Chapter 230: Fortress

As a new agency with a business philosophy that is far ahead of its time and full of innovation, CAA has now started its classic one-stop package agency model.

From script writing to post-production, we can provide a full team according to customer needs - although this will inevitably divide the power of investors and producers, it is undeniable that such a one-stop package is indeed a lot more convenient. Therefore, after weighing the pros and cons, there are still many customers who are unable to form their own team for various reasons and come to sign agency business.

Therefore, the reason why Su Yun, who also lacks time to pay attention to the two newly signed film projects, handed both of them to Ovitz is so clear: first, Su Yun knows how to delegate power; second, Ovitz is also a real old partner with a good reputation, so Su Yun is still very relieved to hand over both projects to him.

The early preparation work for science fiction films like this is extremely time-consuming and laborious, so of course, let the two future big directors who are still new in the circle to slowly do it. She only needs to fly over regularly to supervise, and then focus her main energy on Zhao: after all, she is still a production consultant with a high position and benefits. It is already a stretch for her to sign another investment project, and it is not good for her to continue to focus on her own things and forget her job duties.

Moreover, Zhao has cooperated with several well-known film companies in Hollywood. With Zhao as a distant but prestigious backer, her new film project can also be taken care of when negotiating with these big companies after production is completed.

As for why Su Yun hurriedly flew back to Hong Kong after investing heavily in two new film projects?

We have to mention what Su Yun and Zhuang Long talked about at their home in Kowloon Tong during the Spring Festival this year. After a long period of diplomatic work between China and Britain over the years, the people of Hong Kong have been vaguely prepared to welcome the upcoming negotiation of the century.

But even if you are mentally prepared, you will always be worried. Therefore, in this time of panic, many capable people are trying to immigrate openly or secretly.

The rise of another immigration wave has caused Hong Kong's housing prices to hit new lows again.

Considering that it is difficult to buy a house in Mid-Levels without connections, although Su Yun had this idea, she still had to ask Zhao Qiming for help in finding a suitable luxury house in Mid-Levels.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Liming gave Su Yun a very earnest lecture: most of the buildings in the Mid-Levels are duplex buildings, even the few well-known real estate projects are mostly like this. Unless you can buy the entire building with your own money, the houses in the Mid-Levels, although surrounded by mountains and rivers, are not as comfortable to live in as the single-family villas in Kowloon Tong. Maybe it's just for the sake of saying it nicely.

If you really want to develop towards The Peak, you must choose a detached luxury villa on Barker Road at The Peak - take advantage of the current housing price plunge, and if you encounter a wealthy person who needs to cash out and wants to sell his property, you can directly enter the ranks of The Peak.

Su Yun was stunned when she heard this: the name of Barker Road on the Peak in Hong Kong is indeed well-known. There are always reports that certain wealthy people spent hundreds of millions or even billions to buy a house on Barker Road... Unexpectedly, Zhao Liming would set her goal so high.

But seeing that Zhao Liming's explanation was plausible and that he might be able to use his connections to help Su Yun negotiate an installment payment, Su Yun calculated the amount of money she had on hand and gritted her teeth and agreed.

After agreeing to the deal, Zhao Liming only heard from his friends yesterday that a wealthy man on Peak Road was planning to immigrate to Canada with his family, so he wanted to sell all his properties in Hong Kong for money.

After asking his friends to find out the details and confirming that the wealthy man had a clean background and no enemies, Zhao Liming told Su Yun the news and asked her to fly back to Hong Kong to look at houses. If she was satisfied, she should sign the contract as soon as possible to avoid missing out on the opportunity to own a luxury house on the Peak.

It just so happened that Su Yun didn't have much work on hand, so she could work overtime to finish the remaining important ones, and the less important ones could be sorted out and handed over to the staff in CAA. So, after getting the news about the house, Su Yun immediately responded.

After working all night and assigning the tasks at hand in the morning, Su Yun lay down for a long time to catch up on her sleep, then immediately took a plane back to Hong Kong to look at houses.

