director of the millennium

XNUM X Year X NUM X Month.

On a beautiful autumn day, the film "Riding the Wind" started shooting in Shanxi with great fanfare.

Yes, very high profile.

This is different from Wu Yuan's usual style in the past, but it fits its identity as a "tribute film".

As a 70th anniversary tribute film that China Film Group Corporation paid close attention to and even co-invested in, "Riding the Wind" was destined to attract attention from the industry from the very beginning. There was even an administrative order from above, and even the official media had to provide space for this film.

Under such circumstances, Wu Yuan certainly could not start the filming in a low-key manner. He had to hold a solemn press conference and take the leading actors to accept a barrage of questions and interviews from reporters.

Fortunately, although he doesn't like being interviewed, Wu Yuan's many years of directing career have enabled him to handle media interviews with ease.

And because it is a tribute film, the questions asked by the invited media were mostly conventional. They did not ask sharp questions or topics unrelated to the movie, and the overall atmosphere was quite comfortable.

During the entire press conference, the person who attracted the most media attention was not Wu Yuan, but the film's male lead Wu Jing.

Wu Jing, who had just finished filming "The Great Wall", joined the crew of "Riding the Wind" almost seamlessly.

It can be said that the media invited to the scene were the most interested in him.

Although he has been in the industry for almost 20 years, Wu Jing's fame has always been lukewarm.

In the 1990s, he mostly played important supporting roles in various martial arts dramas and was a thorough action star.

After the millennium, Wu Jing went to Hong Kong Island to develop his career, and mostly acted in action movies, and also could only play supporting roles.

After more than ten years of acting career, Wu Jing has only barely made a place in the field of action stars and can barely be considered a golden supporting actor in action movies.

Later in 2012, he returned to the mainland to develop his career and starred in a military film "I Am a Special Forces Soldier: The Blade Comes Out of the Sheath", which was considered a successful return to the field of TV dramas, and he also played the leading role for a rare time.

Next, he took a gamble and sold his house to raise money for the military-themed movie "Wolf Warrior" in which he directed and starred. It was a huge success and earned nearly 5 million yuan on the first day of its release, setting a record for the first-day box office of Chinese military-themed movies. The film's cumulative box office exceeded million yuan.

At this point, Wu Jing came into the upper class's attention and touched the threshold of a first-line actor. However, because he was an action star in his early years and later focused on military themes, Wu Jing is still not very famous in the public eye and does not have a huge fan base.

Logically speaking, an actor like him would not attract much attention from the media, just like no one paid special attention to his marriage and the birth of children.

But this year Wu Jing's luck turned, and he was spotted by two of the top domestic directors, Zhang Yimou and Wu Yuan, and became the leading male star of their new films.

Wow, now Wu Jing, who was originally ignored, has suddenly become very popular.

At the launch conference of "Riding the Wind", various media surrounded him, eager to dig out his mental journey over the past decade, and were full of curiosity about this actor who had become a hot commodity for major domestic directors.

Wu Yuan was also inevitably asked about related topics.

"The reason why Director Zhang and I chose Wu Jing is naturally because he has the qualities we want."

Wu Yuan answered the questions from reporters with confidence, "There are fewer and fewer tough-guy actors in the current acting circle. Unconsciously, the aesthetic taste of Chinese movie fans has changed. Under the influence of Japanese and Korean idols, they prefer androgynous actors."

"I don't want to comment on this phenomenon, but we have to face the fact that with the change in public aesthetics, excellent tough guy actors in the industry are indeed scarce."

"And Director Zhang and I's new films both require a group of tough-guy actors to play the heroic soldiers."

“So the casting of my film Riding the Wind and Director Zhang’s The Great Wall has a very high degree of overlap.”

"Wu Jing, Zhang Hanyu, Zhang Yi, and Duan Yihong all joined my crew right after the filming of The Great Wall was finished."

"It's not that I don't want to find other actors, but there are only a handful of tough actors in China who can play the role of soldiers. There's nothing I can do."

"It was both accidental and inevitable that Wu Jing was chosen as the leading actor."

Yes, the final casting of "Riding the Wind" is very similar to that of "The Great Wall", at least the male actors are almost the same team.

There is no other way around it. There are only a bunch of military actors available in the country. What can we do?
There was originally an actor named Zhu Yawen who could be used in Guangying Times, but after Zhu Yawen finished filming "Ready Player One", he took on a role in "Knife of the Assassin 2" and replaced Zhang Yi's role of Lu Wenzhao, the captain of the Zhenfu Division.

And Zhang Yi came to the crew of "Ride the Wind".

This is also a change caused by Wu Yuan's butterfly effect. Because Lu Yang became an actor in the second phase of the Light and Shadow Era Young Director Support Program, "Blade of the Assassin 1" appeared a year earlier.

Also, because Guangying Times provided sufficient support, although "Knife of the Assassin 1" did not make much money, the company immediately supported Lu Yang in filming "Knife of the Assassin 2", which allowed the film to be released two years earlier.

Due to schedule conflicts, the current situation has arisen.

However, Zhang Yi himself is still very satisfied. Can the supporting actor in "Assassin's Blade 2" and the supporting actor in "Riding the Wind" be of the same level?

"In short, I hope there will be more actors like Wu Jing in the entertainment industry. Military films, war films, and period films need such tough guys!"

In the end, the launch conference of "Riding the Wind" ended with Wu Yuan's words.

On that day, Wu Yuan's headline calling for more tough actors in the entertainment industry became the front-page headline of major mainstream entertainment media.

After reading the relevant reports, some people agreed, some were dissatisfied, and even more denounced it.

Now is the time when Korean idol groups are surging, and it is also the honeymoon period between China and South Korea. Korean Oppas have captured tens of millions of young girls in China. These girls don’t care whether Wu Yuan is a big director or not. It is not okay for you to mock our brother for being "sissy".

Many idol fans went to Wu Yuan's Weibo to scold him, saying that he relied on his high status to bully his own Oppa and had no idea how hard-working and manly his Oppa was.

Unfortunately, Wu Yuan could not see these comments at all, as he rarely logs into his Weibo account.
After the filming of "Riding the Wind" started, he had even less time to pay attention to the public opinions on the Internet. He never relied on netizens' comments or even their mood to make a living, and he didn't care about the strange opinions of these children whose minds had not yet grown up.

There was another thing that forced Wu Yuan, who was concentrating on filming, to raise his head and pay attention.

"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is officially released in North America! (End of this chapter)