Reshaping the landscape of the Chinese entertainment industry

Of course, He Yi'an's visit this time was not just to see Liu Yifei.

I also met Shu Chang and Qiao Zhenyu.

As one of Liu Yifei's few good friends, Shu Chang and Liu Yifei were not familiar with each other today, and their conversation was just ordinary.

He Yi'an still chatted with her at the dinner party.

Although this girl is young, she is already a veteran actress.

He Yi'an remembers that she started acting when she was five years old. She acted in "My Story" and "Single Parent Family", and also released a solo album called "Half a Home Without Mom".

She will act in many more dramas in the future... anyway, her acting range is quite wide.

Of course, the most famous are Consort Dong'e in "The Secret History of Xiaozhuang", Shui Sheng in "A Deadly Secret", Xiao Yu in "The Lotus Lantern", and Sha Niu.

He acted in quite a few plays afterward, but they didn't really make a splash.

Moreover, several of his dramas ran into problems and couldn't be released. In addition, he offended people and violated industry unspoken rules, which is why he gradually disappeared from public view.

In 2026, she will still have a drama that has been shelved for 16 years to be released.

This shows that luck can be very important sometimes.

Her experience is actually similar to Li Baotian's in some ways; both are typical examples of winning the lawsuit but losing their future.

Given his own questionable actions, the only way for him to shine is through live-streaming e-commerce.

However, it is 2002 now, not more than 20 years later. Her popularity will gradually rise in the next few years, and at its peak, she will be almost the only one of her peers who can keep up with Liu Yifei.

He Yi'an never thought of recruiting Shu Chang to the company. This girl lacks a sense of security, otherwise she wouldn't have thought of getting into the Central Academy of Drama but not going.

And now she can't even make her own decisions, because of her family...

Forget it, even an upright official can't settle family disputes.

Besides Shu Chang, He Yi'an also saw someone he liked at the dinner party today.

Qiao Zhenyu.

He is only 23 years old this year and played a very small supporting role in The Story of a Noble Family.

He hasn't been very famous yet, but he should make a name for himself next year with "Snowflake Goddess Dragon". However, he has remained relatively unknown since then.

However, he does have good looks and solid acting skills; he just lacks opportunities.

At the beginning of the century, male actors in the Chinese entertainment industry had very few opportunities.

At that time, the entertainment industry already had few projects and insufficient funds, not to mention that a large number of Hong Kong and Taiwan artists would soon be moving north.

At that time, Hong Kong and Taiwan were still very experienced and sophisticated, which is a characteristic of this era.

After all, when it comes to publicity, their team is experienced, technically skilled, and has many behind-the-scenes personnel, so their publicity is also better.

Therefore, many investors recognize their talent, which further squeezes the living space of male actors in the Chinese entertainment industry.

They can only play supporting roles for Hong Kong and Taiwanese artists, and they are often suppressed, making it difficult for them to get ahead.

Actresses have it a little easier, relatively speaking.

Because of the co-production clauses, it is necessary to ensure that the production team includes mainland artists. This is actually a way to learn from and quickly cultivate mainland talent.

Therefore, Hong Kong and Taiwan teams adopted the most common approach, which is to use mainland female artists as leading ladies or decorative figures, and then use their own male or female artists as supporting roles.

Or they might use the best actors in the Chinese entertainment industry as supporting actors, thus elevating the status of their own people.

The most successful examples of this are "Heavenly Banquet" and Kurosawa!

In particular, the Tian Ting Yan group's previous marketing campaign was all about crushing certain male actors and popular young idols in the Chinese entertainment industry.

They keep promoting how dedicated they are, saying they learn a new skill with every film they make.

In the end, they couldn't even speak Mandarin properly; it was all just marketing.

Please, they were all born around 82, why compare them to popular young male celebrities?

Why not compare them to people like Huang Xiaoming and Deng Chao?

Even if they are older, why not compare them to Baoqiang?

Baoqiang is the same age as them!

It's simply because we can't compare, whether it's in terms of achievements or acting skills.

Later, someone offended someone and was completely forgotten in the Chinese entertainment industry.

Of course, He Yi'an did not completely deny them; at least the one who starred in "Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils" did show obvious improvement.

There was definitely an element of excessive promotion at the beginning, but they were also genuinely hardworking.

He Yi'an is relatively tolerant of people who take their work seriously.

However, He Yi'an's reason for saying so much is not entirely out of emotion, but rather because he feels that in the current state of the Chinese entertainment industry, there are very few male actors born between 75 and 85 who have truly made it big.

This group of people are now in their prime, young, yet few of them get the opportunity.

Besides the competition from Hong Kong and Taiwanese stars, they also face pressure from figures like Lu Yi, Li Yapeng, Hu Bing, Hu Jun, Tong Dawei, and Liu Huohua.

Besides these individuals, Chen Kun, Yin Xiaotian, Ren Quan, Nie Yuan, and Huang Xiaoming have gradually emerged.

These people were either already famous beforehand, or they had joined the ranks of certain big shots, or their management companies were very powerful.

