When Xu Ke led the crew members to finish the interaction on stage, the opening film of the Venice Film Festival was officially played. Amidst the ethereal and magical music, a little boy was riding on a boat-shaped moon, fishing for the moon in the water.
"Oh, I know this title. It turns out that "Shu Mountain" is a DreamWorks movie!"
Immediately, the audience exclaimed that with the increasing prosperity of Hong Kong films, Golden Harvest, DreamWorks, and New Art City sell several films to the European market every year. Among them, France and the United Kingdom have the largest number of Hong Kong films, and Italy
There are also a few, and even a group of European audiences who watch and collect Hong Kong films, so DreamWorks titles are no stranger to Italian movie enthusiasts.
After the opening credits of DreamWorks ended, the icon of Xu Ke Film Studio came next, and then the main film officially started to be shown.
The misty mountains appeared on the big screen of the theater, and suddenly a stream of light flashed across the sky. What appeared in the camera lens was an old man with a long beard and a fairy-like manner, stepping on a sword and carrying it in his hand like a chicken.
personal.
Like an offline arrow, the long-bearded old man disappeared instantly, leaving only his small figure in the camera lens.
"Wow, that's cool. Is this a wizard from the East?"
"Probably, they use swords instead of broomsticks to fly."
"..."
Ordinary audiences were immediately refreshed. They focused on the beautiful images of the oriental fantasy world and the magical "magic of flight." However, the film colleagues who came to enjoy the opening film were shocked by the special effects technology of "Shu Mountain".
Those ten seconds of footage were really difficult to shoot.
Of course, the special effects of "Shushan" are not incredible. "Star Wars" ten years ago was an epoch-making special effects change, and then we continued to introduce new ones on this basis. The special effects of "Shushan" were done by Industrial Light and Magic.
, basically all the technologies that were explored during the filming of "Star Wars" were used, but occasionally there were some innovations.
These special effects will look very crude ten years later, but when they are shown now, coupled with the beautiful and novel oriental landscapes, the shock they bring to the audience is not much weaker than when they watched "Star Wars" back then.
"The real person Deng Yin has been brought back!" In front of the Taoist temple renovated with money from DreamWorks on Qingcheng Mountain, the old man flying with a sword threw a young man to the ground.
In the original novel "The Legend of the Swordsman in Shushan", Changmei Zhenren and Deng Yin are brothers, but in this "Shushan" Deng Yin is Changmei Zhenren's nephew.
Master Changmei twitched his eyebrows and shouted: "Evil disciple, you betrayed the Shushan sect's rules and killed your fellow disciples indiscriminately. But you still have something to say!"
Deng Yin said disdainfully: "That man plotted against me first. Could it be that I stood and let him kill me?"
After a round of questioning, Master Changmei raised his sleeves and struck out a palm from his sleeves. The wind of his palm struck Deng Yin on the chest, but left five palm prints on his back. Deng Yin was directly hit by this palm.
He was knocked to the foot of the mountain. All his strength was wasted, and he became an abandoned disciple of the Shushan Sword Sect.
Planner: Kang Jianfei, Xu Ke
Produced by: Oriental DreamWorks
Screenwriter: Kang Jianfei, Xu Ke
Starring: Li Saifeng, He Jiajin, Zhao Yazhi, Wu Zhixiong
Works directed by Xu Ke!
When the six Chinese characters and their English subtitles appeared on the screen, the scholar Yu Yingnan, played by He Jiajin, was already running into the ruined temple in the heavy rain with a bookcase on his back, while Deng Yin, who had been expelled from the school, was drinking alcohol inside, and the whole story began
Officially launched.
"Dangdangdang..."
"biu, biu.biu..."
"Boom, boom, boom..."
There are endless magic weapons in the movie, and various light, shadow and sound effects are displayed in the battle. Coupled with the scenery like an ink landscape painting, the audience can't stop watching it.
What is shown at this time is the three-hour original version of "Shushan". The rhythm is slower than the theatrical version, but it is more conducive to Western audiences understanding the film. It also has some literary and artistic colors of Eastern philosophy.
In particular, the guzheng is paired with the bamboo flute, and the scene where Yu Yingnan, who is coming down the mountain for the first time, acts as a hero and fights the villain in the bamboo forest, is so beautiful that it is pleasing to the eye.
That scene was shot in the Bamboo Sea in southern Sichuan. It was a scene planned by Kang Jianfei and strongly requested Xu Ke to shoot more. Xu Ke was quite resistant at first, feeling that the scene was irrelevant and took up precious film time. But it was finally edited out.
Later it turned out that this bamboo forest battle added a lot to the film.
Three hours is extremely long for a movie. If it is a slow-paced literary film, it can make the entire audience fall asleep.
But "Shu Mountain" is not like that. Although most European and American audiences cannot understand the deeper meaning of the plot, the beautiful pictures and the upgrading plot of fighting monsters are enough to make them watch it happily.
At the end of the film, Yu Yingnan and Li Yingqiong defeated the villain Deng Yin with the help of everyone. The two of them carried long swords on their backs, stepped on the flying boat, passed through the rolling clouds, and sailed towards the sunset on the horizon.
