Chapter 95: Filming

In Run Lola Run, there are several other characters similar to Zhang Jiahui’s investment car youth—such as the woman pushing a stroller, the driver, the female bank employee, the bank security guard, etc.—all of whom experience three different fates due to their encounters with Lola on the street. But the most important supporting character is naturally Lola’s father.

At this moment, they are filming the scene between Li Xiaoran and her father.

“Lola, what are you doing here?” Li Chengru asked, spreading his hands.

“Then what are you doing here?” Li Xiaoran gasped in reply.

She had just opened the door to her father’s office and caught him in the act of cheating on his female colleague.

Li Chengru’s face betrayed obvious embarrassment; he walked back and sat down behind his desk, forcing a calm expression: “Nothing!”

At that moment, Li Xiaoran walked toward Li Chengru.

“Cut!”

Wu Yuchen shouted it, then walked over to Li Xiaoran’s side himself:

“Expression, expression—there needs to be an emotional shift here! When you first walked in and realized your father was cheating, you were angry. But now, to beg him for money, you must suppress that anger. So during these few steps as you walk toward him, you must transition from anger, to suppression, to pleading.”

Li Xiaoran understood after hearing it, but when it came time to perform, it wasn’t so simple.

“Cut! Where’s the suppression? You jumped straight from anger to pleading—too unrealistic!”

“Cut! Too stiff—do it again!”

“Cut! Don’t be too subservient!”

“Cut! Your sweat’s already dried—go run another lap and come back!”

Wu Yuchen could easily have had a makeup artist apply fake sweat, but since he wanted Li Xiaoran to follow the method acting approach in this film, he insisted on authenticity—enhancing her immersion.

Most of the running scenes are now finished; they’ve moved into the heavy dialogue phase, so they needed to first refine her emotional state—once she found the right feeling, the rest would go smoother.

For just this simple walk, they had done countless retakes. To maintain sweat, Li Xiaoran didn’t even know how many times she’d run out—twenty or thirty.

This purely dialogue-based performance demanded even stricter precision than her running expressions; the entire crew waited with her, grinding through this one scene, increasing her psychological pressure. At one point, she felt she was getting worse and worse, her expressions numb, completely unaware of what she was even portraying.

After countless takes, she suddenly seemed to find the right feeling.

Sure enough, this time Wu Yuchen didn’t shout “Cut!”

“This one’s passable—keep it. One more!”

Li Xiaoran seized that feeling, did three more takes, then heard Wu Yuchen say: “Cut! Good!”

Hearing it, Li Xiaoran finally exhaled in relief—this scene had been far more exhausting than her previous running sequences.

This take had taken several hours, but Wu Yuchen only allowed the crew a brief rest before ordering them to continue. He saw that Li Xiaoran had finally found her rhythm and wanted to finish the scene while she was in the zone, helping her sink deeper into the role.

…

In the corridor, Li Chengru walked briskly, arm around Li Xiaoran, his expression cold.

Li Xiaoran, nestled in his arms, showed a troubled expression: “Dad… will you help me?”

Li Chengru gripped her shoulder tightly as he walked, speaking coldly:

“Of course I will. Right now, come with me to the entrance, then go home and lie down in bed.”

“Also, tell your mother I won’t be coming home today, not tomorrow, and never again!”

“Because I’m leaving you—I’m going to marry another woman. We’ll have children, live happily!”

…

“All you ever do is come to me for money—enjoy that, don’t you?”

“I’m sick of you. I don’t need to listen to your endless nagging!”

…

“I don’t want to be the fool everyone sees me as anymore!”

This was Li Chengru’s own monologue—over a minute long—with perfect expression and delivery; no surprise he was a veteran actor.

Li Xiaoran’s expression of sorrow here was the only moment in the entire film revealing her vulnerability.

At the entrance, Li Chengru cursed: “I wish I’d never given birth to you, you lunatic!”

Li Xiaoran, hurt, retorted: “Fine—you gave birth to a fool!”

Li Chengru erupted again, raising his voice: “No—you’re not a fool! I said you’re a lunatic!”

