Hong Kong variety show: The mastermind behind the scenes is emerging.

In early November 1983.

With Golden Princess Cinemas being forcibly acquired by Golden Harvest International for a base price of HK$160 million, an eerie silence descended upon Hong Kong's entertainment industry. Film giants like Shaw Brothers held their breath, watching this newly arrived dragon from across the river with bated breath.

Everyone knows that, given Lu Chen's habits, he will definitely make a big move after buying Golden Princess. Whether Golden Harvest Pictures is a dragon or a worm depends on his first step.

……

In the spacious and bright conference room on the top floor of the Golden Harvest Building in Central, huge floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view of the bustling Victoria Harbour.

At this moment, four people were sitting upright at the conference table.

Seated on the left is Mak Tai-hung, the general manager of Golden Princess Cinemas, who was recently transferred by Lu Chen from Asia Television to take full control of the production department of the newly established Golden Harvest Films. This "tycoon" director, known for his realistic, bold, and visually impactful crime films, has an intense desire to realize his grand ambitions.

Sitting next to him was Huang Xizhao, the steady and powerful general manager of ATV, who controlled half of Hong Kong's television media.

On the right side of the conference table sat two young men wearing black-rimmed glasses, with an air of science and engineering students. They were the Huang brothers, Huang Hongda and Huang Hongxian, special effects geniuses that Lu Chen had poached from Hollywood at great expense, and the heads of the "Purple Aura Special Effects Company" he had previously established.

The conference room door opened, and Lu Chen, dressed in a pure white shirt without a tie, his collar slightly open, exuded an air of composed confidence and domineering presence. He strode to the head of the conference table and sat down, his sharp gaze sweeping over the four people present.

"Everyone, I've called you all here today for just one thing."

Lu Chen skipped the pleasantries and got straight to the point.

"We've already acquired the shell of Golden Princess Cinemas. We have the distribution channels, but those channels are just the skeleton. What truly allows Golden Harvest to gain a foothold in the world and even break into Hollywood is irreplaceable content. Right now, those people outside are probably waiting for our move."

Lu Chen's lips curled into an arrogant and confident sneer: "Today, I'm going to teach them what a real film industry is!"

"Snapped!"

Lu Chen slammed a thick script outline, bound in black kraft paper, onto the center of the conference table.

On the cover, four powerful characters are prominently displayed:

Back to the Future

"Old Mai, Old Huang, you two pass it around and take a look." Lu Chen leaned back in his chair, picked up his coffee and took a sip.

Mai Dangxiong eagerly grabbed the script, and Huang Xizhao joined him. The two had barely read it for five minutes when their expressions shifted from initial confusion to shock, and finally, even their breathing became rapid.

This is a classic science fiction film from the 80s in my previous life, which Lu Chen adapted into an extremely ingenious "Hong Kong localization".

[Back to the Future - Golden Harvest Version Plot Summary]

The story takes place in Hong Kong in 1983.

The protagonist, Adi (Madi), is a seventeen-year-old high school student in Hong Kong. He is passionate about rock music and often rehearses in the basement with an electric guitar, dreaming of one day standing on the stage of the Hong Kong Coliseum. However, his life is full of frustrations: the school's dean of students always dislikes him; his father is a timid and honest man who works as a low-level clerk in a foreign company and is bullied every day by his arrogant boss, "Brother Biao," who has a triad background; and his mother is a middle-aged woman who drinks heavily and is full of complaints, always reminiscing about how beautiful and charming she was when she was young and how she missed out on a good marriage.

Adi's only friend is Dr. Boo, an eccentric scientist considered a madman by the world.

Dr. Blom lived in seclusion in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Kowloon Walled City. One late night, Dr. Blom excitedly summoned Adidas to an empty pier in Tsim Sha Tsui and showed him his masterpiece: a "time machine" modified from a smuggled gullwing sports car (DeLorean DMC-12)!

At the heart of this time machine is a device called the "Core Flux Generator." And what drives it to generate the energy for time travel is none other than highly concentrated plutonium that Dr. Boo tricked into giving to a group of Golden Triangle smugglers!

Just as Dr. Boo was about to demonstrate time travel to Adi, the group of vicious smugglers stormed in with AK-47s and killed Dr. Boo on the spot.

In desperation, Adi jumped into the sports car and floored the accelerator amidst a hail of bullets. When the car reached an astonishing speed of 88 mph (approximately 141 km/h), the time-space generator was activated.

With two burning tire tracks, Adidas and his bike vanished into the night sky of 1983.

When Adi woke up again, he was horrified to find that he had traveled back thirty years to Hong Kong in 1953!

It was an era filled with colonial influences, a time of rebuilding after devastation, and also brimming with nostalgia. Old-fashioned trams ran through the streets, women wore elegant cheongsams, and the Kowloon-Canton Railway clock tower in Tsim Sha Tsui still chimed the hour precisely.

