Chapter 184: The Powerpuff Girls

September 12, 2003, evening, Changping, Liu Liu Yifei's residence.

"Bang bang bang!"

Liu Liu Yifei changed into sportswear and was hitting a sandbag in the dance room.

At first, it was rhythmic, but she became more and more frantic, more and more angry, and finally even used wrestling.

"What's wrong with this?"

Liu Liu Xiaoli sent water to her daughter, watching her lie down in frustration, her ponytail scattered on the floor, and dense sweat beads oozing from the tip of her nose.

Looking at the sandbag again, there was an A4 paper with the two big characters "Seeing Lu Kuan" written on it.

Liu Liu Xiaoli speechless crumpled the paper and prepared to take it away.

"Mom, I'm so useless!"

The little girl hammered her feet and chest miserably.

Liu Liu Xiaoli had already heard her describe the process of today, but what could she do except comfort her?

"Sister Xixi, didn't you perform quite well in the *Kung Fu Hustle* audition? Although the process was average, Stephen Chow recognized you very much!"

"Take out that spirit! Prove it to him!"

Liu Liu Yifei wanted to bite her back molars fiercely when she heard this name now. It's too hateful!

This is just venting, she knows it's her own poor performance, but this low-level mistake is really unjust!

The reason is that her mentality was not right, and she had been away from the crew for too long, and she hadn't found the feeling of going on stage for a while.

Liu Liu Xiaoli suddenly wondered: "Sister Xixi, could it be that you refused to sign Wenjie, and he deliberately targeted you?"

"No, didn't you see that in *Drummer*, he scolds everyone? Even if I signed Wenjie, he would still be this stinky virtue!"

Liu Liu Yifei cheered up and flipped over.

"Although the lines didn't perform well today, I still took advantage of English. I also have experience in action scenes and wire scenes tomorrow. I must cheer up!"

At the same time, a villa in Huabin Golf, Beijing.

"When did you buy a house here again? It's so far."

A-Fei picked up Fan Bingbing, and the latter was curious to visit the villa.

This is a high-end golf supporting villa in Changping, not a publicly sold property, and generally private transactions, with extremely strong privacy.

"A cunning rabbit has three burrows, specifically used to hide beauties like you."

Fan Fan Bingbing smiled charmingly and squeezed into the man's arms with a red wine glass.

"Is that so? Then give me a key."

She looked at him provocatively again: "What's wrong? Don't dare?"

"Are you afraid that I will rely on you like that Barbie Hsu and slander you?"

Then she sighed leisurely: "Seeing Lu Kuan, you men are really cruel."

Fan Fan Bingbing used her fingernails to draw circles on his chest.

Boss Lu didn't answer. At this time, saying anything is redundant. He had already used Xu and Dong to establish his prestige, and the bed partners who came later should be vigilant.

Don't have any unrealistic thoughts.

Fan Fan Bingbing was a little moved, sipped red wine, and leaned over with her red lips pouting.

"I listened to your suggestion, look at my makeup today?"

Boss Lu savored the fragrance on his lips and teeth, and looked over through the dim yellow light.

I saw her phoenix eyes containing spring, long eyebrows entering the temples, obviously listening to his suggestions.

"Not bad, the star eyes are flowing, the peach cheeks are dizzy, looking at you is like eating ten small pills."

The "drug effect" came as soon as it was said, and a touch came from the bottom of the beauty's body.

Fan Fan Bingbing suddenly groaned and patted Seeing Lu Kuan's arm like a spoiled child.

"You're going to die! Go wash up first!"

Boss Lu patted the chair under him: "See this dragon and phoenix chair? A good thing bought for more than 200,000. Today, I'll take you to open the light for it!"

Fan Fan Bingbing laughed: "Dragon chair? Then I have to change into a role-playing one?"

Boss Lu had been plain for a long time recently, and when his interest came, he didn't care about those.

Thunder and fire hooked up, and it got out of control.

In the quiet villa manor, only the creaking sound of the 200,000-year-old object remained, which sounded a bit tooth-aching.

Rested late at night.

"Fan Bingbing, this chair has to depreciate by at least 100,000 because of you."

"What do you mean?"

"Insurance companies may not even guarantee water-flooded cars, look at this chair."

Fan Fan Bingbing's eyes touched the puddle of water, no matter how bold she was, she couldn't help but be angry, covering his mouth.

"Don't say it! It's all your fault!"

"It's okay not to give money, you often come over to help me plate it!"

Fan Fan Bingbing hammered him hard on the chest: "Get out!"

Seeing Lu Kuan smiled: "So excited today? More sensitive than that time in the car in Cannes?"

