1990My Entertainment System

Chapter 159 Journey to the West, cameo appearance~
On October 1st, the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai was completed! A landmark building has been created!
When I saw this news in the newspaper in the summer, I thought to myself, I should also pay attention to Shanghai!
So he showed the newspaper to Zhang Li.

Zhang Li looked at it and her eyes lit up: "You mean, Fengming Real Estate should go and develop there?"

Xia Tian nodded: "Looking at it now, in the future, the three major cities in China, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, will definitely be the key for Fengming to become a top-tier real estate company. It will definitely need to establish a presence in these three cities."

"I understand. I'll get people to do the research right away, and then we'll hold a board meeting..."

……

And there's another thing happening today: a new mobile phone has been launched.

"Tian'er, where are we? Hurry up, let me tell you, this new phone is great! It's so small and exquisite!" Li Chengru's voice came from the mobile phone.

He used his connections to buy more than a dozen of them, and brought four of them out for Xia Tian as well.

"Hey, everything's bought, and I've brought it all out for my younger siblings!"

The phone Li Chengru placed on the table already resembled the kind of phone Xia Tian remembered.

It's about the size of a palm, a candybar phone with a keyboard, all black, with a small antenna on top, and a light green screen...

This is Nokia's newly released 2110!

Classic model!

What makes this phone special is that it is the first to feature the iconic "Nokia Tune" ringtone.

Ta-da! Ta-da! Ta-da! Ta-da!
The iconic Nokia ringtone made an entire generation reach for their pockets upon hearing it.

Li Chengru fiddled with his new toy, a wistful look on his face: "How amazing is this thing? When do you think we'll be able to produce our own cell phones?!"

Li Chengru is somewhat pessimistic, since there are no people in China doing this kind of work.

The technological barriers are too high!

Summer comforted him, "It will happen. Let's give ourselves some more time to catch up..."

We are now in the era of GSM mobile phones, the second generation of mobile communication, abbreviated as 2G.

GSM digital networks offer strong security and anti-interference capabilities, clear audio quality, stable calls, and advantages such as large capacity, high frequency resource utilization, open interfaces, and powerful functions.

Motorola, which had previously created the "Big Brother" mobile phone, was slow to transform because it was unwilling to give up its core business. As a result, Nokia and Ericsson, which will enter the Chinese market next year, squeezed out its market share, thus creating a three-way competition.

We will have to wait until the era of smartphones and 4G to catch up and surpass them.

……

Back home, in the summer, he distributed the Nokia 2110s that Li Chengru had bought for his younger siblings.

Milan told Xia Tian something: "Feifei said that Aying is filming a movie in Chang'an?"

"Mm." Xia Tian nodded.

"Feifei said that Aying has caught a bad cold?" she asked.

Summer nodded.

“Go and check on Aying!” Milan said.

Before Xia Tian could speak, she continued, "Anyway, I still have more than a month, I have enough time! Go see A Ying, and come back quickly!"

Xiao Xu and Zhang Li also reassured them, "We'll take care of things at home!"

Xiao Xu patted Milan's leg: "This woman dares to cause trouble, I'll teach her a lesson!"

……

The next day, Xia Tian took Yong Ge and Xiao Chen directly by plane to Chang'an.

Ah Ying is filming a movie here.

She hasn't acted in a movie in a long time, after all, she's now the boss of a film company.

However, she was encouraged to participate this summer, so she did.

The movie is called "A Chinese Odyssey"!
As mentioned before, Stephen Chow has become incredibly popular in the last two years and seems unwilling to be second to anyone.

I want to be my own boss too!

He can direct and act, and he's a box office draw, so naturally, investors will invest in him.

With Liu Luanxiong's support, he established his own film and television company, Caixing.

If you have a company, you have to make films to make money!

So he found Liu Zhenwei, who was good at nonsensical comedy, and planned to show his skills and make his own films so that he would no longer be exploited by others!

However, the biggest fear when trying to accomplish great things is setting the bar too high at the beginning and being greedy and trying to achieve everything.

For example, "A Chinese Odyssey" was originally a good film, but the more it was made, the more content it contained, and the higher the cost became.

