On July 30, "The Maiden Cixi", which has been filmed for nearly two years, was finally released in North American theaters, and this film is the longest film directed by Li Hanxiang.

DreamWorks didn't hold any premieres for it, and it screened it in more than 60 theaters in North America, but the publicity was pretty good.

There was a small single-hall cinema in Raccoon Town earlier, and after the establishment of Wanda Cinema Line, Ling Shizhe assigned this cinema to Wanda, and after Wanda took over, he was transformed into a multiplex cinema with 4 screening halls.

Today is the first screening, a big movie poster was posted at the door of the theater, Ling Shizhe walked to the ticket office and said, "Have a movie ticket for "The Girl Cixi". ”

The conductor is a white middle-aged aunt who takes the money, gives the ticket, and gives change......

After Ling Shizhe took the ticket and change, he asked, "Are there many people who come to see this movie?" ”

"Not much, sir, counting you, only 36 have been sold so far, and they are all Asians like you."

"How many halls are there in this theater?"

"There is only one hall, Hall 3, and yours is Hall 3, sir."

"Okay, thanks." Ling Shizhe turned around and walked towards Hall 3, a 100-seat screening hall that was empty with fewer than 40 people seated, most of them Asian.

Ling Shizhe casually found a seat and sat down, looked at his watch, there were still 10 minutes before the showtime.

There was a young Chinese couple in the first three rows of him, only listening to the female said: "This is the first time I saw a Chinese movie in a movie theater after my family was in Canada, I heard that the dubbing is also in Chinese, after coming to North America, all the Hollywood movies I watched, I couldn't understand the bird language, today I finally came to a Chinese movie, I heard that it was still Li Hanxiang, see how he filmed." ”

The man said: "I heard that this movie was made in Raccoon Town, and it took nearly two years to shoot, I hope to watch it, I have been to Hong Kong and watched the films they made, and it is not very good at all, the logic is chaotic, the plot is also a mess, and it is far from Hollywood." ”

The woman said: "What, other directors in Hong Kong don't say it, Li Hanxiang's movie is still guaranteed." ”

M: "I hope so, I heard that this movie was invested by DreamWorks, I heard that this is the first time DreamWorks has made a movie, they used to make anime, and the few comics they made were not bad, I don't know what the movie will be, let's take a look first." ”

The couple chatted without a word, and while Ling Shizhe was waiting, 5 more people came in, and no one came in again, and when the time came, it was dark in the hall, and people were not talking.

The opening credits of DreamWorks show a little boy sitting on a crooked moon and fishing with a fishing rod, and DreamWorks English subtitles appear, Dreamworks.

After the beginning of the film, the plot of the movie enters, on the ancient road of the imperial city in the early morning, a carriage slowly advances, and the camera switches to the carriage, in which a young woman and an old mother are sitting.

This young woman is Lin Fengjiao, who plays charity, and this old mother Ling Shizhe doesn't know.

This scene tells the story of Charity's entry into the palace, followed by her life in the palace and being favored by the emperor......

The whole film is 2 hours long, compared with the previous life Liu Xiaoqing version, Li Hanxiang's version of the plot changes are relatively large, first of all, the plot structure of the story is much more reasonable than the previous life, the whole film has strong Hollywood traces from beginning to end, it feels like a Hollywood film made by Chinese.

The film's cinematography, costumes, props, lighting, and background are all first-class, but the whole film is obviously Hollywood, and Ling Shizhe himself doesn't know if this film can be successful.

Turning his head to look at the people in the hall, seeing that everyone was watching the movie intently, Ling Shizhe breathed a sigh of relief, I hope it's okay.

After the film ended, Ling Shizhe followed the crowd out of the screening hall, the strange thing is that everyone didn't have any evaluation of the film, no one spoke, no one talked, everyone just left the theater silently.

The audience's reaction was very unexpected by Ling Shizhe, after leaving the theater, seeing that everyone was gradually dispersed, Ling Shizhe casually caught someone and said: "Brother, I'm going to watch this film, what do you think of the filming of "Girl Cixi"?" ”

"How do you feel? I think it's okay, but my heart is heavy after reading it. ”

"Heavy, how do you say it?"

