Chapter 487

Although Luo Quan is usually lazy, the efficiency with which she produces work when giving it her all is fast enough to leave seasoned industry professionals dumbfounded.

Very soon, "Rurouni Kenshin" was completely finished and sent for review.

During the time spent waiting for the review, Luo Quan had Sony contact theaters across Japan to prepare for scheduling, while simultaneously releasing a promotional short film for the movie and a large number of high-quality posters on Twitter.

First of all, the promotional short film didn't have much filler; it started right off with an explosive BGM. After explaining the background in a few sentences, the style shifted, and various fight scenes appeared one after another. Even though each scene lasted only a few seconds, this brief glimpse was enough to make people feel the tension and excitement rushing toward them!

The fight choreography in this movie is much more exaggerated than the samurai action movies people have seen before. Coupled with this heart-pounding BGM, even just the trailer makes people feel like this is a visual feast.

If the trailer is already this good, what must the full movie be like?

Now, not only the fans, but countless passersby have had their interest piqued by "Rurouni Kenshin."

As the world's third-largest film market, the enthusiasm of the Japanese public for watching movies is no less than that of China.

However, most of the box office successes over the years have been anime or live-action adaptations of manga, whereas this time, Luo Quan has no IP backing and is relying entirely on the quality of her own work.

Luo Quan has said that there will be innovations in this action movie, so both inside and outside the industry, everyone is now keeping an eye on this film, which has already shown its extraordinary nature, to see where its innovations lie.

If the movie truly achieves success, it will be a huge inspiration for the entire action movie industry.

Although it is still too early to speculate on these things, after watching the trailer released by Luo Quan, basically no one doubts the quality of the film anymore.

If nothing else, the visual quality and the soundtrack alone can be called top-tier.

The former is proof of spending big money. For commercial films, not spending big money doesn't necessarily mean you can't make a good movie; low-cost films can sometimes create box office miracles.

But if you spend big money, the visual effects will definitely not be subpar; even if the plot isn't great, it won't stop the audience from enjoying it.

As long as the audience enjoys it and is willing to pay, it is considered a success for a commercial film.

Commercial films, as the name suggests, are all about commerce. Whether they have depth or can win awards doesn't matter at all; money is the standard for judging whether they are good or bad.

Of course, this standard does not apply to China, because in domestic so-called big productions, you can't see where the money is actually spent. Most movies claiming an investment of over 100 million yuan sometimes have worse costumes, makeup, props, and special effects than web movies. They don't look like big commercial blockbusters; they look more like money laundering under the guise of making a big movie.

Young fresh meat actors definitely need to take the blame, but the problem definitely doesn't lie entirely with these stars.

Japan actually has young fresh meat actors too, but unlike the domestic entertainment industry, Japanese stars generally charge lower fees. Even for top-tier A-listers, filming a movie costs only about 10 million RMB. Female stars are slightly more expensive, but won't exceed 20 million. And even for young fresh meat actors, their acting skills are absolutely guaranteed.

Because in Japan, if you don't have professional ability, there is simply no way to survive, unlike these idols in China who can attract countless fans just by dressing a bit more effeminately.

The actors Luo Quan invited this time are basically all acting-oriented. She didn't ask for much fame; apart from the actor playing Hajime Saito and herself and Junko, the others probably wouldn't even count as second-tier.

In other words, the total salary of these leads is less than one-tenth of the salary of a single Chinese young fresh meat actor.

And with such low actor salaries, the movie's investment still reached over 180 million RMB, which shows how refined the production is under Director Luo Quan this time.

If nothing else, for the movie's camera equipment, Luo Quan rented the best cameras from Hollywood, charged by the day. And because it's an action movie, there were many requirements for camera angles, so she rented quite a few.

She took photos of all these and posted them on Twitter. These industry insiders in Japan saw it and felt the pain for her.

These top-tier equipment of the Hollywood film industry, even for big directors in Japan, aren't things you can just use whenever you want. If you don't get several big companies to invest together, don't even think about it.

And in the investor column for "Rurouni Kenshin," from beginning to end, there was only one name: Luo Quan Entertainment Company... In Japan, it should be called Luo Quan Entertainment Co., Ltd.

