Fooling Huayu for Thirty Years

Chapter 725 Mr. Ma, brilliant!

"What's there to be afraid of! It's just the Golden Deer Award! It has no real value!"

"However, this year's Changchun Film Festival seems to be quite successful."

"So what? This film festival has never had much influence, has it? Has anyone here ever even heard of it before?"

"It wasn't doing so well before, but I don't know what's going on this year. Judging from the current online situation, it seems to be quite popular."

"High? In what way are you saying it's high?"

"A film festival is supposed to start with screenings, but this time, Changchun came up with a lot of tricks during the screenings."

"Curveies? How many curiosities are there?"

"A marathon."

"Huh? What? What does a marathon have to do with film festivals?"

"It's the Changchun Film Festival, which combines with the Changchun Marathon and has launched a lot of related tourism projects. In other words, marathon runners can participate in the film festival for free, and so on. In short, now many marathon runners and tourists are posting their experiences of this trip to Changchun online, and the traffic is really huge."

"what?!"

Chen Kai never expected that the Changchun Film Festival, which he had always looked down upon, would deliver such a devastating blow to him this time.

Xu Feng and Zhang Zhao are now scratching their heads over this matter. They never expected that Ma Xun could pull off such a move.

To be fair, Changchun used to be a film city.

It's true that, although we always say this is the city of automobiles, for a long time, Changchun Film Studio was the leading film studio in our country.

China Film Group was greatly influenced by Changchun Film Studio. The simplest and most direct impact was that many leaders of Changchun Film Studio later came to Beijing Film Studio to take up leadership positions.

Many films produced by Beijing Film Studio were overseen by former leaders of Changchun Film Studio, such as "Once Upon a Time in Lions".

Even now, many children of Changchun Film Studio employees are active in the Chinese film industry, working as actors, directors, or in various behind-the-scenes roles.

The most famous one is Liu Ye, and Sha Yi can be considered one to some extent. Anyway, he said that he lived near Changchun Film Studio and had been watching movies since he was a child.

In short, Changchun has a particularly strong film industry foundation, although the Changchun Film Studio is no longer what it used to be and its influence has indeed diminished considerably.

But with this foundation, plus the various unconventional moves Ma Xun has made, this large-scale cultural tourism project combining marathons, tourism, and film festivals has become a success.

It went viral online immediately!
Although our director Chen Kaige has bowed to commercial interests and changed a lot this time, he can't compare to Ma Xunhua's many tricks!

Ma Xun's move was foreshadowed a year ago. The film festival is indeed very difficult, but these days we only care about what's promoted online.

Of course, the way we make it is quite unique.

Just like Chen Kaige, who finally wanted to find out how it became so popular, he turned on his computer and went online to take a look.

Hey, what he saw was something he would never have expected...

"We ate our way through the whole trip!"

"Why are you still running?!"

"This sweet and sour pork is incredibly delicious!"

I saw many runners going to run the Changchun Marathon. The atmosphere of the race, which was originally tense and exciting, changed completely when they arrived here.

Everyone ate as they ran. After finishing the run, someone weighed themselves and exclaimed, "Hey! 42.195 kilometers, I've gained three pounds!"
Many netizens couldn't stop laughing.

But judging from Chen Kaige's appearance...

"What kind of nonsense is this! Is this how you run a marathon?"

Chen Kaige certainly realized that this marathon is part of the entire cultural and tourism industry, and its success would definitely boost the film festival.

He's not stupid, but he has an old-fashioned mind, and he's incredibly stubborn!

As for Xu Feng and Zhang Zhao... what could they possibly say?
"Indeed, these guys don't do anything productive at all!"

"Just focus on running the marathon! What's the point of eating?"

There's no other way but to say it like this, but these three are really getting anxious.

To be honest, the marathon runners were very happy, the citizens of CC lined the streets to cheer them on, the atmosphere on the course was lively, the leaders who organized the marathon were happy, the sponsoring businesses got advertising benefits and were happy, and netizens who had never seen a marathon like this before were also happy to watch the excitement.

So, only the three of them were unhappy?

It seems like the three of you are the weirdos.

Besides, what can you do if the three of you are unhappy?

Chen Kai is actually angry right now. He never expected Ma Xun to come up with such a tactic.

I've never seen this before.

Jiang Wen's Golden Deer Award is nothing special; the award itself isn't that important, but the buzz it generated is real!

In other words, even if Chen Kaige didn't want to admit it, he had a vague feeling about it.

The publicity effect of "Let the Bullets Fly" has surpassed that of his "The Orphan of Zhao"!
But... I can't say that!

"Hmph! They're using underhanded tactics! They'll never win against us!"

Director Chen spoke these words with righteous indignation.

Zhang Zhao and Xu Feng nodded repeatedly, but both of them still had their own ideas.

Xu Feng, in particular, kept glancing at Zhang Zhao, because she had long heard that this guy was practically a genius in the entertainment industry, with a lot of ideas.

Zhang Zhao was also in a bad mood at this moment, because he couldn't see through Ma Xun's tactics either.

This was all done rather suddenly, and this suddenness... well, in a broader sense, isn't this just about winning awards first and then selling tickets?
It follows a similar pattern to many of the art films made by those great directors in the past.

However, the films made by those directors cater to the tastes of Western film critics, and their content is already being criticized online.

This time, "Let the Bullets Fly" is different. It won a domestic award, so it doesn't need to cater to anyone's taste. Moreover, it's obvious that Ma Xun was manipulating things behind the scenes.

