Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 342 Director Chen is not doing well enough
"The Promise" really ruined the Chinese film industry.

Originally, ever since "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the world film industry has always shown its love for Chinese costume blockbusters.

In this context, "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", "Seven Swords", "The Promise", "The Banquet" and "War of Attacks" were successively launched.
Who would have thought that a movie like "The Promise" would directly bring down this craze.

From then on, Chinese costume blockbusters were no longer a popular subject all over the world, and costume blockbusters were not so easy to sell.

Now, it has really affected "Painted Skin".

"It's okay, at most I'll earn a little less~"

Zhang Chen comforted him. Of course he was unhappy, but there was nothing he could do. The preparations had already begun, and if he gave up now, all the previous work would be in vain.

Moreover, Han Sanping is still waiting for "Painted Skin" to give him some milk.

As for losing money, Zhang Chen is confident that it won't happen.

He is now the most popular director in China. Even if the subject matter of "Painted Skin" has lost popularity, it should still be no problem to sell it. The only difference is how much it sells.

Affected by the bad news, Zhang Chen had no intention of staying any longer and packed up to go home.

The news broadcast said that it would snow tonight, so I could take my parents to visit the Forbidden City tomorrow.

The Forbidden City is the most beautiful after snow. Even if it doesn’t snow, the best season to photograph the Forbidden City is winter.

Only in winter can you capture its majestic beauty and magnificent scenery.

Zhang Chen sneaked downstairs and left through the back door. In the past two days, he has developed his own set of skills to avoid reporters.

However, these techniques seem to have failed today.

He had not walked far when he was caught by two reporters.

"Director Zhang~"

The two of them looked at Zhang Chen with a smile, looking relaxed.

Zhang Chen was stunned: "How... did you know I was here..."

One of the paparazzi pulled down the mask on his face and said, "Director Zhang, it's me. Do you remember?"

Zhang Chen had a vague impression: "Brother, you look familiar~"

"It's me. I secretly took the photo of you and Fan Binbin last time. Later, you came over to give us cigarettes..."

"Oh oh oh, I remember now~" Zhang Chen immediately remembered after the other party's reminder.

"Dude, what are you doing~"

Another tall man said, "We two brothers listened to Director Zhang and stopped being paparazzi. We changed our careers to become reporters. However, we were able to catch Director Zhang today because of the skills we learned when we were paparazzi..."

Zhang Chen smiled bitterly.

"Director Zhang, please give me some face. It's so cold. We have been lying here for half a day and it's not easy to meet you. Please answer a few questions."

Indeed, he was enjoying the warm air upstairs, and the two brothers could only enjoy the cold air downstairs.

They are all freezing cold, their noses are sniffling.
"Okay, then go ahead and ask~" Zhang Chen is also an open-minded person.

"Director Zhang, many people have said that they don't understand The Promise..."

Zhang Chen really wants to say that it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand Wuji now, you will understand it after you learn it.

But he couldn’t stop talking, so he pretended to be serious: “This question is not easy to answer, let’s change the question. It’s best not to ask questions about The Promise. If you must ask, then I can only turn around and leave…”

Zhang Chen had made up his mind anyway. Even if he asked The Promise, he would not answer. It was not worth offending someone for no reason.
Moreover, he had made a plan in advance. If he really couldn't avoid it and was asked anxiously, he would imitate Ang Lee: I don't understand it, but I was deeply shocked.
Of course I was shocked. Even though the movie was so bad, it still had a box office of 1.7 million. Isn't that shocking enough?
“Okay, we won’t ask about ‘The Promise’~” Although the two brothers felt helpless, there was nothing they could do. It was already good enough that Zhang Chen was willing to cooperate with them in the interview.

Zhang Chen was ready for the interview, but the two people opposite him suddenly didn't know what to ask.

The questions they had prepared were all about “The Promise”, but now they were suddenly not allowed to ask any other questions, and they couldn’t think of any other questions for a moment.

But it would be a waste to leave it alone.

"Are you back from Hollywood this time because you have finished filming your new movie?"

"Yes." Zhang Chen nodded.

"So what's the subject of the new movie?"

"It's a story about the end of the world. The setting is very novel. You will understand when you read it..."

As for publicity, you certainly can’t reveal too much, but you can’t say nothing either. It’s best to be vague, so that people feel like they know something, but also feel like they know nothing.

Hmm, why is it so similar to "The Promise"?

The two brothers looked at each other in bewilderment. It was obvious that they had only recently switched to being reporters and had little experience. The questions they asked had no news value and even they themselves found them boring.

But one of them immediately thought of something: "Director Zhang, I heard that you made some remarks a few days ago about domestic actors, especially male actors, not being able to get good resources. Can you tell us more about it?"

"Huh? How did you know this news?" Zhang Chen was a little surprised.

The tall man scratched his head in a simple and honest manner when he heard this: "You also know that we used to be paparazzi, so we always have some channels of our own..."

Seeing that the other party was unwilling to speak, Zhang Chen did not pursue the matter too much.

But what the other party was talking about was obviously the incident that night in the private restaurant, but I don’t know how much they knew.

I don't know who leaked it, Huang Xiaoming? Zhou Gongzi? Yang Xiaomi? Or that big mouth Lao Cao?
Or the owner or waiter of a private restaurant?

You know, they said a lot of irrelevant things that night. If someone leaked it out, it would definitely offend Director Chen.

“I did say it, mainly to speak up for the middle-aged male actors in China.

Haven’t you noticed that in recent years’ commercial films, they particularly like to find male actors from mainland China to play opposite male actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, either as villains or supporting roles.

I don’t know since when, but when talking about the male lead in some big productions in the mainland, everyone’s first reaction is to look for male actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as if all the male actors from the mainland are dead.

Don’t say that male actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan have box office appeal. That’s bullshit.

What is box office appeal?
Those who are fawning over Hong Kong and Taiwan male actors, you can check the box office in recent years and see how much the movies they starred in have made, and then see how much the movies starring mainland actors have made?
Compared with movies, this kind of thinking is not so serious in the field of TV dramas. Popular dramas such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "The Mansion Gate" and "Yongzheng Dynasty" all star mainland actors and they still sell very well.

Mainland actors also star in several dramas directed by Zhang Jizhong, and they are equally popular among the whole nation.

What does this prove? It proves that our mainland actors are not bad. Then where did the saying that only Hong Kong and Taiwan actors can carry the box office come from? Haven’t you ever thought about it?”

Zhang Chen has already led the discussion to conspiracy theories, but the two brothers are clearly not satisfied.

"The Promise seems to be the situation you mentioned. Liu Ye, a Golden Horse Award winner, can only play a supporting role to Zhang Baizhi and Xie Tingfeng..."

Zhang Chen suddenly didn’t know what to say, feeling that the other party had set a trap for him.

I couldn't help but look at these two brothers. I was wrong. They looked like pigs, and I was very angry in my heart!
But since things had come to this, Zhang Chen simply nodded.

"I think Director Chen really didn't do well enough in this regard, and so did Director Zhang Yimou. I suggest they use more mainland actors in the future..."

(End of this chapter)