Against the Current Hong Kong 1979

Chapter 124 Box Office Soars, Breaking Records (2 Updates, Please Subscribe)

The summer movie season is one of the most popular periods, with all cinemas releasing several blockbuster films in an attempt to grab box office revenue.

Before "Chasing Girls" was officially released, many people still did not think it would be a big hit.

Zhang Shuai'an hadn't yet proven his box office ability, unlike Jackie Chan who already had "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master," both of which were box office hits. Therefore, from the beginning, everyone expected that Jackie Chan's self-directed and self-starring film, "The Young Master," would definitely be a box office smash.

This summer movie season, the first to go out was actually the left-wing Shuangnan Cinema Circuit. They first released Du Qifeng's directorial debut, "The Deadly Sword," on June 12, with Liu Songren as the male lead and Chung Chu-hung as the female lead.

This movie was filmed last year and has been going through different release dates, and now it's finally in the summer season.

Actually, when the movie was finished filming, both Johnnie To and James Lau had a bad feeling.

As they predicted, the film performed poorly after its release, with theaters not even half full. The final box office is projected to be around 1.2 million.

This film was partly funded by Phoenix Pictures, a left-wing company, but Liu Songren's Zeus Pictures also invested a significant amount. This investment directly led to the bankruptcy of Zeus Pictures, and the company has never invested in a film since.

Next up is Luo Wei. This guy isn't very talented, but he's always had good luck. Although he couldn't keep Jackie Chan after he became a huge star, he still has a collection of several of Jackie Chan's older films in his library.

This time, he released "Kung Fu Is So Simple" on July 1st. The title means that it's not just about kung fu. This movie was filmed back in 1978. At that time, Jackie Chan had several movies that flopped, making him a veritable box office poison. So after filming, Luo Wei shelved the movie.

Now that Jackie Chan has made tens of millions at the box office with "Young Master" during the Spring Festival, Luo Wei is immediately envious, so he has taken out this film and released it again.

This movie has quite a few names. In Taiwan, it's called "One and a Half Moves in the Martial World," and it's also called something similar in Europe and America.

When it was released in Japan, it was renamed "Tenchūken" (Heavenly Fist), which was quite inexplicable.

When it was released in South Korea, it was renamed "The Oolong Swordsman," which left everyone confused.

The film had a very low production cost, but thanks to Jackie Chan's popularity, Luo Wei still made a profit.

Later, it was discovered that Luo Wei also benefited from the Hong Kong box office of "Dragon Lord," which was a risk-free business opportunity that made him a fortune.

Unfortunately, Luo Wei was notorious for his love of horse racing and was unable to hold onto his wealth, leading to a miserable old age.

July is the hottest time of the summer movie season, when students are on vacation and will take their parents to the cinema to watch movies.

Shaw Brothers released "The Evil," directed by Kuei Chih-Hung. It's a low-budget film that combines horror, the supernatural, folklore, and eroticism. Surprisingly, it became a huge success, grossing over three million at the box office.

Zhang Shuai'an had some recollection of this film; he had downloaded it before his time travel, but after watching it, he didn't have any particular impression of the plot.

But the scene at the end of the movie where a bald woman covered in scriptures and talismans dances left a very deep impression on me. I watched it more than a dozen times. It's truly art!

When Boss Shao saw this, he was overjoyed and had Gui Zhihong continue filming "Evil vs. Evil".

"Evil After Evil," along with "Corpse Demon," "Gu," and others, can be considered to have exhausted the potential of this IP in one go.

Yes, that's so Shaw Brothers!

Then on July 10th, Golden Harvest also released its own masterpiece, "Money Makes the World Go Round," directed by John Woo, a low-budget comedy.

Last November, John Woo's "The Hero" was released, barely grossing over one million Hong Kong dollars. Chow Wen-huai was very dissatisfied with this and ordered John Woo to make another comedy similar to "Money Crazy".

