Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 991 Promoting the Movie (33)

The claim that Beijing is a food wasteland...

It wasn't until a few years later that the term became widely known. It was probably in 2021 when DT Finance compiled statistics on cities mentioned as "food deserts" on Weibo, and Beijing (BJ) surpassed Hangzhou by a significant margin to take the top spot.

Unfortunately, most of Beijing's local snacks are terrible!
In 2011, then-Vice President America, Sleeping King, enjoyed the local food at Yaoji Fried Liver Restaurant.

He ordered noodles with soybean paste, steamed buns, and a Coke, but did not choose the restaurant's signature dishes, fried liver and braised pork offal.

The shop owner explained that foreigners are not used to eating animal offal, so this practice is normal.

However, many tourists from other places said after tasting them that traditional Beijing snacks such as braised pork offal, fried liver, fried sausage, and fermented mung bean juice were nothing short of bizarre.

Well, the four kings of the dark cuisine world: fermented mung bean juice, braised pork offal, stir-fried liver, and sausage!
Douzhi (fermented mung bean juice) is popular because it is made from fermented soybean residue used to make vermicelli, and it is inexpensive.

The three dishes—braised pork offal, stir-fried liver, and sausage—were all modified due to insufficient funds.

The predecessor of braised pork offal was the Imperial Su-style braised pork, which required using perilla sauce and more than a dozen spices, along with high-quality pork belly, to stew until tender.

In the late Qing Dynasty, a folk alternative appeared, which involved stewing pig's head meat and offal together. By the Republican era, only pig lungs and intestines remained in the pot.

The origin of stir-fried liver is the white offal soup from Huixianju in the late Qing Dynasty, which is made by boiling chopped pig intestines, liver, heart and lungs in a white broth with seasonings. Later, it evolved into stir-frying pig intestines cut into small pieces with a small amount of pig liver thickened with cornstarch, and finally it was simplified to directly thickening with soy sauce.

Originally, sausage was made by stuffing pig intestines with starch and minced meat, then slicing and deep-frying it; later, it was changed to stuffing it with starch, red yeast rice powder, and spices; eventually, even the pig intestines were omitted, and it was made solely with mung bean starch…

Yang Mi hesitated for a long time before saying, "The noodles with soybean paste are pretty good, especially with sesame paste..."

Huang Lei quickly chimed in, "Yes, yes, yes! Old Beijing fried sauce noodles!"

"But you can't eat that every day!"

"So what do you eat in Beijing?"

“I usually go to the Beijing offices of various local governments…the prices are cheap, and the food is okay…” After a pause, Shen Yan added, “This was told to me a few years ago when I was making the music video for my first official album and I cast Dilraba as the female lead!”

"You and Dilraba have known each other for a long time?"

"My agent... is Peng Peng's current agent. He signed Dilraba, Li Xian, and Chen Yao before me... and then he signed Peng Peng!"

Peng Yuchang covered his mouth and laughed…

Shen Yan continued, "Peng Peng is a very good actor, and his appearance is very appealing to directors. He's not too handsome, but he has a lot of charisma... Just like Jiang Qiming, I've heard that many directors have sent them invitations..."

"What about Zifeng?"

"My grandfather said she looks a lot like Momoe Yamaguchi!"

"Momoe Yamaguchi?"

"I looked it up, and it seems to be a Japanese celebrity, a really famous one!"

Huang Lei asked in surprise, "You don't know Momoe Yamaguchi?"

Shen Yan shook his head: "...I've heard of this name, but I really don't know what it looks like!"

Momoe Yamaguchi is very famous in China. In the 80s, when Sino-Japanese relations were on good terms, China imported its first Japanese drama series, "Blood Ties," as a gesture of goodwill. Unexpectedly, the series quickly became a nationwide sensation upon its release…

The film tells a poignant love story between a young man and a young woman suffering from leukemia.

—At that time, leukemia was first introduced to the Chinese people through a love story, and this plot was later adopted by neighboring South Korea and became a "national treasure".

The female lead is Momoe Yamaguchi!
Chinese audiences were introduced to melodramatic soap operas for the first time—the bizarre plots and romantic love stories brought tears to the eyes of men, women, and children of all ages.

