1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 646 "The League of the Disillusioned"

Although Jet Li is from Beijing, he had a tough childhood like everyone else. He was raised by a single parent; his father, who worked at a radio station, passed away when he was two years old, leaving his wife with five young children and ailing parents.

His mother works as a ticket seller at the bus company, earning 41 yuan a month to support eight people. Xiao Li shares a bed with his two older brothers and wears his sister's hand-me-downs to school. When the other kids play around, they say things without restraint, calling him a fatherless brat. When he gets angry, he jumps onto the podium and starts hitting people.

The teacher was quite talented; seeing that this kid was surprisingly good at fighting, he recommended him to the martial arts class at the Shichahai Amateur Sports School.

So Li Lianjie started learning martial arts at the age of 8, and he was indeed a genius. He won the championship in the adult group competition of the National Games at the age of 12.

He went on to win the national martial arts championship five times in a row, and won more than 50 championships of various sizes, which can be called a miracle in the modern Chinese martial arts world.

After winning his first championship, he started receiving a salary. He was then selected for a martial arts performance tour, traveling to more than 40 countries across five continents. He was not only received by elders, but also gained Nixon's favor after performing at the White House.

The other person asked him, "You're so good at kung fu, how about becoming my bodyguard when you grow up?"
Xiao Li's answer was crisp and clear: "No, I want to protect all the people of China!"

At such a young age, he made headlines in The New York Times.

After its release in Hong Kong, "Shaolin Temple" became an absolute sensation, a super blockbuster that surpassed all of Shaw Brothers' kung fu films, including Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury".

The leftists pressed on and made three parts of "Shaolin Temple" in a row, which made Li Lianjie feel a little unbalanced.

Because he really suffered while filming "Shaolin Temple," Li Lianjie rarely mentioned the process of making the film afterward, because the process was too difficult.

All the fight scenes were real.

No protective measures whatsoever!
He was swung a big stick directly and slammed down shirtless, causing serious physical injury.

And he's been criticized quite a bit, but who's been the main target of the criticism?

Liu Jialiang.

In the 1960s and 70s, Lau Kar-leung's "Lau Family Troupe" basically monopolized the Hong Kong martial arts market.

He is a true direct descendant of Wong Fei-hung and a recognized master of Southern-style Kung Fu.

So he cursed Li Lianjie a lot, mostly in Cantonese swear words, taking advantage of Li's inability to understand. As a result, Li Lianjie would always feel hatred whenever he mentioned Liu Jialiang's name in later generations.

In short, he endured the humiliation and the film became a hit, but Li Lianjie was still receiving his original fixed salary. He could only film whatever his unit told him to, and his pay was only 1 yuan a day.

At the time, a Hong Kong film company offered him a check for HK$300 million to sign him, but because he was an employee of the government, Li Lianjie could not agree no matter how tempted he was.

But who can withstand the impact of 300 million?
That was in the early 80s. Li Lianjie was not yet 20 years old.
Anyway, for no apparent reason, his leg broke; his medial collateral ligament, cruciate ligament, and meniscus were all ruptured.

When the company saw this, they thought, "Well, there's no way you can win the championship, so why don't you just go into acting?"

Thus, the company made the decision directly for Li Lianjie. A certain leader signed him to a Hong Kong agency on the condition that the agency would pay the company 5 yuan for every film Li Lianjie made.

The agreement was signed for a period of 5 years.

Of course, a broken leg is a big deal. In order not to worry the investors, the five-year agreement also included a five-year injury confidentiality agreement. In other words, Li Lianjie was actually secretly making movies while injured during these five years.

Filming "Shaolin Temple" took place 3 years ago. Adding this 5-year agreement, it makes a total of 8 years. It can be said that for the 8 years since "Shaolin Temple" became a hit, Li Lianjie has always been in a "puppet" stage, living a life of being "controlled".

As for his films, because he could never escape the role of a Shaolin disciple, his career has been declining ever since.

The Shaolin boy who initially caught everyone's attention gradually faded into obscurity during the eight years he was controlled.

When the contract expired last year, the company saw that Li Lianjie was in a career slump and felt that they could no longer extract any benefits from him, so they simply released him and gave him his freedom.

In addition, Li Lianjie's film "Chinese Hero" was shelved by Sil-Metropole. At that time, Sil-Metropole set its sights on the domestic market and followed the path of Golden Harvest and Jackie Chan. They found Li Lianjie to be the director and had him make a film called "Chinese Hero".

Li Lianjie worked incredibly hard during filming, even breaking his nose during a boxing scene, resulting in a permanent scar that can be seen in every movie he's made since.

