Just when the open letter caused a storm in the city and sparked a big discussion in the literary and artistic circles, Xu Wangqiu, the initiator, had already left Beiping and was busy with the preliminary work of "Falcon" in southern Yunnan Province. However, in addition to his busy schedule, he always keeps an eye on the movement of things.

The direction of things was similar to what Xu Wangqiu expected, Tang Ziqing was transferred out of Nortel, and it is said that he was transferred to Beijing Film Studio to be responsible for the compilation of the factory records of Beijing Film Studio; although Hu Qingming was only in his 50s and was in the prime of life, he was transferred to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and let him retire.

The dark clouds hanging over Xu Wangqiu's head completely dissipated, and he was finally able to work on the preliminary work of "Falcon" with peace of mind.

"Falcon" is a war movie, and most of the scenes in the movie take place outdoors, mainly on location. The shooting sequence of the film is generally outside first and then inside, responsible first and then simple. Xu Wangqiu's shooting methods are a little different, they also shoot exterior first, and then shoot interior, but many complex special effects shots are not shot in the front, but at the end.

The main exterior of "Falcon" is set in Hekou County, Yunnan Province, which is across the river from Vietnam and opposite Lao Cai Province of Vietnam. More than a year ago, our army broke through on the entire 48-kilometer stretch from the mouth of the river to the Bo River, annihilated more than 1,000 enemy troops, and advanced in depth, smashing the enemy's plan to use the Red River moat to stop our army.

In mid-May, Xu Wangqiu came to the estuary with the main creator who needed to make preliminary preparations, as well as relevant staff. Xu Wangqiu has formulated a very strict discipline for the crew, implements militarized management, and prohibits actors from running around, this is the front line, in case the Vietnamese agents sneak over and arrest people, there is really no place to cry.

The General Staff Department and the General Armament Department issued a special document asking the Southern Yunnan Military Region to support the filming of "Falcon", and the Southern Yunnan Military Region attached great importance to this. The deputy commander of the military region took the lead, and the headquarters sent a deputy chief of spies, a deputy director of the Political Department, and a deputy chief of staff of the Logistics Department to set up a support office. The filming of "Falcon" was to ask people to give people and things to things, and Zhang Xuefeng, who had served as the head of the Operations Department of the Military Region, was also selected to serve as the military Gu Tong of the film.

At the beginning of June, Bao Qijing, the actor of the female spy Yuemei, came, and she was joined by martial arts instructor Yuan Heping.

"Falcon" is a war film, mainly a gunfight scene, with relatively few fists and feet. However, at the end of the movie, Yan Shuangying and Ruan Xiong have a dagger battle, which is one of the most exciting scenes in the whole movie. Xu Wangqiu's requirements for this scene are to strive to shoot the level of dagger fighting in "Lone Agent", to shoot it cleanly and neatly, and to shoot the deadly feeling of the knife.

There is no martial arts instructor in the mainland now, and there is not even a profession such as martial arts. Before the 80s, there were almost no kung fu movies in the mainland, and there were few fight scenes in movies. In 1982, Jet Li's "Shaolin Temple" set off a craze for domestic kung fu films, and for a while, a large number of kung fu movies, such as "Wudang" and "Wulin Zhi", were released. However, due to the lack of professional martial arts instructors, these films are far from Xiangjiang kung fu films in terms of visual experience.

During this period, the mainland often found a martial arts coach for filming and fighting scenes, and asked the actors to put the daily training set directly on it or make up some movements. These martial arts coaches don't understand movies, they don't know how to fight to look good, they don't understand movies, and they don't know how to put appropriate movements in movies, so the fighting scenes of mainland action movies are not as good as those in Xiangjiang.

Professional martial arts in the mainland emerged in the late eighties, and Zhang Che's contribution was particularly great. In 1985, Zhang Che entered the mainland to shoot the film "Shanghai 1937", in order to shoot a new feeling, he did not choose the experienced Xiangjiang martial arts instructor, and the actors and behind-the-scenes team were all selected from the mainland. These mainland martial artists learned a lot of skills in the cooperation with the Xiangjiang crew, and later, under their leadership, the mainland developed its own martial arts team.

