Chapter 485: Dirty Tactics

The main creative team stood on stage, answering media interviews and audience questions, all of which focused on the film _Xiu Chun Dao_.

They interpreted the film and projected box office expectations, doing everything possible to generate more buzz for the movie.

Liu Tianxian, on-site, told the media: "This is the best martial arts film I've seen in years; I hope everyone will support it."

The theater erupted again in enthusiastic applause; the audience shared her view—that this was a deeply sincere martial arts film.

The _Xiu Chun Dao_ team wore expressions of overwhelming excitement; the audience's repeated spontaneous applause proved their film was a success, and now they waited to see its box office performance.

After everything ended, Lu Yang and the other crew members saw Fang Hong and Liu Tianxian out through a side exit.

Along the way, Lu Yang confided in Fang Hong that he was worried about the box office results—it was his first film, and poor performance would affect his future prospects.

And this film was set to premiere at midnight.

"We've done what we could; now it's up to fate. Even if the box office flops, your future path won't change—it won't be affected," Fang Hong said.

These words gave Lu Yang some reassurance; at least the Principal had always supported him.

Every director, when making their first major-screen film, feels some degree of anxiety—it's normal.

Because it determines whether they can survive in this industry; many directors vanish after one film because their work is rejected by the market.

Only a handful of directors ever truly rise to prominence.

The other actors present looked at the Principal with growing admiration, especially Nazha, whose eyes seemed to drip with worship.

But Fang Hong never paid her much attention.

"Director Lu, your film is excellent—don't worry. You all stay here; we'll be going," Liu Tianxian added reassuringly, linking arms with Fang Hong.

Fang Hong waved to them and left with Liu Tianxian in the car.

After they departed, the entire creative team went out for dinner; only Nazha seemed distracted, glancing at the Principal.

Liu Tianxian was enthusiastic—right after getting in the car, she drafted a post on Weibo to recommend _Xiu Chun Dao_.

"What do you think of this?" Liu Tianxian showed her phone to Fang Hong beside her.

Fang Hong, who had been scrolling on his phone, glanced at her draft: "A tale of ordinary people in the jianghu—a romantic wuxia film."

"That's too literary," Fang Hong said.

"Then how should I say it?" Liu Tianxian asked.

"Just say: 'The most badass domestic wuxia film ever—the #1 domestic wuxia film of the past thirty years and the next thirty.'" Fang Hong boasted.

"That's way too exaggerated—if I posted that, everyone would tear me apart, and it would become a black mark," Liu Tianxian punched him lightly.

If she posted what this man suggested, Heizi would accuse her of speaking without restraint, of boasting without basis.

She ignored him—it was too over-the-top. She stuck to her original draft and tagged _Xiu Chun Dao_.

_Xiu Chun Dao_ had its own Weibo account.

As soon as Liu Tianxian posted it, her Weibo quickly flooded with likes and comments; actors from the film—Xie Miao, Zhou Yiwei, Nazha, Wang Qianyuan, Nieyuan, Zhu Dan—all liked and reposted it.

After all, they were all actors in the movie.

After she posted, she noticed Fang Hong staring at his phone, so she leaned over to look—and saw him chatting with a girl. She snatched the phone away.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Fang Hong said.

"Who are you chatting with? 'Little Sweetie'? How nauseating," Liu Tianxian said, shuddering, her tone sharp—clearly jealous.

"That's her online nickname," Fang Hong explained.

Liu Tianxian didn't believe him; she tapped his profile picture—it was a cute, kawaii girl, but she recognized her: Jing Tian.

She scrolled through their chat history; the last message, Liu Tianxian read sarcastically: "Hong, how have you been lately? I haven't seen you in a long time—I've been worried about your health."

"You two are awfully close—you even call him 'Hong.' I've never called him that."

Liu Tianxian's last remark carried clear dissatisfaction.

"What they call me is none of my business—you can call me that too!" Fang Hong said.

"Then tell me—why is she so concerned about your health?" Liu Tianxian lifted her chin, demanding an answer.

"It's not my fault—it's yours! Last year you made me go into the women's restroom to reattach your breast pad, and she saw me. Ever since, she's been worried about me, offering to cure me." Fang Hong spread his hands.

Hearing this, Liu Tianxian paused, then couldn't help laughing—it was actually funny.

Last year, her dress strap had come loose, so she'd ordered Fang Hong to the women's restroom to reattach it—only for Jing Tian to walk in. Fang Hong had lied, claiming he had a medical issue, saying he was a woman or something.

She'd forgotten the exact details of how he'd explained his "condition"—he'd told her back then.

