Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 441 The New Year's Film Season Opens

When Li Qiutang arrived in Toronto, Guo Fan told the company that he wanted to try out the movie "The Story of a Female Police Officer" and see if he could do comedy well.

Of all the options the company gave him, the script for "Mirage" was undoubtedly the best and most solid. However, Guo Fan didn't seem to have much interest in crime and suspense. In fact, Chen Zhixi herself didn't really want to hand over "Mirage" to Guo Fan, as the script of "Mirage" was too different from Guo Fan's previous style.

Guo Fan's previous work was a youth film, and his second film is an urban light comedy, which seems like a natural progression. However, his previous work was a non-linear crime thriller, which sounds a bit suspicious.

After confirming the story, Guo Fan really set his sights on the landlady. The wedding preparations would naturally be handled by a professional team, and the bride and groom would only have to do some minor tasks. How busy could they be? Did Liu Yifei and Li Qiutang really intend to contact the hotel and personally book the catering?

The wedding preparations were just Liu Yifei's excuse for not wanting to take on roles, and a perfect excuse that no one could find any flaws in. Even the most unscrupulous production company couldn't say something like, "Don't prepare for the wedding, film my movie first."

Liu Yifei is indeed quite interested in comedy and is actually reading the script for "The Story of a Female Police Officer," but has not yet responded to Guo Fan.

"No, are you really acting?" Li Qiutang asked, noticing her looking at the script for "The Story of a Female Police Officer".

"Whether I act or not is another matter. Let's see first. I've never acted in a comedy before. Liu Yifei's comedy debut, isn't that something to generate buzz?"

“Yes,” Li Qiutang said, “I don’t know where you get such enthusiasm.”

Liu Yifei laughed and said, "If I don't do my job well, how can I be a good director's wife?"

"I can't be bothered with you." Li Qiutang was still jet-lagged and not feeling well, so she didn't want to waste time with Liu Yifei.

Filming for "Mojin: The Lost Legend" began overseas at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

The heavy snow in Toronto usually arrives in mid-December, so the crew is now racing against time to finish filming the outdoor scenes.

This was Li Qiutang's first time filming overseas. He originally thought that the local union would interfere with his work, but when he arrived on set, he found out that the Canadian co-production team had managed to make the filming of "Mojin: The Lost Legend" in Toronto a non-union production. This meant that most of the staff on the Canadian team were not union members and were not affected by the 5*8-hour work system, saving the production team a lot of money.

Of course, non-union production does not mean that Li Qiutang can bring the back-to-back work style from China to Toronto. The crew is still not allowed to work more than 12 hours a day, otherwise they will still be required to pay a considerable amount of overtime pay.

But this is already enough to meet Li Qiutang's requirements, and now he is confident that filming will be completed ahead of schedule.

However, barring any unforeseen circumstances, something unexpected is bound to happen. Li Qiutang's first overseas filming trip encountered serious communication problems on its very first day.

The Toronto team has 200 people, but the composition is very diverse, including Americans, Italians, Portuguese, Indians, Finns, Filipinos, and Koreans.

Li Qiutang had great difficulty communicating with them.

We didn't manage to shoot a single clip on the morning of filming; we just wasted time talking to them about the plan.

More than 200 people are working overtime in Toronto while the Lunar New Year film season has already begun in China.

This year's Lunar New Year is later than usual, so this year will see the longest Lunar New Year film season in history, lasting nearly 100 days over 3 months!

Therefore, the intensity of the competition is self-evident.

In the fall, a new drama called "Fleet of Time" will be released to compete with it, starring Shu Chang and Lin Gengxin.

This year's Lunar New Year film season is considered to be led by John Woo's "The Crossing Part 1". The film is marketed as the Chinese version of "Titanic" and features a host of big names such as Zhang Ziyi, Huang Xiaoming, and Takeshi Kaneshiro, making it highly anticipated before its release.

Later that evening, Jiang Wen will arrive with the second installment of the "Republic of China Trilogy," still featuring the golden duo of Jiang Wen and Ge You, and of course, his wife will be there as well. This time, two more talented actors, Wen Zhang and Shu Qi, will join the cast.

Next came Tsui Hark's "The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D".
At least during the Lunar New Year film season in December, there will be plenty of highlights and a strong sense of competition.

Media outlets began hyping the film season in late November, claiming it would be the most competitive and exciting of the year, offering audiences a feast for the eyes and showcasing almost every genre they wanted to see. Zhou Xun and Huang Xiaoming are likely to have the most appearances this year, each with two films releasing.

The first film they co-starred in was "Women Who Flirt Are the Luckiest".

This film was met with a massive amount of negative reviews as soon as it was released!

They criticized director Peng Haoxiang for being greasy and disgusting, and called the performances of the two actors "disastrous."

Fans of the two even suspected that they were forced to make the film.

"Xiaoming, go and beg Li Qiutang to make another movie for you."

Some harsh film critics even claimed that Huang Xiaoming "can't act without a great director."

It was also said that "Zhou Xun and Huang Xiaoming both submitted blank papers, which makes people wonder if they didn't agree with the film from the bottom of their hearts but had no choice but to make it."

However, the Lunar New Year film season was so popular, and romantic comedies are a genre that will never go out of style. "Women Who Flirt Are the Luckiest" earned 23 million yuan on its opening day and broke 80 million yuan in its first three days.

Sometimes you have to admit that making films that are a bit cheesy and vulgar can really reap a lot of benefits from the lower-tier market.

However, the weekly revenue of 80 million yuan only ranked second on the weekly chart. The first place was "Interstellar", which was released three weeks ago. The film was released in China on the 12th and has been in theaters for nearly 20 days. It still managed to earn 1.44 million yuan in the last week of November.

Nolan achieved legendary status in the country with this film!

But no one expected that "The Crossing Part 1" couldn't even beat "Women Who Know How to Flirt Are the Luckiest." How could a 24 million opening day ticket be worthy of such a cast and such a huge investment?!
On Friday, it was even defeated by "Fleet of Time" with 5900 million. Youth films are just picking up money now, it doesn't make any sense.

When asked about Liu Yifei's wedding at the promotional event, Shu Chang said confidently, "I will definitely be her bridesmaid."

The reporter teased her, "You could get married before her and catch her off guard."

Shu Chang laughed: "That's not necessarily a bad thing, you're just too naughty."

Since we're on this topic, it would be a shame not to ask about Shu Chang's relationship status. Shu Chang didn't shy away from the question, simply saying, "It depends on fate." But Shu Chang declared, "I won't date anyone in the entertainment industry, at least not actors."

The reporter immediately said, "Why? Wouldn't it be better to find someone in the same industry to have more in common?"

Shu Chang gave a brilliant analogy: "After you get off work, do you want to continue talking about work with your boyfriend?"

Let's get back to "Fleet of Time". Shu Chang has been producing a lot of work in the past two years, and her exposure has been quite good, especially in the film industry. She was nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Actress, and her upward trend is very obvious, much better than Yang Mi and others.

Regarding her recent resurgence in popularity, Shu Chang didn't want to say in front of the camera that it was thanks to her brother-in-law Li Qiutang's help—no one would admit that to reporters.

He simply said he was lucky and that his team was very supportive.

The reporter then asked a rather pointed question: "You've had a great career these past two years. Last year, you were selected as one of the 'Four Little Actresses.' Do you think you could be selected as one of the new 'Four Little Actresses'?"

Shu Chang cleverly replied, "I've been in the industry for so long, I shouldn't be considered young, I'm already 27."

The reporter had no choice but to let her go.

(End of this chapter)