director of the millennium

The emergency change of schedule of "Cai Wenji" undoubtedly forced Liu Yifei to devote herself to work, even though she is now pregnant.

After all, this movie is important to both her and Zhang Yimou.

If it were this time in the original time and space, Zhang Yimou would actually have no interest in hedging the prize.

Because his journey to win awards in Europe actually ended before "Hero".

As early as the 1990s, Zhang Yimou had become a big name in Europe with a number of art films and won many major awards.

Therefore, the European Film Festival, whether it is the Palme d'Or or the Golden Bear, is not something out of reach for Zhang Yimou. In fact, after winning it once, it actually feels like that.

After entering the field of commercial films, he hoped to achieve success in North America, that is, Hollywood and the Oscars.

This is also the reason why in the original time and space, Zhang Yimou tried several times to win an Oscar and tried to cooperate with Hollywood film companies after entering the 21st century.

At his level, fame and fortune are no longer his primary pursuit. Only honor is worth pursuing. Zhang Yimou, who has won honors both in China and Europe, naturally hopes to achieve success in North America.

But the reality is very bleak. Hollywood is different from Europe. You can't win an award just because your movie is good. There are too many capital games and political issues involved. It is impossible for Zhang Yimou, a foreign director, to succeed there.

In fact, since the birth of Hollywood, all the Chinese who have been able to achieve success and honor there, except for Jackie Chan and Ang Lee, are of Chinese descent.

Their success is also due to the fact that they are not from mainland China, and they started working in Hollywood in the 90s when the Chinese mainland film market was barren, which gave them the opportunity.

After all, no one in Hollywood cared about the threat from Chinese films at that time.

It can only be said that Zhang Yimou was too late in his attempt to win an Oscar. If he had been able to develop in Hollywood in the 90s, he might have achieved the same success as Ang Lee, or even higher than Ang Lee.

Anyway, Wu Yuan has always believed that Ang Lee's directing skills are not as good as Zhang Yimou's. Whether from an artistic or commercial perspective, Zhang Yimou is much better than Ang Lee, he just lacks opportunities.

And in this time and space, because Wu Yuan decisively persuaded Zhang Yimou to join Light and Shadow Era when the two Zhangs broke up, his development in this life was undoubtedly smoother.

Not only did no one influence his film creation, but he also provided money and people when he needed them, and Wu Yuan also lent a lot of his connections in Hollywood to Zhang Yimou.

A movie like "The Great Wall" not only had higher box office in mainland China in this time and space, but also achieved considerable box office in Asia through the channels of Light and Shadow Era, and became well-known in the entire Greater China cultural circle. Later, it was also released in North America, where it also earned more than 10 million US dollars.

The only pity is that Zhang Yimou of this time and space ultimately failed in his bid for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but that was due to the failure of his earlier martial arts films and had nothing to do with the era of light and shadow.

With the operation of Light and Shadow Times, "The Great Wall" was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars that year, but it did not win the award.

This also rekindled Zhang Yimou's idea of ​​​​aim for an Oscar, and if he wanted to do so, he would undoubtedly need Wu Yuan's full support.

So the movie "Cai Wenji" came into being.

This movie was actually created by Wu Yuan for Liu Yifei to win an award, and Zhang Yimou decisively took on this task in exchange for Wu Yuan's support for his Oscar bid. This is an unspoken understanding between the two.

Therefore, although he has no interest in the European Big Three, Zhang Yimou is very concerned about the European awards for "Cai Wenji" this time, even more so than Wu Yuan.

After all, the smoother the road to winning awards for "Cai Wenji" is, the greater Wu Yuan's support for Zhang Yimou's Oscar bid will be.

So, when he learned that Liu Yifei was pregnant and the originally scheduled participation in Cannes was temporarily changed to the Berlin Film Festival, Zhang Yimou did not complain at all. He immediately mobilized his own connections, cooperated with Wu Yuan to build momentum in Europe, and transferred all the connections that he had originally intended to use in Cannes to Berlin.

In terms of influence in Europe, he is not much worse than Wu Yuan.

After all, the original film "One Second" was easily shortlisted for the main competition unit in Berlin, but Zhang Yimou was not interested in using his connections to win another Golden Bear, so he simply withdrew from the election.

This time it's different.

With the joint efforts of Wu Yuan and Zhang Yimou, the popularity of "Cai Wenji" in Europe has rapidly increased, even though it was added to the shortlist on an emergency basis.

The life story of this famous woman in Chinese history is also gaining momentum.

Although they were unable to influence the judges of the jury, Zhang Yimou and Wu Yuan still contacted a large number of film journalists, film newspaper reviewers, film critics, and other so-called "industry experts" who had influence on public opinion and would attend the Berlin Film Festival to write some publicity for the film.

The crew of "Cai Wenji" has also received notice that they will leave for Berlin on February 2 to participate in this year's Berlin Film Festival.

Regardless of whether there is a schedule or not, we have to immediately clear out the dates from the 5th to the 18th to go to Berlin to promote the film.

As for the 2019 Spring Festival, it’s not too late to celebrate it after attending the Berlin Film Festival!
"Director Zhang has already flown to Berlin in advance to smooth the relationship for Cai Wenji."

"Although I haven't made any efforts in Europe for more than ten years, Director Zhang's influence in Europe is greater than mine. After all, I don't do much in Europe."

Holding Liu Yifei, whose temper was somewhat erratic during pregnancy, Wu Yuan softly comforted her, "I will also accompany you to Berlin next week. We will treat it as a trip. Berlin is a very beautiful place, and German food is also very special."

"I still remember when I first went to Berlin, Director Wang Xiaoshuai took me to a very delicious German sausage restaurant. There were more than 20 different types of sausages, and they all tasted great."

“I’ll take you to try it when we go to Berlin this time.”

Originally, Wu Yuan just wanted to share with Liu Yifei some interesting stories about his participation in the Berlin Film Festival that year, but he didn't expect that when Liu Yifei heard the word "sausage", she frowned and immediately began to retch.

This scared Wu Yuan, and he quickly patted her back to comfort her and handed her a cup of warm water.

"Don't mention sausages to me." After dry heaving several times, Liu Yifei took the cup of water and said with tears in her eyes: "When you mention sausages, I have the image of greasy sausages in my mind, and then I feel sick!"

Got it!
Wu Yuan smiled bitterly and shook his head. Pregnant women are really hard to take care of, and this life has just begun for him! (End of this chapter)