Power is a woman's aphrodisiac. With the *Alien Realm* project, Fan Fan Bingbing is even more devoted to him and no longer thinks about anything else.

Not to mention the previous car of Barbie Hsu, she didn't doubt at all that if she had any small thoughts, she would immediately be ruthlessly concocted by him.

Can these small thoughts and small actions be hidden from him?

She asked herself that she didn't have this confidence. Even if Seeing Lu Kuan didn't have the title of Little Immortal, the ability to peel a cocoon from the grass and snake gray line was amazing.

Rest assured, hang on him and be a koala, just like now, how safe.

Thinking about it, it seemed that there were some faint itches in her body again, like the barbs on a kitten's tongue licking her hand, crisp and numb.

"What's wrong?"

"I want to talk to you about business, what do you think of my lines today?"

"Qualified level, not very good."

"Then you can't... can't teach me like you taught Liu Liu Yifei?" 【18

Boss Lu glanced at her with amusement. What kind of jealousy was this? I've already taught you everything I know.

"She is still at a critical stage of practicing her basic skills and is still very malleable, but you have already set in your ways. At most, you can find a professional teacher to improve your technique."

"Just like human development, your bone age has already closed, while she still has the potential to grow. If she lays a good foundation now, she will be able to grow into various roles later."

"A sapling won't grow straight without pruning, understand?"

Hearing him be so direct, Fan Fan Bingbing thought about probing further, not afraid of Seeing Lu Kuan getting annoyed.

Isn't that exactly why he likes this fierce, proactive streak of hers?

"I think you did it on purpose. Setting up English tests and action scenes—wasn't that just to take care of her?"

Boss Lu sneered: "Of course not. Didn't you see how embarrassed she was today?"

Fan Fan Bingbing kept her mouth shut. If a man wants to lie to you, he can come up with a thousand reasons.

She actually wished that she were the one being scolded today.

"What should I do about Yanda Huayi? They want to sign a long-term contract with me and also want me to seduce you."

She covered her mouth and chuckled: "I didn't expect to be a sheep entering a tiger's den."

"Isn't your management contract with Wang Wang Jinhua? You can propose signing only with Wang Wang Jinhua and not with the joint venture company they have."

"What if they don't agree?"

"Just drag it out? Next month, I'll arrange for you to be on the cover of 'Harper's Bazaar', and after the auditions, we'll start running the distribution for 'The Thief'."

"If all goes well and 'The Thief' has a smooth box office, compared to Zhao Little Yanzi's 'Green Tea' and Zhang Zhang Ziyi's 'Purple Butterfly', won't that make you stand out?"

"You will only get more and more popular; they are the ones who should be anxious."

Fan Fan Bingbing was overjoyed; he was still thinking of her, and he wasn't being mean or dismissive toward her.

Seeing Lu Kuan felt a bit ticklish from her hair.

"Another round?"

Fan Fan Bingbing pouted coquettishly: "Then be gentle, don't leave me unable to walk tomorrow—I still have to audition for action scenes!"

"Pfft! That's nothing. Let's start with a bonus question today—show me a split first!"

"Bad guy! You only know how to abuse me!"

Fan Bingbing half-resisted and half-complied, the room full of spring, every detail laid bare.

The dragon-phoenix chair was spared, but the Simmons mattress began to suffer.

A sleepless night.

The audition location for the second day was set at the Beijing Film Studio, mainly considering the issue of wire-fu scenes.

Seeing Lu Kuan had notified the studio in advance and specifically prepared a soundstage with complete equipment, just waiting for the 'Exotic Realm' audition personnel to use it.

"Is everyone well-rested?"

"Very well, Director." "Not bad."

Zhao Little Yanzi and Jia Jia Jingwen were on the older side; they were tired from yesterday and went to sleep early.

Zhang Zhang Ziyi was naturally full of energy; years of audition experience had left her well-prepared this time.

Liu Liu Yifei looked cold, as if she still had some morning grumpiness, but it was actually anger toward someone.

Fan Bingbing stood slightly hunched with her hands on her waist; she had suffered greatly yesterday.

More suspicious were Zhang Zhang Baizhi and Zhong Zhong Xintong; with his sharp eyes, he could clearly see they had also been locked in battle last night.

He did know that the Emperor Group artists had gathered in Beiping to prepare for a charity concert, and Mei Mei Yanfang had called him yesterday.

But as for Zhang Zhang Baizhi, Zhong Zhong Xintong, and those two men, Xie and Chen, how exactly did they arrange themselves last night...

Damn, how filthy!

"Alright, Director Yuen Woo-ping will have the martial arts instructors lead everyone in a warm-up. The most important thing to pay attention to today is safety."

