Chapter 263: Knowing you, it's really good

Chen Nuo actually doesn't like the play *Under the Hawthorn Tree* very much.

After reading the script for the first time in Jingcheng, he asked Linghu to buy the original work from a bookstore, trying to grasp more of the character background and story context from the novel.

Unfortunately, even though the book's cover had countless recommendations from people like Lu Chuan, Jiang Kun, and Zhang Jizhong,

after reading it, Chen Nuo still couldn't like it.

Perhaps his cultural level was still too low to reach the heights of those famous directors.

Or perhaps he had just crawled out of the twisted, chilling dark story written by Bong Joon-ho and had danced that soul-stirring dance,

so he always felt that the sugary, white-water, dog-blood romance in *Under the Hawthorn Tree* really didn't have much appeal.

Just compare it to *My Blueberry Nights*, which he had acted in, which also had a simple plot and also told a story of love.

Although *My Blueberry Nights*' "It's not hard to cross a road; the most important thing is who is waiting for you on the other side,"

and *Under the Hawthorn Tree*'s "I can't wait for you until you're 25, I can wait for you for a lifetime,"

it's hard to say which of these two lines' themes is higher or lower.

But Wong Kar-wai, after all, added thoughts on choice and redemption into love.

Just like real blueberries and hawthorns.

Although they are both small, sweet fruits, Wong Kar-wai added a bit of salty salad dressing to the blueberries, which made the taste richer and more worth chewing than the hawthorn that melts in the mouth.

Not to mention that this kind of fresh, literary romance film is Wong Kar-wai's old track. Old Mouzi, strictly speaking, was stepping into it for the first time.

So, Palme d'Or, Golden Bear, Golden Lion right off the bat?

Is it possible?

Before signing, Chen Nuo was not optimistic about the ambition Zhang Yimou showed.

If the three major European awards were really that easy to win, Zhang Yiyi's *Spring of the Blind* wouldn't have failed to make a splash, coming up empty-handed in Venice and flopping silently.

Therefore, the only reason Chen Nuo took this play was actually because, first, he had the availability.

Second, he had promised Zhang Yimou on the dinner table that he would film a movie with him.

To be honest, it had nothing to do with money.

The salary of 15 million was not high.

At least, it was definitely not higher than Jet Li's.

Besides, the *Twilight* share had been arriving one after another; he wasn't short of money.

*Twilight*, with a North American box office of $310 million and a global box office of $635 million, ultimately brought him a personal after-tax income of $55 million, which also caused Summit Entertainment CEO Rob Friedman to fail to survive the board's questioning at the end of the year and had to step down sadly, replaced by Will Richardson.

He now had nearly 150 million RMB in his account, for which Qi Yuntian had gone back to Beijing and Shanghai to search for suitable houses everywhere.

Not to mention the $20 million in Apple stock in his US stock account that would be held for at least 10 years, and 50 shares of Berkshire Hathaway at over $40,000 per share.

In December, as the financial crisis intensified, Buffett published a signed article in *The New York Times* that would be widely spread in the future: "Buy American. I Am."

This was using his decades of reputation to support the US stock market.

Chen Nuo also gave him face; after seeing it online, he didn't hesitate this month and split half of his holdings to the stock god's company.

You are buying America,

then I will buy you.

In the end, out of $55 million, he left more than half of this money in his US stock account, buying stock in two of the most valuable companies in the future, and finally transferred about 100 million back to China to buy a house.

After all, he didn't really know if China's real estate would take off as scheduled, but it was an undeniable fact that the iPhone was starting to sell like crazy.

Placing expectations on the iPhone 4 being launched as scheduled in 2010 was, in his view, better than placing them on the real estate bubble brought about by the 2 trillion stimulus that he didn't know why was halved.

If the real estate bubble really became much smaller because of his butterfly effect, really, after 10-plus years, Chen Nuo felt he should be able to become a saint.

Anyway, as long as the iPhone sells well, it won't delay him from making money.

In short, national peace and security is one thing, making money is another, right?

