Huayu Entertainment 1995 started with hijacking.

Chapter 376

Upon hearing this, Gao Yuanyuan knew what Wu Yuchen was thinking: "What are you looking at? What's so interesting?"

However, Wu Yuchen wasn't about to give up. He said seriously, "Being an actor requires professionalism. I'll give you some advice so you can act better. So many actresses across the country want my suggestions but haven't had the chance yet!"

Gao Yuanyuan looked at Wu Yuchen suspiciously, wrinkled her little nose and said, "Then it's settled, you can only look, not touch!"

Wu Yuchen quickly agreed, "Okay, okay!"

A moment later, when Wu Yuchen saw Gao Yuanyuan emerge in a pristine white nurse's uniform, his eyes lit up. Gao Yuanyuan was already known for her pure and innocent image, and in the white nurse's uniform, with the aura of a white-clad angel, she appeared even more gentle and charming, truly a sight to behold.

Gao Yuanyuan circled around in front of Wu Yuchen and asked with a smile, "How was it?"

Wu Yuchen nodded in agreement: "Not bad, not bad! Beautiful, elegant, and pure, I felt an instant liking for her!"

He then added, "But you can't tell just by looking; you have to try it out in practice!"

A look of doubt appeared in Gao Yuanyuan's eyes. Practical training?

Wu Yuchen explained, "Giving injections—that's an essential skill for nurses!"

Gao Yuanyuan scoffed, "Fine! If you're not afraid of pain, I'll give you a needle!"

After saying that, she turned around to get a syringe. She had actually brought a syringe home for practice.

Then, as soon as she turned around, Wu Yuchen wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. He pressed close to her back and whispered in her ear, "Nurse, where are you going? I need my shot right now~"

Gao Yuanyuan could feel Wu Yuchen pressing against her, and she knew what he meant by "injection," so she said in a coquettish voice, "You're so annoying~"

Wu Yuchen hugged her and rubbed against her, saying, "Nurse, I suddenly have a stubborn illness; I'm unbearably hot and bothered. Only an injection can solve this~"

As the two entangled, the injection began...

The controversy surrounding "Mantou" was quite significant. Although this first-generation Chinese parody video was still quite immature, it was only 2006. Hu Ge was indeed very talented. If this video had been released more than 10 years later, he would have become a major internet celebrity. Unfortunately, now his popularity only leads to lawsuits.

Although Hu Ge did not use the video for commercial purposes, the furious Kai Zi still threatened to sue him. The usually cheerful Kai Zi was completely out of character this time, shouting that he would take Hu Ge to court and sue him for defamation, and would never let it go!

However, Kai Zi obviously did not expect the subsequent reaction. Online netizens launched a poll, and more than 95% of netizens supported Hu Ge. More than 100,000 netizens launched a joint signature, believing that Hu Ge, who brought them simple and unpretentious joy, was innocent!

Reporters are always good at stirring things up, interviewing various celebrities and directors about this matter. Wu Yuchen and Zhang Yimou, who were gathered together to discuss the second round of the Olympic Games elections, naturally became the reporters' main targets. The two are meeting every day now, so it's inevitable that they'll be cornered by reporters.

"Director Zhang, have you seen 'A Bloodbath Caused by a Steamed Bun'?"

Zhang Yimou gave a slightly embarrassed smile: "A friend recommended it to me."

"What were your thoughts after watching it?"

Zhang Yimou chuckled and said, "I just find it quite amusing."

"Director Zhang, what are your thoughts on parody movies? Do you mind if your movies are parodied?"

Zhang Yimou, with a simple and honest smile, waved his hand and said, "I don't mind, I'll share the joy with the people~"

Clang, clang, clang! Chen Kaizi was so angry when he saw this interview with Zhang Yimou that he slammed his fist on the table until his hand turned red.

Damn it, what do you mean?! Are you implying that I'm petty and can't share joy with the people?!
Damn it, you always act so honest, but then you stab your brother Kai in the back. You're really something!

