do."

Lu Kuan just happened to see Xin Baiqing arrive at the scene.

"And there's Mr. Xin Baiqing, he's from the Central Academy of Drama, you two can share what you have."

Xin Baiqing and Wu Gang walked over together.

"Director," "Director Lu!"

Boss Lu said with a smile, "I was just talking about you. Our crew is a combination of veterans and newcomers. You guys should teach young actors like Liu Yifei more!"

"Hey, no, no, we're lucky enough to be able to take care of ourselves."

Xin Baiqing met Lu Kuan in Venice, when he was the lead actor in Tian Zhuangzhuang's "Spring in a Small Town".

But since they were not very familiar with each other, they were polite and humble in their words.

Wu Gang had already appeared in "The Lurker" and had dinner with producer Lu Boss. He immediately joked, "Director Lu, are you thinking of being a hands-off boss?"

"That's right, who doesn't want to be lazy, right, Teacher Yu?"

The name "Teacher Yu" has a source. She was the head teacher of the 93 class of the Beijing Film Academy. Xu Jinglei, Jia Jingwen and Liu Lin were all her students.

Yu Feihong was inexplicably called out: "Who dares to slack off on Director Lu's set?"

Last time on the set of "Thief", the beautiful young woman worked as an assistant director for Boss Lu, and also served as the real director.

This time she was invited to perform, still for the purpose of learning. After all, this fantasy drama with a reputation that is no less than Hollywood's special effects production is a rare opportunity.

The crew is new, and the actors are of different ages and backgrounds.

Lu Kuan took care of and connected all the actors in just a few words, which was also to help everyone get familiar with each other quickly, which was beneficial to the subsequent shooting process.

When we really start shooting one episode a week in July and August, the tacit understanding and collaboration between the actors will become very important.

Seeing that he had been chatting around but hadn't included her, Fan Bingbing took the initiative to ask, "Director Lu, you just said that Hu Ge, Yi Fei, and the others learned from each other. Are the acting teaching styles at Shanghai Theatre Academy different from those at Beijing Film Academy and the Central Academy of Drama?"

"After all, Shanghai Theatre Academy and the Central Academy of Drama are drama schools, and their performance teaching focuses on stage performances of drama and plays, while Beijing Film Academy is more inclined towards film and television performances."

"As a performing narrative art, drama is the ancestor of film. Film has only a history of over 100 years, but drama has a history of over 2500 years."

"Although film has long since broken away from the shackles of literature and drama and become an independent art form, drama training is still very meaningful for actors engaged in film and television-related creations."

Lu Kuan turned to Wu Gang and said, "For example, Mr. Wu Gang, like Mr. Feng, is an actor from the People's Art Theatre. You young actors can learn from him."

Wu Gang heard him speak so professionally and knew that he was an expert. He waved his hands and said modestly, "No, no, we learn from each other and make progress together."

Wu Ershan walked to his side and said, "Director, the props and costumes have arrived."

"Go, have a look."

As a fantasy drama, Lu Kuan raised the requirements for costumes to the level of the big screen.

Just like the requirements he gave to the Wenjie and Hunan TV teams when the "Chinese Paladin" project was launched, this aspect must be constantly improved.

It is not yet the time for hot money from coal bosses and Internet capital to pour in. The domestic entertainment crews are still relatively conscientious and pay more attention to the costumes and props.

"Wow! This one of mine is so pretty!"

Concubine Liu Yi picked up the white gauze dress labeled Lu Xueqi and asked, "Huh? What's that smell?"

Seeing her strange expression, Lu Kuan walked over and took the dress.

Pungent smell, sticky threads, and messy stitches.

He gently pulled it with both hands, and there was a sizzling sound...

It was torn apart!
"Where's the production assistant? Xu Zheng?"

Boss Lu's face turned pale, and he rudely tried to pull Baldy Xu over to question him.

Concubine Liu Yi looked at his expression timidly, knowing that it was bad, he looked like he was going to get angry again.

"Director, here I am."

Xu Zheng was arranging large props to be brought in, including the sculptures of strange beasts in front of the Qingyunmen Mountain Gate, and he was sweating profusely from exhaustion.

"Where are the purchase documents for this batch of clothing? Bring them here."

The bald man thought to himself that something was wrong. Everyone present looked at the white gauze skirt under Director Lu's feet and didn't dare to breathe.

The stagehands who were transporting the sculptures during the performance held their breath, fearing that any noise would attract attention.

Xu Zheng stammered, "Director Lu, let me explain this to you..."

"Purchase order! Now?"

Lu Kuan didn't give Xu Zheng any face at all, and just stared at him with a gloomy look: "I have made three movies, produced one movie, and served as a producer for two TV series."

"This is the first time I've seen a producer who dares to deceive me."

"Where's that guy called Feng Chu? The vice president of Dong Shuangqiang Company, right? Where's he?"

Xu Zheng felt pity in his heart and originally wanted to communicate with Lu Kuan privately to prevent any misunderstanding between him and Dong Shuangqiang.

But if I continue to help conceal this situation, the blame will soon fall on my head.

I would rather die than have my friend die. I can only blame you for your ugly eating habits, using this kind of thing to fool the guide.

Is he so easy to fool?
"Director, I'll make a phone call and have someone come for you within 10 minutes!"

Xu Zheng knew that he couldn't handle this matter, and he didn't want to be a scapegoat, so he quickly changed his position.

Who has the final say on this "Zhu Xian" and Travel Channel? He still has a yardstick in his heart.

(End of this chapter)