Returning to Zhang Yimou's *Under the Hawthorn Tree*, Chen Nuo felt that for him personally, this play really didn't have a very high cost-performance ratio in terms of fame or profit.

The money was just that little bit, a mere 15 million; as for fame...

With the depth of this film, it was impossible to go abroad and win any gold awards.

Director Zhang was purely inflated by the Olympics, thinking that people would pay for whatever he filmed.

Chen Nuo dared to bet that this handsome male lead in the play, who was neither deaf, dumb, blind, mentally disabled, incestuous, adulterous, nor drug-addicted, and only fell in love with a woman, was destined not to bring any heavyweight trophies to his trophy display case.

At most, it would roll around in those big and small awards across the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Therefore, today, he could only treat this play as an investment.

But it wasn't an investment in the play, but in a person.

To put it clearly, it was an investment in Liu 【Redacted】.

January 21, 2009, the 25th day of the 12th lunar month, 4 days before the New Year.

Director Zhang Yimou had notified everyone a week in advance.

During the New Year this year, the crew would have a holiday, but it wouldn't be long, just the first day of the New Year.

In other words, if the family or children of the crew members were so homesick that they were willing to travel over mountains and rivers, thousands of miles to this mountain gully to visit the set,

on the first day of the New Year, they would have one day to accompany their family to stroll around Yichang, Hubei Province.

But on the second day, they had to come back and start work on time.

When Zhang Yimou announced this news, the bastard... this is not a sick sentence, it was the crew's anger they dared not speak.

At that time, the whole crew was silent, and no one knew what they were thinking.

However, after the male lead of the film didn't rise in rebellion, but instead was the first to accept the offer, laughing and saying "OK, I have no problem,"

everyone had no problem.

Actually, Zhang Yimou didn't want to do this either; he was also a man with several homes and several family members; if he didn't go back, many children would make a fuss.

However, this play wasn't going smoothly.

"Yifei, in this part, look, Professor Xi is playing your mother, right?"

Liu Yifei nodded obediently and said: "Yes, Director."

Xi Meijuan, Vice Dean of the Visual Art Institute of Fudan University, deputy to the 10th National People's Congress, Vice Chairman of the 8th China Film Association, and winner of the Golden Rooster, Huabiao, and Feitian Awards for Best Actress, wearing blue coarse cloth clothes and reading glasses, sat on the side with a smile, watching Director Zhang Yimou explain the scene to the daughter in the play.

Zhang Yimou gestured and said very patiently: "Then look, when Professor Xi takes medicine because of a stomachache, when you say 'Mom, taking too many painkillers hurts the stomach,' shouldn't your expression be richer? A little more emotion, right? That's your mother, Yifei, you know? I want you to be more invested. Don't be so cold and indifferent."

Liu Yifei nodded obediently again and said: "Okay, I know, Director."

It stands to reason that a famous actress being so obedient should make the director very gratified.

But Zhang Yimou had no expression on his face, just nodded slightly and said: "Rest for five minutes, think about it carefully, don't just agree, think about it seriously. We'll do it again later."

Five minutes later, with a "Start," the scene that had just been NG'd was performed again.

Xi Meijuan walked into the room to take medicine, and Liu Yifei was very worried about her, thus reminding her.

Then, halfway through, Zhang Yimou shouted: "Cut, rest for a while."

Then he said to Zhang Weiping, who had just arrived at the scene today to comfort the crew and give everyone New Year red envelopes to calm their anger: "Weiping, did you see? This is why we can't have a holiday for the New Year and can't go home. There's no way, I really have no way. The filming progress is really not keeping up."

Zhang Weiping had a strange expression, a bit wanting to laugh and a bit depressed: "Mouzi, what's going on? Didn't you call me excitedly at the time, saying we chose the right female lead for this play?"

"Saying Liu Yifei is very clever at acting, not only is her expressiveness awesome, but her improvisation skills are also deep, saying that the girl's acting couldn't come out before, it was probably because the director's ability was limited."

"This is a piece of unpolished jade."

"Aren't these words all said by you?"

Zhang Yimou sighed and said: "I said it."

