Chapter 21: The Rise of Chinese Cinema
November 11th, Singles' Day, Chop Hands Day, which is often missed by future generations, is of course just an ordinary day at this time, on this day, "Enter the Dragon" was released simultaneously around the world, which also created a history, the first time a Chinese film was released worldwide.
Maybe Li Xiaolong is destined to become famous all over the world because of this movie, and Xiangjiang is not so crazy, but in Europe and the United States, especially North America, the film was opened in 1,800 theaters, and it only took ten days to collect 17.82 million US dollars at the box office, which shocked the entire Hollywood.
The plot of Li Xiaolong's "Enter the Dragon" is relatively simple, because Li Ping'an only gave a rough framework at the beginning, and the rest was filled in by a little fat man named Wang Jing, this little fat man met his father Wang Tianlin when he visited Li Ping'an, because Li Ping'an was in retreat to "create" the novel during that time, Li Xiaolong asked him for the script again, and the time schedule at that time was not open, so he thought of the fat man Wang Jing who had a mixed reputation in the future.
The drama "Enter the Dragon" is very rough and simple, mainly telling the story of the protagonist played by Li Xiaolong after he left Shaolin, in order to avenge his family, he and the villain Mr. Han played by Shi Jian started a duel at all levels, and finally was able to eradicate the great evil and take revenge.
In the film, in addition to Li Xiaolong's real kung fu, many Zen philosophies are also integrated. For example, in the opening scene, he used the way of filling a cup full of water and overflowing to interpret the truth that when the water is full and overflowing, empty and taught, and in the process of revenge and evil, he also used "fingers pointing to the moon" to guide people how to correctly understand Jeet Kune Do.
In this film, Li Xiaolong added his understanding of various fighting techniques to it, and paid more attention to actual combat and the sharpness of action.
Although, in most media evaluations in Xiangjiang, the martial arts scene of "Enter the Dragon" is much inferior to the previous "Raptors Crossing the River" in which Li Ping'an participated, but in the eyes of European and American audiences, throwing away the extra flower fist embroidered legs just proves the profundity of Li Xiaolong's fighting skills.
"Enter the Dragon" is Li Xiaolong's conquest to open the door to Hollywood, and the increase in investment and Spielberg's ability have added a lot to the film. Spielberg deserves to be one of the top directors in the future, and his grasp of the rhythm and the control of the picture have already had a style of seven or eight points in the future, and Spielberg, who is not short of businessmen and philistines, completely handed over the action design to the dragon and tiger warriors of Xiangjiang, which also makes Li Xiaolong have a very good sense of this.
In addition to Li Xiaolong, there are many big-name actors in "Enter the Dragon" in the future, including Fang Shilong, Yuan Hua, Hong Jinbao, Lin Zhengying and others, who are just roles such as dragon sets and stand-ins. There is another one who has to say, he is Sylvester Stallone, Stallone's appearance in the play is purely caused by Li Ping'an's butterfly, because the Hollywood production company has been replaced by DreamWorks, so the American actors in the original film have been changed.
Because Li Ping'an barely intervened too much in this movie, Fang Shilong still played a villain who was knocked out by Li Xiaolong in the film, and his appearance only lasted more than ten seconds.
At the end of the film, the final showdown between the main and negative characters still follows the original design, and the location of the duel is placed in a room full of mirrors. The battle in "House of Mirrors", with endless scenes of overlapping figures, seems relatively naïve to Li Ping'an, who has read countless films, but it is still very creative in the eyes of the audience in 1972, who has not yet been baptized by blockbusters.
Originally, Li Xiaolong should have been "full of disasters and difficulties" when he filmed this film, but because of Li Ping'an, none of them appeared.
On January 22, 1973, "Enter the Dragon" was released around the world, and the final box office results of the film were $140 million in North America, $80 million in Europe, and $50 million in South Asia, including Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, and finally $270 million at the global box office.
People are profit-seeking, this time Li Xiaolong is completely popular all over the world and has become a real international superstar, in addition to Shao Yifu and Zou Wenhuai to talk to him about the next movie, even Warner, Universal and other top Hollywood film companies also came to the door to seek cooperation with him, but it is quite strange that this time DreamWorks did not intervene.
On the second day of the Spring Festival, Li Xiaolong's family came to Li Ping'an for 100 years, and Li Ping'an gave Li Xiaolong's family of four a talisman in return. These talismans were made by Li Ping'an from the snake skin of the two-headed snake, which was much stronger than the paper yellow talisman.
Let Zhao Yazhi, Lin Qingxia and Lin Fengjiao take Li Xiaolong's family to visit the villa, and Li Ping'an and Li Xiaolong came to the study alone.
"Won't my new film DreamWorks participate this time?" Li Xiaolong was still in a nervous mood, after all, his previous four movies were all scripts by Li Ping'an.
"Don't think about it. Li Ping'an poured Li Xiaolong a cup of hot tea, "Actually, your film road is very narrow, you are only suitable for shooting kung fu fighting films, at most three or four films, you will make the audience have aesthetic fatigue, and I don't have a suitable script for your transformation, so if you want to go further, you need to rely on yourself." In my opinion, you are really not suitable to be a pure actor, but the most suitable for you is the martial arts coach. ”
Li Xiaolong's original intention in making movies was to promote his kung fu concept, but after Li Ping'an was hit, he became interested in being an actor and a star, and now it seems that he has also succeeded.
Li Xiaolong thought for a long time, nodded slightly, and finally made up his mind to go back to Seattle to open a martial arts hall when the audience no longer recognized him.
Li Ping'an and Li Xiaolong talked for a long time, and also pointed out Li Xiaolong's confusion in practicing Wing Chun, as for the movie, Li Ping'an didn't say much, Li Xiaolong is a smart person, and Li Ping'an doesn't need to give arrangements.
After sending Li Xiaolong away, Li Ping'an began to distribute New Year's gifts to the three daughters, and the three daughters also rushed back, and in addition to the maid bodyguards, Li Ping'an was accompanied by his mother Fang Menghua and Zhou Huimin's family during the Spring Festival. Originally, the third daughter wanted to spend Chinese New Year's Eve with Li Pingan, but Li Pingan refused, taking advantage of the fact that Li Pingan's career had not been fully rolled out and the third daughter was not busy, Li Pingan intended to let the third daughter accompany her parents and family more.
Li Ping'an's gift to the three daughters is three jade pendants representing the attributes of the three daughters, and the back is modeled after the jade Buddha that he gave to his mother Fang Menghua before, and the seal is engraved with a talisman formation, which is much more advanced than the talisman given to Li Xiaolong and his family before. Seeing that the three women were all wearing them closely, Li Ping'an also warned them not to take them off as much as possible.
Although the three daughters did not ask about Li Ping'an's mysterious methods, they also knew that these three jade pendants were not simple, and they all said that they would treasure them closely.