1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Because of Han Shaogong's incident, Yu Hua and the others don't like Zhang Yiwu very much.

It is normal for writers and critics to have a bad relationship, because in most cases, the two sides are in a "hostile" relationship.

It’s just that Zhang Yiwu, when making literary reviews, doesn’t seem very reasonable or follow basic principles.

Moreover, Zhang Yiwu is a bit too cautious to take responsibility for his actions. Han Shaogong has not yet gone to court to sue Zhang Yiwu, but Zhou Yan has read related reports before.

In the beginning, when Han Shaogong did not file a lawsuit, Zhang Yiwu and several other so-called critics were very arrogant and aggressive, because they did not think that Han Shaogong would really file a lawsuit against them, nor did they think that what they did was illegal.

In their view, speech is free, and their literary criticism is even freer.

However, when Han Shaogong actually went to court to sue them, they became scared and began to argue that they did not say that Han Shaogong had "plagiarized."

Zhou Yan read what Zhang Yiwu and Wang Gan said in the interview. They believed that Zhang Yiwu's article "Spiritual Lack" used the word "completely copied" instead of "plagiarism", so they thought that Han Shaogong's lawsuit against them for slandering Han Shaogong for plagiarism was unreasonable and absurd.

In fact, Zhou Yan didn't know whether Han Shaogong had plagiarized or not at that time, because the "Dictionary of the Khazars" mentioned by Zhang Yiwu did not have a Chinese version at that time, and Zhou Yan had never read it.

However, when Zhou Yan saw what Zhang Yiwu and Wang Gan said, he almost laughed out loud. He really couldn't understand why two professionals engaged in "literary research" felt that the nature of the word "completely copying" could not cover "plagiarism".

They actually insisted that saying that Han Shaogong's book completely copied the Dictionary of the Khazars was not the same as saying that Han Shaogong's book plagiarized the Dictionary of the Khazars.

This is complete lies and pure sophistry.

If Zhang Yiwu and Wang Gan could stick to their words in court instead of being timid about what they said, Zhou Yan would still look up to them.

"What is the origin of this 'At Your Service Newspaper'? It's quite efficient." Zhou Yan said.

Just a few days after the release of "Time Traveler", this newspaper published Zhang Yiwu's article. Not only is Zhang Yiwu efficient, but their newspaper is also efficient.

Yu Hua smiled and said, "This newspaper was only established two years ago. They often like to make some innovations, that is, they want to be famous, so they always publish some bold commentary articles, and they want to be controversial."

Zhou Yan nodded. There are more and more popular newspapers now, most of which are gradually derived from evening papers and city newspapers. These newspapers are essentially no different from some entertainment newspapers. They like to publish controversial articles with the intention of arousing public opinion.

It is easy to understand why such a newspaper could publish "Spiritual Lack" and "Spiritual Compromise".

Zhou Yan is very famous, and if Zhang Yiwu comes and scolds him, it will definitely attract a large number of readers.

In fact, their goal was achieved. As soon as this article "Compromise of the Spirit" was published, it attracted attention in the literary and film and television circles.

Zhou Yan had no intention of paying attention to Zhang Yiwu. He had been busy these days working on the manuscript of "Never Let Me Go".

Although Zhang Shouren did not urge Zhou Yan to submit the manuscript directly, he would call every one or two days to "check on him" and ask if Zhou Yan needed any help.

Zhou Yan just wanted to write the manuscript as soon as possible to avoid being harassed by Zhang Shouren every day.

"Let Zhang Yiwu curse if he wants. I don't have time to deal with him right now. Besides, he probably just wants someone to pay attention to him. The purpose of these young 'critics' is to become famous."

Yu Hua said indignantly, "We can't let this kind of person act so recklessly. Han Shaogong said he was going to sue them. I discussed it with Tie Sheng and the others and are planning to jointly ask the court to give them justice."

Zhou Yan thought for a moment and said, "We can sue them, but there is no need to jointly put pressure on the court."

"We are not putting pressure on the court, we just hope that Han Shaogong can get justice," Yu Hua defended.

"Your intention is definitely not to put pressure on the court, but the fact is that you have put pressure on the court. You should stay out of this matter. If you want to support Chairman Han, there are other ways."

"We don't want to get involved, we're just worried..."

"There's nothing to worry about. Just hand it over to the court. If you get involved, you don't know how the media will frame you. Apart from other things, someone will definitely say that you writers are banding together to oppress young critics."

