Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 75 The Decline of Martial Arts

This year's snowstorm in the south was very serious. Li Qiutang felt particularly cold while filming in Hengdian! After the disaster, Li Qiutang not only donated money and materials, but also actively participated in media activities, calling on caring people to lend a hand.

"My personal power is limited, so I hope everyone can take action." Li Qiutang said this at a charity event in Yanjing.

Just after the first weekend of March, the rough cut of "To Be Famous" was completed. This is the advantage of having a crew editor to edit while filming. The disadvantage is that the workload is really heavy, and the editor has to be paid more.

"To Become Famous" was not in a hurry to be submitted for review. After the rough cut, Li Qiutang joined the subsequent fine cutting and final cutting work.

His main work now is the post-production of the upcoming "No One" and "Famous", so "The Sound of Wind" can be pushed forward step by step.

On this day, an internal screening of "No One" will be held, and the guests will include theater representatives and some media people.

Li Qiutang had something to do and would not attend the screening, but he agreed with his colleagues to summarize the guests' opinions on the film for him.

Li Qiutang was holding a script meeting for "The Whistleblower". Participants included him, Chen Guofu, Han Sanping, Huang Jianxin and the original author Mai Jia. Each of them had a copy of the novel "The Whistleblower" in front of him.

As the producer, Han Sanping fully agreed with the adaptation idea that Li Qiutang had discussed with Mai Jia before: "We must film the power of faith."

According to the general logic of commercial films, the protagonist cannot die, but where there is struggle there must be sacrifice, and death can sometimes embody this greatness, so the old ghost Li Ningyu must die.

At the same time, Li Qiutang also said: "But a movie is only so long, 100-120 minutes, and there is not much we can shoot." As he said this, he glanced at Mai Jia who was sitting next to him.

Then he added: "What I think is that with this length, we can only shoot the first part of Dongfeng's scenes, Qiuzhuang catching ghosts, which is also the best part of the film and television adaptation."

Huang Jianxin laughed: "Several people were locked in a room. You were very good at taking pictures of this."

Isn’t it true? Both “The Night the Comet Came” and “To Be Famous” are like this.

Several people laughed, and Li Qiutang also laughed and said, "I will definitely adapt it to what I am best at."

However, Huang Jianxin has his own ideas: "I wonder if it can be made into an interview format? The interview format can retain the story of the novel to the greatest extent." The second half of the original novel is in the interview format.

"Insert it from the perspective of 'I', interview the survivor Gu Xiaomeng, and let Gu Xiaomeng tell the story as a person who was there firsthand. Of course, if this is changed, Gu Xiaomeng will not be able to live in Wandao."

Mai Jia expressed his understanding of this adaptation, saying that anything involving the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would be troublesome.

This is a very good adaptation method, and Li Qiutang is really considering it seriously.

The interview style is a very mature narrative structure in Hollywood. "The Life of David Gale" is a representative of this type of structure. Kevin Spacey's other representative work "The Usual Suspects" is also a typical interview-style narrative, but his interview turned into an interrogation.

Interview-style narrative is a technique used in many suspense films, but it is relatively rare in France.

At the creative meeting, Li Qiutang suggested that the art team should design and build Qiuzhuang first, but the location scouting team had not set out yet, so where could they build Qiuzhuang?

Besides, China Film and Huayi have not yet agreed on the investment ratio, and the money is not in place, so how can we build the house?
The pressure was put on director Li Qiutang. The art director asked him for money, so he had to find a producer, and the producer had to find an investor.

But China Film Group and Huayi are still discussing the allocation of investment amounts.

Li Qiutang said first: "We can discuss how to divide the investment amount later. I need some start-up capital now to scout the location and build the Qiu Manor. Give me this money first, and when the division is discussed, this money can be deducted from it."

Chen Guofu could not be the boss of Huayi, but Han Sanping could be the boss of China Film. He decided on the spot to give Li Qiutang 1000 million in start-up capital within a week.

