Chapter 567: All of This Was Shot for Me

Here enters the fourth act: Rebirth After Disaster!

As International Space Station Alliance 1 continued its descent, the entire spacecraft was disintegrating.

At this moment, the female lead was in the French module; unable to read French, she relied solely on memory and the positions of functionally identical buttons to perform the separation.

After successfully activating the countdown, all the female lead could do was pray.

Under the force of Gravity, International Space Station Alliance 1 disintegrated the instant it entered the atmosphere; frictional heat turned every section and component red-hot, like fiery meteors.

Inside the module, the female lead endured violent rotation and pressed the disintegration button, causing the Return Capsule to separate from International Space Station Alliance 1.

The camera switched to an exterior shot: Earth was clearly visible, as countless rapidly falling balls of steel and fire, like daytime meteors, streaked across the vast blue land.

It felt as if countless artillery shells were hurtling from outer space to attack Earth; from afar, they resembled countless immortals slicing through the void—utterly real and electrifying.

As the Return Capsule plummeted at high speed, air friction caused violent shaking, thrilling the female lead; the special effect of countless fireballs streaking across the sky left the audience awestruck.

This final special effects sequence delivered powerful visual impact, stirring the audience's emotions.

Liu Tianxian was seeing this film in its entirety for the first time; reading the script had only given her the plot, but the visuals offered direct, visceral sensation.

Watching this film not only made one's palms sweat but was also a visual feast; with IMAX and 3D effects, the visual impact was overwhelming.

Guo Fan, as the film's associate director, had already seen the intended effects during the special effects production and felt no emotional stir.

After all, he had been involved in every stage of the film's production.

This stood in stark contrast to the audience's emotional surge, appearing almost dull; Fang Hong felt the same—he had already seen the original cut.

Although the plot had been altered, the intended effect remained largely unchanged.

After all, it was a successful work; too many changes would create too great a gap in production quality, raising the risk too high.

Global audiences have been conditioned by Hollywood's blockbuster special effects; if the gap from Hollywood is too wide, they will complain.

At the film's climax, the female lead swam out of the lake, crawled onto land, and slowly rose to her feet, walking into the distance—symbolizing rebirth and reverence for life.

At the film's end, against an uplifting musical score, four large characters appeared: Fang Hong Director's Work!

Then came a dense roll of credits.

No audience member left; they remained immersed in the thrilling intensity of the female lead's self-rescue, in the interstellar adventure, and in the unparalleled sensory experience.

"Clap! Clap! Clap!"

Soon after, the audience spontaneously burst into applause—loud and fervent.

Seeing Liu Tianxian stand and walk to the front row facing them, many viewers' expressions changed.

They became hotter, more reverent—this was their goddess; the film had made them feel her growth, elevating her status in their hearts once more.

"Thank you! Thank you for your support."

Liu Tianxian bowed with the microphone, then asked: "Was the movie good?"

"Good!"

"Too good!"

"Super ultra good!"

"."

The audience responded enthusiastically; though chaotic, their passion was unmistakable—after all, they were all Liu Tianxian fans.

Moreover, this film was Liu Tianxian's gift to her fans, a screening just for them—she treated them exceptionally well.

"Liu Yifei! I love you!" a male fan suddenly shouted toward the front—his voice was loud.

Those around him instinctively pulled away; his voice nearly shattered their eardrums—he was too excited.

"Love you, love you," Liu Tianxian replied with a smile.

The atmosphere grew lively; those still immersed in the film quickly emerged from it and joined the interaction.

Fang Hong and Guo Fan also stood up, standing side by side beside her—they were the primary creators.

Journalists' cameras focused on them, capturing the audience's interaction with Liu Tianxian as footage.

Since the film had ended, this was now interaction time; filming had fewer restrictions—shoot freely.

"There's no host, so I'll just say a few things off the cuff," Liu Tianxian said playfully; laughter rippled through the crowd.

Once the audience quieted slightly, she continued: "From development to release, this film took over two years. Two years isn't long, but it isn't short either."

I remember the main creative team faced countless difficulties and technical challenges during production; don't think the zero-gravity scenes in the film look simple—they're anything but.

Just to simulate that effect, crew members used machines and steel cables to suspend people, endlessly adjusting and re-simulating—countless staff poured sweat behind the scenes."

Liu Tianxian spoke with deep emotion; every detail of making this film remained vivid in her mind.

There was laughter, there was moving moments—they became beautiful memories.

"Clap! Clap! Clap." The audience, deeply moved, applauded.

"Here, thank you to the two directors—for making such a wonderful film. You made this all for me."

Guo Fan smiled and waved dismissively.

Fang Hong said nothing, looking calm and composed.

"Alright, that's enough. Let's take a photo."

Hearing this, fans stirred eagerly, pushing forward to the front rows—better seats, closer to Liu Tianxian.

"Everyone, don't rush, don't move—stay where you are. Everyone will be in the photo," someone maintained order, signaling the audience to remain still. Since the theater seats were tiered, as long as no one moved, everyone would be captured.

Soon, the audience obeyed; Liu Tianxian crouched in the front row facing away from the crowd, Fang Hong and Guo Fan crouched on either side of her.

She placed one hand on each of their shoulders, casual and smiling, facing the cameras and reporters' lenses.

