Chapter 372: Preparation

As the most comprehensively developed idol among the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Xiangjiang, Liu Dehua's work schedule had long been full; he could definitely be considered a "model worker."

In February of this year, the film "Protégé," in which he starred, was released; the box office was relatively good, with nearly 65 million in the mainland.

Of course, although the director Derek Yee had great fame in Xiangjiang, the box office of this "Protégé" that the Heavenly King Liu collaborated on definitely couldn't compare to "House of Flying Daggers" collaborated with Zhang Yimou, nor could it compare to "A World Without Thieves" collaborated with Feng Xiaogang.

The latter two were both over 100 million at the box office.

At the end of March, "The Warlords," co-starring Liu Dehua with Li Lianjie and Jin Chengwu, wrapped up.

At the end of June, the Three Kingdoms... well, the Three Kingdoms adapted blockbuster "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" wrapped up.

On July 18th, he also released the Mandarin music album "Everyone Is No. 1," involving themes of love, environmental protection, and life attitude.

Moreover, starting from Jin Ling on September 13th and ending in Quan'an on November 2nd, he was to hold a total of 16 "Wonderful World" concerts in the mainland.

Did you think this was the end of this year's work?

How could it be.

He also had to immediately release a greatest hits album called "Everyone Is No. 1" in December; the songs were already mostly confirmed, just waiting for time to record them.

Although he was busy with concert rehearsals now, which would continue until November, this greatest hits album would definitely be released in December.

Did you think the work for this year was over?

Wrong!

Starting from December 21st, he would also hold 16 consecutive "Wonderful World" Xiangjiang New Year's Eve concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum!

16+16, uh, the Heavenly King Liu would hold a total of 32 concerts this year.

A large part of the Heavenly King Liu's achievements stemmed from his "model worker" attribute.

However, despite having a full schedule until the New Year, after Liu Dehua learned that Cao Yang wanted a Xiangjiang actor to be the male lead, he still inquired about the specific information without hesitation.

Even though he had already held the first concert in Jin Ling and was preparing for the next concert in Jingcheng.

He also wanted to participate in Cao Yang's film; he also wanted to gain recognition from world-recognized major awards; he also had the idea of breaking into Hollywood.

As for the schedule, as long as he could participate in Cao Yang's film, the concerts... could also be postponed for a reason; at worst, he would just pay some money.

Another one of the "Four Heavenly Kings," the Heavenly King Li Ming, also wanted to participate in Cao Dao's film, and the idea was extremely strong.

The pity was that he was currently filming the great poet Chen Kaige's "Forever Enthralled," and this film started shooting in July.

According to the plan, the film would at least have to be shot until the end of the year to wrap up.

However, after shooting for two months this time, the crew kept having problems, and the coordination kept adjusting the shooting plan; it seemed very difficult to finish shooting by the end of the year as planned.

Even so, Li Ming still found people to inquire about the news, wanting to know Cao Dao's shooting plan.

If the preparation time was longer and shooting happened at the end of the year, he would try his best to see if he could cooperate with Cao Dao no matter what.

As for what to do if "Forever Enthralled" couldn't be finished by then?

What else could he do?

Negotiate.

At the time of signing, a half-year schedule was given; if it was delayed, he would negotiate with the director, and concentrated shooting shouldn't be a big problem.

Of course, the premise was to know the shooting plan of Cao Dao's new film.

As for the common practice of "crisscrossing" films in Xiangjiang before, Li Ming didn't even think about it, even though he came from that period.

Wanting to "crisscross" films with directors of the level of Chen Kaige or Cao Yang... at least there were no actors with that much face yet.

If we talk about actors with schedules, meeting Cao Yang's requirements, only Guo Fucheng and Cheng Long were left.

Guo Fucheng's new film "C+ Detective" would be released in Xiangjiang and the mainland simultaneously in a few days, on September 25th.

He was currently busy promoting the film.

This "C+ Detective" was very interesting; with Bangkok's Chinatown as the background, it told the story of how private detective A-Tan investigated a confusing serial murder case.

That is to say, the film was Chinese detective + Chinatown + Thai elements; a bit familiar, right?

It was just that this was a thriller crime film, not a comedy.

Actually, saying he had a schedule, Guo Fucheng just didn't have any film plans for the second half of the year.

