Chapter 481: Change

"Let everyone see the new look."

Luo Quan updated the new hairstyle she did today on Bilibili.

After watching it, the fans expressed that they and their little friends were stunned:

"Why did you dye it red?"

"It's such a pity to cut so much of such beautiful golden hair."

"Is it for the new movie 'Rurouni Kenshin'?"

"Did ancient Japanese people have red hair?"

"Luo Quan has gone '2D' (anime-style). How can they give you a normal hair color when filming a movie in Japan?"

"Speaking of which, with Luo Quan's appearance, won't it be out of character to play a Japanese person?"

In the comment section, some fans were expressing their surprise after seeing the new look, and some fans were raising questions.

In fact, this was also the general doubt of the outside world about Luo Quan's new movie: how could a white face play the protagonist in an Asian movie without appearing so abrupt?

A while ago, a fantasy masterpiece planned for many years by a famous Chinese director also invited an American male actor to play the protagonist, and this male actor was also both famous and capable, with absolutely no problems in his professional level.

Then, the movie flopped—a comprehensive flop from box office to word-of-mouth.

Although the problem shouldn't be attributed entirely to this Western male actor—the plot, theme, and even the performances of other actors were full of points to roast.

However, the awkwardness of Westerners filming Eastern movies was exposed in this movie. No matter how you looked at it, it didn't feel right, and it didn't please either side, so the flop became a matter of course.

In fact, it wasn't that there hadn't been successful cases of Westerners filming Eastern-themed movies.

"The Last Emperor" at the end of the last century was filmed quite brilliantly and won multiple Oscar awards. However, the leads in the movie were all Chinese, and many of the plots filmed were quite in line with China's national conditions at the time, and the director also added some of his own thinking under such a big framework, which was quite profound.

So in the end, this movie received quite high evaluations at home and abroad and was well-received by quite a lot of people.

Of course, this definitely didn't include the then-manager of the Forbidden City, because when the crew was filming, they went inside the Forbidden City for on-site shooting, which damaged quite a lot of floor tiles at the time, almost breaking the old director's heart.

Since then, the Forbidden City had never been opened to any film crew.

Setting this aside, "The Last Emperor" was definitely a model work of Westerners telling Eastern stories. Except for the lines that seemed a bit less grounded to cater to Western audiences, there was basically no major awkwardness.

At first, people thought Luo Quan was also prepared to film like this—that is, she would be the director and then guide a group of Japanese actors to film the movie.

But Luo Quan quickly clarified, stating that she was the absolute protagonist of this movie, which could be considered a reassurance for fans who hoped to see her act.

But the problem of awkwardness followed, and this was what was being discussed more on the internet now.

Luo Quan didn't tell the fans for the time being how she would solve this problem, but the method had actually been thought of long ago, and it wasn't particularly clever—it was nothing more than makeup.

The power of makeup didn't need to be said. If a master operated it, they could achieve the magic of directly changing a head, just like PS skills. In TikTok, a bunch of makeup bloggers successfully turned into certain stars through their own skills; those methods could only be described as staggering.

Of course, Luo Quan didn't need to turn into any star; she only needed to fine-tune her nose bridge and cheeks through the blending of cosmetics to create some facial features of Easterners.

And the bangs of the movie version of Kenshin were quite long, and sometimes half of the face was covered, so as long as the shooting angle was appropriate, and the overall brightness was slightly dimmed, the problem of awkwardness could be minimized.

The big problem was basically solved. There was another point worth mentioning: the background of the story.

When Luo Quan introduced the era background of the movie, she used "Bakumatsu," which was the famous samurai overthrowing the shogunate period, but in fact, the movie glossed over the plot of the overthrow of the shogunate. The true focus of the plot was in a new era, and the description used was another term—Meiji Restoration.

This was somewhat sensitive. Luo Quan didn't dare to bring it up directly, choosing instead to use such "Spring and Autumn" brushwork to cover it up.

In the movie, there would absolutely be no related terms; only "revolution" would be used to refer to it. Most of the characters who appeared in history would all use pseudonyms, and they would be mentioned as little as possible.

Although doing so was harmless, there would be some influence. However, after weighing the pros and cons, Luo Quan still intended to do so.

