1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Chinese Academy of Drama, teacher's office.

Chang Li looked at Zhang Ziyi in front of her, looked her up and down, then asked with a smile, "Have you really decided?"

Zhang Ziyi replied firmly, "Yes, it's decided."

Chang Li nodded. "Since you have decided, then focus on your studies and take the studio seriously. Our school attaches great importance to this school-enterprise cooperation project. If you perform well in the studio, you will definitely gain a lot."

"I know, Teacher Chang. We have been rehearsing with Director Hu Mei recently, and I feel like I have learned a lot."

"I heard about this. It's a good opportunity to hone your acting skills. Take it. Have you told Director Chen Kaige about this?"

Zhang Ziyi shook her head and said, "Not yet. I'm going to call him later."

"Well, explain it to them. Fortunately, this time shouldn't have much impact on their filming schedule, and they have enough time to find actors. Okay, go ahead."

"Okay, goodbye, Teacher Chang."

After Zhang Ziyi left, Huang Dingyu, who was sitting opposite her, said with a smile, "Did this girl want to drop out of school and join Chen Kaige's crew?"

Zhang Ziyi smiled and nodded, "Yes, that's true, but she told me today that she won't go."

Huang Dingyu sighed, "It's not easy to resist such temptation."

"It wasn't easy. I was almost certain that I was going to lose this student, but I didn't expect that she would decide to stay. Her transformation happened during the time she was in Zhou Yan's studio. It must be related to the studio."

Huang Dingyu nodded and said, "Zhou Yan's studio is indeed very attractive to students. If I had encountered such a good opportunity when I was a student, I would definitely not be willing to give it up."

Tian Youliang, who was on the other side, heard their conversation and said with a smile, "When you were in school, if you wanted the conditions given by Zhou Yan's studio, you would be crazy."

When Huang Dingyu was in school, it was the end of the 1970s. It was difficult to eat meat at school at that time. The food was like that in the studio cafeteria.

At that time, if any unit said they could eat meat every day, countless people would definitely be trying their best to get in. It was simply a god-like unit.

Even now, few units can match the food quality in Zhou Yan Studio's canteen.

Sometimes teachers like Huang Dingyu envy their students because the food they eat is so good.

Although it’s okay for teachers to eat for free, they are shameless.

However, Tian Youliang, because he was in charge of matters related to school-enterprise cooperation, was able to go to the studio frequently and had many meals in the cafeteria there.

Also because he ate too much in the studio cafeteria, Tian Youliang now doesn’t want to come back for dinner.

Of course, eating is only one aspect. More importantly, the studio provides many practical opportunities, which is very rare for students.

In addition to many opportunities for practice, there are also many chances to meet some big names in the industry, such as the directors signed by the studio.

The biggest star among them is naturally the owner of the studio, Zhou Yan himself.

……

After leaving the teacher's office, Zhang Ziyi went to a telephone booth and called the director's office at Yanjing Film Studio.

The phone was picked up quickly.

"Hello." A man's voice came from the other side.

"I'm looking for Director Chen Kaige," said Zhang Ziyi.

"Oh." The man raised his voice and shouted, "Director Chen, someone is looking for you. It's a girl."

Chen Kaige laughed, "What girl? It can't be Lao Zhou again."

"I'm not lying to you this time. It's not Zhou Yan, it's a girl."

"Okay, I'll take it."

After a while, Chen Kaige answered the phone, "Who is this?"

"Hello, Director Chen, I'm Zhang Ziyi."

Hearing that it was Zhang Ziyi, Chen Kaige smiled and said, "Oh, Ziyi, why are you calling me now? Have you applied for leave from school?"

Previously, Chen Kaige asked Zhang Ziyi to ask for leave from the school herself, and he never asked about it again. He felt that there was nothing wrong with it, and that there wouldn't be any accidents on Zhang Ziyi's side, so he didn't care much.

"Director Chen, the school doesn't allow leave. If I want to go to film, I have to drop out. So after thinking it over, I decided not to go. I want to stay in school and finish my studies. I hope you..."

Before Zhang Ziyi finished speaking, Chen Kaige asked in surprise, "You mean, you want to give up the position of the heroine of "The Emperor and the Assassin" and continue to study in school? What on earth are you thinking?"

