Chapter 259 Standards
Su Yun is not making a fuss about the extremely strict requirements for Chinese pronunciation.
From the very beginning, the filming of co-productions with actors and actresses with oriental faces was done in order to gradually test the audience's acceptance and bottom line. The first card played, "Brewster's Billions", successfully took advantage of the right timing and viral marketing-like publicity to reap a wave of profits among the middle and lower-income groups in the North American market.
Due to various factors throughout history, there are many people, not only in Europe and America, but even in Asia, who have an almost obsessive envy and hatred for China, an ancient civilization that once stood in the far east.
For this reason, these people who have ulterior motives, whether overtly or covertly, always look at and smear this ancient country known as the "sleeping lion" with prejudice and resentment, as if by doing so they can deceive themselves and others and make it continue to sleep.
Characters with discriminatory connotations such as "Fu Manchu" are the hardworking and enterprising Chinese workers who arrived in various parts of the world in the early years. Because of the superiority of working more and spending less, they robbed the local people of their opportunities. As a result, many people believed that the Chinese were a disaster with yellow skin, and then they desperately fabricated all kinds of rumors to discredit this group so that they could regain their original status.
Admittedly, Su Yun never approved of this kind of infighting with peers that developed into a situation of internal friction; but according to historical records, the Chinese spirit of hard work, diligence and love of learning, coupled with their character of valuing harmony, had far less impact on the local area than some invaders who not only plundered resources but also killed everyone.
On the contrary, the Chinese community is more like a peaceful outsider who can lead the situation in the direction of healthy competition, rather than a shameless invader who plunders everything and takes the situation to the abyss.
Unfortunately, no matter what kind of person they are, they are born with innate laziness and don't want their leisurely life made by plundering to be disrupted.
So much so that when the group that was one of the victims of the resource plundering war came to make a living, not only did they not feel the slightest bit of guilt, but they even developed a bit of resentment.
Compared with the dark-skinned group who help their relatives but not their parents, the yellow-skinned group, especially the Chinese, under the influence of ancient traditional ideas and modern Western worship ideas, have always been strict with themselves and lenient with others.
Therefore, those people seized on this point, on the one hand to sow discord and cause internal strife among them, and on the other hand to induce benefits to attract a group of traitors with weak will, and gradually divide this group whose strength becomes greater the more united it is.
Therefore, Su Yun’s plan for this step is to give the other person a taste of his own medicine. Taking advantage of the opportunity of the widening gap between class groups caused by the rapid development of the world, he began to “brainwash” step by step those who were not so sensitive to the overall direction.
Large-scale commercial films aimed at the general public are currently the easiest medium to fill with personal opinions. Using this as a vehicle, Su Yun can gradually establish an industry standard regarding "Chinese".
Just like her plan to vigorously build roads and encourage Zhao Qiming to get involved in the real estate construction business in Shenzhen, her approach after careful consideration will be highly praised as a reference template for industry standards. When people in the future want to join this industry, they must see her "precedent" first.
Because of her approach, in the areas waiting to be developed in recent years, especially the designated special administrative regions, once some Hong Kong, overseas Chinese and foreign businessmen wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to make venture investments, the relevant departments there would follow the two reference templates of Su Yun and Zhao Qiming and calmly provide case reference conditions that are sufficient to protect and respect themselves, rather than testing the waters as if they were crossing a river by feeling the stones.
After all, in the old days when those who fell behind would be beaten, although some people's backbones were not completely broken, the gap in the world still made them bend their backs helplessly and painfully, and look at everything outside with a self-deprecating attitude.
Afterwards, they will be led by this inferiority complex and go in the wrong direction of looking up to the outside world and belittling themselves.
Those businessmen who dare to invest in China during such a turbulent period are all shrewd people.
Once they discover this ideological imbalance, they will certainly take advantage of the situation and make further demands, relying on the unequal advantage in information and knowledge to deceive her motherland into signing a series of contracts that lose money but gain publicity.
This plan to seize the initiative and establish standards was quite successful, so Su Yun started the next move in the film and television industry without hesitation.
Su Yun believes that the same method can be used in the film and television industry.
Therefore, she had to show her tyrant side on the set, so that Keanu, a co-producer who already had some basic skills, could practice the Chinese lines he should say.
She is really fed up with those movies that can reap huge box office in mainland China and arouse "national pride" and "world recognition" by mixing in a little Chinese culture - it is obvious that these movies are deliberately made to cheat the Chinese people out of their money!
If they had truly studied Chinese culture with great effort before daring to start filming, then Su Yun would certainly support them with both hands and feet; unfortunately, those people were able to capture the traditional Japanese charm when filming in Japan, knew how to find "beautiful" actors when filming in Goryeo, and even managed to capture the humid southern feel when filming in Vietnam...but once they came to China, they were as careless as ever from casting to plotting.
It can almost be said that it is always full of stereotypes and deep malicious malice.
The funniest thing is that some modern lackeys are helping to whitewash it by saying that this is a traditional classic, or that foreigners should not misunderstand China's thousands of years of ancient rhyme inheritance - but they have this intention, so we should be more understanding, and they will definitely make improvements in the future.
Faced with this incurable brain-deadness, Su Yun could only laugh.
Why do these people just bury themselves in reference books and work diligently to be impeccable when taking photos of Japan?
