China Entertainment: Been working as a director since 03

Chapter 460 Regret for Not Listening to Director Li
In February 2015, China's film industry was much more lively than in previous years.

There are two movies that performed well, both of which were released in late February.

Cheng Long's "The Heroes of Heaven" and "Wolf Totem" directed by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Feng Shaofeng and Dou Xiao.

If Li Yu had not intervened, there would have been another person in the film industry in February this year - Wang Jing.

In the original time and space, Wang Jing's "Australia Storm 2" was also released in February of this year.

Because Wang Jing started filming "Joy of Life" last year under Li Yu's persuasion, the filming started in the second half of last year and was completed in January this year.

The movie "Ocean Island 2" did not have time to be released, so naturally it could not catch up with this excitement.

However, after finishing filming "Joy of Life", Wang Jing immediately started preparing for his "Macao Storm 2".

I believe that with Wang Jing's speed, the belated "Ocean Island Storm 2" will be able to meet the audience by the end of this year or early next year at the latest.

In addition, Cheng Long's "Lion Falls from the Sky" is the script that Cheng Long showed to Li Yu and Da Tiantian before.

At that time, Cheng Long wanted to make a big move with Li Yu and Da Tiantian.

Then his "Lion Falls from the Sky" was criticized by Li Yu.

In the end, the work they collaborated on became "Man Jiang Hong".

Afterwards, Cheng Long did not give up on "Lion Falls from the Sky".

To be more precise, it was the Hong Kong director Li Rengang who did not give up on "The Heroes" because he was one of the screenwriters.

In this way, under the direction of Li Rengang and starring Cheng Long, "The Heroes Who Fly", which was once rejected by Li Yu, was released.

On the day of the premiere of "Lion Falls from the Sky", Cheng Long specially invited Li Yu to attend.

This is certainly not to slap Li Yu in the face, nor is it to tell Li Yu that they have made a movie out of the script that Li Yu was not optimistic about.

Cheng Long knew in his heart that Li Yu had the right to look down on "The Heroes of Heaven and Earth".

Anyone with normal eyes can tell which one is better between "Man Jiang Hong" and "Heaven Comes Heroes".

At that time, Cheng Long and Da Tiantian saw the script of "Man Jiang Hong". Until the day he finished filming "Man Jiang Hong", he never mentioned the four words "Heavenly Heroes" to Li Yu again.

As for Li Yu, although he knew that "The Heroes" was a mediocre and lousy movie, he still chose to give Cheng Long some face.

Li Yu was present at the movie premiere.

Li Yu felt that the movie was a bit bad, but Cheng Long's starting point and intention were impeccable.

In recent years, the authorities have proposed a blueprint for a modern version of the Silk Road. Cheng Long immediately followed up and made a film in which the Han Dynasty and the countries in the Western Regions treat each other equally and achieve a peaceful scene.

This position is simply not right.

In stark contrast to those directors who use their own agenda to whitewash the country of Sakura in their movies, he lets those people in Sakura who live a good life know that he cares so much about others, and they have to call him a movie god.

In short, Li Yu has a positive attitude towards "The Heroes from Heaven".

There is a fundamental difference between having good ideas but not being able to make a good movie and deliberately making a disgusting movie.

If Li Yu were really asked to point out the biggest flaw in this movie, he would say that the director Li Rengang's level is not good enough.

When Li Rengang was filming TV series at ATV in his early years, he produced many classic works, such as "September Eagle Flying" and "Nine Yin Scriptures".

After switching to the film industry, Li Rengang did not lack good works, but the number of good works was indeed relatively small.

"The Heroes" is a mainstream movie, and most Hong Kong directors cannot handle this subject matter.

It’s not that Li Yu has regional discrimination. Hong Kong Island, the environment where Hong Kong directors grew up, is really small.

Moreover, before the 1990s, Hong Kong Island was full of gangsters, and for some special reasons, they simply could not understand what a family-country narrative was. So Wu Baige turned such a good subject as "Red Cliff" into a story about a gangster boss Cao Cao fighting with another gangster boss because of a woman.

Later, Li Rengang, the director of "Skyfall", still made no progress when directing "The Climbers".

The filming of "The Hero Falls" was not good. It can be said that the directors in Hong Kong do not understand history as well as the directors in the mainland.

There is no place to shirk responsibility when such a good subject as "The Climber" was made into "Everest Love".

It would have been enough to just film the mountain climbing, but he had to make up some twisted love stories to force emotion.

Zhang Yi tried his best to play the C role in this movie, and made the extremely embarrassing lines sound powerful, but it still couldn't save the director from his powerlessness.

It can only be said that they don't understand the essence of this genre at all.

The first-day box office of "The Hero's Descendants" was extremely explosive, reaching a staggering 1.2 million.

But it started off at the peak, and from the second day, the box office trend began to decline.

Li Yu vaguely remembers that the total domestic box office of this movie was about 7.4 million.

The investment in the film is said to be 3 million.

If the investment figures announced to the public are true, this movie will definitely lose money.

A movie like this shouldn't even think of making a comeback at the box office abroad.

There are very few Chinese films that can achieve good box office results abroad, let alone a mediocre film like "The Heroes of Heaven and Earth".

A week after the release, Cheng Long encountered questions from reporters during a roadshow.

"Brother Cheng Long, what do you think of the audience's evaluation? Many viewers said that the story of "The Heroes of Heaven" that you and director Li Rengang collaborated on was very mediocre.

For the sake of the main theme, there are too many flaws to count, and the protagonist always likes to stand on a high ground and reason..."

The reporter who asked the question was from Hong Kong Island, and reporters from Hong Kong Island are always more daring in asking questions.

He almost told Cheng Long directly that many viewers thought "The Heroes" was a bad movie.

The smile on Cheng Long's face was a little bitter. After listening to the reporter's questions, he recalled the afternoon when Li Yu harshly criticized "The Heroes of Heaven and Earth".

He couldn't help but sigh: "I regret not listening to Director Li's advice."

"Director Li? Isn't Director Li next to you? Did he say something very important?"

The reporters were confused.

Li Rengang once publicly stated that if Jackie Chan had not approached him, he would not have been able to make this movie.

Even so, it's unlikely that Jackie Chan would be strong enough to teach a veteran director how to make a movie, right?

Could it be that the movie was shot like this because Jackie Chan ignored Li Rengang's advice and insisted on shooting it this way?
That’s not right. Li Rengang’s style is very obvious in this movie.

Li Rengang has always been at this level. As historical films, his previous works "The King's Guards" and "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" were not much better.

Even Li Rengang himself was a little confused. What could he have said that could make Cheng Long regret not listening to him? Why didn't even he know?

Cheng Long noticed that everyone was misunderstanding, so he immediately explained: "It's not Director Li, it's Director Li Yuli."

The curiosity of everyone present was aroused.

Why is Li Yu involved here?

The reporters didn't care why Li Yu's incident happened. They only knew that the topic of Li Yu making Cheng Long regret was definitely eye-catching enough.

(End of this chapter)