Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

Let’s go back to February 1996, 2. On that day, the American people spread the news and lined up outside the cinema because a movie called "Rumble in the Bronx" was released.

Before that, in 1995, this movie, called "Rumble in the Bronx" in Chinese, had already swept across Asia:

The mainland box office reached 9500 million yuan, ranking first in the year.

The Hong Kong box office reached HK$5700 million, ranking first in the year.

Taipei box office reached NT$5378 million, ranking first in the year.

The number of moviegoers in South Korea reached 94, ranking first in the year.

Japan's box office is 6.35 million...

This year, Jackie Chan was 42 years old, in the prime of his life, and "Rumble in the Bronx" was his third foray into the United States.

Prior to this, Jackie Chan collaborated with Hollywood to shoot "The Trench" and "Dynasty Warriors". Although they were co-productions, the right to speak was monopolized by him throughout the entire process, so after the films came out, both word-of-mouth and box office failed.

After two setbacks, Jackie Chan returned to Hong Kong, determined to make his own blockbuster and declared that he wanted to be the "King of Asia".

"Drunken Master", "Project A", "Wheels On The Road", "Police Stories", "Operation Condor"... one masterpiece after another emerged, constantly breaking cost and box office records. Jackie Chan single-handedly improved the production scale and level of Hong Kong films, and the whole of Asia became his market.

At the same time, Jackie Chan's movie DVDs are selling well in Europe and the United States. Although Americans have not seen his movies in theaters, Jackie Chan is already a household name. Jackie Chan's influence is so great that the United States has to pay attention to him.

Finally, Rumble in the Bronx was released. This time it was still produced by a Hong Kong team, the story was set in New York, the outdoor scenes of the entire film were completed in Canada, and the dialogue was in English. Jackie Chan continued the internationalization of the film in his own way.

Now, Hollywood film producers could no longer sit still. They bought out the American distribution rights for "Rumble in the Bronx". After re-dubbing, "Rumble in the Bronx" was released in more than 1996 theaters across the United States on February 2, 23.

You have to know that before this, non-American films could only be screened in a small range in North America (at most a few dozen theaters). This was the first time in American film history that a non-American film was screened on such a large scale.

The American people were also very supportive. Although many people had already watched "Rumble in the Bronx" in advance through discs, they still chose to buy a movie ticket for Jackie Chan.

In the end, "Rumble in the Bronx", which had been released in Asia for a year, earned $3200 million in North America, setting a box office record for non-American films released in the United States.

This made Jackie Chan famous in Europe and the United States and became the most popular movie star at that time.

This popularity is phenomenal. From February to April, as the box office of "Rumble in the Bronx" continued to explode in North America, New Line Cinema offered a sky-high price to package and sell all of Jackie Chan's classic films from the 2s, including "Operation Condor Heroes", "Drunken Master ", "Twin Dragons" and other classic films, and began to release them in the North American market.

Sometimes, once a phenomenon starts, it cannot be stopped, and the same is true for the Jackie Chan phenomenon.

A series of Jackie Chan's old movies have been released in North American theaters under the arrangement of New Line Cinema.

Every movie has been popular, not only in the disc market but also in theaters. None of these movies has grossed less than 10 million US dollars.

This makes Jackie Chan fever the hottest phenomenon at the moment.

Under this phenomenon, Zhou Ziheng, the first star to become popular in Europe and the United States, was affected when the news of his new album was about to be released came out.

Emi Records contacted a total of six major media outlets to promote Zhou Ziheng's new album, determined to let all American people know that the new album from China's super singer Zhou Ziheng is coming soon.

Unfortunately, the attention in North America is now almost entirely on Jackie Chan, and the promotion of Emi's record has rarely been successful.

In other words, this wave of Emi Records' promotion of Zhou Ziheng's new album actually had no effect.

[Jackie Chan is very popular in North America and has become a superstar]

[Zhou Ziheng's new album may not be well received, North American audiences are starting to lose interest]

[Chinese have added new forces in Europe and the United States. Jackie Chan's influence surpasses Zhou Ziheng and becomes the first Chinese superstar]

[New power of Chinese people, the glory of Hong Kong films will continue]

In Asia, news about Jackie Chan also dominated the front pages.

In many news reports, Zhou Ziheng has become a stepping stone for Jackie Chan.

Among them, Hong Kong media is the most active in this regard.

In their description, Jackie Chan has replaced Zhou Ziheng and become the most popular Chinese star in Europe and the United States.