But he also had concert plans.

He planned to hold 11 "Guo Fucheng Dance Forest Legend World Tour Concert" Xiangjiang special sessions at the Hong Kong Coliseum in November.

In December, he would go to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, USA, to hold 2 tour concerts.

Of course, if he could participate in Cao Yang's film, the concerts in these two places would very likely be postponed.

Guo Fucheng also took the opportunity of promoting the film in the mainland to very actively find people to inquire about Cao Yang's film information.

If we talk about who really had a schedule, that was Cheng Long.

After "The Forbidden Kingdom," which he collaborated on with Li Lianjie, wrapped up at the beginning of the month, he had no film plans or concert plans for the second half of the year.

Because of this, Cheng Long was the most concerned about Cao Yang's upcoming film plans.

Although he didn't find out the specific information about the film from Han Zong, he also got a piece of news that could be considered relatively useful—Cao Dao was considering taking a large part of the scenes for this new film in Xiangjiang.

It was also based on this reason that Cheng Long, who planned to rest for a while after returning to Xiangjiang from shooting "The Forbidden Kingdom," took a Xiangjiang flight to Jingcheng again.

After arriving in Jingcheng, he called Cao Yang, and didn't say anything about wanting to act in Cao Yang's new film.

Instead, he said that "The Forbidden Kingdom" he shot wrapped up a few days ago, and he was currently in Jingcheng, and heard that Cao Dao's new film might be shot in Xiangjiang, and he had nothing to do for the next half year.

To thank him for attending the premiere of "Rush Hour 3" last time, he could do a series of things for Cao Dao's new film, such as what scenes, props, extras, professional personnel, etc., were needed.

He still had some face in Xiangjiang.

Why else would people say Cheng Long knew how to conduct himself? His emotional intelligence was still okay; otherwise, he wouldn't have reached his current status.

Subsequently, he chatted with Cao Yang about things in the film circle for a while.

At the end, he smiled and said in a very casual tone that he was old and couldn't fight anymore, and it was time to consider transforming.

He also said that he had worked hard for most of his life and had earned enough money, so he didn't have so many material requirements for the art film he was transforming into.

He also said in a joking tone that as long as he was given money, even one dollar would do.

After hanging up Cheng Long's phone, Cao Yang was thoughtful.

Cheng Long's words contained several meanings.

One was to indicate that he was in Jingcheng and could audition at any time, and it could also be seen as having a schedule for the second half of the year and could join the crew to film at any time.

The second meaning was that he was a "local snake" in Xiangjiang, and if the crew needed anything in Xiangjiang, he could help.

The last layer of meaning was that although he might be very expensive when shooting commercial films, for art films, well, especially Cao Dao's art films, he just needed to be given a symbolic amount.

Although he didn't talk about wanting to star in Cao Yang's film in the phone call, every sentence implied the thought of wanting to act in the film.

Cao Yang took out a piece of paper and wrote down the four names: Cheng Long, Liu Dehua, Li Ming, and Guo Fucheng; these were also the four people he felt were suitable.

Well, mainly because the impression these four people currently left on everyone was that they didn't have too much or too good acting skills.

Cao Yang had already asked people to check the schedules of several people, and he first crossed out Li Ming's name.

Actually, at the beginning, Cao Yang felt that Li Ming was the most suitable candidate—a "little fresh meat" who debuted with his looks, swept Asia with his looks, especially in Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Moreover, Li Ming's reputation was also very good; he had always shown himself as patriotic and had silently done a lot of good deeds.

In terms of acting, the feeling he always gave people was... no acting skills, even though he was the first among the "Four Heavenly Kings" to win the Golden Horse Best Actor.

However, the film he won the award for was a horror film, which few people watched, and winning Best Actor for a horror film always gave people a feeling of lacking persuasiveness.

Therefore, Li Ming was the most suitable candidate among these people. The helplessness was that Li Ming was currently filming Chen Kaige's "Forever Enthralled," which would most likely be shot until next year, while Cao Yang's new film might start shooting in October, and the schedule couldn't be adjusted.

Cao Yang combined the information he got, hesitated for a moment, and crossed out Liu Dehua's name again.

Liu Dehua's schedule was really too full.