There were many cameras—shooting from front, back, left, right, above, below; some reporters ignored the audience, zooming in tightly on the trio's photo.

The audience held no promotional value; only the three did.

When the image froze, the event ended.

This "Liu Tianxian Watches Gravity With You" event was itself a publicity stunt.

Liu Tianxian hadn't promoted this movie much, so the General Manager wanted her to show up for some publicity, which led to this event, and also gave Fang Hong a chance to respond to outside rumors.

When photos from this event spread across the major self-media outlets and portal sites on the internet, it added more buzz to both the movie and Liu Tianxian herself.

She had already been at the height of her fame starring in Gravity, and plenty of people who had seen the movie had become her fans, so the buzz naturally followed.

Liu Tianxian also uploaded full photos from this event on Weibo, tagged the official "Gravity" account, and posted: "Gravity, let's go! Let's go! Let's go! {cheering}"

The latest novel is first published here!

"Xixi is so cute! Go go go!"

"Ahhhh, why wasn't I there on site? I'm so jealous!"

"I want to watch Gravity with big sis too! Can you invite me next time?"

Liu Tianxian even replied to this comment: "Sure!"

It instantly racked up several thousand likes and countless comments and shares from fans.

Just as Liu Tianxian and her movie Gravity reached unprecedented buzz, the box office numbers for the first day of the Lunar New Year came out.

It topped the box office chart on its opening day: 384 million! Absolutely terrifying.

It once again broke the single-day box office record — the records of recent years were made to be broken, and broken again and again.

The media ran to spread the news: Gravity broke 300 million in a single day, approaching 400 million.

Other movies: From Vegas to Macau II had an opening-day box office of 32.27 million; The Demon Within had 32.01 million; Wolf Totem had 16.65 million;

Compared to the previous life, all had dropped 50% at the box office — that's the awesomeness of the patriotism card.

Anyway, whatever the United States opposes, just follow along mindlessly.

Across the entire box office, only Dragon Blade had a decent showing with 84.33 million — Fang Long is still awesome, he hasn't burned out his own value, nor has he faded.

And his movie still had a heavy theme, yet it still beat out a whole crowd of films.

As for the other niche films, they don't bear mentioning — crushed into oblivion by the fierce Spring Festival Slot competition.

Someone calculated that Gravity's opening-day box office was nearly a hundred million more than the combined opening-day total of all other Spring Festival Slot films — truly far ahead, unrivaled.

Seeing Gravity so brutally dominant made those in the film industry realize that the patriotism-themed main melody had a market.

These past few years, Jade Rabbit has been leading the trends in the film market — at first youth films exploded, and a bunch of copycat ones jumped in to make youth films, and some are still being released even now.

Youth films just need drama and abortion and they're good to go.

Later, feel-good films like Bad Genius and Lucy exploded, and another wave jumped in to make cheating films and superpower films.

Anyway, whatever's hot gets made — now seeing the space-exploration plus patriotism theme explode, people are scheming again.

It's just that the movies Principal used to make were easy to copy, but the ones he makes now aren't, because Best Special Effects is the threshold — who wants to spend that much money making sci-fi!

Only capital can afford to play now; the threshold has risen.

As Gravity's first-day box office came out, reviews followed one after another.

Two reviewers commented like this:

"Finally waited for a movie that after watching the midnight show I was so excited I couldn't sleep and had to write something to ease the overwhelming, devastating, surging joy in my heart!

They say online that you'll feel dizzy and can't stand straight after watching — it's true!

They say online that you'll break out in cold sweat soaking your back after watching — it's true!

They say online that you'll feel like you really went to space after watching — it's true!

They say online that it's the best commercial blockbuster of the year — that's a lie! Are you blind? This is clearly a super artsy, fresh-and-clean little film, okay!

Since it's already so late, please forgive me for being brief and incoherent!"

"The soundtrack is also quite good — it sets the mood perfectly without overpowering things, and the majestic music at the end is incredibly stirring; even now thinking about it I still get excited!

Then I want to talk about the camera work — I'm not an Expert, so if I'm wrong please correct me — the camera angles and perspectives change a lot.

After Liu Tianxian gets hit for the first time and keeps tumbling through the air, the camera moves with her, as if the audience is tumbling too; many of the shots inside the capsule have the whole screen rotating, simulating the real rotation of the capsule in the actual environment.

Sometimes Liu Tianxian is upright, sometimes upside down, sometimes tilted to the side — this truly captures that state in space where everything is floating.

The Best Special Effects are really perfect — the whole film was basically shot against green screen, yet there's a huge difference between Avatar and this one."

These are just the two most-liked, most widely circulated reviews; on Douban, on Zhihu, reviews about Gravity are everywhere.

Of course there are both praises and pans — some say the movie has a plot hole, that the part where the male lead drifts off into the distance is completely unreasonable; in the vacuum of space he should have stayed still.

In response to such questions, Guo Fan also came out to explain: "We thought about that at the time too — it really is a plot hole, but it was just in service of the story."

A very candid answer, no defensiveness.

If the male lead had to sacrifice himself, then it was so the female lead could live on — a sacrifice that strikes at the soft spot in people's hearts, and that's also respect for life.

(End of chapter)