I didn't want to be an actor

"Another one? Who will invest?"

"I can invest. If not, I'll get China Film and Tengxun..."

Speaking, Shen Liang took out his mobile phone and dialed the number...

Ten minutes later, he hung up: "They said that if it's an action movie, the cost should be controlled below 150 million Hong Kong dollars, so you can shoot it at will!"

Yen Zidan was surprised: "Shoot it at will?"

Shen Liang shrugged: "Their idea is that if it can't be released in theaters, it will be directly released on streaming media. Anyway, it won't lose money!"

Ben Chen Musheng heard that Shen Liang had solved even the most important investment problem, and hurriedly asked: "Do you have any ideas?"

"... "Fire Fight" is unlikely to be filmed..."

Oh, Chen Musheng originally planned to shoot a movie about Mexican drug lords and Hong Kong police, and he also went to scout the location, but due to the huge production cost, the filming of the movie had to be shelved...

The project is called "Fire Fight"...

The plot is actually an upgraded version of "Raging Fire"...

This project is definitely not suitable!

Going to Mexico to shoot? Are you kidding?

"I have an idea," Shen Liang talked about the plot: "A brother who wants to save his sister from organ traffickers, and a thug who comes to avenge his brother's murder, the encounter between the two ruthless characters makes this exciting fighting journey..."

A typical story of gangsters eating gangsters!

In fact, Shen Liang's source of inspiration is "Save Me from Evil"...

After 2020, a slightly impressive Korean action movie.

...

After "Parasite" won the Oscar, Korean movies completely opened up the market...

Then it collapsed directly!

Except for Hollywood, movies all over the world have to walk on two legs to recover their investment in the short term. One is to be released in theaters and rely on box office revenue; the other is to sell distribution rights to film producers in other countries in Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. This is the difference between the three major film festivals and the Oscars. It is not only an award to determine authority, but also a trading platform.

Korean movies started on one path.

It is commercialization, relying on the local market, so local development and protection are done relatively well, and the box office champion can even reach tens of millions of people...

The habit of watching movies is well cultivated, but the ceiling of the Korean film market is too low, and there is no ability to distribute it to foreign countries. Therefore, it is difficult for Korean films to make a big breakthrough after the release of "Myeongryang" in 2014.

It was not until 2019 that the opportunity to change the model appeared.

"Parasite" won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year, and then swept the most important awards at the Oscars for the first time, and the copyright sales reached a new high.

——Before, Park Chan-wook, Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Lee Chang-dong and others also lived very well by selling copyrights, but none of them were as awesome as "Parasite"!

The success of "Parasite" has shown Korean filmmakers a way: sell to Europe and the United States, especially North America. The best result is that the North American market can be released and sold well. If not, it is also good to sell copyrights with the help of the Oscars and Golden Globe Awards.

Then, the top movies began to imitate "Parasite"...

At the same time, "Parasite" has won an Oscar, what does it mean? This shows that Korean movies are the best in the world, so the market was opened up!

Then, it collapsed!

In 2016, when the Korean film industry was at its peak, the annual film output reached 373 films, of which 303 Korean local films were shown in theaters, and eight of the top ten box office charts were Korean local films.

By 2020, the annual output was less than 80!

Why?

Because it is not profitable - there were less than eight films that recovered their costs in 2020.

Some people do business that kills their heads, but no one does business that loses money.

After several years of this, by 2023, no Korean capital is willing to invest in Korean movies.

The movies now shown in Korean theaters are all backlogs of previous films, and investment in new movies has been almost frozen.

Data shows that in 2023, the number of investments in a whole year was less than 20, which is far from enough to even make up a fraction of 2016.

There is no way. Only about two Korean local films are released every month, and these two films cannot make a profit...

In the whole year of 23 years, I heard that only four movies have made a profit, "Criminal City 3", "Seoul Spring", "Smuggling" and "Concrete Utopia"...

It's worse than Hong Kong movies!

Under this premise, do you still expect them to make awesome action movies?

"Save Me from Evil" has a very routine plot. A professional killer with excellent skills kills a group of gangsters alone and successfully rescues the child.

The only difference is the setting of the villain...

The main story is basically the same as "SPL 2", except that a killer duel is added. The central idea is about redemption.

Shen Liang... can't think of any new tricks.

This plot is already very complete, but he deleted a lot of details and the story is a little more compact.

...

Shen Liang simply gave a brief summary of the plot...

Ben Chen looked at Ling Weijun, who asked, "Will it be too much like SPL 2?"

"Then add a little suspense... To avenge his brother, you have to find the murderer, and add a few more clues to find the murderer..."

"How to end it?"

"Both of them died...Neither of them is righteous..."

Ben Chen didn't want to repeat himself, so he asked, "Nothing else?"

Shen Liang hesitated for a moment, then said, "I read a novel last year called "Beasts Grasping at Straws"...a Japanese mystery novel..."

"The Beasts Clawing at Straws", the protagonists are housewife Mina, policeman Ryosuke and a part-time worker.

Mina owes a huge debt and has been subjected to cruel domestic violence by her husband for a long time. She lives in hell every day. With nowhere else to go, she starts to pick up customers in nightclubs. A young man who is obsessed with Mina proposes to kill her abusive husband, and the two run away;

Policeman Ryosuke is deceived by a beautiful woman and ends up owing a huge debt to the underworld. With nowhere else to go, he can only look for money everywhere to fill the hole. Suddenly, the police found the body of a suspected beautiful woman, and Ryosuke was very afraid that it would be traced to him;

When the part-time worker was cleaning the bathhouse, he suddenly found a bag of unclaimed cash in the cabinet, a full 100 million yen. This money can greatly improve his poor life, but unknown risks are also gradually approaching...

A mysterious woman Choi Young-hee linked the fate of these three people together and completely changed it.

After listening to Shen Liang's story, Chen Musheng immediately became interested: "This story itself is quite interesting, and it is very suitable for making a multi-line narrative..."

Shen Liang sighed: "But it's not an action movie..."

Chen Musheng: "It doesn't have to be an action movie..."

Shen Liang was unhappy: "Not an action movie? What are all these brothers for?"

If it wasn't to find a way to make a living for the brothers, would Shen Liang need to make another one?

After "Raging Fire: Serious Case", he will go back to the mainland directly, even if he has to be quarantined for 14 days...

Then quarantine!

He will take protective measures, and it is impossible for Lao Hu to be like him, and sow seeds successfully during the quarantine...