Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 296: Absurd Long Shot
Zhang Chen didn't plan to hold a party or dinner, but he still had to have posters and the like.

At present, there are many Hollywood movie posters in the streets and alleys of Venice.

Some art filmmakers are unhappy, believing that Hollywood is bringing its bad habits to film festivals, but this is the trend.

Posters of "Taken" also appeared at various intersections.

In this regard, "Seven Swords" has a great advantage.

As the opening film, it has attracted a lot of attention. After all, he is a well-known director. Zhang Chen does not receive such treatment.

……

When Zhang Chen was busy in Venice, domestic reporters suddenly found that they could not find Zhang Chen.

At the end of August, "Seven Swords" and "Stone" were both taken off the screen at the same time.

The final box office of "Seven Swords" was 1.01 million yuan, and "Stone" was 1.47 million yuan.

The sixth billionaire director in Chinese film history was born, but there was no reaction from the outside world.

The box office of "Seven Swords" exceeded 100 million yuan purely by the accumulation of time.

It took the film a month and a half to achieve this result. Strictly speaking, no one recognizes it.

Another thing is the sale of "Wulin Waijia".

The sale of a sitcom is actually nothing, but what people are paying attention to is that this drama was sold because Zhang Chen posted a blog.

An insider analyzed the whole thing from his own perspective and claimed that Zhang Chen's approach subverted the way TV dramas are bought and sold in the industry.

In the past, buyers and sellers of TV dramas relied more on relationships, and the producers’ position in this process was weaker than that of TV stations.

It’s the same even for big producers, it’s just that they have a better relationship with the TV stations so it’s not obvious.

But this time, Zhang Chen directly used his influence to bring all the TV stations together and then bid secretly.

It has overturned the previous model to a great extent.

Under this situation, the strong position of TV stations has been weakened.

Another point that the media is paying attention to is blogs.

At this stage, although the Internet has risen, traditional media is still the mainstream, and the Internet only has a certain influence among young people at most.

But this time, blogs play the leading role.

Zhang Chen relies on blogs to sell his dramas.

Looking back on his past experiences, the recent ones, such as the activities with Mango TV, were all completed through blogs.

That's a little different.

In the past, if a star wanted to make some noise, he or she would definitely contact the media and find reporters to help build momentum...

But now, a blog does the trick.

Moreover, Zhang Chen likes to post blogs very much. He posts one whenever he has time. For example, now everyone knows that this guy went to Venice again, and he complained about the prices in Venice for a long time.

At this stage, Zhang Chen is considered the top blogger.

The second and third are Xu Cainv and Han Han.

Of course, he has such a status because of his label as a big troll.

Feng Xiaogang is also a big troll, but since he doesn't write a blog, he doesn't have that much influence on the Internet.

Zhang Chen is different. This guy almost writes his blog as a diary. Sometimes he records his mood, sometimes he promotes movies, and sometimes he just wants to curse...

The result is that many media don't even need to interview him, they can directly grab materials from his blog. For example, people know that "Taken" will premiere in Venice tomorrow.

Movie fans with plenty of money have already bought plane tickets to Venice just to catch a glimpse of the film.

……

September 9, the film festival opens

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chinese cinema, and the film festival is very respectful by choosing Seven Swords as the opening film.

Although there was only one Chinese film shortlisted for this Venice Film Festival, "Everlasting Regret", there were more than ten films screened, including many blockbusters, such as Xu Ke's "Seven Swords", Zhang Chen's "Taken" and Jackie Chan's "The Myth".

It can be said to be the highest in the history of the Venice Film Festival.

No wonder Marco Mueller set up a Chinese film retrospective unit at the film festival.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chinese cinema, there was even a fireworks show and dragon and lion dances at the opening ceremony.

It feels like this is not the Venice Film Festival, but the China Film Festival.

"Taken" was scheduled to premiere in the afternoon, later than "Seven Swords".

I don’t know if it was because the publicity was not good enough, but with about ten minutes left before the show started, there were only about a dozen people in the screening room.

It makes people sigh~
At this time, several figures suddenly appeared at the door, including Cheng Long, Tang Jili and Guan Jinpeng.

When Cheng Long came in, he immediately saw Zhang Chen and others sitting in the back and waved to them. Zhang Chen was about to stand up to greet them, but Cheng Long waved his hand back and found a place to sit down.

His arrival naturally attracted media attention, and many reporters followed in.

Jackie Chan is an international superstar and his every move is watched by the media.

As a result, a lot more ordinary audiences came in.

The film begins with a frustrated but capable middle-aged man, his ex-wife who remarried a wealthy man, and his rebellious but troublesome daughter.

The characters are clearly introduced in just a few shots.

Among the three, Cheng Long had read the script of "Hurricane", Tang Jili had heard of "Hurricane" from Cheng Long, and only Guan Jinpeng knew nothing about it.

He came here today more to support Liang Jiahui, and also to see what a movie that slaps Wu Yusen in the face is like.

When I saw this opening, I already understood in my mind: "It's another midlife crisis-style opening, a standard Hollywood template. It seems that the story of "Taken" is nothing special. I can guess the rest of the plot just by looking at the beginning. The daughter is rebellious, and the father rescues her. I don't know how many stories like this have been filmed in Hollywood, the husband saving his wife, the father saving his daughter, the brother saving his sister..." As the movie continued, the daughter was scared and at a loss when she saw her best friend being arrested.