However, Yin Du felt that the film lacked comedic elements, which would not appeal to the audience. They believed that to make the audience enjoy the film, it needed not only a good plot and action scenes, but also some comedic elements to lighten the mood and allow everyone to immerse themselves in the world of the film. They suggested that Li Lianjie add some appropriate comedic segments to the film to increase its appeal and box office performance.

So it was hidden away and never saw the sunlight again.

Li Lianjie and Yin Du had a falling out.

Just as the agreement ended, he left Silver City and went to the United States as a visiting scholar. He is currently running a boxing gym and teaching there.

In Jiang Xian's plan, Li Lianjie is an indispensable part of dominating Hong Kong today.

As the saying goes, "Heaven will entrust great responsibilities to those who are destined for them, but first they must endure a great deal of hardship." In Li Lianjie's case, this kid has basically experienced all the hardships, suffering, and scorn that he was supposed to endure.

Now standing before him is Li Lianjie, who is about to reach his peak!

Moreover, at this point, Li Lianjie was basically a nobody, disliked by everyone, so it would be too easy to win him over.

It was Lo Wei who gave him the opportunity to star in a film.

Lo Wei may have limited talent for filmmaking, but he's incredibly lucky.

When Bruce Lee was invited back from the United States by Golden Harvest to make a film, he was not given much attention at first. The investment in "The Big Boss" was not high, and it was only filmed in Thailand. Director Wu Jiaxiang was not well-known and was not good at kung fu and martial arts films. Halfway through filming, he felt that it was difficult to continue, so Lo Wei stepped in to save the day. As a result, the box office exceeded 300 million, breaking the Hong Kong record.

Lo Wei got carried away and thought he had made a great film, so he started to consider himself Bruce Lee's mentor.

Bruce Lee laughed in exasperation, "Who do you think you are?"
Seeing Lo Wei's arrogance, Bruce Lee not only showed him no respect, but also nearly chopped him up with a knife. Lo Wei was so frightened that he immediately called the police, and this incident became the "Lee-Lo brawl incident" that was widely publicized by the Hong Kong media.

As it turns out, Bruce Lee's success didn't seem to have much to do with Lo Wei, because Bruce Lee's own film "Enter the Dragon" was even more successful.

Later, Lo Wei left Golden Harvest to start his own business. Thinking that he could make Bruce Lee famous, he could also make others famous. So he signed Chan Yuen-lung, who had gone to Australia to switch careers to become a chef, and renamed him "Jackie Chan".

His first film, "New Fist of Fury," was a failure, a revival of his original brand!
Another attempt at making "Shaolin Wooden Men," using the most popular Shaolin kung fu theme, failed again!
Three attempts to adapt Gu Long's martial arts novels into "Sword Flower and Misty Rain in Jiangnan" have failed!

They lent Jackie Chan to someone else, who then made two films, "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master," both of which were huge successes!

Is it Jackie Chan who's incompetent, or Lo Wei who's incompetent? The answer is obvious.

Later, Jackie Chan also fell out with Lo Wei. This was because Lo Wei offered very low salaries when signing long-term contracts with actors, pocketing the lion's share of the film profits and actor fees. Jackie Chan only received tens of thousands of dollars per film, with a fixed monthly salary of only 3000 dollars.

At this point, Golden Harvest said, "I'll give you a million-dollar deposit." Jackie Chan didn't even think twice before running away.

However, as a master of following trends, Lo Wei was never short of money. He would make whatever movie was popular and thrive in Hong Kong. At this time, he set his sights on Li Lianjie.

Li Lianjie was in the United States, so he asked Li Lianjie to come back and film "Dragon in the End of the World".

This movie features Li Lianjie, Stephen Chow, Dick Wei, and Nina Li Chi!
Unfortunately, this movie was no different from the Hong Kong fashion action films of that era, and it received a lukewarm reception.

Unfortunately, Lo Wei had incredible luck, encountering three kung fu superstars in a row, but he couldn't use any of their skills.

Even Luo Wei's son, Luo Dawei, felt that Li Lianjie was a waste in his father's hands, so he went directly to Li Lianjie.

Xiao Luo is usually arrogant and domineering, but he is very polite to Li Lianjie. After his parents divorced, his mother became the confidante and second-largest shareholder of Jiahe, and he also helped Jiahe get jobs.

He told Li Lianjie to stop making movies with his father, saying his father was stingy and that he should just sign with Golden Harvest instead, and then volunteered to be his agent.

In fact, Luo Wei's son, Luo Dawei, is an even bigger trap, having deeply misled Teacher Li. If Teacher Li is considered cunning, it's because Luo Dawei left such a deep scar on him, scaring the naive young man so much that he had to learn to be more careful.

