This film completed various negotiations for the co-production between the two places in March last year, and officially started production in June. It took four months to complete the pre-production work.
Then came the intense post-production.
All the special effects of this film were handed over to the leading film and television special effects studio in the United States. This is also the first big job that the studio has received since its establishment.
This film was shot in a co-production between the two places. The crew members were mainly Hong Kong people, while the actors and locations were provided by the mainland.
The director is Cheng Xiaodong of Youlian, and Zhang Yimou not only stars in the film, but also serves as the producer of the film.
The co-production of this film in the previous life was a tragedy. Due to the different understandings of commercial films between the actors and actresses in the two places, coupled with poor communication, the two parties had many conflicts during the cooperation.
In addition, the director and crew of Xiangjiang are very limited in their ability to manage large scenes, especially the war scenes in the film, which have become a laughing point for the audience.
The few sets of special effects shots, although not considered to be fifty-cent special effects, were very perfunctory. This was related to the low level of software and hardware for film special effects at the time, but the main reason was insufficient shooting costs and
The producers are eager to make the film.
All in all, a very good project that turned out to be a mess. Even so, the film made a lot of money at the box office and received some international awards.
A few years later, "The Adventure King" starring Jet Li and "The Myth" starring Jackie Chan actually had shadows from this film.
Now that Youlian has taken over this project, of course Sun Dahai must do it well. The filming budget of 10 million Hong Kong dollars is twice as much as in history.
Leading film and television special effects studios do not charge exorbitant prices for their own projects. Just by doing this, you can tell the quality of the film.
In addition, although this is a co-production, the director and the main members of the crew are all from Youlian, and Youlian has strong constraints on them.
Zhang Yimou has not only won multiple awards domestically and internationally for Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Actor, but he has also participated in the filming of "A Better Tomorrow" and "The Last Emperor", both in mainland China and in Hong Kong.
In the eyes of industry insiders, they are all well-known and capable filmmakers.
He was also an artist signed by Youlian in its early stages, so he served as the producer of Youlian's wholly-owned films, which was a huge help to the cooperation between the two parties.
As for the actors, they are basically the same people as in history. The young Gong Li became the female lead, and the classic "Dong'er" image was continued to be preserved.
Yu Rongguang continues to play his role as the villain, and Luk Shuming, who is good at playing historical figures, still plays Qin Shihuang.
Ren Kuang also appeared in the film, and he guest-starred as "Xu Fu". This may be the only change among the actors.
The movie "God of Gamblers" filmed last year included 20% investment each from Yongsheng and Miss He from the gambling king family of Ao County.
After the success of "God of Gamblers", they originally wanted to continue the project with Touyoulian, but this time it was a co-production with mainland China, which for them had certain political risks.
Moreover, the post-production of the film was completely produced by a Hollywood studio, so the shooting cost reached tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars. Therefore, the two of them backed down.
They fell in love with two projects that Youlian is preparing to start filming this year, "The Bloody Heroes" and "The Gambler."
"Bleeding Heroes" was originally a project of Tsui Hark's studio. Tsui Hark was not planning to cooperate with New Arts City from the beginning for this project, but planned to go directly to his big financier, Lui Juek-kun's Golden Princess Film Production Company
Make investments.
The script of this drama was written by Wu Yusen. However, when refining the script, his creative concept conflicted with Tsui Hark again after "A Better Tomorrow 2".
The two insisted on their own opinions and argued endlessly. In the end, neither could convince the other.
Shi Nansheng pulled the plug, and she came up with an idea to get the best of both worlds: exchanging projects with Youlian, allowing Tsui Hark and Wu Yusen to each create and shoot a film that fits their ideas according to their own ideas.
The project that Shi Nansheng wanted to exchange with Youlian was naturally the third part of "A Better Tomorrow".
As early as when Tsui Hark was writing the script for "A Better Tomorrow 2", he and Wu Yusen had a major dispute. The two had different ideas. Not only did Tsui Hark stumble when writing the script, but Wu Yusen also felt awkward during the filming process.
In the end, the film's box office performance was average, which had a lot to do with it.
At that time, Tsui Hark was so angry that before the filming of the film was completed, he completely followed his own ideas and created the script for the third part of "A Better Tomorrow", which is also the prequel.
Of course Shi Nansheng knew about this situation. Now that he saw the two of them arguing again, he proposed to let them complete projects that they were satisfied with independently, so as not to hurt everyone's feelings for many years.
As for the follow-up film of "A Better Tomorrow", Sun Dahai has long said that he does not want to continue filming. Shi Nansheng believes that if the project is exchanged, Youlian will agree.
The result turned out to be what she had hoped for. Youlian quickly agreed to the project exchange and also expressed the hope of signing Wu Yusen.
Wu Yusen is a free agent at this time. He does not have a long-term contract and has only signed contracts for independent projects.
However, in recent years, he has often cooperated with Tsui Hark Studio, so Youlian also asked Tsui Hark Studio for advice out of respect.
Both Tsui Hark and Shi Nansheng knew that there were only a few people under Youlian. They had been flirting with Wu Yusen for a long time, but because of their relationship with Tsui Hark's studio, they never took the initiative to bring it up.
At this time, by bringing it up during the exchange of projects between the two parties, it can be regarded as seizing a not unexpected opportunity, and everyone can easily accept it.
As a result, the two parties quickly reached an agreement on project exchange, and Wu Yusen successfully became a contracted director under Youlian.
As for "The God of Gamblers", it is a new script formed by Liu Zhenwei based on the essence of "The God of Gamblers" - gambling, and incorporating special functions.
Although "God of Gamblers" was promoted to the outside world as a sequel to "God of Gamblers", the connection between the two is pitiful. It is really far-fetched to say that it is a sequel movie.
"The Gambler" has been confirmed to be directed by Liu Zhenwei. The project has already been approved by the company. It is planned to start filming in the second half of the year and will be officially released during the Spring Festival next year.
This film is also the first film directed by Lau Chun Wai in Youlian. He still cast Stephen Chow in the lead role, and the supporting roles are Ng Mang-tat, Sandra Ng, and Wan Bixia.
Like the previous "God of Gamblers", Zhang Min's role in these two movies was replaced by Wen Bixia in this life.
This is a project led by Youlian, so he did not accept Yongsheng's proposal to recommend Zhang Min to star. Sun Dahai did not want some uncertainties to appear in Youlian's project.
Yongsheng has a lot of resources at his disposal, and he doesn't mind whether Zhang Min can get such a vase role.