I'm just trying to ride the wave of popularity!

Chapter 375 The Heartless Steel Bar Hero!

in fact……

Many movie fans are already used to watching Zhou Yang's various films in the cinema.

His works are like opening a blind box—

Sometimes they are stunning masterpieces that leave people in awe and exclaim that they are great value for money;
Sometimes, however, the plot is so abstract that it shocks you, leaving you both laughing and crying, and you end up cursing it as a terrible movie...

……

The 15 yuan movie ticket allowed them to see the amazing "Transformers," but what would an 8 yuan movie ticket bring?
Before the film's premiere, audiences were discussing just how abstract and outrageous the movie would be...

Some people even came up with wild guesses about the genre of this movie!
Some guessed it was a romance film, some said it was an art film, some were certain it would be abstract in style, and others firmly believed it would be a stunning masterpiece...

There are many different opinions, all sorts of things...

After all, the movie "Deformed Steel Bar" didn't even have a trailer, and the synopsis was only one sentence long...

……

8 o'clock in the morning.

Liu Jiasheng silently walked into the screening room.

Looking at the hilarious film "Deformed Steel Bar," his expression was somewhat complicated.

In those four days, their entire family's living expenses were completely depleted, leaving them with not a single penny in their pockets, not even enough to buy gas.

Who could have imagined that I would one day fall to this state?
This world is so absurd—you know perfectly well that everything is a scythe of capital, yet you still can't resist the temptation.

As Liu Jiasheng walked out of the screening room, his gaze swept across the mall's shop windows, and he suddenly noticed a newly added row of "Deformed Steel Bar" merchandise figurines—

Those robots, which should have been cool and stylish, were now awkwardly carrying steel bars, looking like clumsy construction workers carrying bricks.

The most outrageous one is the "Cao Tianzhu" figurine, which is shaped like a farm truck with a silly expression and is holding a piece of rebar in its hand, making it look exactly like a construction foreman.

He couldn't help but laugh out loud, feeling a bit helpless. This bizarre design had the word "abstract" practically etched into its DNA!
Oh shit!

Does Zhou Yang have no shame at all?
He shook his head, glanced at the title "Deformed Steel Bars" again, and silently walked into the screening room...

This time, his wife didn't come...

With her belly heavily pregnant, my wife started researching how to open an online store on [XuanShi Online Mall], planning to sell baby products, maternity clothes, and the like...

The parents didn't come either. They'd been lured to all sorts of health lectures, and no amount of pleading could stop them. In the end, I had to repeatedly tell them not to buy anything...

........................

The screening room was bustling with noise, and the aroma of popcorn mingled with the cool air from the air conditioning.

As Liu Jiasheng squeezed through the crowded aisle, he overheard two college-aged audience members in the back row taking selfies with their ticket stubs: "Even if it's as bad as 'Building Dreams in the Entertainment Industry,' I'll still accept it! Eight yuan plus a 20 yuan shopping voucher, it's practically free!"

"I heard Zhou Yang is playing the foreman himself this time?" The girl with dyed red hair fiddled with the "Cao Tianzhu" keychain she had just bought. The robot, shaped like a farm truck, was carrying a piece of rebar, and its plastic-looking paint job gleamed cheaply in the dim light.

A burst of laughter suddenly erupted from the left. Liu Jiasheng turned his head and saw three audience members dressed as workers pointing and gesturing at a laptop they were carrying—

On the screen, in the behind-the-scenes footage recently updated by the official Weibo account of [Xuanshi Entertainment], Zhou Yang, wearing a safety helmet, stands in front of a green screen, striking a pose as if Ultraman were firing beams, with the crooked signboard of [Dajinlong Construction Co., Ltd.] in the background.

It is extremely abstract.

"What kind of sci-fi movie is this? I've been carrying steel bars for twenty years and I've never seen one deform!"

His companion pulled out a crumpled ticket stub: "Who cares! My daughter said she can exchange it for a supermarket discount coupon after watching it."

Amidst the sounds...

The lights suddenly dimmed, and the opening animation of "Xuan Shi Entertainment" appeared on the screen.

Rusty steel bars twist and recombine amidst sparks, eventually forming a crooked title—"Deformed Steel Bars: Love on the Construction Site."