Thus, the film "Money Makes the Trouble" came about, starring Hui Koon-ying, the third of the four Hui brothers.

The four Hui brothers have each made significant contributions to Hong Kong's arts and culture scene, which deserves a mention.

The eldest brother, Xu Guanwen, is currently the king of comedy. His comedy films have won several box office championships.

The second son's name is Xu Guanwu. He is a photographer who works behind the scenes.

The fourth one is Hui Kwan-kit, who was Hong Kong's first generation of singing kings;

She also has a younger sister named Xu Zhudi, who is not in the entertainment industry.

However, all these screenings, whether early or late, became cannon fodder in the face of Zhang Shuai'an's "Chasing Girls".

Even after being released for twenty days, "Chasing Girls" still maintains an occupancy rate of over 50%, and with such performance, Golden Harvest Cinema is too embarrassed to reduce the number of screenings too much.

Although Golden Princess Cinemas was ten days late, it still had a 70% occupancy rate on the opening day, outperforming a host of other new films released at the same time.

The box office reached nearly 63 yuan that day, and the total box office is expected to be at least seven or eight million yuan.

On its twentieth day of release, Zhang Shuai'an's "Chasing Girls" grossed over ten million at Golden Harvest Cinemas alone, five days faster than Jackie Chan's "Young Master".

Based on this box office trend, it's a certainty that "Chasing Girls" will gross over 20 million yuan in total, with both theaters combined.

This was a groundbreaking event for Hong Kong cinema, paving the way for a new release route for subsequent films.

Of course, whether subsequent films will be accepted by both Golden Harvest and Golden Princess theater chains remains to be seen.

On the very day the box office surpassed ten million, Zou Wenhuai called Zhang Shuai'an and said he wanted to throw him a celebration banquet. The time was set for the day after "Chasing Girls" was taken off the screens, and the location was Yongji Restaurant.

The celebration banquet was held on the evening of the 6th.

Zhang Shuai'an led all the company staff to Yongji Restaurant.

Zou Wenhuai booked the entire restaurant and sent out invitations to many big names in the industry.

To spite Shao Yifu, he even had an invitation delivered to the other party's office.

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However, Shao Yifu is not interested in paying attention to Zou Wenhuai at the moment, because the real boss of TVB, Li Xiaohe, has passed away.

The Lee family is a top-tier wealthy family in Hong Kong, which made its fortune through the opium trade and real estate.

TVB was founded in 1967 by Li Xiaohe. At that time, Shao Yifu was just a managing director and was essentially working for the Li family.

Of the four key board members and founders of TVB, General Manager Mr. Yu passed away in 1976, and Vice Chairman Mr. Qi had other commitments and did not manage the TV station's affairs much.

Only Li Xiaohe could keep Shao Yifu in check. Now that he has passed away, Shao Yifu is naturally free from his constraints. He is accelerating the acquisition of other shares to become the single largest shareholder and thus completely control TVB.

Quite a few people still came to celebrate the victory.

Zhang Shuai'an is currently riding high, so coming over to befriend him would definitely be beneficial and harmless.

However, Hong Jingbao felt uneasy.

He was one of the earliest employees at Golden Harvest, always fighting the toughest battles and doing the hardest work for the company, and occasionally covering for Jackie Chan's films. However, his income at Golden Harvest was not high, and Chow Wen-huai rarely mentioned giving him a raise.

At this moment, looking at Zhang Shuai'an, who was being fawned over by everyone, Hong Jingbao felt increasingly like an outsider and began to have a vague desire to leave.

Yuen Biao and the others gathered around Hung King-po and asked, "Brother Sanmao, what's wrong? Are you unhappy?"

Hong Jingbao didn't waste any words and said softly, "I plan to leave Jiahe and go elsewhere to get food. What are your thoughts?"

The others were taken aback when they heard this, and turned to look at Hong Jingbao, unsure whether he was joking or serious.

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