Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 172 The Sorrow of an Action Actor
The premiere was attended by many stars.

Wang Jinghua, Chang Jihong, Li Xiaowan...

The three major domestic agents all attended the event with a group of celebrities of all sizes, making it a star-studded event.

In addition, Feng Xiaogang and Zhang Guoli also attended with their wives...

Mr. Wang from Huayi also came, bringing Li Bingbing and several female stars, and greeted the smiling Zhang Chen and Dong Jianqiang.

"Manager Dong, I wish Black 2 a big box office success~"

"Thank you, Mr. Wang, for your kind words~"

Dong Jianqiang warmly invited the other party to sit down. Although they were all from Huayi, they did not sit together with Wang Jinghua and his group. There was a clear distinction between them.

"Sister Xiaowan..."

As soon as Mr. Wang left, Li Xiaowan appeared again, with his son Lin Shen and Mr. Zhou next to him.

At that time, Mr. Zhou was still an artist of Rong Xinda and his contract would not be terminated until 06.

Ms. Zhou was the biggest name in Rong Xinda. After she left, Rong Xinda declined and became a second-rate company. There have been no big names under Li Xiaowan anymore.

The most likely person is Yang Xiaomi, who also left with Zeng Jia and founded Jiaxing Media.

Seeing her agent coming, Yang Xiaomi came over and said hello to Li Xiaowan.

When Zhang Chen saw Yang Xiaomi, he originally thought that the other party would feel a little unnatural. After all, his role had been replaced, and no matter who it was, he would not feel comfortable.

But Yang Xiaomi didn't, as if nothing had happened, still "before Director Zhang" and "after Director Zhang"...

Then the appearance of a figure surprised Zhang Chen a little. Liu Tianxian was also here.

Seeing Zhang Chen's surprised expression, Liu Tianxian pursed her lips slightly.

"Is it a surprise?"

Zhang Chen nodded: "Yes."

Liu Tianxian smiled and said, "I really wanted to attend the premiere, but I waited and waited but never got an invitation call. Fortunately, Manager Dong still remembered me~"

Zhang Chen slapped his forehead and said, "My bad, my bad. I thought you were busy filming and definitely didn't have time, so I simply didn't dare to invite you..."

Since people said so, Zhang Chen could only apologize repeatedly.

In fact, the real reason was that Zhang Chen knew that Liu Tianxian also had a movie "Love Winner" released at the same time.

This was the one she went to Taiwan to shoot during the filming of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy", and it took a total of 10 days.

Logically speaking, the two are competitors, and Zhang Chen couldn't understand why Liu Yifei didn't support his own "Love Winner" but instead came to his side.

But now is not the time to talk about this.

"Please take a seat first, we'll talk later..."

After asking the company's people to lead Liu Tianxian to her seat, Zhang Chen looked at Dong Jianqiang and asked, "Did you invite her?"

Dong Jianqiang shook his head: "It wasn't me. She called me out of the blue last night and said she would come to the premiere today. She took the initiative to come and show her support. How could I push her away?"

Zhang Chen couldn't understand what the Fairy Sister was up to?

Didn't they say that it was difficult to get leave from Zhang Da Huzi? How come he was free to show up at the premiere...

Dong Jianqiang next to him had the wrong idea: "Nothing will happen between you and her, right?"

Zhang Chen rolled his eyes, meaning, you really don’t understand me, brother.

"Am I that kind of person?"

Dong Jianqiang said firmly: "You are."

Zhang Chen felt like he was being stabbed in the back and said unhappily, "Come on, how is that possible? Her mother was watching the whole time during the filming. That Lin Shen, Li Xiaowan's son, was stared at by Liu Xiaoli like a thief just because he spoke a few more words to Liu Yifei..."

Dong Jianqiang saw that his expression was not fake, so he felt relieved and said, "This is the best way. You'd better not get involved with Liu Yifei. Cooperation is fine, but nothing else..."

"Not really? Just because of her mother Liu Xiaoli?"

"It's not Liu Xiaoli, it's her godfather, who is not easy to mess with. If you really mess with Liu Yifei, the two sides will get into a fight, and we will be in trouble. There are many beauties in the entertainment industry, you can mess with them as you like, but as long as it's not her, it's fine."

It seemed that Dong Jianqiang knew a lot of inside information. Zhang Chen was just about to inquire about his identity when the host announced that the premiere was about to begin.

Almost all the stars have arrived, and the media's flash lights have never stopped. I don't know how much film has been wasted.

As usual, after the entire film was screened, the creators took the stage to answer questions.

Ning Hao, Zeng Li, Yang Xiaomi, Wang Luodan, Cao Bingkun and other main creators stood in a row, with Zhang Chen in the first place.

