Huayu: Starting from joining the mainstream entertainment industry in 96

Chapter 225, Section 223: The Girl's Rise to Power

In May, the atmosphere of late spring and early summer is already strong in Beijing.

The drifting poplar catkins, much like the current state of the film market, appear complex yet fraught with uncertainty.

The news that the imported film business would be suspended indefinitely had already been circulating in the industry.

Panic spread silently, like oil slicks on water.

Theater managers are frowning, worried that without Hollywood blockbusters to attract audiences, business will plummet; film producers are also concerned, fearing a shrinking market and difficulty in recouping their investments.

However, at the highest decision-making level, after repeated deliberations and intense discussions, a report based on the core idea of ​​"filling the market with high-quality domestic content, stabilizing expectations, and boosting confidence" proposed by Han Sanping and others ultimately received support in principle.

The reasons are clear and compelling:
First, there's the issue of cultural security and the assertion of sovereignty. This incident is essentially a passive response to external pressure. If the market vacuum is filled by substandard content or rampant piracy, or even triggers societal complaints about insufficient cultural supply, it will be extremely detrimental.

We must firmly occupy the public opinion and cultural arena with positive and healthy works that we can control. This is a crisis, but also an opportunity to demonstrate our cultural dominance.

Secondly, industry self-rescue and system testing. In the past few years, through the exploration of models such as "using dramas to support film production" and "television movies", the domestic production capabilities, especially the Beijing Film Studio Alliance and Shengying Media, which is deeply tied to it, have accumulated a certain ability to respond quickly and produce on a large scale.

This is a crucial moment to test the effectiveness of this system, forcing industrial upgrading and tapping into domestic demand. We cannot allow years of reform achievements to be lost due to external changes.

Thirdly, public sentiment and market confidence. The cultural life of ordinary people cannot be interrupted. Filling the gap with a batch of well-made, diverse domestic films will not only satisfy audience demand but also demonstrate the resilience and enormous potential of the Chinese film market to both domestic and international audiences. Stabilizing the market stabilizes public sentiment and, more importantly, stabilizes the confidence of the industry and its stakeholders in the future.

This support ultimately culminated in a pilot-scale "market rescue plan" outline, which was fully coordinated and implemented by Han Sanping.

Its core task is to release a batch of high-quality domestic films that can attract audiences to theaters in the shortest possible time.

When the news reached the Jingxin Building, Wang Sheng was in his office reviewing the first draft of "Flying Colors".

hang up the phone.

Wang Sheng turned to the first page.

The script is set in Beijing in the summer of 1998.

The female protagonist, Wang Xiaojia, is a high school sophomore attending an ordinary key high school in the city.

The opening scenes quickly establish Wang Xiaojia's image: her hair is dyed a brownish-yellow color that doesn't conform to school rules, her school uniform jacket is loosely tied around her waist, and she has Walkman headphones in her ears.

She slept in class and skipped class, consistently ranking at the bottom of her grade. She was considered an incurable "bad student" by her teachers, and her father had long given up hope for her, only asking that she find a factory job after graduating from high school.

The atmosphere at home was also oppressive.

The father was a driver who was laid off during the wave of state-owned enterprise reforms and then found a new job. He placed all his hopes on his younger brother and almost ignored his daughter.

The mother is a traditional housewife who, although she loves her daughter dearly, appears weak and powerless in the face of her domineering husband and the harsh reality.

The turning point came over a weekend.

Wang Xiaojia was caught smoking off-campus by the head of the teaching department and faces the risk of being expelled.

Desperate and overwhelmed, the mother, on the recommendation of a neighbor, took her daughter to an after-school tutoring institution called "New Hope" as a last resort.

Here, she met the man who would change her destiny—her tutor, Cheng Dongqing.

The script carefully describes Cheng Dongqing's appearance: he is in his early thirties, wearing a plaid shirt and faded jeans, with messy hair and a somewhat cynical smile, which is completely different from the serious teachers in the school.

His tutoring room was cluttered yet full of personality, with various inspirational slogans and photos of famous schools on the walls, as well as an old-fashioned projector.

