1982 Started from Hong Kong

Chapter 277 The Great Drama Delivered to Your Door
The cafe scene in "Mr. Vampire" also transitions to the same location.

Huang Xia, who played Mr. Ren in the original film, was replaced by Luo Jiaying.

When Luo Jiaying becomes serious, he actually has a rather elegant temperament. After all, he is a big star in Cantonese opera. He puts on a silk buttoned jacket that the props team found from somewhere, and a gentleman's hat. His unconventional outfit is quite in line with the image of a wealthy man in the early Republic of China.

"Here, put this on."

Zhai Yuan stuffed a vintage pocket watch into Luo Jiaying's shirt pocket, revealing half of the sterling silver watch chain.

Then he took out a pipe and handed it to him, then stepped back two steps to observe it, and nodded with satisfaction: "This is more like a country gentleman."

The props team was short-handed this time, and it was not as convenient to prepare many details of the costumes and props as in Hong Kong, so Zhai Yuan had to do it himself.

"It does look much better this way." Liu Zhenwei nodded, and turned to ask Zhai Yuan curiously, "I originally asked someone to prepare a watch, but it's too new and I'm afraid it'll be exposed. Where did Mr. Zhai get these two antiques?"

Zhai Yuan smiled and said, "I just met a grandmother outside and borrowed some props from her house temporarily."

Liu Zhenwei immediately flattered him, "Mr. Zhai is really thoughtful."

Get the look done.

Liu Zhenwei shouted "start filming", and the three heroes, Lam Ching-ying, Hui Koon-ying and Law Ka-ying, sat at the same table and started acting.

With just a few simple lines, the character introduces the heroine of the movie, Ren Tingting.

……

Uncle Jiu: "I heard that Ling Qianjin came back from the provincial capital, why didn't I see her?"

Master Ren: "This girl just learned how to put on makeup, and she's teaching others as soon as she comes back... Look, here she comes."

……

Liu Zhenwei shouted "Cut" and the short scene was naturally played in one take. He put down the megaphone and shouted behind him, "Hey! Is the heroine here?"

"I'm coming!"

Wang Xiaofeng arrived before she even showed up. She called out twice and then led Moon Lee into the set together with Barbara Yung.

When three beauties appeared together, the attention of the men around them was instantly attracted.

Especially Moon Lee, who was walking in the middle, dressed up specially in a pink puffy skirt, with elegant makeup, pigtails and air bangs, which made her look pure and playful, and the slightly exposed cleavage on her chest added a touch of sexiness.

Zhai Yuan nodded silently: It turns out that it looks better if she dresses up like in the original film, but I didn't expect that Moon Lee's figure is actually quite good.

In the original timeline, when filming this movie, the director kept tricking the inexperienced Moon Lee into pulling her neckline as low as possible in order to attract more people to buy tickets, which caused Moon Lee to suffer psychological trauma for a time.

But now that Zhai Yuan is in charge of the set, he will naturally not let this happen.

"The neckline doesn't need to be pulled too low. Our company's corporate culture is to respect women."

Zhai Yuan looked Moon Lee up and down, walked over to help her pull up her clothes, and said, "Oh! My watch seems to have fallen into your clothes. Let me look for it."

Li Saifeng screamed and dodged Zhai Yuan's dirty hands, while Wang Xiaofeng and Weng Meiling on the side showed contempt on their faces.

When Liu Zhenwei saw this, he sighed silently. He knew that Moon Lee was another actress he could not afford to offend. He warned himself in his heart that if she made a mistake later, he must control his emotions and not swear.

The actors gathered.

First, we shot a group of shots of Moon Lee walking in from the door.

After that, there was a famous scene where the four of them sat at the same table. Uncle Jiu and Wencai didn’t know the difference between coffee and COFFEE, so they were teased by Ren Tingting.

It was beyond Liu Zhenwei's expectation.

Moon Lee's role as Ren Tingting was fully immersed in the role and she showed no stage fright at all when sharing the stage with Lin, Xu and Luo.

She had no problem, and Sanying performed even better.

This drama, which lasted more than two minutes, had no cuts or NGs throughout, and it was shot in one take.

"Cut!" Liu Zhenwei couldn't help but say after calling for a stop: "Great! At this rate, we can wrap up in three months at most."

Zhai Yuan said: "It's just a few literary scenes. I don't know how long it will take to shoot the action scenes later."

Liu Zhenwei said confidently: "Mr. Zhai, don't worry, as long as everyone maintains this state, the filming period of this drama will not be too long."

Among all the directors in the Hong Kong film industry, Liu Zhenwei is considered an unorthodox talent.

His debut film "The Haunted Cop Shop", his first directorial effort, was a small success in the commercial film genre. Later, films such as "The Haunted Mansion" and "The Living Dead" also achieved great success.

The movie "God of Gamblers" co-starring with Stephen Chow broke the local box office record in Hong Kong and reached the peak of his career.

In the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, Liu Zhenwei was one of the few commercial film directors who could compete with Wang Jin. His film "A Chinese Odyssey" was a masterpiece that saved "Ashes of Time" and was a stroke of genius.

