Chapter 662: Medicine God Sells Well
July 2, Beijing.
The film "Dying to Survive" directed by Wen Muye, produced by Gu Wei and starring Xiao Yang, held its premiere ceremony at Tsinghua University titled "Born Like Summer Flowers".
At around 2:00 p.m., media gathered in the venue and celebrities from all walks of life showed up to show their support.
"Wu Jing, Deng Chao, Huang Xiaoming, Huang Bo.
Isn’t it said that “Dying to Survive” is a low-budget comedy film? Why are there so many big stars coming to support it?”
As the stars continued to appear, the reporters on the sidelines were overwhelmed. The cameras never stopped and the flashes kept flashing.
"Gu Wei is not only the producer but also a guest star in the film produced by Weiming Tianxia, so everyone is definitely showing their support.
Wow~ Lu Han and Huang Zitao are here too, but it’s a pity that Guan Xiaotong didn’t come.
Since the two announced their relationship, they have rarely appeared together in public, but they are often photographed together in private."
"Maybe they don't want people to pay too much attention to their relationship."
"Tsk tsk, Lu Han is really a real man. A top star is in a relationship and he just makes it public. How much money must he lose?"
“People have different ideas, and maybe they don’t care.”
In the venue, Gu Wei continued to receive friends who came to support him.
After [Produce 101] ended, he returned to the crew to film for a few days, and then came to Beijing to participate in the premiere of his own movie.
"Brother Jing, what have you been busy with recently?"
"What's there for me to be busy with? I've been staying at home these days." Wu Jing came alone, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, looking casual and relaxed.
Gu Wei was a little surprised.
"No, you're so popular now, how can you be idle?"
Wu Jing waved his hand.
"I don't have any plans to make a new movie right now, and I haven't received any suitable scripts in the recent period.
There are quite a lot of people who want me to act in movies, but most of the scripts are hard to describe.
We are not short of money now, and I don’t want to take on random roles and make bad movies.”
The two of them didn't deliberately speak in a low voice. After Wu Jing finished speaking, Gu Wei didn't feel anything, but Huang Xiaoming, who was not far away, couldn't help but twitched his mouth after hearing it.
"Yeah, I was busy with Wolf Warrior 2 before, and then after it finished, I was asked to join the crew of The Wandering Earth. It's good to take a break now."
"I haven't been idle all the time. A few days ago, I went to Brother Qian's crew and played a cameo role for him."
"Oh? Brother Qian is acting in a movie again?"
Gu Wei asked curiously.
"Yes, this time he is not only the male lead but also the producer of the film. He plays a homeroom teacher, and I went to help him guest-star as a physical education teacher."
When he said that, Gu Wei remembered which movie it was. It should be the youth campus movie "Teacher·Good" which has a good reputation.
Yu Qian also won the Best Actor Award at the Macau Film Festival for this movie.
Even though it was a small film festival, he was still the best actor.
The film is actually average from the story to the shooting techniques, with nothing particularly outstanding, but Yu Qian's performance was very well received by the audience.
Having said that, although both of them are crosstalk performers and are partners, Guo Degang and Yu Qian have completely different approaches to making movies.
As soon as Lao Guo showed up, I knew it was definitely a bad movie. His acting wasn't that good either, and his lines felt like he was performing crosstalk on stage.
On the contrary, although Yu Qian has starred in some bad movies over the years, basically no one says his acting skills are bad. Even in bad movies, many of his roles can leave a deep impression on people.
Therefore, Lao Guo's reputation became worse and worse, and finally no one asked him to film anymore. On the other hand, Yu Qian was doing very well in the film and television industry. Everyone knew that he had good acting skills and was popular with the audience, so many directors were willing to look for him.
"How's the post-production of [The Wandering Earth] going?"
"I called Guo Fan a few days ago, and he said it's almost finished, but it'll probably take another two months for the film to be released."
"This movie was so difficult to make, I really want to see what the final result will be."
Wu Jing sighed after hearing what Gu Wei said.
He and Guo Fan hit it off right away, and they quickly became good friends after filming.
He saw how much effort Guo Fan put into this film, so he was very curious about what the final film would look like.
"Don't worry, I won't let you down," Gu Wei said with a smile.
"If you're really curious, I'll contact you as soon as the film comes out so you can have a sneak peek!"
"Then it's settled!"
Wu Jing patted Gu Wei's shoulder and said with a smile.
