Since the second half of 1980, after the establishment of New Art City. The main pressure on Golden Harvest Company is to dig the foot of the wall, Wu Yusen left the New Art City, and the filming of "Modern Funny Times" swept the box office of more than 5 million.

Then, Xu Guanzhuo left, with a salary of 2 million Hong Kong dollars, setting a new salary record in the Hong Kong film industry.

Sammo Hung took the initiative to express with Zou Wenhuai and He Guanchang that Lei Juekun had already contacted Sammo Hung .

However, under the appeasement of Zou Wenhuai and He Guanchang, Sammo Hung was temporarily stabilized and did not choose to jump ship immediately.

However, the successive poaching of its important directors and stars is really bitter for Golden Harvest!

Jiahe's family has a big business, and there is always a place that can't be taken care of. Moreover, Golden Harvest mainly relies on the film business to make money, and if the film cannot make money, Golden Harvest will not be able to continue.

But Lei Juekun is different, every year Kowloon Bus, Kowloon Development and other companies give Lei Juekun more than 100 million yuan in dividends. Through the continuous dividends of those traditional industries, even if Lei Juekun loses 100 million yuan a year in the film industry, he can continue to do it without pressure.

What's more, now is the golden stage of development of the Hong Kong film industry, and six or seven out of ten films are making money. Therefore, Lei Juekun let go of his hands and feet, and continuously invested in Golden Princess Cinemas and New Arts City Pictures, and the rapid expansion speed has the momentum of winning the leading Hong Kong cinema chain and the leading production company.

The two giants in the film industry, Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers, both felt the pressure brought by Lei Juekun.

In recent years, with the continuous decline of Shaw Brothers' production capabilities, the number of famous directors and stars under it is no longer large, and the competition between Shaw Brothers and Lei Juekun is mainly focused on theater management.

However, Golden Harvest Company has concentrated more than 70% of the elite talents in Hong Kong's film and television industry. Therefore, since we have to face the competition in the theater market brought by the Golden Princess Cinema Line, we are also suffering the loss of talents caused by the continuous digging of the wall by the new art city.

If Golden Harvest is not clamped, New Arts City will soon replace Golden Harvest by digging the foot of the wall. And the Golden Princess Cinema Line, after having enough high-quality movie sources, will expand faster!

In order to counter Lei Juekun's strong entry into the film and television industry, Golden Harvest Company needs more production companies as allies! Only by stabilizing the competitive advantage of the inpatient line market can we be invincible in the competition with Lei Juekun.

Baolong Film Company has excellent production capabilities, but for the time being, it has no ambitions in theater management. Such a company is exactly the ally that Golden Harvest hopes to woo!

—————————— Zhang Shaojie and Gu Long didn't know that with the pressure of Xinyicheng, the importance of Baolong Film Company in the eyes of the boss of Jiahe Company has been greatly improved!

At this time, the two are paying great attention to the box office of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty". According to the laws of the market, only a higher box office can allow Golden Harvest Cinemas to arrange more shows!

Although both of them attach great importance to the box office, they do not spend a lot of capital to promote!

In fact, in addition to holding a press conference, the company did not spend any additional money on film advertisements for "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" on TV and newspapers.

It's not that I don't want to advertise with great fanfare, but after Baolong Film Company finished filming "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", there was no money!

"Hehe, don't worry! The brand reputation brought by "The Legend of Datang Double Dragons" makes the movie version of "The Legend of Datang Double Dragons" only need a small amount of publicity to attract audiences! Zhang Shaojie said confidently, "A successful adaptation of a movie can reduce the cost of publicity and reduce the risk of the movie hitting the street!" ”

Gu Long smiled: "This is also true, Qiong Yao's movies are rarely advertised." However, Qiong Yao drama has been making money in Taiwan, and I envy those directors in Taiwan! ”

"What's the use of envy, if those directors have the ability, they can write something as popular as Qiong Yao and make it into a movie, and they will naturally make a profit!" Zhang Shaojie smiled.

In comparison, the Hong Kong film industry is full of talents, and the Taiwanese film industry at this time. Most of them are second-rate and third-rate film talents, not only are there no international superstars with box office appeal like Jackie Chan and Xu Guanwen, but also no big directors who can sweep the box office markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and South Korea!

In this era, among Taiwanese film talents, most of them have a little ability, and they went to Hong Kong. Moreover, Taiwan's local audiences are also proud to watch Hong Kong movies, and Taiwan's cinema operators are mostly proud to invest in Hong Kong films. It can be seen that during the 80s, Taiwan's local films were in an embarrassing position in the market.

Qiong Yao's films, the production team is mainly based on Taiwanese directors and crews, which is far inferior to Hong Kong filmmakers. However, it is often around 200,000 Hong Kong dollars, and it can achieve a box office of more than 1 million Hong Kong dollars. Such achievements can be said to be an evergreen tree in the Taiwanese film industry!

