National Tide 1980.

Now almost everyone believes that the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" that Ning Weimin is going to invest in is a story adapted from Theresa Teng's personal experience. It is equivalent to a screen biography of the personal emotions and career growth of Asian music queen Teresa Teng, and a reflection and summary of her half-life.

But to be honest, this is not true and is just a publicity stunt.

It was just a promotional tool used by Ning Weimin to attract more media attention and encourage more audiences to buy tickets.

  What actually happened? Why did the idea of ​​making this film come about?

Only Ning Weimin himself knows the truth clearly.

Speaking of which, it was mainly because in his previous life, Ning Weimin had a deep impression of the story of "Asian Cinderella bargaining with her boyfriend's family for love".

As a result, he met Teresa Teng in this life and after they became good friends, he discovered that the "broken love" experience of Teresa Teng and the eldest son of the Guo family actually had many similarities with the plot in "Crazy Rich Asians".

Then an idea suddenly struck me, and I came up with the idea of ​​“Why not use the music queen Teresa Teng to film this story” and promote Chinese culture and music to the world at the same time.

The process and sequence of the generation of this idea is very important and must be made clear first.

Because it depends on the success or failure of this movie.

If there was no certainty of making money, Ning Weimin, who is so calculating, would not have spent so much money to make a movie that might potentially lose money.

First of all, Ning Weimin’s confidence comes from the huge box office success of the original film in Europe and the United States.

In his previous life, this movie cost only 30 million U.S. dollars and earned 170 million U.S. dollars in North America. It also topped the North American box office charts for three consecutive weeks and eventually became the highest-grossing all-Asian cast movie in North America.

Although the original film "Crazy Rich Asians" was released in 2018, such high box office results are definitely inseparable from the special attributes of the era.

After all, at that time, the wealth of Asians had become a common consensus among people in European and American countries, and the box office scale was also quite different from what it is now.

But the problem is that Japan is now experiencing an economic bubble period, and the wealth of the Oriental people is also attracting the attention of the world.

Therefore, as long as the background story of the movie is changed to that from 1985, the wealthy Singaporean family is shifting their investment focus to Japan, it will be in line with the current world situation.

In addition, the cost of filming movies is low now.

It doesn't even require 30 million US dollars. Ning Weimin only needs to spend half of the money of the original film.

The scene can be made even bigger, enough to invite real stars to play the leading roles, which is incomparable to the original film.

And at least the fact that "Crazy Rich Asians" was a big hit in North America also shows that the story model itself and the way some plots were presented were recognized and accepted by European and American audiences.

To sum up, the favorable and unfavorable factors offset each other. Ning Weimin at least believes that in North America, it is not difficult to achieve the goal of 20% of the original film's box office.

In other words, from an optimistic point of view, the box office in North America alone is expected to reach nearly 40 million US dollars.

Then the production cost of $18 million can be recovered.

The rest of the revenue from re-releasing videotapes and music albums is all profit.

Secondly, in Japan, the main box office base of this movie, as well as other countries and regions in the Asian market, Teresa Teng herself is the most box office appealing banner.

She is different now than when she first debuted in "Miss Fan".

She has long since transformed from a green newcomer in the music industry to an Asian-level music queen. Her singing can be heard not only in Asia, but also anywhere there are Chinese people.

Although in the Chinese music scene, there seem to be two people, Teresa Teng and Feng Feifei, who can be compared with her, and they are of the same level in terms of fame.

But the problem is that these two haven't produced any outstanding new works in recent years, and their careers have long reached their ceiling.

However, Teresa Teng shone brightly in Japan.

Not only has he continuously released excellent new songs one after another, but he also made history last year by winning two of Japan's highest music awards as a Chinese, becoming the double champion of the Japanese music scene.

No one can deny that she has broken through her career ceiling and is creating a new career peak.

Looking at the entire Chinese music scene, there is really no other superstar as influential as her.

In terms of status and career achievements, she has already left everyone else far behind, becoming a legend in the Asian music scene that has never been seen before and will probably never be surpassed.

With her status as such, even if she makes a bad movie now, it will probably be a big hit at the box office in Asian countries.

From a purely commercial perspective, even Japan's top female star Keiko Matsumoto is inferior to her.

So when it comes to film pay, she is of course the number one Asian actress.

Even if Ning Weimin paid her $500,000 to make this movie, it would still not be a loss at all.

To be honest, at least in this movie, she is more important than anyone else and more important than the story itself.

In addition, there was also a guy named John Lone, who had just finished filming "The Last Emperor" and was about to become famous but had not yet become famous, and he played the male lead, and he only received a salary of 600,000 US dollars from Ning Weimin.

