Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 662 Everyone gets talked about behind their back

Which top actor doesn't have something to say about them?
Yang Mi goes without saying; among the post-85 generation, none has generated as much buzz as her.

Tang Yan is still often talked about for her dark history of having Zeng Zhiwei as her godfather when she was in the Hong Kong entertainment circle in her early years. Not to mention her past experiences of working as a nanny and cleaning toilets for Qiu Ze during their relationship, and even cutting her wrists after their breakup. As for the comments that her acting skills are poor and she can only play naive and innocent characters after becoming famous, they have never stopped.

Liu Yifei was no exception, but her company, for the sake of its corporate image and to protect the boss's wife, cleared up some online criticism for her. However, issues such as poor acting skills, nationality, and her sugar daddy are still topics that her haters love to discuss. They were talking about these things ten years ago, and they're still talking about these things ten years later.

However, he now has the added title of "resource star," and is the "biggest resource star in the Chinese entertainment industry."

What she's saying is that by marrying Li Qiutang, a big director and a big investor, she can easily obtain resources that others can only dream of.

When talking about Liu Yifei, the topic of "it's better to marry well than to work hard" always comes up.

After the character of Mulan was revealed, this view gained even more recognition.

That's not wrong, Liu Yifei is the most well-resourced actress in the Chinese entertainment industry, is there a problem with that?
She's the wife of the boss of the biggest film and television company in China. Why would she give up readily available resources and insist on competing with you for fairness?
Are you out of your mind?

Actually, Liu Yifei also has something to say. She may take resources, but if she doesn't act well, she will let the ridicule go unanswered. If she really doesn't act well, Li Qiutang won't speak up for her either.

The problem is, the resources Liu Yifei got from the company all turned out pretty well, and the production team made money from them. Where can you go to complain about that?

The film "Be With You," released during the May Day holiday this year, was a box office success, but Liu Yifei was still ridiculed for her wooden acting skills at the time. Now, she has been nominated for Best Actress at the 54th Golden Horse Awards for her role in "Be With You." How do you explain that?
When the nominations were announced, she shouted with joy, as this was her first time being nominated for Best Actress at the three major Chinese-language film festivals.

She lacks nothing now, except for a Best Actress award.

Despite numerous analyses and film critics saying before the competition that it would be difficult for Liu Yifei to win, she didn't care; being nominated was a great encouragement to her.

She wasn't stupid. She knew that her performance in "Be With You" couldn't compare to Kara Hui's performance in "The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful." She had seen "The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful" and was immediately impressed by Kara Hui's acting skills.

However, Liu Yifei's nomination for Best Actress at the Golden Horse Awards has given her and her fans a lot of confidence, and can be seen as a response to those who have always said that her acting is wooden.

The visual style of "Be With You" leans towards idol romance, a fact even director Han Yan acknowledges. However, in terms of the actors' performances, Liu Yifei and Qin Hao's portrayals are truly impressive. After the film's release, Liu Yifei's performance received praise from many professional scholars and film critics, who said that her "acting skills have visibly improved rapidly in the past two years," and jokingly remarked that "it seems marriage really has its advantages."

Giving a nomination now as a sign of encouragement is perfectly justified.

With the nomination, Liu Yifei's fans are now standing tall. In the past, they considered themselves top actresses but not the post-85 actresses and were often dragged into comparisons with them. Now, well, I've been nominated for the Golden Horse Best Actress award. I may not be the earliest among the post-85 actresses, but I am one of the earlier ones. Is there still any comparison?

Liu Yifei's achievements in Hollywood have surpassed all her predecessors, but there are still many people in China who do not recognize her.

When they couldn't argue with her anymore, they brought up her nationality, saying that as an American, she couldn't represent Chinese actors.

Liu Yifei spent three years regaining her Chinese citizenship, and the couple didn't flaunt it or make a big fuss about it, so many people still don't know about it.

Liu Yifei was in the US promoting "Pacific Rim 2," while Li Qiutang was still dealing with the issue of "Operation Red Sea" and "Detective Chinatown 2" having the same release date.

The Spring Festival film season is the most important and box office-generating period of the year, and neither of the two film crews, Autumn and Berna Film Company, wanted to give way.

At today's meeting, Qiu Tian even invited a group of Berna executives, including Yu Dong, to the company to discuss the matter. Nobody wants to change the records, so another solution must be come up.

There are still four months until the Spring Festival. Fortunately, the problem was exposed early, and there is still plenty of time for both companies to resolve it.

Previously, Qiu Tian had proposed to acquire Berna's share at a 5% premium, which reminded Yu Dong that he also needed to acquire Qiu Tian's share. He didn't need much; just enough to make Berna the largest producer. This way, "Operation Red Sea" would change hands, and Yu Dong would be able to compete with "Detective Chinatown 2" in the same release window without any burden.

Unless all the executives at Autumn Pictures present suffer a collective brain injury, no one will agree to this plan.

Bernard's vice president of distribution joked, "You guys have a happy problem. Others don't have any films to make and have to buy films to fill their release slots."

This leads to a casual question: "Who's buying movies to fill release slots?"

"Huayi, Ye Ning bought 'The Thousand Faces of Dunjia' from LeTV and is preparing to put it in the Spring Festival slot." It's the same 'The Thousand Faces of Dunjia' produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Yuan Baye.

Huayi Brothers' performance this year has been very poor, but it is precisely at times like these that we cannot afford to show weakness. With "Youth" in the Lunar New Year film season, releasing "The Thousand Faces of Dunjia" during the Spring Festival season will prevent us from being looked down upon by the industry.

After the small talk, the two companies returned to the issue of the release dates of the two films.

The two companies communicated and negotiated, and even argued, almost to the point of a free-fighting match, but neither could convince the other.

Li Qiutang sometimes attends meetings, and sometimes she is too busy to listen to reports afterward.

After 10 days of meetings, by the time Chen Sicheng and the "Detective Chinatown 2" crew had finished filming and returned to China, the two companies had only reached a preliminary agreement.

The two films are confirmed to be released on the same day, but the specifics of how it will be handled will still be determined by the main investor and controller, Autumn.

Yu Dong wasn't worried that Qiu Tian would try to cheat him. Qiu Tian had already spent hundreds of millions of yuan on securing the copyright for "Operation Red Sea" from maritime officials and coordinating domestic and international resources. Li Qiutang wasn't foolish enough to joke around with all that real money.

His concern is whether the promotion and distribution of the two blockbusters can be coordinated in the fall.

The "failure" of "Sewing Machine Band" during the recent National Day holiday was attributed to the disorderly competition within the film industry during the fall season.

The competition during the Spring Festival season is far more intense than that during the National Day season. Although Qiu Tian is the largest film company in China, this situation has never occurred before in the history of Chinese films. Whether Qiu Tian can survive this year's Spring Festival season remains to be seen.

Of course, as a partner, Bernard would not be stingy with the help that Yu Dong needed to provide.

Autumn did not underestimate the difficulty of this tough battle. Before the end of the month, Li Qiutang took the lead in establishing a "Spring Festival Wartime Command Center" within the company, which he personally led to coordinate the publicity and distribution of the two films.

The first task was to set the tone for the simultaneous release of the two films: "Detective Chinatown 2 and Operation Red Sea are not rivals, but rather they are going to join forces to compete against other films released in the same period."

"This is not a problem, but an opportunity. An opportunity to prove to the outside world that our company is capable and intelligent. We are confident that we can fight two battles at the same time and make them mutually beneficial."

Li Qiutang wasn't entirely confident, but he knew that he would never succeed if he didn't try.

(End of this chapter)