The king of ghost horse comedy

Chapter 430 Preparing for the Spring Festival

Time flies by, and it is the Spring Festival in a blink of an eye.During the Spring Festival of [-], the Xu family used the Xu brothers' "The House of Fortune and Gold" as their main New Year film.

The Xu Brothers have not released a new work for more than a year. Hong Kong citizens who like them are looking forward to it, and the expectation index is very high.

Shaw Brothers responded with three films: "An Interesting History of Warlords" directed by Li Hanxiang, "The Master of Shaolin Shed Building" co-produced by Liu Jialiang brothers, and "Chasing Girls in 36 Rooms" directed by Lui Qi.

Among these three films, "The Interesting History of Warlords" is the sequel to "The Great Warlords" starring Xu Guanwen, but this time it is starring Qin Huanglai. Compared with "The Great Warlords", which is all-inclusive and harmonious, this time The plot of "An Interesting History of Warlords" mainly focuses on romantic affairs, investigating secret prostitutes, interviewing private prostitutes, uncles and sisters doing women's affairs, concubine cheating, all the way to the end.

The Liu Brothers' "Shaolin Shed Master" is also titled as the sequel to "Shaolin 36 Houses", which was released last year.It is also the theme of Shaolin Kung Fu, also starring Liu Jiahui, and also the monk who consumes three virtues.

Last year's "Shaolin 36 Rooms" brought all kinds of Shaolin Kungfu to life on the screen, so many viewers were amazed after watching it.So this "Shaolin Shed Master", which is called an orthodox sequel, has naturally attracted everyone's attention before it was released.

It can be said that in the days when there were no brothers Hong Jingbao, Cheng Long, and Yuan Biao, Master Liu Jialiang and his Liu Jiaban could be regarded as the number one Kung Fu troupe in Hong Kong.

And "Chasing Girls in 36 Rooms" directed by Lu Qi is also an urban chick-picking comedy that plays a big role in sex. The filming naturally turned into a salty and wet version of "Chasing Girls", full of sex and dirty jokes.Although it is slightly vulgar, it caters to the tastes of ordinary citizens, so the box office has achieved good results.

And looking at the name of this movie, you can know that he learned from last year's hit "Chasing Girls" and "Shaolin 36 Rooms".And in this movie, if those men want to pick up girls, they really have to learn all kinds of girl-picking skills like they did in "Shaolin Room 36".Such a spoof way, can't help but make people laugh out loud.It also reflects the consistent quick wit of Hong Kong film directors, who have brought the use of doctrine to the fullest.

Golden Harvest also has blockbuster films released during the Spring Festival, namely "Drunken Mantis" by the Yuan Jiaban brothers, "One-armed Boxer vs. Nine Sons of Truman" by Wang Yu, and "Short Boy and Love" by Zeng Zhiwei.

"Drunken Mantis" still continues the previous routines of "Drunken Master" and "Drunk Eight Immortals Fighting Drunk Arhat", and it still follows the route of humorous kung fu movies in the early Republic of China.With Yuan Jiaban's consistent wonderful kung fu design, even if the storyline of this film is nothing new, the fighting scenes are definitely eye-catching.

And Wang Yu's "The One-Armed Boxing King vs. The Nine Sons of Truman" continued to use the name of the one-armed sword to make money.After Wang Yu left Shaw Brothers, he switched to Golden Harvest and filmed "The One-Armed Sword Fighting the Blind Man", which triggered a big lawsuit between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest.The lawsuit has been going on for more than a year, and it still hasn't finished after the release of "The One-Armed Swordsman vs. the Blind Man".

Shaw still won the lawsuit, but he won the face but lost the face.Golden Harvest has already screened "The One-Armed Swordsman vs. the Blind Man", and has already put money in his pocket.

Although Wang Yu could no longer use the signboard of "The One-Armed Swordsman", he created the signboard of "The One-Armed Boxing King" by himself, and used it to make many movies.Although the quality of these movies is declining year by year, it does not prevent Wang Yu from making a lot of money.Later, he went to Taiwan to develop. Although he had passed away long ago in Hong Kong, he once became the hottest star in Taiwan's film market, which has always been backward and weak.

This "The One-Armed Boxer Fights The Nine Sons of Truman" is based on the one-armed boxer and the classic characters in many classic movies directed by director Zhang Cheh, such as Guan Xiaolou in "Revenge", "The Thorn Horse" Ma Xinyi in ", etc., and then got together to engage in a big melee.Do your best to spoof and set a precedent for nonsensical works.Bill Dongsheng, Qin Pei, and Jiang Dawei co-produced "Owl" for several years.

And Zeng Zhiwei's "Short Boy and Passionate" still continues the line of "Chasing Girls", which is also an urban comedy movie for picking up girls, but this time Zeng Zhiwei personally plays the leading role in the battle, which can be said to be full of sincerity.

After Zeng Zhiwei went to Golden Harvest, he mostly imitated Xu's hottest movie themes. In the early Republic of China, humorous kung fu movies became popular, so he followed the trend to shoot kung fu movies; , so few of the few films he made were not blockbusters, which also made him the number one figure in the Hong Kong film industry.

……

The Spring Festival schedule basically belongs to the three major film companies, and it is difficult for other small film companies to get a share of the pie.Because these three major film companies have firmly monopolized the theaters in Hong Kong, there is no channel for small film companies to release them.

However, there is actually a Shuangnan cinema chain in Hong Kong, but leftist film companies do not have the habit of making Lunar New Year films, and they cannot keep up with the new trend of Hong Kong film development. Movies, so the number of viewers is basically very small, and basically can't control the situation of the Spring Festival schedule.

