Chapter 573: Assassin Storm (Medium)
Lin Xiaozhi did not break his promise, taking advantage of the impact of the Hong Kong anti-crime storm on the film industry, he is really ready to intervene in one of them to solve the problems of various unstable foundations of local films once and for all, so as to prevent Hong Kong films that have been prosperous for half a century from completely declining with the return to the motherland and even death.
On the third day after the press conference, the 'Hong Kong Film Development Support Fund', which he and Media Asia had invested HK$300 million, announced its establishment with a high-profile property injection, and on the same day, China Film Zhijie, Xu Ke Studio, Golden Princess, and Yineng immediately injected 10 million, 30 million, 50 million, and 10 million respectively, making its registered capital quickly reach HK$400 million.
Although Golden Harvest had previously intended to join, the board of directors hesitated because the fund was dominated by a competitor, Media Asia, and did not choose to inject capital in the first place. However, Zou Wenhuai is a filmmaker with vision and courage, and under the strong promotion of him, Sammo Hung and He Guanchang, who is about to retire, he quickly persuaded a number of institutional directors who entered the board of directors of Golden Harvest after the listing to agree. Two days later than Ying Zhijie and the other four, Golden Harvest announced that it would invest 100 million yuan in the 'Hong Kong Film Development Support Fund', becoming its third largest shareholder after Lin Xiaozhi himself and Media Asia.
It is worth mentioning that Yongsheng, who has been famous in Hong Kong under the name of the Xiang brothers, who has been controversial during this period of time because of his community background, did not participate in the capital injection of the fund, but instead injected 100 million yuan into another China Star Film Company temporarily under his wife's name, becoming another important shareholder of the fund.
Although the Hong Kong government and the new Governor of Hong Kong, Crest Patten, have not expressed their stance on this matter, many people from the Film and Entertainment Department have admitted in interviews that the deposit of Hong Kong's entertainment tax is indeed not conducive to the development of the local film industry. It seems that in order to befriend him, a Hong Kong media tycoon, many legislators have expressed their support for the establishment of the 'Hong Kong Artists Union' and legislation on films.
Regarding the newly established Hong Kong Film Association's meddling in the sale of Hong Kong films, the Taiwan Cinema Business Alliance is also very vigilant. After all, Lin Hsiao-chi, the first chairman of the Film Association, once dared to forcefully announce that Media Asia would withdraw from Taiwan and ban Taiwan's local films because the Taiwan authorities wanted to ban a film from Taiwan and were ready to beat him.
And he has really done a very good job in the past six months, except for a few Taiwanese artists who have signed contracts with Media Asia, a large number of Taiwanese artists who have taken over in Hong Kong have not been able to receive filming because of the ban order in the circle of Media Asia, a giant in the circle. The Golden Horse Awards were instantly overshadowed by the boycott of Hong Kong film companies, and even Taiwanese media have changed their tunes to say that this year's Golden Horse Awards will become the most 'lost' in history, because in addition to a few Hong Kong film companies such as Golden Harvest, a large number of Hong Kong film companies that are good friends with Media Asia Group have collectively announced that they will not respond to the nomination of this year's Golden Horse Awards, let alone send teams to compete for the Golden Horse Awards, which has caused the gold content of the Golden Horse Awards, a heavyweight Chinese film award, to plummet.
The development of Taiwan's local films has suffered heavy losses because of the ban on the side of Media Asia, Lin Xiaozhi is also the number one ruthless person, he once specially formulated a blacklist, but all the film companies and Taiwanese directors who will become the mainstay of Taiwanese films in the future have all been on his blacklist and were banned by Media Asia. Behind the scenes, he used guò to export influence, coerce people, and co-produce profits, which disrupted the plans of many Hong Kong and Taiwan co-production films. As a result, a large number of Taiwanese directors such as Zhu Yanping, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Cai Ming-liang, who have been in Hong Kong all the year round to find funds, contact Hong Kong artists and make scripts, have become street rats that no one dares to touch for a while, and Taiwan's local films have immediately lost their nutrition and can no longer absorb the essence from Hong Kong to feed themselves.
