(PS: The first draft, I haven't had time to fix the typo, I'll re-upload it later, you can wait for half an hour to read it!)

Once pirated VCDs are rampant, how much impact it will have on the Hong Kong film industry, Kelly knows very well. It is naturally impossible for him to make decisions on such a big plan by himself, in fact, as early as the beginning of Ke Lilun's idea, he made a report like Li Xuan.

Taiwan-Bay is the ultimate foreign market for Hong Kong films, and a very important reason for the death of Hong Kong films in another time and space is the loss of control over the Taiwan-Bay film market. On the one hand, this is because Hollywood blockbusters represented by "Dinosaurs" and "Big Ships" have completely defeated low-budget Hong Kong films in terms of quality with world-leading technology, and on the other hand, there are political reasons.

When China and Britain signed the reunification agreement in 1984, the Taiwan side expressed strong opposition. They even took out the original copy of the "Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing" that ceded Hong Kong Island, and did not recognize the legitimacy of the mainland regime.

But Taipei's jumping up and down did not make much of a wave, and Hong Kong was still handed back to the mainland by the British government. But since 1984, not only the British forces have withdrawn from Hong Kong, but also the Taiwanese forces have also retreated. For example, the "Industrial and Commercial Daily", known as the mouthpiece of the Kuomintang, announced that it would cease publication less than three months after the Sino-British agreement was signed.

Although Taiwan-Strait relations began to break the ice earlier than in another time and space because of Li Xuan's intervention, there is still a long way to go to achieve complete normalization of cross-strait relations. The prosperity of Hong Kong after its return to the motherland will only strengthen the legitimacy of the mainland, which the Taiwan authorities absolutely do not want.

So in another time and space, when Taiwan's local film industry was dead and Hong Kong films were in vogue, the authorities simply lifted import restrictions on American films. Use Hollywood movies to compete with Hong Kong films.

In this context, it is only a matter of time before Hong Kong films lose the Taiwan market, and pirated VCDs just make this situation a few years earlier. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for the Asian entertainment company controlled by Li Xuan.

Hong Kong's local market capacity is limited, so Asian Entertainment has been actively expanding overseas as early as a few years ago. In order to cope with the impact of future Hollywood blockbusters, Asian Entertainment has strengthened its own film production level on the one hand.

For example, Asian Pictures was founded as early as the beginning. He has been actively learning from the well-regulated system of the Hollywood film industry. Like the previous project "Jurassic Park", although Li Xuan's main purpose is to promote the application of computer technology in the film industry, Spielberg was invited to be in charge of guidance. But Asia Pictures also missed this opportunity to learn from Hollywood's top teams and sent a large number of people to the project team.

On the other hand, Asian Entertainment is also trying to establish its own distribution channels. In recent years, Southeast Asian governments have introduced various protective policies in an effort to support their film industry. Faced with this situation, Asian Entertainment Company in order to establish its own basic disk. The best thing to do is to control the resources of the theater chain.

Unlike Golden Harvest and New Arts City, Asia Pictures has the support of Hong Kong's two largest cinema chains, but Asia Pictures has not suffered much in the distribution of films in the local market.

In the early years, Asia Pictures used all aspects of Asia Satellite TV's resources to exchange interests with Golden Harvest and New Art City. In recent years, Asia Pictures has used the distribution resources of Asian Entertainment in overseas markets to achieve a compromise with Golden Harvest and New Art City.

After the listing of Asian Entertainment Company, Golden Harvest and New Art City have also embraced the capital market. Listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. But their pace of development is getting bigger and bigger with Asian entertainment companies.

After several years of development, the film production norms of the Asian film industry have fully converged with Hollywood. For example, it was released by Asia Pictures last year. The film "Prison Storm", which ranked second at the annual box office in Hong Kong, is an example.

The total budget of this project is 15 million Hong Kong dollars, and long before the project was established, 10 million Hong Kong dollars were obtained from overseas markets through the sale of films, and another 2 million yuan was obtained through advertising placement, and 5 million venture capital funds were introduced.

