Chapter 123: Make another wave

In October, Hou Keming called and said that *Secret Sunshine* had been taken off the screen, with a box office of over 40 million, and asked Cao Yang if he had time to attend this year's Golden Rooster Awards.

The Golden Rooster Awards announced the nomination list in September. Cao Yang's *3-Iron* received six nominations: Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Editing.

Second only to Chen Kaige's *Together* with seven nominations.

A few days later, the Golden Rooster called the school, asking if Cao Yang would attend, and the implication was very clear.

It was still because of that rule: if you don't attend the scene, unless there are special circumstances, the Golden Rooster won't give you an award.

The school had been dragging this matter and hadn't given the Golden Rooster an answer. I don't know if they were trying to find a way to operate this matter.

Cao Yang clearly told Hou Keming that he really couldn't attend this year. If they don't give it, they don't give it.

Hou Keming just laughed and said: "If you don't have time, forget it. If you don't come, you don't come. You are currently at a critical stage of study. The school will issue a certificate, and you will write a statement and record a speech."

Cao Yang didn't understand for a moment how it was a critical stage of study.

Before he could figure it out, Hou Keming continued: "The school has delegated you to study in Hollywood. You must study seriously and work hard, and also bring back advanced experience. It's best if you can shoot a film to practice."

Cao Yang was silent for a moment, and some things became clear.

Being a director and shooting a film abroad doesn't count as a special circumstance, so if you don't attend the Golden Rooster, they definitely won't give you an award.

But being "publicly delegated" by the school to study abroad to learn Hollywood's advanced experience, and therefore unable to rush back to attend the Golden Rooster Awards, this can count as a special circumstance.

The school also took great pains to come up with such an excuse.

"Thank you, Dean Hou. As for the speech..."

"The speech for Best Director. Best Film still has Tian Zhuangzhuang, but don't hold too much hope. It's not necessarily going to be used. Just treat it with a normal heart."

Cao Yang understood. The Best Director award for the Golden Rooster was definitely in the bag.

Actually, everyone knew about this matter. At that time, Sony Pictures Classics' choice of director caused such a big stir, and no one was a fool, so how could they not know what Cao Yang was doing.

However, sometimes things are just like this: you know what's going on, but you still have to turn a blind eye and pretend to be ignorant.

If you don't give the Best Director or Best Film awards to a film that won the Golden Lion last year, how can the Golden Rooster convince the public?

The current Golden Rooster Awards haven't reached the point of breaking the jar, and they still need some face.

Those who know know it's because Cao Yang didn't attend, so they didn't give the award. What about those who don't know? What about a few years later?

After a few years, everyone looks at it: what's going on with this session? How come the Golden Lion film didn't even get Best Director? When did the Golden Rooster become so awesome?

The judges of this session wouldn't be scolded to death.

Cao Yang couldn't live up to the school's good intentions, so he recorded a video.

So, on the night of the Golden Rooster Awards ceremony on October 22, the Golden Lion-winning film *3-Iron* swept the three most important awards: Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress.

Actually, Liu Ye's performance in *3-Iron* was more prominent, after all, he had more scenes, but there was no way. These were already the three most important awards, and it was impossible to give Best Actor as well.

Since Yu Feihong won the Venice Best Actress with this, it wouldn't be right not to give Best Actress, so Liu Ye could only be wronged.

The most controversial was this year's Golden Horse Awards. The Golden Horse Awards were regarded as a "unification threat" of mainland films to Taiwan by the "Taiwan public opinion representatives" who controlled the source of funds, and even the budget of the Golden Horse Awards Executive Committee was frozen.

The direct consequence was that the field of vision of this Golden Horse Awards was artificially narrowed, leading to a great discount in authority. Mainland films, as a very important part of the Chinese-language film circle, were hard to find in the Golden Horse Awards nomination list.

Only Cao Yang's *3-Iron* remained. Because this film won the Golden Lion and had great influence, they could only pinch their noses and give a nomination for Best Film.

Cao Yang's other film, *Secret Sunshine*, also signed up for this Golden Horse Awards, but this film, which won Best Director and Cannes Best Actress at Cannes, didn't even get a nomination.

Instead, Chen Guo's *Hollywood Hong Kong*, a film that entered the Cannes main competition unit but failed to win an award, suddenly received fourteen nominations.

Cao Yang didn't know this news at first. When someone told him, he was also very angry. Damn it, it's fine if you fight internally, but now even politics is involved.

So, he specifically held a press conference to announce the withdrawal of the nominated *3-Iron*, and directly made a decision at the press conference: from now on, all his films will no longer participate in the Golden Horse Awards.

For a time, public opinion was in an uproar.

Cao Yang is no longer an ordinary director now. He is one of the three big directors in the mainland and a leader of the new generation. His words directly put the Golden Horse on the grill.

Subsequently, Chen Guo, the director of *Hollywood Hong Kong*, which received fourteen nominations, announced that he would not attend this year's Golden Horse.

And said: "I met Director Cao Yang at Cannes and attended the premiere of Director Cao Yang's *Secret Sunshine*. Such a brilliant film didn't get a nomination. What qualifications does my film have to get fourteen nominations? I am very disappointed with the Golden Horse..."

Then.

Berlin Best Actress Li Xiaoran announced that she would no longer participate in the selection of the Golden Horse Awards in the future, expressing her disappointment with the Golden Horse Awards.