However, what attracted more attention was Wu Yuchen's attitude towards this matter. In an interview, he smiled and said:
"I think adapting movies online is quite interesting and entertaining. Internet culture also reflects the attitudes of today's young people. We should take it seriously and create more good works."

Movie parodies are nothing new. Jurassic Park has been parodied before, and Hollywood even has its own parody film series, Scary Movie. As far as I know, Infernal Affairs has also been parodied in many funny versions in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the past two years.

A lawsuit? I don't think Director Chen would make such a fuss over something so trivial; he should have that much magnanimity. Unless the production company wants to use this for publicity.

Wu Yuchen's words were a veiled attempt to support Hu Ge, advising Chen Kaizi to be more tolerant. He also raised the issue that if Chen Kaizi continued to sue, he would be using Hu Ge's popularity to promote his own film.

This is no joke. Think about it, "Mantou" only really exploded in popularity three weeks after "The Promise" was released. At that time, "The Promise" had almost exhausted its box office potential, but the popularity of "Mantou" kept the topic of "The Promise" high for more than a month, attracting a group of people to the cinema and helping to increase the box office. You should be thanking them. You, Chen Kaizi, shouldn't be acting innocent after getting the benefits!
In fact, Wu Yuchen was giving Kai a heads-up: if you don't file a lawsuit, you can still save face; but if it gets escalated, your reputation will be completely ruined.

When Chen Kaige saw Wu Yuchen's words, she felt utterly defeated and had no choice but to swallow this loss...

As expected, after Wu Yuchen spoke out, many media outlets and film critics who had previously hesitated to speak out due to Chen Kaizi's influence, and even many industry colleagues such as Cui Jian and Lu Chuan, commented that Chen Kaizi was outdated, out of touch with the times, petty, too serious, and overreacting. This pushed the matter to a new climax, turning the "steamed bun blood incident" into a phenomenon. Some lawyers seeking fame even volunteered to provide Hu Ge with free legal aid, determined to fight Chen Kaizi and his wife to the bitter end!
Even Hong Huang, Chen Kaizi's ex-wife who divorced him many years ago, is sharpening her knives and has written an article on her blog titled "Ex-husband and Steamed Bun". "Because my ex-husband feels bad about a steamed bun, all my friends have been making fun of me without any restraint this week... If you can't even hold a steamed bun, then you're obviously petty."

This put Chen Kaizi in a predicament where he was surrounded by enemies. When reporters tried to interview him again, Kaizi was too annoyed to speak and finally said, "I don't want to deal with those boring people," after being harassed so much.

He remained silent after that, burying his head in the sand like an ostrich.

Hu Ge stepped forward to thank everyone for their support and apologized again to Chen Kaizi, stating that his disrespect for Chen's work had led to these consequences, and he felt deeply ashamed. It must be said that this young man is quite clever; this gave Chen Kaizi a way out and also earned him a good reputation among the public.

The farce finally came to an end. Chen Kaizi didn't actually pursue the lawsuit further. After all, everyone was on Hu Ge's side. Even if he won the case, he would only lose more. And even if he won against Hu Ge, could he sue so many people at once?

In reality, although he earned more box office revenue this time due to the popularity of "Mantou", he completely lost the reputation he had built up over the past decades. Director Chen's high reputation in the public's mind was severely damaged, and it won't be as effective in the future.

But there was nothing Chen Kai could do but swallow his anger; the situation was beyond his control.

Ultimately, the way he made "The Promise" and the extensive pre-release publicity essentially meant he used his reputation and brand to justify the current box office performance, so he brought this result upon himself.

Wu Yuchen only gave that one interview. Since returning, he has devoted most of his energy to the Olympic Games plan and has even temporarily stopped working on the preparations for "Reign of Assassins".

On January 24, the Olympic Organizing Committee held the second round of proposal competition at the Beijing International Convention Center. Five teams participated in the competition: Wu Yuchen and Zhang Yimou's team, Li An's Gehua team, the People's Army team, the National Song and Dance Troupe and CCTV's joint team, and the only foreign team, the French ECA2 team.