Li Xiaoran flinched at his shout, then stared blankly at him, eyes wide with disbelief.

Li Chengru shoved Li Xiaoran out into the hallway, exhaled, and stared at her:

“Now you finally know—the lunatic who gave birth to you probably didn’t even know you were born!”

Li Xiaoran instantly broke into tears, frozen in place—she hadn’t expected she wasn’t her father’s biological daughter!

Then, under Li Chengru’s orders, she allowed the security guards to lead her away.

“Cut! Excellent. That’s a wrap for today. Good work, everyone!”

Today, they finally finished shooting the first version of Lola’s first meeting with her father—and more importantly, Li Xiaoran’s performance kept improving; the rest of the shoot should now go smoother.

The next day, filming continued, but now they were shooting Lola’s second visit to her father. Because of the first version’s impact, Lola now knew the truth about her relationship with her father—she arrived already wounded, having just witnessed him with his lover.

Li Chengru asked: “What are you doing here?”

“I need your help.”

Li Chengru snapped: “Do you know how busy I am right now?”

“But I have no other choice.”

“Go to hell! Why now? I’ve got my own problems, understand?”

Li Chengru was now furious—his daughter’s sudden entrance had exposed his affair to his colleague.

Lola stared at her father’s lover, then couldn’t help sobbing: “Who is this whore?”

“None of your business!” Li Chengru roared.

Then came another exchange where Lola begged her father for money.

Li Chengru pulled out his wallet and walked over:

“Fine. Take the money and get out. How much? Five hundred or a thousand?”

“No—I need a lot.”

“How much is ‘a lot’?”

“Five hundred thousand.”

In the original, it was 100,000 marks; Wu Yuchen changed it here to 500,000 Hong Kong dollars.

After Li Xiaoran said “five hundred thousand,” Li Chengru stared at his daughter in shock. His lover couldn’t help speaking first:

“Do you have no shame? You barge in without knocking, interrupt our work, and now you…”

“Mind your own fucking business—I don’t even know who you are, you fox!” Li Xiaoran cut her off with a curse.

But her outburst ignited Li Chengru’s rage—he slapped Li Xiaoran across the face.

Throughout the entire portrayal of this father character, he never once smiled at Lola, never spoke to her gently—clearly reflecting his daily attitude toward her.

Combined with Lola’s non-biological status, the audience now understood why she was so love-struck—she grew up in an environment starved of affection, so she’d do anything for a man who showed her love.

Thus, after being slapped, Li Xiaoran was instantly filled with rage—she turned, stepped outside, drew a gun from a guard’s belt, and took her father hostage to rob the bank.

This second version took several days to shoot, because it added the bank robbery sequence. This scene also required police cooperation, and the film crew had to apply for weeks to get approval from the Silver Capital authorities.

Once the police arrived, they quickly filmed the bank robbery scene—and also shot the ending of the first version, where Lola is shot dead by a police officer’s accidental discharge.

Besides police cooperation, another challenge was filming the casino gambling scene. At first, all the casinos refused—after all, this was just a small mainland crew with no big stars like Chow Yun-fat or the Four Heavenly Kings—why should they let them film?

In the end, Wu Yuchen contacted Xu Anhua, whom he’d met at a film festival.

And Xu was pragmatic—knowing Macau would return to China in a few years, it made sense to do a favor for Silver Capital, the state-owned enterprise representing the mainland—so he granted Wu Yuchen six hours in one casino hall.

“Action!”

Fu Dalong hung up the phone, having failed to borrow money from everyone; he stepped out of the phone booth, rubbing his head in despair, staring at the sky.

Just as he felt hopeless, a bicycle passed by. He caught a glimpse in his peripheral vision, turned sharply—and saw it was the beggar who’d taken his money: Ni Dahong.

Ni Dahong, riding the bicycle he’d bought from the bike thief, was strolling leisurely—until a voice behind him startled him.

“Stop!” Fu Dalong bellowed.

Ni Dahong turned and saw Fu Dalong—panic flashed across his face; he immediately sped up to escape.

