After the news that Shao Yifu announced the suspension of production of Shaw Brothers Pictures spread, Hong Kong newspapers, both left and right, carried out a large number of nostalgic reports on this.
"When it comes to Hong Kong movies, Shaw Brothers is a topic that can never be avoided. It once represented a glorious era of Hong Kong movies and had the reputation of Eastern Hollywood. Now Sir Yifu Shaw has ended 24 years of film production at Shaw Brothers.
The business marks the end of an era of movies, and the name Shaw Brothers will always remain in the memory of movie fans..."
This is the extremely high evaluation of Shaw Brothers by "Sing Tao Daily", and it is also the general view of Shaw Brothers in many eulogies.
As these eulogies were published, Ye Zhiming, a business genius, approached Shao Yifu and selected dozens of classic old Shaw Brothers movies to be made into video tapes. He also printed the words "Out of Print Collection" on the cover. In the future,
Horrifying sales of more than 800,000 boxes were sold in three months.
In addition to regret and nostalgia, there are also newspapers analyzing the reasons for the decline of Shaw Brothers. For example, "Oriental Daily News" interviewed an old employee of Shaw Brothers. The old employee used to be a middle-level manager of Shaw Brothers. Now Shaw Brothers plans to stop production.
After retiring, he was not polite at all and directly described Fang Yihua as the culprit for the collapse of Shaw Brothers:
"What is a movie? A movie is a commodity that makes people laugh.
No one will buy a bad record, and no one will want to watch a bad play. Movies are just like records and plays. If you want your movie to be a hit, you must make the movie well so that the audience will
Buy your account.
I joined Shaw Brothers in 1962. At that time, Shaw Brothers were striving for excellence in filmmaking. The reason why "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" became popular in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia was because Shaw Brothers at that time was willing to spend money just to build Liang Shanbo.
The library where Zhu Yingtai studied cost 70,000 to 80,000 yuan. The 70,000 to 80,000 yuan at that time would be worth tens or millions now. Do you think such a sincere work could not be beautiful?
Looking back at the Shaw Brothers movies in the past ten years, there are not many films that have invested more than one million yuan. Not to mention the huge sums of money used to build the scenery, even the costumes of the actors can be spared.
When did this phenomenon begin?
It started with Fang Yihua taking over the power of Shaw Brothers.
When Mr. Zou Wenhuai was in charge of Shaw Brothers' production, Shaw Brothers had no film budget at all. Although the salary for its staff was low, it was willing to spend money on film production. After Ms. Fang Yihua took control of Shaw Brothers, the first
The first thing is to set up a budget mechanism. The director said that a street scene requires 200 extras, but Ms. Fang said no, the budget is only enough to hire 100. The director said that this play requires costume design, but Ms. Fang said no, because Shaw Brothers has many costume rooms.
, you go and pick out a few.
Some plays require two or three sets of important costumes, one for the actor, one for the stand-in, and one as a backup in case of sweating or getting dirty. The one I remember most clearly was because the budget given by Ms. Fang was too low.
, the actors and stunt doubles had to share the same costume, and the final effect was terrible.
Of course, Shaw Brothers was the most profitable at that time because the movies sold well at the box office and the cost was very low.
But audiences are not fools. When companies such as Golden Harvest, DreamWorks, and New Arts City emerge and all their movies are better-looking, who will watch inferior Shaw Brothers movies?
I have worked at Shaw Brothers for more than 20 years, and it can be said that I have watched Shaw Brothers grow and decline step by step. I dare to say with conscience that Ms. Fang has an unshirkable responsibility for the discontinuation of Shaw Brothers!"
"Bastard!" Fang Yihua slammed the newspaper aside, her old face turning green with anger.
"Okay, there's no need to be angry about a report. From now on, we can develop the wireless station with peace of mind." Shao Yifu leaned on crutches and bent down to pick up the newspaper on the ground.
How could Fang Yihua not be angry? After this report came out, many old Shaw Brothers employees scolded her to death behind their backs, saying that she was the culprit for the collapse of Shaw Brothers.
Shao Yifu slowly put the newspaper back and then asked: "I heard that the ratings of "The Lovely Wife" were severely suppressed by "Sister Tuoqiang 3"?"
"My Lovely Wife" is a fashion drama starring Tony Leung, Lam Jieying, Lui Liangwei and Zheng Yuling. Its main purpose is to take advantage of the recent craze of "The Deer and the Cauldron" to continue to promote Tony Leung, and to use veteran stars such as Lui Liangwei and Zheng Yuling to make newcomer Lam Jieying popular.
When this TV series was first aired, the response from the audience was very good, and Lan Jieying even won the title of "Beautiful Wutai Mountain".
However, less than a week after "My Lovely Wife" started airing, Phoenix TV suddenly launched the killer show "Sister Tuoqiang 3", which instantly caused the ratings of "My Lovely Wife" to drop to over 20 points.
The "Sister Tuoqiang" series is the treasure of Phoenix TV. Unlike the original time and space, it was released just for the sake of sequels. In the end, the plot collapsed and became unwatchable. Phoenix TV has a plan to release one movie a year.
It is a sequel, and during the production, a dedicated screenwriting team from DreamWorks spent half a year writing the script. The second and third parts of "Sister Tuoqiu" are much better than the original.
Fang Yihua nodded and said that "My Lovely Wife" was indeed badly suppressed. She said: "The drama "Sister Tuoqiang" is so famous that the third part has snatched away the audience as soon as it aired. Now tv*
*It’s useless to film anything, so we can only give in temporarily and plan the next movie.”
