Hong Kong films: From street thugs to Hong Kong financial tycoons

Chapter 98: Money Power's Expedition to Hollywood: Poaching Talent!

Los Angeles, California, USA.

In September, the afternoon sun in Los Angeles was still scorching, making the palm trees lining Sunset Boulevard wilt.

On the fringes of Hollywood, in a visual effects studio converted from an abandoned factory, the air is thick with the sour smell of cheap pizza and stale coffee.

The studio is called Dream Makers, which sounds impressive, but in reality, the entire company, including the boss and employees, has fewer than twenty people.

Kevin, the chief technology director in his thirties, with a head of messy blond hair, was staring at the bulky graphics workstation in front of him with bloodshot eyes.

On the screen, a crude spaceship model composed of only a few dozen polygons is slowly rotating at a frequency so choppy it makes you want to vomit.

"Bang!"

Kevin slammed his fist on the keyboard, causing half a cup of coffee to spill from the table.

"Damn rendering speed! This machine took a full twelve hours to render just a shadow map of this crappy spaceship!"

Kevin clutched his hair and howled in despair.

The studio owner, a portly, bald white man, sighed helplessly.

"Kevin, accept reality. People from Paramount Pictures came yesterday, and they rejected our offer."

"They complained that our special effects were too fake and the price was too high. They preferred to buy dozens of plastic models and use thin wires to suspend them for filming rather than pay for computer-generated imagery."

The bald boss patted Kevin on the shoulder.

"Guys, pack your things. We only have enough money in the account to pay this month's rent. Dream Maker Studio will be officially disbanded next week."

Upon hearing this, the dozen or so young programmers and illustrators in the studio all stopped what they were doing, and a deathly silence enveloped this group of geeks who were passionate about visual art.

In 1987, computer special effects were a bottomless pit of money and effort. No matter how good their ideas were, without sufficient hardware computing power, it was all just empty talk.

Just as this group of Hollywood special effects pioneers were preparing to pack their bags and leave.

"Boom—"

'

Suddenly, a deafening roar of a car engine came from outside the factory, followed by the screeching of brakes at the door.

Three all-black, extended Lincoln Navigators completely blocked the dilapidated door of the workshop.

The car door opened, and six burly men in black suits and sunglasses got out first, lining up on both sides.

Then, a fat man with a big belly, wearing a floral shirt and a Panama hat even in the hot weather, swaggered out of the middle car, half a thick cigar in his mouth.

The newcomer was none other than Fatty Wang, who had just flown across the Pacific Ocean on orders to poach talent from Hollywood. Fatty Wang took a deep drag on his cigar, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and glanced disdainfully at the dilapidated factory.

"Damn it, is this the top special effects team in Hollywood? This is worse than a shady internet cafe in Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong."

Fatty Wang muttered something and strode into the studio with his pigeon-toed gait.

The boss and Kevin were dumbfounded. The spectacle and the pomp were so impressive that anyone who didn't know better would think it was a mafia boss coming to collect protection money.

"Excuse me—who are you looking for?"

The bald boss mustered his courage and went to meet him.

A man in a suit standing next to Fatty Wang immediately stepped forward and translated in fluent English: "This is Director Wang from Yaosheng Entertainment. Our boss has money to burn and heard that you have some talented people here, so he specially sent us to buy your brains."

Upon hearing this, Kevin couldn't help but sneer. He looked Wang Pangzi up and down, his tacky attire flashing with arrogance.

"Yaosheng Entertainment? Never heard of it. Are you from Hong Kong?"

Kevin walked up to him without any hesitation.

"Listen, no matter how much money your boss has, Dream Makers Studio doesn't take on Asian film projects."

"Your movies are all about flying around on wires and setting off some gunpowder explosions, right? That's just acrobatics, it doesn't need computer-generated CGI. You've got the wrong people."

These days, Western filmmakers are inherently prejudiced against Asian films. In their view, Easterners simply don't understand what a high-tech film and television industry is.

After listening to the translation, Fatty Wang was not angry at all. Instead, he cheerfully stubbed out his cigar on a piece of scrap metal next to him.

"Juggling?"

Fatty Wang patted his belly and said, "Foreigners are just ignorant. Let's show them the stuff and broaden their horizons."

The man in the suit behind him immediately stepped forward, placed a heavy black combination lock box on the table, opened the lock with a click, and took out a stack of art books made of coated paper that was half a meter thick.

Fatty Wang grabbed the top book and casually slammed it onto Kevin's chest.

"Open your dog eyes and look carefully before deciding whether or not to take this job."

Kevin took the picture book with a disdainful look, casually flipped to the first page, and after just one glance, his previously indifferent gaze froze instantly.

The booklet contains a hand-drawn concept art depicting a muscular giant wielding a colossal axe, cleaving through the endless chaotic void.

The muscle textures, the lightning coiled around the giant axe, and the fragments of void torn apart in the chaotic space were drawn with extreme detail, exuding a chilling sense of prehistoric oppression.

Kevin abruptly turned to the second page, which depicted a magnificent celestial palace suspended in the heavens, with countless radiant celestial birds and divine beasts weaving through the sea of ​​clouds.

On the third page, four colossal swords, reaching to the heavens and the earth, hang atop a massive array filled with malevolent energy. Each sword's blade radiates a dark red light capable of destroying the world.

Kevin's breathing became rapid, and a fine layer of sweat appeared on his forehead. The concept artists and programmers behind him also gathered around, and they all gasped in shock.