……

"My grass!"

"What the hell are you doing?"

Upon seeing this scene, Liu Jiasheng was stunned and froze in his seat.

Fuck!
That bastard Zhou Yang actually dared to film this thing?
His mind was instantly filled with all sorts of melodramatic scenes from rural romance movies, and coupled with the catchy title "Deformed Steel Bar," his mind went completely blank!
Then, everything went black, and I felt dizzy!
At that moment, the entire screening room erupted in chaos.

Laughter and curses echoed in the darkness: "This actually works?" "Incredible!" "Zhou Yang understands abstract concepts!"

The audience in the back rows raised their phones to record, and some even clutched their stomachs and slapped their thighs.

In the dimly lit screening room, bursts of laughter and flashes of light brought the atmosphere to a climax.

Suddenly, the screen went black, and the title "Deformed Steel Bars: Love on the Construction Site" was struck by a blue light, reforming amidst the clanging of metal to "Deformed Steel Bars: The Rise of Cao Tianzhu!"

"Holy crap! You can do that?" came an exclamation from the back row.

A truck shaped like a "sky-climbing pillar" emerged from the ruins, its rusty headlights flashing an eerie red light...

At that moment, everyone in the entire screening room burst into laughter...

Then, at this moment, the movie officially began!
..............................

After seeing the abstract opening sequence... Liu Jiasheng instantly realized that Zhou Yang's movie was very likely not simple!

He took a deep breath and, with his immunity to countless films and poisons, began to make all the necessary preparations!
but……

The opening scene of the movie was so gripping it made me lose my composure instantly!
A discarded steel bar from a construction site mutated into a sentient "cosmic steel bar" after being irradiated by an extraterrestrial meteorite.

Yes!

This movie!

Damn it, can you believe this looks like, seems like, a superhero movie!
This time, the superhero movie seems to feature not a human, but a steel bar!
Yes!

You read that right, it's a steel bar!
He stared at the spaceship on the screen, completely dumbfounded—

A group of technicians inexplicably took a steel bar into space by accident, and then inexplicably it was mutated by radiation. In the end, the steel bar miraculously developed self-awareness!
"What the hell is this setting?"

Others mutate from spider bites, humans mutate from cosmic radiation...

Zhou Yang, on the other hand, made the steel bars "come alive"!
This bizarre thought process is absolutely mind-blowing!
Laughter erupted in the screening room like waves, and when the rusty steel bar on the screen suddenly emitted an eerie blue light inside the space capsule, the entire audience couldn't hold back any longer.

The most amazing part is the subsequent plot—

The steel bars were inexplicably returned to the construction site along with the rocket debris!
it turns out!

Yes, what did Liu Jiasheng see?
He saw that the steel bar was secretly "cultivating" in the middle of the night!
Yes, just like that, standing on the screen like an idiot, practicing breathing exercises like a Taoist priest!
Immediately afterwards, it sucked the surrounding scaffolding into scrap metal.

Then, it seems that this movie is designed to make it easier for the audience to understand!
The scene shifts to a group of researchers who are seriously discussing the differences between silicon-based and carbon-based life, even earnestly explaining that the "spiritual energy" of Earth combined with the energy of silicon-based life will produce a special reaction.
Oh my God!

Is this some kind of cyberpunk cultivation game?

The film then presents a hilarious and absurd scene—

Contractor Zhou Yang, wearing a crooked safety helmet, staggered out to urinate in the middle of the night when he suddenly bumped into that steel bar that seemed to be "cultivating" itself.

He was so startled that he stumbled and exclaimed in a thick accent, "My goodness! This steel bar has come to life!" Accompanied by the swirling vortex of magical energy with cheap special effects and electronic music in the style of "Journey to the West," the whole scene was so magical that it made people slap their thighs and laugh out loud.

The audience in the back row were coughing from laughter: "This isn't a sci-fi movie! It's practically 'The Construction Site Cultivation Chronicle'!" Even the usually composed Liu Jiasheng took off his glasses to wipe away tears of laughter—

What the hell!
The rebar on the screen that could "breathe" was arguably the most outrageous "superhero" concept he had ever seen in his career.

