National Tide 1980

Now almost everyone believes that the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" that Ning Weimin is going to shoot is adapted from Theresa Teng's personal experience. It is equivalent to a screen biography of the personal emotions and career growth of Asian music queen Teresa Teng, and a reflection and summary of her half-life.

But to be honest, this is not true, and it is just a gimmick.

It is a publicity method for Ning Weimin to attract more media attention and encourage more audiences to buy tickets.

What is actually going on? Why did he have the idea of ​​shooting this movie?

Only Ning Weimin himself really knows.

Speaking of it, it is mainly because in his previous life, Ning Weimin was deeply impressed by the story of "Asian Cinderella playing games with her boyfriend's family for love".

As a result, after he met Teresa Teng in this life and became friends with each other, he discovered that the emotional experience of Teresa Teng and the eldest son of the Guo family, who were "broke up a couple", actually had many similarities with the plot in "Crazy Rich Asians".

Then, an idea came to him, "Why not use the music queen Teresa Teng to film this story?" and promote Chinese culture and music to the world.

The process and order of this idea are very important, and it must be explained first.

Because it is related to the success or failure of this movie.

If there is no certainty of making money, Ning Weimin, who is calculating, will not spend so much money to make a movie that may lose money.

First of all, Ning Weimin's confidence comes from the huge box office success of the original film in Europe and the United States.

In his previous life, this movie only cost 30 million US dollars and earned 170 million US dollars in North America. It has been the weekly champion of the North American box office chart for three consecutive weeks, and finally became the highest-grossing all-Asian lineup movie in North America.

Although the original film of "Crazy Rich Asians" was released in 2018, such a high box office performance must be inseparable from the special attributes of the era.

After all, at that time, the prosperity of Asians had become a common consensus in the hearts of people in European and American countries, and the box office scale was also quite different from now.

But the problem is that Japan is now experiencing an economic bubble, and the wealth of the Japanese is also attracting the world's attention.

So as long as the background of the movie is changed to that the Singaporean wealthy family, the Yang family, is shifting its investment focus to Japan since 1985, it will be in line with the current world situation.

In addition, the cost of filming movies nowadays is also low.

It doesn't even cost 30 million US dollars. Ning Weimin only needs to spend half of the money of the original film.

The scene can be made bigger, enough to invite real stars to play the leading role, which is not comparable to the original film.

And at least "Crazy Rich Asians" can be a big hit in North America, which also shows that the story model itself and the way of expressing some plots are recognized and accepted by European and American audiences.

So in summary, the favorable and unfavorable factors offset each other. Ning Weimin at least believes that in North America, it is not difficult to achieve the standard of 20% of the box office of the original film.

In other words, from an optimistic point of view, the box office in North America alone is expected to reach nearly 40 million US dollars.

Then the production cost of 18 million US dollars can be recovered.

The rest of the income from the re-release of video tapes and music albums is all earned.

Secondly, in Japan, the main ticket bank of this movie, and other countries and regions in the Asian market, Teresa Teng herself is the most box office appealing banner.

She is different now than when she first debuted in "Miss Fan".

She has long since changed from a green newcomer in the music scene to an Asian-level music queen. Her singing can be heard not only in Asia, but also in any place where there are Chinese people.

Although in the Chinese music scene, there seem to be two people who can be compared with her, Xu Xiaofeng and Feng Feifei, who are of the same level in terms of fame.

But the problem is that those two have not had any outstanding new works in recent years, and their careers have long reached the ceiling.

However, Teresa Teng is shining in Japan, dazzling.

Not only has she continuously released excellent new songs one after another, but she also created history last year by winning two of Japan's highest music awards as a Chinese, becoming the double champion of the Japanese music scene.

No one can deny that she has broken the ceiling of her career and is creating a new peak in her career.

Looking at the entire Chinese music scene, there is really no other superstar as influential as her.

In terms of status and career achievements, she has long been far ahead of the rest, becoming a legend that has never been seen before in the Asian music scene, and it is estimated that she will never be surpassed.

With her like this, even if she makes a bad movie now, it is estimated that it will be a big hit in the box office in Asian countries.

From the perspective of commercial value alone, even Japan's No. 1 actress Matsumoto Keiko is inferior to her.

Then in terms of film pay, of course, she is also the No. 1 Asian actress.

Even if Ning Weimin hired her to make this movie with a salary of $500,000, it would still not be a loss at all.

To be honest, at least in this movie, she is more important than anyone else and the story itself.

In addition, there is also a Zunlong who just finished filming "The Last Emperor" and is about to become popular but has not yet become popular, playing the male lead, and only received a salary of $600,000 from Ning Weimin.