Baolong Company only has 1.3 million Hong Kong dollars on its books, of which 700,000 cannot be used, because it is to pay the salaries of employees.

Although, Baolong has no plans to shoot a new film for the time being.

However, more than 20 office staff at the headquarters of Baolong Company, as well as 15 computer CG special effects technicians who have newly joined the company, are all required to pay salaries, and the company's monthly salary costs 350,000 Hong Kong dollars. The 700,000 yuan in cash that cannot be used is enough to pay two months' salary!

Because, the box office dividends of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" in Hong Kong will have to wait for about two months. Only after the box office dividends can Baolong Film Company have the capital to do big things!

The reason why the company's expenses are so large is mainly because the salary of American technicians poached from ILM accounts for 80% of the salary paid by the entire company, through such a high salary, and the company's future development prospects. The combination of the two can poach these talents.

These employees who have jumped from ILM to work range from HK$10,000 a month to HK$30,000. Because they have a very high technical research ability, they are the core competitiveness of the company in the future.

These computer special effects technicians, even the lowest, are paid more than employees in other parts of the company.

The monthly salary of Gulong in the company is only 5,000 yuan, and the monthly salary of ordinary office staff in the company is also between 1,500 yuan ~ 3,000 yuan.

At this time, Hong Kong can be regarded as a high-paying occupation, but if this salary is placed in the United States, it is only a low-paying occupation.

For the technicians of Industrial Light & Magic, they can get such a high salary when they jump ship.

The company's ordinary employees say that they are not jealous, but they have high-tech technology, which can continue to overcome difficulties in the field of computer CG special effects, and can continue to bring more shocking and visually impactful CG special effects to the film industry.

If the company's ordinary employees want to get a high salary, they can also - anyone, as long as they master the technology that the company advocates and values, will definitely be able to get several times higher than the average employee, or even ten times the salary.

—————————— under the huge financial pressure of the company's employee salary expenses, Baolong Film Company still gritted its teeth and gave reporters travel and pen fees at a press conference on March 11. These began to add up, using up 200,000 Hong Kong dollars.

Although he gave enough money to the reporter for the car, he also got scolded because he offended the reporter of TVB.

Between March 11 and March 13, "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" was almost one-sided by the media as a "bad movie", "hype", and "a swollen face and a fat man"

Some fans who don't know the truth are also aggrieved that the classic "Tang Dynasty" has been ruined by third-rate directors and crews.

There are even readers who continue to send letters to "Ming Pao", Yulang Company, and Baolong Film Company, hoping that Zhang Shaoming will explain in person whether the movie version of "Datang" has become a bad movie!

Zhang Shaojie didn't explain that whether the movie is good or not is not the media's final say, but the audience will know after watching the movie in person!

There's nothing more convincing than having seen the movie in person

On March 14th, during the midnight test screening, it really gave those negative public opinion and made a powerful response!

The plot of the movie "Datang" is repeated, and the overall production of the movie screen through action design, computer CG special effects, etc., is full of style, and there will be special effects scenes that stimulate people's emotions from time to time.

The visual impact of the film throughout Hong Kong is unparalleled.

This kind of sincerity, new ideas, and generous work!

Any viewer who has watched "Datang" can't tolerate unscrupulous reporters and unscrupulous news hosts, talking nonsense with their eyes open, and denouncing it as a "bad movie"!

Moviegoers who have really watched "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" have said:

"If Baolong's 43 million production of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" is a bad movie, I really can't think of a movie in Hong Kong that is worthy of the title of 'excellent movie' and 'classic movie'!"

"I have watched movies for many years, but I have waited until now to see such a shocking and impactful blockbuster!"

"Hey, "Datang" really hurt me, because after watching "Datang", my aesthetic taste has been greatly improved, how can I watch ordinary martial arts films in the future?"

The voice of the audience has already expressed that "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" has won a good reputation!

The rest only needs to be successful at the box office to gain market popularity!

In fact, the box office is far more important than praise!

In the film market, the ultimate power competition is not to win awards, nor to have a good reputation, but to get the audience to score movies with movie tickets!

"Everything is inferior, but the box office is high!" This sentence is too extreme, though. However, any kind of living art must be under the premise of having a broad market in order to continue to develop.

The situation of popular art without a market is very miserable.

For example, Peking Opera, Huangmei Opera, and Kunqu Opera in ancient China were very creative when they had a market in ancient times.

In modern times, with the rise of modern entertainment methods such as movies and TV series. Those traditional operas have lost the support of the mainstream market, let alone development, and even survival needs the support of political axes.

If the movie does not want to become the general treatment of those "traditional dramas", it must take the mass route and continue to attract audiences to buy tickets to watch movies.

In a thousand words, the core competition in the film industry is still the battle for the box office.

Mainstream audiences, exercising their voting rights in the form of movie tickets, whether they are popular or not, whether they have vitality or not, are all up to the audience.

(To be continued)