The lights dimmed and the screen lit up. The scene during last year's filming is still vivid at this time, and He Xin is also quite excited, just like the excited Nakamura Heng next to him.

The film begins in Tohoku in 1928, when Japanese student Hiroshi Nakamura and his Chinese classmate Zhang Ziyi fall in love. Soon Nakamura was recalled to Japan, and by the time he returned to China, he had been a spy for the Japanese militaristic organization.

When the two "met by chance" in Shanghai, Zhang Ziyi also became a member of the anti-Japanese assassination organization "Purple Butterfly" after witnessing her brother being killed by Japanese militarists.

After witnessing his lover Li Bingbing being mistakenly killed by Zhang Ziyi, He Xin also began his revenge activities.

At the end of the film, Nakamura Heng, Zhang Ziyi, and He Xin all died.

When the subtitles began to scroll on the screen, He Xin sat there dumbfounded, unable to say a word. He didn't expect the final film to be like this!

The whole film is always shrouded in a fatalistic and miserable atmosphere, life is as light as a feather, personal helplessness in turbulent times, and the doomed unfulfillment of personal small desires......

But He Xin never got what the director wanted to express, all kinds of overlapping, repetition, multiple jumps of shots, and difficult scene scheduling, which was dazzling to watch, and the whole film was not so much telling a story, not that the director was showing off his skills, as if he was imitating the intricate and magnificent works of Visconti Bedorucci's films.

Obviously, he is not the only one who feels this way, although some audiences leave the venue from time to time in the middle of the screening, but there are still eighty percent of them who persist until the end, but when the lights are turned on, there is only sparse applause, full of perfunctory and superficial politeness.

At this time, Zhongcun Heng also whispered to him with a confused face: "He Jun, I didn't understand it at all, what about you?"

He Xin sighed secretly in his heart, and said weakly: "Metoo!"

Fortunately, it was almost one o'clock in the morning after the film screening, and because of time constraints, no on-site reporter interviews were arranged, so the group drove to Babycome Villa, which is more than ten kilometers away from Cannes, to attend a reception held by the overseas distributor of "Purple Butterfly".

Most of the filmmakers who attended the reception were filmmakers from all over the world, and there were some related friends, Wang Xiaoshuai and Duan Yihong, who came to cheer on the audience, were also pulled together by Lou Ye.

Compared with the director's excitement, He Xin was somewhat disappointed, because many of the scenes he thought he acted in were awesome during filming were missing in the finished film. The Situ presented in the movie even felt very strange to him, even though every scene was played by himself.

"What are you thinking?"

Just when He Xin was hiding in the corner and thinking nonsense, I don't know when Wang Xiaoshuai came over with a wine glass.

"Uh, thinking about the movie I just watched. To tell you the truth, today is the first time I have seen a finished film, and I am quite emotional. He Xindao.

"You played well, you have a good fight with the expedition, and you are much better than the Japanese. Wang Xiaoshuai said with a smile.

He Xin smiled reluctantly, still feeling a little sorry and helpless for the cut shot, and couldn't help asking, "Director, how do you see this film?"

"I think it's okay. ”

Wang Xiaoshuai pushed his glasses and said in a deep voice: "There are many scenes in the film, such as explosions, escapes, shootouts, and staggered shifts and follow-up characters on the train platform and the moving tram, which are quite difficult to film, and I think the old building handled it very well." Moreover, the difficult scene scheduling in the film adds a lot of texture to the movie, which is closer to the style of "Infernal Affairs", but compared with other Hong Kong films, this film is obviously closer to the sensibility of European films, and has the aesthetic style of deep excavation!"

“......”

Okay, He Xin admitted that he asked the wrong person, Wang Xiaoshuai and Lou Ye originally smelled like each other, and when they hung up, asking him was actually similar to asking Lou Ye.

......

After the release of "Purple Butterfly", the outside world received mixed reviews, and many media believed that the theme of the "Battlefield Love" movie was too old, and it could not visually impact the judges, and the competition was fierce this year, and there was little hope of winning the award.

However, Boulder, a famous film critic of Le Figaro, who has a great influence in France, wrote an article to give a great evaluation to "Purple Butterfly", calling it "one of the most successful films depicting the background story of the Anti-Japanese War", and even compared it to "the Asian version of "Gone with the Wind".

"Boulder believes that the characters in the movie have gone through vicissitudes, and their love for each other has also suffered twists and turns due to the changing times, and the conflict between mission and love makes the plot more twists and turns......

When eating together in the hotel restaurant at noon, He Xin, who yawned for days, listened to Zhang Ziyi's agent Lingling reading the newly baked newspaper vividly, and I have to say that this girl's French level is really good, and she can also skillfully use idioms when translated into Chinese.

