This director loves making friends.

The above "targeting" of "Farewell My Concubine" with "A Bittersweet Life" is quite accurate and shows a good understanding of the thoughts of distributors in various provinces and cities across the country.

Therefore, we must mention the so-called "box office" in mainland China during that era.

Currently, the mainland film market has not yet established a unified national box office revenue sharing and real-time monitoring system. The so-called "box office" is mostly the sum of fees paid by local distributors for buying out screening rights in a one-time transaction.

This is not the actual revenue split after the cinema sells tickets.

In other words, the box office figures do not reflect the actual number of viewers who paid to watch the film, but rather the amount of money that distribution companies in various provinces and cities spent to purchase the screening rights, which is essentially the copyright lease fee.

The total box office revenue of a film in this era is calculated by adding up all the copyright rental fees.

The more than 4000 million yuan box office figure for "Farewell My Concubine" in mainland China, as later statistics show, is the total cost of copyright leases paid by various distribution units, rather than the real-time actual box office figures in the modern sense.

Not only "Farewell My Concubine", but all films before 93 followed this pattern, including Qin Keqing's "A Bittersweet Life" which was imported by China Film Group.

Although the State Council issued the "Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Reform of the Current Film Industry Mechanism" this year, which formally abolished the unified purchase and distribution system of China Film Group Corporation, the "buyout distribution" model still applies.

The only difference is that the main entity changed from China Film Group to a film studio, and the production company "sold out" the film copies to distribution companies in various provinces at different negotiated prices.

Price negotiations are based entirely on non-standardized factors such as local market expectations, the number of cinemas, and the audience base, with no uniform pricing standard.

The distribution company is responsible for its own profits and losses and decides on the number of screenings and ticket prices.

As the first Chinese-language film to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes, "Farewell My Concubine" still enjoys immense popularity even without a premiere, being banned, or being promoted.

However, at the same time, there was the film "A Bittersweet Life," which also won two awards at Cannes, and with all sorts of reports and interpretations of "A Bittersweet Life" everywhere, its popularity was frighteningly high.

Meanwhile, distribution companies and organizations in various provinces and cities will definitely watch the film first.

"Farewell My Concubine" is a traditional drama film. The actors performed very well, and the costumes, props and sets were also quite exquisite. In short, it was good in all aspects and had almost no shortcomings. However, it wouldn't be accurate to say that it was exciting or refreshing.

The artistic merit of "A Bittersweet Life" is certainly inferior to that of "Farewell My Concubine." Whether in its depiction of the great era or its exploration of human nature, it is not as profound as "Farewell My Concubine."

However, this movie is really enjoyable to watch!

That's right, it's exhilarating!

It's refreshing and eye-opening, with exhilarating and realistic fight scenes that feel real and visceral, unlike traditional Hong Kong films where the fights sometimes look like a joke or something out of a traditional opera... The key point is that this is also an art film!

This year marks the first year since the abolition of the unified purchase and sales system. Who wouldn't want to achieve results to show the higher-ups?

More importantly, these distribution companies in various provinces and cities are all state-owned enterprises. Everyone knows what the higher-ups mean. If it weren't for "A Bittersweet Life," it wouldn't matter for the sake of performance, but now that we have "A Bittersweet Life," things are different.

The result can be imagined.

The buyout price for "Farewell My Concubine" was severely damaged due to the "one city, one deal" approach, and the price could not be negotiated at all.

On the contrary, the buyout price of "A Bittersweet Life" was sought after by various provinces and cities, and the price negotiations went very smoothly.

China Film Group, Qingdao Film Studio, and Xie Fei were all constantly sending Qin Keqing the latest news.

When the last city was negotiated and the results were tallied, Qin Keqing was astonished.

The total sales price of "A Bittersweet Life" across various provinces and cities reached an astonishing 5260 million, while "Farewell My Concubine" only sold for 2680 million.

According to the current rules, the total box office of "A Bittersweet Life" in mainland China is 5260 million yuan, while the total box office of "Farewell My Concubine" in mainland China is 2680 million yuan.

If "A Bittersweet Life" earns another million, it will be twice the box office of "Farewell My Concubine".

It seems likely that during negotiations in various regions, the price offered for these two films was double the usual amount.

Chen Kaige must be disappointed. He had a Palme d'Or-winning film that he thought would help him turn his career around, but the box office was much lower than that of "A Bittersweet Life".

