Chapter 44 first quarter

At the end of 2001, I went on a business trip to Melbourne, Australia, and bought a book about the fortunes of the year of the horse in a bookstore in China Town. From the book, I learned that the fortunes of people who belong to dogs in 2002 are mixed.After a year, my feeling is that "everything is not good". First, it was because my heart was a little emotional during the filming of "Big Wrist", and I couldn't beat it properly. The body has gone through severe tests, and people have become as fragile as glass. That happened on the morning of May 13th last year. We were filming at the airport that day. Everything was ready. Just after shooting a scene, I suddenly felt empty in my heart, and my body suddenly became lighter. It was a strange feeling that I had never had before. It spread all over my body, I was sitting in the director's chair, looking at the busy staff around me, speechless, I thought, I'm finished.

My colleague Lao Yun wrote in his work diary for this day: May 13, 2001 sunny All set off at 7:10 in the morning, and all preparations were completed and shooting began at 8:30. After the first shot was completed, the director arranged for the production director, hoping to print a batch of samples as soon as possible for Donald Sutherland to see.Because Lao Sa used a wide-angle lens for photography the day before the shoot, he had a bad relationship with photographer Zhang Li. Lao Sa insisted that he could only use a lens above 50mm, but Zhang Li told him that although he used a 25mm lens , but the shot was in the middle ground, so it would not be deformed, and Lao Sa got emotional because of this.The director hopes to prove the cinematographer right with the dailies.While talking, something unexpected happened suddenly.The director suddenly felt uncomfortable in his heart, his face was pale and sweaty. Director Lu quickly helped him into the car and told me to give him two Suxiao Jiuxin Pills. The director told me in a weak voice that he had to go to the hospital immediately. , Wang Yimin called the doctor in the airport emergency room. After preliminary diagnosis at the scene, the blood pressure was 160 and the heart rate was 150. The director couldn't stand it anymore, so Xiao Lu hurriedly drove him to the civil aviation emergency center for emergency treatment.

Everyone is very concerned about the director's situation. I comfort the two actors Rosamund Kwan and Paul. The team is on standby, eagerly waiting for news from the hospital.Time of incident: 9:40 am. At 10:20, the hospital called, and the director asked Xiao Lu to tell me that Zhang Li should finish filming the scene at the airport. His condition is still under observation, and his electrocardiogram and blood pressure, etc., have tended to normal under the control of drugs. Stable, but still dare not be careless.I heard from the people who accompanied him that the director was still in extreme pain, and his association made him feel terrible. It would be too inauspicious to remove the word "funeral" from "The Funeral of a Big Man".

At 1:00 in the afternoon, Wang Yimin returned to the shooting scene. He told me that Wang Zhongjun and his wife were visiting in the hospital, and asked Xiao Lu to strictly discipline the director's life and rest.At this time, we have finished filming 70 or 70 scenes, leaving behind 71 scenes in the car, and the team returned to the second shooting location, Zijin Hotel. Rosamund Kwan and Paul have been arranged to go back to the hotel to stand by. It is noon, and the top light is not conducive to shooting. The director can take a rest for a while. The extras, costumes, and props for the 23rd, 66th, and 68th performances have been prepared and are all waiting on the scene.

At 2:30, the director returned to the shooting scene, his face still pale, and he asked to finish filming today's scene, and let Zhang Li direct it.Quickly pick up Xiao Guan and Paul, and shoot 23 scenes. The filming was completed at 4:30, and the preparations for the 66th and 68th scenes began. The director was weak, but he still insisted on sitting in front of the monitor to discuss the shooting plan with Zhang Li.The staff of the filming team are all excellent, and the arrangement of such a big scene is well organized.The director was very satisfied, and the shooting was completed at 5:40.

Director's instruction: Tomorrow's shooting will continue as usual, the location, atmosphere, and sequence will remain unchanged, and the film will start on time at 10:00 am. At 6:00 p.m., the brigade withdrew from the scene and the props were removed from the scene. According to the doctor: Director Feng's sudden illness is very dangerous. Heart disease is more common after the age of 40, especially if he is not rested well, overworked, and smokes and drinks too much, it will break out.It is necessary to remind and supervise the director not to mess around. In the afternoon, Wang Zhonglei and his wife also came to the scene to express condolences.

