Chapter 221: The Four Little Dan Actresses, Two Bing, and One Fei

Seeing Lu Kuan could no longer remember what the state of the mainland entertainment industry was like after the 2004 Spring Festival in his past life.

But clearly, in this life, because of the existence of his butterfly wings, various news had been flying everywhere since the first day of the Lunar New Year.

For example, the cast of *Zhu Xian* was officially confirmed.

Hu Ge as Zhang Xiaofan, Zhu Yawen as Lin Jingyu.

The three main actresses: Fan Bingbing as Bi Yao, Liu Yifei as Lu Xueqi, Su Chang as Tian Ling'er.

Several supporting actresses:

Su Ru, wife of Zhang Xiaofan's master Tian Buyi, beautiful in appearance, strong-willed by nature, played by Yu Feihong.

Jin Ping'er, a disciple of the Hehuan Sect, appearing in the later stages, skilled in the art of charming hearts, pretty and charming, stirring hearts, played by Gao Yuanyuan.

Zhou Xiaohuan, granddaughter of Zhou Yixian, innocent and naive, with few scenes, played by Emperor artist Cai Zhuoyan.

Tianhu Xiaobai, with few scenes, played by new actress Tong Liya, newly signed to the Inquiry Realm.

Some supporting actors:

Zhang Guoli guest-starring as Monk Puzhi;

Wu Gang, who just appeared in the Inquiry Realm's *Lurk*, as Tian Buyi;

Xin Baiqing, who collaborated with Tian Zhuangzhuang on *Springtime in a Small Town* in 2002, as Wan Jianyi;

Looking at the entire cast list, there were powerful actors, veteran actors, new-generation young actresses, and middle-generation big actresses.

Regardless of whether it was from the perspective of ratings appeal or actual professional ability, it could be considered a very well-matched cast.

Except for the several main leads who had to follow the crew from July to October, the remaining supporting actors could film other projects or freely manage their time.

In addition, *Crazy Racer*, which had been released for over 25 days, was also soaring at the box office, because it avoided *Infernal Affairs 3*, which was released on December 12, 2003.

In this life, Kuzi's *Mobile Phone* was again sabotaged by Boss Lu, leading to a plot and structure that were not very tight, and even many netizens were catching bugs and finding loopholes in the Douban discussion group after watching the movie.

As of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, *Racer* had grossed 55 million, and it was estimated that it could barely exceed 60 million in the remaining few days.

It was another successful marketing campaign, another successful sequel, and another successful roadshow distribution.

News from the Inquiry Realm followed one after another.

Immediately following were *Super Girl*, which was about to start in early February, and *Love is Not Blind*, which was about to be released on Valentine's Day, appearing endlessly in elevator advertisements.

Bosses and business line managers of all mainland entertainment companies suddenly woke up during the first lunar month.

The Inquiry Realm had already grown to this extent!

*Foreign Land* hadn't even been released yet, and it was already able to continuously occupy the front-page headlines for a week after the Spring Festival!

The mainland entertainment industry does not die, and hype does not extinguish.

Under the coordination of Lu Yao of the Inquiry Realm Culture and Media Artist Management Department, Zhong Lifang of the Media Operations Department, and the Blog Network, a popularity voting activity for mainland male and female actors was officially launched on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year.

That is, the selection activity for the Four Little Dan Actresses and the Four Little Freshmen of the mainland.

In the mainland entertainment industry, the title of Four Little Dan Actresses first appeared at the beginning of the millennium.

Until 2002, the *Southern Metropolis Daily* was the first to call the four post-70s actresses—Yanzi, Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei, and Zhou Xun—the Four Little Dan Actresses.

With the aging of these few, the Four Big Dan Actresses and the title of Four Little Freshmen for male actors appeared in the later years.

In fact, this was a conventional hype method under the trend of entertainment in the literary and artistic circles: bundle marketing.

Just like the issue of acting style for people like Bai Baihe and Wang Luodan that Boss Lu mentioned, for an actor of your type, there are people ahead of you with better resources and earlier debuts blocking your path.

What to do?

Either bundle hype or step on others to get ahead.

