Chapter 329: I Don't Agree to Your Marriage!

The shooting location of the original *Departures* was a small city in Japan. But the situation in Japan and China was different; Japan was a developed country after all, and even some small cities had already completed upgrades. The third-tier small cities in China nowadays were still relatively backward, and many plots would be very incongruous if placed in small cities.

Therefore, Wu Yuchen changed the location to Shanghai. Shanghai was the city that had the most integration with the West in the country, and the male lead's style of integrating Chinese and Western elements was most reasonable to set in Shanghai; setting the residence in the suburbs was fine.

Simply put, after being laid off by a certain orchestra in Shanghai, the male lead was forced to move from the house he rented in the city center back to his suburban residence, and for a living, he found a new job at a certain mortuary company.

Additionally, one point: the film *Departures* was definitely going to spread to the whole world, and Wu Yuchen also wanted to shoot China as well as possible. If he really went to third or fourth-tier small cities to shoot various backward scenes, then the artistic conception of this film would be gone.

Even the original *Departures* shot various beautiful scenery, making people feel that the small places in Japan were also very beautiful, the environment was also very good, and people's various clothing, although not luxurious, were all very decent, leaving a good impression on people.

Therefore, Wu Yuchen's shooting was definitely also following a slightly beautified tone; not only did the scenery have to be shot well, but the people also had to be shot well, to promote the national culture and improve the image, right!

Moreover, this style of dressing and being decent also conformed to the characteristics of Shanghai people, making domestic audiences not feel incongruous when watching it.

And then there were the actors; besides the male and female leads, several supporting roles were also very important.

Since it was set to be shot in Shanghai, Wu Yuchen simply prioritized selecting actors from Shanghai.

First, the male lead's boss and mentor, who was the guide who led the male lead into this line of work by accident, and taught the male lead Lin Wu the various tasks of a mortician hand-in-hand.

The boss was steady and mature, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, sometimes silent, and sometimes telling the male lead many life philosophies; he was an old man who had experienced the vicissitudes of life, with a set age of about 60-70.

Therefore, Wu Yuchen directly invited the veteran You Benchang. You Benchang's acting skills didn't need to be doubted; when he played the game-playing-with-the-world Ji Gong before, he would reveal many truths to the audience; this time, let him be a life mentor again!

Then there was the male lead's colleague, a middle-aged woman of forty or fifty, who was the male lead's object of pouring out his heart in the film, and also gave advice to the male lead when he was troubled.

Wu Yuchen invited He Saifei for this role. He Saifei's acting career had also been very smooth in these few years; she acted as the female lead in *Passion Burning Years* and became popular, so she didn't lack plays to act in at all.

This time, letting He Saifei act as this gentle and enthusiastic, yet careful, usually loving to laugh, and at critical moments, a role similar to a confidante big sister to the male lead Lin Wu, was very good.

And there was the landlady who independently operated a bathhouse. In the film, she could be considered to have watched the male lead grow up, and later suddenly passed away, and the protagonist completed the mortician work for her. This role couldn't be too old, and she had to look capable, after all, she could still operate a bathhouse by herself; 60-something was just right.

Wu Yuchen invited the veteran Xiang Mei from the Shanghai Film Studio, who had acted in *Woman Basketball Player No. 5* and *Red Detachment of Women*; the role that made young audiences familiar was the Queen of Wuji Kingdom she played in the 86 version of *Journey to the West*.

The last one was the old man who often went to the bathhouse to play chess, an old man who usually looked a bit humorous, but in the end, after the landlady passed away, was also very sad and said a passage of life philosophy. There was one in the Shanghai Film Studio who was just right: veteran Niu Ben.

These could be called all veteran actors, and they all had full life experience; Wu Yuchen didn't worry about their acting skills at all.

Several veteran actors were also very happy after receiving Wu Yuchen's invitation. When Wu Yuchen shot *Love* before, he invited Wang Danfeng from their studio, and then won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, which made them all envious. This time, being able to receive Wu Yuchen's invitation, and for such a good script as *Departures*, they naturally all agreed in one breath.

As for some other small roles, Wu Yuchen didn't need to worry; they could be completely handed over to the people below. He was now inspecting the scene of some prepared sets, then putting forward some modification opinions, and on the other hand, he was also looking at the scenes selected by the crew one by one, picking out the ones that best met his requirements.

