Chapter 487: Always Overpowered, Always Satisfied

At the harbor terminal in the dead of night, a long line of vans slowly drove onto the cargo ship docked there.

Huang Zihua sat in a Nissan with its lights off on the side of the road in the distance, smoking silently.

The scarlet tip of his cigarette flickered in the darkness.

As a second or third-tier actor in the Hong Kong entertainment industry who had never quite made it and had once been labeled "box office poison," he cherished this important role at the age of 50 more than anyone else.

From the moment this show was in its early planning stages, the entire Hong Kong entertainment scene had been rife with undercurrents, with all sorts of rumors, true or false, flying everywhere. He had originally just listened to them. But who would have thought that those rumors, which sounded like fairy tales, would later become reality one after another.

It really was Milkyway Image teaming up with Chen Nuo to run the production,

It really was 100% Hollywood capital entering the fray,

It really was a production budget of over a million US dollars per episode,

It really was not airing in China, but launching directly on Western streaming platforms for international audiences.

It really was a ten-million-dollar investment to build a brand-new studio in San Po Kong specifically for this show.

It really was the case that, in addition to Du Qifeng overseeing the project, they had also invited Zhang Yimou, Ann Hui, and others to serve as episode directors.

And it was also true that...

During auditions, they didn't look at fame, status, or past box office records; they only looked at performance and talent.

Based on this, he had landed the role.

You have to understand, there were hundreds of actors who participated in the auditions, many of whom were big movie stars who had never filmed a TV series before. As a "loser" actor who had only played small supporting roles on TVB in recent years, he originally didn't even have the heart to go in and try. But who would have thought that after plucking up the courage to go, and after three rounds of auditions, this heavy-weight role would end up in his hands?

If he couldn't act well this time, he would truly be a loser for the rest of his life.

Thinking of this, Huang Zihua's gaze became even more solemn, looking more like a policeman investigating a missing person case involving a relative, the profound anxiety in his eyes becoming more apparent.

After a while, Huang Zihua saw that no more vans were arriving, so he checked the gun under his arm, got out of the car, and carefully crept through the night with his back hunched.

Under the illumination of the lights, the ground he passed over at this moment appeared a vivid red.

The ground at a dark pier is red?

Does it mean it's just the light from the ship?

A criminal smuggling ship, in a secret pier, shining bright red lights, as if afraid the Hong Kong Marine Police wouldn't notice them. This was absolutely a genius design; an ordinary person certainly wouldn't have thought of it.

Huang Zihua originally really couldn't understand why the art director would arrange it this way.

However, he suddenly remembered who was sitting in front of the monitors now, and he suddenly felt relieved.

Zhang Yimou, wanting to break conventional logic and make the dark ground appear the color of fresh blood as a metaphor for the fate of this series and the policeman "Huang Ziren" played by him, Huang Zihua... then all the film critics in China, no matter how harsh they were originally, would probably understand and smile, turning a blind eye to the rationality of it.

Similarly, a film shot by Zhang Yimou is definitely much more grounded than TVB. Using thirty people to represent an army of three hundred thousand, one against ten thousand, assuming the audience's eyes are compound eyes—such things could not possibly appear in his films.

The fifty-plus vans transporting the game participants lined up in a long queue before the camera, stretching from the cargo ship deep into the darkness, looking quite spectacular. It was guaranteed to let Reed Hastings know exactly where his dollars were being burned.

Just like that, against the scarlet background, Huang Zihua slowly approached the last van and silently slid underneath it.

The vans drove onto the cargo ship rented from the Hong Kong branch of COSCO Group one after another. Until the last vehicle drove on, the stern ramp of the cargo ship slowly rose, and like a giant beast, it slowly left the pier and disappeared into the darkness.

The third episode of "Eagle Catches Chick" thus raised its curtain.

The cargo ship continued to sail on the ocean, the hold filled with vans.

Following the order of the triangle-masked leader, the doors of the vans opened in response.

Huang Zihua took the opportunity to scramble from under the van into the vehicle.

Luck was on his side; there was actually an empty seat in the carriage, so he stepped on a shadow on the floor and immediately sat down.