Although this film is directed by Ning Hao, everyone knows that the soul of the film is Zhang Chen. He provided the framework of the script, he shot the previous work, and he is also the producer.

Media Q&A Session
"Director Zhang, do you think The Darkness 2 has met your expectations?"

The first question was indeed Zhang Chen’s.

Zhang Chen took the microphone, organized his words, and replied with a smile: "Of course, it's even better than I expected."

After a brief pause, he continued to explain: "Everyone knows that it is generally difficult for a sequel to surpass its predecessor, because the narrative mode is fixed and the character framework is also inherited from the previous work, so there is little room for free play..."

"The same is true for Darkseid 2. A big part of the reason why the previous game was successful was because of the horror atmosphere laid in the early stages.

But the sequel is different because the audience knows what the monster in the cave looks like from the beginning. This poses a difficult problem for the screenwriters: how to come up with something new while the audience can guess what it is?
It now seems that director Ning Hao has done a good job. The story logic is complete, the dramatic conflicts are intense, the character relationships are clear, and the atmosphere is well created.

This movie is still in the familiar style, but the action is more intense, the scenes are more thrilling, the rhythm is just right, the atmosphere is tense and exciting, and compared to the previous work, it maintains the standard that a sequel should have, and that's enough."

This time, Zhang Chen did not use any particularly extreme words, but focused on seeking truth from facts.

Movie promotion cannot be blindly exaggerated, it must be combined with the quality of the movie itself.

If you praise a movie to the sky and create enough hype, it can indeed attract a lot of attention in the early stages.

But once the movie is released and people find that the quality of the movie does not match the previous publicity, then the expectations they had before will turn into disappointment and even anger.

At that time, what awaited the movie was an overwhelming amount of negative reviews.

The simplest example is "The Warlords".

This film is hailed as Jet Li's worst work, and was completely defeated in the competition with "Assembly".

But it’s actually not that bad. Putting other aspects aside, the quality of the film itself is pretty good.

The subject matter is "The Assassination of Ma", one of the four famous unsolved cases in the late Qing Dynasty. The actors are also good, including Jet Li, King Liu and Takeshi Kaneshiro, and the female lead is Xu Jinglei.

But why did it fail so badly in the end? It was because of over-promotion.

I don’t know if Chen Kexin was inspired by his previous film “A Moment to Love You”, so he promoted “The Warlords” like crazy.

They promoted Jet Li's joining the film with a salary of 100 million yuan, anyway, they tied the promotion to Jet Li.

At that time, Jet Li still had great box office appeal in the field of kung fu movies. When it came to kung fu movies, he was number one in the world, and even Jackie Chan had to stand aside.

When everyone saw that Jet Li was the leading actor, their first reaction was that this must be a kung fu movie, and the fighting would definitely be intense and exciting.

All the investors, theaters, and audiences were full of expectations when they saw that it was a Jet Li film.

The results of it?
Jet Li's fighting scenes in "The Warlords" were not important, which was equivalent to Chen Kexin deceiving everyone.

Damn it, I paid for the ticket to see Jet Li fight, and you show me this?

That’s why the reputation of “The Warlords” is so bad, because all the previous publicity said that it was a kung fu martial arts film, and the audience’s expectations were raised.

Everyone wanted to see a thrilling fight between the Kung Fu Emperor, but that wasn't what happened.

Some only seduce the second sister-in-law. Hehe~
The producers are just trying to make people laugh!

the more you hope, the harder you fall.

So the entire Internet was criticizing "The Warlords", and the ratings of "The Warlords" also plummeted.

I just don’t know why Chen Kexin did this?
Don’t you understand that water can carry a boat, but can also capsize it?

Well, maybe I really don’t understand because Chen is Thai.

Actually, apart from the publicity, this movie is still okay.

Jet Li also contributed good acting skills in it.

But it’s useless, no one watches this.

We want to see the fight.

This is also the fate of kung fu actors.

You have already been stereotyped in everyone's mind.

When it comes to people like Jet Li and Jackie Chan, we don't want to see anything else, we just want to see you fight.

So their transformational works usually fail.

This is the case with Jet Li's "The Warlords", Uncle Long's "Glass Bottle", and Fatty Hong's "Heart of Dragon".

Speaking of which, Fatty Hong’s performance as the fool in “Heart of Dragon” was really great and really showcased his acting skills.

Unfortunately, the movie was not a box office hit, and the reason is still the above point.

This is also the helplessness of action actors.

In fact, the role of a fool seems easy to play, but it is very difficult to really show the characteristics.

Roger Kwok, Sammo Hung, Chow Yun-fat, Shing Kui-an, Lau Ching-wan, Jiang Wu, all of them have played fools...