Just when Wu Yuchen was doing the final preparation work for the shooting of *Departures*, the Athens Olympic Games also came to an end.

This Athens Olympic Games produced China's greatest hero, Liu Xiang, whose result of tying the world record and being the first yellow-skinned Olympic champion in short-distance running made the whole country proud.

But at the same time, there were people who were criticized from all sides after this Athens Olympic Games. It wasn't anyone else, but Zhang Yimou.

"The performance content is outdated, the performance form is old-fashioned!"

"A hodgepodge of copying and pasting!"

"What is this thing Zhang Yimou shot? Is this going to lose face for China?"

"Not a bit of Chinese culture and Chinese spirit was displayed!"

"Too rustic! Neither fish nor fowl! Neither Chinese nor Western!"

These evaluations were all aimed at the Beijing 8 Minutes at the closing ceremony of the Athens Olympic Games, now also called the "Black 8 Minutes" by domestic media!

Its first program was 14 young and beautiful girls performing the famous Chinese song *Jasmine Flower*. The point of being sprayed was their clothing that made many Chinese audiences extremely uncomfortable: red-and-green big floral-padded jacket style ultra-short cheongsam, the skirt was so short that it reached the buttocks, simply shocking the jaws of many countrymen.

Using the evaluation of a certain newspaper, calling it vulgar was not an exaggeration; such attire would be scolded even if it were put on a program for a new store opening in a third-tier city! It was even harder to imagine it came from Zhang Yimou's hand!

Among these 14 girls was Tang Yan, but she never took the initiative to mention or market the identity and experience of "Olympic Baby" in her future star career, which showed how loud this wave of criticism was, leaving no small shadow in her heart.

After that, there were also Peking Opera, Tai Chi, etc., performed by a group of children, but the audience felt that the whole performance was chaotic, just like watching a temple fair. Behind it was a lantern performance on stilts, expressing the meaning of welcoming guests, but it was complained that their attire was too gloomy and weird, looking like it was for a funeral, with a coffin atmosphere rushing toward them...

In short, there wasn't a single program in this "Black Eight Minutes" that could satisfy the audience; every second had problems.

This criticism hit Zhang Yimou quite hard; he had carefully prepared for more than 4 months with people. After shooting *House of Flying Daggers* and returning to the country, he didn't stay at home for long before he went directly to busy himself with this matter.

Fortunately, now that he had returned home, he had his wife and children to accompany him. He held his little son, who had been born for half a year but hadn't seen him many times, feeling quite gratified in his heart.

Back then, before his father passed away, he exhorted him to have more children, more children and more blessings, so that the family could be prosperous. Now with two sons, he felt that his old father would also smile if he saw it from the underworld. However, two weren't enough; he still wanted to have one more.

But Chen Ting finally put forward a request to him at this time...

"What? Marriage?"

Zhang Weiping's eyes widened upon hearing this, and he directly waved his hand:

"No, I don't agree! You absolutely cannot marry this woman!"

Zhang Yimou raised his head to look at Zhang Weiping, not expecting his reaction to be so intense, and then explained: "Chen Ting has been with me, and it hasn't been easy."

Zhang Weiping thought of what his wife had told him: Chen Ting, this woman, wasn't so easy to fool, had her own ideas, and always kept an eye on his wife; this kind of woman absolutely couldn't be allowed to marry Zhang Yimou; the unstable factors brought about were too great!

Zhang Weiping pressed Zhang Yimou's shoulder: "Mouzi! Look at you now; just because of this Olympic matter, you are being scolded severely by the whole country, and your reputation has fallen by a large margin. At this time, you want to get married? Then what if news leaks from the civil affairs side, and then they follow the vine to expose the matter of you having children? What do you think everyone will think?"

Everyone will think you didn't take the Olympic 8 Minutes seriously at all! You were just fooling around, only caring about getting married and having children and being happy! Then your reputation and image will be completely ruined!"

Zhang Yimou was stunned by Zhang Weiping's words, and hesitation and struggle appeared in his eyes; he really hadn't thought about these problems before.

Seeing this, Zhang Weiping continued to say to him: "Mouzi, think again, what does Chen Ting's move mean now? She is using the child to threaten you! If you agree to her this time, then what about next time? She will definitely push for more!"

Zhang Yimou immediately retorted: "She is not that kind of person..."

Seeing Zhang Yimou defending Chen Ting so much, Zhang Weiping became even more determined to obstruct the two from getting married; otherwise, wouldn't the pillow talk be even more powerful after they got married?