Unlike other teachers, Cheng Dongqing didn't criticize Wang Xiaojia. Instead, he gave her a simple academic test. The results were disastrous; Wang Xiaojia's knowledge level was at the fifth-grade level. However, looking at the test paper, Cheng Dongqing said to the dejected Wang Xiaojia, "Wow, it's a perfect... blank sheet of paper! Excellent!"

Wang Xiaojia and her mother were both stunned.

Cheng Dongqing pointed to a fourth-grade arithmetic problem and said excitedly, "Look, you can at least do addition and subtraction! This shows that your basic logic is fine! From now on, your goal is not to catch up with your classmates, but to surpass yourself as you were yesterday! How about we start with the fifth-grade textbook?"

This evaluation system and encouragement method, which are completely different from those in schools, shone like a ray of light into Wang Xiaojia's gloomy world.

Although she remained skeptical, she reluctantly agreed to give it a try, encouraged by her mother's almost pleading gaze and Cheng Dongqing's half-joking suggestion that "getting into a university in Beijing will allow her to meet even more handsome boys."

The following script uses montage to depict the "devilish" training that Wang Xiaojia begins under Cheng Dongqing's guidance.

From memorizing the most basic words to understanding mathematical formulas, Cheng Dongqing used all sorts of unique methods to stimulate her interest in learning: using popular song lyrics to memorize English words, using game strategy to solve math problems, using the relationships between comic book characters to understand historical events... The process was full of laughter, but also full of hardships.

Wang Xiaojia wanted to give up countless times. She cried, made a scene, and even tore up her textbooks, but Cheng Dongqing always managed to pull her back in various ways. Sometimes it was with stern criticism, sometimes with heartwarming words of encouragement, and sometimes just by silently staying up with her until late at night.

At the same time, the family line is also being developed simultaneously.

The father was extremely dissatisfied with his daughter's "neglecting her studies" by attending expensive tutoring classes, believing it to be a waste of money, which exacerbated the conflict between father and daughter.

Under their father's deliberate tutelage, the younger brother became a rising star in table tennis at the youth sports school, creating a stark contrast with his sister and further deepening Wang Xiaojia's inferiority complex.

Only the mother secretly took out her own savings to silently support her daughter.

At school, Wang Xiaojia's changes drew incomprehension and ridicule from her classmates.

"A student at the bottom of the class wants to get into a university in Beijing? Dream on!" "His family must have paid for his special talent spot, right?" These voices pierced her heart like needles.

On one occasion, she even got into a fight with a classmate who was mocking her in the hallway.

The climax of the script is when Wang Xiaojia, after suffering a huge blow from her still dismal scores in several mock exams, completely breaks down on a rainy night and runs out of her house.

She ran downstairs to the New Hope Tutoring Center, only to find that the lights in Cheng Dongqing's classroom were still on.

She rushed upstairs and saw Cheng Dongqing writing a detailed study plan tailored for her on the whiteboard.

Cheng Dongqing wasn't surprised to see her soaking wet and distraught. He simply handed her a dry towel and said, "I knew you'd come. Giving up is easy, but perseverance is definitely cool. Don't forget, you're the student I bet others could create miracles."

At that moment, as Wang Xiaojia looked at the words on the whiteboard filled with her name and goals, all her grievances, resentment, and exhaustion turned into tears that flowed freely, and also into an even stronger determination.

The script ends in July 1999, the day the college entrance exam results are released.

Wang Xiaojia's hands trembled as she checked her grades through the voice information service.

The score announced over the phone made her and her mother, who was so nervous she could hardly breathe, burst into tears.

Although she did not reach the admission score of Beijing University in previous years, she was far above the first-tier university admission score, which was enough for her to enter a very good key university.

The final scene shows Wang Xiaojia standing at the university gate with her backpack, looking back at the road she came from.

The sunlight shone on her, washing away her former rebelliousness and confusion, and her eyes were filled with anticipation for the future.

The voice-over is her inner monologue: "I don't know how many difficulties I will encounter in the future, but I know that I am no longer that bottom student who easily gives up. Thank you, Teacher Cheng."

(End of this chapter)