As the saying goes, if you plant flowers intentionally, they will not bloom, but if you plant willows unintentionally, they will create shade.
Such situations do occur in life.
Sometimes when we put in the effort to do something, we may not be able to achieve the expected results.
Sometimes we have no special expectations, but we often get unexpected gains unintentionally.
This is the current situation of Ning Weimin.
Perhaps it is because in the negotiations and cooperation with the "Shanghai Translation Factory", he used real money to fully demonstrate his sincerity in taking care of his compatriots and using foreign capital to feed back the country.
Such generous and pragmatic performance impressed the leaders of the Film Bureau and China Film Company, giving them a sense of trust in his character.
Perhaps it is also because he has successively promoted two large-investment co-production projects, "Li Xianglan" and "Crazy Rich Asians", and has also obtained a large number of European films from overseas, which has also provided indispensable resources for indirectly promoting the development of the domestic film industry.
Less "nourishment".
This made the leaders of the Film Bureau and China Film Company have great confidence in his ability to do things.
In short, the leaders of the Film Bureau and China Film Company couldn't help but want to strengthen cooperation with him.
So after he signed the contract with "Shanghai Translation Factory", he took the initiative to propose to him the idea of promoting domestic films to overseas markets through him.
Of course, the Film Bureau and China Film Company are mainly targeting the Southeast Asian film market, or mainly the Japanese film market.
After all, Ning Weimin's wife Matsumoto Keiko has a transcendent status in the Japanese film industry.
Not only is she the most popular movie star in Japan, she also owns her own studio.
In the minds of the Film Bureau and China Film Company, Matsumoto Keiko should have certain methods in terms of film distribution.
And this is probably the main reason why they value Ning Weimin so much.
He is moral, capable, and has certain conveniences in going to sea. Where can he find such a suitable person?
In fact, they did not get it wrong.
The good relationship between Matsumoto Keiko and Shochiku Pictures not only ensures that the films produced by Fog Studio can have a better high-quality schedule for public release in Japan and will not be released in advance, but Ning Weimin himself also
It is true that I do this kind of business attempt unconsciously.
At least Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko had already reached a verbal agreement on the phone with Shochiku's President Fakimoto after purchasing the film rights in France.
In view of the current serious lack of high-quality film releases in Shochiku, President Omoto also has a certain intention to use some of the French films they have brought back to supplement the release schedule of Shochiku's lack of high-quality films.
In addition, Ning Weimin is also planning to subtitle Chen Peisi's film and screen it in independent theaters in Tokyo.
After all, the ticket price of Japanese movies is high, and the production cost of Chen Peisi's movies is low. Just selling them can cover a lot of shooting costs.
Don't worry about it. If it really sells 10 million yen at the box office, wouldn't it mean that he is using Japan's film market to feed our own filmmakers and support our own film creation?
This kind of borrowing a chicken to lay eggs is what Ning Weimin loves to do.
What's more, the film bureau and China Film Company are also quite self-aware.
They all know the current state of domestic films - they focus on ideology and lack commercial elements.
At present, except for a few martial arts films and historical-themed films produced in cooperation with Hong Kong City, other types of domestic films are difficult to sell overseas.
For the specific situation, you only need to look at the operating conditions of Yindu institutions with mainland background in Hong Kong City.
The one that has been able to make money recently is Keiko Matsumoto's "Li Xianglan".
Although the Hong Kong market is not very fond of such historical-themed movies, the box office in Hong Kong only sold 14.5 million Hong Kong dollars, which was slightly worse than "The Man behind the Curtain" and "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace" a few years ago.
.
But it is already one of the very few movies this year that can make Yindu money.
Therefore, the Film Bureau and China Film Company do not have high expectations for whether this matter can achieve brilliant results in the short term, and they have no requirements for financial returns.
What they want is actually just one more leg to walk on.
As long as you can find a trustworthy middleman and try to establish a distribution channel in Japan first.
After all, the only Chinese-language film companies that can distribute Chinese-language films in Japan are Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong.
From the perspective of the development of mainland films, if this invisible monopoly can be broken, having a mainland-owned cultural window in Japan, or a cultural propaganda base, will be enough for the time being.
But now it seems that Ning Weimin is just such a person, someone worthy of their trust and entrustment.
I just don’t know if Ning Weimin has this intention.
So they are all trying their best to win over Ning Weimin.
Even China Film Company, which has always monopolized domestic distribution profits and never shared profits with others, has offered extremely generous conditions this time.
They said that if Ning Weimin is willing to do it, he can choose five new films produced by major studios nationwide this year, and he can obtain overseas distribution authorization for these films without paying.
