Chapter 183
They don’t know if it’s intentional or coincidental, but soon after the announcement of “White Castle”, “Last Night” was also scheduled to be released on the same day as “White Castle”, and the pre-sale started.
The arrangement rate of “White Castle” in the cinema has been discussed before, but the result was not ideal. Fortunately, Hexi entertainment has its own cinema and was willing to increase the arrangement rate of “White Castle”, which solves Fu Zhen’s urgent need.
Although he doesn’t attach great importance to the box office, he still wants to earn back the capital, otherwise, he couldn’t make the next film.
On February 1st, the official Weibo account of “White Castle” finally sent out its second post and so far a normal-sized poster with a countdown of the release, and a post featuring the main actors in the film.
The poster of “White Castle” adopts the concept poster1. There were no actors on it. On one side was a White Castle, and on the other side was the dark night without stars and moon.
A little girl in a broken skirt sits in the dark night with her back to the viewers. Her skirt was covered with blood and mud, but it could be vaguely seen that it was a white skirt.
(T/N: 1- refers to use of an abstract technique to express the theme or some imaginary scene in the form of poster.)
The whole composition was very tense, and the white and black color were in contrast but adopt a slow transition, and the method of transition was also very strange.
In short, compared with the beautiful antique figure picture of last night, this poster looks dolorous.
Netizens have been unclear before who the actors of “White Castle” were, and now when they see the official blog’s @ list, they pick them up one by one, however after seeing them they were dumbfounded. The male lead actor was He Ming and the female lead actor was someone named Chen Meng.
Many netizens have not even heard of these two people at all, and those who have heard of their names would rather not know anything about them.
Who was He Ming? It shouldn’t be the one they were thinking, right? They couldn’t imagine why Director Fu Zhen found a fat middle-aged uncle to be the male lead. The female lead Gao Tian, who has been in business for so many years but this was the first time they feel distressed for Gao Tian.
This was still a romance movie. They couldn’t help themselves gave them an alias, the beauty and the wild animal!
However, some netizens soon countered this by saying that Gao Tian was only a guest star and the real heroine was not her, but the little girl named Chen Meng from the @ list.
Chen Meng? This name was even more unfamiliar, netizens clicked into the young girl’s weibo to look.
Lo and behold! The female lead was still in her second year of high school, and yesterday she was still complaining about the accent of the new English tutor. Where should they start make complaints about her.
A newcomer who was just 17 years old this year and has never been seen before, was the female lead of a film directed by Fu Zhen! They couldn’t help but asked if Fu Zhen was only playing or if the girl has some background.
Netizens began to speculate again. They thought that Fu Zhen would choose to use these two people to make this romance film because of the capital intervention.
They were very disappointed with Director Fu thinking that what he said a few days ago about 1.6 billion was just a number for him and that he didn’t value the box office. But how could he just give up the capital?
If you’re kidnapped, blink!
Some netizens retorted that it was precisely because Fu Zhen didn’t value the box office and didn’t care about money that he dared to play so recklessly.
But the netizens’ discussion did not last too long, their attention was soon drawn away by the movie stills of Lin Shiyao and Liu Meng.
Lin Shiyao in Princess Cuiwei’s costume could be said to be very classical and elegant, she was born with a goose egg face, willow eyebrows, which wa extremely suitable for ancient costume dramas, and now the poster of her was even more amazing.
And Liu Meng was no less impressive, he was wearing a blue flying fish suit with bright eyes. A group of fans just wanted to give him monkey2.
(TN:2- online buzzword that is the same meaning with “I want to give birth to your child”)
Gao Tian was busy participating in various activities these days and when she finally finds time to contact Fu Zhen, she asks him.
“Director Fu, am I comparable to Lin Shiyao in the film?”
It could be seen that Lin Shiyao’s costume in the movie was really good, making Gao Tian, who has always been confident in her looks, have a sense of crisis.
At the beginning, in order to make Gao Tian beautiful and make people see her different from ordinary people, Fu Zhen did not make less efforts. After thinking about it, he said humbly.
“Each has its own advantages.”
Gao Tian was barely satisfied, and hung up after chatting with Fu Zhen for a couple more minutes.
On February 5th, “White Castle” released their trailer, which was only two minutes long, with He Ming, Chen Meng, Zhou Wenliang, and Gao Tian appearing in turn, except that only Gao Tian’s back was cut in the trailer.
After the trailer came out, netizens’ previous malice towards He Ming began to subside, and a little trust was restored to Fu Zhen’s aesthetic level.
[The trailer looks okay, who is the male lead ah? A little familiar, but again really cannot remember.]
[Ahhhhhhhh someone tell me who the male lead actor is! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this kind of beautiful middle-aged handsome uncle, Ah Wei is dead!]