Among them, Huayi or Shi Xue's Eight Beauties can be considered representative...

As for the others, without anyone supporting them, there really seems to be no way out.

Even Deng Chao only started to rise to prominence after he truly spent time with Zhen Huan and joined the Shanghai clique.

Compared to those who managed to make it through, Qiao Zhenyu's situation was far worse.

Therefore, He Yi'an felt that he could be recruited into the company.

It wasn't because He Yi'an pitied him, but because at that time, there were only so many young male actors of suitable age in the Chinese entertainment industry.

Others are more or less involved with certain companies or individuals.

After considering all the options, Qiao Zhenyu is indeed the most suitable.

Therefore, when He Yi'an took the initiative to communicate with him, Qiao Zhenyu respected him very much.

Of course, He Yi'an didn't directly ask him to come to his company; he just inquired about his situation.

However, even these small gestures stirred something in Qiao Zhenyu's heart, who had been in this industry for several years.

He wasn't a complete naiveté, but he knew that once an opportunity was missed, it was gone forever.

Therefore, he became increasingly enthusiastic towards He Yi'an.

……

On the way back to Beijing, He Yi'an took out his phone and dialed Zhang Jing, who was in charge of the brokerage department.

This Zhang Jing is the script supervisor who worked with him on the movie before.

At that time, He Yi'an called two script supervisors, one was Zhang Jing and the other was Liu Miao.

After the movie was finished, most of the people he had selected signed with the company, except for Zhang Jing, who hesitated.

It seems that her previous filming experience made her realize her own abilities, and that she was indeed a little lacking compared to Liu Miao.

So she wants to transition into a producer.

He Yi'an and his mother, Xu Wan, discussed her idea and decided that they could let her give it a try.

Firstly, my father is getting older and it's really not suitable for me to work so hard with him.

Secondly, the company does need more people who can produce films, so training new talent is a good option.

However, He Yi'an did not just make Zhang Jing a producer, but also temporarily had her take on the role of the company's agent.

After all, the company doesn't have many artists right now, and she agrees with that.

Therefore, Zhang Jing can now be considered the head of the company's artist department.

"Sister Zhang, there's an artist named Qiao Zhenyu in Zhongqian Longde. Could you talk to them and try to poach him? We can pay the breach of contract fee if it's reasonable!"

"Qiao Zhenyu?" Zhang Jing didn't have a strong impression of this person.

After all, the movie that made Qiao Zhenyu famous, Snow Goddess Dragon, hasn't been released yet.

"Yes, after signing him, let him join the cast of 'Full House' as the male lead. Once Liu Guonan and the others have almost finished preparing the production, let him act alongside Yan Danchen!"

"Yes, Director He!" Zhang Jing didn't hesitate to carry out He Yi'an's order.

……

As Liu Yifei joined the cast of "The Story of a Noble Family", He Yi'an gradually began to interact with her more.

It's not that He Yi'an often visits the set; he's currently busy attending classes to catch up on credits.

Instead, Liu Yifei was being criticized while filming and couldn't find anyone to confide in, so she came to him.

The young girl was acting for the first time and knew nothing. Even though He Yi'an gave her some tips beforehand and arranged for a performance coach, she still couldn't avoid being scolded.

After all, the kind of story where a director directly imparts acting experience and then instantly understands it, making one's acting skills surpass everyone else's, only exists in fantasy.

What's more, there were people in the production crew who ganged up on her and ostracized her.

Xiao Liu is also a stubborn person. Even if you say she can't do it, she insists on proving herself.

So I was scolded every day during the day, and after holding it in for a few days, I started to cry and complain to him at night.

What can He Yi'an do?

Because of classes lately, he had to adjust his sleep schedule, which meant he had to go to bed at 10 p.m., so he could only reluctantly chat with her.

Therefore, He Yi'an's phone bills and text message charges have been rising rapidly during this period.

"He Yi'an, am I really that stupid?"

"Yeah, it's pretty stupid."

"Can't you at least comfort me?"

"Would comforting you help?" He Yi'an retorted without hesitation. "Are you being scolded because you're stupid? No, it's because it's your first time acting, you're nervous, and you lack experience."

"This isn't stupidity, it's normal."

Upon hearing this, Liu Yifei blinked her eyes, looking aggrieved, and asked, "Really?"

He Yi'an yawned: "Of course it's true. Think about it, you're not even fifteen yet, you're a high school student, it's your first time acting, it's perfectly normal to be nervous and forget your lines."

"If you're not nervous at all and act like an old monster, that's abnormal."

"You're the old monster!"

"Alright, if you don't go to sleep soon, you'll really turn into an old monster. The later you sleep, the faster you age! Bye..."

……

They chatted back and forth several times, and Liu Yifei and He Yi'an became quite familiar with each other.

She also started sharing the friends and interesting stories she made on set with He Yi'an.

He Yi'an finally received the news in mid-August.

Sure enough, with the announcement of this year's Venice Film Festival nominations, the name of Chinese director He Yi'an was prominently featured.

He Yi'an's film has been nominated for the Venice Film Festival!

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