It is estimated that when this movie is released, it will be able to take advantage of the traffic from "The Last Emperor" which sold well all over the world and made John Lone a big star.

  With these two leading actors, it would be easy to carry the box office in Asia. So what does Ning Weimin have to worry about?

Not to mention, the factors that caused the original film to be a flop when it was released in mainland China no longer exist because of the different times.

You have to know that in this era, Cinderella stories like this have not yet become a cliché in Asia.

Movies with similar plots, such as "Lucky Star", "Meteor Garden", "Working Girl", "Pretty Woman", "Notting Hill", "Fifty Shades of Grey"... have not been filmed yet.

Judging from the subject matter, this kind of story is undoubtedly novel and caters to the needs of the audience, so the audience will definitely buy it.

What's more, the film is directed by Ning Weimin, and he is definitely going to tell a purely Chinese story.

It is impossible that the film would be like the original one, where the Chinese culture is distorted and American values ​​are used to disgust people.

In this way, there will certainly be no negative factors affecting the box office success of this movie in mainland China.

So even from the perspective of the planning of this film project, this movie was born out of necessity and is destined to become popular.

In particular, it is a light comedy that is fun for the whole family and suitable for all ages, making it the perfect film for celebrating the New Year.

Although the investment is high, if you look at it from the perspective of global distribution, especially with the distribution of music albums and video tapes as a supplement, it would be a miracle if this movie doesn't make money in the end.

To put it bluntly, what is Ning Weimin doing?

In fact, he was imitating the style of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and wanted to make a MTV in the style of a movie.

In essence, he used many of Teresa Teng's classic songs to interpret a romantic love story that the public can empathize with, and a popular happy ending story.

Teresa Teng’s music and Teresa Teng herself are the core of the movie, and the story is secondary.

In this way, the difficulty of making this film is not very high and it is completely controllable.

The focus of the filming was only on how to reflect the conflicts and romance that were in line with emotional logic in the main line of the film, how to use clever filming techniques to mobilize the audience's emotions, and how to express the atmosphere of Teresa Teng's golden songs.

Of course, it would be best if there was a new song that was nice enough to serve as the theme song of the movie so as to live up to expectations.

It is precisely because of this clear understanding that Ning Weimin has monopolized almost all personnel rights since the inception of this project.

Even though he is a complete layman, he has the final say on who to use and who not to use.

But speaking objectively, Ning Weimin didn't look like an amateur at all, but rather like a real expert.

Although it stands to reason that the director should be the core person of the entire crew in filming a movie, the casting should also be selected by the director with a professional eye.

But Crazy Rich Asians is different from other movies. Because there is no worry about the box office at all, Ning Weimin can let go of himself and create gimmicks as he pleases to expand the influence of the film's early publicity.

The final result was that Ning Weimin invited many famous foreign and domestic actors to participate across countries and regions.

Not only did this film become the first big-budget co-production among China, Japan and France, it also starred at least 20 Chinese and foreign movie stars.

He even brought in two internationally renowned clothing companies, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, to serve as advertising sponsors for this film.

That’s not all. He hired Kurosawa Akira’s personal photographer Nakai Asaichi as the main photographer for the film at a price that broke the industry ceiling.

At the same time, he also readily hired Osawa Yutaka, the candidate recommended by Kurosawa Akira, as the chief director of the film.

Such an unconventional way of employing people and the courage to make decisions are truly admirable.

If for no other reason, it is because in this movie, Ning Weimin is very clear that the role played by the photographer is obviously higher than that of the director.

The director only needs to tell the story clearly and edit it into a film.

Even though Osawa Yutaka has always been Kurosawa's assistant director and has no experience in independent directing before, he has worked with Kurosawa on many big productions after all, and he has the ability to control and dispatch the scene.

As the saying goes, even if you haven't eaten pork, you have seen pigs run. Since Kurosawa Akira has guaranteed him, Ning Weimin naturally would not worry about anything. He is very happy to make it happen and let Osawa Yutaka take the director's chair.

In addition to this, Ning Weimin did not disappoint even in the movie theme song.

He plagiarized Hibari Misora's last classic "The Flowing River" without any psychological barriers, allowing this Japanese classic song, which had been covered by countless music stars, to be released ahead of schedule. It was transformed into a "Made in China" and became his new song for Teresa Teng.

And this song is indeed good.

Not only did Teresa Teng fall in love with the song as soon as she heard it, she couldn't wait to go into the studio to record it, and even regarded the song as a true portrayal of her own journey in the music industry.

Even the other participants in the entire crew were deeply moved after listening to it.

All of this has increased confidence in the film's success.

In this way, not only can Ning Weimin do a favor for Kurosawa Akira, but more importantly, the director, the leading actor and the photographer will all be grateful to him and regard him as their mentor.