"These media are so annoying. They should praise Jackie Chan when they can, but why mention you?"

Hong Kong, Zhou Ziheng plans to stay here for two days after returning from Europe and the United States.

As soon as he arrived in Hong Kong, he was besieged by the media.

The questions asked are basically about Jackie Chan.

Someone asked him if he knew that Jackie Chan was very popular in North America.

He was also asked about his evaluation of Jackie Chan.

Some even asked him how he felt about being surpassed by Jackie Chan.

In a nutshell, Hong Kong media is very excited now.

There is a saying that goes "We share honor and disgrace". Jackie Chan has become an international star, so the Hong Kong media, as his fellow countrymen, are naturally excited.

By the way, I just wanted to show off to Zhou Ziheng.

Zhou Ziheng didn't feel anything about this.

He never thought that the world belonged to him.

Jackie Chan has known for a long time that he would be famous, so he is not jealous of it.

Even though he had an average relationship with Jackie Chan, he had to admit that there was a reason why Jackie Chan could be successful.

Zhou Ziheng has basically watched his movies, except for those bad ones in later years.

Moreover, from a Chinese perspective, Zhou Ziheng is happy that Jackie Chan has become so popular in North America.

This represents the export of Chinese culture.

Therefore, when facing reporters' questions, Zhou Ziheng basically answered the reporters in a tone of congratulating Jackie Chan.

But Florence Hui is not so magnanimous. She hates the Hong Kong media for using this to exploit Zhou Ziheng.

She was even very angry when she saw Hong Kong media saying that Zhou Ziheng's new album might fail.

"Don't be so angry! You have wrinkles all over your face!"

Seeing that Florence Hui was angry because of the report, Zhou Ziheng couldn't help but tease her.

"Do you have a conscience? I'm speaking for you!"

Hearing about wrinkles, Florence Hui touched the corner of her eyes reflexively, then reacted and threw the newspaper in her hand directly at Zhou Ziheng.

"I'm telling you, if I really get wrinkles, you'll be fully responsible. You assign me so much work that I'm still working at twelve o'clock every night."

Zhou Ziheng hesitated to speak.

He is indeed responsible for this, and he has indeed assigned too much work to Florence Hui.

But there was nothing he could do about this!

As the saying goes, those who are more capable should do more work. Florence Hui is one of the people he trusts the most. He doesn't trust others to do many things, so he has no choice but to leave them to her.

"This is the record promotion plan that Emi Records faxed over. I took a look and there's nothing wrong with it. Do you want to take a look?"

After joking, Florence Hui took the initiative to talk about work.

This is also what Zhou Ziheng is most satisfied with her. She is a real workaholic and handles everything properly.

"I won't watch it! It's nothing more than the same old stuff, book signings, TV shows..."

After debuting for many years, Zhou Ziheng has a clear idea of ​​the album promotion plan. No matter how innovative it is, it is nothing more than the same few things.

“It is indeed similar to the past, but the focus of the promotional areas has changed this time, and there are a lot more promotional events in Japan and South Korea.

Especially in South Korea, it is said that the sales of your previous English album have increased due to the influence of your movie.

Emi expects the new album to be very popular there, so she has arranged some promotional activities for you. "

Zhou Ziheng nodded. This year, his influence in South Korea has indeed increased.

In December last year, he ranked fourth in South Korea's list of the top ten most popular foreign artists, second only to Jackie Chan among Chinese.

This is also the reason why he participated in fewer activities in Korea.

If he had several hit movies released every year like Jackie Chan and went there more often, his popularity might increase faster.

……

After the filming of the song MV was completed, the promotion of the album "My love" began.

Because it is an English record, the main areas of promotion are still concentrated in English record markets such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea.

Recently, all attention in Europe and the United States is on Jackie Chan, and Emi's intention is to temporarily avoid the spotlight.

Zhou Ziheng and Jackie Chan are both Chinese, so their promotional focuses will overlap. Since both parties do not agree to joint promotion, it is not appropriate to compete with Jackie Chan at this time.

Therefore, Zhou Ziheng chose South Korea as the first stop to promote his English album.

In fact, Zhou Ziheng has proposed a Chinese Star plan.

The focus of the plan is to bundle Zhou Ziheng and Jackie Chan, two stars who currently have considerable influence internationally, for publicity.

Both of them are Chinese. If they work together, there will be a lot of publicity opportunities. One song and one movie, which are very suitable for joint promotion.