Of these four teams, the People's Liberation Army team and the National Song and Dance Troupe team, which jointly have the strongest connections, are undoubtedly the most powerful. However, this Olympics is of great importance, and the higher-ups are watching closely. Even the strongest connections won't be of much use unless the proposal is truly on par with others, and a choice is difficult to make, in which case your team will be given more consideration.

In terms of content, the most threatening team should be Li An's Gehua team. After all, Li An is truly capable. He has a profound understanding of traditional culture, and his team is full of talented people, such as the famous architect Lin Ying, Lin Huiyin's niece, as well as Michel, the chief producer of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and Dickinson, the lighting designer of the 2004 Athens Olympics, which adds to the team's experience.

Moreover, compared to the first round, the other four proposals in the second round were significantly improved. After all, they had already entered the finals and had undoubtedly been refining their work over the past few months in hopes of winning. Wu Yuchen and Zhang Yimou had already perfected the content of their proposals in the first round, and this time they focused on the overall completeness, how to allocate and combine tradition and modernity, and how to unify national and global perspectives.

In short, while other companies were still working hard on creativity and content, Wu Yuchen and his team were already considering things more deeply.

After finishing his second presentation, Wu Yuchen stretched and smiled at Zhang Yimou, saying, "Finally, one thing is temporarily settled, and I don't have to worry about it all the time!"

Zhang Yimou nodded in agreement, saying, "Whether we get selected or not, we'll just wait for the final results!"

Wu Yuchen then asked Zhang Yimou, "Brother Zhang, how's your film 'Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles' coming along?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yimou smiled and said, "It went fairly smoothly; we finished filming two weeks ago."

This film took nearly three months to shoot, which is quite a long time for an art film.

"Senior Brother Zhang, which film festival are you planning to attend?"

As a pure art film, "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" is bound to take the path of participating in film festivals and competing for awards.

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Yimou said, "I reckon the time for Cannes is a bit tight, but Venice and Berlin should be fine. We'll see how things go then."

In my previous life, in 2005, Zhang Yimou was invited by the Tokyo International Film Festival to serve as the chairman of the jury. Considering that the lead actor, Ken Takakura, was Japanese, his film "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" was not screened at that year's festival and did not participate in the awards. Therefore, it did not participate in the three major European film festivals.

However, it's already 2006, and Zhang Yimou went to the Tokyo International Film Festival last year. This year, "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" will definitely be shown at the Big Three.

It was at the 18th Tokyo International Film Festival in 2005 that Jin Yaqin, the elderly actress from "We Two," won the Best Actress award. Although her performance was certainly worthy of the award, it must be said that Zhang Yimou, as the jury president, definitely played a role.

From this perspective, Zhang Yimou really takes good care of Chinese-language filmmakers. Almost every time he serves as a judge, he manages to secure awards for Chinese-language films, and Li An is the biggest beneficiary of this.

Wu Yuchen smiled knowingly and said, "I promised Koslick in Berlin a while ago that I would be a member of the Berlin jury next year. If you have a great film coming out, you have to go and support me!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yimou immediately understood. Wu Yuchen's words, "I'm just showing my support," were practically a promise to take care of him if he went. He promptly replied, "Oh, then I'll definitely be attending the Berlin Film Festival!"

It's obvious that with Wu Yuchen as a judge, "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" has a much higher chance of winning a major award. Zhang Yimou may be an honest man, but he's not stupid either; he'll definitely take advantage of something so obviously beneficial.

Wu Yuchen smiled upon hearing this; such things were quite normal. He believed that, besides himself, other judges would also invite films from their own countries to participate in the screenings. The festival organizers were happy to see judges using their influence to invite excellent films to the festival.

The three major film festivals are inherently competitive, and attracting better films and more renowned filmmakers enhances their influence. Directors of Zhang Yimou's caliber are sought after by all three major European film festivals. The Berlin Film Festival organizers are certainly pleased that Wu Yuchen was able to bring him there.

As for whether there will be any favoritism during the selection process, we should trust the judges' professionalism! In any case, Wu Yuchen is quite confident in his influence and ability to stir up controversy!

This year's Spring Festival film season was almost entirely dominated by one movie: Jet Li's "Fearless"!
(End of this chapter)