Alain Delon is indeed very powerful and capable in France.
The dinner on the night of May 13th further proved this point.
Alain Delon entertained Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko at the oldest restaurant in Cannes, France - Provencal.
This restaurant is located on St. Antoine Street. It is famous for its traditional French cuisine and country flavor. It is also a gathering place for artists.
Celebrities in Europe like to dine here, but for this reason, this high-end restaurant requires a reservation to dine, and it is difficult to get a seat.
In fact, it is not only full during the Cannes Film Festival, but also during the entire tourist season, the seats have been reserved.
If you are an ordinary customer, you can only try your luck by leaving your contact information.
See if you can encounter a situation where a guest changes his plans, and then you can enjoy a meal, otherwise you will have to leave disappointed.
To put it bluntly, consumption here is high, but it is not a place where problems can be solved simply by spending money.
For ordinary people to eat here, apart from parting with their wallets, they also need to work hard, and the chances are quite slim.
For Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko, who were unfamiliar with the place, being able to eat here was entirely due to Alain Delon's credit.
In fact, after returning from Martinez Beach, they changed their clothes at the hotel and then called a taxi to go to the Provencal restaurant for an appointment. Unexpectedly, before they arrived, they listened to the driver in the car.
I read all the way about how difficult it is to get into this restaurant.
When we arrived at the door of the restaurant, sure enough, as the driver said, we saw a long queue, all of them people who came to try their luck without reservations.
Fortunately, they were Alain Delon's guests. The waiter at the door heard them announce Alain Delon's name and immediately sent someone to lead them in.
However, it is not without embarrassing situations.
Because they followed Japanese time habits, they arrived twenty minutes earlier than the agreed time. At this time, not only had the host not arrived, but there were no seats available.
Fortunately, Alain Delon did not reserve a seat in advance. Although the restaurant was very proud of him, when the guests came, they could only add a temporary seat.
In this way, Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko watched helplessly as the waiters in the restaurant temporarily moved tables, chairs and tablecloths, and arranged a seat for them in the overcrowded restaurant by occupying part of the dance floor.
So much so that many customers gave them dissatisfied looks, with disgust and disgust on their faces.
Some people even stopped the waiter and asked them about it, as if they were protesting to the restaurant.
This makes it somewhat unnatural for these two thin-skinned people to stay here.
However, ten minutes later, when the host arrived, everything changed.
As soon as Alain Delon, who was over fifty years old, and his twenty-year-old girlfriend Rosalie appeared, everyone's eyes were focused on him.
As he walked in, at least a third of the people in the restaurant greeted him.
The people smiling at the big star were not only the waiters but also the guests, and even the guests at the tables around them who had initially expressed their dissatisfaction.
Even some actors and directors who ate in this restaurant were proud to know Alain Delon.
As for Alain Delon himself, it didn't look like he was here for a meal, but rather like he was here for a press conference.
Even after he pulled Rosalie to find a seat and sit down, the sensational effect was not over.
Before Alain Delon could say a few words to Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko, a waiter from the restaurant came to him on behalf of the guests at other tables and presented him with champagne.
It can only be said that Alain Delon is a real big star, and his influence has already spread all over the world.
Not only is he favored by the French film industry and the French people, but he also plays an important role internationally, and celebrities and wealthy people are also willing to be friends with him.
I have to admit that in this day and age, even though he is already old and semi-retired, the influence of this handsome old French guy is far greater than that of the later "Little Plum" and "Tom".
It was precisely because he witnessed this scene with his own eyes that Ning Weimin understood that Alain Delon had actually restrained himself enough when he was in the capital.
When he celebrated his birthday at Maxim's Restaurant, he once asked during his meal, "Today I am fifty years old. If there are fifty guests in the restaurant, we can just close the door and thank the guests."
Now that I think about it, it's not too much, because this guy is undoubtedly more rampant in France, and all his bad habits are actually picked up by people here.
As for outside rumors that he is deeply involved with the Corsican gang, the origin of the mafia organization, although Ning Weimin was unable to obtain any clear evidence.
But from a feeling point of view, it seems that it is really interesting. Anyway, he is becoming more and more convinced of this "rumor".
For no other reason than because Ning Weimin took the initiative to expose his family scandal during the meal and mentioned that they had just been harassed by a few drunkards while walking on the beach.
Moreover, he was quick-talking and revealed his intention to spend money to hire two bodyguards and rent a car in Cannes.
Unexpectedly, Alain Delon laughed for a while and then took the matter into his own hands.
Ning Weimin didn't need to worry about this matter anymore. Someone would have a car and pick him up at the hotel early tomorrow morning. He didn't even mention the money.
As a result, the next day arrived, May 14th, and Ning Weimin was almost not frightened by the two burly men who had reported to the hotel early in the morning.