[So where is Gao Tian? Why don’t I see her?]
[Haha, the trailer maybe good just like last year’s trailer for the Journey to the West which scored 5, and looks good but the main film is shit poop!]
……..
Netizens generally believe that a movie’s trailer doesn’t mean anything, and with such a short shooting cycle for White Castle, they find it hard to believe that it’s not a bad movie.
But He Ming’s performance in the trailer at least let netizens know that Fu Zhen’s aesthetic was still normal and the film was not a remake of Beauty and the Beast.
He Ming also soon had a small wave of fans, this wave of fans do not seek to marry him, nor follow him as a star but only to ask him to share his weight loss methods.
So, the hot comments below his weibo were almost always:
[Teach me how to lose thirty pounds in a month, no drugs, no rebound.] or [Once I was also like you, distressed by the obese body, but now I have the perfect body, no exercise, no diet, point my avatar to see the recipe.]
The trailer of “Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Trees” was also released after Fu Zhen’s White Castle was released.
It didn’t take long. It was only two and a half minutes. After reading an ancient prose, Princess Cuiwei came slowly from behind the curtain in palace gorgeous clothes.
[Shiyao’s voice sounds good, huh? Is this her own dubbing?]
[Liu Meng is also too too handsome, right? Mom this is your future son-in-law, do you see?]
[Look at 3D with one eye! Special effects are amazing! It’s worthy of spending 600 million on special effects]
[Am I the only one who thinks Princess Cuiwei’s dress is a little weird? It doesn’t seem to be the same set as on the poster]
….
..
The trailer for “Last Night” was met with a little bit of skepticism, but it was much better than Fu Zhen’s “White Castle”.
There were even people who were vocal on the internet saying:
[Didn’t they say that Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Treeswas copied from White Castle? The two films should tell a similar story, so I just need to watch one film on Valentine’s Day, from the trailers of the two films, last night’s special effects did a good job, I also like the male and female lead actors, I will definitely choose Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Trees!]
This statement was strangely shameless. It doesn’t matter if the original works was plagiarized but he really made it that so obvious how the original work was just a stepping stone making the righteous netizens accused him of three views.
Yet this netizen could be even more shameless in giving a reply:
[Luo Pingping has got the compensation, which movie I choose is my own business, you should not morally kidnap me and make me go see bad movies.]
The online battle of opinion did not last too long, after all, the producers of “Last Night” also know that their work was plagiarized, afraid to make too much noise and finally catch the chicken3.
(TN: 3- homonym for anxious, commonly used phrases such as IQ catching the chicken)
And those netizens who said under the official White Castle weibo that good movies can’t be judge by its trailer, physically and honestly started buying advance tickets for “Last Night”.
And since the trailer for “Last Night” was released, its advance ticket sales have drifted up by tens of millions.
Fu Zhen realized later that he seemed to have been targeted by director Lian Chunchao. He released his work on the same day, the poster was publicized on the same day, and the trailer was released on the same day.
It was reasonable to say that they were the victims and they should target Lian Chunchao instead so how could the roles reversed?
The movie “Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Trees” has been promoted from two years ago, and in this year’s casting they slipped a group of popular stars, and during the shooting period they also often put a paragraph or two of footage out to meet the actors and book fans, so how could they catch up to it’s popularity.
By the day before the release of “last night”, their pre-sale box office had reached 200 million, but compared with “last night”, the pre-sale box office of “White Castle” was very small, with only a fraction of the “Last Night”.
Director Jiang Li and Li Bin called Fu Zhen one after another to ask if Fu Zhen needed their help in publicity. In the past, it was true that fragrant wine fears not dark alley4, but now in this era of internet, the audience has learned to be lazy and won’t go to deep alley at all.
(TN: 4-quality goods don’t need advertisement)
If the publicity was not good, the film arrangement rate of the cinema can’t go up. If there was no film arrangement rate, the audience can’t even buy a ticket. What’s the use of a good film? Especially when the other party was threatening.
Fu Zhen thanked Director Li Bin and Jiang Li for their kindness, and then told them that the first day film arrangement rate in Hexi cinema exceeded 20%, so Jiang Li and Li Bin didn’t insisted.
Hexi cinema was all over the country. They were behind Fu Zhen’s support, as long as the film quality passes, the rest will not be a problem.
Director Li Bin and director Jiang Li have seen the sample film of “White Castle” and were very optimistic about its next box office trend.
On February 14, the Valentine’s Day of the new year came. Last year, neither of them prepared enough. Jiang Hengshu invited him to a candlelight dinner, and he didn’t prepare anything for Jiang Hengshu. Finally, he coild give him a different Valentine’s Day gift this year.
Fu Zhen took Jiang Hengshu into the cinema.