Unfortunately, he is not as thick-skinned as Wang Jin.

After hanging out with Wang Jiawei for a long time, I used my good friend's scrapped manuscripts to make two "A Chinese Odyssey" movies.

At that time, he and Zhou Xingchi were the best partners at the peak of their careers. However, the highly anticipated "A Chinese Odyssey" was a box office flop and was met with a barrage of criticism, which made Liu Zhenwei mentally explode and unable to recover. He felt that no one in the circle understood him, and investors and audiences did not understand the literary and artistic ideas he wanted to express.

With this mentality, Liu Zhenwei later created "The Soul Returns at Night" based on himself, creating a male protagonist who is not understood by others.

As a result, the movie also flopped at the box office.

The successive failures made Liu Zhenwei doubt his life, so he simply retired from the entertainment industry and fled overseas. It was not until after the millennium that he came out again and filmed a few movies such as "A Chinese Odyssey: Part One" and so on.

Zhai Yuan feels that people with this kind of personality should be given more encouragement and less cold water.

So he patted Liu Zhenwei on the shoulder and said with a look of satisfaction: "I believe in you, keep going! As long as you can pat faster than Xu Qi, I will make you the crown prince in the future!"

…………

The eldest prince Liu Zhenwei was filming "Mr. Zombie".

Zhou Xuejun brought Zhai Yuan several scripts sent by the production studio.

"These are all movies that want you, the God of Wealth, to invest in."

In the hotel, Zhou Xuejun looked at the piles of manuscript paper and smiled embarrassedly: "It's indeed a bit too much. If I agree to this, it will be difficult to refuse another one. But it's up to you whether to pay or not."

Zhai Yuan said it was okay and briefly flipped through the scripts in front of him. There were five plays in total, but none of them impressed him.

It's all dull and boring arty drama style.

Zhai Yuan suddenly began to understand investors' attitude towards Wang Jiawei.

"What does it mean?"

Putting down the script, Zhai Yuan picked up a videotape sent by Zhou Xuejun and asked curiously.

Zhou Xuejun smiled and said, "You will know when you put it on."

The hotel for foreign guests was fairly well equipped. I put the videotape into the machine and turned on the TV, and the picture lit up.

Then, familiar music sounded, causing Zhai Yuan to raise his eyebrows.

"This is the TV series Journey to the West that CCTV started to prepare for filming in 1981. This year, only the 11th episode, The Three Strike at the White Bone Demon, was filmed, and CCTV has already spent 300 million yuan. Now the leaders of CCTV are very unhappy and have cut off the financial support for this TV series. Yang Jie from the director group of Journey to the West has a good relationship with me. She originally wanted to go to the Railway Engineering Bureau to get some investment to continue filming. When she heard about the God of Wealth like you, she insisted that I give you the videotape to watch first." Zhou Xuejun took the opportunity when Zhai Yuan was attracted by the picture to tell him the whole story. At the end, he coughed and said, "If you can give some financial support, that would be the best."

He was too embarrassed to say this out loud.

The 11 episodes of "Journey to the West" took five years to shoot and cost CCTV three million yuan. Even CCTV said that the crew was using the country's money to travel around, and they even alerted an investigation team to the set to investigate.

Although the crew's final investigation results showed that there was no sightseeing as reported, the three million yuan was actually spent.

It cost so much money to shoot 11 episodes, and the plot has only reached the part about the three fights with the White Bone Demon. Zhou Xuejun estimated that by the time director Yang Jie finished filming, he would have to raise at least another three million.

Zhou Xuejun would not have been ashamed to mention Zhai Yuan for such a large investment if he had not had a good relationship with director Yang Jie and the other party had not come here to ask for help.

On TV.

Familiar music accompanies the pictures.

Thump thump thump~thump thump thump~diuuuuuu~the monkey went up.

Zhai Yuan slapped his thigh and said without thinking: "I'll invest in this project! How much money does Director Yang Jie need?"

Zhou Xuejun didn't expect that he agreed so readily.

"You voted?"

"Vote, tell me the number, quick!"

Zhai Yuan looked impatient.

Zhou Xuejun scratched his head and carefully stretched out three fingers: "Three million?"

Zhai Yuan frowned and said, "That won't work."

Zhou Xuejun smiled awkwardly: "Yes, I also think it's a bit too much. The crew can still get some money from the railway. I really shouldn't let you pay for it all..."

Zhai Yuan didn't wait for him to finish and waved his hand: "I'll give you 5 million Hong Kong dollars. If the crew is still short of money, please contact me at any time!"

Zhou Xuejun was petrified when he heard that. He took several seconds to react and swallowed his saliva.
"How many?"

"Five million, no upper limit!"

Zhou Xuejun lit a cigarette and took a few deep puffs, calming himself down and asked, "Can you tell me what you think? Otherwise, I'm unsure, God of Wealth."

You want three hundred and I'll give you five hundred, and there's no upper limit. Are you kidding me?

If the two had not recently become closer, Zhou Xuejun would have thought that Zhai Yuan was being sarcastic and mocking the price he had offered.

