director of the millennium

"Brother Cheng Long, it's still the same old topic."

"You have to switch to literary drama to start a second spring in your career."

"I can't help you much in this regard."

"Of course, if you just want to invest in movies, you can still cooperate more with Guangying Times. I absolutely support you in this regard."

In the VIP lounge of the equestrian arena, Wu Yuan was chatting with Cheng Long.

Cheng Long's career has indeed been difficult in recent years.

Although he won the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement and the Kingsman series has grossed more than $10 billion worldwide, the glory cannot last forever.

In Hollywood, after the "Kingsman" series, Jackie Chan tried to shoot a few more movies, but the box office performance was mediocre, with only 20 to 30 million US dollars in North America and 50 to 60 million US dollars worldwide, not to mention making a lot of money. In addition to the copyright operation, the investors could only barely get their money back.

In mainland China, there has been no breakthrough in the Chinese-language films he has shot since "The Chinese Zodiac", with the box office ceiling being around 5 million yuan, and it has continued to decline in the past two years.

"Detective Pu Songling", which was released during the Spring Festival in 19, had a box office of 1.6 million yuan in the mainland, and the production company's share of the box office was 5695.2 million yuan. The investment cost was 3.5 million yuan, and the box office loss in the mainland was 2.9 million yuan, which was a huge loss.

The Vanguard, which was released during the National Day holiday in 19, performed better, with a cumulative box office of 2.94 million yuan, and a box office of over 3 million yuan in Hong Kong, but it was definitely a loss, and its Douban score was less than 5 points.
The Sino-Russian co-production "Mystery of the Dragon Seal", co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, grossed less than 10 million US dollars worldwide.

To sum it up in one sentence, the era of Cheng Long has passed, and he has been producing many bad movies.

Without Wu Yuan's support, Jackie Chan's acting career returned to its original track.

There is no way around it. After all, for an actor at his level, there are only so many choices. If Wu Yuan hadn't intervened, the result would have been predetermined.

But Cheng Long still refused to give in!
After all, his son is a hopeless case and there is no successor, so he can only work hard on his own. Otherwise, he would not be able to release two or three movies a year when he is almost 70 years old.

But if you can’t beat him, you can’t beat him. Time is unforgiving and no one can escape.

Now Cheng Long is in urgent need of transformation, or to be more precise, he is in urgent need of Wu Yuan's help. After all, Wu Yuan has unparalleled connections in China and Hollywood, and he has a very sharp eye. No project that he values ​​will fail.

So when Wu Yuan invited him to star in "Mulan", he agreed without hesitation, and even took the initiative to come and participate in equestrian training.

But Wu Yuan really couldn't help at all!

There really aren't many movies suitable for 66-year-old Cheng Long to act in on the market right now.
His status as a martial arts superstar is so deeply rooted in people's hearts that it is impossible for people to watch him act in a literary drama, but he can't fight anymore.

In fact, Cheng Long only has one option left, which is to retire gracefully and enjoy a successful life.

After all, the Oscars give out Lifetime Achievement Awards, which are generally given to veteran film industry figures whose acting careers are coming to an end.

To be unlucky, many people died within a few years of receiving this award.
The Oscars' award to Jackie Chan is actually a hint that he can make a dignified exit. His era has passed and there is no place for him in Hollywood anymore.

Unfortunately, Cheng Long still wanted to persevere.

In this regard, Wu Yuan encouraged him and gave him a suggestion: "You can make a second part of "The Karate Kid" to sell more feelings." He could not give more help. Even in the "Mulan" crew, Cheng Long only played an important but small role as a general, which was completely using his fame and status, but he was not actually required to do much.

Not only him, but also the older generation of Hong Kong male actors who are still active in the film industry, their era has actually passed.

Andy Lau, Louis Koo, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, the two Ka Fai, Lau Ching-wan and other last sunsets of Hong Kong Island have all come to an end.

It’s just because there is no one to take over that these old movie stars, whose average age is 60, have to continue working despite their old age.

Otherwise, who would those Hong Kong film companies invest money in to make movies?
This is also the reason why they can still make movies every year even though the movies they make are losing more and more money.

If you don’t ask them to shoot, you will lose more!
The idiom "drinking poison to quench thirst" is vividly reflected in the current Hong Kong film industry.

It’s a pity that all this has nothing to do with the booming mainland film industry, and even less to do with Wu Yuan.

After bringing a group of actors who had already signed letters of intent to the equestrian arena and watching them begin to learn horse riding under the guidance of their coach, Wu Yuan stayed there to observe for a few days. After making sure that everything was going well, he boarded his private plane and left the capital.

In the past two months, domestic aviation control has not been so strict. As long as you are not going abroad, you do not need strict quarantine when flying anywhere in the country. You only need a green code.

Wu Yuan also embarked on his journey to scout the scenery.

"Mulan" definitely needed many filming locations in China, and one of the most important locations was the place where the war took place in the movie, which is the grassland.

Fortunately, China is a country that possesses most of the world's landforms. In its 960 million square kilometers of territory, there are all kinds of landforms and landforms, including grasslands.

It was only after checking the information that Wu Yuan realized that China is actually one of the countries with the richest grassland resources in the world. The total grassland area is nearly 4 million hectares, accounting for 40% of the country's total land area!

If he had not seen this information, he would never have imagined that 40% of China's land was grassland. He could not feel this at all in his daily life. He even thought that China only had grasslands in Inner Mongolia.

But in fact, China’s grasslands extend from the three northeastern provinces to the far borders!

There are also four major grasslands, namely Hulunbuir Grassland, Xilingol Grassland, Yili Grassland and Nagqu Alpine Grassland!
The destination of Wu Yuan's trip is Hulunbuir Grassland, which ranks first among the four major grasslands.

Hulunbuir Grassland is one of the three most famous grasslands in the world, a world-famous natural pasture, and is known as the best grassland in the world.

More importantly, Hulunbuir grassland is the birthplace of many ancient civilizations and nomadic peoples. Nationalities such as Donghu, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Shiwei, Uighur, Turkic, Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongolian once lived and multiplied here. It is praised by historians as the "Cradle of Nomadic Peoples in Northern China" and occupies a high position in world history.

In other words, most of the nomadic peoples that appeared in history books made their fortune here.

There is no doubt that this is the most suitable place to film "Mulan". It is perfect both from a historical and scenic perspective.

Isn’t this much better than the savannah of New Zealand?
Wu Yuan once again couldn't understand why Niki Caro would leave such a suitable filming location unused?

I can't figure it out from all aspects! (End of this chapter)