"Someone is afraid of you."Chen Ziyan said to Lu Yanhe.
"Afraid of me...what?" Lu Yanhe asked, "Red?"
"No, I'm afraid of your international influence." Chen Ziyan said, "Although we all know that this is not entirely from you, others don't see so many things. They only see that every movie you participate in will be shortlisted for the top international film festivals."
Lu Yanhe: "But, being shortlisted for a top international film festival, what would make others afraid of?"
"They are afraid that your voice will become stronger." Chen Ziyan said, "The film and television industry is not just about film and television companies and production staff. It also has various associations and organizations, and various stakeholders are involved behind the scenes. Look at Director Wang Zhong. The Best Director Award at the Citour International Film Festival has made him soar in the country and directly enter the ranks of top directors. All the top film events in the country in the past year will definitely invite him to attend. The same is true for you. Your current resume is far ahead of others among male actors, and you only need a real big award. When you win a Best Actor award overseas, you will directly enter the top actor club - although some people say that you have already entered, but without a big award, you are still unworthy of the name after all."
"That's not the most crucial point. Apart from that, you are also a director, a screenwriter, and a producer. Think about it, from Rouge to Lost on Journey, your scripts helped Chen Bige win the Best Actress trophy at the top film festival again, returning her to the peak of her career, helped Huang Kairen successfully enter the film industry and have a highly acclaimed screen role, and also made a completely newcomer, Wang Dashan, famous."
Chen Ziyan went on to say, "You are going to shoot Love Letter, and Luo Yuzhong, a top industry figure, will personally help you supervise the production. Liu Bige, a director who won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival, will help you as the director of photography. Chen Bige broke the convention of accepting roles and joined a new crew less than half a year after leaving the crew to play the leading role in your new film. Director Wang Zhong also brought Wintour Robe, the artistic director of the Jose-La Roche Film Festival, to visit your crew. All these things repeatedly remind people in this circle that you have already formed a considerable force. If you want to do something, you have a very powerful force to help you."
Lu Yanhe gradually realized what Chen Ziyan was talking about.
"Does a big tree attract the wind?" Lu Yanhe asked.
"No, it is the emergence of a new force, which will inevitably affect the interests of other interest groups." Chen Ziyan said, "For you, this is just a circle of friends, but for others, it means a new threat. If you are famous alone, you will only compete with other artists, but you are not. Tom White, the head of HP's Asia-Pacific region, gave priority to purchasing your projects, and other people's projects can only be ranked behind. Northern Lights Video has signed a long-term cooperation framework with you. The cooperation between others and Northern Lights Video will inevitably be affected. Who to give priority to funds is a question of extremely relevant interests. You can get the first generation of "Friends" to appear in the same frame, which Beijing and Taiwan can't do, and it is obvious that the actors of "Friends" trust you more and are closer to you."
Lu Yanhe was silent.
"Now, do you know why others are wary of you?" Chen Ziyan said, "Not only is it because a tall tree attracts the wind, but it is also because an innocent person is guilty of possessing a treasure."
Lu Yanhe took a deep breath.
"So what should I do? Try to produce less good works in the future?"
"Of course not." Chen Ziyan rolled her eyes at him. "I'm just reminding you that your current situation and status have changed dramatically. In the future, the attacks from others on you will probably be more like this time, saying that you are greedy for other people's things, or accusing you of being unworthy of your position. In short, they will definitely pull you down from this pedestal."
Lu Yanhe: "Sister Zi Yan, what do you mean -"
"I've told you so much because I hope you won't be provoked by these people's words. Stand up and admit that they are right and say that you really don't have as much influence as everyone says." Chen Ziyan said, "Don't take off the golden coat that others have put on you. Since many people have lifted you to this position, what you need to do is not to step down from this position, but to stay in this position as long as possible."
Lu Yanhe suddenly realized.
Chen Ziyan was worried that his "moral cleanliness" would break out again, so she went to explain herself and make herself "clear about her own identity".
"..."
"Sister Zi Yan, I don't think I'm so naive now." Lu Yanhe never had such an idea from beginning to end.
"That's good." Chen Ziyan smiled at him.
When Lu Yanhe saw the smile on her face, he knew that she didn't believe what he said.
——You are still very naive.
Her meaning was clearly written on her face.
"..."
-
In the afternoon, Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi went to the cinema to watch a newly released movie called "Behind the Golden Coat". This is a drama film about a tailor who secretly transmits information in the background of war and fierce situation during the Republic of China. It is similar to a biographical film, but this is a fictional character without a historical prototype, and the story of the character is filmed in the style of a spy war.
