Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 37 New: Arrogant

Maybe it’s because it’s the end of the year and the commercial performance market is busy, so agents and artists are all busy. In recent days, Li Qiutang has clearly felt that there have been fewer calls.

"The Warring States" has been released for three weeks and the box office has exceeded 6000 million. This costume blockbuster with a total investment of 1.5 million is destined to not break even, but it doesn't matter. The overseas copyright of this film has sold well, and costume action films have always had a market overseas. The investment of producers such as Huayi should be recovered, but it is probably unlikely to make money.

Andy Lau's fans were still dreaming that "Warring States" could break 7000 million. The next day, "Curse of the Golden Flower" was released, and it raked in 1500 million on the first day, and 9600 million in the first four days of the weekend.

“The Warring States” has been squeezed to the point where it’s almost out of screenings.

The story of "Curse of the Golden Flower" is very simple, so simple that many people don't know that it was adapted from "Thunderstorm".

But despite this, this is still a movie worth buying a ticket to watch, and the audio-visual aspect is worth the price of the ticket.

The ending song "Chrysanthemum Terrace" is very nice.

Isn’t the screen full of big nainai beautiful? Even if you don’t watch this, Zhang Yimou’s use of color and the arrangement of scenes are beautiful, even if the audience who doesn’t understand it must admit that it is beautiful.

Has Li Qiutang seen it?
How could he have time?

20 days after the outline of "Arrogant" was finalized, the screenwriters came up with the first draft of the script, which was rejected by Li Qiutang on the grounds that it contained too much romantic content.

Li Qiutang asked Cheng Xiazi to leave Luoyang with Ni Yan in the end, so the screenwriters arranged a love scene for the two.

"What I said at the time was, if you didn't point out the relationship between Cheng Xiazi and Ni Yan, and they left together, leaving the audience to guess, then you added a love scene that made it clear."

"Then what is the relationship between Cheng Xiazi and Ni Yan?" the screenwriter asked him.

"It doesn't matter what kind of relationship it is." Li Qiutang explained, "It's a martial arts story. When you encounter injustice on the road, you draw your sword to help. What does it have to do with you? It doesn't matter whether Ni Yan fell in love with Cheng Xiazi or Cheng Xiazi pitied Ni Yan. It doesn't matter whether they are friends or ambiguous. In the end, they left together."

Li Qiutang continued, "I think you are still writing the traditional martial arts story, with love between young men and women, and heroic spirit. Retract your thoughts, this is a story of helping each other with swords, don't add so many unnecessary things, and make sure Cheng Xiazi fights enough. I bought a ticket to the cinema to watch martial arts movies, not to see your romance, I came to see you fight. Remember this.

"If you can take action, you will never talk nonsense." The last sentence made the screenwriters laugh. "For more than 100 minutes, we want to make the audience feel good."

Li Qiutang further proposed: "There should be more fighting scenes, and they should be fought in different scenes, using different weapons and methods. The audience has seen too many flying heroes, so we should write different fighting scenes. How to fight with a knife, a gun, a whistle stick, Yuwen Ying's bow and arrow, and all the strange people under him, how to fight with their weapons, all should be written. How to fight high up on the roof, how to fight in the alley, how to fight in a narrow space, how to fight indoors, and how to fight on the street."

"You have to fight from beginning to end like this." said the screenwriter.

But this is what Li Qiutang wants: "Just fight from beginning to end. This is our selling point, exciting and diverse fighting scenes to satisfy the audience's desire for excitement. No romantic feelings, no fighting for the country and the people, just killing bad guys, why put so many shackles on yourself."

After teaching the screenwriter a lesson, Li Qiutang still personally participated in the writing of the script.

Li Qiutang and the screenwriters unanimously adopted the classic three-act structure: the beginning event, the characters appear, the main story is introduced - the story develops, the protagonist solves one problem after another, the protagonist falls into crisis, the protagonist solves the crisis, completes the transformation - the final decisive battle, the protagonist defeats the villain, wins, and ends.

The three-act play is the most classic structure in the history of drama and will never go out of style. The difference lies in whether you know how to use it or not.

Last year's "The Promise" and "Huo Yuanjia" were both three-act plays, especially "Huo Yuanjia", whose structure was as standard as a textbook, while "The Promise" did not use it well.