People pass through the gate of ghosts, and their temperament is over the sky. This is a sentence that an expert who has never met before and who doesn't know who I am, took my birth time, pondered for a long time, and said a word. Entering 2002, for a long time, I have been in exaggerated panic.Slightly uncomfortable, immediately swallowed a few quick-acting heart-relief pills, inhaled oxygen and lay down flat, looking helplessly at the vast world around. I remember that after the Spring Festival, I took Xu Fan to New York to participate in the "Chinese Film Week" held there. I stayed in a hotel and was awakened by a nightmare at night, with my heart beating wildly. I forgot all the anxious words, and the fear in my heart was beyond words.Luckily, Xu Fan was calm, showing a strange calmness, distracting my attention like a child with a pleasant face, so that my heart returned to calm, and I gradually fell asleep in her arms.At dawn, I opened the curtains and looked down at Times Square on Fifth Avenue. A new day began, and everything came back to life.Since then, my health has improved.The most obvious improvement is that I want to smoke again.

Here I would like to share some of my personal views on the so-called "Chinese Film Week".To put it bluntly, one or two poor Americans, in the name of loving Chinese movies, get some free copies of movies from Chinese studios, and sell tickets for screenings in cities with a large concentration of Chinese in the United States, making a profit from it. personal behavior.The domestic film studios also have no concept of copyright, and the copies can be sold for a few months, and the only condition is a few round-trip air tickets to the United States. The conditions and environment of the movie theaters shown in "Movie Week" are very poor. Most of the audience are Chinese, and there are also a few white people who have nothing to do. Because these people have a strong Chinese complex, they will give warm applause to any bad movies. Applause has nothing to do with the quality of the film, it can only reflect the patriotic enthusiasm of the new and old overseas Chinese.The director who didn't know the truth mistakenly thought that the film he made was so great, and immediately asked a reporter to interview him after returning to China. Based on this, he complained that the domestic distribution companies and audiences were ignorant of the neglect of his film, and boasted that his film caused a sensation when it was screened in the United States.In fact, it is a party for the few people living in the United States to entertain themselves, and the mainstream media has not mentioned a word about it.The so-called cultural exchange between China and the United States, to put it bluntly, is a fee-paying fellowship between Chinese and Chinese, which has nothing to do with the American public.

While I was recovering, Huayi Brothers Taihe Film Company and Columbia Film Company jointly invested in buying a novel by Nanjing writer Zhao Benfu for me.This novel was first recommended to me by Ge You’s mother. It was roughly written: a man and a woman, two thieves, met a simple and honest farmer who returned to his hometown alone with 60,000 yuan in savings, and the female thief Infected by the simplicity and kindness of the farmer, he didn't want him to walk out of the dream of "A World Without Thieves", so he did everything possible to protect him all the way, and finally got in with himself and his boyfriend.After I read the novel, I liked it very much. I thought that if I adapted it well, I could make it into a good-looking and very human commercial film.But because I had other film contracts at the time, it was delayed. Later, the right to adapt the novel was bought by a company, and nothing happened.

During the post-production of "Big Name", I told this story to Ms. Barbara, the boss of Columbia Asia, and she translated it to her boss on the spot, Garris, the co-chairman of Columbia Pictures. After reading this story, he immediately said: Xiaogang will make this movie for his next movie.For a world-class film company like theirs, a script often needs to go through layers of discussions from the idea to the final approval of the project. It takes several months before the story can be sent to the desk of old man Garris. It took only half an hour from telling this story to finalizing the project, which may be very rare.Of course, this is also due to their trust in me and their good wishes for long-term cooperation.

The old man once said to me: Originally, your films had never been out of the country, and the outside world didn’t know you well. “Big Wrist” should be regarded as a commercial to promote Feng Xiaogang’s films, laying a foundation for the second and third films. Hot your overseas market. Here I am smugly bragging about flirting with Hollywood. Some people will be very disgusted. I remember that in the symposium after the screening of "Big Wrist" at the Film Academy, someone asked me whether the co-production of "Big Wrist" is Hollywood. Invasion of our culture, to lure wolves into the house?My answer is: it should be a wolf, and what is born is neither a wolf nor an embarrassment.Because of the collusion with the wolf, the wolf is more fierce, and the wolf is more cunning because of the interbreeding with the wolf.This is a win-win deal, but also a double-edged sword.I also emphasized that cooperating with them is also in Cao Ying's heart.After I finished speaking, I felt that I was quite unfair.In short, this kind of cooperation is still a Chinese film, but it is aimed at the global market, so it is worthwhile.