"You buy a ticket yourself, and you'll know it after you read it." After saying that, the person left, leaving Ling Shizhe there alone......

Forget it, it's all filmed, don't think about it, since the person just said it's okay, presumably the box office won't be very bad, whether it's dead or alive, just do it. Ling Shizhe shook his head and left the theater.

The headquarters of DreamWorks is in the "Water Cube" building, and Ling Shizhe came to Zhao Xiaoyun's office and found that Li Hanxiang was also there.

"Director Li, are you waiting for box office data?"

"It's Mr. Ling, yes, I'm waiting for today's box office data."

Ling Shizhe smiled and said, "Then you will be disappointed, today's box office will not be known until two days." ”

"I also knew it would take two days for the data to come out, but I just wanted to come here and see it."

Ling Shizhe smiled, this is a matter of concern, this film has been filmed for nearly two years, Li Hanxiang has put a lot of effort into it, and now that the film is released, he is a little uneasy, he doesn't know if this film can be welcomed by the audience, so he simply ran here to sit down.

patted him on the shoulder, Ling Shizhe also sat down beside him, and said, "I went to watch the film, and there were about 40 people sitting in the 100-person screening hall. ”

"What's the audience's reaction?"

"It's hard to say, the audience didn't react after watching it, and then I caught a person and asked him how the film was made, and he said that he felt very heavy after watching the film."

Li Hanxiang said: "The film "Maiden Cixi" was not easy, she ruled China for more than half a century, and during her reign, it was the darkest, most cowardly, and most humiliating day in Chinese...... Ay! How could their hearts not be heavy. ”

"Why is the film so Hollywood?" This is the question that Ling Shizhe wants to know the most, the whole storyline is too Hollywood, if he hadn't known it in advance, he would have thought that this movie was directed by a Hollywood director.

Li Hanxiang did not answer directly, but asked an irrelevant question: "Does the film look boring?" ”

Ling Shizhe thought for a while and replied: "The rhythm of the movie is very good, I don't feel bored after watching it from beginning to end, and I see the audience's reaction...... It's the same with me, the movie ran for more than 2 hours, and everyone was staring at the screen all the time, and there was no one to go to the toilet in the middle. ”

"That's good, it seems that everyone doesn't hate this movie. The movie was made very Hollywood because of your screenwriter......"

With Li Hanxiang's slow talk, Ling Shizhe understood why the film was so Hollywood.

It turned out that after Li Hanxiang came here to make a movie, he was still afraid of it in the same way as before, and he didn't think about making the film Hollywood at all, but his arrival aroused the interest of the Chinese screenwriters of DreamWorks.

DreamWorks' screenwriters are both white and Chinese, although they belong to Hollywood's professional screenwriters, but most of them have lived in China before and have a certain understanding of Chinese history.

They are all senior screenwriters who are mixed in Hollywood, but at a glance, they found that Li Hanxiang's movie script has huge problems, the story structure and plot derivation are very unreasonable, and the plot plot and shooting techniques are also quite backward.

also learned that this movie was invested by DreamWorks, so these people took Li Hanxiang's script and criticized it without any scruples.

Li Hanxiang had already been anxious about filming "The Girl Cixi" during this time, and when he saw a group of people rushing into the crew, no one stopped him, and he immediately became angry, but the producer on the side told him that these people were screenwriters of DreamWorks, so he didn't get angry immediately.

Seeing that everyone is a peer and a senior screenwriter in Hollywood, in line with the attitude of learning and communication, Li Hanxiang pressed the fire and communicated with these screenwriters, but after some exchanges, he found that the script he wrote did have too many loopholes, so he didn't make the movie, and sat down with them to transform the script.

As a result, this modification has become more and more changed, and the whole story has long since become unrecognizable.

Looking at the script that was changed beyond recognition, Li Hanxiang thought to himself, the movie made by such a script is definitely not good, so don't do it, but there are a lot of plot plots in it that are very good, stay it, the whole story is too messy. So I was ruthless and simply rewrote.