"In the first scene, the opening scene is Blind Cheng carrying out a bounty mission. He enters a room and announces himself as a ghostwriter. People laugh at him: 'What era is it? There are still ghostwriters?' Then someone else explains what a ghostwriter is through someone else's mouth: 'A wandering thief who catches thieves for the government to earn a few bounties.' I don't like to use narration and subtitles, which is too lazy. There has to be a fight here, from indoors to outdoors, with the focus on outdoors. We can arrange a chase scene on the rooftop, up and down. After a fight, the criminal is dying and tries to bribe Blind Cheng with money: 'You catch thieves for the bounty, I'll give it to you, and you let me go.' But Blind Cheng refused and still caught him.

"This scene really establishes Cheng the Blind Man. He is a ghostwriter by profession, has great martial arts skills, and has a strong sense of justice. Unfortunately, he is blind."

"Then Cheng Xiazi took the captured criminal to the government office to hand over the person and claim the reward. He once again introduced himself as a ghostwriter. The people in the government office also said: 'There are still ghostwriters now?' This once again emphasized the decline of his identity. The government office handing over the person can be inserted into a reversal. The thief who was caught before confessed on the spot that there was a bounty-bearing criminal who wanted to clean up his name among the constables of the government office. The protagonist took action and subdued another one.

“These are just two fight scenes, which further strengthen the character of Cheng Xiazi.

"After completing the task, Blind Cheng went to the tavern to drink. Here I want to bring up the issue of identity. The guests in the tavern knew that Blind Cheng was a ghostwriter, blind and dirty, so they avoided him and whispered to each other, saying that although ghostwriters caught thieves, they were not called thief catchers, and they only did it to earn the bounty, which was not a legitimate business. The people respected and feared ghostwriters, and even the inns were unwilling to let Blind Cheng stay in the guest rooms. Blind Cheng did not mind and rode his horse to the wild inn outside the city."

"Here you are still emphasizing the decline of ghostwriters, which is the decline of martial arts and heroes." The screenwriter understood Li Qiutang's expression. "Yes." Li Qiutang affirmed, "The next day, Cheng Xiazi entered the city. At this time, Ni Yan was about to appear. She was getting married. Cheng Xiazi passed by her house and smelled the wine. He asked for a glass of wedding wine and gave money as a share. In the middle of the wedding banquet, Ni Yan's bully brother came back to attend his sister's wedding and scared away the guests, but Cheng Xiazi did not leave and sat there drinking. The bully brother wanted to scare Cheng Xiazi, but Cheng Xiazi showed off his skills and subdued him. After drinking, Cheng Xiazi left.

"After Cheng Xiazi left, the villain Yuwen Ying came on stage with his men. Here, Ni Yan's brother must fight with Yuwen Ying's men, and Yuwen Ying must show off his kung fu to set the stage for the character. The result, of course, was that Ni Yan's brother was killed, Ni Yan's groom was also killed, and she herself was insulted by Yuwen Ying, but Yuwen Ying was careless and did not kill Ni Yan.

"Blind Cheng went out of the city at night and passed by the Ni family. He smelled blood, went into the house to check, and rescued Ni Yan. The next day, the city's constables came to the door and found that it was the Yuwen family who did it. They didn't dare to offend the Yuwen family, so they persuaded Ni Yan to give up. Ni Yan naturally refused and said she would go to file a complaint.

"The constable arrested Ni Yan. On the way back to the government office, Blind Cheng told the constable that even if he didn't intend to investigate the case, he should not arrest Ni Yan, after all, her whole family had just died. The constable didn't listen, so Blind Cheng beat up the constables in the street and saved Ni Yan. Ni Yan begged Blind Cheng to take her to Luoyang to file a complaint. Blind Cheng refused at first, but later agreed to take her.

"The first act ends here," said Li Qiutang.

"Why didn't you let Cheng Xiazi sleep in the Ni family's backyard during the wedding banquet?"

"Blind Cheng is a martial arts master," Li Qiutang said, "He was sleeping in the backyard while Yuwen Ying killed the whole family in the front yard, but he didn't even wake up? This is too abnormal."

Li Qiutang went on to say: "The second act opens in Luoyang. Qin Niang can appear. Qin Niang is Cheng Xiazi's confidante and also accepts the bounty business for him. Her wish is to save enough money to cure Cheng Xiazi's eyes. Here we have to lay the groundwork, saying that the miracle doctor will return to Luoyang in a few days, and she will take Cheng Xiazi to cure his illness. Then a third person is arranged to come in to find Qin Niang. In fact, her function is to tell Cheng Xiazi that Ni Yan failed to file a complaint and was captured by Yuwen Ying.