Now that there is no martial arts instructor in the mainland, if "Falcon" wants to achieve the desired effect, it can only invite people from Xiangjiang. After receiving a call from the head office, Xu Dunle of Southern Pictures found Yuan Heping, who was named by Xu Wangqiu, and invited him to serve as the martial arts instructor of "Falcon".

Yuan Heping immediately refused when he heard that he was going to the mainland to film, because the Taiwan Cultural Bureau has a rule that anyone who has made a movie in the mainland will be banned in Taiwan. Taiwan is the most important market for Xiangjiang films, if it is blocked by Taiwan, no one will dare to ask him to film in the future.

Southern Pictures had no choice but to invite Yuan Heping at a high price, and impressed Yuan Heping with a price of 400,000 Hong Kong dollars. However, when Yuan Heping proposed the subtitles, the martial arts instructor column could only be used as a pseudonym, and his name could not be mentioned in the publicity.

In fact, many Hong Kong filmmakers use pseudonyms when they cooperate with left/faction film companies. For example, Wang Tianlin once used the pseudonym Wang Tao to film the Great Wall, for example, Chen Jiashang, as one of the screenwriters of "The True Story of Pretty Girls", signed under a pseudonym.

Bao Qijing pointed to the tall and thin man beside him and introduced to Xu Wangqiu: "This is Mr. Yuan Heping, a famous martial arts instructor in Xiangjiang, and he is a very famous director, "Drunken Fist" and "Serpentine Trickster" are his works. ”

Xu Wangqiu warmly shook hands with Yuan Heping: "Mr. Yuan, it can be regarded as looking forward to you." ”

Xu Wangqiu's "Hoe" achieved a box office of more than 5 million in Xiangjiang last year, second only to Cheng Long's "Laughing Boxing Strange Moves", and the documentary-like technique used in the film has made many Xiangjiang directors follow suit. For such a director, Yuan Heping didn't dare to slack off in the slightest, and said very politely: "Mr. Xu is too polite." ”

After the greetings, Xu Wangqiu began to talk about his requirements: "I invite you to make the last scene of the movie, which is a battle between two soldiers, a dagger against a dagger." Soldiers are highly trained, and they certainly have their own tricks and techniques in the same way that ordinary people use daggers. My requirements for this dagger fight are simple, to fight realistically, but at the same time to play well. We will ask an instructor from the army to come and give you an assistant, and I hope you can choreograph a fight that suits the characteristics of a soldier!"

Yuan Heping nodded and said, "Okay, I know." ”

Xu Wangqiu continued: "I heard that many times when Xiangjiang shoots action scenes, it is often the martial arts instructor who thinks about how to shoot when he arrives at the scene, and it is not uncommon for an action scene to be filmed for ten days and half a month. That's not the way we shoot, you need to plan the action before the film actually starts. We'll send a cameraman to film your choreographed action with a TV camera, cut the footage, and then all departments of our crew sit together to discuss the feasibility of the shooting plan. Therefore, you may not only choreograph one set of actions for filming this drama, but may choreograph three or four sets, or even more. ”

In fact, Xu Wangqiu did this for a purpose, that is, to facilitate his own people to steal teachers. Before 2000, Hollywood action movies were basically a fight of punches and punches. Around 2000, Hollywood began to invite Xiangjiang martial arts instructors to serve as action designers for Hollywood films, such as Yuan Heping in "The Matrix". Hollywood uses motion capture technology to record the movement of the muscles in each movement by the main characters, stuntmen and martial arts crew members in tights.

Hollywood quickly mastered the routines of Xiangjiang action movies through motion capture, and developed its own style on this basis, and the level of action movies even surpassed that of Xiangjiang. The directors of Xiangjiang action movies, who were once in style, basically can't get along in Hollywood. When Wu Jing filmed "Wolf Warrior 2", he even invited a Hollywood action director to design the fight scene.