No one would question his authority, and no one would think of taking control from him.

It is certainly an exaggeration to say that "a gentleman will die for his friend", but these people will undoubtedly do their utmost to cooperate with his requests.

In this way, several main crew members worked together, and the filming progress of the film was naturally guaranteed.

Otherwise, with just his impromptu idea, he could gather the crew in Beijing in just a few days.

That is simply impossible.

However, in fact, Ning Weimin did just that.

From June 1987 to June 6, 20, all the actors and the creative team obeyed his orders and commands, willingly put down their work, and rushed to the capital from all over the place.

Not to mention Teresa Teng, Minoru Funaki, Asaichi Nakai, Yutaka Osawa, Ken Utsui, Tomokazu Miura, Haruko Sawaguchi, Qianyu Weng, and Peifang Yao who came from Japan.

Liang Jiahui, who was specially invited by Ning Weimin to Lian Gangcheng, also rushed to shoot his first movie "Prison on Fire" after his successful comeback. He also successfully brought along the little-known supporting actor Zhou Xingchi, who was specifically requested by Ning Weimin, and flew here overnight.

Then they joined up with Zun Long, Cen Chong, Wu Junmei, Fei Xiang, Zhang Qiang and Cui Jian who had just finished filming "The Last Emperor" in Beijing.

Finally, many local actors from Beijing and actors from the TV series Dream of Red Mansions also joined the filming team.

People like Chen Peisi, Chen Baoguo, Hu Yajun, Ma Shuchao, Wang Bozhao, Lin Fangbing, Zhang Weixin, Chen Xiaoxu, Yin Xin, Deng Jie, Shen Lin... are all included.

  As for what all these people gathered together to shoot?

Of course, Ning Weimin already had mature ideas.

To put it simply, it can be summed up in four words - a banquet for the rich.

What he meant was that he was going to use the wedding tent that had already been set up in Yunyuan to stage a scene for the first meeting of the hero and heroine of "Crazy Rich Asians".

In this plot, the character played by Teresa Teng is a little singer who only sings for the rich and powerful in order to earn money to study abroad.

However, Zun Long's character is the eldest son of the wealthy Singaporean family, the Yang family, and he is one of the relatives and guests invited to the event.

It was just that when John Lone performed Peking Opera on stage to celebrate for his distant relatives, Teresa Teng mistook him for a street singer with the same miserable fate.

And Zun Long did not break this window paper, but instead took on this new identity.

He helped each other backstage and happily chatted with Teresa Teng.

He deliberately did not attend the banquet and only ate the actors' meals to conceal his true identity.

The two of them felt very compatible and had a vague affection for each other until the end of the performance.

Finally, they left each other their contact information in the garden and said goodbye reluctantly.

It was because of this experience that Zun Long secretly ran to France to avoid the pressure from his family, and soon the two of them reunited in France.

Thus, a rich boy who evaded his family responsibilities and a poor girl who was kept in the dark began their romance in a foreign country.

Needless to say, Yunyuan’s gorgeous scenery and venue are all ready-made.

Although the crew members and actors were all amazed by the beautiful scenery and the size of the courtyard of Yun Garden.

Everyone was amazed by the grandeur of the wedding tent and the sumptuousness of the wedding banquet.

But the most difficult part has been solved, and it is not difficult to shoot this kind of plot directly.

Just shoot more real-life footage on Ning Weimin’s day and edit it at the end.

Especially, everyone could watch the excitement on the day of Ning Weimin's wedding and have a real wedding feast. How wonderful it was. Everyone was very relaxed.

Even many actors from mainland China regarded this filming opportunity as a big deal, as they got free food and drinks, received red envelopes, and even got to appear in an international blockbuster of such a large production scale. How great it was.

It doesn’t matter if the rivalry between Teresa Teng and John Lone is not delicate enough.

Just find time to shoot it alone, it's not difficult at all.

But to be honest, it is precisely this relaxed group atmosphere that conceals the real purpose of this play.

Ning Weimin was actually doing product placement to advertise his own Yunyuan.

As long as this drama happens, the rooms here are bound to be more popular and the prices will be higher.

In addition, of course no one would know that Teresa Teng came here nominally for filming.

But in fact, it was under the arrangement of Ning Weimin that he contacted the program crew of the mainland Spring Festival Gala under the pretext of filming.

They are secretly discussing plans for next year's Spring Festival Gala performances.

In 1988, whether the national audience could see Teresa Teng perform live on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala was entirely determined by the results of these secret talks.

In other words, Ning Weimin is trying to change the course of history and make up for historical regrets with his own efforts.

  Can he do it?

It remains to be seen. (End of this chapter)