Chapter 541

In fact, if Zhou Yi's "Godfather" had not exploded in the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom last year, allowing the sister company Warner Bros. Pictures to seize the opportunity to slip into the secondary rental markets across Europe and America with DVDs, Zhou Yi's "Godfather" title might not have been very effective in Europe and America—

Then Jay Chou's "Double Blade" music micro-film would still have been praised by domestic media as a brilliant idea, described as a hero breaking into Hollywood.

After all, the whole Chinese Kung Fu set is still very popular in Europe and America today.

Jet Li and Li Lianjie carried the banner of the present world; Bruce Lee's Kung Fu fever sparked by movies still influences the Western world to this day—"Chinese Kung Fu" has become one of the stereotypical labels for Chinese people abroad.

But the trouble lies in the fact that Zhou Yi's jade was there first.

Chinese Kung Fu plus Hollywood actors plus Hollywood directors; although they were all on the edge of Hollywood, at least they were within that circle. Sony, one must admit, was indeed quite decent to Jay Chou—

The cinematographer Andrzej Sekula had filmed the movies "Reservoir Dogs" and "The Man with the Iron Fists"; the female lead was the black actress Leila Arcieri, who had starred in the movie "3X Anti-Terrorist Tribe". As for the two villains Noel Gugliemi and Danny Trejo, they had respectively starred in Hollywood movies such as "The God of Comedy" and "Spy Kids";

The director even specially found a Chinese-American director to facilitate communication.

But unfortunately, this music micro-film did not make a single splash in the United States; it could only be exported and then sold domestically, to be blown up within the country.

This gave quite a few news practitioners a fresh meal to eat—continuously using Zhou Yi's "Godfather" success in Europe and America to step on Jay Chou's "Double Blade", calling it a clumsy imitation.

Even Zhou Yi himself wanted to laugh when he saw it.

Putting aside the issue of the "Double Blade" micro-film's duration of ten or twenty minutes for now, even if Jiang Wen's directing level was poor, it was compared to the great directors of the age; the director of "Double Blade" colliding with him could only be wished good luck.

"Sony seems to have an unyielding thieving heart; after failing to push Wang Lihong, are they planning to push Jay Chou?"

Zhou Yi, rubbing his chin with his fingertips, put down the "Yomiuri Shimbun" he was holding, stood up, and stretched comfortably—"Is that mysterious Mr. Zhou the thing they cooked up?"

"Nothing has been found yet; it is not ruled out that Bunshun staged it themselves; they have done this many times before."

Qian Jiang shook his head.

Warner's foundation in Japan was still too shallow compared to the local giant Sony; given the turbulence and internal strife of the past, not being driven out of Japan in the last century owed a lot to the divas led by Akina Nakamori.

Don't know how it happened, but every Warner branch, whether film or record, no matter which country, always escaped internal strife and fell into decline—the strange cycle where a god-like figure must appear to save the company.

The Chinese branch was like this, Japan was too, and let alone the Europe and America block.

Internal strife was rampant and management was a mess; everyone knew that, but with good luck, one could always draw an SSR; whether management talent or singers and money trees in the film field, the main strategy was relying on god-draws to solve all demons and ghosts.

"However, since Sony is pushing Jay Chou so hard, it looks like Jay Chou's record contract should be fully signed with Sony starting this year, while Good Music would only be responsible for the management contract."

Qian Jiang sighed somewhat: "I estimate that when the contract on the Good Music side expires, Sony will sign a full contract with him."

Sony, having gathered the two aces Wang Lihong and Jay Chou, if not for Zhou Yi blocking the way, would probably have truly killed gods when gods blocked and killed Buddhas when Buddhas blocked in the Chinese record market.

Tao Zhe was a small company, not worth worrying about; he couldn't even cover the mainland market, and had to find Warner to help with overseas distribution.

Zhou Yi was noncommittal: "Who knows?"

Jay Chou's wings gradually hardened under Sony's protection, but once the wings were hard, he burned the bridge after crossing the river, so that the future anti-piracy press conference was set up by the angry Sony Records China executives at the time—that was the famous Wang Lihong and Jay Chou anti-piracy incident.

At the press conference scene at that time, Jay Chou came as invited, but the other Heavenly King Wang Lihong used the excuse of sudden illness and did not come, leaving Jay Chou alone standing in front of the cameras, awkwardly facing the media holding long guns and short cannons.

If you say Wang Lihong really didn't want to come, that wasn't realistic; after all, their relationship was very good before that.

One could only say that under the pressure of Sony executives, Wang Lihong, who was still fully signed to Sony at the time, ultimately chose to side with the company; from then on, the two became brothers in name only.

When Wang Lihong was ruined by the "short essay" incident, Jay Chou himself didn't even have time to confirm the truth of the matter and directly unfollowed Wang Lihong to cut ties; this was the first time Jay Chou had shown such impatience since his debut—

You have to know that even when the Canadian electric eel went in to step on the sewing machine, he didn't unfollow; you can see how far these two brothers in name had gone.