Bundle hype was a common Hong Kong and Taiwan technique that once led the mainland entertainment industry by twenty years. The most classic was the Four Heavenly Kings.

It had been marketed from the 1990s to the present, but the mainland entertainment industry had brought forth new ideas in bundle hype, almost playing it to perfection.

There were several classic methods. The first was same-route bundling.

Tangren promoted Liu Shishi and created a cousin of Liu Yifei.

There was also the later little Zhao Liying—Zhao Lusi, little Zhang Baizhi—Song Zu'er.

The second was the most common: hype CP.

Sun Li and Deng Chao were on the hot search all year round, and every trivial matter between husband and wife had to be written about extensively;

"Beijing Circle Princess" Guan Xiaotong and Lu Han, first hype love, and when there was no heat, hype breakup rumors. The move wasn't new, but it was useful.

There were all kinds of others, five flowers and eight doors, and saccharin was enough to feed the fans.

The third was partner-type bundling.

The host combination of *Kangxi Lai Le*, and more were things like the Running Man family and the Extreme Men's Group in the variety shows of the later mainland entertainment industry.

The more high-end ones were big directors plus imperial actresses, Mou Girl Zhang Ziyi, Lu Girl Liu Yifei.

After two years of development, the Blog Network had already taken the lead in the domestic internet sector.

Its entertainment celebrity binding strategy at the beginning of its development had become an object of study for major portal websites and forums.

Sina Entertainment, NetEase Entertainment, and others opened voting topics on portal websites one after another, following the trend to select the male and female actors of the two big fours in the mainland entertainment industry.

Maopu and Tianya took a different path, voting for titles like the Four Great Beauties of the mainland entertainment industry.

For a time, the online beauty selection world was bustling with excitement.

After half a month of voting, among the originally set Four Little Dan Actresses, the popularity of the four former Dan Actresses remained strong.

In these two years, Zhou Xun's *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* and *Misty Rain* were hits, the album *Summer* sold well, and most importantly, she became a film actor by participating in the Cannes-winning film *The Thief*.

Although Yanzi's popularity was greatly damaged after the flag and splashing incidents, as the first generation of traffic big Dan Actresses, she was still popular in film and television capital.

She bid farewell to her comfort zone to seek breakthroughs, participating in *Green Tea* and *Heaven and Earth Heroes* one after another, and collaborating with Jiang Wen twice.

Zhang Ziyi first touched Hollywood through *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* and *Rush Hour 2*, and the art film *Purple Butterfly* also successfully entered the main competition unit of Cannes in 2003.

The most outstanding one, with the most successful persona creation, was Xu Jinglei. She continued to occupy one of the Four Big Dan Actresses under the name of a talented woman and a jade girl, and her popularity on the Blog Network was also chasing several top traffic stars.

Unlike the other three, Xu Jinglei transformed into a director this year, raising funds to shoot *My Father* by virtue of her personal appeal.

In September 2003, she announced that she would go to Beidian to teach *Performance Studies*, further establishing her talented woman persona.

The age structure and consumption ability of the fan groups of these four were relatively stable, but what made all parties dumbfounded was the sudden rise of Fan Bingbing and Liu Yifei.

In 2002, Bingbing was still a lukewarm second-tier actress, just wanting to be a working girl in the Hong Kong circle.

Who knew that because of a movie by Boss Lu and her own decisively transformed fashion route, she would break out of the circle.

The Best Supporting Actress brought by *The Thief* caused cracks in her vase title, and the cover of the October issue of *Harper's Bazaar* showed her fashion sense.

Then there was Liu Yifei, an underage little girl who was still a layman in 2002, climbing like a rocket in the past two years.

*The Noble Family* which was popular during the boiling point period, *Chinese Paladin* which was empty of people, and *Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils* which just ushered in the finale this month.

The big screen also had the immature acting test work *Whiplash*, which won the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Best Newcomer and the Golden Horse Award Best New Actor.

The most out-of-circle one was, of course, the one that suddenly broke out in October this year, replacing the injured Zhang Ziyi to star in *Foreign Land*.

Debut was the peak, walking on a star path where she was the only one, with no obvious obstruction in front, a bright future.