However, when the masked NPC began to check the identity of everyone in the car, he still couldn't get past it. Thus, a silent struggle between the policeman and the gangster in the darkness quickly unfolded.

Here, it was still a tangle of various lights and colors. Red clothes, black metal masks, yellow deck lights; regardless of whether the fighting moves were professional or not, the visuals were exceptionally good.

After quite a struggle, Huang Zihua finally knocked down the masked lackey and stripped off his clothes to wear them himself.

After the other vehicles finished checking the passengers' identities and the NPCs left the hold to go up to the deck, Huang Zihua, now wearing the masked man's clothes, opened the van door, preparing to throw the previous NPC into the sea to destroy the evidence.

But the man's body was stuck in the gap of the van seat, and he couldn't drag him out no matter how hard he tried.

Just as Huang Zihua was extremely anxious, a voice came from the floor inside the car, the very person he had stepped on earlier—

"Officer, need some help?"

"Little Madman, why do I feel like you're different from before?" Qin Pei looked him up and down.

"No, I'm not, old sir."

"You are," Qin Pei said affirmatively. "Something must have happened to you. Forget it, it's none of my business. I say, Little Madman, how about we form an alliance?"

Chen Nuo was stunned for a moment, "Huh?"

Qin Pei said irritably: "Huh what huh? Look at how many people are here, everyone wants to win, how can we survive without banding together? Look at that boss from Dongxing, he's taken in so many underlings, what will you do if they bully you later?"

The jib camera rose.

If Ann Hui was good at delicate emotions and the portrayal of a character's inner world, then Zhang Yimou's directorial style had always been grand and sweeping.

The camera pulled back, and what came into view was a vast, enclosed space with a sense of technology.

The bright light gave the entire space a pale, sickly color.

Layer upon layer of bunk beds were stacked all around.

More than 100 extras were in this studio, like chess pieces arranged in an orderly fashion, moving or standing still according to their predetermined positions.

Some lay on the beds, fast asleep. Some sat alone in corners, looking dazed and muttering to themselves. Others paced back and forth nervously, as if anxiously waiting for something. More people were in small groups, whispering, their expressions either miserable or excited.

The circle with the largest number of people gathered was undoubtedly the group centered around Wu Zhenyu; many people wanted to join this powerful team and lined up in a long queue in front of him.

Wu Zhenyu looked coldly at the people in front of him, nodding or shaking his head.

Beside him, Laughing Ge Xie Tianhua spoke for him:

"Get lost, old man. You're so old and you still want to play games? Are you in such a hurry to die?"

"You look like a ghost, why don't you go pee and look at yourself in the mirror? Ugly freak, get lost."

"You... Brother Kun says you can, go on over."

"Bitch, you still want to follow Brother Liang Kun? Get lost."

"Pretty girl, not bad, go on over. Thank Brother Kun properly tonight, you hear?"

The camera returned to this side.

Qin Pei said: "See that? They only want strong men and beautiful women. Someone like you, a weakling, they don't look at. Look, as long as you team up with me, when they bully you later, I can be your backer and stand up for you."

Chen Nuo turned his head and looked at Qin Pei with a complex expression.

Qin Pei immediately became angry from embarrassment: "What are you looking at me for? Do you look down on me? Come, come, come, do you want to have a fight with me?"

"It's not that, old sir." Chen Nuo blinked, his cheek twitching, "I'm just thinking, is reality really that cruel? In the end, so many people actually returned here."

He looked up at the display screen hanging on the wall, which showed: Number of participants: 187.

Qin Pei was stunned for a moment, then curled the corner of his mouth, revealing a half-smiling expression.

But it was fleeting, and he returned to his original rude self, saying: "What do you know? Hong Kong is just like this, many people live lives even more miserable than the eighteenth level of hell. Are you going to team up with me or not? If you don't, I'm going to find that pretty girl over there..."

After finishing, he shouted loudly: "Hey, pretty girl, come over here for a second. Yes, that's you, come here, I have something to ask you."

Subsequently, Gulinazha walked over from off-camera with a blank expression and said in Mandarin: "What is it?"

Qin Pei switched to Hong Kong-accented Mandarin: "Pretty girl, you're from the mainland, right?"