With 32 concerts and releasing a greatest hits album, even if he could make appropriate adjustments for the film, how could there be no impact?

It was impossible for all concerts and album releases to be postponed, and it wasn't that easy to postpone them all.

Looking at the list on the paper, only Guo Fucheng and Cheng Long were left.

Guo Fucheng—the fixed impression he left on people might be his looks and dance, but as long as you had seen "After This Our Exile" he starred in last year and "Divergence" he starred in the year before, you would change your view of him.

"Divergence" was a breakthrough in his acting; through delicate expressions and body language, he showed the character's inner struggle and emotional fluctuations, making the character more three-dimensional and real.

Especially the collapsed mental state when he learned the truth about his girlfriend's death completely subverted the outside world's cognition of him.

If it was said that he retained some idol temperament during "Divergence," then in the film "After This Our Exile," he completely subverted his previous sunny and handsome image.

He dressed sloppily, acted rudely, and cursed at every turn, turning into the muddled unemployed vagrant A-Sheng; such an unkempt and "ugly" image completely subverted people's previous cognition of him.

The traceless performance also made the audience and the industry truly look at him with new eyes.

Cao Yang believed that he won the Golden Horse Best Actor for two consecutive years last year and the year before with these two films, which was actually more persuasive than Li Ming's Golden Horse Best Actor.

It was undeniable that Li Ming acted very well in that horror film "Three... Extremes," but it couldn't be separated from a good script and the decadent and bizarre lens rendering under the deployment of photographer Christopher Doyle.

A touching script, a infatuated and perverted character setting, plus a top photographer's special lens blessing—this was already half the success.

Therefore, a person who won the Golden Horse Best Actor in 2005, won the Golden Horse Best Actor again in 2006, was nominated for the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor in 2007, and would most likely be nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Horse for the third consecutive year this year.

Choosing such an actor, even if he was allowed to win the Berlin Best Actor in 2008, didn't seem to have much sense of achievement and persuasiveness.

Of course, it was like this for Cao Yang.

But for Guo Fucheng, if he won the Berlin Best Actor in 2008, the Xiangjiang media would dare to let him "be deified"—at least the achievement of the award plus his status, especially for Xiangjiang, was enough to "be deified."

Cao Yang drew a circle on the names of Guo Fucheng and Cheng Long, and considered who would be better to choose.

After defining the scope of the male lead, he began to consider other candidates in the film.

For the role of the male lead's ex-wife, Cao Yang initially wanted to invite Zhang Manyu, but later thought about it; Zhang Manyu had already publicly stated that she would retire from acting, and the most critical thing was that Tian Zhuangzhuang's "Pieta" had invited her before and was rejected.

Cao Yang had a very high degree of certainty that he could get Zhang Manyu to join, but this would be a bit of a slap in the face to Tian Zhuangzhuang.

After all, the relationship with Tian Zhuangzhuang was there, and he couldn't make Tian Zhuangzhuang embarrassed.

Don't look at how this role didn't have many scenes, but there were a few scenes that really needed explosive power, which tested acting skills; if played well, it was still possible to win Best Supporting Actress at other film festivals.

How about giving it to... Sister Hong?

Pui pui, Cao Yang hurriedly suppressed this thought that shouldn't exist.

But thinking carefully, Sister Hong was still very suitable; how about it?

For the role of the male lead's brother, Cao Yang didn't want to find someone with effort; he would just let Tian Zhuangzhuang come.

The role of "Sister-in-law," Sister Hong was also very suitable...

Forget it, don't rack his brains; just let Kara Wai from Xiangjiang come; her age was more suitable, she was also very obedient when cooperating with Tian Zhuangzhuang, and she also admired Tian Zhuangzhuang quite a bit; the look in her eyes when looking at Tian Zhuangzhuang revealed... cough.

The "nephew's" scenes were very numerous; he was one of the most important roles.

Cao Yang decided to choose one from the students of the Beijing Film Academy, and he called the director of the acting department to ask him to organize a list of students.

This list was actually very easy to check from the school's academic affairs office; with one phone call, the director of the academic affairs office would personally send the list to Cao Yang, and might even send it over personally.

However, calling the director of the acting department also contained another layer of meaning, that is, I am preparing to use students from the acting department of the Beijing Film Academy for my new film.

