Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 434 The Night Peacock

With a first-day gross of 1.3 million yuan, "Breakup Buddies" secured its place as the top-grossing film during the National Day holiday.

This proves that Ning Hao + Huang Bo + Xu Shanzheng is a golden brand.

After the failure of "No Man's Land", it seems that the familiar Ning Hao has returned.

However, Li Qiutang has a "but".

He saw something beyond comedy in "Breakup Buddies".

It's clear from "Breakup Buddies" that Ning Hao's ability to manipulate stories is still there—this may be thanks to the screenwriter—but the unbridled feeling that Ning Hao had in "Crazy Stone" and "No Man's Land" is nowhere to be found in "Breakup Buddies".

You can clearly feel Ning Hao's midlife confusion in "Breakup Buddies"—he doesn't know where he's gone.

Like Xu Shanzheng, he has started making films about men's midlife crises: In the upcoming film "Lost in Hong Kong," Xu Lai, a middle-aged man, abandons his dreams and becomes a live-in son-in-law working as a designer in his father-in-law's underwear company. He also has to endure the accusations and humiliation of not being able to have children. In order to meet his ex-girlfriend (actually, he just wants to have a one-night stand with her), he embarks on a trip to Hong Kong. In "Breakup Buddies," Geng Hao's situation is almost exactly the same as Xu Lai's. In middle age, his musical dreams are shattered, and now he is reluctantly selling broken second-hand stereo equipment. After his divorce, he embarks on a trip to relax (hunt for women) at the urging of his good friend.

Both "Breakup Buddies" and "Lost in Hong Kong" coincidentally focused their cameras on the sexual hunger and crisis of middle-aged men. Ning Hao, as if venting his anger, included sleazy subcultural elements such as one-night stands, lesbians, prostitutes, punk rockers, and rocking horses in the film.

While "Breakup Buddies" achieved box office success, its shortcomings in content were pointed out by some veteran movie fans and professional film critics.

They criticized Ning Hao for "falling far short of his usual standard," "having vulgar content," and "being shamefully evasive."

However, vulgarity has its advantages; this film was indeed a huge hit.

During the National Day holiday, "Breakup Buddies" grossed over 6 million yuan at the box office, sweeping away the downward trend.

"Black & White 2" and "Dearest" ranked second and third respectively.

It's a pity that "The Golden Era" failed to sell well despite its star-studded cast. However, we really shouldn't blame the audience for not supporting it.

Art films like "The Golden Era" shouldn't have been released during the National Day holiday, let alone with a runtime of three hours. Art films of this length would be difficult to sell in any market worldwide.

The Golden Age grossed 3640 million yuan in seven days, less than the animated film McDull and Me and my mom, and it is unlikely to recoup its 7000 million yuan cost.

On National Day, the 51st Golden Horse Awards announced its nominations, with "The Invisible Guest" nominated for four awards: Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Editing.

Li Qiutang has been nominated for the Golden Horse Awards again after three years, and Liu Yifei seriously analyzed Li Qiutang's chances of winning.

"What's so interesting about it? I'm not going." Li Qiutang really didn't have time.

"We'll see whether we go or not, let's just take a look."

“A nomination at the Golden Horse Awards is already a great affirmation; I really want to win.” “The Invisible Guest” is a good film, but such films do not conform to the aesthetics of most film judges, something Li Qiutang had already foreseen.

The Golden Horse Awards favor art films, and pure genre films like "The Invisible Guest" are not popular. At most, the Golden Horse Awards can be used as an opportunity to screen the film once or twice in Taiwan to entertain the Taiwanese audience—"The Invisible Guest" has not yet been screened in Taiwan.

"Teacher Xi Meijuan acted so well."

"You know how Gong Li performed in 'Coming Home', don't you?"

After the Golden Horse nominations were announced, it was widely believed that Gong Li would win the Best Actress award.

Li Qiutang added, "Actually, we should nominate Huang Xiaoming for Best Actor. It doesn't matter if he doesn't win the award, a nomination would be good too." Despite already having won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor and the Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor, Huang Xiaoming still wants to win an award. He feels that awards can prove his acting skills and respond to the doubts raised by the outside world.