"Ah, then what's going on?" Zhang Yimou said expressionlessly: "You ask me, and I don't know who to ask. I've been filming for a lifetime, and I've never encountered such a thing. How can an actor's performance ability fluctuate to this extent?"

"Sometimes, I feel this child is not a bit worse than that American girl, Emma Stone, and she could even go to Cannes to win an award..."

"But sometimes, I feel that my first feeling after watching her audition was not wrong; this little girl really should go back to school for two more years; even her basic acting skills are not solid."

Zhang Weiping laughed: "Mouzi, you... the difference is too big, it feels a bit outrageous."

Zhang Yimou said: "You're right, Weiping, my feeling is exactly the same as yours. After filming for a week, I feel it's damn outrageous. When she acts opposite Chen Nuo, really, every shot I feel is particularly beautiful; Chen Nuo is good, and she is too; I feel this is the Lao San and Jingqiu I want."

"However, once she acts with others, or does some solo scenes or transition scenes, I can't believe she's the same person as the vivid Jingqiu before; it's simply..."

"Let's put it this way, you also know Xi Meijuan, what a good actor. To say that under her emotional drive, just such a shot, such a line, no matter what, filming it once or twice should be enough, right?"

"But look at it yourself, look at this playback, just such a shot, it NG'd 5 times back and forth; what's your feeling after watching it?"

Zhang Weiping stared at the monitor for a while and laughed: "Mouzi, I don't understand these things; I just think the little girl is quite pretty, and her skin is also very good; she is very photogenic even without makeup; when it's on the big screen, it should have a very visual effect. Um, what's your feeling?"

Zhang Yimou took a deep breath and said: "My feeling is... like a fishbone in the throat, I have to spit it out."

If this sentence of Zhang Yimou were heard by a reporter and processed slightly, it could become an excellent entertainment news headline.

For example, writing a sensational headline like "Watching Liu Yifei act makes Zhang Yimou want to vomit."

But in fact, 80% of the content in this film is the scenes of Chen Nuo and Liu Yifei being lovey-dovey.

Therefore, even if Director Zhang feels teased by his own female lead and is depressed enough to want to scold people, in the end, the flaws do not obscure the virtues, and the joy outweighs the bitterness.

The story told by *Under the Hawthorn Tree* is that in the early 1970s, a female high school student with a bad family background met a military child who was an educated youth here during the process of going to the countryside to collect material and write revolutionary teaching materials.

The two fell in love at first sight, but because Jingqiu's family background was bad, they encountered various obstacles.

In the end, the two people who were in love not only couldn't be together openly, but they could only date secretly, and finally, they were separated by life and death because of the male lead's terminal illness.

To sum up, this is a period romance film with the core of a Korean drama.

Therefore, it can be seen how lovey-dovey the male and female leads are in this play.

Especially because the time in the script is at the turn of spring and summer, which is actually very different from the current cold winter.

Asking actors to wear thin short sleeves to act outdoors is really a bit inhumane.

So when Zhang Yimou made the shooting plan, he basically arranged the indoor scenes in the coldest January to mid-February, and put the outdoor scenes in March.

The scenes between the male and female leads that are lovey-dovey and make people's teeth ache are largely filled in this period before the New Year.

The scene that day was finally passed by Director Zhang Yimou on the sixth take, and Teacher Xi Meijuan could also rest.

Time, in the sound of Director Zhang gritting his teeth and NG-ing, reached January 23, 2009, the 28th day of the 12th lunar month. Two days before the New Year.

The afternoon of this day was a day Director Zhang felt could be a rest day.

Chen Nuo was peeling an apple for Liu Yifei under the dim yellow light indoors.

The interior scene here was built to look like a dormitory.

Inside, there were bookshelves, collective photos hanging on the wall, various tool manuals on the table, and a very small, narrow army cot covered with a white sheet.

In the play, after Jingqiu learned that Lao San was sick, she came to the hospital to see him.

Lao San covered up his true condition, only telling the other party that he had a small cold, not leukemia, and it was nothing serious.

So Jingqiu believed it, went out to play with him for a day, and went to a photo studio to take pictures.

Finally, Lao San took Jingqiu back to his dormitory.