Zhang Weiping directly released a big move: "You want to get married now? Are you worthy of Gong Li? Have you forgotten how Gong Li begged you back then? And your daughter Momo, we have been hiding it from her until now! She still wants you to remarry her mother; how would she feel if she knew you were getting married?"

Zhang Yimou stood there dumbfounded; whether it was Gong Li or the eldest daughter he had with his ex-wife, they were all women he considered himself sorry for; it directly poked his heart, making him wither completely.

Zhang Yimou was silent for a long time and didn't mention marriage anymore, opening his mouth to ask Zhang Weiping: "How did you talk with Ken Takakura?"

Zhang Yimou's words were shifting the topic to the new film *Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles*. In fact, he had wanted to shoot this film two years ago; after shooting *Hero*, he actually wanted to shoot *Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles*, but was persuaded by Zhang Weiping.

Ken Takakura was an idol Zhang Yimou had worshipped since he was young; he really wanted to cooperate with him once; he also designated that he wanted to invite Ken Takakura for the male lead this time and specifically wrote him a letter.

But Zhang Weiping looked at Zhang Yimou and said: "Mouzi, it didn't work out. His salary demand is too high."

"Impossible, right? He told me he only wanted 400,000 US dollars!" Zhang Yimou questioned.

If it were before, Zhang Weiping would still support Zhang Yimou. But looking at Zhang Yimou like this, and then thinking about Zhang Yimou wanting to get married, these various practices all vaguely showed signs of wanting to break away from his control, and he became even more determined not to follow Zhang Yimou's ideas.

Zhang Weiping simply said directly: "Mouzi, I'll tell you the truth; we can't shoot *Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles*."

"What?! Why?" Zhang Yimou was even more strange.

Zhang Weiping spread his hands: "No money!"

Hearing this, Zhang Yimou was anxious:

"No money? No, didn't our *House of Flying Daggers* overseas copyright sell for 200 million? And there's also box office of over 100 million; how can there be no money?"

Zhang Weiping shook his head and said:

"Where did it sell for 200 million? I did all that just to establish your image, blowing to the media that it sold so much; otherwise, you are so far behind Wu Yuchen, and even Ang Lee can't compare to you; then where would your face go?"

This wasn't over; he continued to output to Zhang Yimou: "Also, just for promotion fees, we spent 30 million; think about the film's investment, 280 million; where did we get so much back?

This time the income from *House of Flying Daggers* is much lower than *Hero*; in fact, our investment even lost money! I still have to spend money to solve the over-birth matter for you; you say where can the company have so much spare money now!"

This made Zhang Yimou open his mouth and become speechless again.

Subsequently, Zhang Weiping said to Zhang Yimou: "Mouzi, I think *Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles* should be forgotten for now; didn't you say before you had the idea of shooting an ancient version of *Lei Yu*? Why don't we try this?"

Zhang Yimou said in a muffled voice: "Still shooting ancient costume? Isn't this even more expensive?"

Zhang Weiping clapped his hands: "This time we can raise funds; you shoot ancient costume, and people will be willing to invest; you shoot *Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles*, and who is willing to lose money to invest in you?"

Zhang Weiping watched Zhang Yimou's departing back and couldn't help but sneer; he had to grind this guy well so he could be obedient!

After Zhang Yimou went back, he was a bit irritable, not because Zhang Weiping stopped him from getting married, but because he always felt his creative tendency was being interfered with. However, he had always been a muffled gourd, and what Zhang Weiping said this time was also for his own good; these things had always been handled by the other party.

Moreover, speaking of the ancient version of *Lei Yu* project, he thought of Gong Li. The Gong Li mentioned in Zhang Weiping's words today made him feel quite guilty in his heart.

Back then, Gong Li wanted to marry him, but his concerns were too many, and he was always unwilling to agree to the other party, eventually leading to the two breaking up.

He already had Chen Ting now and couldn't be with Gong Li anymore, but he still remembered that back then on the Great Wall, he promised the other party that he would let her act as an empress once.

Therefore, when Zhang Weiping mentioned the ancient version of *Lei Yu* project, Zhang Yimou didn't object; if Gong Li was willing to act, he would go and prepare for this project now.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yimou took out his phone and found Gong Li's number; he hesitated for a moment, but finally dialed it. ===== CHAPTER 330 =====