Not only did these two men carry guns, they looked cold and ferocious, and that was all they had tattoos.
The key is that both of them have scars on their heads and faces. At first glance, they are people with stories and are definitely not bodyguards in the ordinary sense.
Even if they are all wearing black suits, it's not like that.
In Beijing's words, these two people are not good friends. Anyone who sees such a master on the street will avoid them.
Ning Weimin regretted it greatly. He felt that following them out would make him feel less safe, as if he had been kidnapped.
It can be seen from this that Alain Delon's background is not that clean.
His heroic demeanor on the screen may not be staged at all.
To paraphrase what a small-eyed star in China said decades later, that is, "What's so hard about acting in the underworld? I have a life."
So with no other choice, Ning Weimin returned to the room and called Pierre Cardin's assistant Takada Mei, asking her to help him contact the bodyguards and rent a car.
After thinking about it, he felt that maybe it was already difficult to find someone in Cannes, so he added that if it didn't work, it would be okay even if he transferred someone from Paris, he didn't care about the cost.
And he didn't dare to let Matsumoto Keiko get in the car with him at all. He just went to the appointment alone and took two "bodyguards" in the car to meet Alain Delon.
But there is one thing to say, although Alain Delon sometimes works a little too hard.
Just like these two bodyguards, although the selection was not in line with Ning Weimin's wishes.
But his vigorous and decisive style of acting on his own initiative satisfied Ning Weimin in some matters.
Just like the implementation of the screening of "Li Xianglan" and the purchase of a booth in the underground market of the Palais des Festivals.
When Ning Weimin came to the cafe near the Palais des Festivals, Alain Delon had basically negotiated the specific conditions for him.
The screenings are held on the third day after the opening of the festival, with an 80-seat screening hall in the morning and a 300-seat screening in the afternoon. The morning screening is 100,000 francs and the afternoon screening is 200,000 francs.
It will take four or five days at the earliest for a booth to become available, and a standard booth costs about 200,000 to 300,000 francs.
Ning Weimin had no objection to this. Although it was a bit expensive, it was for a filmmaker with insufficient funds, so it was not a big problem for him.
After all, this is a temporary queue jump, so it's nice to be able to settle things so easily, much better than trying to find the temple gate with a pig's head.
So after he arrived, under the introduction of Alain Delon, he got to know a French person in charge of the screening work of the organizing committee, and then everyone sat down to have breakfast together and chatted about a lot of tidbits about the film festival.
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After they had eaten and drank enough, they all returned to the organizing committee office at the Festival Palace. Ning Weimin came to sign and pay the money. The matter was basically settled without any twists and turns.
The only thing worth mentioning is that through Alain Delon, Ning Weimin discovered an incredible hidden rule of the film festival.
For real international celebrities, the Cannes Film Festival Organizing Committee has stipulated that paid interviews are a way to make money.
For example, the interview price for the American director Babette Schroeder of this year's competition "Drinking Love" was 10,000 francs. Last year, when Martin Scorsese came to Cannes with "Eight Hours Away", the interview price was 10,000 francs.
The fee amounted to fifteen thousand francs.
As for people like Alain Delon who have no films to participate in the exhibition and are just here to join in the fun, as long as there are enough coffee spots, each reporter will need to pay a fee of 5,000 francs.
But this part of the interview fee is only for reporters outside Europe and the United States, and interviews by European and American reporters are free.
There is no doubt that this is a kind of regional discrimination based on cultural discourse rights.
In fact, while accompanying Ning Weimin on matters, Alain Delon was interviewed by more than a dozen reporters.
Sometimes, because several people were interviewed together and the interview took less than half an hour, he could easily get thirty to forty thousand francs.
It has to be said that European and American celebrities in this era have a very prosperous life. They can earn in half an hour what an ordinary French person earns in half a year.
In this half hour alone, he makes money faster than Ning Weimin, who can get 1.2 million francs in interest every day.
Next, of course, it’s entertainment time.
Having said this, I have to say that the French people’s nature of having fun is really unshakable.
In fact, there was no need to look for another place. Alain Delon, a veteran, led the way, and Ning Weimin then found out that there was a nightclub-type casino in the Palais des Festivals.
Downstairs is a serious cultural event like a film festival, and upstairs is a depraved gold-selling cave. Such nonsense actually happened.
Shocked, Ning Weimin didn't know how to evaluate it, so he could only buy two hundred thousand francs in chips like Alain Delon with traveller's checks, and follow this playboy to have a look.
Of course, people like Alain Delon would not gamble in the lobby. They would have to enter the big room.
There are no thresholds for large rooms, but the minimum betting threshold is relatively high. There are different starting points such as one hundred, two hundred, five hundred and so on in the outer hall, while the VIP room has a minimum of one thousand francs per game.
Alain Delon saw that he was a regular customer here, so he sat directly on the blackjack table and started playing hard.