Zhai Yuan looked at the TV screen and saw the heroic Monkey King played by Teacher Liu, the handsome and bright first Tang Monk Xu Shaohua, as well as the familiar images of Pigsy and Sha Seng, and he let out a long breath.

"Give me a whole cigarette, too."

Zhai Yuan asked Zhou Xuejun for a 3.7 yuan Daqianmen cigarette, lit it up, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and sighed: "A few years ago, I watched a Japanese version of Journey to the West, which almost burned my fragile testicles. Our own famous work was taken away and tampered with by the Japanese. I was very sad, Lao Zhou! From that time on, I swore that I must make a Chinese version of Journey to the West. This is also the reason why I entered the film and television industry."

Zhou Xuejun said silently: "You told Xie Jin before that you entered the film and television industry after watching his movies."

"Stop it, the emotional foreshadowing is over here."

Zhai Yuan rolled his eyes at him unhappily and tried several times to regain the grief-stricken, passionate and generous emotions he had just felt, but nothing seemed right.

"Forget it, let me get straight to business."

Zhai Yuan gave up the sensational narrative and said, biting the cigarette butt: "Five million is five million, but I have a request."

Zhou Xuejun sat up straight and said seriously, "Tell me about it."

Zhai Yuan spoke carefully: "Last year during the National Day, I borrowed a few experts from the Academy of Sciences and set up a CD factory in Yanjing City... Do you know what a CD is?"

Zhou Xuejun shook his head blankly.

Zhai Yuan spent some time explaining DVDs and optical discs to him, and continued, "Although the optical discs are still under development, I believe they will be available in the future, so my requirements are not high. After CCTV's version of Journey to the West is finished, I want to take over the rights to produce and sell the optical discs of the series."

This is a very cunning thing to say.

In fact, the factory in Yuen Long can already mass-produce DVDs and CDs, but Zhai Yuan still deliberately made the CD R&D technology sound very difficult, with the intention of facilitating negotiations.

Sure enough, when Zhou Xuejun heard that the miraculous CD he was talking about was still in the research and development stage, he frowned slightly and began to worry about him.

"How about I ask about the distribution of the videotape for you? I don't know when your CD will be ready, but the videotape can at least make some money back."

"No! It has to be a disc!"

Zhai Yuan said it with absolute certainty. He thought, videotapes? When CDs come out, no one will use that stuff.

When Zhou Xuejun saw that the God of Wealth said so, there was no way he could persuade him anymore.

He just scratched his head a little embarrassedly and said: "You are at a disadvantage, although it is an investment...how about you make some more requests?"

Zhai Yuan thought for a moment and said, "How about this, we'll add the name of Jiuyi Entertainment to the list of producers later."

"Okay!" Zhou Xuejun felt better. "But the share probably won't be much. CCTV will sell it to local TV stations after filming. The price won't be too high..."

Zhai Yuan frowned and said, "I want CCTV's share to be nothing, just enough to put my company's name on it."

Zhou Xuejun felt embarrassed again: "Make another request, another request, five million!"

Zhai Yuan didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "I really didn't realize you were such a fussy person before. You made the decision before CCTV even said anything. Let's leave it at that for now. I'll talk to you if I need anything."

Zhou Xuejun laughed and said, "Okay, I'll go talk to the people from CCTV and Director Yang Jie and the others, and then we can arrange a time to have dinner together."

Zhai Yuan nodded and said okay.

Zhou Xuejun said nothing more, stood up and said goodbye with a stack of scripts. No matter how thick-skinned he was, he could not let Zhai Yuan invest in those dramas.

Zhai Yuan was the only one left in the room.

From the TV, the sound of Monkey Wu Wu Zha could be heard from time to time.

In 1978, China and Japan signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

To show its sincerity, Japan filmed an Japanese version of "Journey to the West".

The actor who plays Sun Wukong is the singer Masaaki Sakai, the actress who plays Tang Monk is Masako Natsume, Zhu Bajie is the most handsome among the four masters and apprentices, Sha Monk has an elderly father, Guanyin Bodhisattva is a pure man, Tathagata Buddha is a woman, and Red Boy is a strong man...

Only three episodes of this version of Journey to the West were broadcast on mainland TV stations. It was probably because the relevant leaders were reluctant to show it for the sake of the Japanese people's face. In the end, it was quickly taken off the screen amid a wave of boycotts.

It is for this reason that the mainland has made up its mind to shoot its own masterpiece "Journey to the West".

So we have the '83 version' of Journey to the West that is currently being broadcast on TV.

"I heard before that the crew cut a lot of storylines due to lack of funding. This time the money is enough, let's see what the film can look like!"

Zhai Yuan stared at the TV screen, his mind racing. "After the CDs are mass-produced, I'll use this Journey to the West as the lead. I should also get some movie copyrights in my hands, otherwise the contents of September 1 will be consumed quickly. But now my money is all in the stock market. If I give away this 5 million, I'll be getting poorer and poorer. Dongyang, hurry up and sign the Plaza Accord with your American father. I'll have money when the market opens in October..."

(End of this chapter)