After hearing what Chen Kaige said, Zhang Ziyi felt confused. Wasn’t her explanation clear enough?

"Director Chen, I don't want to give up my studies, so I won't consider taking on big roles before my third year," Zhang Ziyi explained again.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long time before Chen Kaige said, "I respect your decision. I just hope you won't regret it in the future."

"I'm so sorry, Director Chen."

"No need to apologize, let's just leave it at that." After saying that, Chen Kaige hung up the phone.

Listening to the dead tone on the phone, Zhang Ziyi sighed slightly. Of course, she could tell that Chen Kaige was a little angry, but she had made up her mind and would not change it.

Now after talking to Chen Kaige, Zhang Ziyi felt much more relaxed. She suddenly realized that giving up was not as difficult as she had imagined.

Maybe one day in the future, she will regret rejecting Chen Kaige today, but now, she has to focus on the present, study hard in school and the studio, and it would be best if she could get some roles in short films from the studio.

……

Chen Kaige put the phone down heavily. Senior Lu said with a smile, "Director Chen, why are you so generous? I just replaced this phone last month. Don't break it."

Hearing what Senior Lu said, Chen Kaige rolled his eyes and said, "Nothing, I was just rejected."

"Who can refuse our Director Chen?"

"A female student who is still studying at the Central Academy of Drama."

Senior Lu exclaimed in amazement, "This girl is incredible. She actually rejected your play."

Chen Kaige snorted and said nothing.

Zhang Ziyi suddenly announced that she would not act anymore, but it did not have much impact on his play. After all, there was still a long time before the filming started, and he had enough time to find actors.

The reason why he was unhappy was that he hadn't been rejected for a long time... In recent years, in the film industry, apart from Zhang Ziyi, only Zhou Yan had rejected him.

But when Zhou Yan rejected Chen Kaige, he was not very angry, because Zhou Yan was very busy and it was normal for her to not be able to catch up.

Besides, what is Zhou Yan's status? It is not a shame to be rejected by Zhou Yan.

But he was rejected by a female student today, and he gave her the role of the heroine. She will definitely regret it soon, Chen Kaige thought.

Her movie will surely become a big hit, not only getting good box office, but also winning numerous awards overseas. The male and female protagonists of the movie will surely also be very famous, and Zhang Ziyi will definitely regret it.

……

Zhou Yan didn’t know that Zhang Ziyi had rejected Chen Kaige. If he knew, he would definitely give this girl a thumbs up.

At this moment he is personally supervising the studio, recording "Fireworks" for Akina Nakamori and Shizuka Kudo. After two days of practice, the performance of this song is already very good and can be recorded.

The recording of the chorus was a little more complicated, but Akina Nakamori and Shizuka Kudo performed very well, and it only took half a day to finish recording the song.

Zhou Yan listened to the version he had just recorded again, and then said into the microphone, "Okay, you guys come out."

Kudo Shizuka ran out first, "Are you done? Let me hear it."

Zhou Yan took off the headphones hanging around his neck and put them on her ears, then played the song he had just recorded for her to listen to.

Akina Nakamori also came out. She didn't rush to listen to the music, but first picked up the teacup and gulped down a big gulp of water.

In order to keep their voices in good condition when recording songs, Akina Nakamori and the others basically did not drink water. Even if they were thirsty, they would just take a sip and not drink too much.

In the past, singers didn’t understand this and thought drinking water could moisten the throat, so they often drank water while singing.

But later everyone discovered that drinking water before singing not only failed to moisten the throat, but made the throat drier, greatly affecting the vocal condition.

After holding back for most of the day without drinking much water, Akina Nakamori was really thirsty.

Seeing her gulping down water, Zhou Yan smiled and said, "If you want to protect your throat, you shouldn't eat spicy food."

This woman usually eats too spicy food too frequently. She even wants to mix some chopped pepper beef sauce with her noodles in the morning.

According to her, if it weren't for protecting her throat, she could eat spicy food for every meal three times a day.

Akina Nakamori also knew that she had been eating spicy food too frequently recently, and said a little embarrassedly, "I will only eat hot pot once a week in the future."