"We are looking at everyone's psychological quality, action style, and muscle strength performance. Before the actual filming, there will be 15 to 20 days of targeted training, so we aren't judging based on your current level. Please relax."

The actresses began to warm up, and the special effects team from Butian Butian Yinghua arrived on-site to set up the green screen and prepare motion capture equipment.

Zhang Zhang Ziyi had seen this setup in Hollywood, but the other actresses couldn't help but gasp. Today's scale seemed much larger than yesterday's!

Yuen Woo-ping looked at the special effects team and sighed: "The level of technology is truly high now. In the old days of Hong Kong films, removing wires meant using thin lines and painting them with camouflage, then using dry ice and smoke to cover them up."

"Now with special effects technology, you just lay down this green cloth, and in post-production, you can just crop the wires directly from the footage. It's so convenient."

Seeing Lu Kuan chuckled: "Director Yuen, it's not just green cloth now. I visited their special effects team in Hollywood last month, and there's a material called 'green back' currently under development."

"'Green back'?"

"Green cloth has many shortcomings, such as the need to keep it clean and tidy, otherwise, post-production cropping becomes very tiring. From a single strand of hair to a footprint, when post-production staff add color levels, pure green can't be extracted."

A typical example is the later film 'The Monkey King', where many viewers complained about a blue circle around the monkey fur.

That was because the green cloth wasn't kept clean, the light wasn't uniform on the cloth surface, and the post-production difficulty was very high.

This is also a microcosm of the domestic special effects industry lagging behind international levels for a long time.

Yuen Woo-ping was curious: "What effect does 'green back' have?"

"The 'green back' material is flat, smooth, dry, and non-absorbent, easy to clean, and very suitable for special effects. The only drawback is that it's expensive—over 100 US dollars per square meter."

In the future, many domestic and foreign film crews' budgets were basically spent on hiring traffic stars; they were reluctant to spend this money, and at the same time, they sacrificed the quality of special effects.

All eight actresses had changed into their costumes, and the martial arts instructors from the Yuen Clan were providing one-on-one guidance.

Most of them had filmed action movies, and the most experienced was Zhang Zhang Ziyi; her action scenes in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and 'Hero' were very dashing.

Including the first round of dialogue auditions yesterday, she was also the actress with the highest score.

It's just that she now had a happy problem: 'House of Flying Daggers' was also about to start filming, and how was she going to convince two directors to agree to her splitting her time between two productions?

She didn't want to give up either of them, so she just had to coordinate the scenes and scheduling. Hollywood film shooting rhythms are fast, so it shouldn't be difficult to handle.

In Zhang Zhang Ziyi's heart, after the first day of observation, she didn't think anyone else could pose a threat to her.

Seeing Lu Kuan's attitude toward that little girl who had been rumored to be with him was also very cold.

Yuen Woo-ping was mainly responsible for today's assessment content, and he designed several conventional movements for the actresses.

For example, dance-like artistic poses and aerial flight in various changes, similar to the fight scene between Yu Yu Jiaolong and others on the bamboo in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'.

For example, waist bending or straight-body movements, front and back flips, and most importantly, various aerial movements, dance poses, and coordination with sets and pyrotechnics.

This part would be considered less due to audition location and cost reasons.

Wire-fu scenes appear in almost all period dramas and action films; some actors love them and even find them fun.

Others scream like slaughtered pigs when hung on wires; no matter how beautiful the fairy is, she can't control her expressions.

This first hurdle is to test everyone's psychological quality. Even if someone is afraid of heights, being able to restrain themselves and complete the movements is considered good.

Zhang Zhang Ziyi goes without saying.

Fan Fan Bingbing and Zhao Little Yanzi both had experience with wire-fu scenes; except for the fact that their weight was slightly higher, making the wires less stable, their performances were all acceptable.

Zhou Xun had acted in 'The Legend of the Condor Heroes', and being thinner was the most wire-friendly trait.

Especially in period dramas, many female characters wear a layer of thin gauze. Doing aerial backflips and twists without padding means that if you're not careful, the steel wires will cut into your body. Heavier actors might even cry out in pain on the spot.

Wait a few days after you go home, and you'll see—your body will look like you've been playing SM, with deep purple welts that take more than half a month to fade.

"This little girl is really good! Her expression control and limb coordination are very strong!"

This segment was indeed where Liu Liu Yifei had an advantage. Long-term Grotowski training gave her very strong control over every part of her body.

This has very strong practical significance in wire-fu scenes and even ordinary acting.

For example, why is Chen Daoming's portrayal of high-ranking aristocrats, especially high officials and emperors, so vivid? Looking at the details, his walking posture can explain this problem.