The old father on the phone was calm and taught her how to deal with it, and took out professional equipment.

But after his daughter hid under the bed, he told her in an almost cold and ruthless tone: You will definitely be caught by them!
This one sentence shattered the daughter's last bit of hope and was completely beyond the expectations of all the audience.

"Kimmy, concentrate. This is very important. Throw your phone on the ground. You have five seconds, or ten seconds. Time is running out. Concentrate and tell me everything you see. Hair color, eyes, height, scars, etc. Everything you see. Do you hear me?"

"Dad, I think they might...ah..."

When my daughter was suddenly pulled out from under the bed, she screamed so hard that anyone could hear the fear in her heart. However, what she shouted was not a useless cry for help, but "Bearded man, 1.8 meters tall, with a tattoo of the moon and stars on his right hand..."

At this moment, people felt that something seemed to be different, but there was no time to think about it because the plot continued.

After a sound of glass breaking, the daughter's voice stopped abruptly, obviously she was under control. But a man's voice came from the other end of the phone. Apparently, they had found the phone too.

Everyone thought that the male protagonist would just be furious and helpless, but at this moment his father was unusually calm, and even his eyes did not change at all.

He issued his threat in a calm voice: "I don't know who you are, or what you want, but I have some skills..."

It sounds like it has no deterrent effect, but it seems to be full of deterrent effect.

Although there was no emotional change, the audience could tell that a demon was released after these words.

At this moment, Stanley Kwan finally felt that this movie was interesting.

He makes art films, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand commercial films.

The rhythm of the opening of Taken is so good and very catchy.

Liang Jiahui took his daughter's stepfather's private plane to France, and then walked along the route his daughter had taken again, and the case was repeated...

Then Huang Xiaoming was found through clues.

Is this the agent?

This gave Stanley Kwan the feeling of watching "The Bourne Supremacy". "The Bourne Supremacy" is like that, the protagonist always uses the simplest method to achieve his goal.

The same is true for Liang Jiahui in "Hurricane", as if every move he makes is not redundant.

Then at the airport, the clues that were finally found were cut off after Huang Xiaoming was hit and killed. When everyone was worried about the protagonist, the protagonist found the chicken coop through other clues.

Liang Jiahui found his daughter's clothes, rescued the girl wearing his daughter's clothes, and fought against ten people alone, starting a killing spree!
A big battle at the chicken coop showed the protagonist’s fighting power for the first time.

His punches and kicks were powerful and his shooting was also very cool.

In the action scenes, one can still vaguely find the shadow of "The Bourne Supremacy" in Stanley Kwan, but I really can't understand this gun battle.

The solemn and murderous style was done in one go. When Stanley Kwan recalled the past, he felt as if he had never seen a similar movie before.

Could it be that Zhang Chen created it originally?

At this moment, he suddenly felt a little worried about Wu Yusen.

After finding the girl wearing his daughter's clothes, Liang Jiahui wanted to take her away, but when he got outside, he found that he was surrounded by police.

During the breakout, a mysterious man named Ali appears, and a classic street fighting scene occurs.

The street fight scene in "The Hitman's Bodyguard" is still a classic even ten years later.

Zhang Chen transplanted it into "Hurricane" in 2005, which was simply a dimensionality reduction attack.

The dense sound of gunfire echoed in the screening room. Stanley Kwan watched the film intently, so nervous that he didn't even dare to blink, for fear of missing any shot.

"When it comes to gunfight scenes, Zhang Chen is ten blocks ahead of Wu Yusen..."

This is what Stanley Kwan really thought at this moment.

Then he immediately realized that he had come to this conclusion too early.

With the clues obtained from the girl, Liang Jiahui found the lair of the human traffickers.

Disguised as a black policeman, Liang Jiahui entered the tiger's den alone.

That fierce gunfight style appeared again. Stanley Kwan didn't know that this was called the Mozambique shooting method and the CAR central axis gun holding system.

The gun battle design is so tense that one dares not breathe, and people fall down when the gunshots are heard. It is extremely close to reality. Stanley Kwan has never seen this kind of shooting method before, and it gives people a refreshing feeling.

Of the twenty or so kidnappers, all were killed except for a leader who was left behind to interrogate the whereabouts of his daughter.

Just when he wanted to take a breath, the next train station made him nervous again.

The six-and-a-half-minute long shot almost blinded Stanley Kwan’s titanium dog eyes.

How was this shot taken?

From the car chase, to abandoning the car and escaping, and then entering the slums, Liang Jiahui led the human trafficker leader to kill and chase all the way, all in one shot.

Stanley Kwan felt that this was an impossible task.

Intuitively he felt it was impossible.

It’s not easy to shoot with a long lens.

Since the film cannot be edited, each long shot must be strictly calculated and perfectly controlled. One wrong move will result in a complete failure.

Precisely because it is difficult to shoot, the ability to shoot long shots well becomes an important test paper for measuring the director's skills.

Last year, Johnnie To's "Big Event" had a 7-minute long shot, which included two camera lifts and a 360-degree rotation. The police, gangsters and reporters were intertwined in an orderly manner on a street. The whole gunfight scene was complicated and dazzling, but not messy.

Even the photographer of "The Lord of the Rings" at that time said he couldn't take such a shot.

Although Zhang Chen's current long shot is not as long as the one in "Big Event", it is several times more complex than the latter.

That’s why Stanley Kwan found it outrageous.

Tang Jili also found it outrageous.

(End of this chapter)