The movie did not perform very well at the box office during the summer season, with only over 6 million on the first day and only rising to over 8 million on the second day.
This movie is indeed not suitable for the summer season which is full of commercial films.
However, the movie has a very good reputation. Lu Yanhe only knew about this movie when he saw Zeng Qiao recommend it on WeChat Moments.
In the cinema, most people are watching the recent best-performing film, "The Legend Returns", a costume fantasy blockbuster that was released at the end of July. It has already earned billion yuan in box office revenue in almost two weeks. Under the sweep of this film, other new films including "Escape Plan" and "Assassination of Ming Dynasty" have been swept into the second tier. The box office performance cannot be said to be very poor, but it is not the winner of this summer season. The market potential of the older film "The Angry Crow" has been almost exhausted, and "Lost on Journey" currently only has a daily box office of millions, which can basically only be fixed at around million.
Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi waited until it got dark in the screening room before entering the cinema and sat in the third row from the back.
When buying the tickets online, there was no one else in this row to prevent Lu Yanhe from being recognized by others.
However, there were not many people in the cinema.
Lu Yanhe took a quick look and saw that there were only about a dozen people.
"Why was the movie 'Behind the Golden Robe' chosen to be released in this period?" Lu Yanhe asked puzzledly.
Chen Siqi said: "It may be because Behind the Golden Coat does not have any big stars, but only talented actors. Even if it is released during a small period like the Mid-Autumn Festival, it still does not have the kind of cast that can attract audiences to the cinema. It is better to release it during the summer season, which has a large enough base. If the publicity is done properly, it can also get some box office. The production cost of Behind the Golden Coat is definitely not very high. If it can get more than 30 million in the cinema, it should be able to make a profit. Now looking at its premiere, it should be able to get nearly 20 million in the first weekend. With good word of mouth, it may be able to stabilize in the long run and make a profit when it is released in theaters."
Chen Siqi now knows more about film promotion and marketing than Lu Yanhe.
She thinks a lot and often writes reviews on the film and television review section of the self-media "Jump Up". What she writes most is actually analyzing the operation of a film from the perspective of economy and market. This is what she is interested in. Writing these articles is not so much for others to read as it is for her to write down her own thinking process and conclusions.
After hearing what Chen Siqi said, Lu Yanhe felt that it made sense.
The male lead of Behind the Golden Robe is Feng Shuo, a talented actor that everyone knows if you follow the film and television industry, but his fans and popularity are not enough to say how famous he is. In addition to Feng Shuo, none of the other actors are big-name stars or traffic stars, but all of them are actors with a certain degree of fame but relatively few fans.
The early data of a movie like this is definitely not going to be very good. Plus, it's a pseudo-biography without a prototype, so once the audience gets a little information about it, they basically won't choose to go to the cinema.
In this case, the choice of release date is relatively unimportant. What is important is how to "fool" as many audiences as possible.
Ten minutes after the movie started, a man suddenly came over.
She also sits in this row.
Seeing this, Lu Yanhe immediately lowered his head and made room for the person to pass.
When the other person passed by them, he gently said sorry and sat down just two seats away from Lu Yanhe.
Lu Yanhe turned his head and took a look. With the light from the screen, Lu Yanhe could see the other person's profile clearly.
She is a woman in her forties.
Lu Yanhe raised his left hand and supported it on the side of his face, slightly blocking it.
-
In the two-hour movie, there was almost no communication between Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi.
The movie exceeded both of their expectations and was not at all dull or boring as they had initially thought it might be.
The whole story is very compact and fast-paced.
The story is about a tailor who lived in Donglin City. Because of his excellent skills, he was very popular among the ladies in the city. As a result, he often went in and out of the mansions of various powerful people.
One day, the tailor was going to an adjutant's house to measure the size of his wife and make new clothes. On the way, he was hijacked by two people, one named Li Mazi and the other named Ma Chengquan, who threatened him to bring people in. His apprentice was kept as a hostage by Ma Chengquan, and he took Li Mazi into the adjutant's house. Li Mazi wanted to steal something. Under his cover, Li Mazi got what he wanted to steal without any danger.
Unexpectedly, that night, Li Mazi knocked on the door of the tailor shop, seriously injured. They were exposed, and his companion Ma Chengquan had died. He finally escaped, seriously injured and dying, and stuffed a stolen cloth bag into the tailor's hand, asking him to deliver it to Ruyi Inn in the west of the city.
