Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 358 A Suggestion (14)

There is a movie called "Heroes on the Narrow Road", directed by Zhou Xiaowen, with a screenplay written by Wen Jun and Ni Zhen, starring Jiang Wen and Wan Ziliang, funded by Hong Kong, and facilitated by Liu Xiaoqing.

The 91 film also laid a huge foundation for Manfred Wong's efforts to find investment for "In the Heat of the Sun" in the years that followed!
That's right, Manfred Wong came to the mainland to make movies a long time ago.

He is a well-known film critic in Hong Kong. He started writing a film column for "Young People's Weekly" at the age of 14, and later began writing for "Film Biweekly." He also participated in the creation of the Hong Kong Film Awards...

He had a movie called "Pretty Girl", which won him the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress. The actress was named Lin Biqi. She only starred in this one movie, won the Best Actress award, and then retired from the entertainment industry to get married!
In 2001, Best Partner Film Company, in collaboration with Tianshan Film Studio in mainland China, produced a film called "My Brothers and Sisters", starring Jiang Wu, Gigi Leung, and Xia Yu. It grossed nearly 2000 million yuan at the mainland box office!
Best Partners Film Company was co-founded by Wang Jing, Manfred Wong, and Andrew Lau…

However, he didn't make any moves in the following years—"City of Desire" and "BADBOY" suffered heavy losses!
In particular, "City of Desire," despite being renamed "Hongxing Thirteen Sisters: City of Desire," still failed to sell well and lost several million dollars.

"BADBOY Special Attack" only grossed 726 million at the box office. It starred Ekin Cheng, Louis Koo, Shu Qi, Kristy Yang, and Kelly Lin, and cost more than 10 million.

Later, after "Crazy Stone" became a hit, he cast each of the three main actors in a film: "Stubborn Radish" starring Huang Bo, "Wedding 2008" starring Guo Tao, and "Lost in Thailand"...

One out of three movies became a hit, that's good enough.

Last year, Manfred Wong commissioned Wen Zhang to make a film called "Family Reunion for the New Year." At that time, "Love is Not Blind" had not yet been released, and Wen Zhang's salary was at most six figures...

It's now worth seven figures!

However, "My In-Laws' New Year" was a box office flop, with total box office revenue falling short of 1300 million yuan, resulting in a huge loss!
Manfred Wong is definitely unhappy...

He is a very typical Hong Kong filmmaker.

Looking down on mainland actors…

Or rather, the pay used to be very low... but now it's suddenly gone up!
So, his complaint about rising actor salaries... actually specifically refers to mainland Chinese actors.

But everyone knows that Hong Kong and Taiwan actors currently have the highest salaries, while mainland actors have only seen a more dramatic increase in pay!

Huang Xiaoming couldn't help but retort: ​​"First of all, actor salaries are like ordinary people buying vegetables at the market. Today, my garlic is 5 yuan, everyone's the same, you sell it for 5 yuan, I sell it for 5 yuan. Suddenly today I don't want to sell it for 5 yuan anymore, I sell it for 10 yuan, and the people buying vegetables will say, 'I won't buy yours, I'll buy his.' So actors can't raise their own prices, it depends on the market, not on me. In the past, investments were in the millions, and actors couldn't get millions in salaries. Now investments are in the hundreds of millions, so naturally the market price has gone up... Shen Yan, what do you think?"

Shen Yan, who was singled out, scratched his head: "I don't have any opinion. I just think if you think it's too high, then don't use it..."

Manfred Wong: "The key is they're not worth that price!"

"...I already said you don't have to...What's there to discuss? We can't expect all the actors to be volunteers while the investors make all the money, can we?" After thinking for a moment, Shen Yan said, "I heard that Chow Yun-fat's salary is equivalent to five Ge You's. Mr. Manfred Wong, is his salary inflated?"

Manfred Wong shook his head: "Chow Yun-fat has overseas markets!"

"Overseas markets? What overseas market could be worth five Ge Yous?"

Huang Xiaoming interjected: "That's right, the market is there... Tony Leung wasn't this expensive before because Hong Kong films were only sold in the Southeast Asian market, but now they can be sold in such a large market as the mainland, and can generate hundreds of millions, so demanding a salary of tens of millions is not excessive."

Then we started talking about Hong Kong movies. There's been a lot of criticism of Hong Kong films online lately!
There's even a saying that 'Hong Kong cinema is dead'...