In 1953, Adi encountered the biggest crisis of his life.

Not only was he trapped in the past because his car ran out of plutonium fuel, but to make matters worse, while wandering the streets, he accidentally pushed aside his younger father, who was being bullied by thugs.

This push completely changed the course of history.

The young mother, who was supposed to take care of her injured father and fall in love with him, falls in love at first sight with Adi, who falls from the sky wearing a strange "life jacket" (an 80s down jacket) and exudes a rebellious vibe!

The logic of history has fallen into an extremely terrifying paradox: if his parents cannot fall in love and kiss at the Mid-Autumn Festival charity ball this Saturday night, then Adi's brother, sister, and himself will all be completely erased from the future timeline!

In order to save his own existence, Adi found Dr. Boo, who was still very young in 1953, and the two devised an extremely crazy plan.

The first step is for Adi to suppress his helplessness and embarrassment, do everything he can to avoid his young mother's crazy pursuit, and become a "love mentor" to teach his extremely cowardly young father how to stand up and pursue his mother. He also has to help his father fight against "Brother Biao," a bully who is still arrogant and domineering in that era.

The second step was to find energy to travel back to the future. Since nuclear fuel couldn't be found in 1953, the young Dr. Brzezinski came up with a brilliant alternative: lightning!

According to an old newspaper from 1983 that Adi carried with him, at 10:04 pm on that Saturday in 1953, an extremely rare super lightning bolt would strike the huge clock tower of Tsim Sha Tsui Railway Station with pinpoint accuracy, causing the clock to stop running forever!

If they can precisely calculate the time and channel the electricity into the sports car at the exact moment the lightning strikes the clock tower, then Adidas can travel back to the future!

Thus, after a series of hilarious mishaps, a thrilling street skateboard chase, and a rock guitar solo that stunned the audience at a 1953 dance and was thirty years ahead of its time, the story unfolds.

Adi's parents finally shared a passionate kiss at the dance, successfully reversing the course of history.

Under the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower amidst a torrential downpour, Adidas, driving his sports car, successfully channeled the earth-shattering bolt of lightning at the last second, traveling through time and back to 1983!

Back in the future, Adi discovers that although history has been corrected, some wonderful changes have occurred in 1983 because he subtly altered his father's personality in 1953.

His father is no longer cowardly; he has become a confident bestselling author. His mother is elegant and beautiful, and the family is happy and harmonious. The bully "Brother Biao" who used to bully his father has become a humble car washer who washes their car.

Just as Adi was immersed in happiness, Dr. Bu drove down from the sky in his upgraded "flying" sports car and hurriedly pulled Adi and his girlfriend into the car.

"Adi, get in the car! Your future is in big trouble!"

The sports car streaked through the air in a dazzling trail of light, disappearing off-screen and leaving behind endless suspense...

……

"Oh My God……"

In the conference room, after reading the last page of the outline, Mai Dangxiong placed the script on the table with slightly trembling hands. His face, which usually carried a touch of江湖气 (a kind of江湖, a ...

"This...this is simply a brilliant idea!!"

Mak Dang-hung jumped to his feet in excitement, staring intently at Lu Chen like a lecherous man who had just seen a stunning beauty. Although he was a director known for his realistic style, the excellence of this script made him consider switching to directing the film himself.

"Mr. Lu, I've been making movies for so many years and read countless scripts. But no script has ever combined science fiction, suspense, comedy, action, and youthful romance so perfectly and seamlessly as 'Back to the Future'!"

"The pacing of this script is fantastic! A small climax every three minutes, a major cliffhanger every ten. The time travel setting is flawless, and the closed loop of causality is so perfect it's chilling!" Mak Dang-hung paced excitedly back and forth in the conference room. "And it's old Hong Kong in 1953! Cheongsams, trams, the everyday life of post-war Hong Kong. This strong contrast between eras and the nostalgic filter will not only attract young people who like science fiction and rock, but also draw all the middle-aged and elderly people who lived through that era into the cinema!"

"This is absolutely an epic blockbuster that will appeal to all ages! I guarantee with my life that once it's made, it will break all box office records since Hong Kong opened to foreign trade!"

Seeing his general so excited that he was incoherent, Lu Chen simply smiled faintly.

Breaking Hong Kong's box office record?

What kind of thing is that?

"Old Mike, your vision is still too narrow."

Lu Chen crossed his arms and placed them on the table, his eyes revealing a cold and ambitious look down on all living beings.

"If it were just about making tens of millions in box office revenue from Hong Kong audiences, I, Lu Chen, wouldn't need to establish Golden Harvest Pictures at all. I could just find a few skilled people and make some kung fu comedies and make money."

"I'm presenting this script so that Golden Harvest can conquer the world!"

Lu Chen stood up, walked to the huge whiteboard, picked up a marker, and wrote down a set of chilling numbers.

"I want to develop 'Back to the Future' into a super IP with a trilogy."