It is estimated that when this movie is released, it will be able to take advantage of the traffic of Zunlong's global hit "The Last Emperor" that made him popular.

Then it would be easy to carry the box office in Asia with these two leading actors. What does Ning Weimin have to worry about?

Not to mention, the factors that caused the original film to be unpopular when it was released in the mainland no longer exist because of the different era.

You have to know that in this era, such Cinderella stories have not become a cliché in Asia.

Movies with similar plots, such as "Lucky Star", "Meteor Garden", "Working Girl", "Pretty Woman", "Notting Hill", "Fifty Shades of Grey"... have not been filmed yet.

From the perspective of the subject matter, this kind of story is undoubtedly novel and caters to the needs of the audience, and the audience will definitely buy it.

Besides, the film is directed by Ning Weimin, and he must also tell a pure Chinese story.

It is impossible to make the Chinese culture lose its flavor like the original film, and still disgust people with American values.

In this way, of course, there will be no negative factors that affect the box office of this movie in the mainland.

So even from the perspective of the planning of this film project, this film was born out of necessity and is destined to become popular in due time.

Especially, it is a family-friendly light comedy, suitable for all ages, and most suitable for celebrating the New Year.

Although the investment is high, from the perspective of global distribution, especially with the distribution of music albums and video tapes as a supplement, if this film does not make money in the end, it would be a ghost.

To put it bluntly, what is Ning Weimin doing?

In fact, he is following the way Michael Jackson filmed "Thriller" and wants to shoot a movie-style MTV.

In essence, he is using many of Teresa Teng's classic songs to interpret a romantic love story that can resonate with the public and is a happy and popular story.

Teresa Teng's music and Teresa Teng herself are the core of the film, and the story is secondary.

In this way, the difficulty of making this film is not very high, and it is also completely controllable.

The focus of the filming is only on how to reflect the conflict and romance that conforms to the emotional logic in the main line of the movie, how to use clever filming techniques to mobilize the audience's emotions, and express the atmosphere of Teresa Teng's golden songs.

Of course, it would be best if there is a new song that is good enough to be used as the theme song of the movie to live up to expectations.

So it is precisely because of this clear understanding that Ning Weimin has monopolized almost all personnel rights since the establishment of this project.

Even if he is a layman, he has the final say on who to use and who not to use.

But speaking of the matter, what Ning Weimin has done is not at all like a layman, but like a real expert.

Although it stands to reason that the core figure of the entire crew shooting the movie should be the director, and the casting should also be selected by the director with a professional eye.

But "Crazy Rich Asians" is different from other movies.

Because there is no worry about the box office at all, Ning Weimin can completely let go of himself and make gimmicks as he pleases to expand the influence of the early publicity of this movie.

The final result is that Ning Weimin invited many famous foreign and domestic actors to participate in the film across countries and regions.

Not only did he make this film the first big-budget film co-produced by China, Japan and France, and co-starred by at least 20 Chinese and foreign movie stars.

Even Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, two internationally renowned clothing companies, were pulled in by him to act as advertising sponsors for this film.

That's not all. He hired Akira Kurosawa's photographer Nakai Asaichi as the main photographer of this film at a high price that broke the ceiling of the industry.

At the same time, he also readily hired Akira Kurosawa's candidate Yutaka Osawa as the chief director of this film.

Such an unconventional way of employing people and decisive courage are even more admirable from the bottom of my heart.

For no other reason, it is because in this film, Ning Weimin is very clear that the role of the photographer is obviously higher than that of the director.

And the director only needs to tell the story clearly and edit it into a film.

Even though Osawa Yutaka has always been Kurosawa's assistant director and has no experience in independent directing, he has filmed many large productions with Kurosawa after all, and he is not lacking in the ability to control the scene.

As the saying goes, even if you have never eaten pork, you have seen pigs run. Since Kurosawa Akira has guaranteed him, Ning Weimin will naturally not worry about anything. He is very happy to help others and let Osawa Yutaka take the director's chair.

In addition, even in the theme song of the movie, Ning Weimin did not disappoint.

He plagiarized the last classic "Chuanliu Buxi" by Hibari Misora ​​without any psychological barriers, making this Japanese classic song, which has been covered by countless big names in the music world, come out in advance, and become a Chinese-made song, which he gave to Teresa Teng.

And this song is really good.

Not only did Teresa Teng like it as soon as she heard it, she couldn't wait to record it in the studio immediately, and even regarded this song as a true portrayal of her own singing career.

Even the other participants in the entire crew were deeply moved after listening to it.

All of them increased their confidence in the success of the film.