All the guests arrived and the premiere of "Dying to Survive" officially began.
Although Gu Wei is the boss, he did not steal the show and gave the leading role to director Wen Muye.
Apart from the celebrity guests, some invited film critics and media, the rest of the audience were college students.
The crew decided to hold the premiere at Tsinghua University after careful consideration.
"Dying to Survive" is a good film that resonates with people, but it is not a commercial film in the traditional sense, nor is it even a comedy, although the film has always been promoted as a comedy.
The crew hopes that the film can establish a good reputation among college students and then spread this reputation through their channels.
There was no special program at the premiere of "Dying to Survive". After the normal interviews and interactions, the movie began to play.
Zhou Yang is a film critic with hundreds of thousands of followers on Weibo.
He was invited to attend the premiere today. Originally, he was not very interested in the movie "Dying to Survive".
In his opinion, this is the second film "The Love Master" shot by Wen Mu. It is promoted as a comedy, and it still uses the same routines from the perspective of middle-aged men.
Even if Gu Wei makes a guest appearance, it makes no difference.
After all, Gu Wei had a cameo appearance in "The Love Master", although he only appeared in two shots before dying.
However, he knew the rules. After all, he had received the money, and no matter what the quality of the movie was today, he would definitely post a review praising "Dying to Survive". He still had some professionalism.
With the mentality of watching a comedy, Zhou Yang started watching the movie.
However, after "Dying to Survive" started playing, he gradually felt that something was wrong.
'This is a fucking comedy, where's the funny part?'
A normal comedy doesn't have a joke every three minutes, but at least there will be a lot of funny scenes.
From the beginning of the movie, Zhou Yang didn't find a single funny point.
Cheng Yong, the owner of an Indian God Oil shop played by Xiao Yang, lives a miserable life. His shop has no business, his father is critically ill, and he cannot raise enough money for surgery.
His ex-wife got pregnant with a rich man and wanted to take away the custody of his son.
One day, a leukemia patient came to the store and asked him to bring back a batch of generic special-effect drugs from India so that patients who could not afford the exorbitantly priced genuine drugs could have a chance of survival.
So, Cheng Yong, who was skeptical, went to India and started his career as a drug dealer. Unexpectedly, he made a comeback.
Although there are not many funny moments, the story of "Dying to Survive" is well told. Cheng Yong, Lu Shouyi, Liu Sihui, the pastor, and Huang Mao, a few people came together because of illness and medicine and formed a small team to sell medicine.
The business was booming, Cheng Yong made money, and patients got cheap medicine. Everything seemed perfect.
However, Cheng Yong relies on smuggling to sell drugs, and Indian drugs are also illegal counterfeits. After the Swiss medical representative played by Zhang Songwen put pressure on the authorities, the police began to investigate and crack down on Indian drugs.
Cheng Yong was afraid of something going wrong, so he backed off and decided to quit, and parted ways with Lu Shouyi, Huang Mao and others.
In the second half of the movie, Cheng Yong, who made money by selling medicine, opened a small factory and his business flourished.
Until one day, Lu Shouyi's wife found him and told him that Lu Shouyi was going to die because he could not afford genuine medicine and his disease had entered the late stage.
Lu Shouyi’s death had a profound impact on Cheng Yong. He had never felt the fragility of life so deeply before.
Being kind-hearted, he decided to go to India again to buy medicine, this time not for making money, but just to save the lives of leukemia patients.
At this moment, Cheng Yong has transformed from a profit-seeking drug dealer into a true "Drug God"!
As the story unfolded, Zhou Yang stared at the big screen without blinking. Although it was not funny, the story really attracted him.
“Stop chasing Indian medicine, okay?
I was ill for three years, my house was ruined, and my family was bankrupt.
If you take him away, we will all die. I don’t want to die, I want to live.”
The scene in the police station with the sick old lady and Gu Wei made Zhou Yang's nose sore.
He hadn't felt this way in a long time because he had watched too many movies.
Not only him, many people in the audience were secretly shedding tears.
"I've been selling medicine for so many years, and I've discovered there's only one disease in this world—poverty!"
This is what the fake drug dealers Zhang Changlin and Cheng Yong said, advising him to stop, saying that he is not a god and cannot save everyone.
Zhang Changlin was arrested, but he did not betray Cheng Yong. Although he was a liar, he also admired Cheng Yong's spirit.
The police investigation became stricter and stricter, and Huangmao died in a car accident while trying to protect Cheng Yong.