"So you two keep in touch?" Liu Tianxian scrolled up through the chat history, checking when they'd added each other.

"We don't keep in touch constantly—she usually talks, and I just reply casually. We've been friends for less than a few months; she added me through my phone number," Fang Hong said.

Liu Tianxian checked—it was true: Jing Tian usually sent messages; Fang Hong rarely replied, sometimes waiting hours, sometimes giving terse, half-hearted answers.

Jing Tian's messages were mostly concerned, nothing inappropriate—except for that odd form of address.

"Alright, I get it. Leave it to me—I'll talk to her," Liu Tianxian patted her chest confidently, her anger gone.

She knew this man wouldn't do anything improper; it was just that, with his status and position, he naturally attracted attention—it was normal.

Mostly, it was his mystery, his absence, that made him appealing; since she saw him constantly, she hadn't noticed it before.

"Don't go falling for her and sell me out—I'm telling you, she's a good girl," Fang Hong said.

"Oh? You're worried?" Liu Tianxian teased.

"Nonsense," Fang Hong rolled his eyes.

Liu Tianxian smiled and began chatting with Jing Tian on her phone.

Since _Xiu Chun Dao_ had launched pre-sales with ticket subsidies, but pre-sales were underwhelming—only a few million in box office.

Yet the hype had been pushed extremely high; this period had seen relentless promotion.

On August 8, _Xiu Chun Dao_ officially premiered—this day happened to be Friday, one day later than in his previous life.

The opening day box office was strong: 35.85 million! This result was about five times higher than in his previous life—this was the power of distribution and propaganda. Without large-scale promotion to position the film, it would never have achieved such numbers.

In today's film market, terrible films can earn high box office, while good films often flop.

Douban score opened at 7.8, a very high rating, just shy of divine-film status, thoroughly worth watching.

Seeing these results and reputation, Lu Yang and Xie Miao were delighted, exchanging good news; as long as box office didn't collapse later, they'd make a profit.

After all, the film's investment was only around 200 million yuan.

Audience reactions were uniformly positive.

"At one point while watching, I had the illusion—wait, this is actually a good film? That's already extremely rare in domestic productions."

"The biggest surprise in this film is Xie Miao—his action scenes are elegant and stunning, his acting convincing, one of the best period pieces in recent years."

"Never expected to see Xie Miao's martial arts scenes again after decades—so unexpected!"

"Li Lianjie's successor!"

"What's going on with Nazha? Even her wax figure would've done about the same!"

"There's a touch of Zhang Che's style—brotherhood, treacherous politics, inescapable tragic fate. The story scope is small, but visuals are exquisite, pacing excellent, though the ending drags. The director has great potential—keep going!"

"Quietly, I felt the pacing was brisk, thrilling!"

Aside from criticism of Nazha's acting, netizens barely complained about this film—uniformly positive reviews.

This made Nazha quite frustrated—where did she act badly? It was clearly good.

This girl had a serious misunderstanding of herself.

On its first day of release, Xiu Chun Dao had a strong attendance rate, nearing 20%; it should've increased showtimes, but theater managers didn't favor it, and showtimes actually decreased.

On the second day, showtimes dropped from 18% to 15%, a full three-point decline.

Yet attendance rate kept rising, from 20% to 26%, while box office fell by 100 million, dropping to 22.41 million yuan.

Clearly, this showtime allocation was unreasonable, and so was the box office—especially since it was still the weekend.

Even so, Xiu Chun Dao received unanimous praise from film critics and industry professionals.

Figures like Gao Qunshu, Guan Hu, Chen Sicheng, and Yu Baimei all endorsed it on Weibo with positive evaluations.

Guan Hu said: "If the film itself no longer matters, if characters and storytelling violate human aesthetic habits, if 'playing' with cinema has become mainstream, if you think industry 'reverence' is nonsense, then you must watch Xiu Chun Dao—you'll be disappointed! By the way, the director is very young."

He also attached a poster image of Xiu Chun Dao—a still of the three brothers.

In short, almost no one who'd seen the film said it was bad—it was one of the rare good films of summer.

It's just that box office and showtimes weren't ideal.

Of course, there were discordant voices—on this very day, Xiao Wang, Lao Wang's son, complained on a program called Banana New Director Excavation Plan:

"I think Xiu Chun Dao is a typical piece of garbage—zero nutritional value, something I'd open when I'm on the toilet with nothing else to do."

Saying you watch it on the toilet basically calls Xiu Chun Dao shit.

His remarks immediately sparked fierce backlash from netizens, who launched a barrage of criticism.

"Xiao Wang is a piece of trash!"