Then Momoe Yamaguchi became popular in China…

It is said that Gong Li's nickname back then was "Little Yamaguchi Momoe"!
Well, it's just wishful thinking...

In reality, Momoe Yamaguchi was never the number one superstar in Japanese entertainment, nor did she ever dominate the industry. She wasn't the top actress of the Showa era either. Because she retired early, it seemed like she had the potential to be number one, but in reality, even if she had continued working, she would never have been the number one star of the Showa era…

He Jiong explained, "Yan Ge was born in 88. After he started having memories, he probably didn't know about Yamaguchi Momoe..."

"What about when you were little...?"

"We watched 'The Grand Mansion Gate' and 'Towards the Republic' on Changsha TV's public channel back then..."

Even now, Hunan TV's ratings in Changsha are extremely poor.

Local TV stations are bolder and more energetic, and each channel has its own unique strengths.

In particular, Changsha TV's public channel has a viewership of over 2000 million and has maintained a market share of 75% in Hunan Province for many years.

That's really powerful!
Unfortunately, Hunan TV is a satellite channel, while Changsha Channel can only be considered a local channel…

The topic quickly came to an end…

The focus shifted to "Project Gutenberg"—Shen Yan and Yang Mi came to participate in "Back to Field" just to promote the movie!

"Last year, when we were filming 'The Dude in My Body,' director Felix Chong came to visit the set and talked to me about counterfeit money production..."

Shen Yan naturally shared the reason for filming "Project Gutenberg": "He told me that most people who counterfeit money do so not because of their background, such as poverty or childhood trauma, but purely because they are pursuing art!"

"They study the printing process and watermark technology of genuine banknotes, and use techniques such as painting, rubbing, and photocopying to replicate the features of genuine banknotes; for example, hand-painted counterfeit banknotes use special pigments and drawing techniques to achieve a realistic effect in terms of color and texture."

"Starting with copying genuine banknotes, we gradually explored techniques such as drawing paper, color-changing ink, and electroplating, even delving into measuring the precise dimensions of the numerals on US banknotes and eliminating moiré patterns—highly difficult operations. Ultimately, we successfully created near-perfect 'super counterfeit money,' thus driving innovation in counterfeit banknote manufacturing technology."

"I was very interested, and then the production team actually made the circuit boards, banknote printing, paper sources, anti-counterfeiting inks, etc... We really did it all!"

"what?"

"It's alright, we don't have an intaglio printing press... Intaglio printing presses are government-controlled equipment and very difficult to obtain... However, our production crew has very strict management of counterfeit banknotes. The crew has declared to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, completed various procedures, and even had police officers come to the crew to supervise the process. We have to print according to regulations. After filming is completed, all prop banknotes, including negatives, printing plates, positives, digital storage devices, graphic files, or any other items that were used to make prop banknotes, are deleted and destroyed..."

“So strict?”

"There was a prop maker who made counterfeit money and then failed to destroy it according to regulations... and he was sentenced!"

"Really?"

"I've reviewed the entire case file..."

All the props are there, Zhang Weiquan!

I made prop banknotes for a film, and due to the needs of the plot, I made a total of more than 200,000 banknotes.

These prop banknotes are so realistic that it would be difficult for ordinary people to distinguish them with the naked eye.

After he finished making it, he didn't destroy it, but instead... kept it!

It's one thing to collect it, but to lend it to a friend!
Then his friend got into trouble, which implicated him—Luo Runlin, who had a criminal record. Luo Runlin had borrowed 9996 prop 1000-yuan bills from Zhang and paid him 2000 to 3000 yuan in return…

Although Luo Runlin said, "I pretended to win ten million dollars, so that my friend would believe it when he saw the prop banknotes, and then I filmed his disappointed expression when he looked at or touched the prop banknotes up close."

But... the police can't possibly believe it!

He lent all the props and money to a friend with multiple criminal records, which was unprofessional, careless, and inappropriate. Moreover, he also received benefits in the process. Therefore, the police did not treat him with any courtesy and directly charged him.

"In short, we followed the regulations..."

Yang Mi pouted: "He and Tony Leung are having so much fun, they play with money to light cigarettes every day!"

Shen Yan quickly explained, "Counterfeit money, counterfeit money..."

(End of this chapter)