One can only say that being wealthy and bold is awesome. It's no wonder Luo Quan claimed after the movie was filmed that every screenshot of her movie could be used as a wallpaper. The footage from top-tier cinematic cameras is, after all, worthy of being called a wallpaper.

By comparison, the brilliant soundtrack in the movie seems relatively ordinary.

Music is Luo Quan's old profession; no matter where problems arise, the soundtrack will definitely not have any issues.

Taken as a whole, "Rurouni Kenshin" already possesses all the elements for success.

Quality, buzz, subject matter—nothing is missing.

If one insists on saying the subject matter isn't good, that would be a poor choice of era, but kendo and samurai have always been the favorites of young Japanese people. Passion and fighting go without saying; the title of Japan as the "land of chuunibyou" is actually well-deserved.

However, just when everyone was infinitely optimistic about "Rurouni Kenshin," Luo Quan announced the movie's premiere time. If nothing unexpected happens, the release date will be June 27th.

Good heavens, it's just two days apart from "Titanic," belonging to a completely overlapping release window.

Besides being courageous, industry insiders don't know how to describe such a choice.

"Courageous" is a polite way of saying it; "stubborn" is probably more fitting.

What is "Titanic"? That is a masterpiece that even "Lord of the Rings" director Ford chose to avoid.

Although the movie hasn't been seen yet, Director Carnason has never been so confident about the Oscars.

For his previous award-winning works, even after being nominated, he was quite nervous before the winners were truly announced.

But this time, from the very beginning of the movie's promotion, he stated bluntly: I've got this year's Oscars in the bag.

Comparing the difference in meticulousness before and after, one can imagine how excellent "Titanic" is.

And as the world's third-largest film market, the promotional effort for the big ship in Japan is no weaker than in China.

Luo Quan is tweeting and trending every day here, while "Titanic" is also directly appearing on subway billboards, large screens on buildings, and even on people's televisions, truly omnipresent.

With such big hype and such big promotion, one can imagine how many people will flock to the cinema to watch the big ship.

After learning the exact release date of the big ship, most movies in Japan scheduled for release at the end of June chose to postpone, specifically clearing the way for the big ship to do its own thing.

Luo Quan, on the other hand, went straight against the current, simply not believing in this evil.

But then again, with so many movies postponing their release, among the movies released in the same period, the only ones that can be called blockbusters are "Titanic" and "Rurouni Kenshin."

Competition will definitely exist, but it seems it won't be more intense than the competition of six or seven movies being released at the same time.

In this way, everyone else only thought of the first level, while Luo Quan went straight to the atmosphere.

Actually, she herself is not as smart as people think. Choosing to release it at the same time as the big ship was simply to save time. After one movie is filmed, she still has at least two more movies. If she postponed the release for every little thing, she wouldn't know if she'd have any rest time by the end of this year.

Anyway, the big ship and "Rurouni Kenshin" are not the same type of movie. If they collide, they collide. The Japanese film market is so big that one big ship can't possibly eat it all up.

Moreover, she is quite confident in her own movie; crashing should be a low-probability event.

And judging by her consistently good luck, a low-probability event is not much different from zero.

In short, the movie was sent for review, theaters began scheduling, and promotion was in full swing.

It belonged to the state of being on the string and having to be fired; even if she regretted it temporarily, there was no way back.

And judging from the comments of netizens after the trailer was released, it has already received rave reviews. Next, everything is ready except for the east wind.

The review passed quite smoothly because Japan's grasp of the scale of movies is not particularly strict, especially regarding bloody scenes. Whether it's bleeding or severed hands, showing them directly is no big deal.

So there weren't many places in the submitted movie that needed to be cut. And because Luo Quan had just written so much for the Olympic Committee, this side also gave the green light all the way.

With a good reputation here, having helped the government a lot, and filming a movie to stimulate the economy, it's impossible to make things difficult for her for any reason.

After the review passed, the countdown to the release date of "Rurouni Kenshin" officially began.

