director of the millennium

Chapter 773 The Second Dali International Film Festival
The crew of "The Monkey King" is filming in the Golden Monkey Ecological Park at the Shanghai Zoo.

In order to rent this special filming location, Light and Shadow Times spent a huge amount of money, and only closed this venue for filming.

Even so, it was because this movie was Wu Yuan's movie, otherwise the Shanghai Zoo would never have lent its park to the film crew for filming.

After all, as the largest zoo in Shanghai, there is no shortage of tourists all year round, and there is no need for a movie to help promote it.

I can only say that Wu Yuan’s face-saving fruit is still quite useful.

The reason why the crew rented the zoo was to shoot part of the plot at the beginning of the movie. The male protagonist Sun Wukong worked part-time in the monkey park of the zoo and met the old keeper played by Mr. Liu Xiao Ling Tong, and then worked with him.

This part does not have many plots, but it is very crucial and contains many foreshadowings. For example, the two people will talk about Sun Wukong during casual conversation, and even argue about what kind of monkey Sun Wukong is.

This scene is being filmed in the monkey park at this moment.

Zhang Yishan plays Sun Wukong, who is dressed as a zookeeper. While feeding the monkeys, he argues with Liu Xiao Ling Tong, who is cleaning in a corner of the park:
"It's written in Journey to the West that Sun Wukong is a stone monkey that jumped out of a stone!"

"In the original Journey to the West, the Buddha said there were "four monkeys who were in trouble in the world". "The first was the stone monkey, who was good at transformation, knew the weather, knew the terrain, and could move the stars and change the constellations. The second was the red-butted horse monkey, who knew yin and yang, understood human affairs, was good at going in and out, and could avoid death and prolong life. The third was the long-armed ape monkey, who could hold the sun and the moon, shrink thousands of mountains, distinguish good and bad, and manipulate the universe. The fourth was the six-eared macaque, who was good at listening, could observe reason, knew the past and the future, and understood everything."

"Sun Dasheng must be the legendary Lingming Stone Monkey, not an ordinary monkey!"

Sun Wukong looked very confident, but Liu Xiao Ling Tong just shook his head and said, "What the book says is wrong. There is no such thing as a magical stone monkey. It's all hearsay. There really is a six-eared macaque, but it's only because that guy has three pairs of ears that he's called the six-eared macaque."

"Sun Wukong is a macaque. In the poem "Journey to the West by the Great Tang Monk", Sun Wukong calls himself: The 84,000 Bronze-Headed and Iron-Foreheaded Monkey King of the Purple Cloud Cave in the Flower-Fruit Mountain. He is the same species as the Six-Eared Macaque. They are both macaques."

“This book is earlier than Journey to the West.”

"Moreover, judging from their living habits, macaques are social animals in the mountains and forests. The most powerful 'Monkey King' in the group leads all the monkeys. Therefore, all the monkeys in Huaguo Mountain are macaques, so they will choose a Monkey King, and finally choose Sun Wukong, the handsome Monkey King."

"How could Sun Dasheng be just an ordinary macaque?" Sun Wukong didn't listen at all. He rolled his eyes and said dissatisfiedly: "Sun Dasheng is the Great Sage Equaling Heaven. His origin is definitely extraordinary. He is a divine monkey."

"No matter how great the Monkey King is, he is still a monkey." Liu Xiao Ling Tong showed no emotion at all. Instead, he looked at Sun Wukong's back with eyes full of doting, and said with emotion: "It's rare to see someone like you who protects Sun Wukong nowadays."

"Very good!" At this time, Wu Yuan's voice came from the loud speaker hanging in the air in the distance: "This segment is over, add another mid-shot!"

"Every unit prepares!"

In half a day, Liu Xiao Ling Tong and Zhang Yishan filmed four or five scenes in the monkey park, and the filming went very smoothly.

One of them is the actor who plays the old Monkey King, and the other is a former child star. They are indeed very good at acting and have a high level of tacit understanding, which makes Wu Yuan very satisfied.

But what he didn't expect was that during the break in filming, these two people actually surrounded him and argued about what kind of monkey Sun Wukong was.

There was no way around it. The topic in the script had indeed sparked their curiosity. "You ask me, how would I know?" Wu Yuan was at a loss this time, and said speechlessly, "The Journey to the West didn't specify what kind of monkey it was."

"Besides, this kind of mythological story has undergone many evolutions. Who knows what the earliest setting of Sun Wukong was like?"

"But I am more inclined to believe that the prototype of Sun Wukong may be a macaque, but it is definitely not a golden monkey." Wu Yuan pointed to a group of lively golden monkeys in the monkey park and said with a smile.

The topic was finally brought to an end, and everyone was busy tidying up the scene and preparing for the next scene.

At this time, a staff member of Light and Shadow Times who had been waiting outside the set came over and started talking to Wu Yuan in a low voice.

"Director Wu, Mr. Li just called and said that the second film exhibition in Dali is about to be held, and asked you to take some time to attend it."

"You will continue to serve as the presenter of several awards this year."

"The second session is about to start?" Wu Yuan nodded in realization. Although the filming schedule was tight and the task was heavy, he still agreed: "I will be there when the time comes."

The Dali International Film Festival is the first and only private film festival in China hosted by Light and Shadow Times. The first session was held last year.

At that time, the first session was held quite well. Wu Yuan personally took the lead and invited three national-level filmmakers from Japan, South Korea and Thailand to serve as judges. He also sent out invitations widely and eventually invited more than 50 films from across Asia to participate in the exhibition. Half of them were independent films from China, and the remaining half were films from other Asian countries.

For a large-scale film festival that aims to expand internationally, the number of more than 50 films on display is undoubtedly relatively small, even shabby.

But as a film festival that is only held for the first time, it is already very good to have more than 50 films participating.

There were only more than 30 films participating in the first Pingyao Film Festival organized by Section Chief Jia, and almost all of them were domestic films, with few foreign films.

"So far, there are 70 independent films from home and abroad participating in this second edition, most of which are Asian films, but there are also some Latin American independent films."

“So Mr. Li hopes to make more efforts,” the staff member added.

When it comes to holding a film festival, everything else is empty talk; the quality of the films on display is what matters.

There weren't actually any outstanding works in the first session last year. They were all experimental or very immature works by newcomers. No truly high-quality films participated, so the fame of the first session was only due to the influence of Wu Yuan and the judges.

But this is not a long-term solution after all. If a film festival wants to continue for a long time and gain influence, it still has to present several good works at the festival, just like the three major European films that win the best film awards every time, they will become the weather vane of European films.

If the Dali International Film Festival wants to have influence and status, it must select several works that can influence the Asian art film circle!

“Sure, I hope we can produce some truly great films to make our film festival famous,” Wu Yuan said with emotion.

(End of this chapter)