After hearing what Zhou Yan said, Yu Hua was silent for a while, then said, "Aren't you worried that Zhang Yiwu's article will have a bad social impact, and many people may not watch your movie because of his article?"

Zhou Yan laughed, "Comrade Yu Hua, you still don't know much about propaganda. The final result of this matter may be completely opposite to what you think?"

Yu Hua asked in confusion, "Completely the opposite? Are you saying that Zhang Yiwu's article will not only not reduce your movie's box office, but will actually increase it?"

"It's possible."

"I still don't quite believe it."

"If you don't believe it, just wait a few days and see. It won't take too long. You'll see results in a week."

"Okay, I'd like to take a look."

"Okay, I won't chat with you anymore. I'm working on the manuscript for Never Let Me Go, and Mr. Zhang is here to urge me to finish it again."

"Haha, you'll get used to it. The more successful these editors are, the more clingy they are. Of course, the more clingy they are to you, the more it means they think highly of your work. Write quickly, and when you're done, don't give it to Mr. Zhang yet, show it to us first."

"Row."

……

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yan buried his head in finishing his manuscript.

At this time, Wang Zuxian came over with a kettle to add water to Zhou Yan's cup, "Was that the call from Brother Yu Hua just now?"

"Well, he told me that a young critic criticized The Time Traveler."

"Young critic? A film critic?"

"No, a literary critic."

"Can literary critics also review movies?" Joey Wong asked curiously.

"Some of them are like this. They like to express their own views on art, regardless of the type and scope of art."

"No impact, right?"

"No, don't worry. The feedback from the cinema is very good. Ordinary audiences have good reviews for this movie. That's enough."

Joey Wong is not too worried about the movie box office. As long as Zhou Yan is not worried, she won’t take it to heart.

Having made movies for so many years, what kind of public opinion has she not experienced? She doesn't care about a little bit of criticism.

What she cared about was Zhou Yan. After all, Zhou Yan was the director, and she didn't want these voices to affect Zhou Yan.

However, Zhou Yan has always been strong and never cared about the criticism. "I heard from Sister Hong Xin that she had heard the pirated soundtrack of "Time Traveler" on the street." Wang Zuxian said.

Zhou Yan nodded, "I heard about it, it's true."

Compared to pirated videotapes, pirated soundtracks are easier to get because all you need to do is bring a tape recorder to the cinema. It is not only low-cost but also not easy to be detected.

It’s just that no one has ever made pirated movie soundtracks before, because few people would buy them even if they were pirated.

But "Time Traveler" is different. The soundtrack of this movie is so popular. The key is that the density of songs in it is high, so it is easy to record a decent tape, and many people buy it.

"But I heard the quality is not very good."

"They don't have the original copy tape to copy and edit, so the effect is impossible to be good. It's already difficult to record without noise."

If you just bring a tape recorder to the cinema to record, it is difficult to ensure that the audience will not talk, so basically the recorded tapes will have a lot of noise in them and the effect will be very poor.

If they want high-quality pirated tapes, they must be able to cooperate with the people in the cinema to get a copy of the original.

Another method is to book a session yourself and then record it in a quiet environment. Although the recording effect of this method is not as good as the original copy, it is definitely much better than the general pirated recording.

However, this method is not possible for most people, and the cost is too high.

Pirates generally don't invest too much, because investing too much will only help others. As long as other pirates get the tapes, they can copy them at low cost and reap the benefits.

Zhou Yan didn't care too much about these piracy issues. Piracy in the mainland is an objective fact that is difficult to change. The situation faced by other movies is similar to theirs.

In order to eliminate piracy, in addition to cultivating copyright awareness, the economic level must also keep up.

At this stage, since piracy cannot be eliminated, it is better to keep a calm mind and regard piracy as an alternative form of propaganda.

If the quality of the pirated tape is really too poor, Zhou Yan doesn't mind playing some slightly higher-definition clips so that the audience can hear the music earlier.

He is not worried that these higher-definition clips will reduce the sales of the genuine soundtrack later on. After all, people who listen to pirated copies are unlikely to spend money to buy the genuine version.

Those who are willing to buy genuine products will not give up on them just because of some high-definition clips on the market.

On the contrary, because more people have heard the songs and the audience base that likes the music has grown, more people will choose to go to the cinema or buy an authentic soundtrack later.

……

Regarding Zhang Yiwu's criticism of "Time Traveler", Zhou Yan and others neither responded nor suppressed it.

Of course, there was no adding fuel to the fire.

After the incident came out, Zhang Youan suggested that they should help Zhang Yiwu push it to make the matter more popular, but this suggestion was rejected by Xu Feng.