However, the so-called wealthy people who would sell their properties before immigration are those who are just on the edge of the circle of wealthy people at the top of the mountain. Therefore, although this villa looks good, its location is still a little remote, and it does not have the grandeur of the mansions of those famous families with mountain and sea views.

The four-story luxury villa with a small garden and swimming pool has an area of ​​nearly 2,800 square feet on each floor and is 90% new and finely decorated. The starting price is 10 million Hong Kong dollars.

Su Yun and Zhao Liming's friends talked and talked, and even Zhao Liming asked his two sisters who were back in Hong Kong for vacation to come and help. After four or five days of discussion, the price was finally negotiated to 8.8 million.

Finally, Su Yun signed the contract with three installments with both pain and excitement: although her net worth had already been calculated in billions and the suffix was US dollars, that was the estimated market value. In addition, she had signed two new movie projects and invested part of the funds some time ago. Now she was asked to come up with more than 8 million in cash at once, which she really could not do.

Zhao Rifu owns Zhao Cinema and TBB Studios, two big companies with a combined estimated value of over 10 billion. After spending more than 100 million on "Blade Runner", hasn't he been only shooting small and medium-budget movies for more than a year? And he has to cooperate with his rivals to make big productions?

The thing about wealth is that it sounds nice to brag about. If we really compare it with our cash...tsk, each one is more “poor” and “humble” than the other.

As for a newly rich man like Su Yun, who has a weak foundation, he certainly does not have the various assets that can be exchanged for collateral like those wealthy families with a long history. If he wants to buy a house, he must pay for it. Although the rich man who sells the house seems to be very interested in the shares in her hands, everyone knows that people of their status and class will not sell their golden goose, shares, unless they are extremely poor. So in the end, they just asked for some information that they could get indirectly, which can be regarded as a compensation for the discount.

Unfortunately, Su Yun's "poverty" as she was temporarily drained of most of her working capital was only a tacit understanding of her financial shortage among people in the industry. In the eyes of most people who didn't know the truth, she was a target of the new generation of rich men who were throwing money around and who might be able to get money from her...

Soon, on the morning of the second day after Su Yun signed the contract, tabloids all over Hong Kong reported that she had spent a huge amount of money to buy a luxury house on the top of the mountain. Together with the news that she had previously invested in two new science fiction film projects in Hollywood, Su Yun, a "rich girl" who was still worshipped on the altar by Hong Kong people, was portrayed as a wealthy new fish.

In addition, because the four male protagonists in "My Three Dead Ex-Husbands" are all idols who are popular among thousands of Hong Kong girls, coupled with the feast of handsome men in "The Battle of the Grooms", many young people have also begun to learn to worship Su Yun to pray for peach blossoms...

Anyway, now whenever Su Yun goes out, no matter how she tries to hide, she will always run into confident screenwriters and arrogant directors who recommend themselves with scripts - those who talk about art are considered okay, most of them still have some dignity and won't get too involved.

As for those who solicit investments, recommend properties, sell all kinds of luxury goods and strange commodities, or even promote themselves or their relatives and friends... these are really hard to guard against and very troublesome.

Just recently, when I was having morning tea with Grandma Su and the Mei sisters at an old teahouse on the weekend, a young man wearing glasses came over.

Because she had missed out on "Terminator" before, Su Yun had more patience for this young man who looked to be in his twenties and still looked full of ambitions - although she only missed out on this one movie, and the others she recommended looked like potential failures, but it's always best to seize the opportunity.

What's more, the young man looked like a fool despite his gentle appearance. He was wearing glasses and his face had the unique TBB look of working overtime all night, looking high-spirited but actually weak. He could fall down at any time. Not to mention the direct disciple of the Kung Fu King, he might not even be able to beat the Mei sisters who had some martial arts skills or the 70-year-old old lady Su who was still very strong...

However, Su Yun's nature of bullying the weak and fearing the strong remained the same, so he was more patient with the self-recommender who looked like a weak chicken - especially since this person called himself Du Lifeng.

But even though he became a future great director who won many directing awards, he was still an unknown young director on TBB during his rookie period: strictly speaking, he made his debut film "The Golden Circle" in 1980, but after the film was released, he felt that he did not have enough experience and had a lot to learn, so he returned to TBB to make TV series to accumulate experience.