Wait, it looks like there's something different mixed in there.

Cheng Kui-an, come out here!
Others act like fools, but you act like a fool.
……

On February 2, two days ahead of Valentine's Day, "Dark Rising 12" was officially released.

Major cinema chains scheduled 52% of the screenings on the first day.

Zhang Chen was still a little dissatisfied, but Dong Jianqiang thought it was already a lot, and Ning Hao was also quite satisfied.

"Black 2" cannot compare to "The Shallows".

The screening schedule of "The Shallows" was treated like a blockbuster because it was released during an unpopular period. With the strong push from China Film Group, theaters were also willing to give it a try, which is why such a miracle was created.

But Black 2 is not like that.

Not even if it’s a sequel to a hit movie.

There are so many movies coming out on Valentine's Day.

"Mandarin Duck and Butterfly", "Still Beauty", "Lover's Knot", "The Polar Express", "Himalayan Star", "Hancheng Guide", "Peacock", "Darkness 2", "Love Winner".

There are a total of nine movies, all squeezed into two days from the 12th to the 14th.

It's just a big brawl!

What is the ending of the brawl?
There is usually only one lucky person who survives in the end.

In fact, it was all caused by "Kung Fu". Everyone wanted to avoid "Kung Fu" and chose the Valentine's Day period without any prior agreement.

There are many works starring big stars like Zhou Gongzi and Zhao Yanzi. Under such circumstances, the theaters are still willing to give 52% of the screening time, which is already quite generous.

This is why the quality of "Black 2" was obvious to all at the screening. If it was a little worse, it would not have been able to get this screening schedule.

Although there are many films being released at the same time, Zhang Chen is not worried at all.

Dong Jianqiang once asked him which movie would be the biggest rival of "Black 2".

Zhang Chen’s answer to him was that “Black 2” had no rival at all.

Among them, "Peacock" is the most famous.

After all, Gu Changwei is Zhang Yimou's photographer and has his own aura.

The distributor of "Peacock" is Bona. Yu Dong's distribution strategy for "Peacock" is very conservative, with only two shows scheduled a day.

He seemed very confident that "Peacock" would win the award, and he had been holding back in the early stages, arousing curiosity and letting word of mouth slowly ferment.

Nowadays, there is a group of art films following, although not many, they do exist.

And the reputation of "Peacock" is indeed good.

Apart from this, the only work that Zhang Chen has a good impression of is "Hancheng Strategy".

This is a Hong Kong film that imitates the "007" style, with handsome agents and a bunch of beauties. The style is standard Hong Kong film style, light-hearted and humorous, completely different from James Bond.

Zhang Chen happened to have seen it in his previous life, of course, on a DVD player.

The quality is not good.

Zhang Chen had already forgotten what the movie was about, but he just remembered that Liang Chaowei was making jokes among a group of beauties, which was quite weird to watch.

By the way, the director of “Hancheng Raiders” is Ma Chucheng, one of the best photographers in Hong Kong.

He directed the films "Prison on Fire", "Comrades: Almost a Love Story", "Fong Sai-yuk" and "Rumble in the Bronx".

Won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

Ma Chucheng is a first-rate photographer, so he thought that if he is good at photography, he can be a director. However, as a director, he can only be considered second-rate, or even not second-rate~
"Don't underestimate it. Like our "Black 2", "Hancheng Raiders" is also a sequel. Its predecessor, "Tokyo Raiders", grossed 2800 million in Hong Kong that year..."

Dong Jianqiang advises not to take it lightly.

As mentioned before, Hong Kong currently has a population of about 600 million, so the market is limited. A movie is considered a big hit if it grosses over million.

It is indeed impressive that "Tokyo Raiders" has earned 2800 million at the box office.

No wonder "Hancheng Raiders" is so aggressive.

It probably thinks it is the king of this Valentine's Day period.

A few days later, the opening weekend box office figures were released.

"Dark Rising 2" is undoubtedly the first with 2100 million.

After all, it is the sequel to a successful movie, and the audience base is there. Even without any viral marketing, the box office is not bad.

Guess who's second?
Zhang Chen and Dong Jianqiang originally thought it would be "Hancheng Raiders", after all, the star lineup is not bad, and it is also a sequel to a successful movie.

but not.

The real second place is "Peacock".

The reason is simple. "Peacock" won the Silver Bear Award, the Jury Grand Prix at the Berlin Film Festival.

When the news reached back into China, it immediately caused a frenzy among art film lovers.

Gu Changwei's first film won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, and everyone thought that Gu Changwei was the second Zhang Yimou.

……

Sorry, only one chapter today.
(End of this chapter)