The main negative commentary came from Southern Metropolis Entertainment Weekly, with the headline: "The Seven Deadly Sins of Hong Kong Cinema: We've Had Enough with Bad Movies!"
There were simply too many bad Hong Kong films last year—Gordon Chan's "Painted Skin," Ching Siu-tung's "The Sorcerer and the White Snake," Andrew Lau's "A Simple Life," Wong Jing's "God of Fortune Inn," Wilson Yip's "A Chinese Ghost Story," Benny Chan's "City Under Siege" and "Shaolin," and Mak and Chong's "The Lost Bladesman." Their quality is definitely worth discussing.

As for Chen Xunqi's "The Heroines of the Yang Family: Military Orders Are Like Mountains," uh...

Oh, Liu Zhenwei and Huang Baiming are not even in the scope of this discussion!
They've already been labeled.

Manfred Wong immediately criticized the censorship system: "The 1980s were the golden age of Hong Kong cinema. Their films were free-flowing with unbridled creativity and were not subject to any censorship. They could film whatever they wanted, ghosts were ghosts, pornography was pornography, and gangster films were gangster films. They could make nine 'Young and Dangerous' movies, and gore was no problem. They didn't have to worry about censorship saying it was no good; the market was decided by the audience. But now, all directors who come to the mainland to make films are restricted in their creative endeavors."

Shen Yan countered, "So, you think the decline of Hong Kong cinema was due to censorship and the system?"

"Isn't that right? The characteristic of Hong Kong films is their unrestrained imagination and free expression. American film critics summarized Hong Kong films at that time as 'all excessive and all crazy.' Excessive refers to the excessive level of content. There was prostitution, gambling, drugs, fists and pillows, action pornography, zombie films, and ghost films... Now these are all prohibited from being filmed!"

"Ahem," Shen Yan offered a friendly reminder, "It seems that even now, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) doesn't have the authority to censor Hong Kong films and television shows. As long as Hong Kong films don't enter the mainland market, SARFT can't control what they want to film... You can continue making nine more 'Young and Dangerous' movies, you can have ghosts if you want, pornography if you want, gangster films if you want..."

"But censorship in mainland China makes us very hesitant to make films!"

"You talk as if you were free before. I heard that when 'Young and Dangerous' was released in Singapore and Malaysia, a lot of stories were changed, Chan Ho-nam became an undercover agent, and it was renamed 'New Police Story'... What, you could adapt to the rules before, but not now? All mainland directors are under these rules. If anyone should complain, it's us. What do you have to complain about?"

"But our investors are asking us to come to the mainland..."

“Then shut up,” Shen Yan said speechlessly. “I’ve been seeing a lot of Hong Kong filmmakers online lately criticizing the mainland’s censorship system… as if the censorship system is restricting their creativity… If they’re so great, why did they lose the Southeast Asian market? Why were they driven out of the Taiwanese market by Hollywood blockbusters, and why did they lose their entire Hong Kong local market… There’s nothing shameful about admitting your incompetence!”

"Our Times grossed over HK$4000 million in Hong Kong, making it the runner-up for Chinese-language films in the Hong Kong market last year. Telephone also earned HK$1700 million... Both of these films were released within the scope of censorship!"

After a pause, Shen Yan glanced at Wen Jun and said, "Actually, I think the biggest problem with Hong Kong films is that actors' salaries are too high. We can learn from the Korean film model... Take Song Kang-ho, the most famous actor in the Korean film industry, for example. His salary level among Korean actors is in a class of its own, far ahead of others. It's 600 million won, but that's only about 3 million yuan, less than one-tenth of Chow Yun-fat's salary. Shouldn't we learn from him?"

"You know, the South Korean film market is around $10 billion, while the Hong Kong film market won't exceed $3 million... How about this, let's reduce it to one-third... You can lower the actors' salaries and then abandon the mainland market! That way, you'll definitely win back the Hong Kong audience! Mr. Manfred Wong, what do you think of my suggestion? Should we advocate for it?"

Manfred Wong was speechless for a moment, then quickly retorted, "What about the mainland market? Why don't you mainland actors take a pay cut?"

"Last year, the mainland market alone exceeded US$13 billion, and this year it is expected to reach US$15 billion... ten times that of the Hong Kong market! Why should we lower our salaries?"

Shen Yan glanced at him and then said, "The mainland censorship system protects Hong Kong films. Mainland directors can't make them, but Hong Kong filmmakers can touch them at will. For example, my film 'The Criminal' tells the story of a transnational cheating case. I had to take the background to Thailand before it could be approved for filming. If a Hong Kong director were to make it, would it be so complicated?"

Why can't you think of that? Besides gambling and prostitution, is that all you know? If you lack ability, just admit it. You blame everything on the bad environment. So what, are you the one ruining the environment?

It's the internet age now, stop living in the last century...

(End of this chapter)