After the movie sells box office overseas, he can then hand over part of the box office profits to China Film Company.
No need to ask, of course Ning Weimin was overjoyed by such a compliment.
He simply couldn't ask for it.
Because no matter from any angle, this is a great thing like pie in the sky.
First of all, officially speaking, he immediately became the official agent backed by the Film Bureau and China Film Company.
With this semi-official status, not to mention that even the embassy of his country will look upon him with admiration, it will be much easier for him to deal with companies and institutions in the film and television industry in Japan in the future.
After all, with the overseas distribution rights of domestic films, the scope of cooperation and transactions between him and the Japanese has become wider and the methods have become richer.
To put it bluntly, in the future, as long as the Japanese want to cooperate with China in the film field, they will have to come to him?
What's this?
This is market monopoly.
In the future, there will be more room for development for him in terms of domestic and overseas film distribution.
Secondly, from a personal point of view, for him to take on this job concurrently is equivalent to the film bureau and China Film Company giving him free money.
Since these films are taken away and shown for free, isn't it a business without money?
What's more, besides him, who else can master the real box office data and profit division?
How much and how to divide is not entirely up to him?
Besides, no one said that he couldn't eat both ends.
While promoting domestic films overseas, it is also very fun to buy out some foreign films, accumulate film libraries, and engage in reverse import.
Finally, if he comes to do this, it will definitely be of great help to Matsumoto Keiko's personal career.
A wife is as valuable as her husband. As long as he stands firm, there will always be an interest-binding relationship with the film bureau and China Film Company.
This means that the domestic market will be completely open to Matsumoto Keiko, and there will no longer be any real obstacles. In principle, the film and television works she has participated in and the music albums she has recorded will be given the green light.
Even if the time comes in the future, it will be much easier for Matsumoto Keiko to really decide to give up her Japanese nationality and naturalize in China.
In short, this matter has hundreds of benefits and no harm, and even if we take a long-term view, the benefits will be even greater.
Once he reaches the information age, as long as he steadily accumulates his film library, he will easily become Asia's largest streaming media tycoon.
How could Ning Weimin live in a low-end apartment with such temptation?
In fact, even the Film Bureau and China Film Company did not realize at this time how huge benefits the policy opening they wanted to open to him contained.
Therefore, Ning Weimin's response was quite positive.
After he fully understood the intentions of the Film Bureau and China Film Company, he thought for a moment and came up with a more realistic implementation plan.
He plans to register a copyright agency when he returns to Japan, and then start trying to run this business.
This year we will test the waters on a small scale and then set next year’s goals based on market feedback.
Of course, all operating expenses will be borne by him. Not only does he not need to pay a dime from the state, he will also unconditionally donate 40% of the shares to China Film Company.
So faced with Ning Weimin's sensible and proactive attitude, the Film Bureau and China Film Company were also very satisfied, and the intention of cooperation between the two parties was basically reached.
But there are still differences.
Because I consider that it is really hard for domestic production units, and I am worried that they will become more and more defective because of the brokenness of the current system, and I wonder if I can change the current bad situation.
Ning Weimin was also bold enough to make a suggestion.
Is it possible to send part of the overseas box office directly to the production units to encourage them to actively create, so that more excellent movies can be made?
However, the leaders of the Film Bureau and China Film Company were very embarrassed about this issue. After thinking for a long time, they still did not agree.
If nothing else, everyone knows that the domestic film industry has already had major problems with its distribution system.
But when it comes to ideological issues and the issue of re-dividing the cake, no one dares to touch this hot potato.
Otherwise, if you are not careful, you will offend many people and put yourself in a terrible situation.
Although Ning Weimin wanted to use the joint venture's overseas box office to feed back the country, it did not involve the domestic distribution system, so it was a detour.
But both the film bureau and China Film Company know that this method of letting the production unit directly take a share of the box office has endless consequences.
Under the current institutional environment, once someone opens his mouth, people's minds will definitely change, causing countless troubles.
God knows whether those production units will be encouraged by this and have to re-divide the domestic box office with China Film Company?
God knows, will someone take advantage of this and attack the current domestic distribution methods?
These situations are too uncontrollable.
The leader does not want to see such a chaotic situation.
So there was no other possibility, they could only give the kind-hearted Ning Weimin a soft nail.
But having said that, Ning Weimin's original intention was good after all.
In essence, his suggestion was that he would not hesitate to suffer a loss, he was willing to take less money, but he also wanted to use the money in practical ways to support the development of the domestic film industry as much as possible.
