director of the millennium

Chapter 1 Man, do you want a disc?
In the early spring of 2000, the weather in Beijing was colder than in previous years.

Although it is already the end of March, the temperature has barely climbed to around 0 degrees, and there has even been continuous light snowfall for the past two days.

In the alleys of the Dongcheng Hutong in the capital, there were a lot fewer pedestrians than usual, and everyone walked in a hurry, only the hot breath was constantly exhaling from the mouth when passing by.

And just at the corner of the alley, Wu Yuan, wearing a military coat and a military cotton hat, was squatting next to the wall, taking a big sip from the Daqianmen cigarette in his hand.

"Hiss~ha~"

Although there was a cigarette hanging from his mouth, his eyes were always on the pedestrians hurriedly coming and going on the road.

When he saw some lesbians walking by, he glanced at them and stopped paying attention. But when he saw gay men, he would look at them carefully.

"This is not very good, it looks like a state-owned enterprise."

"Oh, this one is even more heavyweight. It looks like he is from the mixed system."

While smoking a cigarette, Wu Yuan recklessly commented on pedestrians in his heart.

As a student of the 98-level director department of the Film Academy, his behavior is not only exercising his "people-seeing" vision, but also looking for goals.

"This is not bad, it looks like a college student!" Wu Yuan, who looked at him for a long time, finally settled on a target.

He took a deep breath of the cigarette, threw the cigarette butt that had hit the butt of the cigarette on the ground, stood up and crushed the cigarette butt a few times, relieved some numb legs and feet, and rushed out of the alley corner with a brisk walk.

"Hey man! Want a disc?"

The young man wearing glasses, who was walking quickly with his head buried in his head, raised his head in astonishment and looked at the tall figure in front of him, covering his sight, and asked in astonishment, "What kind of disc?"

"Made in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Europe and the United States!" Wu Yuan unbuttoned his military coat with one hand, while winking at the young man with ambiguous eyes.

The young man, who was still a little confused at first, immediately sharpened his eyes after hearing Wu Yuan's words. He pretended to be calm, adjusted his glasses frame, looked around, and after making sure that no one was paying attention to them, he muttered in a low voice. Said: "Well, I can't stand those from Europe and America, but those from Hong Kong and Taiwan are pretty good."

"Hey, that's not right, there are still domestic films like this?!"

"Why not?!"

After unbuttoning his coat, Wu Yuan grabbed the clothes with both hands, opened them to both sides with force, and said proudly: ""See You or Be Parted", "No One Can Be Missed", "Party A and Party B", and "My Father and Mother" are all big names. The director’s film!”

I saw that the lining of Wu Yuan's unfolded coat was covered with CDs. Each CD also had a small hand-drawn "movie cover" on it. The painting was not very good, but the name of the movie was written on it. It was simple. direct.

There are Hong Kong and Taiwan, European, American, Japanese, Korean, and mainland movies, and they are all new movies released in the past two years!

However, these movies obviously failed to attract this college student who was at the height of his curiosity. He shook his head in disappointment, blushed and muttered, "So it's this kind of movie."

"Why, aren't you satisfied?" Wu Yuan frowned. College students are the largest group of buyers of pirated discs. This is his carefully selected customer, and he must not let it go.

After thinking for a moment, Wu Yuan suddenly realized, and his brows widened: "I understand, do you want to watch some movies that can't be shown in cinemas?"

The young man, who was still a little disappointed, immediately burst into expectant eyes, staring at Wu Yuan and nodding his head hurriedly.

Showing an expression of "I really can't do anything about you", Wu Yuan carefully looked around, stretched out his hand and pulled the young man to the corner of the alley, and then carefully opened his floral sweater.

All I saw was a CD wrapped around Wu Yuan's waist sweater.

"These are all my treasured films!"

"Wang Xiaoshuai's "Extremely Cold", Jia Zhangke's "Xiao Wu", and A Nian's "Winter Love" are all films that cannot be played in cinemas!"

"The one I recommend most is "Suzhou River". This is Lou Ye's movie. Do you know Lou Ye? He won the best director at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival!"

"His "Suzhou River" was filmed the year before last, and it won the best film at the Paris International Film Festival!"

"Actress Weekly also won the Best Actress Award at the Paris International Film Festival!"

"This is definitely a high-quality film!"

"However, it has not been able to be released in China. I heard that it will be released in Hong Kong Island in the second half of this year."

"That is to say, he is my senior brother. I can only get the film if there is a tape of this film in school."

"I see you are also a college student, so I probably don't have enough money. If you really want to watch it, I'll sell it to you for 10 yuan a piece!"

"If you buy five at once, I can give you another [-]% off!"

