Chapter 896: Kill but not Bury
Lin Weimin's new novel spans half a century, covering almost all major events since the founding of New China.
The first part of the novel ends in 1997, the year the old man passed away, Hong Kong returned to China, and the protagonist Li Jianguo was laid off. His life, which had been improving, fell into a trough again, leaving readers with a suspense.
The second part of the novel will tell the story of the protagonist Li Jianguo's second half of life in great detail, but Lin Weimin is not trying to make a prophetic prediction. All the events in the novel serve the story and characters, and the content still follows the realistic approach.
The treatment of the second part, which is completely detached from the real timeline, mainly relies on the laying out and filling of details, so that readers can truly feel the tide of the times, the changes in the world, and the vicissitudes of life.
This is much more difficult than being a charlatan, because major events can be said to be deduced, but if you can be sure of certain details about twenty years later, aren't you waiting to be dissected?
To put it simply, this is like a poor student copying the Chinese test paper of a top student. You want to get a good grade, but you also have to prevent the examiner from noticing that you copied it.
Lin Weimin handed the manuscript of the first part of the novel to He Qizhi and was not in a hurry to continue writing the second part.
He wrote 470,000 words in two months, a speed comparable to his peak period.
Fortunately, he is typing on a keyboard now, otherwise his shoulders and wrists would be injured. It is not too late to rest for a while before continuing to write again. As for how long, it depends on Teacher Lin’s mood.
During these two days, Zhang Chunru, who was far away in the United States, happily told Lin Weimin a piece of news. The U.S. ambassador to the United States, Kunihiko Saito, who had slandered her at a press conference in the first half of the year, finally couldn't stand the pressure from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the American people, and agreed to participate in a television media interview to exchange views on U.S. issues during World War II.
One year after the release of Zhang Chunru's "The Nanjing Massacre: The Forgotten Catastrophe of World War II", sales in the United States have exceeded 1.7 million copies, of which more than 100,000 copies were contributed by Lin Weimin.
In the summer, Lin Weimin said he would donate this book to American universities for free. He kept his word. Not only universities, but also high schools, libraries, and other public service facilities in the United States can see the shadow of this book.
When a reader buys a book in a bookstore, it affects only one person, but when the book is placed in some public places, the impact it can have is definitely much greater.
Facts have proved that Lin Weimin's money was not wasted. Over the past six months, the news about Japan's aggressive behavior against Asian countries during World War II has occasionally been discussed in the U.S. society.
Although it did not reach the level of boiling point news, compared with later generations, more Americans did learn things that they had never known before.
In this context, it is normal for Saito Kunihiko to be restless. After all, it took the Japanese nearly half a century to dress themselves up as harmless eunuchs in front of their masters.
Lin Weimin was in China and was unable to witness Zhang Chunru's verbal battle with Saito Kunihiko on TV, but he still helped a little.
Originally, the televised debate between Zhang Chunru and Saito Kunihiko was to be held on PBS's "Jim Rieller News" program. The full name of PBS is the Public Television Service of the United States. It is a public television organization consisting of 354 affiliated television stations, and mainly produces and broadcasts educational and children's programs.
PBS has limited influence in the American television industry, and "Jim Rieller News" as a news program has even less influence.
Lin Weimin directly used the money method to sponsor a vacation home in Hawaii for "NBC Nightly News" producer Jason Eric, and put the TV debate between Zhang Chunru and Saito Kunihiko on "NBC Nightly News", and released a preview a week in advance to prevent this old guy from running away.
NBC is one of the five major television stations in the United States and has a huge influence. "NBC Nightly News" is also NBC's flagship news program. Its ratings have always ranked first among US news programs, with tens of millions of viewers.
On December 18, Iris Chang and Kunihiko Saito appeared on NBC Nightly News together.
Regardless of the outcome of the debate, it is already a victory for Zhang Chunru because she has finally made more Americans aware of the crimes committed by the Mujahideen in China.
