Chinese Entertainment: Directors Start with the Fairy Sister

On the 12.30th.

The premiere of "Perhaps Love" was held in Beijing, officially igniting the battle for the Lunar New Year film season.

This is a movie whose box office performance can be guessed just from its title. As the closing film of Venice, it is obviously aiming for awards.

Although he didn't win anything at the Venice Film Festival, he did win a lot at the Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Awards in 06.

The cast includes Zhou Xun, Zhang Xueyou, Jin Chengwu, and others, but the box office performance is typical of art films and romance films. In terms of data, it performed better than other films of this type due to its cast.

Its box office in mainland China surged to 1500 million in three days, and then took six days to reach 1800 million.

Zhao Yanxi predicts that the trend will continue to decline, which is typical of art films.

If you want awards, don't be too eager for box office success. Winning awards will bring in a lot of revenue just from selling the copyrights.

However, "Perhaps Love" failed to gain any traction in Venice, so box office revenue became its last resort to save face.

Chen Kexin couldn't say anything, so she could only let her wife, Wu Junru, step forward to create hype. She appeared on a TV show with a big pregnant belly and immediately set her sights on the hottest movie at the time—"The Promise".

[In the show "She, He, She", Sandra Ng revealed that "The Promise" was not good at all, and that Cecilia Cheung's "big breasts" were fake.]

The news caused an immediate uproar.

First, Zhang Baizhi's agent, Xiang Tai, stood up to express strong dissatisfaction and felt sorry for Chen Kexin.

"They put so much effort into making a good film, and I heard it received good reviews and even represented Hong Kong at the Oscars."

"The Promise is also representing mainland China at the Oscars. There's no need to be so vulgar as to put others down to elevate yourself!"

Chen Kaige's wife was not one to be trifled with either, and she immediately responded.

"Today is the most infuriating day I've had in three years. The movie hasn't even been released yet, and Sandra Ng's words really put things in a difficult position here!"

Thus began the clash between the two directors' wives!

...

"These directors' wives are crazy!"

Ning Hao looked at the news online and felt his heart pounding.

He recalled that when he was filming "Incense" and "Green Grassland", there weren't so many problems.

Zhao Yanxi glanced at him, thinking to herself, "Who did you think you were back then? Who had time to care about you?"

Watching Huang Bo and Guo Tao's performance on stage, Zhao Yanxi asked, "When will filming for 'Stone' wrap up? When is it scheduled for release?"

"It definitely won't be as fast as your 'You Are the Apple of My Eye'," Ning Hao said with a smile. "Let's try to wrap up filming before New Year's Day. When do you think would be a good time to release it?"

"May Day?"

Zhao Yanxi remembers that during the May Day holiday in 06, there didn't seem to be any competitive movies.

The only decent film, "The Da Vinci Code," is also scheduled for late May. At that time, it will be a battle between imported films like "Oliver Twist," "Ice Age 2," and "The Da Vinci Code."

It has to be said, Han Sanping is ruthless.

They're putting a bunch of imported films in the same release window to compete with each other, all to support domestic films, completely disregarding the fate of theaters!

These days, aside from the National Day and Lunar New Year film seasons, cinemas mainly rely on these imported blockbusters for their box office profits.

Zhao Yanxi sometimes suspected that Han Sanping's decision not to be promoted or transferred to a higher position when his term at China Film Group ended, but instead to retire directly to the second line, was because he had offended these cinema chains too much!

"Okay, then it'll be May Day!"

......

After leaving the set of "Stone", Zhao Yanxi went to the set of "First Love".

Just a casual visit to the set, nothing more.

Since it's their own project, Zhao Yanxi should at least pay some attention to it.

Unfortunately, with film shooting these days, Zhao Yanxi wouldn't know about Ding Lang's directing achievements until the film was developed and printed.

However, after spending two days on set and personally witnessing Ding Lang's direction, Zhao Yanxi was also full of expectations for the finished film of "First Love".

As it turns out, while mainland China may lack top-tier directors like Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow, it certainly doesn't lack an excellent director who can tell a good story.

Ding Lang, who was previously unknown, was able to direct excellent works after obtaining Zhao Yanxi's script, funding, and authorization.

What about those young directors who already had some reputation in their previous lives?