One chased, one fled—Fu Dalong blocked him on a deserted road. Ni Dahong raised his hands, frozen—Fu Dalong was pointing a gun at him.

Both stood panting. Fu Dalong pointed the gun at the bag of money in the bicycle basket: “That’s my money!”

Ni Dahong nodded, then stared helplessly as Fu Dalong took the money.

As Fu Dalong turned to leave, Ni Dahong called out: “What am I supposed to do now?”

Fu Dalong turned back, puzzled. Ni Dahong, still panting, said: “Can you give me the gun?”

Fu Dalong stared at Ni Dahong for several seconds, then slowly backed away, reached the corner, dropped the gun, and ran off.

Ni Dahong walked slowly over, picked up the gun, glanced across the street at the bank—and a cold look crossed his face.

“Cut! Excellent! Ni, you were brilliant. Your scenes are done—go change out of these dirty clothes and get a shower!”

Wu Yuchen watched the playback, satisfied. This scene depicted the butterfly effect of the third version of Lola.

“Director, if you’re happy, that’s enough—I’ll do another take if needed.”

Ni Dahong was truly professional—he didn’t just wear dirty clothes; he rolled on the ground, smeared dirt on his face—so Wu Yuchen hurried him off to wash up.

…

The final scene was shot inside an ambulance.

In the first two versions, Li Xiaoran had merely passed the ambulance; now, she opened the back door and climbed inside.

Inside the ambulance lay the bank entrance security guard—badly injured, pale-faced.

He was here because Ni Dahong’s beggar, after losing the money Fu Dalong reclaimed, couldn’t bear the loss—he took the gun and robbed the bank!

The security guard was played by a familiar face: Lo Ka-ying, who portrayed Tang Sanzang in A Chinese Odyssey. Lo’s fee wasn’t high—he was primarily a Cantonese opera performer who only took on acting roles in the 90s to support his family.

The nurse kept pressing on Luo Jiaying’s chest, and when she saw Li Xiaoran arrive, she immediately asked, “What are you doing here?”

Lying there, Luo Jiaying stared fixedly at Li Xiaoran, ignoring his severe injuries, trembling as he slowly reached out his hand toward her.

Li Xiaoran met his gaze, then knelt beside him, clasping his hand in both of hers, and said softly, “I’ll stay with him always.”

It was already obvious here: Luo La had realized this security guard was her biological father.

Every time before at the bank, the guard would joke affectionately with Luo La, calling her “Little Princess” or “Dear Luo La,” and whenever Luo La called out “Dad,” it was always the guard who appeared—these had all been setup and hints.

The nurse had been pressing hard on Luo Jiaying’s chest, but when she saw the monitor’s pulse suddenly return to normal, her face lit up with shock and joy; she stared at their clasped hands and murmured, “He’s saved.”

Hearing this, Li Xiaoran’s lips curved into a smile.

“Cut! End of shooting!”

After watching the final take, Wu Yuchen felt there was nothing wrong and shouted out; the crew immediately erupted in cheers.

At that moment, Li Xiaoran felt dazed. She had filmed for seven weeks—starting out having to deliberately act, but at some point she no longer remembered she was acting; she had come to believe she truly was Luo La. Now, hearing Wu Yuchen shout “End of shooting,” it all felt unreal.

Wu Yuchen first smiled at Luo Jiaying, who lay on the ambulance, and said, “Master Luo, the crew is having a wrap party tonight—you must come!”

“Hao ah! Hao ah!” Luo Jiaying replied weakly in Hong Kong Mandarin.

Wu Yuchen noticed Li Xiaoran standing there dazed, walked over, and hugged her; he knew this state was the aftereffect of method acting—she was struggling to distinguish role from reality.

Holding her, he whispered in her ear, “Sister Ran, it’s over. You were amazing.”

Li Xiaoran only nodded at Wu Yuchen’s words, then unconsciously tightened her hold on him.

Wu Yuchen stroked her red hair—he would first take her to dye it back. From now on, he’d avoid mentioning Luo La as much as possible, deliberately emphasizing her identity as Li Xiaoran when he was with her, to help her return to herself.

I have a cold, and my writing feels a bit foggy.