This was actually something that couldn't be helped. The specific reasons didn't need to be detailed; everyone knew it in their hearts.

It was worth mentioning that although the original author of this movie had flaws in private morality, the values in the work were quite correct. The protagonist in the anime had also been expressing thoughts of opposing killing and yearning for peace.

So after the movie was filmed, there was no need to fear being over-interpreted by people with ulterior motives.

After solving these big and small problems, Luo Quan was still carefully reviewing the written script, ensuring that every line wouldn't touch people's sensitive nerves.

Very tired, but very necessary.

Although she believed that rational people were the majority in this world and could distinguish between national hatred and family grudges and artistic works, the internet environment had too high a requirement for the morality of stars.

Especially for a top star like her, there was a large group of people watching every move you made with a magnifying glass at every moment, so she couldn't be careless.

However, carefully reviewing the script like this also had a benefit, which was that she could further polish the plot and strive for excellence.

After all, the two worlds weren't exactly the same. As for the details, the difference in the memes that could be used was too great, so there were actually quite a few additions and subtractions in the script compared to the original version.

Just like this, after polishing the script in the hotel for three days, the various props, supporting roles, and extras for filming the movie arrived one after another.

On the morning of May 8th, Luo Quan led over a hundred main crew members to hold a boot ceremony on an open space in Toei Kyoto Studio Park.

In the East, the boot ceremony for a movie was highly valued. The bigger the production, the grander it was.

Slaughtering chickens and sheep, offering incense, etc., were not fresh things.

Like in Hong Kong, where they believed in these things more, when a movie started filming, they would definitely worship the gods. Guan Gong had the highest appearance rate here, followed by the local land gods, Bodhisattvas, and even gods and Buddhas all over the sky.

Whether it was useful was not certain, but after worshiping, at least one would feel at ease and could seek psychological comfort.

However, as a young person of the new era who grew up under the red flag, Luo Quan had never believed in these things. Her only faith was Communism, and her thinking was "red and professional."

As long as the stance and will were firm, no monsters or demons would dare to come out and make waves.

She was actually superstitious, but she was superstitious about her own materialist iron fist, specializing in treating all supernatural powers.

However, she still held a grand boot ceremony this time.

After all, Japan had eight million gods—broom gods, drum gods, umbrella gods; it was hard to guarantee there wasn't a "Movie God."

Even if there wasn't, with the ability of the Japanese public to create artificial gods, even a "Rice Immortal" could be created, so a "Movie Immortal" probably wasn't a problem either.

And "a strong dragon doesn't suppress a local snake." Filming on someone else's turf, one should still give a little respect.

She could not believe in these, but she couldn't stop others from believing in them. Mutual respect was the basic law for people to live in harmony.

So this time, Luo Quan also followed the local customs. Worship the offerings that should be worshiped, and offer the incense that should be offered. Anyway, there wouldn't be any loss.

After the movie officially started filming, there were thousands of things waiting for her to dispatch and command. However, before that, she had basically finished how to film the storyboards. Next, she just needed to proceed according to the plan.

The filming of a movie generally wouldn't proceed in the order of the plot. The scenes filmed were very likely completely reversed.

For example, now, Luo Quan decided to film these fighting scenes in the movie first.

After all, the fighting actors invited this time basically had genuine Kendo practice. If they filmed the fighting scenes according to the plot progress, that would be at least twenty days later. Dragging it for so long definitely wouldn't be good.

So film the fighting scenes first. After filming, the disciples of the Yagyu Kendo Hall could finish work and go back.

The first part of "Rurouni Kenshin" had several major fighting scenes: one was the battle of a hundred people outside the Western-style building, one was the duel between the protagonist and the machine gun inside the building, and the last one was the duel with Udō Jin-e.

Among them, the battle of a hundred people was the most magnificent, but the filming difficulty was actually the lowest. Most of the extras were subdued by her in one move. The peripheral extras only needed to jump left and right to pretend when the camera couldn't see them, and then go up one by one to send their heads.

The stage was basically Luo Quan's, and in this battle, she would also have some quite exaggerated but very handsome parkour scenes.

This was what action director Musashi said—unrealistic fighting scenes, and also actions that had never appeared in previous Japanese samurai-themed action movies.