"Sony will definitely continue to bump into you; anyway, they are the chasers; losing doesn't matter."

Out of trust in Zhou Yi, Qian Jiang didn't take these two too much to heart, and instead turned to discuss two other matters with Zhou Yi—

"On September 13, Warner Bros. Pictures' first fully invested film in the country, 'Left Right Left Right', is about to start screening. Although this film has Jin Chengwu and Fan Bingbin, the film side still wants to invite you to the premiere to help with promotion; after all, your popularity is truly in a league of its own."

Speaking of Warner Bros. Pictures, Qian Jiang suggested: "They helped us with the channels of 'Godfather' before; I think we shouldn't refuse if we can avoid it; just spending a day there is enough."

As the敲门 brick for Warner Bros. Pictures to enter the domestic film market, this film was actually not aiming to make huge profits—winning awards, brushing up credentials, and gilding were the tokens of loyalty they submitted.

Essentially, this was an art romance film.

In Zhou Yi's memory, Warner's敲门 brick strategy was very successful. After this film, Warner Bros. Pictures, recognized and accepted by the domestic circle, began to accelerate its large-scale land-grabbing and cooperation to build cinemas in the country.

It meant that they invited Zhou Yi just to show the mainland—to tell the people of the mainland that they had a good sense of their own worth.

"No problem with this."

Zhou Yi nodded and agreed after pondering the time.

It wasn't for propping up the scene; he was mainly interested in the domestic cinema chains that Warner Bros. Pictures would leave behind in the future.

In 2002, after long preparation, Warner Bros. Pictures officially entered the Chinese market, first cooperating with Shanghai Film Group to establish the first Warner Bros. cinema chain in Shanghai.

From 2003 to 2005, relying on the敲门 brick to prove they indeed had investment intentions, Warner Bros. Pictures, riding the wind of the official pilot strategy, successively cooperated with domestic groups to build cinema chains in the two capitals, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Changsha, and other places.

But all this beauty lasted only until 2006.

Because the domestic film market at that time indeed had no large volume; Warner Bros. Pictures, which had been running around the country to grab land, suffered losses year after year, and the loss amount increased year by year. In comparison, the financial reports of Warner Bros. Pictures' overseas markets kept climbing.

Under the comparison of the two, the Chinese market cultivated for several years could not be said to be a burden, but at least it lowered the good appearance of Warner Bros. Pictures' financial reports; it was not good news for the stock market or investors.

Plus the change in official strategy, not surprisingly, Warner once again played its traditional skill—internal strife.

The result of this internal strife was that 16 senior executives, led by Yin Gang, President of Warner Bros. Pictures China, and Steve Gao, Global Vice President of Warner Bros. International Theatres, collectively resigned, equivalent to a complete bloodletting of the upper management—

This also meant that Warner gave up the Chinese market due to consecutive losses, and the cinema chain shares in the two capitals and seven provinces were cheaply given to domestic groups like Wanda and Jinyi who took over.

Such a piece of meat enjoyed without effort, Zhou Yi was not very willing to give up.

As long as there was money available at that time, those cinema chain shares would be equivalent to being picked up for free. Rather than letting others have the benefit, it was better to let him, a Warner insider, have it.

The money Guiyi had earned from investments over the years was so much that by 2006 it was time to spend some of it out. With the support of the internet cash cow, he had the patience to wait until the day the domestic film market matured.

By then, with the internet in his left hand and cinema chains in his right, in the domestic entertainment circle he would be a veritable local tycoon, the kind no one dared to provoke.

Even if he retired early, no one in the entertainment circle would dare to bare their teeth at him, let alone talk about people leaving and tea cooling.

The reason for not mentioning the music circle was that the future domestic music circle had actually been ruined. This thing really couldn't be deterred by him alone; physical piracy plus internet piracy, the two big sticks directly smashed the normal development of the future golden ten years, or even fifteen years, of the domestic music market—

100,000 copies could be the sales king in Taiwan; 500,000 copies could open champagne to death in the mainland; various awards claiming to be fair began to distribute fruits to singers, helping them gild and increase fame to accept commercial performances and endorsements.

Even Jay Chou had to add water to pass one million, forcing him to develop various side businesses and investments to increase income; this was the true picture of the future domestic music circle.

The most typical trend—99% or more of the Hua Yu entertainment novels written by Qidian under Yuewen were about actors and directors; singer novels could be counted on one hand, and pure singer novels were even rarer.

"There is another matter, which is the arrangement for Maaya Sakamoto bringing people as guests to your fan meeting."

Seeing that Zhou Yi wasn't opposed to helping promote the movie, Qian Jiang breathed a sigh of relief and cheerfully moved on to the second matter.