It is precisely because of his past actions that the newly established Taiwan Small and Medium-sized Courtyard Business Alliance is very vigilant. Lin Hsiao-chi's methods of dealing with them are also very clever, and he has clearly contacted Golden Harvest, Yongsheng, Golden Princess, and a number of Hong Kong film companies to form an 'investigation team' of more than a dozen people to track down Taiwan's small and medium-sized film dealers in the past two months in the process of buying films, such as collective price reduction and malicious forced purchase of Hong Kong local film companies. Behind the scenes, he sent someone to contact some of the small and medium-sized cinema businessmen in Taiwan who had cooperated in the past, and promised that Hong Kong would give a reasonable selling price, and would give priority to signing blockbusters to them in the future.
Under the lure of profit, the Taiwanese small and medium-sized business alliance, which was originally a new group, soon had internal contradictions, and some advocated taking the opportunity to negotiate with the local film production company led by the Hong Kong Film Association, asking for a price that was reasonable for both parties. However, many Taiwanese cinema businessmen who have tasted the collective price reduction in the past two months are not willing to compromise with the film association at all, they claim to have mastered a large number of theaters in Taiwan, and once they are united, they are more powerful than Taiwan's four major cinema chains or Tsai Songlin's scholars, so there is capital to force Hong Kong film production companies to bow to them and give them more profits.
After a set of combination punches came out, it immediately had an effect, and Lin Xiaozhi's side was undoubtedly more calm. He was worried that the Taiwanese would not buy it when they hugged each other, but as soon as he saw that someone was hooked, he suddenly became more flexible and tough. He first lured several small and medium-sized theater merchants who had a good relationship with Media Asia to withdraw from the hospital business alliance with high profits, and promised them that he would give priority to the excellent films co-produced by Media Asia and other companies in the form of high profits, and at the same time would give them significant concessions in the price of the films.
After these small and medium-sized courtyard businessmen got the benefits of Lin Xiaozhi and withdrew from the alliance, the Taiwanese small and medium-sized courtyard business alliance, which was originally because of their interests, suddenly panicked. On the one hand, he continued to offer some favorable conditions to lure Taiwan's small and medium-sized cinema merchants to sign a contract and withdraw from the alliance, and on the other hand, he bluntly blocked the most hard-line cinema merchants in several cinema business alliances, and managed to persuade a number of local Hong Kong film companies to jointly speak and promise not to sell any film to him.
After he repeatedly sniped at the 'Taiwan Small and Medium-sized Cinema Business Alliance' in the name of the Film Association, soon the Taiwan Cinema Business Alliance, which only had channels but no film production capabilities, was in a big mess, and there was a swarm of withdrawals. And Lin Xiaozhi is not too aggressive, although the conditions offered are far less generous than those of the first few hospital dealers, but there is no doubt that the profits can be guaranteed. Even the most hard-line cinema dealers who were severely punished by him, he then sent people to secretly contact other local film companies, promising to lobby the film association to greatly shorten the ban time, and promised to strive for the same treatment as other cinema dealers as much as possible.
After a set of combination punches, although in the short term, he diluted the profits of many local film companies, but successfully disintegrated the newly born 'Taiwan Small and Medium-sized Cinema Business Alliance', Lin Hsiao-chi had no intention of clearing a big stumbling block for local films, after all, just so completely ignoring the Taiwanese cinema businessmen to join forces to lower prices, sooner or later they will become more and more greedy and insufficient, and will more strongly coerce Hong Kong film production companies to make greater concessions, so that Hong Kong films will eventually be completely unprofitable from the Taiwan market.
Moreover, the dismantling of the alliance of small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan is not unprofitable for him. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Lin Hsiao-chi has contacted most of Taiwan's small and medium-sized businesses, believing that after establishing a bond of interest with these people, it will be convenient for him to return to the Taiwan market in the future.
Although he has made a huge noise to promote legislation for Hong Kong films, the birth of a law bill is not so simple, even if he has won the support of the film industry, public opinion and some legislators.
So he had no other way than to urge from time to time to speed up the legislative process. What's more, there is another more important thing in front of him, the upcoming "League of Assassins" publicity is ready to go!