In the program, Kunihiko Saito changed his arrogant attitude when he accused Zhang Chunru at the press conference and adopted a humble attitude. However, he still adopted his usual ambiguous strategy when it came to the attitude of the Japanese government towards the war of aggression against China, and he said that "the Japanese government has apologized many times for the brutal atrocities it has committed."
Zhang Chunru pointed out on the spot that the fundamental reason why the Chinese people are angry is that the Japanese government and the Japanese people have never made a serious apology or repentance for the Nanjing Massacre. In the past few decades, the Japanese government has been covering up, distorting and downplaying the Nanjing Massacre in textbooks.
Being on the side of justice, Zhang Chunru went all out and tore through Saito Kunihiko's hypocritical mask, causing this veteran politician to lose control of his emotions, turn his face black on the spot and refuse to communicate.
The result of the debate ended with Zhang Chunru's complete victory, which was presented to audiences across the United States and caused quite a stir.
A week after the show was broadcast, Kunihiko Saito was urgently recalled to Japan, and his future was uncertain.
Zhang Chunru called Lin Weimin to express her gratitude. Zhang Chunru's activities in the United States have always been supported by Lin Weimin. This time, her success in overthrowing the ambassador to the United States is a symbolic event, which makes Zhang Chunru full of pride.
A few days later, Feng Xiaogang's film "A Sigh" was released. This is the fourth year that his film has occupied this time slot.
A person's name is like the shadow of a tree. The three words "Feng Xiaogang" have already established their own reputation during the Lunar New Year holiday.
But this year's Lunar New Year holiday is not a peaceful time, because the costume blockbuster "Butterflies Dancing Across the World" which Cheng Kaige spent two years to create was officially chosen to be released at this time.
This film was created by Director Cheng under the inspiration of "Hero". It was originally called "Legend of the Three Kingdoms: Lu Bu and Diao Chan". I heard that the name was changed to this one after some comments were made during the review.
"A Sigh" will be released on December 24th and "Butterflies Dance Across the World" will be released on December 27th, with a gap of three days between them. This year's Lunar New Year box office has been full of gunpowder from the beginning.
"A Sigh" was released three days earlier, but the box office performance was not ideal. According to box office statistics from cinemas across the country, the box office was barely 7 million yuan in three days.
According to this efficiency, the box office of "A Sigh" in its first week was at most 15 million, which is a bit worse than Feng Xiaogang's previous films.
Moreover, the general reaction of the audience now is that the Coke index of this movie is significantly lower than that of Feng Xiaogang's previous works. It is all about trivial things in life. It is not bad to watch, but the early publicity was all focused on the concept of "Feng Xiaogang's New Year's film", which caused the audience to have misplaced expectations. It is estimated that the subsequent box office will not be too optimistic.
Many people in the industry sighed for Feng Xiaogang when they saw this situation. They estimated that "A Sigh" would be slaughtered this time. After all, "Butterflies Dance Across the World" was a costume epic invested by the great director Cheng Kaige with 130 million yuan and took two years to prepare and create.
"Butterflies Dance Across the World" was officially released on the 27th. Director Cheng's aesthetic is still on point. The movie did not feature "Lü Bu with a nose ring". At first glance, "Butterflies Dance Across the World" has the temperament of a blockbuster.
On the first day of its release, it earned 12 million at the box office, with an aura of dominating the world, and almost strangled "A Sigh" which had just been released a few days ago in the cradle.
If this box office trend could really continue for three days, "A Sigh" might really be a failure.
But Director Cheng is Director Cheng, and no one has ever been defeated in his creative ideas.
The entire movie "Butterflies Dancing Across the World" is a historical parody, which is a segment taken from real history. It is based on "The Records of the Three Kingdoms" and "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and with the help of director Cheng Da's fantastic imagination, it is a story about the lingering love between Lu Bu and Diao Chan.
That’s right, “Butterflies Dancing Across the World” is actually a love story disguised as a costume blockbuster.
Throughout the entire film, the war scenes last no more than 5 minutes, and the fighting scenes are pitifully few. The rest of the time is spent on Lu Bu and Diao Chan's love affairs.