In other words, Asia Pictures itself did not invest a penny in the project. Even if the film loses in the end, there is no risk. But Asia Pictures can do this because it has a strong system behind it.

In recent years, through continuous acquisitions or shareholdings, Asian Entertainment has basically been able to achieve the unified distribution of new films in Asia through the cinema resources in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and other markets. This actually greatly ensured the overseas box office of the film.

Because the later the overseas release time is postponed, the greater the impact of pirated videotapes. And the theater chain did not resist paying part of the film in advance if it could foresee enough benefits.

In addition to overseas prepaid films, because of the boom of Hong Kong films, a large number of profit-seeking capital has joined the industry to make money. But making a movie is a very technical job, and it doesn't mean that you can make a good film if you invest money, and you can get a good box office if you make a good film.

It is never so easy for a layman to make money, and there are countless places to trap people in the entire industrial chain from production to distribution. Therefore, Asia Pictures is very considerate to provide these capitals with no industry experience the opportunity to participate in games and make a fortune together.

Although accepting external investment may give away some of the benefits, the film industry is actually a very risky industry. Especially for high-investment blockbusters, the introduction of external funds by Asian Pictures can effectively reduce the risk.

And as long as the film starts, other subsidiaries of Asia Entertainment Group can continue to reap profits from production to distribution.

Since last year, Asia Pictures has even begun to provide one-stop packaging services for external capital. In other words, in the whole process of film production, I don't invest a penny, but the benefits I reap are no less than those from my own production.

Of course, gameplay like "Prison Storm" is also difficult for ordinary film companies to imitate. First of all, most film companies in Hong Kong do not have the distribution strength and production reputation like Asia Pictures, so it is difficult to sell the trailers at a high price in advance.

Even Asia Pictures, in order to make the "Prison Storm" project attractive enough, deliberately selected Zhou Yunfa and Zhang Guorong to play the starring roles.

You must know that since Fa Ge starred in "The True Color of Heroes", he has become purple in recent years. He receives dozens of film invitations every year, and it is difficult for ordinary film companies to get his schedule. However, Zhou Yunfa is a signed artist of Asia Entertainment's agency, and his company's projects will naturally be prioritized.

Except. In order to ensure the safety of all parties' investments, Asia Pictures also learned from Hollywood and insured film projects to ensure that the film would not be stopped due to accidents.

This in turn involves the strong influence of the Oriental Group in Hong Kong's financial industry, whether it is the establishment of a specialized insurance company or the large-scale overseas expansion of Asian entertainment companies. are all left with the support of a strong capital chain. And other film companies, naturally, cannot be like Asian Entertainment Company, which can get strong support from Jiahua Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

It can be said that Asia Entertainment Company has relied on its strong capital advantages and completely opened the gap with other film companies in Hong Kong through the systematic development of the whole industry chain. To get back to the point, the proliferation of pirated VCDs has even outdone more harm than harm to Asian entertainment companies.

Because the Hong Kong film industry is very hot, a large amount of money has come in to make money, which has blown a lot of bubbles into the Hong Kong film industry. Asia Pictures has just made a blockbuster movie. Immediately, other film companies plagiarized and filmed, knowing that the subject matter would be shot badly at once.

And with more and more money going to the film industry, more and more new projects are being established. In order to compete for the schedule of popular actors, everyone continues to increase the salary, which directly pushes up the production cost of the entire Hong Kong film industry.

If a pirated VCD crisis breaks out at this time, temporarily cutting off the profits from video copyrights will definitely kill many film companies that are not strong enough. This kind of reshuffle is an opportunity for industry giants like Asia Entertainment to expand themselves.

And as long as you deal with it properly, the losses caused by pirated VCDs can actually be controlled. For example, the level of confidentiality in the production and distribution process has been improved. If copies are not allowed to leak out in advance, the release of pirated discs can be postponed.