"Yes." Gulinazha nodded, looking Qin Pei up and down.

Then her eyes rolled, and she looked at Chen Nuo beside him, saying expressionlessly: "Scumbag, met you again."

When Chen Nuo was filming this scene, he broke character for the first time in a long while and laughed.

There was no helping it; Gulinazha's acting could only be described as "hard to explain."

This wasn't Nazha's fault; she had indeed only taken acting classes for a few days. To achieve true listening, true watching, and true feeling in such a short time was a pipe dream.

But the female lead in the original "Squid Game" was also just an amateur with a poker face.

And when replaced by the supporting actors in "Eagle Catches Chick,"

Acting skills and the like were even less important.

The plot developed to this point—

The male lead, an elderly man with a terminal illness who seemed to be hiding a secret, and a naive, sweet, and beautiful young lady formed a "trio" that was quite classic in dramatic structure.

The original "Squid Game" also had a multi-person group, consisting of the honest protagonist Seong Gi-hun, the mysterious and reticent North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok, the scheming old man No. 001, the high-IQ childhood friend of Seong Gi-hun, Cho Sang-woo, and an Indian fool.

The comparison between the two is very interesting.

The original group belonged to the classic "foolish male lead + high-combat-power supporting cast" structure found in many American, Japanese, and Korean dramas.

Just like Sasuke and Naruto, Ikki and Seiya, Emma Watson and Harry Potter, as well as Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in Twilight.

The protagonist is a foolish, weak, and emotional person, while the ones who truly drive the plot and are responsible for emotional balance and key reversals are the supporting characters around him.

Because of the influence of traditional Western classical drama, in the creations of many Western screenwriters, the protagonist is often set as an "empty cup," responsible for bearing the audience's emotional projection, while the true drivers of conflict and narrative momentum are hidden in the supporting characters.

However, in the Hong Kong version of "Eagle Catches Chick," the screenwriting trio of Yau Nai-hoi, Wai Ka-fai, and Pang Ho-cheung, for some obvious reasons, never intended to follow this path from the beginning.

Therefore, what was ultimately presented was a structure where the protagonist is extremely strong and the supporting characters serve the protagonist's growth.

The protagonist, Xie Jiajun, is actually a typical "cool" novel protagonist.

Although he is foolish and impulsive at the beginning, as the plot develops, his hidden intelligence, great initiative, and even extraordinary character are all manifested in him.

In the plot, this person transforms step by step from a "madman" into a "big boss," which is more like a Chinese-style "reversal and face-slapping" cool novel, following the path of "don't bully the young for being poor."

It even made Chen Nuo, who didn't like reading much and didn't have a high level of education, feel unable to stop when he read the script, finishing it in one go.

Under this setting, the protagonist's charm is naturally higher than all supporting characters. Just like Wei Xiaobao in "The Deer and the Cauldron," it is the result of Master Jin Yong writing books for a lifetime and finally, after the last one, having a sudden enlightenment and starting to write "cool" novels.

Precisely because of this, a powerful protagonist is the core and key to all plot points, so theoretically speaking, even if all the supporting characters of this season died, the next season could still be filmed, and the ratings would not be greatly affected.

And this, in fact, was the important reason why Netflix had to hold their nose and accept it.

"Luo Rui, I have some bad news for you. Ted Sarandos... that idiot is active in the company again, spreading rumors everywhere."

"Oh? What did he say?"

"He said our script is very thin, just like a children's book. The male lead is too detached from reality, like a protagonist in a fairy tale, sailing through everything without any depth. And the supporting cast are all fresh faces... He actually dared to say that we could only attract Chen's fans to watch it, that we couldn't attract adult audiences, and that it was impossible to succeed!"

"That idiot."

"Yes, he really is. I used to think he was handsome, but now I see his true colors. He’s just a petty person who only whispers behind people's backs. I feel like vomiting every time I see him now. Shit!"

"Does Reed know? What did he say?"

"Reed definitely knows, because that idiot Ted tells everyone he meets, but Reed hasn't said anything. Hmm, I think Reed should still trust you."

"..."

"Luo Rui."