Rebirth of Chinese Entertainment from the Oscars

In 1996, the late summer evening breeze in Beijing still carried a hint of heat.

When Su Chen woke up, he saw a whitewashed ceiling, tiny cobwebs in the corner, and the incessant chirping of cicadas from the locust tree outside the window. His head was terribly dizzy, and his last memory was of the glamorous nomination party in Hollywood, with its clinking glasses and white producers, black actors, and mixed-race investors all raising their glasses to congratulate him on his nomination, their eyes filled with scrutiny and appraising.

A Chinese-American director with no roots, no background, and only a few unsuccessful arthouse films, was nothing more than an exotic dish to spice up the Oscar feast. He drank a lot, partly to socialize, and partly to vent his frustration. Then… then he was apparently taken home by his assistant and collapsed onto his bed.

But where is this place now?

Su Chen struggled to sit up, his movements clumsy due to his lack of coordination. He looked down and saw a pair of unfamiliar hands belonging to a boy, with fair skin and a slender frame. His heart skipped a beat, and an absurd guess almost froze his blood. He staggered to his desk, where a round mirror sat—reflecting a youthful yet handsome face, about thirteen or fourteen years old.

Born in 1982, 14 years old, from Beijing, her parents are employees of the Beijing Film Studio, Su Chen.

A barrage of information felt like a hammer blow slamming into his head, making him gasp in pain. He gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white. Images from his past life and memories of this life collided violently in his mind like two rushing rivers, creating a monstrous surge.

He, Su Chen, a 2024 Oscar nominee for Best Director, a "tool director" who has studied thousands of films and whose theory and practice are impeccable, was reborn just one step away from that golden statuette. He was reborn in 1996, a golden age when the film industry was still in its infancy and on the eve of its explosion.

For the next month, Su Chen behaved like a real 14-year-old boy. He carefully played the role of "Su Chen," helping his mother, Wu Qingfang, with chores at home, occasionally playing basketball with familiar children in the Beijing Film Studio compound, and listening to his father, Su Zhigao, talk about the new projects being filmed at the studio at the dinner table. He spent a full thirty days allowing his soul to completely merge with this young body, and also allowing the vast amount of memories from his past life to be re-filed, categorized, and clarified in his mind.

In 1996 China, VCD players were just becoming common, and video arcades on every street corner were showing Hong Kong and Hollywood blockbusters. The Internet was still a distant concept. Titanic had not yet been released, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had not yet been created, the Fifth Generation directors were poised to make their mark, and the Sixth Generation was still struggling "underground."

This is the best of times; nothing is yet to come, and anything is possible.

Su Chen sat at his desk in his small room, spreading out a stack of brand-new manuscript paper. The cool moonlight streamed through the window, filtering over the locust tree branches and falling onto the tabletop. He unscrewed his fountain pen, the faint scent of ink wafting out. What is the greatest wealth of a soul possessing memories of nearly thirty years of the future? It is stories.

Instead of immediately writing those screenplays that would later shock the world, he chose a gentler approach. Words are the foundation of images, and also the fastest way for him to accumulate his first pot of gold and fame.

So, for the next two months, Su Chen immersed himself in the world of words. He adapted the Japanese animated film "Your Name" and the Taiwanese youth film "You Are the Apple of My Eye" from his memory, removing all the complex storyboards that required visual presentation and using delicate words to depict the tender warmth of pure love stories. He also wrote a few short stories to practice, trying to submit them to several literary magazines in Beijing, using the English name "Daniel" as a pen name. So far, they didn't make much of a splash, but he wasn't in a hurry.

The real highlight was the outlines of several novels he prepared for the Western market. In that world, he was well aware of the terrifying power of cultural IP. He wrote story outlines and core chapters for several high-concept films he admired—The Hunger Games, Night at the Museum, and the six films he meticulously integrated and conceptually upgraded into the "Future World" series: The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Inception, Gravity, The Martian, and Interstellar.

These works contain grand imaginations about future climate disasters, bizarre concepts of folded dreams, the despair and resilience of space survival, and humanity's struggle and hope in a post-apocalyptic world. They are not merely stories, but literary blueprints for visual spectacle.

He found Zhou Ming, the publishing editor who had helped him submit his short story. Zhou Ming was in his thirties, wore thick glasses, and was known in the industry for his keen intuition. When Su Chen placed the complete manuscripts of "Your Name" and "You Are the Apple of My Eye" in front of him, Zhou Ming read them and remained silent for a full five minutes.

"Did you write this?" Zhou Ming took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes, unable to hide his shock. "You're only 14?"

"Brother Zhou, ambition knows no age." Su Chen smiled calmly, his eyes displaying a composure far beyond his years. "I'd like to publish these two books domestically first. Also, I have some story outlines intended for overseas markets, and I'd like to ask Brother Zhou for help in finding out if there are any opportunities."

Zhou Ming wasn't stupid. The domestic publishing market was in its nascent stage for youth literature, and "The Flower Season and the Rainy Season" had only recently become popular. The quality of these two manuscripts, the delicacy of their emotions, and the novelty of their stories far surpassed the works currently on the market. He immediately realized that he might have struck gold.

"Abroad?" Zhou Ming hesitated. "The path abroad isn't easy, there are cultural barriers..."

"So I prepared stories that they can understand and will like." Su Chen took out the story outlines with the English titles: The Hunger Games, Night at the Museum, and the much thicker concept art for the Future World series.