However, Golden Harvest is the backbone of the Hong Kong circle. Even though Jackie Chan himself is willing to cooperate with Chow Tsz-Heng in promoting their respective films in North America, Golden Harvest refused to jointly promote them for various reasons.

Maybe in Golden Harvest's mind, Zhou Ziheng was an enemy. Jackie Chan was very popular at that time, while Zhou Ziheng's new album was obviously not very popular, so they did not want to use Jackie Chan's fame to support the enemy.

At that time, Jackie Chan was not the independent person he is in later generations. Although he is now a superstar, Golden Harvest still holds most of the say over him.

Therefore, Golden Harvest directly rejected Zhou Ziheng's proposal to tie Zhou Ziheng and Jackie Chan together without even discussing it.

In this regard, Zhou Ziheng had no choice but to give up.

On April 3rd, Zhou Ziheng landed in South Korea.

At the same time, on the same day, the first song from the album "My Love" was officially released in countries and regions with a large English-speaking audience around the world and began to chart on the radio.

Los Angeles, USA.

Jenny is seventeen years old and attends St. Gabriel's High School.

As a new-age female figure, Jenny, who has been greatly influenced by pop culture in recent years, has recently become fascinated by Zhou Ziheng.

A singer from the distant and mysterious East.

Last year, when the album "Zhou Ziheng" was very popular, Jenny bought the album on the recommendation of her cousin Jasper.

Since then, she has become Zhou Ziheng's most loyal fan.

After learning that Zhou Ziheng had released several Chinese albums in Asia in addition to the English album "Zhou Ziheng", Jenny asked her relatives working in Asia to mail her all the records and movie DVDs released by Zhou Ziheng.

Since getting these records, Jenny has been listening to them every day. In the end, in order to understand the meaning of these Chinese songs, she even signed up for Chinese courses at school.

Although Chinese is very difficult to learn, I am motivated by the desire to hear clearly what my idol is singing.

In just half a year, she went from being a complete novice who knew nothing about Chinese to an expert on China who could communicate in simple Chinese.

Of course, this doesn't come without a price.

While she became the best non-Chinese student in the school in Chinese, her other subjects plummeted.

This caused her to be scolded by her parents more than once.

But that doesn't matter anymore.

She has now fallen in love with Chinese culture.

Recently, she joined a Chinese culture research club initiated by Chinese students.

The purpose is to study Chinese culture more conveniently and appropriately.

Jenny has made plans for herself. If possible, she will definitely visit China once in the future.

Go see the Great Wall that I had seen in books, go see the Terracotta Warriors, and of course, the most important thing is to have a fluent conversation with my idol Zhou Ziheng in Chinese.

This morning, after finishing her morning classes, Jenny went to the Chinese Culture Research Society they founded as usual.

Also traveling with them was Jamie, Jenny's boyfriend, who joined the club because of her.

"Hi! Jenny!"

From a distance, Jenny and her friend saw several people from the society gathered together with a radio in front of them.

an empty street an empty house
Empty street, empty houses
a hole inside my heart
Empty Heart
im all alone the rooms are
I'm so lonely
……

A song came from the radio.

Jenny was stunned when she heard the song.

She was absolutely certain that this was the voice of her idol Zhou Ziheng.

She listens to her songs every day, English, Chinese songs, and Zhou Ziheng's songs. Not to mention English songs, she can even sing Chinese songs in full.

And the pronunciation is extremely accurate.

He was very familiar with Zhou Ziheng's voice because he had heard it so many times.

Once before, Zhou Ziheng participated in a radio interview on a Los Angeles radio station. There was no advance publicity. When he went on stage, the host asked Zhou Ziheng to say a sentence and then asked the audience to guess.

At that time, when many Chinese fans were still unaware, Jenny recognized that it was Zhou Ziheng.

"Wang, is Zhou going to release a new album?"

Jenny ran over quickly.

"Yes, the release date has been set. April 10th."

The boy named Wang is Chinese and speaks fluent Chinese.

"That's great. I've been looking forward to his new album! It's finally here!"

Jenny looked excited.

“Is this his promotional song? It’s really great, and it’s just as good as the songs in his previous album!”

"Yes, this time it's a global promotion. It is said that this song can be heard in all places where the English album is popular."

"Zhou is indeed the pride of us Chinese people! His first album is a knockout hit, this is definitely another record-breaking album."

(End of this chapter)