So at this point, the leader of the film bureau finally gave him a reminder,
He said that although his suggestions cannot be adopted, from another perspective, they do not prohibit those production units from soliciting sponsorships themselves, nor do they prevent some units that want to support domestic cultural undertakings from actively donating to production units.
As a result, Ning Weimin immediately understood.
At this moment, even he couldn't help but secretly curse himself as "stupid".
To put it bluntly, things can still be done this way, it’s just a different name for paying money.
What the leader means is that as long as it is not in the name of box office sharing, he is willing to hand over his profits to whom and what to do. That is his personal freedom.
Isn't this almost the same as his recent initiative to express his willingness to take out his dividends from Tan Gong Restaurant and share them with his old friends from several investors?
If we are flexible and adopt a curved approach to save the country, there will be no policy obstacles.
Otherwise, in the face of this era that is destined to undergo a major transformation process, how can we be truly transparent?
The most critical point is not to be too straightforward in doing things, but to know how to assess the situation.
While maintaining the original intention, we must also start from the perspective of meeting the social environment and actual needs.
Sometimes you just have to take a detour.
Otherwise, if you only have enthusiasm and accept death, you will not be able to accomplish anything.
As for the specific selection of the first batch of films to be brought overseas, except for "Old Well" and "King of Children" of Xiying Film Studio, which were recommended by the film bureau leaders, Ning Weimin was inconvenient to refuse, and nodded in agreement.
Regarding the selection of the other three films, Ning Weimin chose to give priority to his hometown studio, Jingying Film Studio, and chose "The Drum Book Artist" and "The Golden Dart and Huang Tianba" that have already been completed.
Of course, the last one was left to Chen Peisi's "Father and Son" which was filmed a few years ago.
Regarding Ning Weimin's small "selfishness", people from the film bureau and China Film Group adopted a tacit attitude and did not openly oppose it.
It was just that people from China Film Company pointed out that "The Drum Book Artist" contains many plots of the Anti-Japanese War, and they were worried that if it was sent to Japan for public screening, it would encounter resentment and rejection by the Japanese, and not many people would come to watch it.
However, Ning Weimin has his own opinion on this point.
From what he saw, at least for now, the right-wing forces in Japan are not as arrogant as they will be in the future, and dare to tell lies and deny the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese army.
After all, there are still many people alive who have experienced war.
The trauma of the war has penetrated deep into the bone marrow. Those who are lucky enough to survive are all afraid.
Even many old Japanese who participated in the war of aggression against China realized that they were guilty of serious crimes and have become staunch anti-war elements.
Ning Weimin personally saw an old Japanese man scolding a group of ignorant Japanese young people on the streets of Tokyo.
It's because these young people are strutting around in old-style military uniforms on the streets of Tokyo under the "Rising Sun Flag" and attracting attention.
When the old man saw it, he started to curse on the spot without hesitation.
Even though he was as thin as a turkey, his fierce look on his face shocked all the young people.
"Asshole! Don't do this kind of thing. This is not Japan's glory, it is Japan's shame! You young people should stop worshiping these things. War will only cause disaster! If you do this again, sooner or later we will be abandoned by all of Asia.
Yes! Hey, you bastards, get out of here, otherwise I will call the police!"
When these young people met such an old man, they ran away completely pissed off.
It can be seen from this that if the police had come at that time, they would have interfered with these young people showing off their "martial arts of the imperial army".
This incident is enough to prove that Japanese society at this time was still full of guilt for the war.
Otherwise, the box office of "Li Xianglan" would not be so strong.
So with these people around, Japan's right-wing elements don't have a full stage to perform, so they can only tuck their tail between their legs and lie dormant.
They don't have the courage to openly whitewash those war criminals at this time.
At most, keep an attitude of silence as much as possible.
They expect their own nation to gradually forget this history, and they also expect others to forget this history.
They believe that even the lessons learned by millions of lives can be forgotten in just one generation.
Therefore, for domestic films, this is the best opportunity to release anti-Japanese films in Japan, and there will be more audiences.
I can scold you Japanese people and still earn your yen from you. How can you miss this opportunity?
In addition, Ning Weimin did not want the Japanese to get their wish, and he really regarded all these things as sesame seeds and rotten millet and gradually forgot about them.
He must do his best to remind the Japanese and let the young people in Japan know more about the crimes committed by their fathers and grandfathers.
Although it is always uncomfortable to be in debt to others, Japanese people generally hope that historical debts will be forgotten as soon as possible.
But for us victims, forgetting history means betrayal.
So in the end, seeing that Ning Weimin spoke so clearly and seemed to have a certain degree of confidence, China Film Company went with him.