And so, the voting results of each family were announced. Outside the Four Little Dan Actresses of the mainland entertainment industry, the popularity of Fan Bingbing and Liu Yifei was chasing the first four.

Li Bingbing, the first sister originally pushed by Huayi, was unwilling to accept it. After Xiaolei, Dajun brothers, and Wang Jinhua communicated, they decisively engaged in public relations, and finally, a consensus was basically formed among all parties.

Among mainland actresses, the pattern of Four Little Dan Actresses, Two Bing, and One Fei was officially formed.

A new round of bundle hype officially kicked off.

February 8, 2004, three days after the Lantern Festival, the filming crew of the first four episodes of *Zhu Xian* arrived at Shidu, Beiping.

Shidu was 70 kilometers southwest of the urban area and was a natural scenic spot in the North China region characterized by karst peak forests and river valley landforms.

Seeing Lu Kuan led the assistant directors Wu Ershan and Ning Hao to survey the scene and inspect the various scenes that the staff had already built in advance.

Behind the four of them also followed Xu Zheng.

This person was also a worldly-wise one. After setting the ambition to follow Boss Lu in the director circle at the crew dinner of *Stone*, he had been looking for opportunities.

Having experienced the crew of Xue Xiaolu's *Love is Not Blind*, he decisively pushed off several TV drama contracts this year and self-recommended to come to the *Zhu Xian* set to be a producer assistant.

This was the first lesson a director must learn: cost control.

"Old Xu, you are the Best Comedy Actor of the Magnolia Award, and your two TV dramas last year also had good repercussions."

"Coming to *Zhu Xian* to be a producer assistant, isn't it a bit of a waste of talent?"

Xu Zheng just finished filming a Qing dynasty drama *Manchu-Han Feast* last year, collaborating with Zhang Ting, Zhang Tielin, and others, and now he simply shaved his head.

It wasn't the first lunar month yet, the weather was freezing cold, and he laughed while rubbing his hands upon hearing this.

"Director Lu, in terms of acting, I might be a college student; in terms of directing, I am now in kindergarten."

"Being able to follow the crew and learn from Director Ning is already very good. What waste of talent or not, hehe."

The first four episodes of *Zhu Xian* were directed by Boss Lu himself, and the follow-up was completed by Ning Hao and Wu Ershan.

When *Zhu Xian* ended, Wu Ershan could basically be considered to have finished his apprenticeship, becoming another new-generation director in the mainland who could skillfully master Hollywood filming processes and special effects technology.

"Alright, go back to the set, verify the costumes, makeup, and props in the afternoon, let the actors do some reading, and adapt to the special effects filming process."

The plot of *Zhu Xian* didn't need to be mentioned for the audience of this period, and for such a series, more was to do a good job of controlling the details.

For example, the reasonable use of special effects technology, the balance between the cast of powerful actors and idol actors, and the important back-end supporting facilities such as costumes, makeup, and props.

"Director."

"Director Lu."

"Little Lu!"

Seeing Lu Kuan flipped through the previously set costume, makeup, and prop plan and walked into the set. The actors also got off the nanny cars and RVs and greeted him honestly.

*Hmm? How did a very presumptuous address get mixed in? *

In the serious studio, facing the set fascist who was famous in the mainland entertainment industry, who was so bold.

It was a pity that Director Lu's sharp eyes failed to produce a deterrent effect on the one who had just become one of the "Four Dan Actresses, Two Bing, and One Fei".

"On the set..."

Liu Yifei laughed: "I know, I know, call you plant."

There were quite a few people watching the fun around, but they were all stealing glances and pricking up their ears, not daring to face the edge directly.

Yu Feihong and Fan Bingbing met outside. They had collaborated on *The Flying Dagger of Little Li* and *Shoplifters*.

They walked in laughing and chatting, and greeted Seeing Lu Kuan.

"Sister Feihong."

"Bingbing!"

Seeing Lu Kuan nodded at them and turned his gaze to the two male actors of the company.

"Hu Ge will be a senior in college when school starts, should be arranging the graduation play, right?"