And as long as the price of genuine discs is set at a reasonable level. And in the first time a large number of goods can squeeze the market space of pirated video discs. Moreover, the production of pirated VCDs is, after all, an illegal act, as long as the industry strengthens unity and carries out a unified crackdown, it can also greatly curb the living space of the pirated production system.

"Aaron, you go and cooperate with the Taiwanese Wankees. It's better to cooperate with He'antang, at least the people I'm looking for will be much more reliable than the Si-Hai Gang! You hand over the VCD production of Asia Pictures to them, what should they do when they go back on their word?" Li Ke said with a frown.

Over the years, he has no connection with Hele Tang on the surface, but he still has a lot of prestige in the entire Hong Kong rivers and lakes. The two horses who used to mix with him are now the red sticks of Hele Hall. became a big brother with his own land. In recent years, Hele Tang has also faintly become the first society in Hong Kong.

"Brother Ke, what we need is not to be reliable, but to be able to put aside the relationship at a critical time! Even if they don't go back on their word in the future, we will make a batch of pirated products ourselves! Because everyone has been damaged, but our own company has not been affected, this is not a slap in the mouth!" said Curillen with a smile.

"That's right, it's just that the Taiwanese-Wanyan is cheaper, and they make a big profit!" Li Ke said with some reluctance.

"I heard that Brother Qiang has also begun to retreat into the background over the years, if he is interested, I have a chance here!" said with a smile.

"What chance?" Li Ke couldn't help but ask with some curiosity.

"Although the VCD technology developed by the Oriental Research Institute is licensed to RCA, it is not an exclusive license! In addition to RCA, about five other partners will be selected to jointly open up the VCD player market!" said Curillan with a smile.

"The technical threshold for producing VCDs is not low, I guess you must have dug a pit for others to jump!" Li Ke shook his head and said.

When Li Xuan deliberately called his eldest brother in person and asked him to help contact Cai Guanrun of Taiwan's Sihai Gang, Li Ke was taken aback. Therefore, he specially learned some information from his younger brother, and also knew that the VCD project would be one of the key projects of the Oriental Group in the next eight or eight years.

"Brother Ke, we in the Oriental Group have always sought a win-win situation, when have we ever cheated our partners! For foreign cooperation, the Oriental Research Institute will provide systematic technical support. In addition, RCA will also be responsible for supplying the two most critical components, the movement and the decoder, and the remaining components can also be found with suitable suppliers, so the production threshold is not high!" explains Chrillen.

"This sounds like giving money to others, is it really so kind?" Li Ke asked with some disbelief.

"If RCA is the only company that produces VCD players, then after the appearance of pirated DVD players on the market, the copyright owner will put most of the pressure on RCA to improve the level of anti-piracy VCD players!

What's more, you don't know that Li Sheng's thinking has always been different from others, and he pursues the control of upstream technical standards in the industrial chain, rather than the market share of downstream end consumer goods!

If it weren't for better secrecy, we wouldn't have to have RCA produce VCD players by themselves!

Although there will be five additional authorized manufacturers of the Oriental Research Institute, these five are not authorized in the same batch. Among them, there are only two of the first batch of authorizations, and one of them has been determined to be Lu's Electronics Company, so there is actually only one place left!

And the remaining three places will wait until next year at the earliest! Otherwise, there will be too many brands pouring in at once in the early stage, and it is easy to form internal friction!"

"You have mastered the entire technical system and controlled the key components, but in fact, it doesn't matter whether you produce VCDs yourself or not!

He has also been leafleting in business for so many years, and he naturally knows very well the way of the so-called "first-class enterprise selling standard" of the Oriental Group. It's just that he didn't know that Ke Lilun's invitation to Scar Qiang to enter the VCD industry was not an accidental idea, but a close part of the whole plan.

Oriental Research Institute's other two partners who authorized the production of VCD players in the early stage were made after careful consideration! )