In this film review report of Le Figaro, there are also references to various jumping scenes in the very criticized film. However, Boulder, Lou Ye's bosom friend, believes that although the plot development fails to match harmoniously with time, making the audience lose the concept of time in a coherent storyline, this is precisely the eternal portrayal of China's experience of the tragedy of this war.

Hearing this, He Xin couldn't help blinking his eyes, looked at Lou Ye with a shallow smile on his face, and asked, "Director, did you really think so when you first edited?"

"Uh......" Lou Ye, who was still nodding frequently, was half-open at this time, and he didn't know how to answer for a while.

"Oh, Xiaohe, don't interrupt, there's more to come. ”

Lingling, who was reading the newspaper, saw this and helped the director to relieve the way, and then saw her say in a lyrical tone: ""Purple Butterfly" has too many sighing plots, and the sighs from the audience's mouth can converge into a gust of wind and blow away the clouds and smoke of history!"

"Wow! Mr. Boulder has such a high opinion! I'm a little embarrassed to say that. Zhang Ziyi said with a smile.

Because Boulder's film review also specifically mentioned her, and even compared her to "Vivien Leigh of the East", believing that her superb and expressive acting skills are a strong contender for Best Actress at this year's Film Festival.

also publicly shouted that Nicole Kidman, the biggest favorite of the actresses of this year's film festival, the heroine of the American movie "Dogtown": "Zhang Ziyi is here, Nicole, are you ready?"

Zhang Niangniang said this sentence was full of joy.

However, it is not that the Boulder family is optimistic about Zhang Niangniang, today's "Nice Morning Post" published a photo of her in a quarter of the page, with the title "Cannes Actress?"

In fact, He Xin was a little disdainful in his heart, Zhang Ziyi's performance in "Purple Butterfly" was very exciting, but in his opinion, it was just a normal performance.

At the film festival, he had seen the three-hour movie "Dogtown". Although he couldn't understand the dialogue, he had to say that the film brought him a great shock just by the pictures, and it was presented in the form of a stage play! A testing ground for good and evil! A real horror film!

Especially Nicole Kidman's performance is so precise that it is hard for him to imagine that such a graceful and luxurious new Oscar-winning actress would play such a role that is really unspeakable.

This alone is enough to deserve the title of Queen of Cannes.

Although Boulder helped to tout it, the response of the local media was still more depreciatory than positive, so that before attending the press conference in the afternoon, He Xin and Zhang Ziyi were slightly nervous, especially He Xin, who actually disagreed with this film in his heart, in case of acute problems, whether he said it or not, his mood was very conflicted.

It's just surprising that when I came to the press conference, I found that most of the reporters who came were reporters from Chinese-language media, and the questions they asked were unusually friendly.

What "difficult" questions about the plot structure and creative conception of the movie were all thrown to director Lou Ye, and most of the questions about Zhang Ziyi and He Xin were the feelings during filming.

The two naturally praised each other.

However, Lou Ye always behaved calmly in the face of those "difficult" problems.

When a reporter raised concerns about the domestic box office, Lou Ye said with a relaxed face: "The producer and the investor have long considered this issue before giving me money to make this movie, and it is really unpredictable whether the box office of the movie will be good or not, just like this time I came to Cannes, and so far I have sold the copyrights of more than 30 countries, and the investment has long been recovered." ”

As soon as his words fell, another girl with glasses raised her hand and asked, "Then Director Lou, do you have confidence in winning the award for "Purple Butterfly" this time?"

Lou Ye glanced at the girl, and pretended to say: "It really doesn't matter to me whether I win the award or not, if I can win the award, it's just a little more money!"

At the end of the press conference, when He Xin and Zhang Ziyi went upstairs together, Zhang Ziyi quietly asked him: "Xiaohe, do you think we have hope this time?"

He Xin knows very well in his heart, with Zhang Niangniang's always ambitious intentions, the most coveted person in his heart is probably the Cannes actress. It was quite difficult for him to answer for a while, so he came up with a bad idea and said, "It's actually very simple to know if there is any hope of winning the award......

"How do you get it?" Zhang Ziyi asked impatiently.

"Ask the organizing committee for leave, saying that you can't attend the award ceremony if you have something to do temporarily, if you hope to win the award, the organizer will definitely keep it, if you don't hope, it doesn't matter, you can participate or not. ”

Originally, he just said this casually, but he didn't expect Zhang Ziyi to seem to be really moved, and while thinking about it, he was still muttering: "But this year's awards ceremony CCTV movie channel will broadcast the whole process!"

In the past, the Chinese films shortlisted for the three major European film festivals will always have some underground films that are very out of tune in the eyes of the official, but this time is different, after the shortlist of "Purple Butterfly" was announced, the relevant departments immediately took the initiative to say that this work of the famous "banned" director Lou Ye was shortlisted through due process.

As a result, Yang Ma bought the broadcast rights of the award ceremony early, looking forward to Chinese films shining again at the Cannes Film Festival.