In the end, it will be split into two parts!

Actually, it's not a big deal. After all, "The Deer and the Cauldron" did the same thing before, and it did very well at the box office.

However, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Demon Cult Leader" was not handled well, and the sequel was completely canceled!

The advantage of "A Chinese Odyssey" is that it was filmed in multiple takes, which significantly reduced the cost.

Starting in September, Stephen Chow, Mok Man-wai, Uncle Tat, Zhu Yin, and Ah Ying arrived in Chang'an.

This film is a co-production, jointly produced by Star Overseas and Xi'an Film Studio.

Filming was conducted in three groups. Group A, led by Liu Zhenwei, filmed the dialogue scenes; Group B, led by Cheng Xiaodong, was responsible for the action scenes; and Group C, after finishing filming the exterior scenes at Zhenbeibao Film City (the first film and television shooting location invested by Fengming), returned to Chang'an to film the interior scenes.

Because the script kept adding content, and the shooting schedule was somewhat chaotic and frequently changed, the actors and crew had to rush to different locations for filming, often starting at five in the morning and not finishing until seven the next day!

Time was tight, the work was extremely demanding, and everyone was very anxious and restless.

During the filming of the scene where the Spider Demon Chun Shisan Niang emerges from her bath, the weather suddenly changed, and the pool water quickly turned from hot to cold, causing Ah Ying to catch a severe cold.

……

It was quite a coincidence. I arrived at the location in the morning, borrowed a car from Xi'an Film Studio, and headed to the filming location. Before I even got out of the car, I stumbled upon a lively scene!
Good heavens, a hundred or so strong men have blocked the makeshift houses at the filming location!

The two sides have started fighting!
Yong Ge immediately tensed up in the car, and Xiao Chen also reached into his pocket...

To be honest, when Xi'an Film Studio saw the script, they were very dissatisfied with "A Chinese Odyssey"—what is this?!
However, considering Stephen Chow's market appeal and the commercial interests of Hong Kong films (both "God of Gamblers" and "Flirting Scholar" grossed over 4000 million at the box office), Xi'an Film Studio agreed to cooperate and decided to take a gamble!
They also chose Zhenbeibao Film City, which had previously been used to film movies such as "Red Sorghum," as their outdoor shooting base.

Because the crew consisted of several hundred people and the location was far from the city, the producer racked his brains just to prepare four meals a day.

At its peak, four food delivery trucks were dispatched. From morning till late at night, the kitchen was almost constantly working to provide meals for hundreds of people on set!

Then, Hong Kong filmmakers have always been very arrogant in mainland China and receive very high treatment.

With extras and stuntmen on both sides, minor frictions were inevitable.

When summer arrived, it coincided with a lively event.

The martial arts actors in this production are paid according to their share of the role, earning money per scene.

This is, after all, a Hong Kong film crew, so there might be some bias involved.

Mainland martial arts actors feel that the roles are not distributed evenly, and that Hong Kong stuntmen are stealing the show, which is disrupting the rules of the martial arts industry!
There were also communication problems. Hong Kong people are used to looking down on others, which angered the mainland martial arts actors. They not only beat up the smaller number of Hong Kong stuntmen, but also cornered the martial arts director Ching Siu-tung in his room!

In the summer, when you look out of the car, the scene is complete chaos!
A few lucky Hong Kong stuntmen, covering their faces, rushed out without a care in the world, while a few unlucky ones were pinned to the ground and beaten until they screamed in pain!
Several people were kicking the door, shouting, "Cheng Xiaodong, you come out here!"

How could Cheng Xiaodong dare to show his face? He could only stay indoors to avoid getting hurt.

After thinking about it, Xia Tian decided to get off the bus.

While watching the spectacle can be entertaining, escalating the situation is bad for everyone.

As Xia Tian opened the car door and got out, Yong Ge and Xiao Chen immediately followed.

Summer took a few steps and pulled a strong actor aside, rescuing the Hong Kong martial arts performer who was beaten black and blue and had a bloody nose.