Chapter 183
They don’t know if it’s intentional or coincidental, but soon after the announcement of “White Castle”, “Last Night” was also scheduled to be released on the same day as “White Castle”, and the pre-sale started.
The arrangement rate of “White Castle” in the cinema has been discussed before, but the result was not ideal. Fortunately, Hexi entertainment has its own cinema and was willing to increase the arrangement rate of “White Castle”, which solves Fu Zhen’s urgent need.
Although he doesn’t attach great importance to the box office, he still wants to earn back the capital, otherwise, he couldn’t make the next film.
On February 1st, the official Weibo account of “White Castle” finally sent out its second post and so far a normal-sized poster with a countdown of the release, and a post featuring the main actors in the film.
The poster of “White Castle” adopts the concept poster1. There were no actors on it. On one side was a White Castle, and on the other side was the dark night without stars and moon.
A little girl in a broken skirt sits in the dark night with her back to the viewers. Her skirt was covered with blood and mud, but it could be vaguely seen that it was a white skirt.
(T/N: 1- refers to use of an abstract technique to express the theme or some imaginary scene in the form of poster.)
The whole composition was very tense, and the white and black color were in contrast but adopt a slow transition, and the method of transition was also very strange.
In short, compared with the beautiful antique figure picture of last night, this poster looks dolorous.
Netizens have been unclear before who the actors of “White Castle” were, and now when they see the official blog’s @ list, they pick them up one by one, however after seeing them they were dumbfounded. The male lead actor was He Ming and the female lead actor was someone named Chen Meng.
Many netizens have not even heard of these two people at all, and those who have heard of their names would rather not know anything about them.
Who was He Ming? It shouldn’t be the one they were thinking, right? They couldn’t imagine why Director Fu Zhen found a fat middle-aged uncle to be the male lead. The female lead Gao Tian, who has been in business for so many years but this was the first time they feel distressed for Gao Tian.
This was still a romance movie. They couldn’t help themselves gave them an alias, the beauty and the wild animal!
However, some netizens soon countered this by saying that Gao Tian was only a guest star and the real heroine was not her, but the little girl named Chen Meng from the @ list.
Chen Meng? This name was even more unfamiliar, netizens clicked into the young girl’s weibo to look.
Lo and behold! The female lead was still in her second year of high school, and yesterday she was still complaining about the accent of the new English tutor. Where should they start make complaints about her.
A newcomer who was just 17 years old this year and has never been seen before, was the female lead of a film directed by Fu Zhen! They couldn’t help but asked if Fu Zhen was only playing or if the girl has some background.
Netizens began to speculate again. They thought that Fu Zhen would choose to use these two people to make this romance film because of the capital intervention.
They were very disappointed with Director Fu thinking that what he said a few days ago about 1.6 billion was just a number for him and that he didn’t value the box office. But how could he just give up the capital?
If you’re kidnapped, blink!
Some netizens retorted that it was precisely because Fu Zhen didn’t value the box office and didn’t care about money that he dared to play so recklessly.
But the netizens’ discussion did not last too long, their attention was soon drawn away by the movie stills of Lin Shiyao and Liu Meng.
Lin Shiyao in Princess Cuiwei’s costume could be said to be very classical and elegant, she was born with a goose egg face, willow eyebrows, which wa extremely suitable for ancient costume dramas, and now the poster of her was even more amazing.
And Liu Meng was no less impressive, he was wearing a blue flying fish suit with bright eyes. A group of fans just wanted to give him monkey2.
(TN:2- online buzzword that is the same meaning with “I want to give birth to your child”)
Gao Tian was busy participating in various activities these days and when she finally finds time to contact Fu Zhen, she asks him.
“Director Fu, am I comparable to Lin Shiyao in the film?”
It could be seen that Lin Shiyao’s costume in the movie was really good, making Gao Tian, who has always been confident in her looks, have a sense of crisis.
At the beginning, in order to make Gao Tian beautiful and make people see her different from ordinary people, Fu Zhen did not make less efforts. After thinking about it, he said humbly.
“Each has its own advantages.”
Gao Tian was barely satisfied, and hung up after chatting with Fu Zhen for a couple more minutes.
On February 5th, “White Castle” released their trailer, which was only two minutes long, with He Ming, Chen Meng, Zhou Wenliang, and Gao Tian appearing in turn, except that only Gao Tian’s back was cut in the trailer.
After the trailer came out, netizens’ previous malice towards He Ming began to subside, and a little trust was restored to Fu Zhen’s aesthetic level.
[The trailer looks okay, who is the male lead ah? A little familiar, but again really cannot remember.]
[Ahhhhhhhh someone tell me who the male lead actor is! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this kind of beautiful middle-aged handsome uncle, Ah Wei is dead!]
