Not long after returning from the magic capital, Xu Wangqiu received good news and bad news.

The good news is that "Cold" has been officially shortlisted for the main competition unit of this year's Cannes Film Festival. The bad news is that "Cold" did not pass the review of the Xiangjiang Electricity Inspection Department and was banned from being released in Xiangjiang. The Electricity Inspectorate believes that "Cold" portrays the British government and the British government as the mastermind, and is inciting the masses to hate and despise the government, and that the whole film is advocating crime and is not suitable for screening.

It is not surprising that "Cold" was banned in Xiangjiang, it was Xu Wangqiu's expectation, and he had planned it a long time ago.

Xu Wangqiu believes that as long as he pokes out the news of the ban on "Cold" in Cannes, it will inevitably attract unprecedented attention, and overseas media will report on this matter one after another. He believes that under the pressure of international public opinion, the Xiangjiang electricity inspection system will collapse ahead of schedule.

Xu Wangqiu is not particularly clear about the history of the Xiangjiang electrical inspection system, but how the electrical inspection system collapsed is quite clear. Xu Wangqiu and many filmmakers were dissatisfied with the film censorship system, believing that it restricted the director's creation. Everyone wants to be able to implement the grading system, and when we talk about the grading system, we often talk about how the grading systems of other countries and regions have been formed.

Someone once told Xu Wangqiu that in March 1987, the English-language "Asian Wall Street Journal" publicly revealed that the film censorship in Hong Kong was carried out without a legal basis, which caused a great shock. Xiangjiang has always prided itself on being a legal society, and no one expected that the electric inspection system, which has been in operation for decades, has no legal basis. If this problem is not resolved, there will be a question mark over whether Hong Kong is a society under the rule of law. Under these circumstances, the Executive Council and the Legislative Council quickly set up a task force to scrutinise the proposed "Film Censorship Bill" and include the "three-tier film system" in the bill. On 10 November 1988, the Film Censorship Bill 1988 came into force.

Xu Wangqiu wanted to dismantle the Xiangjiang electronic censorship system and implement film classification in Xiangjiang, not to promote the development of Xiangjiang films, but to hope that Xiangjiang films would collapse ahead of schedule, force Xiangjiang filmmakers to integrate into the mainland, and then promote the development of mainland films.

The implementation of the classification system of Hong Kong Films has indeed given filmmakers more freedom to create, and many excellent works have been made, and Hong Kong Films have also prospered unprecedentedly. But the unprecedented boom in the film industry has also led to an influx of capital into the film industry. Driven by these capitals, the salaries of Xiangjiang stars are rolling up. Take Lin Qingxia as an example, her salary was only 700,000 in 91, but it has soared to 3.5 million in 93. Other stars, like Wang Zuxian, Liu Jialing and others, have also more than doubled in the past two years. At that time, the most asked question in the film industry was, how much has your salary increased?

While celebrity salaries have risen sharply, the overseas market of Hong Kong Films is shrinking. In order to make money, capitalists can only reduce the cost of film production, which will inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of films. The decline in quality has led to a further contraction of the already shrinking overseas market. In addition, the death of the Xiangjiang filmmakers has lost the Taiwan market, and investing in movies is no longer a money-making business. As a result, all kinds of funds began to withdraw from the film circle, and Xiangjiang films completely collapsed.

The same problem has occurred in both the mainland and South Korea, and it has also led to very serious problems.

After 2012, with the strong recovery of the mainland film and television industry, a large amount of money poured into the film and television industry. These capitals only want to make quick money, they spend a lot of money to hire stars, but it is impossible to work the script and production, resulting in higher and higher salaries for stars, but less and less money on production. As a result, domestic movies are flooding, the audience is full of complaints, and many people are reluctant to enter the cinema. After 2002, China's box office has maintained a rapid growth, with a growth rate of 33% in 2014 and a growth rate of 54% in 2015, but only 4% in 2016. In the end, the state had to intervene and issue a salary limit order.

In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung put forward the strategy of cultural statehood and promulgated corresponding support policies, which made the government an important help for the Korean film industry when it was ready to develop. With the economic recovery and policy push, the number of films produced in South Korea reached 59 in 2000, basically returning to the scale before the financial crisis.

This year, a phenomenal blockbuster "Common Alert Zone" appeared in South Korea, with an investment of 2.7 billion won, more than twice the average production cost of the film in the same period. The film was a huge commercial success and spurred a keen sense of smell of venture capitalists to jump on board.

With a lot of money in demand, South Korean production companies have entered the stage of high-cost, large-scale production, blindly pursuing high-investment films, hoping to spend the money from venture capital as soon as possible and then raise new funds. In 2001, the average production cost of 28 films released by South Korea's three major distributors was as high as 3.3 billion won, and six of them cost more than 5 billion won, including science fiction films that had never been involved before.

It's just that this huge bubble driven by capital quickly burst, and with the successive box office failures of big-budget films, external capital began to withdraw from the film industry on a large scale, and a large number of film companies went bankrupt. Coupled with the fact that the South Korean government has reduced the screening quota of its own films under pressure from the United States, the Korean film industry has been hit hard and has entered a continuous slump.

The bubbles of mainland and Korean films occurred during the recovery phase of the film industry, and although they caused serious problems, they both survived smoothly. The Hong Kong Movie Bubble occurred during the period when the number of moviegoers in Hong Kong was declining and the overseas market was shrinking, and with the bursting of the bubble, Hong Kong Films completely collapsed.