Xue Xiaolu, Lu Yang, Guo Fan, Jiaozi... Zhao Yanxi was full of expectations for these people. One day, she would bring them all under her control!

Speaking of "First Love," Zhao Yanxi thought of her classmate Xiao Liu, who was far away in Japan.

"Sisi, how's your training in Japan? Are you coming back for New Year's Day?!"

The movie "The Return of the Condor Heroes" is scheduled to be released after New Year's Day, and Liu Yifei, as the female lead, will definitely come back to participate in the promotion.

It wasn't until noon, after finishing her class, that Liu Yifei replied to the message.

"Yeah, I should be going back by the end of this month."

"Okay," Zhao Yanxi replied, "When you come back, sing me a theme song!"

"Theme song? Yan Xi, you wrote another song?"

"No, didn't I give you 'Chasing the Light' for your birthday? I think it's perfect as the theme song for 'First Love.' Let's make it when you get back!"

"Okay, I should be going back around the 20th. There are still promotional activities for 'The Return of the Condor Heroes'."

"Okay, I'll pick you up from the airport!"

"Mmm~~"

......

The competition between "The Promise" and "Perhaps Love" continues, and the war of words between the two Mrs. Chen is intensifying.

Even Stellar Media, the distribution company of "Perhaps Love," directly intervened, revealing that during the preview screening of "The Promise" in Chengdu, the production company demanded "no negative reports allowed!"

That's why only 1% of people dislike "The Promise"!

Furthermore, Xingmei cleverly positioned itself on the moral high ground of impartiality: "Good works need to be tested by the audience; it's illogical to forbid negative reports!"

This directly hit the Achilles' heel of "The Promise".

Enthusiastic netizens discussed the matter extensively, and media reporters also contacted China Film Group to find out if the story was true.

Mr. Weng, the person in charge of distribution at China Film Group, naturally denied it outright. Anyone who admits that is a fool!

Chen Hong also frequently responded in front of the media, but she didn't dare to dwell too much on "Perhaps Love," otherwise "The Promise" would ultimately suffer.

After all, the former has already been released and its box office performance is almost hopeless, while the latter is still waiting!

In the end, the only rebuttal could be directed at Sandra Ng – "What I can't stand the most is that she said Zhang Baizhi's breasts are fake. That's an absolute insult to an actor..."

Like many enthusiastic netizens, Zhao Yanxi was thoroughly enjoying the gossip!

......

At the end of the year, the company's two major film crews were still filming, and while everyone else was busy, Zhao Yanxi and Yang Siwei, as managers, had some free time.

With nothing else to do, Zhao Yanxi began creating content at the company, rarely leaving the premises.

In Hollywood, some scripts need to be registered in advance, and some novels need to be continued, such as "Fifty Shades Darker" and "Fifty Shades Freed" in the "Fifty Shades of Grey" series.

In addition, there are bestselling fantasy novels from Europe and America such as The Hunger Games and Divergent.

Not only can it be published and royalties earned, but it can also be adapted into a movie later and reaped another wave of box office revenue.

The latter, however, was not as carefree as Zhao Yanxi; instead, she was preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination.

She studied directing, but clearly did not intend to pursue a career in directing. Instead, she planned to become a professional manager and pursue a master's degree in "Management Science".

Zhao Yanxi's impression of Yang Siwei was that she was good at publicity, hype, and "outshining press releases," but after working together, Zhao Yanxi found that she was also quite capable of managing the company's daily affairs.

Fortunately, the company couldn't find a suitable professional manager, so Yang Siwei could take over all the work, which would also reduce Zhao Yanxi's workload.

The studio is no longer suitable for the current situation, so Xia Wei has already started the company registration process, and she estimates that the sign "Yanxi Film and Television Co., Ltd." will be up by the end of the month.

At the same time, Zhao Yanxi also began to ask real estate agents to look at some reasonably priced office buildings near Beijing, preparing to buy an office building as the company's business location.

Since we're planning to register a company and grow it into a large enterprise, this two-story building is no longer suitable for a large number of people to work in.

Although this amount of money is a bit tight to buy an office building right now, the bank can still lend money, right? With these two novels still making a profit and the two movies that are about to be released, Zhao Yanxi believes that she can still get some money out of the way.

If all else fails, ask Xiao Liu for help; his uncle works in the banking industry!