"Pa bang bang..."
The audience burst into applause and lasted for several minutes.
"Oriental Fantasy Films Invade Venice"
"The premiere in Shushan was well received, and the applause lasted for five minutes"
The premiere of "Shu Mountain" was well received in Venice, mainly because of its sophisticated special effects and novel oriental fantasy world, which brought a strong sense of freshness to these gringos.
Of course, there are those who accuse the judges of the Venice Film Festival of being degenerate, saying that they actually chose a commercial film with no connotation as the opening film, but this kind of argument will not stir up much trouble.
In the next half month, actors such as Li Saifeng and Zhao Yazhi followed Xu Ke and his wife, running between various venues, attending promotional activities, and sometimes accepting interviews from foreign media. As for Jiang Zhiqiang and Ye Zhiming
The two began to continuously contact publishers from various places, but they never signed a contract.
Because "Shushan" has been shortlisted for the main competition, if it can win the award in the end, it will be extremely beneficial to the box office, and DreamWorks can also gain more benefits from the publisher.
It was not until the end of September that the preparatory work for "A Chinese Ghost Story" was completed in Hong Kong, and the Venice Film Festival ushered in the closing ceremony and awards ceremony.
In the Film Palace, the award presenter opened the envelope: "What I want to announce is the Special Jury Award, which is "Tango, The Exile of Gardel" directed by Fernando Solanas..."
The Special Jury Award is not a fixed award. Sometimes it is awarded only once every two or three years. Sometimes several trophies are awarded in one night. The main awards are given to those who cannot win the Golden Lion Award or the Silver Lion Award, but some judges
Particularly favorite movie.
Xu Ke is self-aware. Although he has expectations for the Golden Lion and the Silver Lion, he also knows that it is difficult to win a commercial film like "Shu Mountain", so his initial positioning was to win the Special Jury Award.
When Xu Ke heard the award presenter read out the film co-produced by Argentina and France, Xu Ke's heart suddenly went cold and he realized that he had missed his only opportunity.
Tang Shuxuan knew Xu Ke's thoughts and comforted him: "Next time, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future."
Shi Nansheng also quietly held her husband's hand and silently gave Xu Ke support. She originally thought that "Shu Mountain" had a good chance of winning the special jury award after being selected as the opening film.
"I'm fine." Xu Ke exhaled and forced a smile.
For Xu Ke, the time after that was like a year, and he just wanted to end it early and go back to the hotel to sleep.
Amidst the endless applause, the Best Actor and Best Actress awards were settled, and the awards ceremony began to enter the highlight of the night.
"The winner of the 42nd Best Film Silver Lion Award is - "Shu Mountain" Xu Ke, from Hong Kong."
Tang Shuxuan sat upright in shock. Shi Nansheng was stunned for a moment and turned to look at her husband, while Xu Ke himself seemed not to have heard.
"Old Xu, "Shu Mountain" won the award!" Shi Nansheng gave Xu Ke a shove.
Only then did Xu Ke react, smiled, hugged the people around him, and joked: "I thought I heard wrong."
The Golden Lion Award of the Venice Film Festival is awarded to the best film every year, while the Silver Lion Award is much more flexible. It can be awarded to a highly distinctive film, a good director's debut, or even because of the film.
Awarded for the director's unique approach.
The applause at the scene was once again warm. Many people knew when "Shu Mountain" was selected as the opening film that this film would probably win an award at the Venice Film Festival. But they, like Xu Ke, also believed that "Shu Mountain" would win the most.
A special jury award. Unexpectedly, the jury actually awarded "Shushan" a Silver Lion.
Jiang Zhiqiang and Ye Zhiming also laughed happily. "Shushan" won a Silver Lion Award, which gave them a lot more leverage when negotiating with publishers.
"Thank you to the judges of the Venice Film Festival," Xu Ke said after receiving the Silver Lion trophy and holding it in his arms. "For me, this trip to Venice has too many surprises. "Shu Mountain" can become the opening film of the film festival.
, it was a big awakening, but I didn’t expect that something more exciting was yet to come. For me to be able to stand here now, I must thank all the colleagues on the "Shu Mountain" crew, my parents and friends, and I would also like to especially thank my wife Shi Nansheng.
, she has always encouraged me and helped me complete this film. Finally, I would like to thank my boss, Mr. Kang Jianfei. This film is a huge investment in Hong Kong, and I stopped filming midway and rejected the previous script.
Mr. Kang gave me financial support so that this film could finally come out, thank you Mr. Kang!"
After the award ceremony, Xu Ke and all the crew members of "Shu Mountain" became the focus of media attention.
There is no way, "Shushan" won the second largest award at the Venice Film Festival, and it was also the opening film, so it was impossible to keep a low profile.
As a result, everyone who originally planned to return to Hong Kong early had to stay in Venice for a few more days. Jiang Zhiqiang and Ye Zhiming also became the targets of many publishers, spending their time in foreign countries tiredly and happily while bargaining.
What's more important is that this film won the Venice Silver Lion Award and is also a commercial blockbuster with great visual impact. It would be strange for those distributors with a sharp eye not to grab the lead! (To be continued. If you like this film
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