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

Chapter 939 Arrival in Hong Kong (13)

Generally speaking, to win an award, you definitely need to write about impoverished plays…

Poverty drama, also known as austere drama, focuses on showcasing human qualities. It eliminates unnecessary details in the drama, centering on the characters. While saving money and resources, it achieves the effect of poverty drama, revealing the cruelty and absurdity of life, where extraneous details are not so important.

This results in most films with exceptionally high artistic value being particularly unsophisticated and poorly made.

Like the Iranian film "Children of Heaven," a pair of shoes can drive two children to despair. The shoes are worn out and can only be repaired, not replaced. Without shoes, the siblings take turns wearing each other's shoes to school. They race hard to get shoes, and one of them accidentally wins first place, thus missing out on the shoes once again.

However, the film is not satirizing poverty; poverty is just part of the background. The film focuses more on the children's innocence and hard work.

In fact, the most important role of film festivals is to build a platform!
Compared to mainstream commercial films, niche art films and auteur films need to win awards at film festivals to open up markets and sell at better prices.

Mainstream commercial films do not need film festivals as their promotional platform.

By the way, on a side note, the movie for which Xin Zhilei won an award will most likely not be released in China—the female lead, Meiyun, hits and kills someone with her car and flees the scene. Her lover, Baoshu, takes the blame and goes to prison to protect her. While Baoshu is in prison, Meiyun becomes the mistress of a wealthy businessman, Qifeng. Qifeng's daughter discovers her father's infidelity and commits suicide out of shame and anger.

After being released from prison, Baoshu is diagnosed with a terminal illness and tries to get back the "price of sacrifice" from Meiyun, but Meiyun is caught in a struggle between repentance and selfishness.

Ultimately, the two met their demise: Meiyun killed Baoshu and then committed suicide, ending their feud in an extreme way.

This film is a special edition for film festivals!

Well, the first person I approached was Daru, but she refused…

Such great vision!

Many fans say, 'Even if Xin Zhilei wins the Venice Film Festival Best Actress award, it's useless; she doesn't have any representative works…'

They even said things like, "In the era of internet traffic, awards don't have as much of an impact on actors anymore. For example, Yong Mei won the Berlin Film Festival's Best Actress award, but her status didn't skyrocket. The most typical example is this year's Vogue September issue, where the Golden Broom Award winner was in the center, while the Golden Rooster and Golden Horse Awards were all relegated to the sidelines."

Then I wish your sister will never win an award in her life!
Xin Zhilei won the Venice Film Festival Best Actress award. At least in the film industry, if there are any new excellent film scripts that need a 30-40 year old actress with both good looks and acting skills, they will definitely go through Xin Zhilei's hands first before it's anyone else's turn.

……

In fact, there haven't been many memorable movies since 2020...

"Aniara," not bad: The Aniara was originally intended to transport Earth's population to their new home, Mars.

But just as Anianara was leaving the ravaged Earth, it collided with an asteroid and was destroyed. Anianara's passengers slowly realized that they could never return; they would forever continue their journey in a vast, cold universe…

The original work was published in 1956 and has been adapted into plays and dramas many times…

It's essentially about interstellar travel becoming a life sentence, the whole process of a person slowly committing suicide under the vast starry sky.

The film incorporates elements of science fiction, lesbianism, cults, and psychology, making it seem like a lonely prophecy about humanity's future.

The ending was tragic—six million years later, the Annila finally arrived at a habitable planet, only to find that humanity had become extinct!

This could be considered another ending for "The Wandering Earth"!

Besides that, there should be A Sun and Titanium...

"A Sun" needs no introduction, and "Titanium" is a pure cult film...

The plot goes like this: The naughty little girl Alexia keeps causing trouble while her father is driving. When her father tries to discipline her, an accident occurs, and the little girl is seriously injured. After surgery, a titanium alloy plate is permanently implanted in her ear.

That's where the title comes from.

After the surgery, Alexia's gaze towards her father was filled with hatred. The implantation of the titanium plate triggered a miraculous change. Upon leaving the hospital, Alexia excitedly rushed towards the car, touching and kissing it as if it were her family, or even her lover…

As an adult, Alexia becomes a car model... but she has almost completely lost her human attributes. Her mechanical nature seems to dominate, and she will kill indiscriminately. Most incredibly, she dislikes men and seems uninterested in women. Her way of dealing with sexual urges is to have intercourse with the Cadillac that once danced with her, resonating with the car!
The film feels like it's purely for the sake of being extreme, with too much violence and eroticism making it seem incongruous. It's more boring than a genre film and lacks the aesthetic appeal of an art film.

What made it so memorable was that the film was so 'ahead of its time'!

With the entry of a new generation of directors, more and more will make these 'avant-garde' films, only in this way can they 'surpass' the works of past masters!
The problem lies here: the director hadn't thought it through at all, lacking a theoretical framework to support it, so he could only prioritize concepts and emotional appeal...

But this film won the Palme d'Or...

To hell with the Palme d'Or...

Oh, wait until Shen Yan wins the Palme d'Or, then we'll go...

Films about the Nanjing Massacre…

Shen Yan was just mentioning it; it would be quite difficult to film it, given the many restrictions on this type of historical subject matter…

……

Regarding "The Nameless"... Shen Yan thought about it for a while and decided to give up the role...

He's just too handsome!

Even with a rooster-like hairstyle and a thick stubble, it doesn't diminish his handsomeness.

This greatly affects the movie viewing experience...

Moreover, his character is very rational, so when the audience sees him playing Hu Guangsheng in the movie, they will be taken out of the story!

Even if his acting skills are superb…

But once the audience is out of the story, it's very difficult to get them back into the narrative!
Since that's the case... we simply cast Wang Xiao in the role.

Ma Jiaqi has also been replaced by Gao Ye…

After all, Wang Xiao and Gao Ye... are a good match!
However, Shen Yan also made a cameo appearance—playing a police officer alongside Guo Fan…

"The Unknown" is a joint production of Maoyan, Free Whale, Guo Fan Film Company, Rao Xiaozhi's Yiyi Art Culture Media, and China Film Group.

Shen Yan and Guo Fan served as co-producers.

After a one-day cameo, Shen Yan flew to Hong Kong—the film "The Dressmaker," directed by Leung Ka-fai in his directorial debut, was being released, with Shen Yan serving as screenwriter and producer…

The cast of "The Tailor" includes Tony Leung, Chen Yao, Sammo Hung, Wu Zhenyu, Bosco Wong...

Yao Mei was cast mainly because the film needed a mainland Chinese actor—a requirement for co-productions!

The release date of "The Dressmaker" is a bit awkward—it will be released on April 4th…

With Spielberg's comeback film "Ready Player One" preceding it, followed by "Rampage," and the Indian 'hitting the halfway point' also vying for attention...

Shen Yan will definitely help promote it.

The Dressmaker was released simultaneously in mainland China and Hong Kong…

To be honest, Shen Yan hasn't attended many Hong Kong film premieres...

Besides attending the premiere of "The Dressmaker," the main reason he came to Hong Kong was that Maoyan Entertainment went public!

(End of this chapter)