"After Cheng Xiazi found out, he took the initiative to find Yuwen Ying's men and arranged a gambling house scene. There must be fighting. It has been a long time since we last had a fight. We need to mobilize the audience's emotions. After the gambling house fight, there will be another fight scene at Ni Yan's location. After the two fights, Ni Yan will be rescued.

"Another scene of torturing Yuwen Ying's men is inserted, as cruel as it can be, to tell the audience the cause of the whole thing: Yuwen Ying tried to please the general's youngest daughter, dug up an ancient tomb, stole the Night Pearl, and to keep it secret, Yuwen Ying killed all the people who helped him rob the tomb. Ni Yan's brother was the supervisor of the tomb robbery and escaped. This was Yuwen Ying's motive for killing Ni Yan's family.

"Yuwen Ying finally learned of Blind Cheng's existence, and he began to retaliate. He first warned Blind Cheng to mind his own business after he arrested Qin Niang.

"Of course Blind Cheng refused to accept the decision, so he turned around and went to find the general. He asked Blind Cheng to fight with the general's men, and then go upstairs and tell the general through the door that Yuwen Ying, the man your daughter is going to marry, is not a good person. The general knew the whole story and broke off the engagement with the Yuwen family.

"After the Yuwen family was rejected, Yuwen Ying's brother was furious and beat and scolded Yuwen Ying. Yuwen Ying finally couldn't stand it anymore and killed his brother and Qin Niang and dumped their bodies in the city. Yuwen Ying was completely furious."

"After Qin Niang died, Cheng Xiazi would definitely not spare Yuwen Ying, so he would take the initiative to provoke Yuwen Ying. Here, there would be another fight. In one part, Yuwen Ying sent people to kill Cheng Xiazi. In the street fight, Xiazi used the terrain advantage to fight them all by himself. The second part is that Cheng Xiazi took the initiative to go to the technical academy under the Yuwen family and killed a group of fat and thin female killers by himself. The audience will definitely like to watch this."

"After these two matches, the audience must be relaxed, but we can't relax. We must put Cheng Xiazi in danger at this time. Cheng Xiazi was betrayed by the store owner and was attacked by Yuwen Ying's men in the middle of the night. Cheng Xiazi can't see, but his ears are good, so Yuwen Ying and his men used sound to interfere with Cheng Xiazi's judgment. Cheng Xiazi was seriously injured and dying, so he jumped out of the window and escaped."

"The seriously injured Blind Cheng was saved by the doctor. Blind Cheng is recovering from his injuries and receiving treatment here."

The screenwriter has already guessed how Li Qiutang will tell this story later: "Cheng Xiazi completes his physical and psychological transformation here with the doctor."

Li Qiutang smiled and said, "Yes, this part is very cliché, but it works very well. After the illness was cured, Cheng Xiazi would of course go back to seek revenge on Yuwen Ying.

"The second act is over."

"The third scene is when Cheng Xiazi breaks into Yuwen Mansion alone and kills people until the sky is dark and blood flows like a river. I want to make it into a game level-breaking mode here. Each courtyard of Yuwen's house is a level. Cheng Xiazi starts killing people from the moment he enters the door, and keeps killing people until he reaches Yuwen Ying in the inner courtyard. All kinds of fighting scenes are arranged. When the blade is bent, he just picks up another weapon and continues to kill.

"Of course, the final scene is a one-on-one duel with Yuwen Ying. Cheng Xiazi is too tired and is being beaten by Yuwen Ying. At the last critical moment, Cheng Xiazi opens his eyes and kills Yuwen Ying. He has healed his eyes and has been pretending to kill Yuwen Ying all along, just for this moment.

"The final ending scene is what I said before, Cheng Xiazi is alone with his horse, Ni Yan is waiting for him, and the two of them leave together, ending!"

The story is very complete and simple.

"Roughly speaking, there are more than ten fighting scenes in this play."

"have to!"

“Just write it like this.” Li Qiutang’s story is very complete. What he wants is a simple and complete story, but the fighting scenes must be exciting and must hook the audience.

(End of this chapter)