"What's wrong? You look a little off."

Ni Ping entered the room, changed into slippers, and saw Chen Kaige sitting there smoking and lost in thought. He frowned slightly, walked over, picked up the cigarette from Chen Kaige's hand, and stubbed it out in the ashtray.

"I've told you so many times to stop smoking. Don't you know Dad's condition? He has late-stage lung cancer, all from smoking. You should take this as a warning."

She just got back from the hospital.

Chen Kaige has been busy with "Farewell My Concubine" lately, first re-editing it, and then going to negotiate with distribution companies in important cities. As a result, he has been unable to take care of his father, Chen Huai'ai, who is hospitalized with lung cancer.

Since Chen Huai'ai was hospitalized a few months ago, his girlfriend Ni Ping has been taking meticulous care of his daily life at the hospital, to the point that people at the hospital thought that Ni Ping was already married and was Chen Huai'ai's daughter-in-law.

Of course, Ni Ping was definitely aiming for marriage, and she didn't want to be labeled a "mistress" all the time.

The cigarette in his hand was snatched away and extinguished, which made Chen Kai very unhappy. Coupled with the worries about the poor box office performance, he could no longer suppress his anger.

"Go ahead and smoke, I'm going to smoke, what are you going to do about it?"

As Chen Kaige spoke, he pulled another cigarette from the pack, lit it with a "snap," and shouted at Ni Ping:

"I smoked again today, see? I smoked again, so what? Who do you think you are? You're always telling me what to do and what not to do. We're not even married yet, and you're already interfering in everything. I'm just not getting married!"

"No way, I'm not even divorced yet, what kind of marriage am I talking about!"

After saying that, she stormed back to her bedroom and slammed the door shut.

Ni Ping stood there, stunned.

Immediately, tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

She endured the criticism and started living with Chen Kaige in 91. Chen Kaige promised to divorce his wife and marry her, but this has dragged on for more than two years, and the divorce procedures have not yet been completed.

Chen Huai'ai was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her mother took care of her daily needs in the hospital like a biological daughter, and sometimes even helped her with her bodily functions...

All I'm doing is asking you to be a little cleaner, right?

All I'm telling you is not to smoke, right?

It's just asking you to drink less alcohol, isn't it?

How did it end up like this?

Because of the different "rules," the winner between "A Bittersweet Life" and "Farewell My Concubine" was decided even before they were officially released.

But on July 29th, the real drama began in Hong Kong.

"Ji Gong" and "Jurassic Park" were released on the same day.

Before the film's release, no one considered "Jurassic Park" to be a competitor to "Ji Gong." Everyone thought that "Ji Gong's" competitor was "Fong Sai-yuk Sequel," which was released on the 30th.

Stephen Chow vs. Li Lianjie.

This is definitely the most exciting battle of the summer.

However, by the time "Fong Sai-yuk II" was released on the 30th, the box office statistics for "Ji Gong" had been released.

200 million!

Specifically, it was 194 million; the box office of "Ji Gong" was only 194 million!

Before the release of "Ji Gong", everyone thought it would be the box office champion of the year. It was a movie directed by Du Qifeng and starring Stephen Chow and Maggie Cheung.

How come it's only a "mere" 194 million?

According to the box office patterns of Hong Kong films, wouldn't "The Mad Monk" only gross around 20 million?

This is a Stephen Chow movie!

Then, almost all the Hong Kong media were frantically reporting another piece of news: Jurassic Park's opening day box office was HK$469 million.

It's just 1 short of 470 million!

Based on the established pattern, wouldn't Jurassic Park be able to reach a box office of around 5000 million?

is it possible?

That's absolutely incredible.

However, no matter how much people in the film industry discussed this matter, when the box office results came out the next day, everyone was once again taken aback.

Jurassic Park's single-day box office of 520 million is far ahead.

The sequel to Fong Sai-yuk, which premiered on the same day, followed closely behind, but only grossed 230 million yuan, less than half of Jurassic Park's box office.

The box office performance of "Ji Gong" was once again a huge disappointment. Instead of rebounding, it dropped even further, with a box office of only 182 million yuan.

Everyone in Hong Kong's film and television industry was stunned. This wasn't right; the script shouldn't have been like this!

Immediately, everyone turned their attention to Taiwan, waiting for news from there. Surely nothing "strange" would happen there?