Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, it is the Spring Festival. During the Spring Festival of '79, the Hui family used the Hui brothers' "Rich Golden House" as the main Chinese New Year film.

The Hui brothers have not had a new work for more than a year, and the Hong Kong people who like them are looking forward to it, and the expectation index is very high.

The Shaw Brothers launched "The Interesting History of Warlords" directed by Li Hanxiang, "Shaolin Tent Master" co-produced by Liu Jialiang brothers, and "Chasing Girls in the Thirty-six Rooms" directed by Lu Qi to deal with it.

Among these three films, "The Interesting History of the Warlord" is the sequel to "The Great Warlord" starring Xu Guanwen that year, but this time it was changed to Qin Huang to star, compared to the all-encompassing and harmonious "The Great Warlord", the plot of "The Interesting History of the Warlord" this time mainly focuses on romantic affairs, investigating secret prostitutes, visiting private prostitutes, uncles and sisters-in-law through women, and aunts stealing the sun, all the way to the end.

And the Liu brothers' "Shaolin Tent Master" is also in the name of the sequel to "Shaolin Thirty-six Rooms", which was released last year. is also a Shaolin kung fu theme, also starring Liu Jiahui, and is also a consumer Sande monk.

Last year's "Shaolin Thirty-six Rooms" made many viewers marvel after watching it because it vividly screened all kinds of Shaolin kung fu on the screen. Therefore, this "Shaolin Tent Master", which is known as an orthodox sequel, has naturally attracted everyone's attention before it has been released.

It can be said that in the days when there were no brothers Hong Jingbao, Cheng Long, and Yuan Biao, Master Liu Jialiang and his Liu family class can be called the first kung fu team in Hong Kong.

and Lu Qi's "Chasing the Girl in the Thirty-sixth Room" is also an urban pickle girl comedy with a big flirtat, and the theme is somewhat similar to "Chasing the Girl" directed by Mai Jia last year, but it was filmed by Lu Qi, the director of the three-pole film, and naturally became a salty and wet version of "Chasing the Girl", playing with the love gong and telling salty and wet jokes. Although slightly less vulgar. But it caters to the tastes of ordinary citizens, so the box office has good results.

And looking at the name of this movie, you can know that he learned from last year's hit "Chasing Girls" and "Shaolin Thirty-six Rooms" respectively. And in this movie, if those men want to pick up girls, they really have to learn all kinds of pickle girl stunts like they played in "Shaolin Thirty-six Rooms". In such a spoofed way, it can't help but make people laugh off their big teeth. It also reflects the consistent wit of Hong Kong film directors, who have brought the doctrine to the fullest.

Golden Harvest also has blockbuster films released during the Spring Festival, namely "Drunk Mantis" by the Yuan Jiaban brothers, "One-armed Boxing King vs. Trumen Nine Sons" by Wang Yu, and Zeng Zhiwei's "Short Boy Amorous".

"Drunken Mantis" still continues the previous routines such as "Drunken Fist" and "Drunken Eight Immortals Fighting Drunken Arhats". Or take the route of humorous kung fu movies in the early Republic of China. With Yuan Jiaban's usual wonderful kung fu design, even if the storyline of this film is not new, it is definitely eye-catching in the fight scenes.

And Wang Yu's "One-armed Boxing King vs. Truman Nine Sons" continues to use the name of the one-armed knife to make money. After Wang Yu ran away from Shaw Brothers, he switched to Golden Harvest. The filming of "One-Armed Knife vs. Blind Man" triggered a big lawsuit between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest. The lawsuit has been going on for more than a year. By the time "One-Armed Knife vs. the Blind Man" is released, it hasn't finished yet.

The lawsuit was later won by Shaw. But if you win face, you lose the lining. Golden Harvest has already released "One-Armed Knife vs. Blind Man", and the banknotes have already been put in his pocket.

Although Wang Yu can no longer use the signboard of "One-Armed Knife", he created the signboard of "One-Armed Boxer" and made many movies with it. Although the quality of these movies is declining year by year, it does not prevent Wang Yu from making a lot of money. Later, he went to Taiwan to develop, although he was already out of town in Hong Kong. But in the Taiwan film market, which has always been backward and poor, it once became the hottest star.

This "One-Armed Boxing King vs. Truman Nine Sons" is to bring out the classic characters from many classic movies directed by the one-armed boxing king and director Zhang Che, such as Guan Xiaolou in "Revenge". Ma Xinyi in "Stinging Horse" and so on, and then got together to engage in a big scuffle. Do your best to spoof and create a precedent for nonsensical works. Bill Dongsheng, Qin Pei, and Jiang Dawei co-filmed "The Owl" several years earlier.

And Zeng Zhiwei's "Short Boy Amorous" still continues the route of "Chasing Girls", which is also an urban pickle girl comedy movie, but this time Zeng Zhiwei personally played the leading role, which can really be said to be full of sincerity.

After Zeng Zhiwei went to Golden Harvest, he mostly imitated Xu's hottest movie themes, and the humorous kung fu films in the early Republic of China were popular, so he followed the trend to shoot kung fu movies; Urban love erotic comedy is popular, so follow the trend to shoot urban erotic comedy...... Because he has been closely following the trend, few of the films he has made have not been a hit, which has also made him the number one person in the Hong Kong film industry.

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The Spring Festival schedule basically belongs to the three major film companies, and it is difficult for other small film companies to get a piece of the pie. Because these three major film companies have a firm monopoly on Hong Kong's cinema chains, there is no pipeline for small film companies to release films.

However, there is actually a Shuangnan cinema in Hong Kong, but the leftist film company has no habit of making Chinese New Year films, and it can't keep up with the new trend of Hong Kong film development, and the Spring Festival schedule has not been well prepared, and the old films are still shown, so the number of audiences is basically very small, and it basically can't affect the battle situation of the Spring Festival schedule.