"I might have applied, but there are only five shortlisted spots for each award, so it's not certain that I'll be eliminated in the preliminary round."

“That’s true.” The company was in charge of submitting the award applications, but Li Qiutang hadn’t really asked who was nominated.

"By the way, I have to go out tomorrow night after filming. I won't be eating on set and will be back later."

"What's wrong? Is something the matter?"

"I met a director; someone offered me a role."

“Why don’t you let your agent handle it? Trying to do everything yourself? Can’t you act a little more like a big shot?” Li Qiutang laughed at the last part of her sentence. “I’m filming ‘Mojin: The Lost Legend’ every day, I need to get away and clear my head.”

Li Qiutang started acting up: "I get it, you're tired of it, aren't you? You just proposed a month ago, and the wedding hasn't even been prepared yet, and you're already tired of it. You need to go out and refresh your mind."

Liu Yifei laughed and said, "All the words you said are my lyrics."

He added, "My agent read the script and project first, but he was a bit unsure and told me to take a look myself."

Li Qiutang doesn't really care what roles Liu Yifei takes; if she wants to watch something, let her go.

The next evening, before 8 p.m., the crew finished filming. Liu Yifei and her agent and assistant appeared in the meeting room of the Qiutian headquarters building at 9 p.m. They decided to talk at the company instead of at the restaurant.

The three people who came introduced themselves as an investment company manager, a film crew producer, and a director and screenwriter.

Inviting a big star like Liu Yifei and sending such a lineup shows sincerity.

The film is titled "The Night Peacock," a Sino-French co-production romantic drama directed by Dai Sijie.

However, Dai Sijie has lived in France for a long time. Although he has representative works, he is not very integrated with the domestic film industry. He is a Chinese independent film director living abroad. Hearing this title, you might think that he is just an overseas drifter. But Dai Sijie has a film called "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" that can be called a classic.

Liu Yifei is reading the script. She doesn't need to read it too much; she just needs to watch a few scenes from the beginning, middle, and end to get a general understanding and make a judgment.

This book is so European! It's especially like a story from France and Italy in the 80s and 90s.

It's not bad, but it's really outdated.

Europeans don't watch these kinds of films anymore, let alone in the country where they might cause cultural incompatibility.

"We've already decided on Li Ming for the male lead, Ma Rong." Dai Sijie saw Liu Yifei's furrowed brows and tried to persuade her with Li Ming's name.

Liu Yifei has an artistic heart, and she would like to try this kind of European-style story. However, the information that can be gleaned from the script is very limited, so she said, "I definitely won't have time this year, as I still have other projects to finish filming."

“It’s alright,” said a representative from the investment company, Shanghai Media Group Pictures. “Our original plan was to start filming next year.”

Liu Yifei and her agent exchanged a glance, and the agent said, "We're not available next year either."

"Do you have any other projects after filming 'Mojin: The Lost Legend'?"

"Pacific Rim 2 will begin filming next year." According to the Toro team and Legendary sources, preparations for Pacific Rim 2 are progressing smoothly and filming is expected to begin at the end of next year. Liu Yifei's Grace will return for the sequel.

"We won't delay your film; we only need two months."

The agent laughed and said, "Yifei is preparing for her wedding next year. It would be great if you could postpone filming this movie until the year after next."

"The year after next won't work. We've already set a date with the French side, and filming must begin and be completed next year."

"I'm sorry."

"Can't we really make some more adjustments?" The production team is still trying to get Liu Yifei some more time.

The agent declined on her behalf: "I'm really sorry, if we only had one film, 'Planet 2,' next year, we might have accepted it, but marriage is a major life event and can't be delayed."

Before they broke up, Liu Yifei suddenly asked, "Can I have this script?"

"No problem, take it and have a look." The director was very polite. "If you find any suitable actresses, you can also recommend them to us."

After the two broke up, Liu Yifei didn't go back immediately. Instead, she went to see the Lamborghini that Li Qiutang had given her. The car had been parked there for a month and a half and was covered in a layer of dust.

"Oh no, I forgot my keys!" Liu Yifei exclaimed in regret, and she really wanted to stomp on them.

(End of this chapter)