But the movie was Luo Quan's. She said how to film it, then it would be filmed that way. Others just needed to follow suit.

And the difficulty of this part of the scene wasn't high. For the parkour part, she hung on wires and matched it with her powerful core strength in the waist and abdomen. Even if she formed an angle of less than thirty degrees with the ground, she still performed the actions quite smoothly and sharply.

It could only be said that people who knew real Kung Fu were different. Even Musashi, who had filmed action movies for more than ten years, felt that such actions were good-looking, and after being presented on the screen, they would only appear more explosive.

It was also from here that a group of action directors, including Musashi, changed their views on Luo Quan's whimsical ideas.

In three days, this scene with the largest scale in the whole film was successfully filmed, and for the next four days, the plot inside the Western-style building was also successfully filmed.

The rest was the most difficult fighting scene—the duel between Kenshin and Udō Jin-e.

This battle was the final climax of this movie. Compared to the refreshing feeling of subduing the enemy in one move before, the depiction of the characters' actions here needed to be more detailed, and the fighting time was also longer.

Most importantly, the actor playing Udō Jin-e was Junko's father, Yagyu Kota.

As the son of a Kendo master and a descendant of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryū, Yagyu Kota actually didn't often stay in the Kendo hall.

His main workplace was as the head of a youth Kendo hall in Nara, mainly cultivating teenagers' interest in Kendo, and what he taught were also some basic Kendo, which was quite flashy.

But this didn't mean his Kendo level was just a flashy show. On the contrary, as Yagyu Enzai's most satisfied disciple, Yagyu Kota had long reached the level of "Menkyo Kaiden" (license of total transmission) of his school and had also defeated quite a few Kendo masters before.

Compared to his father's superb sword skills, her sword skills were definitely inferior, but this gap was definitely limited.

Originally, he thought that coming to film a movie this time, he only needed to do a few "Iai" sword-drawing slashes or some other slashing actions to finish work, but Luo Quan proposed a request to have a real combat first.

It was worth mentioning that when Luo Quan went to the Yagyu Kendo Hall to pick up Junko last time, Yagyu Kota wasn't present and didn't see the battle between Luo Quan and his father.

And the old master Yagyu felt afterwards that using one of his trump card moves to deal with a little girl wasn't glorious, so he also ordered his disciples not to publicize it.

Therefore, Yagyu Kota himself actually didn't know Luo Quan's true level of Kendo, only seeing from the news that this national goddess of Japan was very good at fighting and was known as the world's number one female boxer.

But fist and foot skills were powerful, at most comparable to those in Karate, and Kendo and Karate were completely two systems; the two could almost not be mentioned in the same breath.

Just like an Olympic fencing champion, no matter how exquisite the fencing technique was, if they faced a Judo champion, they would definitely be beaten black and blue.

So when Yagyu Kota heard this proposal from Luo Quan, his first reaction was to feel that if this girl didn't have any hidden means, she was crazy beyond measure!

From the rational thinking of ordinary people, he was more inclined to believe Luo Quan belonged to the latter.

Because she was so powerful in fist and foot skills, she must have spent quite a lot of time practicing hard. It was unlikely she had invested other time in Kendo.

However, Yagyu Kota's "reasoning" thinking obviously couldn't guess Luo Quan's true level. Many times, many people and things couldn't be inferred by common sense.

Luo Quan was undoubtedly such a person.

"Do we really have to have a real combat? Wouldn't it be better to use designed actions?" Yagyu Kota said with a hesitant expression, the subtext being that he was afraid if he really used ruthless force, the scene wouldn't look good.

Junko explained to her father: "It's okay, Father. Quan-chan is 'Menkyo Kaiden' of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū. When she had a one-on-one with Grandpa, she also went through more than ten moves, and in the end, Grandpa still used 'Mutōdori' (swordless taking) to defeat Quan-chan."

"Father used 'Mutōdori'!" Yagyu Kota's pupils contracted, his expression full of unbelievable shock.

He had sparred with his father countless times and knew the power of this move, and even more knew what kind of skill was needed to force out this move.

This girl in front of him, who was beautiful beyond words, actually had such terrifying sword skills?! ===== CHAPTER 482 =====