In the end, Cheng Yong was arrested and sent to prison, with all his fellow patients seeing him off along the street.
At the end of the movie, Cheng Yong is released from prison, and his brother-in-law, played by Gu Wei, comes to pick him up, and genuine drugs are included in medical insurance.
When the movie ended, the audience was first dead silent, and then there was thunderous applause.
Everyone stood up and applauded loudly for this excellent and touching movie.
Zhou Yang sniffed, stood up and applauded.
He was glad that he came to this scene today.
'Such a good movie was advertised as a comedy, but the content is so different from the promotion.
It's just that it's so much better. I haven't seen such an excellent domestic film for a long time.'
#【Dying to Survive】A film that brings laughter and tears to your eyes, a movie you can’t miss in 2018! #
#A masterpiece of domestic films, Wen Mu also tells you the story of "Dying to Survive"#
#【Dying to Survive】An underrated movie! #
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After the movie premiere, both the media and film critics were raving about "Dying to Survive" through their respective channels. Celebrities who attended the premiere also recommended the movie on Weibo after returning home.
On the 3rd and 4th, "Dying to Survive" launched large-scale previews across the country.
Although it is called a preview, the scale of the release is actually very large, and the screening share even reaches 10% of the national screening schedule in a single day.
This is also part of the publicity and promotion plan.
Due to the nature of the film, in order to achieve good results, it is necessary to build a good reputation in the early stages.
Thanks to early publicity and gimmicks such as Gu Wei's guest appearance, "Dying to Survive" grossed a total of 100 million yuan in two days of preview screenings, setting a record for the box office of domestic film previews.
On July 5, "Dying to Survive" was officially released.
On the first day, the film accounted for 51% of the national screenings, and the results did not disappoint, with a single-day box office of 160 million yuan, becoming the national single-day box office champion.
The most important thing is that the word-of-mouth of "Dying to Survive" has spread completely and the reputation has exploded!
After two days of previews and one day of release, countless viewers who watched the movie shared their feelings online and recommended this rare good movie to others.
"Dying to Survive" ended its first day of release with a Douban score of 9.2 and a Maoyan score of 9.9. Hundreds of thousands of people gave the movie positive reviews on these two platforms.
I was lured into this movie by the comedy, hoping to have some fun, but ended up leaving with my eyes swollen from crying. Hehe, but it's not a loss, because everyone is the same.
It's a bit like "Dallas Buyers Club," but I did some research and found out there's a real person called "Cheng Yong." The movie is based on real events, not just a copy of a foreign film. It's fantastic!
I expected it to be good, but I didn't expect it to be shot so simply, solidly, and smoothly. Wen Mu is a pragmatic director; he didn't set out to create a masterpiece, just to tell a good story. It's precisely because of this that the film's attention to reality appears thoughtful, careful, and accurate.
[A very tear-jerking movie. It has been a long time since I have seen such a well-told domestic reality-themed movie.
"They just want to live, what's wrong with that?" I was deeply moved by Grandma Xu.
After Zhang Changlin was apprehended, he was tortured into confessing, yet he never gave up on Cheng Yong. This certainly doesn't prove he's a good person, but it does suggest that people always have a certain respect for great people.
May the world become better and better, not because of saviors, but because of those who pursue the light, those who carry firewood for everyone, and not let them be choked by the wind and snow!
The attachment to life, the fear of death, and the helplessness in the face of poverty are all true stories, yet they are the truths that no one dares to film. One film like this a year in China is enough!
I originally watched this movie because of Gu Wei, but I ended up crying in the theater. Xiao Yang and Wang Chuanjun really surprised me. I thought they were just comedians, but I didn't expect their acting skills to be so good!
【.】
In the first week of the summer season, "Animal World," which was released on the 29th of last month, did not perform well, and its box office results were far from expectations.
The blockbuster "The Last Jedi" and "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" have been released for more than 20 days, but their single-day box office revenue is very low.
After the popularity of "Dying to Survive" exploded, there was almost no competitor around.
On Friday, the second day of its release, the film's screening share increased to 59% and its box office revenue also increased to 240 million yuan.
Then, in the first two days of the weekend, the film's screenings continued to increase to more than 60%, with box office revenues of 384 million and 392 million respectively.
In the first four days of its first week, "Dying to Survive" earned 1.276 billion yuan at the box office, becoming the first hit movie of the 2018 summer season.
(End of this chapter)
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