The battle of the Spring Festival schedule has been ignited since the beginning of the first month. The three major film companies have their own unique strategies, or advertise together in newspapers, magazines and TV stations; Human and material resources.

The reason why the three major film companies are so willing to spend money is because the Spring Festival schedule is really a hot schedule.Normally, a movie that sells only one million box office can reach 200 million when it is released during the Spring Festival. If the publicity is effective, it may reach 400 million, and the profit rate has directly more than tripled.

In addition, the Spring Festival schedule is the beginning of a year, and everyone wants to get off to a good start and win a good start, so the three major film companies have unanimously stepped up their promotional efforts, wishing to send out notices door-to-door that my movie will be released soon Yes, all of you should come over to see it right now!
In the propaganda war, naturally the Xu Group, which owns three media companies, has the upper hand, followed by Shaw Brothers, which owns TV stations and magazines, and lastly, the poor and weak Golden Harvest Company.

Although the ratings of Shaw's Jiayi TV Station are not high, it is still a TV station, and there are always some ratings.But Golden Harvest is pitiful in comparison. His own magazine "Golden Harvest Movie" only sells a few thousand copies, and he can barely maintain the cost without losing money, but don't think about it if it has any major influence. Apart from magazines, Golden Harvest has no other publicity channels.

If you want to advertise in newspapers, magazines, or TV stations, you must spend more money than Xu and Shaw. This is undoubtedly an unbearable burden for Golden Harvest, which is already financially strained.Although he has the support of Nanyang Filmmakers, he will have to pay back sooner or later.

Those Nanyang film producers are not good fortune boys. They are willing to pay because they believe that there will be better returns. But if they don’t get enough profits, these Nanyang film producers can do anything.At that time, not only the Golden Harvest Company will not be able to keep it, but even life will be in danger.

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In addition to the competition for film schedules and the vigorous promotional battle, the three major TV stations in Hong Kong also competed for the ratings of the Lunar New Year programs.

Because of Xu's TVB as an example, now Lidi and Jiayi have also noticed the importance of Spring Festival celebration programs.During the broadcast period of the program, the sales volume of advertisements was exceptionally good, and the price was [-]% of the previous one, and it was still in a state of price but no market.

This show did not attract enough attention from Lidi and Jiayi in the past, and it has never been held, and it has also allowed TVB to enjoy the limelight for many years.But this year they also decided to get involved, and each called on stars to help out.

Among them, Jiayi TV Station is guarding the treasure house of Shaw Brothers, so naturally it does not have to worry about not having stars to help out.And Li's cooperated with Hong Kong record companies such as Polygram Records and EMI Records, and also recruited a lot of stars, so this year's Spring Festival celebration program has also become the highlight of the three companies' looting.

However, unlike the TVB program that was broadcast on New Year's Eve, Li's TV station took a step back and changed it to the first day of the first day of the new year, avoiding TVB's limelight.However, Jiayi TV Station is not to be outdone, and it is also broadcast on New Year's Eve, but I don't know what the ratings will be.

For the annual Spring Festival celebration program, TVB attaches great importance to it from top to bottom, and it has been preparing since the beginning of the first month.

In addition to the singers under the Yisheng record company to participate in the performance, students from Xinghui Art School, movie stars under Xu's company, TVB's own TV stars, etc., also have to participate in the performance.Try to create it as TVB's annual celebration day, and it must give everyone a feeling that the stars are celebrating the New Year and the family is watching TVB happily.

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In addition to movies and television intrigues, major record companies have also launched new year albums to grab the market.This trend was also first started by Xu's Yisheng Record Company. Every year, the singers under the banner will come together to release a happy, peaceful and festive New Year's Eve album.

Because it has been promoted for several years, it has very good sales every year, so this has also stimulated other record companies, and they also want to grab the big cake of the Lunar New Year album.For example, Polygram, EMI, Diamond and other well-known record companies also have many star singers under their banners, and they also have strong market appeal.

In fact, this is also related to the prosperity of Hong Kong's overall economic environment. People's lives are rich, so they are naturally willing to spend more money on these entertainment projects.So everything is easy to sell when the market is good, and both good and bad are popular; when the market is bad, everything is hard to sell, and both good and bad are not popular.

In the 90s and 10,000s, the Hong Kong record market was very prosperous. Top singers had sales of millions of records, while ordinary singers also had sales of 10,000+ or ​​even hundreds of thousands. They could make a lot of money just by relying on records.However, when the record market shrinks in the new century, top singers can only sell [-]+ records, while ordinary singers can only sell [-] to [-], and it is already a miracle for new singers to sell more than [-].

Last year, YS Music Hong Kong branch sold more than 500 million records, among which Xu Guanjie, Winner Band, Xu Xiaofeng and Leslie Cheung all released two albums last year, with an average of six months. There is one, each of which will have hundreds of thousands of sales, and the four people add up to more than 300 million copies. They are Hong Kong's leading popular singers.

For powerful singers like Xu Guanying and Yushi Band, the sales volume of their records is between 10,000+ and 10,000+. Although they are not at the level of big sales, it is not a problem to support themselves by dividends.

As for the Taiwan branch, Deng Lijun, the queen of sweet songs, still dominates. Although only one Mandarin album was released last year, the sales volume has reached more than 80 copies, making it the best-selling artist among Chinese singers in East Asia.And she also released two Japanese albums last year, which also sold hundreds of thousands. She is now the best Chinese singer in Japan, and she is also known as the light of Taiwan.

(End of this chapter)