Zhou Ming couldn't understand English, but Su Chen fluently recounted the core concepts of several stories in Chinese. The brutal survival show in "The Hunger Games," the dance of history and imagination in "Night at the Museum," the magnificent yet dangerous universe and apocalypse in "Future World"... Zhou Ming listened with great excitement.

"Okay, okay, I'll contact them right away!" Zhou Ming practically snatched all the manuscripts away. "I can approve the domestic publishing, and the contract will be yours soon. As for the international connections, I'll contact my old colleagues at the publishing house who are in charge of copyright exports; they have connections with several international copyright agencies. Su Chen... no, Daniel, you're going to be a star."

Su Chen simply smiled. Fire? This was merely the first brick he had laid for himself.

As it turns out, good stories transcend national borders.

After their publication in China, "Your Name" and "You Are the Apple of My Eye" quickly climbed to the top of bestseller lists. High school students, college students, and even many office workers were struck by the pure, bittersweet, and beautiful emotions of youth depicted in the books. Su Chen deliberately obscured the author's age, but the name "Daniel" began to circulate in literary circles.

Two months later, even better news arrived. Through the connections of a domestic publisher, and thanks to the Hollywood-style narrative rhythm that Su Chen had left in the manuscripts—a style with strong commercial appeal—the outlines and sample chapters of several works caught the attention of a junior book agent at the renowned William Morris Endeavour Entertainment (WME) in the United States. The agent, Eric Thompson, almost immediately made a transoceanic call to Zhou Ming after seeing the concepts for *The Hunger Games* and *Future World*.

  

"Zhou! Who is this Daniel? A genius! These stories have all the potential to be bestsellers and adapted into movies and TV shows! We must secure his agency rights!"

The process was full of twists and turns. The fact that Su Chen was a fourteen-year-old Chinese boy initially filled Eric with suspicion, even making him think it was some kind of prank. But when Su Chen sent Eric a more detailed world-building, character biographies, and even script format for some key scenes via fax, Eric fell silent.

This young man is no joke. His grasp of Hollywood genre film structures, commercial pacing, and audience psychology is shockingly mature.

Thus, copyright negotiations began. Su Chen insisted on not selling the rights outright in one lump sum, but rather using a model of upfront payment plus a share of the profits from future film and television adaptations. This seemed somewhat "greedy" in the publishing world of 1996, but Eric was surprised to find that this young man's emphasis on copyright and his keen business acumen far surpassed that of ordinary people. Ultimately, through compromise, the North American and some overseas rights to the six-part series *The Hunger Games*, *Night at the Museum*, and *Futureworld* were licensed for an upfront payment that was astronomical for Su Chen at the time (approximately US$300,000), plus a 5% to 8% share of future film and television adaptation revenue. This percentage was astonishingly high for a new author, and Eric, as his agent, deserves much credit, but more importantly, what Su Chen offered was irresistible.

Three hundred thousand US dollars was a fortune in China at the end of 1996, enough to change the fate of a family. Su Chen gave half of it to his parents, Su Zhigao and Wu Qingfang, whose hands trembled as they held the bankbook. They only knew that their son had locked himself in his room writing for months, but they never imagined it would bring them such a huge fortune. Su Chen only said it was good luck that he had met a foreign publisher who appreciated his story.

He carefully saved the remaining half. This money, along with the copyright revenue he would receive in the future, would become his strongest backing for entering the film industry.

The name "Daniel Sue" also began to circulate within WME, being identified as a "promising IP creator worth watching." Several novels began to be published in North America, especially "The Hunger Games" and "The Day After Tomorrow," the first installment of the "Future World" series, which quickly attracted readers' attention with its highly sensational concepts.

In the spring of 1997, aside from assisting the publishing house with necessary promotional work, Su Chen spent most of his time locked in the archives and screening room of the Beijing Film Studio. In his previous life, he had been a director who was essentially a tool, having watched countless films and analyzed countless film fragments, but that was standing on the shoulders of giants to look back. In 1997, however, the technology and aesthetics of the film industry were vastly different from those of nearly thirty years later.

He needs to recalibrate his "eyes".

He found almost all the classic films in the Beijing Film Studio's warehouse, from Eisenstein to Kurosawa, from Fellini to Kubrick, from "Red Sorghum" to "Farewell My Concubine," watching them one by one, analyzing them frame by frame. He even shamelessly used his parents' connections to sneak into the film crews that were shooting at the Beijing Film Studio. He kept quiet, just moved a small stool behind the monitor, and watched how those veteran directors directed the set, how they communicated with the actors, and how they used the equipment from 1997 to achieve the shots they wanted.

Over the course of several months, Su Chen discovered that many of his "advanced" experiences and techniques from his previous life, limited by current technological conditions, sometimes seemed out of place. However, theoretical knowledge and an understanding of audience psychology remained timeless tools. What he needed to do was integrate them—to present an aesthetic that transcended his time using audiovisual language that was understandable and impactful in this era. This process reaffirmed for him that even with foresight and a vast knowledge base, practical experience, especially experience adapting to the domestic film production environment, remained indispensable.

He needs a mentor.

In the summer of 1998, Su Chen, who had just turned 16, applied for the undergraduate entrance examination for the directing department of Beijing Film Academy with the support of his parents and amidst the astonished gazes of countless people.