The battle situation of the Spring Festival schedule began to ignite from the beginning of the first month, and the three major film companies made their own strange moves, or newspapers, magazines and television stations advertised together; or beating gongs and beating drums and parading through the streets; or movie posters plastered all over subway stations, etc., have invested considerable manpower and material resources.

The reason why the three major film companies are so willing to pay is because the Spring Festival schedule is really a hot schedule. Movies that usually only sell one million box office can reach two million when they are released during the Spring Festival, and if they are well promoted, they are likely to reach three or four million, and the profitability has more than tripled.

In addition, the Spring Festival schedule is the beginning of the year, and everyone wants to get off to a good start and ask for a good fortune, so the three major film companies have invariably increased their publicity efforts, and they can't wait to send notices door-to-door, my movie is about to be released, and your whole family will come and watch it immediately!

In the propaganda war, the Xu's Group, which naturally owns three media outlets, has a firm upper hand, followed by Shaw Brothers, which owns TV stations and magazines, and the last is the poor and weak Golden Harvest Company.

Although the ratings of Shaw Brothers' Jiayi TV station are not high, it is also a TV station. There's always some ratings. But Golden Harvest is pitiful in comparison, its own magazine "Golden Harvest Movie" only sells a few thousand copies, and can barely maintain the cost without losing money, but don't think about any major influence, and in addition to this own magazine, Golden Harvest has no other publicity channels.

If you want to advertise in newspapers, magazines, or TV stations, you will have to spend more money than Xu's and Shaw Brothers, which is already financially tight for Golden Harvest. It is undoubtedly an unbearable burden. Although he has the support of Nanyang film companies behind him, he will have to pay it back sooner or later.

Those Nanyang filmmakers are not good money boys, they are willing to pay because they believe that there is a better return, but if they don't get enough profits, these Nanyang filmmakers can do anything. When the time comes, not only Jiahe Company will not be able to keep it. Even lives can be at risk.

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In addition to the competition for the schedule of the movie, the propaganda war is vigorous. Hong Kong's three major TV stations are also competing for the ratings of Spring Festival programs.

Because there is Xu's TVB as an example. Now Lidi and Jiayi have also noticed the importance of the Spring Festival program. During the broadcast of the program, the advertising sales were exceptionally good, and the price was fifty percent of the past, and it was still in a state of no market.

This show did not attract enough attention from Lidi and Jiayi in the past, and it has never been held, which has also allowed TVB to enjoy the limelight exclusively for many years. But this year they also decided to get involved. and each of them summoned stars to help.

Among them, Jiayi TV guards the treasure house of Shaw Brothers, and naturally there is no worry about the help of celebrities. And Li's cooperated with Hong Kong record companies such as Polygram Records and EMI Records, and also gathered a lot of stars. So this year's Spring Festival program has also become the highlight of the three robbing.

However, unlike TVB, which was broadcast on Chinese New Year's Eve, Li's TV station automatically took a step back and broadcast it on the first day of the new year, which was considered to have avoided the limelight of TVB. However, Jiayi TV is not to be outdone, and it is also broadcast on Chinese New Year's Eve, but I don't know what the ratings will be.

For the annual Spring Festival program, TVB attaches great importance to it, and has been preparing since the New Year.

In addition to the singers under Yisheng Records to participate in the performance, students from Xinghui Art School, movie stars under Xu's family, TVB's own TV stars, etc., also have to participate in the performance. Try to make it an annual celebration day for TVB, and be sure to give everyone a feeling of celebrating the New Year with stars shining brightly and watching wireless as a family.

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In addition to movies and TV intrigues, major record companies have also launched New Year's albums to grab the market. This trend was also started by Hui's Yisheng Records, and every year its singers will come together to release a happy and peaceful Chinese New Year album.

Because it has been pushed for several years, there have been very good sales every year, so this has also stimulated other record companies to also want to grab the big cake of the Chinese New Year album. For example, Polygram, EMI, Diamond and other well-known record companies, they also have a lot of star singers, and they also have a strong market appeal.

In fact, this is also related to the prosperity of Hong Kong's overall economic environment, and the people are naturally willing to spend more money on these entertainment projects. Therefore, everything in the market is good and everything is easy to sell, and the good and bad are popular; If the market is not good, it is difficult to sell anything, and the good and bad are not hot.

In the 80s and 90s, the Hong Kong record market was very prosperous, with top singers selling millions of records, while ordinary singers also had sales of hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, and they could make a lot of money just by making records. However, in the new century, the record market has shrunk, and the sales of top singers are only 100,000 copies, while ordinary singers have only 10,000 or 20,000 copies at most, and it is already a miracle for new singers to have more than 10,000 copies.

Last year, the Hong Kong branch of Yisheng Records sold a total of more than 5 million records, of which the majority were Xu Guanjie, Wen Na Band, Xu Xiaofeng and Leslie Cheung, all four of them released two albums last year, an average of half a year, each of which will have hundreds of thousands of sales, and the four of them add up to more than three million copies, and they are the most popular singers in Hong Kong.

And powerful singers like Xu Guanying, Jade Band and other powerful singers, record sales are between hundreds of thousands and more than 200,000, although it is not to the extent of a big hit, but it is no longer a problem to support yourself by dividends.

In terms of the Taiwan branch, it is still the sweet song queen Deng Lijun who dominates, although only one Chinese album was released last year, but the sales have reached more than 800,000 copies, and she is the best-selling artist among Chinese singers in East Asia. And she also released two Japanese albums last year, which also sold hundreds of thousands, and she is the best Chinese singer in Japan today, and is also known as the light of Taiwan. (To be continued......)