"Then go make a non-garbage film for the Chinese to see—without your dad, you're trash too. Dog basket."

"Saying Xiu Chun Dao is garbage? Then China must have countless garbage films."

"Xiu Chun Dao is quite good—if this is garbage, how many other films are any good?"

"."

Xiao Wang naturally drew attention—he's a person who brings in hundreds of millions in economic value wherever he goes, so whenever he speaks, traffic rushes toward him.

But he didn't care—he just wanted to complain.

Not only him—many online users claimed the film was chaotic and worthless, as if a group was subtly suppressing it.

On the third day, Xiu Chun Dao's showtimes dropped again, from 15% to 13%, another two-point decline.

Yet attendance rose to 28%, up two points again, while box office reached 26.3 million yuan.

Box office increased slightly, attendance kept rising, yet showtimes kept falling—Fang Hong, even if he were an idiot, could see something was off.

He summoned Chen Zhixi to ask about the situation.

"There's a group suppressing this film," Chen Zhixi admitted.

"Who?" Fang Hong asked.

"Man."

Chen Zhixi leaned forward, speaking softly.

This word made Fang Hong stare at her in surprise, his eyes filled with confusion and disbelief, as if he didn't understand.

Hadn't he provoked those people, had he?

"They believe this film slanders their ancestors, and one character even kills a whole group of them—can you imagine how happy they'd be? Film inherently carries cultural weight—you know, these people are extremely sensitive.

They're delighted when you criticize us, but not a single word against them is acceptable."

Chen Zhixi explained again: "Of course, they dare not openly expose the conflict—they can only use these dirty methods."

These words made Fang Hong reflect—this force was enormous and hypersensitive; they might even slap a "unified front" label on him.

No wonder Xiu Chun Dao's box office was poor—many reasons, and the sequel wasn't good either, though the sequel truly was bad.

But the final collapse felt unreasonable.

Because Xiu Chun Dao could definitely be developed as an IP—its first installment had massive influence, with zero comparable competition.

Even if the sequel flopped, it wouldn't stop this IP from making money.

"Did Wanda reduce our showtimes?" Fang Hong asked.

For now, it had to be set aside—fighting that group seemed unwise; the only way out was to strengthen our own strength.

So they couldn't interfere with the film's promotion or showtimes.

"Yes, they've been reducing them all along—the previous film, After You, also had reductions; our later box office collapsed," Chen Zhixi said.

After You's box office kept plummeting, showtimes stayed around ten percent, never rising much.

Of course, that film didn't involve the "Man" group causing trouble—only Wanda might have targeted it.

After all, this film didn't touch on any ethnic issues.

And "The Continent" had decent box office, 665 million, it's been out for over a month now, almost done with its run.

This film's profits won't be split with the backers, only the director needs a cut, and the Producer also has Option Stock.

Han Han takes 20%, so by profit he'd get around thirty million, and he also invested himself, plus the director's share, that's how it adds up.

His company is called Guomai Culture Media.

The lion's share of course goes to Yutu, roughly 120 million or so, with copyrights counted separately of course.

Directing his first film, Han Han was still a bit nervous, so he let Yutu take the bulk of the investment — perfectly normal.

The Yutu Ticket Platform distribution also brought in nearly forty million in share, since Yutu Ticket Platform calculates based on total box office, not profit.

Of course Yutu Ticket Platform's expenses are huge too — ticket subsidies, ground promotion, online maintenance and operations, plus monitoring screenings at theaters nationwide to prevent ticket fraud — extremely costly.

"The Breakup Guru" pulled in 628 million, a bit less than "The Continent" — after all, Yutu's distribution and marketing is still very strong, no worse than Enlight.

And on this film Enlight certainly made out like bandits, keeping all the profits to themselves.

Deng Chao also tasted the sweetness and started tinkering with his "Angel of Evil" again.

Once a person finds the wealth code, they stop caring whether the audience can stomach it, force-feeding excrement nonstop — of course everyone's the same, no one has any right to point fingers.

The biggest hit this year is still "Transformers 4" — this film needs no introduction, it created a 1.9 billion box office, you could say it shook the entire film market.

This is a film that set a record in film history — no domestic film has ever reached such a high box office.

Of course, records will be broken in the years that follow.

Too bad it's not a domestic production, which is rather depressing — the Film Bureau is at it again, urgently urging directors to step it up, make blockbusters, make industrial films.

A plan was also drafted to send Guo Fan, Ning Hao, Chen Sicheng, Xiao Yang, and Lu Yang to Hollywood for a study tour.

A fancy name for it: talent exchange.

(End of chapter)