1979 Golden Age

The bank staff's attitude towards Chen Qi is not an exaggeration.

These days, when ordinary citizens receive remittances from overseas relatives and friends and go to the bank to withdraw money, the staff will chat with them kindly and enthusiastically: "Oh, write more letters to your relatives, saying that you have preferential treatment, and ask them to send more foreign exchange." …”

Especially along the southeastern coast, there are the largest number of overseas Chinese.

Don’t underestimate this measure. The expenses alone for overseas Chinese to stay in domestic foster homes can reach tens of millions of dollars every year.

Chen Qi's position in contacting leftist companies is hard to say, but the benefits are indeed a bit less. This time he didn't take the remittance voucher. He really planned to write a script for a local company in Hong Kong, or write a novel and submit it to the United States to earn some real entertainment.

He deposited the converted RMB directly, and the number 4,000 shone brightly on the small passbook, which was his total assets.

It’s enough to have eight wives!

…

In the afternoon, Chen Qi returned to Beijing Film Studio.

After a cursory glance at the things sent from Hong Kong, I went to the main building to find Wang Yang and asked for permission to enter the data room. As mentioned earlier, the main building of the Beijing Film Studio has three and a half floors. This half floor is the reference room, which also contains many books and also serves as a reading room.

Usually there is almost no one around. An old factory worker opened the door for him and said: "After reading the book, put it back in its original place. Don't make it dirty or leave any missing pages. If you take it back to the guest house, you must register it."

"I know, don't worry!"

Chen Qi went in, looked at a dozen rows of bookshelves, several tables and chairs, took a breath, and acted immediately.

He first selected some newspapers and periodicals related to Soviet and Yugoslav movies, found a seat at random, and immersed himself in reading.

Today, Sino-Soviet relations are still tense and were only normalized in the mid-1980s, but movies are ambassadors of friendship and have already taken the lead. After China reformed, it lifted the ban on Soviet films and occasionally sent domestic films to Eastern Europe for screening.

Relations with Yugoslavia are relatively good and exchanges are frequent.

These two socialist camps have a combined population of nearly 300 million. Most of the film types are war films, those that reflect the working class, those that praise workers, those that criticize capitalism, etc.

"The Yugoslav market is very active, and Romania is also quite dynamic."

Chen Qi recorded some things and searched for information about European movies. In the blink of an eye, there was a pile on the table.

He wanted to judge the acceptance of certain types of films in these countries, so as not to make the film, which would violate other people's taboos.

He really doesn't understand these things and has never been exposed to them in his previous life, but he understands the American market very well. With the rise of New Hollywoodism, three representative figures, Coppola, George Lucas, and Spielberg, have already completed famous works.

"Star Wars" ushered Hollywood into the era of industrial blockbusters.

Next, the United States will have a golden period of exciting and bizarre movies, where any bad movie can hit the box office. This is the best time for American movies, until they are fucked to death by superheroes.

Let’s talk about martial arts.

The first Hong Kong martial arts film to be released in American theaters was Shaw Brothers' "The Best Punch in the World" starring Luo Lie. He later hooked up with Le Yun from the crew of "Dream of Red Mansions". Le Yun went to Hong Kong with him and jumped off a building. committed suicide.

This movie made 20 million US dollars at the box office because the stupid foreigner had never seen a martial arts movie.

A few months later, Bruce Lee's "Brother of Tangshan" was also released in the United States, taking in $2.8 million at the box office, "Fist of Fury" was $3.4 million, and "Enter the Dragon" was awesome, taking in $25 million.

"Way of the Dragon" failed again, with a global box office of more than one million US dollars.

"..."

Chen Qi stared at this set of data, as if he could spot flowers.

"The Best Punch in the World" took advantage of Toutou, but "Tangshan Brother" and "Fist of Fury" were not good, because the American mainstream does not like this kind of subject matter.

So why does "Enter the Dragon" work?

Because Bruce Lee had just died a month ago, the film had a gimmick, and it was about beating Americans.

Americans don't mind being beaten in movies. They know that they are strong in reality, and everyone has a face that has never been bullied. What are they really wary of:

Is there any mobilization of the working class in the movie?

Is there anti-capitalism?

Is there any trace of a teacher? Includes all photos, badges, songs, quotes and more!

To put it bluntly, as long as it doesn't touch someone's fundamentals, you can beat them as much as you like, it's all entertainment...

Chen Qi made his own summary and wrote many densely packed pages. He divided the martial arts films that are popular overseas into three categories: one category is blockbusters, such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Hero" and "Fearless", etc. It's a star-studded production, the pictures are beautiful, and the ideas expressed can be understood by foreigners.

The first type is short films, pure martial arts, crackling from beginning to end, focusing on the word "cool", represented by "Iron Horse" and "Fighting Heroes", where action design is the most important.

There is also a category of literary and artistic films, which are disguised as martial arts films but focus on the spiritual core, such as "The Swordsman of Two Flags".

Many kung fu films have little success at the overseas box office. They are actually on video tapes and DVDs. For example, "Fist of Fury" had average overseas box office, but it earned US$16.75 million from DVD rentals in the United States. However, the video tape has just started, so there is no need to consider this.

Beijing Film Studio can only get a budget of 700,000 yuan at most, and block out blockbusters first. Even if the money is enough, the hardware facilities are not in that condition.

"Then we can only make small films, add some scenery of the motherland, and it's enough to fool foreigners. The key is martial arts instruction!"

Chen Qi had an idea in his mind, and then worried. Mainland action design all evolved from martial arts routines, while Hong Kong has gone through the stage of hard bridge and hard horse. Jackie Chan's acrobatics and Sammo Hung's fancy tricks have become popular.

When Tsui Hark's new martial arts comes out, it will be even more unconstrained, with antelopes hanging horns...

"Foreigners now like a punch-to-flesh style. It's best to find a Hong Kong martial artist who is proficient in moves, Wang Yuyan type, but how can you fool the environment there?"

Chen Qi was bored in the reference room, thinking about all these things. Unknowingly, the words on the book were dim and unclear, and it was actually dark. He twisted his neck and walked out holding a pile of papers.

It was time to get off work, and everyone was surprised.

"Xiao Chen, what are you doing?"

"It's okay, just check something!"

"I've got inspiration again, what genre do you plan to write?"

"I haven't written a word about it yet. I'll tell you when I think about it."

He dealt with it perfunctorily, left the main building, and went to the studio to have a look. The literary meeting was over, and the filming of "Lushan Love" continued, and it would be OK by mid-December.

…………

In this way, he was bored in the data room for three days in a row.

Beiying Studio circulated: Good guy, Xiao Chen didn’t know what he was going to do. He read for three days in a row, lit a lamp and boiled oil, and forgot to eat or sleep. Look at his pretentious attitude. How could he still think he was enlightened?

On the fourth day.

Chen Qi finally stopped going to the data room and knocked on the door of the factory director's office.

"Come on, come on, have a drink of tea!"

Wang Yang made the tea himself and said with a smile: "Everyone knows that you are practicing in seclusion. Now that you are out of seclusion today, do you have any ideas?"

"It's not bad, I have some inspiration."

"Say it quickly!"

“I’ve thought of three ideas and I’ll give you an overview.”

Chen Qi took a sip of tea to moisten his throat and said, "The first is the story of the Western Swordsman, the second is the story of the master thief Swallow Li San, and the third is the story of the Tai Chi master Yang Luchan."