"Alright! That's enough!" Xia Tian shouted.

The energy from his dantian rushed into his throat, transforming into a continuous, deafening roar, just like a rolling thunderclap in the crowd.

The crowd fell silent for a moment, then someone saw the newcomer take off his black-rimmed glasses. "Holy crap, it's Xia Tian!"

Summer is here!

"Who?"

"It's Brother Tian'er!"

Seeing that things had calmed down, Xia Tian shouted, "Don't move! That's enough! If you keep making trouble, you'll be in big trouble!"

"Over there!"

Summer pointed at the group that had kicked the door and yelled, "Step back! You're blocking the director, are you trying to rebel?!"

……

Summer is certainly not biased towards Hong Kongers, but since the fight has already started and the anger has been vented, it's still possible to stop it now; if it continues, a large number of people will be in trouble.

Whether out of respect for Xi'an Film Studio or for Cheng Xiaodong, I can't just stand by and watch the show.

Besides, we've already gotten the best deal, haven't we?
Soon the production manager from Xi'an Film Studio arrived, and Stephen Chow, Liu Zhenwei, and Ching Siu-tung were also there, holding a meeting to discuss how to handle the situation.

Summer doesn't care about anything else, he's here to see his wife!
He went to Ah Ying's room, which was alright; it was a private room with its own bathroom.

Whether it was because of their past friendship or because of Xia Tian, ​​Stephen Chow received top-notch treatment.

Summer gave Aying a special cold medicine, and Aying's condition improved quickly.

Maybe it's because I'm in a better mood?

It's normal for things to go wrong on a film set. The assault incident was quickly resolved.

However, conflicts on set forced many actors from Xi'an Film Studio to leave the crew, resulting in a shortage of manpower for many roles.

Many crew members had to take on the role at the last minute. For example, Liu Zhenwei, who played Bodhi Patriarch, was originally an actor from mainland China. He had never had a good time acting with Stephen Chow, so Liu Zhenwei had to step in himself.

Another example is the assistant director Jiang Yuecheng, who played the effeminate "blind man"—his performance was absolutely superb!

"Brother Tian, ​​please help me! For A-Ying's sake~"

Liu Zhenwei was discussing with Xia Tian about asking him to play a cameo role.

Stephen Chow, Liu Zhenwei, and Ching Siu-tung took turns trying to persuade him, and they even planned to invite people from Xi'an Film Studio to come and give him face.

Summer thought about it and agreed.

"Then I'll play Erlang Shen as a cameo!" Xia Tian said.

Zixia Fairy Zhu Yin is a head shorter than Xia Tian, ​​but they don't have many scenes together, so it doesn't matter.

The crew has many familiar faces from the summer, such as Cha Siu Fen, who previously starred in "Fist of Legend".

Uncle Da, who previously collaborated with me on "Nightclub".

There's also Guan Yu, who plays the Bull Demon King, but due to language barriers, his appearance is completely obscured.

He demanded that his name not be listed in the cast—he really didn't like the movie!
In fact, after the film was completed, Xi'an Film Studio had objections to the finished film. The deputy director believed that the film could not represent the artistic pursuit of Xi'an Film Studio and could even be considered cultural garbage!

Summer spent three days on set and acted for half a day. Because she missed Milan, she said goodbye to Aying and went back with Yong Ge and Xiao Chen.

Back in Yanjing, Xia Tian picked out some interesting things from the film crew to tell Boss Mi.

"Oh, right!" Xia Tian remembered a piece of gossip that A Ying had mentioned.

"Zhu Yin and Zhou Xingxing were probably dating, or at least in a flirtatious relationship. Then one day Zhu Yin overheard something, cornered Mo Wenwei in Zhou Xingxing's room, and that's how they broke up."

Some say that before filming began, the two were even discussing marriage. But after the movie was finished, things took a completely different turn.

In the film, Supreme Treasure thought he liked Bai Jingjing, but he actually liked Fairy Zixia.

In reality, however, the opposite happened. After filming "A Chinese Odyssey," Supreme Treasure abandoned Zixia and got together with Bai Jingjing.
(End of this chapter)