In this way, not only can Ning Weimin do a favor to Kurosawa Akira, but more importantly, the director, the leading actor and the photographer will be grateful to him and regard him as their mentor.

No one will question his authority, and no one will think about taking the lead from him.

It is definitely an exaggeration to say that "a gentleman will die for his confidant", but these people will undoubtedly cooperate with his requests.

In this way, the main crew members worked together, and the filming progress of the film was naturally guaranteed.

Otherwise, with just his temporary idea, he could gather the crew in Beijing in just a few days.

That was simply impossible.

However, in fact, Ning Weimin did it.

From June 20 to June 23, 1987, the actors and the main creative team all obeyed his orders and listened to his instructions, willingly put down their work, and rushed to Beijing from all over the country.

Not to mention Teresa Teng, Funaki Minoru, Nakai Asaichi, Osawa Yutaka, Utsui Ken, Miura Tomokazu, Sawaguchi Haruko, Weng Qianyu, and Yao Peifang who came from Japan.

Liang Jiahui, who was specially invited by Ning Weimin in Hong Kong, also rushed to shoot the first movie "Prison on Fire" that had just made a successful comeback, and successfully brought the little dragon actor Zhou Xingchi, who was named by Ning Weimin and is still unknown, and flew here overnight.

Then they joined up with Zun Long, Cen Chong, Wu Junmei, Xiang, Zhang Qiang, and Cui Jian, who had just finished filming The Last Emperor in Beijing.

Finally, many local actors in Beijing and actors from the TV series Dream of Red Mansions also joined the filming team.

Chen Peisi, Chen Baoguo, Hu Yajun, Ma Shuchao, Wang Bozhao, Lin Fangbing, Zhang Weixin, Chen Xiaoxu, Yin Xin, Deng Jie, Shen Lin... all included.

As for what all these people were going to film together?

Ning Weimin certainly had a mature idea long ago.

To put it simply, it was four words - a banquet for the rich.

He meant to use the wedding tent that had been set up in Yunyuan to stage a scene of the first meeting of the male and female protagonists for Crazy Rich Asians.

In this plot, the role played by Teresa Teng was just a little singing girl who came to sing for the rich just to earn money to study abroad.

However, Zun Long's role was the eldest son of the wealthy Yang family in Singapore, and he was one of the relatives and guests invited to the event.

However, Zun Long performed Peking Opera on stage to celebrate for his distant relatives, but was mistaken by Teresa Teng as a street singer with the same miserable fate.

Zun Long did not break this window paper, but instead took on this new identity.

He helped each other backstage and happily talked with Teresa Teng.

He deliberately did not go to the banquet and only ate the actors' meals to conceal his true identity.

The two felt very compatible until the curtain call of the performance, and had a vague affection for each other.

Finally, they left each other contact information in the garden and said goodbye reluctantly.

It was also because of this experience that Zun Long secretly ran to France to avoid the pressure of his family, and soon the two of them met again in France.

Thus, a rich boy who evaded his family responsibilities and a poor girl who was kept in the dark started their romance in a foreign country.

Needless to say, the gorgeous scenery of Yunyuan is ready-made, and the venue is also ready-made.

Although the crew members and actors are all amazed by the beautiful scenery and courtyard area of ​​Yunyuan.

They are all amazed by the grandeur of the wedding tent and the richness of the wedding banquet.

But the most difficult part has been solved. It is not difficult to shoot this kind of plot directly.

Just shoot more real-life materials on Ning Weimin’s day, and edit it at the end.

Especially everyone can watch the excitement on the day of Ning Weimin’s wedding, and really drink a wedding wine. How beautiful it is. Everyone is very relaxed.

Even many actors from the mainland regard this filming as eating a big meal, eating and drinking for free, getting red envelopes, and showing their faces in such a large-scale international blockbuster. How beautiful.

And it doesn’t matter if Teresa Teng and Zun Long’s rivalry is not delicate enough.

Just find time to shoot it alone, it’s not difficult at all.

But to be honest, it is precisely this relaxed group atmosphere that conceals the real purpose of this scene.

Ning Weimin was actually doing product placement, advertising his own Yunyuan.

As long as this play was there, the rooms here were bound to be more popular and the price would be higher.

In addition, of course, no one would know that Teresa Teng came here for filming.

But in fact, under the arrangement of Ning Weimin, she contacted the program group of the Spring Festival Gala in the mainland under the pretext of filming.

They were secretly negotiating the plan for performing on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala next year.

In 1988, whether the national audience could see Teresa Teng perform on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala was entirely determined by the results of the secret talks in the past few days.

In other words, Ning Weimin was trying to change the course of history and make up for the regrets of history with his own strength.

Can he do it?

It remains to be seen.