Venice Best Actress Yu Feihong followed closely and announced that she would no longer participate in the selection of the Golden Horse Awards in the future, expressing her disappointment with the Golden Horse Awards. Cannes Best Actress Gao Yuanyuan also announced that she would no longer participate in the selection of the Golden Horse Awards in the future, expressing her disappointment with the Golden Horse Awards.

Hong Kong actor Ng Chi-wah held a press conference, announcing that he would not go to the Golden Horse in the future and felt deeply disappointed with the Golden Horse.

Subsequently, many Hong Kong filmmakers who received nominations announced that they would not go to this year's Golden Horse...

Unexpectedly, Pang Bing actually said in an interview that she supported Director Cao Yang's decision.

Although Dong Xuan's status wasn't big, she was also an actor in the Golden Lion film and participated in the shooting of *Secret Sunshine*, so she also stood out to support Cao Yang, which wasn't unexpected.

Afterward, Ding Jiali, Zhou Yiwei, Wang Luodan, Liu Kai-chi, Fu Dalong, Wen Zhengrong, Che Xiao...

All actors who had participated in Cao Yang's films announced that they would no longer go to the Golden Horse.

Even the Beijing Film Academy teacher Wang Jinsong very tactfully indicated that his main duty was still a teacher, and participating in films was a combination of teaching and practice, not to go to film festivals. So, like the Golden Horse film festival, he would never participate.

With his status, being able to say such words was already very remarkable.

It is said that more actors wanted to follow suit, but they were suppressed, saying that this had too much influence and was not conducive to the unity of the two sides of the strait...

!

This matter was bustling and made a big noise. A large number of winners were absent, and the award ceremony, which should have been brilliant, appeared eclipsed, so it ended hastily.

Afterward, Hou Keming specifically called Cao Yang. He didn't say any words of blame, but specifically explained the reason why the school didn't come forward to support Cao Yang. The nature of the school coming forward in this kind of matter would change.

And finally told Cao Yang that from now on, all films shot by the Youth Film Studio would no longer participate in the selection of the Golden Horse Awards, to show the school's attitude.

February 1, 2003, was the Spring Festival. Cao Yang rushed and rushed, but still didn't finish the post-production before the New Year.

He originally wanted to put down the things in his hands and go back to China for the New Year, but thinking that it was almost finished, he simply finished it before going back, so as not to toss back and forth.

He called his parents to explain the situation. His parents said it was fine, where is not the New Year, no need to specifically come back, and finally exhorted him to eat well, drink well, and pay more attention to his health...

Cao Yang let Old Gu and Cheng Jianye take the three people who came to the school for internship back to China. They couldn't help here either.

Sometimes people are so strange. When Old Gu and Cheng Jianye were still there, Cao Yang was busy doing post-production day by day, and he saw them very little, but he didn't feel lonely.

But now that people are gone, I don't know why, he suddenly felt lonely. Even if he often saw Bei Er Man, he couldn't eliminate this loneliness in his heart.

He could often receive calls from Li Xiaoran and the others, but the more they talked on the phone, the more lonely he felt in his heart.

Cao Yang couldn't figure out what the reason was.

The Berlin Film Festival started on February 6 this year, and he definitely couldn't catch up. He could only wait for Cannes in May.

Domestically, Zhang Yimou's *Hero* was released on a large scale in December. It has been almost two months now and hasn't been taken off the screen, but the box office potential is not much, it's just trying to grind to 250 million.

In this era, the box office of domestic directors reaching 250 million is a huge breakthrough. Before this, films with normal screenings could have 30 or 40 million, which was remarkable.

Zhang Yimou suddenly pulled this number up to 250 million. For this era, the huge influence is no less than dropping a "Little Boy" in the small days.

Although serious film critics were mostly scolding Zhang Yimou for shooting something inexplicable, their influence was negligible and had no impact on the upper level's estimation of market potential.

Interestingly, what Zhang Yimou was scolded for was not just the plot being nonsense, but also the picture of *Hero*.

Film critics said that the picture of this film was white for a while and red for a while, and then green and blue for a while, which made people dizzy. I don't know if Zhang Yimou was also old and dizzy, just doing some mysterious things.

But regardless of whether film critics like it or not, Zhang Yimou's *Hero* has opened the era of domestic commercial blockbusters, letting people see that domestic commercial films are also promising, and accelerated the flow of funds to the film market.

Until February 10, Cao Yang finally completed all the work of the film.

Fortunately, it is only February now, and he can still go back to China. Otherwise, after a while, when the epidemic is most serious, going back to China will be a troublesome thing.

Before going back to China, he specifically held a press conference.

This was arranged by Bei Er Man and Harvey Weinstein, just to promote the film and let people know that *Despicable Milk* had been produced.

At first, reporters definitely asked questions in this regard, but it was impossible for all of them to be these questions. A reporter asked out of habit at the end: "Director Cao Yang, may I ask if you have any follow-up plans after finishing this film?"

Cao Yang thought for a while and felt that this was an opportunity. He couldn't register five films, and when other directors didn't know, the ideas would collide.

He said it first, which could also make directors who had these ideas dispel the idea of wanting to shoot.

"Every film of mine, the script is written by me. I like writing scripts very much. All kinds of strange ideas will always appear in my mind. I will write these ideas down and then expand them into a script. When I feel I have the ability, I will launch the project."

"I have currently registered five scripts at the Copyright Office. These scripts are all my follow-up film plans."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 124 =====