Ning Weimin stood next to him and watched for a while. He felt that it was not interesting, so he leisurely moved to other gambling tables.
Decades later, in the information age, it is almost universally known that Chinese people are world-famous gamblers.
Standing in a casino, if you look around, you will see that at least half of the faces are Oriental. You don’t need to go up to ask. Nine times out of ten, they are either overseas Chinese or Chinese.
Therefore, decades later, most casino managers always treat Chinese people with special preferential treatment and are extra attentive to people with Oriental faces.
Because everyone here knows that the Chinese people called "Lao Zhong" are the best at gambling, and they never blink an eye when tipping at the gambling table, and they are generous.
No matter what profession they are engaged in, whether they are from restaurants or garment factories, from bosses to workers, from chefs to garment workers, they will all give their hard-earned money to the casino.
Some old overseas Chinese have worked hard all their lives and gave their only income to the gambling table.
If you ask him why he does this, they will smile and say, "I will get it back sooner or later one day."
However, in this era, the gambling nature of the Chinese has not been widely recognized by casino owners around the world.
As one of the few oriental faces here, Ning Weimin did not attract much attention whether he stopped in front of the blackjack, roulette, baccarat, or dice tables.
And Ning Weimin is indeed an alternative element among the Chinese.
Thanks to God's blessing, he already knows how the world will change in the next few decades, and he can casually use the stock market as a cash machine.
If he is still interested in the "killing without blood" game in the casino, then he has seen the devil.
I am afraid that he will be the most boring and uninteresting person in this world regarding any gambling game.
So he wandered around without placing a bet, and finally went to the lobby outside to drink free drinks and watch the show of the singing and dancing girl.
After feeling bored and returning to Alain Delon, Ning Weimin discovered that the thirty to forty thousand francs this guy had just earned, along with his own tens of thousands of francs, had all bottomed out and would soon lose.
Empty.
So he simply acted generously and put all his 100,000 franc chips in front of Alain Delon as a favor.
Alain Delon was stunned, "Ning? You..."
"It's nothing, I don't want to play anymore, so I don't need you to change again."
As he said that, Ning Weimin also joked, "Friend, calm down and take your time. You might as well try my chips. Maybe with the help of the magic of the East, you will be lucky soon."
"Haha! That's really the case, that would be great."
Alain Delon laughed, no longer polite, and directly bet 10,000.
Unexpectedly, Ning Weimin's words came true. This time, he actually won a Grand Slam blackjack.
Before he could speak, the dealer had already given him one and a half times the chips, and the four two-thousand-five chips turned into ten.
Just like that, his luck really started to go smoothly.
Because he was talking happily to Ning Weimin, before he could collect his chips, the dealer had already dealt out the cards.
When he lit the cigarette and took a puff, just when he was about to exhale the smoke, the ten chips turned into twenty-five.
Another grand slam blackjack.
This is so smooth.
It’s so smooth!
So he was completely excited.
In less than a few minutes, the 10,000 francs he threw on the table turned into 62,500 francs!
Can you imagine it?
At this time, Alain Delon looked at Ning Weimin again, his eyes really lit up, and he regarded him as his lucky boy.
And strange to say, once your gambling luck comes, you can't stop it.
In the next hour, he lost less and won more. Alain Delon seemed to bet whatever he wanted, and unknowingly won one million and several hundred thousand francs.
This made Alain Delon so happy that he forgot everything. He forgot that his model girlfriend Rosalie was still waiting for him in the hotel, and he also forgot that he promised Ning Weimin that he would take him there today.
Meet Catherine Deneuve.
Until Ning Weimin looked at his watch and urged him for the third time, "If you don't leave, the oriental magic on the chips will dissipate."
He stopped because of superstition, and this was not only a beautiful lady in bikini, but also brought him cigarettes and wine.
Even the casino manager came up to congratulate them on their victory.
He also held his hand and said, "Mr. Delong, you are such a lucky man today!"
Then he enthusiastically gave them two cards, one for each person. With the card, they can have a free meal at the Cannes Film Festival Palace.
When Alain Delon converted the chips into cash, he not only returned Ning Weimin's money to him, but also gave him half of the winnings.
However, Ning Weimin refused and said with a smile, "I don't want any money, I just want you to promise me one thing."
"What's up?"
"Don't gamble anymore today. Betting on this thing depends entirely on luck. The casino gives us free meals because it is afraid that you will leave and hopes that you will come back. Don't be fooled. Irrational people are always losers, and they are also the most vulnerable to casinos.
Welcome people. There are so many things to enjoy outside, so let’s change our pastime."
This was an absolutely perfect reminder. Alain Delon was stunned for a moment and said, "Friend, you are right! Okay, let's go to dinner now! Call your wife and Rosalie too! I want to buy them gifts!"