Action movies are the easiest genre to export, and there are a lot of action movie fans overseas. If the films of export companies want to expand overseas, they must also be inseparable from action movies.

Xu Wangqiu asked the photographer to shoot the actions designed by Yuan Heping, and the purpose of engaging in motion capture with Hollywood is to facilitate mainland filmmakers to figure out how Yuan Heping designed the movements and master the tricks, so as to cultivate his own martial arts instructors and action film teams. It's definitely not enough to just shoot videos, Xu Wangqiu also specially found a few retired martial arts athletes and asked them to serve as Yuan Heping's assistants.

Yuan Heping didn't know Xu Wangqiu's purpose, and after hearing it, Xu Wangqiu would send someone to film the action he designed, and said in surprise: "It costs a lot of money to do this, how much do you invest in this movie?"

Xu Wangqiu smiled: "Almost 10 million Hong Kong dollars!"

Yuan Heping's mouth opened and said, "This is really a big deal." ”

Xu Wangqiu said lightly: "It's nothing, the mainland market is huge." The annual box office exceeds 10 million from more than half of the movies. Do you know how many moviegoers were in the country last year? 29.8 billion people? On average, the number of moviegoers per day is 70 million. My movie "The Rape" is still in theaters, and the number of viewers has approached 600 million, and it will definitely be no problem to exceed 700 million in the end. The final box office should be eight or nine million, and the conversion into Hong Kong dollars should be more than 150 million. In terms of the mainland market, Hollywood blockbusters like "Star Wars" can also be made, but our current technology is not enough. ”

Yuan Heping was stunned by the number reported by Xu Wangqiu, the number of moviegoers in a day is 70 million, I am afraid that it is more than the number of moviegoers in Xiangjiang in a year, and he said after a while: "I now understand what it means to be rich in land and resources, and have a large population!"

Xu Wangqiu said with a smile: "Now that our country is reforming and opening up, overseas compatriots, and even foreigners have begun to invest and do business in the mainland, and the film market will definitely be opened up in the future, at least to compatriots who are friendly to us." And we have now established a film export company, which will produce high-cost commercial films, and Changfengxin is now integrated into a Yindu organization, and will shoot kung fu films and martial arts films, so you don't have to worry about Taibend, even if you are really blocked, just cooperate with us. ”

Yuan Heping heard Xu Wangqiu say this, and said with a smile: "I'm relieved to hear you say that!"

Yuan Heping spent ten days communicating with the instructors Xu Wangqiu found, and began to choreograph movements after fully understanding how soldiers used weapons and the characteristics of grappling and fighting. Xu Wangqiu sent Zhang Yimou to Yuan Heping and asked Zhang Yimou to carry a TV camera to follow. Yuan Heping asked the actor to do four or five movements, wait for Zhang Yimou to shoot well, and then shoot the next action. After a set of action choreography is completed, Zhang Yimou cut it and handed it to Xu Wangqiu for the crew to discuss.

The first two sets of things arranged by Yuan Heping were all beaten back by Xu Wangqiu. Xu Wangqiu's evaluation of the first set of actions is too martial arts, not like soldiers fighting, but like a martial arts master playing with a knife. The rating of the second action is that it is too realistic, and the play is not smooth enough to look good. Yuan Heping was very helpless, it was the first time he had met such a demanding director, but there was no way, the director made a request, and he, the martial arts instructor, could only continue to change.

It's July, and it's getting closer and closer to the start of Falcon production. At this moment, Xu Wangqiu received a call from Beihang Airlines, and there was a clue that the photography system had been made, but the difficulty of the wireless system was greater than expected, and it was difficult to get it out in a short time. They knew that Xu Wangqiu was going to use the cableway system to make a movie, so they asked him if he would use the cable system to shoot first.

After receiving the news, Xu Wangqiu immediately bought a plane ticket and rushed back to Beiping.