"At my price, you can't find anything cheaper than mine in all the audio-visual stores in the capital!"

However, Wu Yuan's promotion did not impress the young man in front of him at all. Instead, he was very disappointed and felt that he had wasted 10 minutes.

He didn't bother to talk to Wu Yuan anymore, their minds were not on the same frequency at all, he waved his hands with little interest, broke free from Wu Yuan's hand on his shoulder, and was about to leave the alley without looking back.

"Hey, your taste is quite tricky, so many films are you still not satisfied?!" Wu Yuan scratched his head inexplicably, still unwilling to give up this client, and was about to catch up with his legs. A hand suddenly placed on his shoulder and held him down.

Immediately, Wu Yuan's whole body froze.

Selling pirated discs, especially guerrillas like Wu Yuan, who can change places with one shot, is most afraid of being caught on the spot during the transaction.

A smile uglier than crying appeared on his face, Wu Yuan turned his head stiffly, and explained repeatedly: ".I am a student of the Film Academy, and all the discs I bring are school teaching materials..."

Before he finished speaking, Wu Yuan swallowed the second half of his excuse.

The person standing behind him was not the market manager or street administrator as he imagined, but an older man who looked about 30 years old, looked a little naive, had ear-long hair, and exuded an artistic atmosphere. youth.

"Boy, you're fucking selling pirated discs here again!"

"Damn, it's you, senior brother, you scared me to death"

Jia Zhangke pointed at Wu Yuan's head, and said bitterly, "Isn't your school starting now? You didn't study hard at school, and you went here to sell pirated discs. You picked sesame seeds and lost watermelons!"

"And you kid is getting more and more over the top, and now you even dare to sell the films of your seniors!"

"Among the 98 students in the school's directing department, you are the most popular among the teachers. They all say that you are the most spiritual among the 36 students in this class."

"98 was a big year for the director department. In the past two years, no undergraduates were recruited. You are still the teacher's favorite. Do you treat the teacher's favorite like this?"

Although Jia Zhangke is not Wu Yuan's direct senior brother, he really has no way to say nothing about the teaching of this senior brother who has already made his debut in movies and has made achievements.

"I'm not short of money. How can I make my own movie if I don't have money?" However, Wu Yuan couldn't help but defend himself.

"You haven't arrived yet in your junior year, what's the rush?!"

"I'm not in a hurry, so this is not accumulating filming funds step by step!"

Jia Zhangke opened his mouth, but was choked by Wu Yuan's words. After taking a deep breath, his expression relaxed, and he said earnestly: "Xiao Wu, even if you are short of money, there is no need to do this. .”

"Look at your appearance. Your height of 183 is not inferior to Chen Kun's appearance. If you really can't do it, you can find a few crews to do some acting work first."

"Look at Jiang Wen, Lao Mouzi, and Feng Xiaogang, all of them have been actors. Your appearance is much better than them."

However, Wu Yuan, like the young man just now, also refused to listen to persuasion, he shook his head: "Brother, there must be a crew looking for me to act!"

"Besides, how can a director endure being told what to do by another director?"

"Senior Jiang Wen and the others, most of them are self-directed and acted, and they rarely take on foreign plays."

Jia Zhangke laughed angrily: "How old are you? You haven't made a feature film yet, so you feel like you're a director?"

Wu Yuan smiled and shook his head, but didn't answer.

"Well, I'm not your father, I'm not your mother, I don't care about you anymore, I can do whatever I want." Jia Zhangke curled his lips, and stopped persuading him.

"Hey, then let's get out of here, I wish my brother your new film hits Cannes and kicks Berlin in advance!"

Wu Yuan cupped his hands with a playful smile, wrapped the general's coat again, turned around and planned to leave.

"and many more."

"I just heard from you that you have a disc of "Suzhou River" in your hand?"

"That's right, Senior Brother Wang came to the school to give us an in-school preview meeting. Later, he said that he didn't expect to get a public screening permit, so he left a copy of the screening tape in school, so that we can watch and study at any time."

"I just recorded it right away..."

Jia Zhangke nodded: "Okay, give me the disc of "Suzhou River"."

While talking, Jia Zhangke took out ten yuan from his pocket and stuffed it into Wu Yuan's coat pocket.

"Brother, you must have seen this film." Wu Yuan scratched his head, a little confused.

"You don't care whether I've seen it or not." Jia Zhangke glared at Wu Yuan, took out the disc tray of "Suzhou River" from his arms, turned around and left without saying a word.

"You are selling CDs. I buy the CDs and go back and watch them slowly. Isn't this normal?"

Looking at Jia Zhangke's walking back, Wu Yuan smiled and shook his head.

"Knife mouth, tofu heart."

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(End of this chapter)