Since the tickets for this Zhou Yi fan meeting were given out for free, Warner naturally had to maximize their utility in one go — Mai Kuraki, a top singer under GIZA Studio, had just released an album in early July this year, which included a collaboration track with Warner's Sun Yanzi.

And this album had debuted at number one on the Oricon chart in its first week of release in Japan — it was undeniably a hit.

Under these circumstances, GIZA Studio and Warner saw eye to eye at once, planning to have Mai Kuraki appear as a surprise guest at Zhou Yi's fan meeting — partly to help promote her album, to boost sales, and along the way to give the newcomer some exposure.

In return, when Sun Yanzi, Zhou Yi, or other Warner China singers came to Japan for promotion in the future, GIZA Studio would likewise have to make the corresponding preparations.

The two companies had essentially reached a strategic cooperation, using Zhou Yi as a bridge to open up a channel for domestic singers to enter the Japanese market.

However…

"Mai Kuraki is bringing a newcomer?" Zhou Yi was somewhat surprised.

Qian Jiang nodded: "Yes, a girl-group newcomer band called Saegusa Yuka INdb, with the core being lead vocalist Saegusa Yuka."

"She debuted last June with her first solo single, and has already taken over from Mai Kuraki as the next singer of theme songs for Japan's super-national-level anime 'Detective Conan.' You could say GIZA Studio is quite optimistic about her."

"…"

Zhou Yi immediately raised an eyebrow, saying nothing.

Just moments ago he had been muttering about it, and now here it was?

Saegusa Yuka, born June 9, 1980, a songwriting prodigy under GIZA Studio, skilled at band-style performances. Because her looks were beautiful and sweet, resembling the famous singer Zard — who was under GIZA Studio's parent company — many regarded her as the Zard of Japan's new generation of female singers —

She was one of the rare looks-focused female singers among Japan's younger generation, and in the future she would become a regular singer of 'Detective Conan' theme songs, a popular singer whose peak-period singles regularly placed in Japan's Oricon top twenty, and who had even glimpsed the view from the top ten.

However, this lady, true to her band-playing roots, was indeed carefree —

After a brief period of glory, when her popularity faded in the future, she was unwilling to endure the drop in status within the industry. Combined with her contract with the company expiring, and having already made her money, she simply quit the scene and married an outsider, opening a beauty salon or nail salon to retire on, with fans occasionally dropping by to show their support and take photos together.

"But don't worry, Saegusa Yuka and her band members won't be performing songs. Isn't your English second album rock? Their band will just be backing you on stage."

Seeing Zhou Yi say nothing and assuming he was dissatisfied, Qian Jiang immediately added: "Only Mai Kuraki will come out and sing a duet with you."

After all, this was a fan meeting in Japan — having Zhou Yi sing only Chinese songs wasn't realistic. And once he sang English songs, rock definitely needed a professional band for live accompaniment to sound better.

"I have no objections. When do we start rehearsals?"

Zhou Yi didn't care.

"Up to you. If you're willing, they can all come over tomorrow to work with you, including Mai Kuraki."

…………………………

"Tomorrow?"

Tokyo, Ginza.

Having just finished an offline theater concert, Saegusa Yuka, upon receiving the notification from her manager, didn't even have time to drink water or wipe her sweat. A look of irrepressible delight immediately spread across her beautiful face: "Really? Zhou Yi Jun agreed? I get to meet him?"

For Saegusa Yuka — a former academic overachiever who had dropped out midway from Kinjo Gakuin University, the top women's university in Japan's Tokai region — Zhou Yi's existence was an inspiration to her —

If Zhou Yi, a law student, could cross over into music and succeed, why couldn't she?

The game isn't over — any of us could be the dark horse!

Not to mention, after Zhou Yi's English second album came out, her feelings toward Zhou Yi had directly evolved.

That series of songs saturated with rock flavor had struck straight at her heart — for a girl who loved playing in bands, it was simply a killing blow.

She even had the illusion that the songs on Zhou Yi's English second album were basically written according to band configuration, with the ratio between instruments and vocals often being quite perfect — instrument details that only rock bands would pay attention to.

She liked it very much.

So much so that when, the next day, she was led by her manager and formally met Zhou Yi following behind Mai Kuraki, despite holding back somewhat, her excited expression was still hard to conceal —

"Hello, Zhou Yi Jun, I'm Saegusa Yuka, or you can just call me U-ka."

Granted she was a year older than Zhou Yi, Saegusa Yuka's behavior in front of Zhou Yi was no different from those rock-circle fangirls outside, her gaze toward Zhou Yi exceptionally fervent.

This was the god of the world mainstream rock scene!

Even if he didn't admit it, and even if the European and American mainstream didn't admit it openly.

But undeniably, Zhou Yi's English second album 'Forever Young' had already placed him on the throne, and earned him countless rock-circle fangirls.