Xu Wangqiu believes that if the Hong Kong and British governments launch a film classification system in advance, the outbreak period of Hong Kong films will come earlier, and the time for the bursting of the Hong Kong film bubble will naturally be greatly advanced.

On March 15, the export company held a kick-off meeting for the 5.1-channel project in the large conference room. Liu Shengquan, director of the Digital Research Institute, presided over the meeting, and the company's leaders Wang Lanxi, Hu Jian and others, some researchers of the company, as well as some leaders and researchers of the Institute of Computer Science, the Institute of Acoustics, and the Modu Institute of Optics and Mechanics attended the meeting.

In his speech, Wang Lanxi pointed out that the 5.1 channel is a project that the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of National Affairs are very concerned about. Chinese cinema is still in the mono era, far behind the world. As long as we can get 5.1 channels, then we can make a leap forward and catch up with the level of developed countries.

He said in his speech that the research direction of foreign enterprises engaged in multi-channel research is to convert sound into digital signals, store them on film, and read them through the reading head, due to the limited storage space of the film, it is impossible to make a breakthrough in the short term, and it will take at least five to ten years for them to make 5.1 channels. The 5.1 channel that the export company wants to develop is a different way, storing the sound on the CD, which greatly reduces the difficulty of research and development, and it is entirely possible to get 5.1 channel before European and American countries.

The researchers present were very excited when they heard this, and it would be an unprecedented feat if they could really get 5.1 channels ahead of Europe and the United States. One by one, they were eager to start research and development right away.

In the days that followed, everyone began to discuss how to do 5.1 channel and what technical difficulties needed to be overcome.

After discussion, everyone agreed that there are three technical difficulties that must be overcome in order to develop 5.1 channels: how to record the digital signal on film, how to read the digital signal on film and on the disc, and how to record the digital signal on the disc and read it.

In order to overcome these three technical difficulties as soon as possible, everyone believes that they should be divided into three groups to tackle key problems. After overcoming the three technologies, everyone went to the Digital Research Institute to focus on research and work together to develop a 5.1 channel system.

After discussion, it was finally decided that the Institute of Acoustics would be responsible for converting the sound into digital signals and recording them on film, the computer Institute would be responsible for the research of the reading head, and the Modu Optical Machinery Institute would be responsible for recording and reading the digital audio signals on the CD.

However, there is a problem here, that is, the three research institutes are very strong in their respective fields, but now they have to tackle the difficulties related to other fields of technology. For example, the Institute of Acoustics is proficient in all kinds of sounds, but it does not understand digital technology. To convert sound into a digital signal and record it on film, digital technology is involved.

If each research institute were to do it on its own, the speed of research would be very slow. It was agreed that it was necessary to send researchers from other institutes to join three teams to assist them in their research, so that it would be possible to complete the PR in the shortest possible time.

The Digital Research Institute has researchers who understand acoustics, computers, and laser technology, so most of the researchers in the Digital Research Institute have been assigned to three R&D teams to assist them in tackling key problems before they have even been hot in the export company.

There are many advantages of this, they are in three research teams, and the export company can better grasp the R&D process of the three teams, and if there is any problem, they can also report to the company at any time, and the company will coordinate and solve it.

After the meeting, the researchers from the three R&D teams returned to their respective institutes and began to conduct R&D. Researchers from the Digital Research Institute have also settled in three R&D teams and began to assist them in tackling key problems.

Xu Wangqiu and Liu Shengquan are not idle because of this, and the preparatory work for the establishment of the Digital Research Institute is still waiting for them. They have to run to the design institute, ask architectural experts to design a research building for the digital research institute, and solve the research projects of the left-behind researchers, as well as equipment problems.

The remaining researchers at the Institute of Digital Research are mainly engaged in digital graphics and visualization research, which is inseparable from computers. Without a computer, just like a soldier cannot fight without a weapon. So, Xu Wangqiu found Xu Wangchuan and asked him to contact Zhang Xuanlong and import 30 IBMPC/XT computers. Twenty of these computers were allocated to the Digital Research Institute, and the remaining 10 were allocated to export companies to enable digital office.

These computers are equipped with application software, such as WordStar, CalcStar, and dBase. It's just that the staff of the export company, except for Xu Wangqiu, no one else has ever used a computer and can't use it at all. As a result, the task of mentoring the company's employees naturally fell to the researchers at the Digital Research Institute.

Just when Xu Wangqiu was very busy, Xu Wangqiu received a notice from the ministry that he and the film delegation should go to Xiangjiang to participate in the upcoming "Chinese Film Selected Bi-weekly Exhibition of the 80s" in Xiangjiang.

The "Film Bi-Weekly Exhibition" is co-sponsored by Yindu Organization and Colorful Film Company, and will be held from April 2nd to April 15th. The Ministry of Culture attaches great importance to this screening activity, and sent a high-level delegation, headed by the famous film artist Xie Tian, and Chen Gang, deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Film Bureau, as the secretary general, with directors Bai Shen, Li Wenhua, Tian Zhuangzhuang, actors Zhang Fengyi, Ma Xiaowei, Gong Xue and others, including "Old Things in the South of the City", "Under the Bridge", "Hunting Ground" and other 14 new films, to Xiangjiang for a 14-day screening.

Xu Wangqiu originally planned to take a trip to Xiangjiang before Cannes and make some noise. Now the ministry asked him to go to Xiangjiang to participate in the "Film Bi-weekly Exhibition", which is naturally unwanted. So, in the name of the deputy head of the delegation, he boarded the plane to Xiangjiang with the delegation.