But David Lo did indeed make Li Lianjie famous, because after taking Li Lianjie to Golden Harvest, although Li Lianjie didn't make any money, his career really took off, and every movie he made became a hit.

In short, all Jiang Xian needed to do was to act before Luo Wei and bring Li Lianjie, this money-making tree, under his wing.

The two had met when they were filming "Shaolin Temple," so they had a past connection. Therefore, Jiang Xian was about 70-80% confident in taking down Li Lianjie.

After chatting with Xu Xiaoming for a long time, Jiang Xian asked him to arrange a dinner for him.

"Who?"

He wore a clean light blue shirt and black-rimmed glasses without lenses.

Looking at the person sitting in front of him, Jiang Xian rubbed his chin, feeling that the other person looked like he had stepped out of a movie, full of humor.

"This is Mr. Jiang Xian from the mainland," Xu Xiaoming introduced him.

"Oh oh oh."

The other person approached Jiang Xian very respectfully and shook hands, saying, "I've heard about it before, I've heard about it before."

“Mr. Huang, you’re too kind,” Jiang Xian said with a smile.

The person standing in front of him at this moment is named Huang Baiming.

You should all know Raymond Wong, right?
The male protagonist in "Happy Ghost," the happy ghost dressed as a zombie, and the older brother in "All's Well, Ends Well" who has an affair.

In fact, he is a multi-talented person; he can direct, write, and act.

Especially in screenwriting, besides the classic "Happy Ghost", he wrote many other classic movies such as "All's Well, Ends Well", "Ip Man", "Z Storm" and "The Wise Man".

As Hong Kong cinema declined in later generations, it gradually lost its reputation, and even when it had some scandals, they didn't make a ripple.
Although Raymond Wong looks like a "loser" in movies, he is actually a big shot in Hong Kong films. He is one of the founders of Cinema City and one of its three giants.

As is well known, Cinema City was once led by three giants: Karl Maka, Dean Shek, and Raymond Wong.

However, they did not divide the spoils equally.

Because at the time, the three of them discussed the following agreement with Mr. Lei of "Golden Princess": Raymond Wong would hold 9% of the shares of Cinema City, Dean Shek would hold 19%, and Golden Princess and Karl Maka would jointly hold 72%.

Of the 72% stake, Golden Princess holds 51% and Maka holds 49%.

In other words, among the "Big Three," Marc Jacobs' shareholding is much larger than that of Raymond Wong and Dean Shek, even exceeding the combined shareholding of Dean Shek and Raymond Wong.

This unequal distribution of spoils directly led to the current state of the three giants of Cinema City, which are now merely nominal and have completely collapsed.

"I have always admired Mr. Huang."

As soon as Jiang Xian sat down, he started showering Chen Rongmei with compliments, saying, "After coming to Hong Kong, I've watched a lot of movies, but my favorite is still Mr. Wong's movies. In my mind, Mr. Wong is truly the king of comedy in Hong Kong cinema."

"I don't deserve it, I don't deserve it." When Raymond Wong heard Jiang Xian praise him to such an extent, he quickly waved his hand, "There are too many talented people in Hong Kong, how can I be considered the king of comedy?"

"Mr. Huang is too modest."

Jiang Xian smiled at him, "Personally, I really like Cinema City's movies, especially their Lunar New Year films every year. Oh my, they're so wonderful! I wonder who's in charge of Cinema City's Lunar New Year films this year? Mr. Huang, could you give this loyal fan some hints?"

"Hehe, that's not a secret."

Raymond Wong smiled and said, "Cinema City already announced this year that the Lunar New Year films will be a continuation of the 'Aces Go Places' series, and this fifth installment will be directed by Lau Kar-leung."

"The Aces Go Places series, I've always loved that series."

Jiang Xian clapped his hands, then hesitated, "However, Mr. Huang hasn't directed a Lunar New Year film in so many years, I thought it would be handed over to him this year."

"This"

Raymond Wong looked embarrassed for a moment.

In reality, Raymond Wong no longer has any say in Cinema City.

This year, he hoped that Cinema City would give him the Lunar New Year film season in 89. He asked Cinema City for another chance to star in the Lunar New Year film season, but the company refused.

This was a huge blow to Raymond Wong, and something that made him very angry.

"Mr. Jiang, please speak directly if you have something to say," Huang Baiming said after a moment of silence.

He wasn't stupid; Jiang Xian's words were so obvious that he could naturally tell that Jiang Xian was actually implying something else.

(End of this chapter)