What Xu Feng meant was to let things ferment on their own. If they can ferment, then let it take its course. If they can’t ferment, then there is no need to invest the cost.

As it turned out, they did nothing and the matter still escalated.

After "At Your Service" published Zhang Yiwu's article, some evening papers or city editions quickly followed suit, such as "Yangcheng Evening News", "Xinmin Evening News", etc., as well as some tabloids and digest newspapers. Many newspapers directly put the news on the entertainment page because in their view, this was an entertainment event.

But soon, the situation changed again, because some professional newspapers also followed up, such as "Wenyi Bao" and "Zhonghua Dushu Bao", which published related articles.

This was originally a matter of the film and television industry, but it suddenly became a matter of the literary industry. The reason for this is that Zhang Yiwu mentioned Zhou Yan's novel "Tree Hole" in "The Compromise of the Spirit". He believed that "Tree Hole" was just an imitation of Latin American literature and had nothing of its own.

Although Zhang Yiwu did not write much about "Tree Hole" in his article, this point gave newspapers such as "Wenyi Bao" and "Zhonghua Reading Newspaper" a reason to follow up.

The China Reading Newspaper was very neutral, basically just repeating Zhang Yiwu's comments on Zhou Yan, with almost no opinions of its own.

But the article in Wen Yi Bao was different. It was written by a critic named Luan Shuhai. In the article, he strongly supported Zhou Yan and believed that Zhang Yiwu's comments were narrow-minded and unprincipled.

Although "Tree Hole" has magical elements, it is fundamentally different from Latin American literature, and it has a considerable degree of innovation in writing techniques, providing a new model for contemporary novel writing.

Moreover, he praised Zhou Yan's novels for their local content but international writing techniques, saying that he is one of the few young writers in China who is at the forefront of international writing.

In Luan Shuhai's article, 90% of the content is commenting on "Tree Hole", and only the last 10% extends to "Time Traveler".

He believes that as a movie, the fact that all the soundtrack songs of "Time Traveler" are in English does not mean anything.

Just like Zhou Yan's novels, Zhou Yan tries to use a more international form to bring Chinese works to more foreign audiences.

Apart from the fact that the soundtrack was English songs, he did not see anything in the movie that belittled China or was Westernized. Instead, he felt Zhou Yan's strong confidence in cultural communication from his bold use of English music.

This kind of confidence is not possessed by many people in China today, such as the "quite sensitive Comrade Zhang Yiwu".

As soon as the article in "Wenyi Bao" was published, "At Your Service" was like a chicken with its blood pumped up, and published many articles in succession, all of which were on the same front as Zhang Yiwu. They began to criticize not only "Time and Space Love Traveler", but also Zhou Yan's literary works.

Some people also made a fuss about Zhou Yan's identity, saying that Zhou Yan was too unprofessional. He was obviously a music student, but he insisted on writing articles and making movies.

They even secretly stated that Zhou Yan's articles might have been ghostwritten by someone else, otherwise, there would not have been no new works for such a long time.

Before the Literary Gazette could fight back, the newspaper from Zhou Yan's hometown, the Yangtze Evening News, rushed over and started scolding the At Your Service Newspaper.

The Yangtze Evening News used rather explicit words, directly saying that the At Your Service Newspaper was a meaningless tabloid that completely imitated Jinling's Service Guide, but it did not learn any of its essence and instead produced a bunch of dross.

After criticizing the At Your Service Newspaper, the Yangtze Evening News also criticized Zhang Yiwu and others, as well as Yenching University.

The reason why Yenching University is criticized is that Zhang Yiwu graduated from the Chinese Department of Yenching University, and stayed on to teach at the university after graduation. He was just promoted to associate professor this year.

The wording of the Yangtze Evening News is very strong. The author believes that Zhang Yiwu's writing level is completely unlike that of a Chinese department graduate, and questions why the Chinese department of Yenching University wants to keep such a person in school and whether there is any improper operation involved.

It is hard to imagine how badly the school spirit of Yanda would be affected by the presence of such an associate professor.

Yan University was also very troubled. They didn't expect that such a thing would happen to them.

Of course, Yanda is not innocent either. As China's highest institution of learning, Yanda is not a spotless place. There are many dirty things in the school.

Many teachers and students at Yanda have had problems in recent years.

They could only endure the criticism from local newspapers.

However, although Yanda University did not say anything, Zhang Yiwu could not sit still. When he was interviewed by a reporter, he said that he would sue the Yangtze Evening News for damaging his reputation. (End of this chapter)