This is not quite accurate, as there are also some scenes where Lu Bu has a love-hate relationship with Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao and others, but unfortunately they were all glossed over in a cursory manner.
If the poor box office performance of "A Sigh" was due to misaligned audience expectations, then "Butterflies Dance Across the World" was definitely a scam by the director.
The pre-promotion of this film was comparable to that of "Hero", in terms of investment scale, creative team and other aspects.
As a result, when entering the cinema, the audience asked: Is this all you want to show me?
It's a complete waste of time just to kill him and not bury him.
The audience's anger at being deceived was put into practice. "Butterflies Dancing Across the World" earned 23 million yuan in box office revenue in two days after its release, and only 36 million yuan in the first seven days. In other words, it only earned 13 million yuan in box office revenue in the next five days, which is only slightly more than the box office revenue on the first day.
If this result were applied to an ordinary movie, it would be considered a big hit, but "Butterflies Dancing Across the World" was invested with 130 million RMB, and the box office on the first day was 12 million!
Hemorrhage!
Facing the plummeting box office and the overwhelming negative reviews from the audience, Director Cheng said in an interview with CCTV Film Channel: "'Dancing Butterflies Across the World' is a film about the truth, kindness and beauty of human nature. War and fighting scenes are not what I want to express, nor are they what literary and artistic works should promote."
No matter how Director Cheng tries to make up for it, it is a foregone conclusion that "Dancing Butterflies Across the World" is not what it advertised. The audience voted with their feet. In the second week of the film's release, the box office was only 24 million yuan. With the proliferation of pirated DVDs, the final outcome of this big-budget film with an investment of 130 million yuan is predictable.
36 million yuan in the first week, 24 million yuan in the second week, and 60 million yuan in total. Given the box office performance of "Butterflies Dancing Across the World", it is almost impossible to break 100 million yuan. Even if it can get 100 million yuan at the box office, the producer will only get 40 million yuan in profit, and after deducting taxes, the net loss will be nearly 100 million yuan, and the investors will lose everything.
After the sudden collapse of "Butterflies Dance Across the World", the happiest people must be Feng Xiaogang and Wenhua Films.
Originally, when "Butterflies Dance Across the World" had a box office of 12 million on the first day, Feng Xiaogang was in despair, thinking that this was just another movie of the level of "Hero". He could only blame himself for his bad luck as it was released in the same period as such a behemoth.
It is estimated that "A Sigh" may have a box office of 15 million in the end, fortunately, the investment in the film is not large, so it will not lose money.
But he never expected that the box office of "Butterflies Dancing Across the World" would collapse so quickly, beyond the imagination of most people.
In just three days, the screening schedule of "A Sigh" that had been cut miraculously recovered.
With 11.5 million in the first week, in the second week, under the heavy pressure of "Butterflies Dancing Across the World", the box office of "A Sigh" actually increased instead of falling, earning 18.6 million.
The box office of 30 million in two weeks, although this result cannot be compared with the previous works, it is the result achieved in the situation of direct competition with blockbusters such as "Butterflies Dance Across the World", which is enough to make Feng Xiaogang proud.
But despite being happy, Feng Xiaogang also felt a little aggrieved.
"A Sigh" is indeed not as interesting as his previous works, that's because he did not regard this movie as a comedy. He really wanted to make a movie that tells a serious story. Unfortunately, the audience and the market did not agree with his idea.
At the same time, he was also inspired by Cheng Kaige and "Butterflies Dance Across the World". It was obviously a bad movie, but because of the huge investment, it was still able to easily make tens of millions at the box office, even though its reputation was rapidly collapsing.
Under the dual stimulation from both inside and outside, Feng Xiaogang began to develop a strong ambition in his heart.
He came to Wenhua Film and Television after New Year's Day, intending to talk to Yu Dong about his creative direction in the next few years.
But when he arrived at Wenhua, he found the place was deserted.
Feng Xiaogang finally caught Xiaogong, who was the last one left, and asked, "What happened?"
"The club is going to hold a meeting!"
(End of this chapter)
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