"It's good that you think so," Shao Yifu praised, "Ahua, you are very capable, but sometimes you are too hasty and can't tolerate petty thoughts. You must change this aspect."
"I'll try my best to pay attention." Fang Yihua didn't take Shao Yifu's words at heart. She was thinking about what kind of movie to shoot to retaliate against Phoenix TV. Some time ago, she finally made a movie "The Deer and the Cauldron", which completely suppressed the ratings of Phoenix TV's TV series.
I had no strength to resist, and I didn't expect that the other party would take back my place in just over a month.
Shao Yifu glanced at Fang Yihua and walked slowly outside on crutches.
Shao Yifu has never regretted anything he has done, but this time he couldn't help but think: Was it really a mistake to sell the Shaw Brothers theater chain to Kang Jianfei?
Just yesterday's "Oriental Daily News" had a special headline in the entertainment section titled "Kang Jianfei's Entertainment Kingdom".
"Mr. Shao Yifu's film empire has fallen, and a new era in Hong Kong's film industry has arrived. Who is the banner-bearer of the new era?
There is no doubt that the current Hong Kong film industry is dominated by Golden Harvest, DreamWorks, and New Arts City. Judging from the box office performance of this summer's summer season, DreamWorks' box office revenue is equivalent to the sum of Golden Harvest and New Arts City.
Looking at the box office of DreamWorks movies in the past few years, the worst movies have a box office of more than 2.5 million, and there are more than a dozen movies with a box office of over 10 million. This is really an astonishing figure, and it is far more than other movie companies.
The data.
But Kang Jianfei obviously wanted more than that.
Just next week, several companies under Kang Jianfei will move into Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City, which will greatly facilitate the close cooperation between Oriental DreamWorks, Oriental Entertainment Company, Fengxing Records and Phoenix TV. Movies, TV, records, and
Oriental Entertainment Company, which has a large number of star resources, seems to have formed a reading entertainment kingdom in Tseung Kwan O Studios.
No one knows how far this entertainment kingdom will develop in the future, but it is undeniable that Kang Jianfei has mastered the entertainment trends and trends in Hong Kong..."
…
…
Yongjia Film Company.
Compared with New Art City and DreamWorks, the office space of Yongjia Pictures is really small, including the general manager's office, there are only two writing rooms.
Chen Xunqi walked in with one hand in his trouser pocket, threw the script on the table, and then fell down on the chair.
"Brother Qi, the script didn't pass again?" Wang Jiawei came over and asked.
Chen Xunqi smiled bitterly and said: "The box office of "I Want a Golden Turtle Husband" and "Goodbye" recently produced by the company was lower than the previous one. Boss Lei doesn't believe me anymore. In the past, he always paid for the movie without saying a word.
Money."
"Brother Qi, I'm sorry, it's my script that's not good." Wang Jiawei said quite remorsefully, because both "I Want a Rich Husband" and "Goodbye" were scripts written by him.
Wang Jiawei is 26 years old. When he was in college, he worked as a part-time editor for "Movie Biweekly" and later signed up for a screenwriting training class at Wireless Station. After participating in the creation of a TV series script, Wang Jiawei first joined New Art City as a screenwriter.
(That is, translating Huang Baiming's ideas into words), and was later valued by Chen Xunqi and recruited into Yongjia Pictures.
Wang Jiawei has always regarded Chen Xunqi as his boss. When he saw that Chen Xunqi's movie could not get funding, he was very anxious for him.
"It's none of your business," Chen Xunqi comforted with a smile, "Your script is very good, but something went wrong when I was directing it. The company may not be able to make a movie this year. Boss Lei is short of funds, so there really is no way.
Invest your spare money for me. If you don't film, I don't have the money to pay you a salary, so you should go out and take more private jobs."
Chen Xunqi is said to be the boss of a film company, but there are only four people in the entire company including himself, which is similar in nature to Xu Ke and McDonald's film studio.
In the first year or so, Chen Xunqi's movie was a hit, and he was naturally very proud of himself. Unfortunately, most of the profits went into Lei Juekun's pocket.
Now the box office of two consecutive movies has plummeted. Although it can still make some money, the company's finances have begun to be stretched, because Yongjia Pictures has only made one movie this year.
If I had known better, I would not have left DreamWorks. Now I have to manage the company and find money to make movies. I have a terrible headache all day long.
This is a thought that occasionally occurs in Chen Xunqi's mind, but he is a person who cares about face, and he really can't lose his face when he returns to DreamWorks.
Wang Jiawei was still hoping to hang out with Chen Xunqi. Seeing that the company was not developing smoothly, he was more anxious than Chen Xunqi and couldn't help but said: "Brother Qi, I heard that you have a good relationship with Mr. Kang?"
"Absolutely." Chen Xunqi really didn't want to mention Kang Jianfei's name.
Wang Jiawei encouraged: "Why don't you close Yongjia Pictures and open a movie studio in DreamWorks like McDonald's and Xu Ke did."
Chen Xunqi looked a little unnatural, coughed and said, "I'll ask Boss Lei for investment in a few days."
Wang Jiawei picked up the "Oriental Daily" on his desk, pointed to the report "Kang Jianfei's Entertainment Kingdom" and said: "Brother Qi, Mr. Kang will be another 'Shao Yifu in the film industry' in the future, now you go back and cooperate with him
That's right, at least you don't have to worry about not having money to make a movie!" (To be continued.)q