"The budget I'm giving you is a total cost of US$100 million for the trilogy (equivalent to about HK$700 million)."

"And the reward I want is global box office revenue..." Lu Chen drew a heavy circle on the whiteboard, "...no less than seven hundred million US dollars!!"

boom--!

A box office of $700 million?! That's nearly HK$6 billion?!

This astronomical figure struck like a hammer blow to the hearts of everyone in the conference room. Huang Xizhao gasped, and even a madman like Mai Dangxiong was speechless with shock.

In 1983, the highest box office record for Hong Kong films was only 20 to 30 million Hong Kong dollars. Even with box office revenue from Southeast Asia and Taiwan, how could three films rake in 7 to 8 billion? To them, this was simply a fantasy, something they wouldn't even dare to dream of!

However, what they didn't know was that in Lu Chen's original timeline, this wasn't a fantasy at all, but an undeniable fact! The Back to the Future trilogy, with a budget of less than $100 million, raked in a staggering $950 million at the global box office, becoming one of the most profitable and greatest science fiction comedy series in film history. Subsequent merchandise and videotapes also made a fortune, becoming an eternal pop culture icon in the hearts of a generation!

Don't think it's impossible.

Looking at the stunned crowd, Lu Chen spoke with an irresistible, seductive tone.

"Our 'Back to the Future' will not only feature a cast from Hong Kong, but also other top-tier actors from across Asia. It will also be dubbed in multiple languages. Furthermore, this film will be released globally simultaneously through our distribution channels in Europe and America!"

"It's not just a movie; it's a massive money-printing machine. The soundtrack, related toys, and even the skateboard and sports car worn by the main character will become wildly popular items among young people worldwide!"

"Old Mai, Old Huang," Lu Chen said, turning his gaze to them. "You two will be fully responsible for the production and distribution of this film. Golden Harvest Group will provide full support in terms of resources needed."

"Understood! Mr. Lu, even if I have to stay up all night, I will dig this movie out for you!" Mai Dangxiong made a solemn pledge, his blood already ignited by the beautiful blueprint described by Lu Chen.

"Don't worry, Mr. Lu, ATV and Asia Daily's publicity channels are ready to bombard you from all sides!" Huang Xizhao quickly reassured him.

Lu Chen nodded, then turned his gaze to the Huang brothers, Huang Hongda and Huang Hongxian, who had been silent and were stunned by the grand plan he had just seen.

"Hongda, Hongxian." Lu Chen walked up to them, placed his hands on the table, and his eyes became extremely serious. "The success or failure of this play, apart from the script, depends on the core structure of your 'Purple Aura Special Effects' team."

"The burning tracks of the Wheel of Fire, the super lightning bolt that pierces the sky from the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower, the wormhole tearing effect during time travel, and the hoverboards and flying cars that will be used in the future."

"All of this requires extremely realistic optical effects compositing, early CGI computer animation assistance, and top-notch miniature model shooting technology."

"I spent tens of millions of US dollars to buy you the most advanced Motion Control cameras from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in the United States, and also equipped you with the latest graphics processing computers."

Lu Chen stared into the two brothers' eyes and asked, word by word:

"Tell me, can you create Hollywood-level visual effects for me in this day and age? Can you live up to the Golden Harvest brand?!"

In Hong Kong in 1983, movie special effects were still largely limited to wire work and simple gunpowder explosions, and even blue screen chroma keying was extremely crude.

Although Ziqi has already achieved special effects comparable to those of Legend of Sword and Fairy and My Date with a Vampire, there is still a difference between television and film. The requirements put forward by Lu Chen are undoubtedly at a hellish level of difficulty.

Huang Hongda and Huang Hongxian exchanged a glance.

These two, who in their original timeline later founded VFXNova, the top visual effects company in Asia and won numerous Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Visual Effects, are now filled with no fear in their eyes, only the extreme excitement of a tech fanatic facing the ultimate challenge!

"Mr. Lu." The older brother, Huang Hongda, stood up, pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, stood up straight, and spoke with a resolute tone that suggested he had nothing to lose.

"You've given us the most advanced equipment in the world and ample funding. If we still can't do it, my brother and I will jump off the top of this Jiahe Building!"

"Every scene you requested in your script—whether it's lightning striking the clock tower or time travel," Huang Hongda patted his chest heavily, "our 'Purple Aura Special Effects' guarantees to render it for you frame by frame! It's absolutely no less impressive than George Lucas's 'Star Wars'!"

"Good! That's ambitious!"

Lu Chen laughed loudly, his eyes radiating an infectious light.

"Funding, theaters, publicity, special effects—we've got it all! We have everything we need!"

Lu Chen slammed his hand on the script, making his final decision, which was also a challenge to the global film industry:

"Start production immediately! Cast! Set construction!"

"Golden Harvest's inaugural film, 'Back to the Future,' will officially begin filming next month!"