Even more absurd is what follows: a group of uniformed "experts" are led around by Zhou Yang like headless flies, investigating everywhere, but they can never find any trace of the steel bars.

As the "spirited steel bar" repeatedly appears and disappears mysteriously, the comical contractor played by Zhou Yang is driven to question his existence, looking like a fool being played, which elicits continuous laughter from the audience.

........................

However, when everyone thought Zhou Yang was the protagonist of this movie...

But it turns out that Zhou Yang isn't the main character in this movie!
But another person!

The screen suddenly went black!

A loud "bang" rang out!
Repairman A-Qiang was squatting in the construction site toilet unclogging a toilet when suddenly a blue-glowing steel bar fell from the ceiling and accurately pierced his groin, startling A-Qiang!
Suddenly, Steel Bar spoke with a Sichuan accent: "I'm a Cybertronian, oops, I'm the last Steel Bar warrior on Cybertron!"

……

Following this, the film continues the traditional formula of "an ordinary person accidentally having an adventure and becoming a superhero" through a series of spoof scenes.

After gaining superpowers, the protagonist, A-Qiang, begins to pursue his dreams, fighting for justice everywhere, and eventually becomes the well-known "Steel Bar Hero," well, a grassroots hero wearing a red underwear mask and with messy equipment.

The entire movie is a hodgepodge of superhero elements, with various classic scenes adapted for the local audience and incorporated into the film, making you laugh uncontrollably...

He saw the steel bar fused to Ah Qiang's body, twisting and turning in the moonlight, mimicking the slow motion of dodging bullets in "Digital Empire," but stuck in the scaffolding and unable to be pulled out—a comical scene.
He saw Ah Qiang tie steel bars to his bicycle to make a "lightsaber," which resulted in him splitting a watermelon at a roadside stall in half when he turned a corner. The stall owner chased after him, yelling "You little rascal!" in a Sichuan-style chase scene.

He saw a surreal scene where contractor Zhou Yang was performing a shamanistic ritual with a peach wood sword, splashing black dog blood on steel bars, only to be sprayed in the face with a high-pressure water gun instead.

He saw Ah Qiang turn the steel bar into the Golden Cudgel, but it suddenly softened halfway through the fight, like something that abruptly drooped at a crucial moment. Then, Ah Qiang frantically stroked it, giving it power...

Every shot is like a steel bar driven into your funny bone, with jokes so dense that you can't defend against them, making your scalp tingle and your body tremble!
Damn it!

This movie has taken abstraction and parody to the extreme!

……

Finally, every movie needs a villain, and this movie is no exception!

A villain suddenly appears in the film who attempts to rule the Earth—"Magneto"!
That's right, it's "Magneto"!

The image of Magneto, the classic character from the Marvel Comics series, immediately flashed through Liu Jiasheng's mind, leaving him speechless...

Zhou Yang is absolutely insane!
They actually did a localized adaptation for the Chinese audience, making the villain "Gemstone" make a dazzling entrance with smoke effects just like those in "Journey to the West"!
Then, behind Magneto...

There's "Edman the Steel Wolf!"
Old Zhang, the foreman, wearing a welding mask, extended two rusty threaded steel claws. Each swing was accompanied by a "crunching" sound of metal scraping against metal. Halfway through, he suddenly squatted down to spray rust-preventive lubricant on the claws: "Damn it! Stuck again!"

There's a "Hedgehog King!"
The bald foreman, whose entire body was covered in nails from a construction nail gun, was known as "China's Fastest Man".

When they're confident, they're prickly and prickly, but they often collectively fail at crucial moments, making me furious so I yell in Chongqing dialect, "You bastards! You bought counterfeit goods!"

"The Green Giant Brick"!
The bricklayer, who went berserk after drinking counterfeit alcohol, developed a strange mossy green tinge on his skin.

While swinging a brick and smashing it wildly, he suddenly suffered a lumbar muscle strain. Holding onto the steel bars, he shouted, "Wait a minute! Let me put on a plaster!"

And there's "Thunder Hammer"! And "Black Widow Nail"...

Watching these tacky superheroes on the construction site, the moment they finally make their grand entrance!
Liu Jiasheng closed his eyes in despair!
Damn it, you win!
(End of this chapter)