Refer to the square-step walk he used when playing the Eight Virtuous Kings.

This kind of pace requires landing in the order of heel first, then sole, while the center of gravity moves forward, the upper body is upright and slightly tilted forward, fingers curled with the thumb against the second joint of the index finger, and arms swinging naturally back and forth.

When swinging forward, the elbows are bent, the forearms naturally turn inward, palms facing inward and slightly downward, with the base of the thumb aligned with the button line.

Even the slightest lack of standard will bring unevenness to the overall visual perception.

And to achieve such a standard, besides diligent and painstaking training, the most important thing is to improve the actor's ability to control their own muscles.

There are specific "gait training" movements in Grotowski.

It lets you walk barefoot on soft, tender, slippery, rugged ground, or even hot sand, paths by the water, etc., to domesticate and cultivate muscle memory.

Getting down to Liu Liu Yifei's current wire-fu movements, it's very easy for the audience to distinguish the quality of wire-fu scenes when watching movies and TV shows.

For example, Zhang Zhang Baizhi and Zhong Zhong Xintong, who were currently dismantling their wires—one had an expression like she was being hanged when lifted up, and the other looked like she was taking an elevator when landing.

Zhang Zhang Baizhi's expression control wasn't up to par; when she was in the air, her eyes and eyebrows were flying everywhere.

Zhong Zhong Xintong didn't coordinate well with the wire movements; her body was stiff, looking like she was walking down an escalator in the air.

And Liu Liu Yifei's wire-fu scene, which just amazed even Yuen Woo-ping, was almost flawless.

"Little Liu, do it one more time. I'll design a movement for you."

Yuen Woo-ping suddenly spoke up.

"Old Seven, Old Eight, give her a spinning landing ending in a moment."

"Yes, Master!"

Liu Liu Yifei was a bit confused, but she cooperated with the staff to put on her equipment again.

Everyone was watching her. Yuen Woo-ping clearly favored her, right? He even specifically designed movements for her to try.

"Little Liu, imagine a scene in 'Exotic Realm' now. You are fighting a monster in a tree, you get thrown away by him, do a backward waist twist in the air, and then come to a spinning landing ending."

"Okay, Director, I'll try."

Seeing Lu Kuan nodded silently in his heart. This was a bit more difficult than the simple test just now.

In many Hong Kong films and older martial arts dramas, we can often see aerial landing shots.

A single continuous shot giving a close-up of the actor's expression and movements after landing is very cool and handsome.

But in the era of traffic stars in the future, these types of shots are seen less and less, because every landing is just a mess of flying eyebrows and chaotic movements—it's impossible to film!

So most of them end with a stumbling long shot.

Directors also can't be bothered to tinker with this; anyway, everyone is here to make quick money and harvest fans' wallets, why bother with that effort?

If you go through all the trouble and annoy the traffic star, the investors will be unhappy, and the fan circles will catch you and spray you, feeling sorry for their "brother"!

Everyone looked at Liu Liu Yifei in the air together. It really did look quite beautiful flying!

Yuen Woo-ping nodded continuously. Flying beautifully isn't actually difficult; keeping the torso stable and having the limbs move rhythmically with the plot and costume is enough.

But wanting to achieve this isn't easy. Besides psychological quality, it's still a very important point for actors: the ability to control muscles and the torso.

This is the result of her unremitting morning practice.

Zhang Zhang Baizhi stuck out her tongue. She had just watched her own performance on the monitor; in the air, her limbs were just spread out like a big "X" character, like a wooden post.

Seeing Lu Kuan had the special effects artist from Butian Butian Yinghua make a motion capture silhouette. Fairly speaking, Liu Liu Yifei's fight scenes even surpassed Zhang Zhang Ziyi's.

Zhang Zhang Ziyi is less than 165cm tall, with a slender figure, and has a natural sense of lightness when performing movements.

Liu Liu Yifei is nearly 5cm taller than her, but she doesn't look clumsy at all.

The little girl landed gracefully like a flower in the breeze, with better stability than many male actors Yuen Woo-ping had seen.

Seeing Lu Kuan in front of the monitor saw a glimpse of Lan Xiaolong Maiden in her.

Lan Xiaolong Maiden was also the pinnacle of her wire-fu work, with many classic shots including the Ancient Tomb Sect wire hammock.

"Good! Little Liu, this part is not bad."

"Thank you, Director Yuen!"

Liu Liu Yifei was overjoyed; the pent-up frustration from yesterday could finally be released.

She also secretly glanced at Seeing Lu Kuan, who was calm in front of the monitor.

You dog, let's see how you scold me this time!

(End of chapter)