Sure enough, the director of the acting department understood Cao Yang's meaning, not only personally sent the list, but also attached each student's photos, academic performance, and college entrance examination information, etc.

Moreover, he also specially marked which students in each grade and each class had good talent and performance, and which students had acted in what films or TV series.

These tasks looked tedious, but they were actually just notifying the counselors and head teachers of each class, and they could be counted in a short time.

Cao Yang wanted this list not only to select the role of "nephew" from it, but also the "nephew's" two girlfriends, and he also planned to find them from the students.

In this list, Cao Yang saw many familiar names, and also unexpected names.

For example, in the 05 grade, he saw the name Chen Xiao.

Originally, he thought it was a name duplication; Cao Yang looked at his information—in 2005, the 18-year-old Chen Xiao applied for the Beijing Film Academy, the Central Academy of Drama, and the Nanjing University of the Arts at the same time, and was admitted to all of them.

Look at his photo again—that's right, it was Chen Xiao who later played Lin Pingzhi in "Swordsman" and Yang Guo in "The Return of the Condor Heroes."

Cao Yang remembered that he seemed to have graduated from the Central Academy of Drama.

It was just that this time, he chose the Beijing Film Academy.

Actually, with the current status and influence of the Beijing Film Academy, setting aside special factors, if one was admitted to both the Beijing Film Academy and the Central Academy of Drama, choosing which school was no longer a multiple-choice question.

This guy's photo looked quite young, and playing a high school student wasn't out of place at all; he could be called over to see his image.

Besides Chen Xiao, Cao Yang also circled four people from the 06 grade, including Zhu Yilong and Peng Guanying.

There were many choices for actresses.

Cao Yang casually circled a few: Yuan Shanshan, Zhang Xiaofei, and Yang Mi from the 05 grade, Gao Ye from the 06 grade, and Jing Tian and Kan Qingzi from the 07 grade.

And the role of the male lead's brother's good friend—that was the person who became the "nephew's" guardian after the male lead left.

Cao Yang changed it a bit and set this role as "cousin," which made it more reasonable for him to become the "nephew's" guardian.

For this role, the first person Cao Yang thought of was Wang Jinsong from the acting department; he had already been promoted to deputy director of the acting department and was also an old partner Cao Yang had cooperated with many times before.

And the role of his wife—Cao Yang thought of Sister Hong at the first moment... pui, why did he think of Sister Hong at the first moment for every role of a wife?

Cao Yang couldn't help but reflect, and finally concluded that the feng shui of the directing department was indeed not good.

And the role of the nephew's girlfriend's mother—the scenes were few; Cao Yang thought about it and just let Jiang Wenli make a cameo; she had mentioned many times that she wanted to make a cameo in a role.

However, Cao Yang felt that Jiang Wenli making a cameo was fake, and watching over the number one photographer in China, and one of the top ones in Hollywood, Old Gu, was the real thing.

Don't look at how Old Gu didn't become a director in this life, but his status in the film circle was higher than in his previous life; two Oscars for Best Cinematography weren't something to play with.

Plus, he was Cao Yang's exclusive team, followed Cao Yang to shoot films that won countless major awards; he had awards, box office, and his status was real and not false.

Cao Yang's film was still invested by the Youth Film Studio and China Film Group as usual, with a tentative budget of 30 million; such a "small" budget determined that it was impossible to give actors too high a salary, especially the male lead.

According to the convention, a series of Cao Yang's expenses were converted and he still took a share, and he got about one-third.

Of course, this 30 million budget was real money, and Cao Yang's "value" was not calculated in it.

The publicly announced budget was definitely not 30 million, but 50 million.

However, these were not the final budget, just an approximation; he had to wait until the male lead and the required exterior scenes were determined before calculating specifically.

In terms of staff, the photographer was still Gu Changwei, the two assistant directors were Liu Shan and Li Mingyi, the art director was Yee Chung-man, and the stylist was Huang Liqi.

Others were mostly staff Cao Yang had cooperated with before.

Liu Shan had already taken the location manager and other staff to look for exterior locations in Xiangjiang and England according to Cao Yang's requirements.

Now the staff was in place, and most of the actors were found, just missing the male lead and his "nephew," as well as the "nephew's" two girlfriends.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 373 =====