Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 67 Back to Action
Li Qiutang was bragging: "It's hard to say who will win the Best Actor award, but Liu Jialing will definitely win the Best Actress award." Everyone sat together, predicting who would win the Golden Rooster Award tonight.

"Curiosity Kills the Cat is a bad movie!"

Li Qiutang asked back: "Will the Golden Rooster Awards mind giving the Best Actress award to a bad movie?"

"Liu Jialing's acting wasn't good either. Li Bingbing's performance in The Legend of Zu was better than hers. I'm optimistic about Li Bingbing."

Li Qiutang gave her own analysis: "Look, Liu Jialing is a mainlander in Hong Kong. She only came to the south when she was fifteen or sixteen years old. She has been looked down upon in Hong Kong over the years. She has been called a northern girl by the locals for so many years. This is due to her hard work. This year's Golden Rooster Awards was held in Suzhou. Liu Jialing is from Suzhou and is also the image ambassador of this year's Golden Rooster Awards. She has worked hard for so many years and has not won any film awards. She should be given one this time." Even the Best Actress award she won at the Academy Awards later was also due to her seniority and hard work.

The two reasons Li Qiutang gave were all things outside the movie, commonly known as off-the-plan tricks.

Except for Rene Liu, all the other five nominees came. Not only did Carina Lau come, she also brought Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

"Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress...Yan Bingyan."

"And Liu Jialing."

The director obviously knew who the heroine of tonight was, and the big screen shot was given directly to Liu Jialing.

"See, that's what I said." Li Qiutang said with a smile.

There was a gap of five weeks between the announcement of the shortlist and the award ceremony. Li Qiutang no longer minded the fact that she was not shortlisted at all.

If he had no nominations, then so had no nominations. He didn't want to serve. Although he came from a legitimate academic background, he had never been interested in the various awards controlled by the academic elders. Of course, his indifference did not prevent him from making some sarcastic remarks.

On the second day after the Golden Rooster Awards, some media released photos of Xia Yu and Yuan Quan holding hands and kissing. The two had miraculously reunited, and Gao Yuanyuan became a "joke."

Early in the morning of that day, Li Qiutang went to watch the editing of "No One in My Eyes". After nearly 3 months, the film finally completed the rough cut of 180 minutes!

Li Qiutang wanted to invite the two brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei to be the first audience, but the two bosses were busy and could not attend.

In the end, only a few behind-the-scenes creators of "No One" and Chen Guofu were invited to watch it together.

The rough cut is already very good. Although there is no music, dubbing or color grading, the biggest selling point - the action scenes - are already watchable.

The fierce movements, coupled with the sharp editing and the director's excellent camera language, made Chen Guofu see Li Qiutang's potential for development.

If "The Night the Comet Came" was limited by cost and still had a rough feeling in production and shooting, then "No One" is undoubtedly an action martial arts film that can be called a masterpiece.

In particular, the several fighting scenes of Blind Cheng in Luoyang, with all kinds of moves and weapons, even old hands like Chen Guofu were addicted to it. The street fighting added with fashionable parkour elements, which should be liked by young audiences. The final battle of Yuwen Mansion is obviously an online game mode. The bold black and white art style, coupled with Blind Cheng's movements, especially the scene with the flaming knife, is very visually stimulating.

But Chen Guofu also pointed out what he thought was a shortcoming: "No one is in love."

Romance between young men and women is an important and almost indispensable element in martial arts films. Although Li Qiutang added two female characters in "No One in My Eyes", apart from a few lines of dialogue between Cheng Xiazi and Qin Niang, which show that the two have a relationship similar to that of Xiao Feng and Azhu - Qin Niang said that they would retire from the world after Cheng Xiazi's eyes were cured - Cheng Xiazi has almost no love scenes, because Qin Niang was killed by Yuwen Ying halfway through.

Although Li Qiutang told the audience in an almost explicit way in the end that Cheng Xiazi and Ni Yan, who escaped death, moved far away, Chen Guofu was worried that some viewers would not accept this - the original wife was dead!
Ah Zhu is dead, and the audience will never accept that Xiao Feng falls in love with someone else!
But this is not a problem for Li Qiutang: "The martial arts films of the past 20 years have all been about revenge, romance, and love. I don't want to do that. I just want to make a pure action film, showing action, and returning to action."

The project of "No One" has nothing to do with Chen Guofu. From the rough cut, we can see that the quality of the film is not bad. Chen Guofu did not say anything bad, and the rest was praise. The rough cut is ready for review. The remaining work, such as fine editing, final editing, dubbing and music, color grading, subtitles, etc., can be completed in another 3 months.

These days, while "No One in My Eyes" was sent to the General Administration for review, "Lust, Caution" finally met the audience!
Then, as expected, I was scolded like a sieve!

Curse Shanghai Film Group, curse the General Administration, curse Tang Wei, and curse the crew for smearing the revolution.

But Tang Wei did become famous in the Chinese film industry with this movie!
As a professional filmmaker, Li Qiutang had a hundred ways to see the full version, and he did go and watch it again.

Many viewers went to see the show for the large-scale scenes, but the director did not see it that way. Li Qiutang watched Li An's shots and his expressions behind the shots.

Li An always gives people a sense of being a gentle and elegant gentleman, but from the movie "Lust, Caution", Li Qiutang saw Li An's distrust of the world!

Some directors don’t believe in people, some directors don’t believe in things, and some directors don’t believe in love and trust. But in "Lust, Caution", Li Qiutang feels that Li An doesn’t believe in anything in this world!
Finally it returns to nothingness!
It can be said that "Lust, Caution" is a very cruel story.

But it still couldn't escape the fate of being urgently taken off the screen in mainland China after only one week of release.

Behind "Lust, Caution" are two state-owned film companies, Shanghai Film Group and the China Banking Supervision Agency. From then on, state-owned film companies no longer dared to invest in Li An. Losing money was a small matter, but being accused of having problematic political stances was the most fatal.

"To Become Famous" is expected to start filming in Hengdian next week. Producer Chen Guofu has already gone to Hengdian in advance, and Li Qiutang is hosting the actors' script reading in Yanjing.

Nine actors sat casually, reciting their lines one by one.

"Hey, that's not right." As he was reading, Deng Chao realized something was wrong. "Who is the murderer?"

On the surface of the story, the murderer of the three elders was Qi Leshan, but Deng Chao read the script several times and the more he read, the more he felt something was wrong.

"Who do you think it is?" Li Qiutang asked with a smile.

"I don't know either, but I always feel that this case is not that simple."

Because at the end of the script, Li Qiutang wrote that Li Jiahui saw a familiar female figure and chased after her.

Guan Jingnian even said something inexplicably: "I thought you saw the killer."

Moreover, during the film interview, the French reporter clearly stated that the dismemberment case in the country was indeed done by Dr. Escher, so Qi Leshan’s previous remarks were unreliable.

Deng Chao had every reason to believe that the case written by Li Qiutang was not that simple.

But he was not smart enough to figure out what Li Qiutang's real intention was behind this arrangement.

"Let's go over the lines first, and I'll explain them to you later. Come on, continue." Li Qiutang asked them to continue reading the script.

(End of this chapter)