As visual effects artists, they knew all too well what these concept art pieces meant.

This is not some kind of juggling act; it is a vast universe with a complete worldview, full of extreme imagination and terrifying visual tension.

In comparison, the spaceship they just built looked like something a kindergarten kid would make out of clay!

"This—these settings are absolutely insane!"

Kevin held the picture book with trembling hands, his eyes fixed on the Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation on it.

"If these scenes could be recreated on the big screen using computer-generated imagery (CG), it would be an absolute visual revolution in film history!"

But after only a few seconds of excitement, the light in Kevin's eyes quickly dimmed again. He dejectedly threw the sketchbook back on the table and shook his head with a wry smile.

"Director Wang, right? I admit, your ideas are a hundred times better than those idiots in Hollywood, but it's meaningless."

Kevin pointed to his workstation, which was still slow and lagging.

"This level of visual fidelity requires massive polygon calculations and ray tracing rendering."

"Take this mythical beast in the picture, for example. If its feathers were rendered using a realistic hair physics engine, even for just one second of footage, it would take all the supercomputers in the United States combined a month to render it!"

Kevin looked at Fatty Wang, his tone full of helplessness.

"This is a movie for the next twenty years. Right now, there is no hardware that can support your ambitions. Even if your boss has mountains of gold and silver, he can't defy the laws of science."

Scientific laws?

Upon hearing the translator's words, Fatty Wang couldn't help but burst into laughter, clutching his stomach, his fat face jiggling with laughter.

"Scientific laws are nothing! In our boss's eyes, money is the ultimate law!"

Fatty Wang snapped his fingers, and two bodyguards behind him stepped forward at the same time, each carrying a large silver briefcase.

"Slap! Slap!"

Two suitcases were opened simultaneously on the table, and a blinding green light instantly dazzled everyone. The two suitcases...

The neatly arranged consecutive US dollar bills create a simple and direct visual impact.

"Here is five million US dollars in cash."

Fatty Wang rested his hands on the table, staring at the dumbfounded Kevin and the bald boss.

"Our boss said this is just a small settling-in allowance. As long as you sign the contract, pack your bags and fly back to Hong Kong with me tomorrow. Everyone in your team will have their salary increased tenfold!"

The room fell silent. Ten times the salary, plus five million in cash thrown right in their faces—the penniless programmers who were just about to pack their bags and leave were now breathing heavily, their eyes red.

Although Kevin was also overwhelmed by the huge sum of money, he gritted his teeth and insisted on his bottom line as a technician.

"Director Wang, this isn't about money. As I just said, without computing power and hardware, we couldn't do it even if we went to Hong Kong!"

"Computing power, huh?"

Fatty Wang calmly pulled a folded blueprint from his pocket and tossed it in front of Kevin.

"My boss knew you foreigners would use this as an excuse. Look at what this is."

Kevin unfolded the blueprints with suspicion. It was an architectural blueprint, depicting a gigantic, temperature-controlled, dust-free factory covering an extremely vast area. Inside the factory, tens of thousands of server racks were densely packed together.

In the lower right corner of the drawing, there is a line of parameter descriptions in English:

【Yaosheng No. 1 Computing Farm】

[Number of nodes: 100,000 supercomputers equipped with Loongson dual-core CPUs and dedicated GPUs.]

Clustered Internet: High-concurrency fiber optic data throughput matrix.

[Estimated completion time: In thirty days.]

Boom! Upon seeing this data, Kevin felt as if a nuclear bomb had exploded in his brain.

One hundred thousand computers, one hundred thousand independent graphics processors, and all of them connected together as a whole through a high-concurrency network?

These crazy guys from Hong Kong actually want to build a computing power matrix of this scale in Asia?

If this matrix can really work, let alone the fur of a mythical beast, it can forcibly render all the contents of these design drawings!

"My God—"

Kevin's legs went weak, and he collapsed into a chair, clutching the blueprint like a fanatical believer holding the Bible, hot tears welling up in his eyes.

As someone who does this job, he knows all too well what this means. It's not just about doubling the salary; it's about giving them a chance to make history and touch the scepter of God.

"So, any more questions?"

Fatty Wang pulled up a chair, sat down, crossed his legs, and smugly swung his feet.

"If you feel that 100,000 units are not enough, my boss said that he can invest more at any time and buy all the power plants in Asia to supply you with electricity."

"There's no problem, absolutely no problem!"

The bald boss was the first to react. He snatched the two boxes of US dollars and hugged them tightly to his chest, as if afraid that Fatty Wang would change his mind.

"Boss Wang, from today onwards, all employees of Dream Makers Studio belong to Yaosheng Entertainment. Don't even mention going to Hong Kong, even if you asked us to work on the moon, we'd buy rocket tickets right away."

Kevin also stood up abruptly, wiped away his tears, and his eyes burned with a fierce fire.

"Director Wang, book me a plane ticket. I need to see your great boss and the genius engineer who designed this matrix as soon as possible."

"With this computing power farm, I guarantee that in that primordial universe, I can make audiences all over the world kneel down in theaters!"

Fatty Wang nodded in satisfaction, stood up, and patted his butt.

"Alright, pack your things. There's nothing to miss about this lousy place."

Fatty Wang put on his sunglasses, turned around, and walked out.

"By the way, let me tell all your friends in this industry that if they are truly talented art directors and special effects artists, tell them that there is a boss in Hong Kong named Lam Yiu who is so rich he's practically growing hair."

"Let him bring his technology; we're going to eradicate the roots of Hollywood."