The tailor wanted to stay out of this mess, but he didn't want the man to die in his tailor shop, so he went to find a doctor late at night. Just after he went out a short distance, he saw a group of people surrounding his tailor shop, led by people from the deputy governor's office. They were looking for the stolen cloth bag - and the cloth bag was still in his arms.
Before the tailor had time to think about it, he saw his apprentice being dragged out. Before he could find out the whereabouts of his master, he was shot to death - the fourteen-year-old boy was an orphan picked up by him. The gun was pointed at his head, and he was so nervous that his legs were shaking. Even in this situation, he refused to tell anyone the whereabouts of his master.
The gun went off straight away.
The tailor's eyes were bloodshot from the shock of this scene, and he wanted to rush out, but the sight of Li Mazi being carried out from inside made him regain some composure. He then understood his situation, and knew that once he showed up, he would surely face the same fate as his apprentice, being killed. Li Mazi was taken away by the deputy governor's mansion, and the tailor could only secretly go to Ruyi Inn. But when the tailor arrived at Ruyi Inn cautiously, he happened to run into it being surrounded by another group of people, and only one person escaped. When he was being chased, the tailor saved him. The tailor told him about his own affairs and gave the cloth bag to Xu San.
In order to survive, the tailor had to escape from Donglin City to avoid being searched by those people. And the man the tailor saved, Xu San, also had to escape from Donglin City as soon as possible to deliver the things. As the two tried various methods, they became more and more familiar and close to each other. The tailor treated the young Xu San as his own son who had died early. Xu San also learned some needlework from the tailor and said that he wanted to mend his own clothes. He mended them for several days.
However, the Donglin City was too heavily guarded, and there was no way out. At this time, news suddenly came that the revolutionary army was defeated at Huyi Pass, and there was a lively cheer in the city. Xu San was anxious and said that he must leave the city immediately, even if he died. The tailor said that he was going to die by being so reckless. The two quarreled and parted unhappily.
The tailor was found and captured by the adjutant's men. The adjutant asked about the whereabouts of the list, and the tailor guessed that the so-called list was probably what Li Mazi stole from the adjutant, in the cloth bag, but he gritted his teeth and said nothing, saying that he didn't know anything about the list. The adjutant asked him if he knew Xu San, and he just said that he didn't know Xu San at all.
……
This is actually a story about a small person against the backdrop of a turbulent situation.
Having seen the movie "The Sound of Wind", when Lu Yanhe saw Xu San learning needlework from the tailor, he roughly guessed what Xu San would do next - in this world, especially in spy war dramas, there is no precedent of using needle and thread to embroider information on clothes to convey intelligence.
When seeing this, Lu Yanhe basically knew how the movie would end.
Xu San must die. Only after his death can the list on his body be taken back by his adjutant, and the "list code" on his clothes can be delivered in the form of a corpse.
But how to write about the character of the tailor? What Lu Yanhe didn't expect was that Xu San was caught by the adjutant the day after the tailor was arrested. The adjutant asked Xu San where the list was. Xu San would rather die than surrender, but someone investigated his whereabouts yesterday and found him in his hiding place. After the adjutant got the list, he killed Xu San directly and was about to kill the tailor, but his wife came forward and saved the tailor's life, kept him in the mansion, and made clothes for him. So the tailor became the exclusive tailor of the adjutant's wife.
However, the situation of the war suddenly changed slowly. On the day when the revolutionary army entered Donglin City, the adjutant's residence was surrounded immediately. The tailor, as the tailor of the adjutant's residence, was imprisoned together. Until the evening, an officer suddenly took him away. When he thought he was going to be killed, he was brought to a familiar piece of clothing. It was Xu San's clothing.
The officer asked him if he knew a man named Xu San.
The tailor said nothing. Over the years, no matter who asked him, he just pretended that he had never known Xu San.
The officer asked him if he could read.
The tailor still said nothing.
The officer suddenly pointed at the clothes in front of him and asked him, "Do you recognize this clothes?"
The officer took out a palm-sized piece of cloth from the interlayer of the clothes, with a few lines of words embroidered on it.
The officer said that what the tailor helped Li Mazi steal from the adjutant's house was a list of spies, which recorded the list of rats planted by the adjutant in the revolutionary army. At that time, Li Mazi and Xu San wanted to send this list to the revolutionary army as soon as possible so that they could get rid of these rats.