[So where is Gao Tian? Why don’t I see her?]
[Haha, the trailer maybe good just like last year’s trailer for the Journey to the West which scored 5, and looks good but the main film is shit poop!]
……..
Netizens generally believe that a movie’s trailer doesn’t mean anything, and with such a short shooting cycle for White Castle, they find it hard to believe that it’s not a bad movie.
But He Ming’s performance in the trailer at least let netizens know that Fu Zhen’s aesthetic was still normal and the film was not a remake of Beauty and the Beast.
He Ming also soon had a small wave of fans, this wave of fans do not seek to marry him, nor follow him as a star but only to ask him to share his weight loss methods.
So, the hot comments below his weibo were almost always:
[Teach me how to lose thirty pounds in a month, no drugs, no rebound.] or [Once I was also like you, distressed by the obese body, but now I have the perfect body, no exercise, no diet, point my avatar to see the recipe.]
The trailer of “Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Trees” was also released after Fu Zhen’s White Castle was released.
It didn’t take long. It was only two and a half minutes. After reading an ancient prose, Princess Cuiwei came slowly from behind the curtain in palace gorgeous clothes.
[Shiyao’s voice sounds good, huh? Is this her own dubbing?]
[Liu Meng is also too too handsome, right? Mom this is your future son-in-law, do you see?]
[Look at 3D with one eye! Special effects are amazing! It’s worthy of spending 600 million on special effects]
[Am I the only one who thinks Princess Cuiwei’s dress is a little weird? It doesn’t seem to be the same set as on the poster]
….
..
The trailer for “Last Night” was met with a little bit of skepticism, but it was much better than Fu Zhen’s “White Castle”.
There were even people who were vocal on the internet saying:
[Didn’t they say that Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Treeswas copied from White Castle? The two films should tell a similar story, so I just need to watch one film on Valentine’s Day, from the trailers of the two films, last night’s special effects did a good job, I also like the male and female lead actors, I will definitely choose Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Trees!]
This statement was strangely shameless. It doesn’t matter if the original works was plagiarized but he really made it that so obvious how the original work was just a stepping stone making the righteous netizens accused him of three views.
Yet this netizen could be even more shameless in giving a reply:
[Luo Pingping has got the compensation, which movie I choose is my own business, you should not morally kidnap me and make me go see bad movies.]
The online battle of opinion did not last too long, after all, the producers of “Last Night” also know that their work was plagiarized, afraid to make too much noise and finally catch the chicken3.
(TN: 3- homonym for anxious, commonly used phrases such as IQ catching the chicken)
And those netizens who said under the official White Castle weibo that good movies can’t be judge by its trailer, physically and honestly started buying advance tickets for “Last Night”.
And since the trailer for “Last Night” was released, its advance ticket sales have drifted up by tens of millions.
Fu Zhen realized later that he seemed to have been targeted by director Lian Chunchao. He released his work on the same day, the poster was publicized on the same day, and the trailer was released on the same day.
It was reasonable to say that they were the victims and they should target Lian Chunchao instead so how could the roles reversed?
The movie “Last Night’s West Wind Withered Green Trees” has been promoted from two years ago, and in this year’s casting they slipped a group of popular stars, and during the shooting period they also often put a paragraph or two of footage out to meet the actors and book fans, so how could they catch up to it’s popularity.
By the day before the release of “last night”, their pre-sale box office had reached 200 million, but compared with “last night”, the pre-sale box office of “White Castle” was very small, with only a fraction of the “Last Night”.
Director Jiang Li and Li Bin called Fu Zhen one after another to ask if Fu Zhen needed their help in publicity. In the past, it was true that fragrant wine fears not dark alley4, but now in this era of internet, the audience has learned to be lazy and won’t go to deep alley at all.
(TN: 4-quality goods don’t need advertisement)
If the publicity was not good, the film arrangement rate of the cinema can’t go up. If there was no film arrangement rate, the audience can’t even buy a ticket. What’s the use of a good film? Especially when the other party was threatening.
Fu Zhen thanked Director Li Bin and Jiang Li for their kindness, and then told them that the first day film arrangement rate in Hexi cinema exceeded 20%, so Jiang Li and Li Bin didn’t insisted.
Hexi cinema was all over the country. They were behind Fu Zhen’s support, as long as the film quality passes, the rest will not be a problem.
Director Li Bin and director Jiang Li have seen the sample film of “White Castle” and were very optimistic about its next box office trend.
On February 14, the Valentine’s Day of the new year came. Last year, neither of them prepared enough. Jiang Hengshu invited him to a candlelight dinner, and he didn’t prepare anything for Jiang Hengshu. Finally, he coild give him a different Valentine’s Day gift this year.
Fu Zhen took Jiang Hengshu into the cinema.