So Li Hanxiang went to Zhao Xiaoyun and offered to invite the screenwriter of DreamWorks to rewrite the movie script of "The Girl Cixi" with him.

Zhao Xiaoyun has been with Ling Shizhe for so long, and knows that Ling Shizhe has always hoped to introduce Hollywood's rigorous film production system into Hong Kong film production, but she has never had the opportunity.

The proprietress spoke, and the entire screenwriting department was running at full capacity, and it was only then that Li Hanxiang discovered the power of the Hollywood assembly line, and the entire "Girl Charity" creative team reached 26 people, which was subdivided into a creative group, a plot group, a line group, a structure group, a character group, a detail group, and even a lens group.

As soon as Li Hanxiang inquired, he learned that this so-called camera team was a screenwriter who specially designed their unique signature actions for various characters in the play.

Seeing that the screenwriting department of DreamWorks was so finely divided, Li Hanxiang was frightened, and they didn't know whether they would succeed or not, but now that it has been done like this, they can only bite the bullet.

The rewritten script is still based on Li Hanxiang's first script, which he originally wrote himself, so Li Hanxiang served as the chief screenwriter and others assisted.

At first, Li Hanxiang was very uneasy about them, but gradually found that these screenwriters were very dedicated, and they did not start writing the story immediately, but first found various historical materials about Cixi to read and record the relevant points one by one.

Cixi has a lot of historical materials, piled up all over the room, it took more than three months just to check it, I remember that the notes are more than five meters high when they are erected, at this time everyone began to write, with a large number of historical materials under the research, the script in Li Hanxiang's hand slowly took shape, and the various characters in it also became vivid and vivid.

At this time, the modification team was also added, and the script was repeatedly revised, and various lines and actions were repeatedly scrutinized, and even the psychological team repeatedly interpreted the mental behavior of the characters in the crew, so as to deduce whether the various reactions of the characters in the play were in line with the normal logic of the people at that time, and if not, they would be overturned and rewritten until they were logical.

Li Hanxiang also found that the various character movements designed by the lens team can well reflect the mental state of the characters in the play at that time, until this time Li Hanxiang was completely convinced, he already understood why the quality of Hollywood movies is so high, there will be so many people love to watch, it turns out that they have done the work so carefully and professionally from the beginning, he has thoroughly understood why Ling Shizhe insisted on asking him so much, to make movies in strict accordance with the Hollywood system, Because only in this way can the overall quality of the film be guaranteed and improved.

So many Hollywood screenwriters joined in and did such a big operation on the film, so it is naturally too normal for Ling Shizhe to see "The Girl Cixi" in the theater full of Hollywood flavor.

In all fairness, Lin Fengjiao's version of "The Girl Cixi" gives Ling Shizhe an overall feeling that it is much higher than Liu Xiaoqing's version of "The Girl Cixi" in the previous life, and the quality is much higher, not that Lin Fengjiao's acting skills are higher than Liu Xiaoqing, but that the quality of the entire crew of the movie is there.

Whether it is the props of the movie or the extras in the play, the background of the whole play is very good, the protagonist Lin Fengjiao stands casually in the camera, and the audience immediately knows that she is the Empress Dowager Cixi of the West Palace.

The only thing that worries Ling Shizhe and Li Hanxiang now is whether Asian audiences can accept Chinese films with Hollywood techniques, if they can, then of course everyone will be happy, this "Maiden Cixi" is the benchmark of DreamWorks, and all future films that reflect China, whether modern or ancient, will be based on "Maiden Cixi" as the standard.

If the audience in the East doesn't accept it, hehe, let's wash and sleep, Ling Shizhe will no longer make any more films that reflect Chinese culture, sell the theater, and concentrate on making animation in the future.

Ling Shizhe remembered that after watching the movie just now, the audience didn't react at all, and he didn't know whether it was a success or a failure.

Now there is nothing to say, everything that should be done has been done, and now the only way to let the market test how "The Maiden Cixi" is, Jackie Chan and Jackie Chan are in this move.