Because of the Japanese's nitpicking character and extremely strong national self-esteem, they will never allow them to be perfunctory in this way.
Why do these people know how to find "beautiful" actors when filming Goryeo, and can always capture the hot and humid southern vibe when filming Vietnam? And the roles are basically relatively pleasing, rather than the Chinese characters who are either thieves or pickpockets, and the casting is also quite ingenious and ugly? !
Because they know that to win the box office revenue in Korea, Vietnam and other places, they can't just deal with it casually like the good-tempered China, but they need to really let them see sufficient and satisfactory arrangements and benefits.
The crying child gets the milk, and the gentlemanly demeanor of the Chinese since ancient times of turning big things into small things and small things into nothing has become the basis for some people to still maintain such bad behavior as "picking up the bowl to eat and cursing the mother when putting the bowl down".
But in the future, that won’t happen anymore.
It is only because there are not enough reference examples that the good-tempered Chinese people will always be tolerant, to the extent that they will be happy for a long time just because foreigners give them a sour date casually.
Since Brewster's Billions, the casting of Chinese characters with squinty eyes and big round faces has been restricted to appearance. And with the upcoming series "Grave Robbers", those who can win applause by speaking a few plastic Mandarin sentences will definitely be forced to re-engage in speaking Chinese pronunciation well...
"What's wrong with you lately?" Su Yun was thinking about the future when Zhuang Long came over with a small bowl of jujube cake and sat down next to her. "The fellow villagers gave us some jujube cake. Want to try it?"
"Then I won't be polite!" Su Yunsi took a piece of jujube cake from the bowl without any idol burden and took a big bite. Then she asked vaguely, "What's wrong?"
"That kid Keanu Reeves." Zhuang Long said meaningfully, "You've been very strict with him recently. You're totally different from before."
Having known Su Yun for so many years and having worked with her many times, Zhuang Long has seen that she has always tended to be more moderate in character and approach: in the past, whether Su Yun was facing younger actors, peers of similar age, or seniors who were much older than her, she mostly acted like a caring little girl, asking about their well-being and showing great concern, which made her very likable.
Now no one knows what she has been through, but she treats Keanu, a young man of the same age as her, with great disdain and disappointment, and her demands on him are extremely strict.
Sometimes when they were acting together, he, as the opponent, felt that Keanu's pronunciation was already quite good, but Su Yun still cut out Keanu's part, as if she would feel uncomfortable if she didn't give Keanu 20 or 30 NGs a day...
"You said, do you think his pronunciation is pretty good?" Hearing this, Su Yun raised an eyebrow, and then showed the look of a tyrant director who has the power of life and death in his hands, "No, you don't think so."
"It's difficult to pronounce a foreign language across native languages, and Chinese is notoriously difficult to learn, which makes it even more difficult..." Zhuang Long sighed, "It's already very good that he can give such an answer at his age."
"It seems that you have also been misled by those ideas." Su Yun also sighed in a pretentious manner, and said earnestly, "In order to adapt to the rules of Hollywood movies, you are very strict with your English pronunciation - not only you, but all non-English speaking actors who want to develop in Hollywood are working very hard to practice English..."
"Even those actors whose native language is English have to practice the corresponding accent according to the requirements of the role..."
"Then on the other hand, why can foreigners get away with making a co-produced movie with Chinese lines? Are we Chinese too easy to fool and too good-tempered?" Su Yun threw up her hands in a very naive manner, "I didn't even ask them to practice the unique dialect of the corresponding region!"
"Dialect?!" Thinking of the hidden rules of Chinese dialects, where there are different sounds every ten miles, and the major language families that seem to be from the same mother but speak like half-siblings, even Zhuang Long, who has extremely strict self-discipline, couldn't help but change his face.
"I'm just joking with you. This is too demanding. After all, dialects like those in Guangdong, Sichuan, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Lucheng are indeed a little difficult to learn..." Su Yun smiled.
"There is a rumor that Lucheng dialect was used for encrypted conversations in the past!" Zhuang Long didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Don't worry, don't worry, I was just joking." Su Yun blinked sincerely: It doesn't matter, when the mainland market becomes the world's stock market, naturally there will be people who want to make money and gradually roll up...
"But, is this really the reason why you tortured that child?" Zhuang Long breathed a sigh of relief, thought about it, and asked with some concern.
"Of course not." Su Yun waved her hand, "You know, when we were filming "The Lady with a Thousand Faces" a few years ago, I took such good care of Bourne - to the point that he developed an illusion similar to the Chickweed complex..."
"I'm so good-looking, and I'm in a foreign country, so it's easiest to impress people..." Su Yun boasted to herself without blushing, and then added, "What if I treat him too well and he develops some inappropriate thoughts about me..."
"I'm a director, I have to follow rules and I will never break the rules for my subordinates during filming!" Su Yun said this with a righteous look on her face.
Hearing this, Zhuang Long subconsciously glanced at Keanu, who had been ruled out before the show even started. During the free time of setting up the set, he was still biting a small wooden cork to practice the pronunciation of his lines, and he looked very pitiful.
But the elegance and grace between his eyebrows, a mixture of Eastern charm and Western profundity, reflected the clarity unique to young people in the winter afternoon sunshine - this pure and innocent appearance and well-behaved and obedient behavior can easily arouse women's desire for protection.
So Zhuang Long asked again, worriedly, "What about after the filming?"