This, this, this...

"As long as we can maintain our reputation, there won't be any problems!"

After holding it in for a long time, Zhang Zhao finally managed to utter this sentence.

He wasn't wrong to say that, but it was essentially the same as saying nothing at all. Everyone knows the importance of maintaining a good reputation.

But it's better than saying nothing, right?

So, the key is whether you can maintain your own reputation and whether your competitors' reputation will collapse.

What happens next...?

"I want to see what other tricks Ma Xun has up his sleeve!"

"Let the Bullets Fly" and "Sacrifice" were released almost at the same time.

But if we're talking about details, our "Let the Bullets Fly" was a bit late.

Moreover, Ma Xun did not go to the Changchun Film Festival, after all, he had already arranged to attend the Golden Deer Award.

Then he must have more important work to do.

On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Ma Xun did not pay attention to the box office figures; he simply enjoyed the holiday peacefully.

The next day, he and Wang Changdian were still monitoring the situation online.

"Boss, our plan was a great success!"

"Oh, the data traffic has exploded?"

"It's a bombshell! And, so far, the netizens' opinions on 'The Orphan of Zhao'..."

"what happened?"

"That seems a bit strange."

"Hehe... Just how strange is it?"

"In other words, I've seen many film reviews on Douban, and netizens feel that this movie is indeed not very good, but they don't know exactly why it's not good. It seems that what everyone can see so far is that the movie is rather disjointed from beginning to end."

Wang Changdian was indeed Ma Xun's capable assistant, and the report he gave was quite good.

Ma Xun smiled after hearing this, "The reason for this discrepancy is that he used half of someone else's script. In other words, the plot after Tu Anjia killed the baby is all his, Director Chen's, work."

Wang Changdian nodded repeatedly at these words.

Indeed, the first half of the movie is very fast-paced and has a lot of dramatic tension.

But later on... as one netizen aptly put it, this is like three men raising one child.

The whole thing became very slow and indecisive.

And clearly, what comes next is what Chen Kaige really wanted to express.

He really changed a lot, especially some things... At this moment, Wang Changtian asked in a low voice.

"Boss, you said he's a Japanophile, what's your opinion on that?"

The soul of gossip is burning hot here!
Ma Xun laughed heartily. There was no need to hide anything from Wang Changtian, and besides, the fact that the rumor had reached him meant it was quite true.

He bluntly said, "Didn't you notice? In this version, Tu Anjia is very strong. So, what do you think he's trying to express?"
Do you remember which country China has a blood feud with?

"Ah... the Japanese!" Wang Changtian didn't even need to think; the question was too simple.

Ma Xun then said seriously, "Our GDP surpassed Japan's last year. There was a debate on Tianya back then, no, it was before that, right? People predicted that we would surpass Japan around this time."

At the time, the opponents claimed to have such high academic qualifications and were so awesome, but what happens when they surpass them?

All disappeared.

So, isn't it clear what Chen Kaige is trying to say?

His portrayal of Tu Anjia was essentially that of the Japanese; what he meant was, "We're not as strong as them; if we seek revenge, we'll be the ones who suffer!"

Is that... something you'd expect? But after thinking about it carefully, Wang Changtian realized it did indeed make a good connection!

But that's not all!
Ma Xun immediately added, "Go and do what I asked you to do now."

"understand!"

What did Ma Xun tell us?

Actually, it's quite simple. There was another version of this scene from "The Orphan of Zhao" before, which was the TV series "Eastern Zhou Dynasty".

That's right, there was such a scene in the TV series. However, although the TV series "Eastern Zhou Dynasty" used many of the original cast members from "Three Kingdoms", it was not as popular as "Three Kingdoms".

But right now... what purpose can this scene serve?

……

After Ma Xun finished making the arrangements, he didn't rest but went straight to Wanda Plaza in the CBD.

"Mr. Ma, it's been a long time."

"Mr. Lu, long time no see."

"This time it's probably because of 'The Orphan of Zhao'?"

"Let me be frank, Mr. Lu, I can say with certainty that the film's reputation will decline rapidly."

"Really?"

"of course it's true."

Ma Xun came to see Mr. Lu, which means he's here to undermine him!

In fact, Ma Xun had already spoken with Mr. Lu beforehand, of course, about the issue of film scheduling.

Wanda is growing so fast right now. If they can release more episodes of "Let the Bullets Fly," then we're guaranteed to win.

However, Mr. Lu also had his reasons; he couldn't just add extra rows without a reason.

Ma Xun has now provided a reasonable explanation.

The reputation of "The Orphan of Zhao" is about to collapse!
Why did it crash?

Ma Xun opened his laptop and showed him a video.

This is a scene from the TV series "Eastern Zhou Dynasty"!
It's the same as The Orphan of Zhao, but the character Tu Anjia is played by actor Wei Zongwan.

That's right, Teacher Wei has played another very cunning character, seemingly continuing the style of Sima Yi.

but!

Different, completely different!
In this scene from "Eastern Zhou Dynasty", Teacher Wei portrayed himself as extremely vulnerable!

Yes, Tu Anjia here is more about using kinship to influence Zhao Gu, who is seeking revenge.

This is completely opposite to Director Chen's "The Orphan of Zhao"!
Director Chen's version of Tu Anjia is incredibly powerful; his combat strength is almost on par with the T-800.

Upon seeing this... Mr. Lu smiled.

Chong Ma Xun gave him a thumbs up, "Mr. Ma, that's brilliant!"

(End of this chapter)