This scene started from here.

A desk lamp was placed on the desk between Chen Nuo and Liu Yifei.

The desk lamp was very bright, and the dim yellow light was emitted after the lighting engineer's adjustment. This gave the whole scene a hazy, dreamy aesthetic.

When Chen Nuo and Liu Yifei were acting opposite each other, Director Zhang Yimou was now very willing to place heavy bets.

So this time, he used a rare three-camera setup, giving each of the male and female leads a close-up camera, and a medium shot camera that could allow both to be in the frame at the same time.

To make the acting of the male and female leads smooth and natural, the cost of NG was tripled.

But Director Zhang, sitting behind the monitor, was calm and not worried at all.

At this time, he felt Liu Yifei could go to Cannes to win an award.

What was he afraid of?

Sure enough, when Liu Yifei said her lines to Chen Nuo, the smile at the corner of her mouth and the slight flush on her cheeks simply acted out a girl falling in love vividly and incisively.

It could be said that it was a completely different person from her vase acting at other times.

Liu Yifei held a piece of red cloth she had torn while shopping with Lao San, glanced at Chen Nuo, lowered her eyes a bit shyly, and asked softly in a deliberately calm tone: "What kind of clothes do you think would look good if I made this cloth into clothes?"

Chen Nuo skillfully peeled the apple with the small knife in his hand and looked over when he heard this.

In the close-up shot, his gaze stayed on the cloth for only a moment before moving from the cloth to the girl's beautiful, radiant face under the light.

"Beautiful beyond compare" is exactly what describes Liu Yifei, who was wearing two braids in a shy state at this moment.

At that moment, Chen Nuo's eyes widened a bit, watching without blinking, obviously also dazzled by the national beauty and heavenly fragrance inadvertently revealed by his sweetheart.

Seeing that he didn't reply, Liu Yifei raised her head and glanced at him quickly.

Seeing Chen Nuo's burning gaze, two faint red clouds immediately appeared on her face; she buried her head again, turned her face slightly to avoid the man's unsettling gaze, and asked in a low voice again: "I'm asking you, why don't you speak?"

Chen Nuo came back to his senses, showed a slightly embarrassed smile, and said softly: "Anything is fine; you look good in anything."

Not getting an answer, Liu Yifei pouted, as if she wanted to be angry, but finally smiled because of the affection in those words, then turned her head back and said sweetly: "Then I'll make it when I go back, and I'll show it to you when it's done."

Chen Nuo twitched the corner of his mouth and nodded: "Okay."

The girl then carefully put the roll of red cloth into her bag and said softly again: "When that hawthorn tree blooms, I'll wear this red dress and go with you. If it blooms red flowers, let's see if the color of this cloth is the same."

Chen Nuo was stunned; this time it was his turn to lower his head.

He lowered his eyelids, covered the disappointed and miserable expression in his eyes with thick eyelashes, and said in a normal tone: "Okay, then we'll go together."

Liu Yifei didn't raise her head, so she didn't notice Chen Nuo's abnormality.

The girl looked at the bag in her hand and showed a shy, sweet smile.

And how beautiful her pear-dimpled smile was, Chen Nuo's dejected expression looked just as desolate.

In the medium shot, this pair of lovers, with the desk lamp as the boundary, revealed completely different expressions in light and darkness.

One sad, one happy, one left, one right, dividing the screen into two halves, balanced and beautiful.

In Zhang Yimou's aesthetic world, this moment is comparable to Nameless drawing his sword and stabbing at the King of Qin in *Hero*.

After calling "Cut."

Zhang Yimou turned his head to Zhang Weiping, who was fully dressed and ready to set off back to Beijing, and said: "Did you see? You tell me what's going on. I just don't understand, how can the same person have such a big difference? Is she good at acting or not? I really don't understand."

Zhang Weiping didn't answer, laughed, patted Zhang Yimou on the shoulder, and said: "I'm relieved anyway; our play will definitely be a hit. Mouzi, I'm leaving, you've worked hard. Film well; if there's anything with your sister-in-law, just say the word, and I'll be there on call."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 264 =====