Chapter 3 Intercepting the dragon and fighting the tiger
Ding's restaurant, it is said that the ancestor was the descendant of Ding Wangu, a famous chef of Huaiyang cuisine in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, and later immigrated to the United States because of the war, so he opened this restaurant.
Walter's cheap grandfather and grandmother were originally from Jiangsu and Suzhou, so they naturally loved hometown food, but Chinese food in the United States was basically improved and did not match their taste at all, until they found this Ding restaurant. Although Walter's mother is a second-generation overseas Chinese, she naturally likes Huaiyang cuisine, and in his small memory, his mother also liked to bring him to this restaurant when he was young, and it can be said that this restaurant has his childhood.
Now, thanks to this experience, Walter has a preliminary idea of how to cut off Bruce Lee, although it is unlikely to succeed, but thinking of the huge investment-return ratio of "Enter the Dragon", Walter can't help but try.
There was a knock on the door, followed by a waitress in a Chinese cheongsam pushing open the door, followed by a middle-aged man dressed in a Valentino leather jacket and casual jeans.
Although Valentino has only been established in Italy for more than a decade, there is no doubt that his workmanship and clothing are very popular, and it is said that he is especially loved by those who later generations on Hong Kong Island jokingly called the old boys. The American kung fu star from Hong Kong in front of him was obviously also influenced by that island city, and he chose Valentino for this outing, dressed very casually.
Of course, the clothes look casual, but the chest muscles he has trained due to his diligent martial arts are revealed in the clothes, coupled with the Rolex steel watch on his wrist, in the eyes of outsiders, there is undoubtedly a kind of low-key exuding an invisible domineering, in a later sentence, it can be described as domineering, which makes people shocked, this person is of course Bruce Lee.
Looking at Bruce Lee's familiar face under his black hair, Walter couldn't help but get up, and hurriedly stepped forward to shake hands and greet: "Hello, Bruce, I'm Walter Volt, just call me Walter." ”
"Hello, Walter!" Bruce Lee replied enthusiastically, but looking at Walter's obviously mixed-race Asian face, coupled with his obviously Chinese Hanfu costume, he couldn't help but ask suspiciously, "Walter, are you mixed-race?"
"Yes, my maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother both came to the United States during the Republic of China, so my experience is quite similar to that of Brother Zhenfan, but I have never had the opportunity to see where to go. Walter deliberately spoke Chinese directly when he said this, and it was also Cantonese, and at the end he said something that seemed to be patriotic, and he knew that in order to intercept Bruce Lee, he must start from the details.
As for calling Bruce Lee Brother Zhenfan, it is because Bruce Lee's original name is Li Zhenfan, he was born in San Francisco, California, USA, and began to participate in the filming of film and television dramas when he was eight years old, and the name Li Zhenfan was used at that time. Until last year, he returned to Hong Kong from the United States to develop and shoot his first classic film "Tangshan Big Brother", when making subtitles, his boss and the director of the film, Luo Wei, suggested that he change a name with Chinese characteristics, so he did not hesitate to change the name to "Bruce Lee".
And this is this "Tangshan Big Brother", which completely launched Bruce Lee's popularity, but before Walter's "Enter the Dragon" was released in North America, the name "Bruce Lee" obviously had not spread in Europe and the United States, and most people would still call him by his original name.
"God! I didn't expect that we still have a lot of fate, but your Cantonese is obviously not very good. Bruce Lee probably realized something, and after replying with a smile, he added at the end, "By the way, just call me Bruce Lee, and I will only be called Bruce Lee in the future." After that, he said no more.
After hearing this, Walter also shook his head and smiled: "Okay, in fact, Brother Long, you are wrong, I am not from Hong Kong and Guangdong. My maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother were both from Jiangsu, Jiangsu, and I learned Cantonese from the uncles from Guangdong and Hong Kong who opened shops in San Francisco's Chinatown, so naturally I didn't speak it very well. ”
This time Walter replied in Chinese, but Bruce Lee on the other side was caught off guard, and his face was a little unnatural, because although he could roughly understand it, he did not speak as fluently as Walter, after all, like many Chinese in Guangdong, Hong Kong, spoke Cantonese fluently, but Chinese was obviously very bad.
In my memory, although Bruce Lee was born in the United States, he has American citizenship since he was a child, and he is still a Chinese American with a quarter of German ancestry, but because he lived in Hong Kong in his childhood, he has not been ruled by foreigners in later generations, or has a small amount of foreign blood, or is himself a Chinese born and raised abroad, directly saying that he is a "foreigner", which is not the same at all.
Those typical yellow-skinned and white-hearted, they have obviously learned Chinese characters, but they will only say that they don't understand and don't know at all, but they don't respect the ancestral culture like Bruce Lee, and they are still very sympathetic to respecting China, respecting the Chinese, and even compatriots with the same roots.
It is precisely because of this that Walter has a lot of confidence in today's negotiations, after all, he wasted a lot of effort to make an appointment for this meeting, if he wants to rely on this short meeting, he will completely cut off Bruce Lee, and if he does not do these details well, so that the other party's favor increases, Walter will definitely have no hope at all. He understands that if he wants to quickly get ahead in Disney's film production department and quickly enter Disney's interior, he must make remarkable achievements, and now, Bruce Lee has such a big cake in front of him, and he is really sorry for the advantage of his traveler if he doesn't grab it.
Since Bruce Lee accepted Warner's invitation a week ago to come to the United States to discuss the Sino-American co-production of kung fu films, Walter has today's plan. Because of the memory of his previous life, he also watched Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" that died before the release, after all, every teenager has a kung fu dream.
It just so happens that Walter has also seen a lot of introductions to the story before and after the filming of "Enter the Dragon", after all, Bruce Lee's death is topical, and countless people are willing to fry this cold fried rice that can never be fried.
And it is precisely because of the fact that after the filming of "Enter the Dragon" was completed, relying on the hype of Bruce Lee's death and the epoch-making kung fu pioneer of the work itself, that he had the box office with a high investment-to-income ratio of 600,000 US dollars and finally won 25 million US dollars.
Therefore, since he knows that the income of this film is huge, and it has to be filmed by Bruce Lee to have such a success, Walter of course has to spare no effort to cut off the beard, and he wants to completely dig the corner of Warner Bros., which is why Zou Wenhuai, who took the road of Golden Harvest today, secretly made an appointment for this conversation.
Of course, it is a secret, Walter himself does not believe it, I am afraid that outside this Chinatown at this moment, there are already Warner Bros. and people from MGM, Columbia and other film companies.
After all, since October 27, Warner received Bruce Lee and his entourage from Hong Kong, and arranged for Bruce Lee and others to stay in a special suite in the most exclusive hotel in Los Angeles, and also sent a three-row high-end car for Bruce Lee's dispatch, while other major Hollywood film companies have been trying their best to win Bruce Lee over.
At this moment, all Hollywood studios interested in competing for Bruce Lee know that everything that is happening now is nothing, everyone's starting point is actually not bad, Warner Bros. just met Bruce Lee in advance, and the key to this competition is how to negotiate to make Bruce Lee satisfied......
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