This also became the biggest achievement of today's creative meeting.

As soon as Li Qiutang left the creative meeting, she received news about the preview of "Arrogant".

"There are many good reviews, but some senior scholars don't like it." "Oh? What do you dislike?"

"They said the story of 'No One's Backwardness' was too simple, and that the simple revenge story reflected the backwardness of the director's film thinking and lack of creativity."

Li Qiutang was so angry that she laughed: "The story is a bit simple, but it can't be said that my thinking is backward and lacks creativity."

Li Qiutang certainly admitted that the story of "Arrogant" was relatively simple, but he would not admit that his thinking and creativity were criticized on this basis.

"Also, Xinlang and Fox Studio both want to interview you. Their editor-in-chief really likes Undisputed. He said it's the most anticipated movie in the first half of the year after the New Year."

"A few days ago, they said they were most looking forward to Resurrection of the Dragon!"

"So will we meet or not?"

"See you, just consider it as advance publicity."

In fact, the early promotion of "No One in My Heart" has already begun. At least the posters and roll-up banners have been put up in major cinemas in Yanjing, and the scheduled short film has begun to be played on the cinema promotional screens.

…………

In an interview with Xinlang, Li Qiutang mentioned his concerns about martial arts and even the entire costume action genre: "Costume action blockbusters have been very popular in recent years, but there has been a clear cooling trend."

"Since you feel the temperature is dropping, why do you want to shoot a costume action movie at this time?" The host did not tell Li Qiutang about the cooling of costume action movies first.

"Because now is the best time to make martial arts films in the next few years, it will be difficult if we don't make them now." Li Qiutang is really pessimistic about martial arts films, and he can't think of any way to save martial arts.

The host then talked to him about the decline of martial arts. In fact, the saying that martial arts has declined has been popular since the beginning of the century. When the three movies "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Hero" and "Seven Swords" were released, critics believed that "three great directors tacitly used the same theme to bid farewell to the era of martial arts."

But who has ever seen "Hero" open the prelude to mainland costume action blockbusters? In recent years, there are more and more costume action movies, and they are thriving.

Li Qiutang said: "I think this is a last gasp, the last struggle of ancient costume action. This struggle may last another three to five years, and then..." Li Qiutang didn't say anything else, and the host understood.

“Why do you make such a judgment?”

"Because we are about to have a new group of audiences. Audiences born in the 70s and 80s are the main audience for ancient costume martial arts movies, but now the oldest generation born in the 80s is 28 and almost 30 years old. Most of them have already started to enter society and they don't have much time to go to the cinema. People born in the 80s will gradually become the main audience, and their aesthetics are different from our generation. Of course, a good movie can break everything, and excellent ancient costume action movies can still be liked by the audience, but the era of ancient costume action movies is indeed coming to an end."

Back to "No One in My Eyes", the host asked Li Qiutang why she chose a blind man as the protagonist: "This seems to be different from the martial arts films we watched before."

"There's no special reason. It's just required by the plot. You'll know when you go and watch it." Nonsense. If he wasn't arranged to be blind, there would be no great thrill of him regaining his sight and killing the enemy in the end.

Li Qiutang also said that in order to shoot "No One in My Eyes", Zhao Wenzhuo pretended to be blind at home for 3 months, Fan Bingbing learned dance from a professional dance teacher for two months, Xiao Ming watched dozens of movies to get the feeling of playing a villain, and the other actors also worked very hard.

Why do we mention Fan Bingbing and Huang Xiaoming? Because the main promoters of "No One" were not Zhao Wenzhuo, but Huang and Fan!

Who says they are the most popular and talked about the most?

In this way, Li Qiutang promoted "The Whistleblower" while doing some promotional interviews for "Arrogant".

On this day, Bernard suddenly scheduled a movie:
"Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon has passed the censorship and will definitely be released on April 4."

The one who comes is not kind.

(End of this chapter)