For the next period of time, Luo Quan didn't work on Twitter anymore, but simply posted a number every day, which was the number of days left until the release, subtracting one every day.

As for herself, she took turns going on television stations to promote the movie.

These television stations include NTV, TBS, Asahi, and Fuji TV, which have the highest ratings. Sony took the initiative to bridge the connection, choosing the golden time in the evening.

After an episode of a TV show finished, there should have been a period of commercials, and this time period should also be the most expensive time of the day, charged by the second, literally millions up and down every minute.

However, in order to insert the movie's promotional short film for Luo Quan, more than half of the commercial time was directly replaced.

Sony originally thought that doing this would cost a lot of money, but what they didn't expect was that the price was not much more expensive than the commercial fees for the early morning and afternoon periods.

When Sony asked for the reason, the explanation from the TV station was simply laughable:

"In Japan, Luo Quan is the ratings. Even if it's a commercial, as long as she is willing to show her face, there are definitely many people willing to watch!"

This kind of thinking might sound outrageous at first, but if you think about it carefully, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it.

In Japan, Luo Quan has long been a goddess. Unfortunately, the number of times she has been on TV is pitifully small. She was only on Musi once when she first debuted, and after that, it was the release of "Don't Give Up," during the time when the government forced it to be played nationwide.

It is worth mentioning that the ratings during this period were unexpectedly much higher than the programs played before and after.

And major TV stations basically took turns playing it at staggered times, so that after people finished watching Luo Quan sing on Asahi TV, they would immediately jump to Tokyo TV to watch it again.

This kind of strange phenomenon in the TV station industry is simply unheard of, so much so that experts called it: the Luo Quan phenomenon, which is one of the various Luo Quan phenomena in Japan.

After such an explanation, Sony understood the enthusiastic attitude of the TV stations.

After the negotiation, Sony immediately contacted Luo Quan to shoot promotional short films for the TV stations. The content was to greet the audience, introduce the movie and the role she played in the movie, and then invite the audience to watch the movie, etc.

Because the previous promotional short film was not a TV exclusive interview, Luo Quan recorded one video for each of the several TV stations.

The content was basically the same, just with some changes in the address to the TV stations.

And after the short film was broadcast, the effect was as the TV station expected.

The original commercial time was exactly the time when everyone changed channels and ratings dropped, and just as the audience finished watching TV and was about to pick up the remote to change channels, Luo Quan's beautiful face suddenly appeared on the TV.

Like the character she played in the movie, she was wearing a company haori while filming the promotional short film:

"Hello minasan, do you remember me? I am Luo Quan..."

"Awoo..." I don't know how many boys watching the TV series let out excited shouts. They didn't expect to see their wife suddenly. Speaking of which, even if you turned into ashes, I would remember you!

"The action movie 'Rurouni Kenshin,' which I wrote, directed, and starred in, is about to be released. This time I will play the protagonist Kenshin in the movie, showing everyone the end of the shogunate..."

After a simple introduction to the movie, Luo Quan narrated it quite vividly, but the boys didn't really listen to it, because their attention was all on Luo Quan herself.

This Luo Quan wearing samurai clothes is too beautiful. She is completely the image of an ancient beauty in my fantasy. Even manga can't draw such a good-looking heroine!

"June 26th, I hope everyone can go to the cinema to watch 'Rurouni Kenshin.' I believe it will definitely not let everyone down."

Speaking of this, Luo Quan also bowed and thanked according to the convention.

After all, they are the parents of food and clothing, so it is not too much to perform such a ceremony.

In the past, during commercial time, the audience would feel it was too long and wished it would finish quickly so they could watch the next episode of the TV series.

But now, they feel that the time is really too short, and it's gone in just a few minutes.

But it doesn't matter, this promotional short film will be broadcast for five consecutive days, and not only during the golden time in the evening, but also every morning, noon, and afternoon.

Originally this was just a commercial, but the TV station treated it as a trump card program.

And the performance of the commercial did not live up to the expectations of the TV station leaders. Every time the commercial was broadcast, the ratings would rise, which is simply a wealth code!

"Unfortunately, this commercial cannot be played after the 26th." A group of leaders felt very regretful while being happy.