Huayu: King of Kung Fu

James is a very talented screenwriter who has designed many classic scenes for Ang Lee's films.

For example, in the last shot of "Eat Drink Man Woman", the father takes a sip of soup and suddenly regains his sense of taste. Then the scene freezes and the movie ends, which is very meaningful!

After Lin Hu signed a cooperation agreement with Good Machine, James began to help Lin Hu organize the script.

Ong-Bak 2 is the sequel to Ong-Bak, with the protagonist remaining the same: Ah Hu, a young man from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan.

Since the script is actually based on the Thai movie "Tom Yum Goong", this time Ah Hu's childhood was added, so they had to find a child to play him when he was young.

Lin Hu had considered changing the search for elephants to something else, like pandas, but ultimately gave up on the idea!

Pandas are national treasures, so it's practically impossible to get real pandas to make movies.

Moreover, this thing is a bear, which is extremely dangerous. It is uncontrollable on the spot, and what if it bites someone?

Using special effects would be too costly given the current level of CG technology.

The first part established that Ah Hu was a young man from Yunnan, and Yunnan is where Asian elephants are distributed, so there's nothing wrong with him looking for elephants.

Moreover, elephants can be domesticated. Finding a domesticated elephant and bringing a trainer shouldn't be a problem.

As for the elephant being moved to New York, that's a bit far-fetched. The original elephant was moved to Sydney, and it was still a box office hit!

Therefore, the plot of the movie becomes very simple.

It's still the same small village as the previous film. The villagers use elephants as transportation and helpers, and a deep friendship has been established between humans and animals, leading a peaceful life.

On the day of the Water Festival, someone stole Ah Hu's elephant, so Ah Hu tracked it all the way to New York, fighting and killing Americans of all skin colors.

Is this an insult to America? What a load of rubbish! Americans don't care about that. Chen Long's movie is called "Rumble in the Bronx."

Lin Hu provided the story outline and was responsible for the action design, while James filled in some details for the American part.

For action movies like this, the highlight is the spectacular action scenes; the story just needs to be logical.

Making it too complicated makes it less interesting.

Lin Hu got busy, arranging staff and applying for visas to the United States.

Huang Bo performed very well in the previous film, and he will be included in the second film as well.

This time, he plays a Chinese detective in Chinatown.

In the first season, Gao Yuanyuan's character returned to the village with Ah Hu at the end.

She'll also make an appearance in the second part.

When he was in Hong Kong before, Lin Hu had asked Brother Crow to play a cameo role.

Later, Brother Crow said that he hoped Lin Hu could contact him if he had any acting opportunities in the future.

True to his word, Lin Hu called Brother Crow and invited him to play an important role in the movie as the Vietnamese guy who stole Ah Hu's elephant.

When Brother Crow received a call from Lin Hu, who invited him to film a movie in the United States, he was quite happy and readily agreed.

There's also the villainous boss, Lady Rose, who was originally played by Jin Xing.

Lin Hu found it strange when he first saw it. Wasn't this person a dancer? Why was she in a Thai movie?

It is said that when the director of "Tom Yum Goong" approached him, he was surprised and did not want to act in it, so he quoted an outrageous price, which made the director back down.

Unexpectedly, the director agreed immediately. For the sake of the money, Jin Xing had no choice but to act.

Lin Hu didn't want to hire that transvestite; he thought he could hire some Chinese actors instead.

For example, John Lone, the most handsome mob boss in Chinatown.

Without hesitation, Lin Hu immediately extended an invitation to Zunlong through a good machine.

John Lone rose to fame with "The Last Emperor," but as a Chinese-American, he didn't have many opportunities in Hollywood.

After the machine contacted John Lone's agent, he quickly replied that he was interested.

The pay is a bit expensive, it's $300,000.

But so be it, it's an international blockbuster, it has to be international.

Lin Hu countered with a price of $25!

Regarding the stuntmen, after filming "Ong-Bak" last time, Lin Hu kept three of the more capable ones, paid them a basic salary, and had them train every day.

Including Wang Baoqiang, there are four of them this time.

I dare not take any untrained martial arts masters with me. If they go to America and run away, I can't bear the responsibility.

Anyway, the Yuen Clan and Jackie Chan's stunt team are both in Hollywood now, so we can use their stuntmen.

……

James gave Lin Hu a budget; making this movie would cost at least $300 million.

Good Machines itself doesn't invest in films; they only help with financing, production, and selling copyrights.

For example, the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is generally considered to be a Hollywood production, but it actually isn't.

After Ang Lee finalized the project, Good Machine helped him find companies like Sony Classics and Columbia to pre-sell the copyright.

With the pre-sale contract in hand, Ang Lee, together with Jiang Zhiqiang of Anle, used his personal name to ask an insurance company to guarantee the funds obtained from the bank.

Lin Hu didn't have enough money, but he didn't want to take out a loan, so he started using the tricks Hong Kong people use to sell movie trailers.

They quickly pre-sold the copyrights for Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and some small Southeast Asian countries, receiving approximately US$700,000 in advance payments.

Once this money arrives in my account, that should be enough.

……

In March, the interview results for Beijing Film Academy came out, and Gao Yuanyuan was successfully admitted.

Huang Bo was rejected because of his appearance and was only admitted to the vocational college class that was just opened this year.

Lin Hu even took the time to accept an award.

In the 1999 Very Cola Cup My Favorite Spring Festival Gala Program Selection, there were three first prizes.

The first prize in the song and dance category went to Chen Hong's "Come Home Often".

The first prize in the sketch category went to Zhao Benshan's "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow".

Lin Hu's "Eighteen Martial Arts" won the first prize in the opera, folk art and other categories!

Lin Hu never expected that he would win an award after just giving a bad review to a movie, and he found it quite interesting.

To be honest, his kicking of the sword hilt was simply unbelievable to the audience.

It also took advantage of the Spring Festival Gala platform to spread the message widely, sparking a huge wave of discussion in society.

There have also been incidents of people getting injured while imitating his sword-kicking technique.

Therefore, after reenacting the sword-kicking move at the awards ceremony, Lin Hu had to warn the audience.

He can only do this through long-term training; this move is very dangerous and should not be attempted lightly.

Moreover, his sword is a prop sword; it can't hurt anyone. Don't use the real thing.

……

After two months of preliminary preparations, Lin Hu and his crew returned to Yunnan.

Like Ong-Bak, Ong-Bak 2 was also filmed in Yunnan for its opening and closing scenes.

Once again, Ning Hao was the one to go ahead and scout the area. By the time Lin Hu arrived with Gao Yuanyuan and the others, he had already completed the local preparations.

The film crew's car drove to the former village, and the group got out of the car.

A child happened to be passing by and immediately ran over and cheered when he saw Gao Yuanyuan, who was wearing a white dress and looked as beautiful as a fairy.

"Sister Yuanyuan is here! Sister Yuanyuan is here!"

Before long, a group of children came running from all directions.

Gao Yuanyuan was prepared and took out candy to distribute to the children.

Lin Hu laughed and said, "The kids really like you!"

Gao Yuanyuan smiled sweetly: "Because I gave them candy!"