In addition to the rat list, there is also Xu San's story about being hunted and then being rescued by the tailor, and the two trying to leave the city together. Xu San wrote on it that if the tailor is still alive when the revolutionary army enters the city, please ask the superiors to thank him on his behalf.
It was not until this time that the tailor realized why he had been involved in the life-and-death crisis that year.
Towards the end of the film, Li Mazi, who the tailor thought had been dead for a long time, was found in the dungeon of the adjutant's mansion. He had been imprisoned there for all these years, and the adjutant hired a doctor to treat him in order to pry more information out of him.
The tailor watched the skinny Li Mazi being escorted to the car by his companions, and the car drove away. He turned around and looked at the clothes in front of him, and recalled the time when he and Xu San were in trouble together, hiding secretly in a house, and Xu San clumsily followed him to learn needlework. Because they were afraid of lighting a lamp to attract attention, they could only do this work under the moonlight.
The tailor scolded him for being so picky and wanting his clothes mended at such a late hour.
A shy smile appeared on his young face.
He said at the time: "My father is also a tailor, but I seldom have new clothes to wear. Every time my clothes are torn, he mends them for me. I asked him why he didn't make new clothes for me. He said that in such difficult times, how could there be so many new clothes to wear. Sometimes, there is only a small hole, which I don't think is a big deal, but when he sees it, he will definitely ask me to take it off and mend it for me. I said that this is too much trouble, so I might as well mend a few more holes at a time. He said that the torn places must be mended in time. If not, the holes will become bigger and bigger, and more and more difficult to mend, and may not be able to mend them when you want to."
The tailor was staring at the clothes in front of him in a daze. There were many soldiers coming and going around him, and no one paid attention to this man who was staring at clothes in a daze. No one knew what he was thinking behind his dazed eyes.
The film ends at this scene, and then the ending theme plays.
-
"I haven't seen this kind of movie in the cinema for a long time."
Lu Yanhe heard a girl in the front row talking to her boyfriend.
"Yeah." Her boyfriend said, "I was quite moved after watching it."
Lu Yanhe let out a long sigh. While the lights in the theater were still off, he said to Chen Siqi, "Let's go first."
Chen Siqi nodded.
As soon as he finished speaking, the woman sitting on Lu Yanhe's left suddenly stood up and was about to go over first.
Lu Yanhe had no choice but to let her pass first.
But she stopped beside him.
"Are you Lu Yanhe?" she asked in a low voice.
Lu Yanhe was shocked. Ah, he was recognized? !
He whispered, "You're mistaken. I just look a bit like him."
"Don't pretend, you must be him, the voice is the same." The woman said very confidently, and then she said something that shocked Lu Yanhe, "I'm Zhou Changying, the director of Behind the Golden Coat. What a coincidence to meet you here."
Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi were both stunned by this incredible coincidence.
When watching a movie, you may also meet the director of the movie.
However, what Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi did not expect was that twenty minutes later, Zhou Changying would directly propose in the car that she wanted to make a sequel to "Behind the Golden Robe" and asked Lu Yanhe if he was willing to invest.
Lu Yanhe was confused.
Of course, Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi would not respond to such a matter immediately. They chatted briefly with Zhou Changying, exchanged contact information, and promised to respond after thinking it over. Only then did Zhou Changying leave.
After the others left, Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi looked at each other.
Chen Siqi said: "I searched online and found that she is not a liar. She is indeed Zhou Changying."
"Uh, my mind is a little confused now, I can't react. Why...why did she suddenly ask me to invest?"
"Maybe it's because others think you are rich?" Chen Siqi asked.
"I'm not rich enough to invest in a movie." Lu Yanhe complained.
Investing in movies is a gamble.
Chen Siqi said: "The film Behind the Golden Robe was produced by Ruyi Pictures. Why did Zhou Changying want to make a sequel? Why didn't he go to Ruyi Pictures? Don't they want to make a sequel?"
Lu Yanhe: "I think I need to ask Sister Zi Yan to help me find out."
Chen Siqi nodded: "Yes."
On the way to the hotel, Chen Siqi sat in the passenger seat and searched for Zhou Changying's information on his mobile phone.
"Director Zhou has had quite a rough life." Chen Siqi said to Lu Yanhe while looking at his phone.
"What's wrong?" Lu Yanhe asked.
"Except for the Ruyi Films she just worked with, all the film companies she worked for have collapsed." Chen Siqi showed an incredible expression, "Some media directly said that she was a jinx director." (End of this chapter)