After taking the script and reading it, Su Yun shook her head and pushed the script back: "Zhao has already made a movie with the theme of The Walled City, and it is still being scheduled for release. Without any necessary reason, Uncle Six will not invest in a movie with the same theme all at once."

Zhao Rifu is the sixth child of his generation, so not only the employees in Taiwan, but most people generally call him Sixth Uncle. Only in relatively serious occasions will they call him "Mr. Zhao" or "Sir Zhao".

Even Zhao Rifu rejected "Terminator" and "Back to the Future", which are expected to make a lot of money in the future. It is quite difficult to get his approval for a subject like "The Brink of Law" which is easy to cross the line, sensitive and not easy to make money.

Wasn't it that the film "Out of the City" that he produced had to be rectified after filming and could not be released as scheduled because of the sensitive subject matter and plot issues?

"I know. That's why my script is different from 'Outcast'. It incorporates a lot of my childhood experiences. It's the kind of story that expresses the warmth of humanity even in darkness..." Du Lifeng used to live in the Walled City. It is said that he was asked to help and give advice on the script creation of 'Outcast'. As a result, he himself also wanted to make a movie on this subject.

But the difference is that his version of the story is much milder than the dark and bloody "Out of the Walled City". The difference is probably the difference between how people outside view the Walled City and how people inside view the Walled City: outsiders think of it as a city of evil and danger, but people living inside think of it as a shelter that has protected them from wind and rain.

Most importantly, Su Yun's consistent film style is this kind of commercial style, revealing hope and warmth from the beginning to the end of the story - so when he wrote this version of the script, he greatly weakened the darkness of the subject matter in accordance with Su Yun's style, and in turn greatly strengthened the warmth and memories accumulated from his own feelings.

"To be honest, the theme of The Walled City is the dream of many filmmakers, and the character you chose, the 'Rooftop Postman', is also quite brilliant..." Su Yun clicked the column of the protagonist's profile and sighed, "But it seems that all those who want to shoot this theme only focus on the characters related to The Walled City, and ignore the most topical key point."

It seems like a trip to the golden age of Hong Kong entertainment would be a waste if you don’t shoot some scenes of Kowloon Walled City.

But as for the stories about The Walled City that Su Yun has read, whether they are plagiarized, fused, borrowed or original, most of them are about people and events in the Walled City. With plot points such as the counterattack of the grassroots, estrangement between brothers, violence, sex and societies, it seems that it can become an alternative classic - and in fact, this kind of story can still be filmed in another location.

Things that are truly unique to the Walled City are hard to come by: for example, the character Du Lifeng chose to narrate the story, the "rooftop postman", is a magical profession that emerged because of the special spatial structure of the Walled City. When delivering mail, he often does not take the usual route, and does not even need to walk on the ground. The mysterious roads such as rooftops, alleys, stairs, wooden planks built illegally by residents, scaffolding made of bamboo poles, and windows of all sizes are much more convenient than taking the regular roads and paths...

Unfortunately, even though this unique character is eye-catching, Su Yun was inspired by it.

In the walled city that has not seen the sun for many years, perhaps the rooftop postman is the only character who can truly see and feel the true face of the entire walled city.

If you want to film the theme of the walled city, why do you only film the people and things inside, instead of filming the entire walled city complex?

Especially when it is about to be determined to be "must be demolished".

"You want to..." Du Lifeng's face changed color when he saw the new story outline that Su Yun had sketched out in just a few strokes: This story line did not seem to contain much blood and violence, but the bone-chilling darkness and coldness were three times more severe than a direct description.

"No matter how you shoot this subject, it's hard to achieve great commercial success..." Su Yun looked at him very seriously, "But its artistry is unmatched - instead of trying to compromise and be inconsistent, it's better to dig deep into the true meaning and make it a classic work that can never be replicated."

“Although the subjects of the film are people, the real protagonist is the Kowloon Walled City, a ‘miracle’ work that is a combination of deformity and curiosity, which is built from flesh and blood stripped by capital. If it is well executed, it will be the ultimate winner in all major awards in next year’s awards season.”