Chapter 222: An Unintentional Planting of Willows

In theory, filming is much faster than television. Once a project is decided, it's shot as quickly as possible and released as quickly as possible. Some films can be finished in a month or two, and the script can even be written while filming proceeds, a testament to fast-paced production.

Xinghui adopts this fast-food model, so their company has released more than 20 films in just three years since its establishment.

Hu Xiaoxiao calculated the time carefully. Half a year had passed, and the other party had not notified her yet. Was it because they had replaced the female lead or was the project a failure?

Hu Xiaoxiao picked up the cell phone and called Zhang Huai.

This time, the person who answered the phone was not Zhang Huai, but his assistant.

The other party said that Director Zhang was on the set and would call her back when he came back.

After Hu Xiaoxiao hung up the phone, he frowned slightly, having a bad feeling.

She waited two days but received no call back.

At this time, the anniversary ceremony of Baogang TV began. Because it was an anniversary celebration, it was particularly lively this year.

As the most popular young actress on TV, Hu Xiaoxiao was assigned an important program and began to rehearse busily.

Charlie brought Hu Xiaoxiao an unexpected good news, "Hu Xiaoxiao, the company plans to give you the Best Actress award this year."

"Me? Best Actress?" Hu Xiaoxiao was genuinely surprised this time. "Isn't Sister Yu the heroine of 'The Bund'?"

"That's right, the original female lead was indeed Jiang Yu. But—" Charlie was convinced by Hu Xiaoxiao and said, "You keep asking the director and screenwriter to give you more scenes. In "The Bund", your role is already as much as the female lead. So, for this drama, the company has decided to have two female leads."

Of course, the company wouldn't trade at a loss. After Hu Xiaoxiao's "Mu Guiying" went beyond Hong Kong, all TV series she starred in could be sold to regions and countries outside of Hong Kong. With Hu Xiaoxiao starring in "The Bund," the copyright could be sold even more widely.

This is also a good thing for Hu Xiaoxiao. If she can win another Best Actress award, it will be even better. In terms of celebrity status, she can rise again. If she rises further, she can compete with Jiang Yu for the position of the top actress.

But to be honest, Jiang Yu's acting skills are much better than hers. Hu Xiaoxiao asked honestly: "Isn't this unfair to Sister Yu?"

Of course she wants to be promoted, but she hopes that her ability can also be improved, so that any achievement she gets can make people convinced.

"You're overthinking it." Charlie told Hu Xiaoxiao, "Brother Song Yan'an and sister Jiang Yu have already won the Lifetime Achievement Award and are not competing for the Best Actor or Best Actress award."

If a top male or female star competes for an award, as long as their drama is on that year, no one else will win the Best Actor or Best Actress award. The company established this award to increase the chances of new artists rising to the top—to increase the competitiveness of the company's artists, not to allow them to dominate the network.

The company's top management hopes to see fierce competition and a flourishing of all kinds of talents, and they are absolutely unwilling to see the TV station controlled by one or two artists.

Hu Xiaoxiao understood that if her predictions were correct, this would be her last Best Actress award. If she continued to film TV series and the ratings continued to hit new highs, she would receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the TV station.

Hu Xiaoxiao likes the Lifetime Achievement Award very much. It is a sign that she has reached the pinnacle of the industry and there is nothing more she can win.

She had learned about the awards and knew that anyone who received a Lifetime Achievement Award was basically a big shot in the industry.

In other words, you are no longer the one who receives the award, but the one who judges the award and makes the rules.

Hu Xiaoxiao felt that she had a new goal in life.

The popularity of the drama "The Bund" is beyond everyone's imagination. Its popularity is not only due to the star lineup, but more importantly, the line between Zhao Zhenchuan and Xie Weihua is so well-filmed, so exciting, and the subject matter is so novel.

Many TV series and movies have been made about old Shanghai, but most of them depict the love, hatred and vengeance of Shanghai gangs, or passionate anti-Qing and anti-Japanese themes like Fist of Fury.

The film, "The Bund," incorporated gangsters, the anti-Japanese war, and then added espionage themes, something no one had ever attempted before. Furthermore, the international audience for the James Bond series is enormous, and they experienced the same tension, excitement, and adrenaline rush of watching a James Bond film through "The Bund."

Therefore, this drama has been highly praised both inside and outside the industry.

Qi Weiming and Lin Yi were also surprised by this result. Their original script did not have too many spy war elements, but they added more and more later because they wanted to give Hu Xiaoxiao more scenes.

Xie Weihua's storyline is closely related to Zhao Zhenchuan, and in order to connect the two without affecting the overall plot, many thrilling scenes were added. These scenes just complete the spy war.

An unexpected planting leads to a great success.

Qi Weiming and Lin Yi were deeply moved when they learned of this outcome. Especially the superstitious old man Qi Weiming, who was even more convinced that Hu Xiaoxiao was a lucky star, allowing the two old men to reach even greater heights in their old age.

The sudden popularity of "The Bund" has caused many people to imitate and follow the trend. Not to mention that there are companies in the film industry that are thinking about using spy war elements in comedy films and action films, the TV station, Baogangtai, plans to build on the success and continue to shoot a film in the style of Republic of China spy war to reap the benefits.

The TV station's director was the first to list Hu Xiaoxiao as the candidate for the heroine, and came to invite Hu Xiaoxiao to be the heroine of the next spy film.

After listening to their ideas and the outline of the script, Hu Xiaoxiao was not very interested. The female lead could be said to be a reduced version of Xie Weihua.

She has already played such a role, so why should she play a watered-down version again? She is not the kind of person who just debuted and filmed the same subject several times in order to gain a foothold and become famous.

So she rejected the director.

However, her disapproval does not mean that others do. Other artists who have played roles in "The Bund" are very willing to play them again and take advantage of this novel theme to make a profit.

Actors who had important roles in The Bund were particularly favored by the director. Yuna performed very well in The Bund, and after Hu Xiaoxiao turned down the female lead role in the new drama, the director invited her to play the second role.

However, Yuna also refused.

After reading the script with Linda, she felt that it would affect her future career path. In addition, Linda had prepared a lawyer-themed TV series for Yuna, and this role was more suitable for Yuna than the one she had to imitate Xie Weihua.

After Hu Xiaoxiao and Youna both declined, Xia Lu, upon learning of the news, took the initiative to approach the director about the role. After careful consideration and with Qi Weiming's intercession, the director agreed to have Xia Lu play the female lead in the new drama.