Zhou Yan smiled. This was a great concession for her.

At this time, Kudo Shizuka had already listened to a part. She took off her headphones and put them on Nakamori Akina's head, "Akina, listen to it."

Akina Nakamori nodded and listened carefully with the help of headphones.

Kudo Shizuka also remembered to drink water now. She picked up the teacup and took two sips, then asked Zhou Yan, "When will "Time Traveler" be released in Japan?"

Zhou Yan asked in confusion, "Why are you asking this suddenly?"

"I was talking to Songzi today about "Time Traveler" and she said that Japanese fans are looking forward to this movie."

"We received news from Japan yesterday that the film will be released on April 12th. I think the news will be announced in the next two days," Zhou Yan said.

Kudo Shizuka laughed and said, "The fans of Neon are in luck. I will go to watch it when I go back this time."

"Haven't you seen it?"

Both Akina Nakamori and Shizuka Kudo watched "A Time Traveler" in China. With their Chinese proficiency, they naturally have no problem watching Chinese movies.

When they were in the cinema, they saw Zhou Yan and Joey Wong kissing frequently in the movie, and Kudo Shizuka became jealous. She said that she had only kissed Zhou Yan, but Zhou Yan had kissed other people under the pretext of acting.

In fact, Zhou Yan only kissed Joey Wong in the play, but in Kudo Shizuka's words, he seemed to have kissed countless actresses.

"Although I have seen the Chinese version, I would like to see the Japanese version."

"Except for the subtitles, there is no difference. There is no dubbed version of this movie released in Japan," said Zhou Yan.

"Will you go to promote the movie when it's released in Japan? You should have time to go there before the Forbidden City concert, right?"

Zhou Yan smiled. This was what she wanted to ask.

"It depends. If we have time, we can go to Neon."

To date, Neon is still Zhou Yan's largest market, and the movie fans and music fans there contribute the most income to Zhou Yan.

Some time ago, "Yu Lin Ling" released a collector's edition vinyl record, which costs 499 RMB.

In the past few years, with the emergence of CDs, the price of vinyl records has almost been cut in half.

But since last year, vinyl records have become collectible as they have become increasingly scarce, and their prices have begun to soar again.

Compared to three years ago, the price of vinyl records has increased tenfold.

But even so, selling a record for 499 RMB is still relatively expensive.

And this is just the basic collector's edition, followed by a Glory Collector's Edition for 699 yuan and a Brilliant Limited Edition for 999 yuan.

Such a price is totally a money-making scam, but Japanese music fans are very supportive.

A total of 1997 copies of the dazzling limited edition neon version worth 1997 yuan were sold, and all of them were reserved almost on the day the pre-sale started.

The Honor Collector's Edition sold 120,000 copies within a week, and the Basic Collector's Edition sold 130,000 copies.

The latter only sold 10,000 more copies than the former, which shows that Japanese music fans have really strong purchasing power.

Zhou Yan didn't pay attention to the data during this period, but the two versions sold a total of at least 350,000 copies.

Three hundred and fifty thousand copies is not a remarkable achievement for a music album, but this is only the sales volume of the collectible vinyl records. Before that, the tapes and CDs of "Yu Lin Ling" had been sold for a long time, and even ordinary vinyl records had been sold for a long time.

In addition, the sales of these 300,000 records are extremely terrifying. If the average price of each record is 600 yuan, the sales volume is 200 million yuan.

The total sales of those 1997 brilliant collector's editions, each of which cost , were close to two million.

Such sales results are extremely terrifying no matter which country or musician it is.

Zhou Yan has achieved the same result with almost every music album in Neon.

Zhou Yan doesn't mind spending some time maintaining such a profitable market.

"How about, when the movie is released, we will help you promote it," suggested Shizuka Kudo.

"How can you help me?"

"If you have any premiere or something like that, we can go there. Even if we don't sing, just showing up can help you."

Zhou Yan shook his head and smiled, "That's not necessary, but you can help me promote the movie while you're promoting the new song."

"That's fine too." Kudo Shizuka said with a smile, "When I'm on the show with Akina, I'll help promote you." (End of this chapter)