"Yes, Director Lu, the script in the department has already been selected."

Seeing Lu Kuan was a bit curious: "Oh? What script are you using?"

"Director Zhang Yang's *An Inspector Calls*."

Zhang Yang was also one of the sixth-generation directors in the country. This *An Inspector Calls* was also a work by the British writer Priestley that was often adapted and rehearsed.

Boss Lu nodded. He wasn't chatting idly, but making a judgment on Hu Ge's acting skills for the first time collaborating.

The three major art colleges in the country had different teaching focuses on performance methods.

"Yawen, Little Liu, have you both asked for leave from Teacher Wang Jingsong?"

Zhu Yawen: Yes.

Liu Yifei: Ask for what leave?

She hadn't been to school for a long time...

The improvement in performance skills and ability relied entirely on character feeding, set practice, and Seeing Lu Kuan, a half-baked Grotowski performance teacher.

"Since you three young actors are one from Shangxi and two from Beidian, you can communicate and learn from each other's performance skills when you have nothing to do."

Seeing Lu Kuan just happened to see Xin Baiqing arrive at the scene.

"And that Teacher Xin Baiqing, he is from Zhongxi, you can communicate with each other."

Xin Baiqing and Wu Gang walked over together.

"Director," "Director Lu!"

Boss Lu laughed: "Just talking about you guys, this crew of ours is an old-leading-new combination, you guys need to give more lessons to young actors like Liu Yifei!"

"Eh, where, where, it's good enough if we can take care of ourselves."

Xin Baiqing had met Seeing Lu Kuan in Venice. At that time, he was the lead actor of Tian Zhuangzhuang's *Springtime in a Small Town*.

But they weren't very familiar with each other, so they were polite and humble in their words.

Wu Gang had already appeared in *Lurk* and had eaten with Seeing Lu Kuan, who was the producer. He joked: "Director Lu, are you trying to be a hands-off boss?"

"What are you saying, who doesn't want to be lazy, right Teacher Yu?"

This Teacher Yu had a source. She was once the head teacher of the 93-grade performance class of Beidian. Xu Jinglei, Jia Jingwen, and Liu Lin had all been her students.

Yu Feihong was inexplicably cued: "Who dares to be lazy on your set, Director Lu?"

Last time on the *Thief* crew, the beautiful young woman had been an assistant director for Boss Lu and had also "sat" as a regular director.

This time she was invited to star, still for the purpose of learning. After all, this Xianxia drama, which claimed to have special effects production no less than Hollywood, was rare and unattainable.

The crew was newly created, and the actors were of different ages and backgrounds.

Seeing Lu Kuan took care of and connected every actor in a few words, also to help everyone quickly become familiar with each other, which was conducive to the subsequent filming process.

When they really entered the weekly filming in July and August, the tacit understanding and cooperation between the actors would become very important.

Fan Bingbing saw that he hadn't brought her along after chatting for a circle, and took the initiative to ask: "Director Lu, you just said Hu Ge, Yifei, and the others learn from each other. Are the performance teaching schools of Shangxi, Beidian, and Zhongxi different?"

"Shangxi and Zhongxi are drama schools after all, and performance teaching is based on drama and stage performance, while Beidian leans towards film and television performance."

"As a performative narrative art, drama is the ancestor of film. Film has only 100 years of history, but drama has 2500 years of history."

"Although film has long since broken free from the shackles of literature and drama and become an independent art, drama training is still very meaningful for actors engaged in film and television-related creation."

Seeing Lu Kuan turned to Wu Gang: "For example, Teacher Wu Gang, like Teacher Feng, is an actor from the People's Art. You young actors can learn more."

Wu Gang heard him speak so professionally and knew he was an expert, so he waved his hands and said humbly: "No, no, everyone learns from each other and makes progress together."

Wu Ershan walked to his side: "Director, the props and costumes have arrived."

"Let's go, let's take a look."

As a Xianxia series, Seeing Lu Kuan raised the requirements for costumes to the level of the big screen.

Just like the requirements he gave to the Inquiry Realm and Xiangtai team when *Chinese Paladin* was established, this aspect must be refined.

Now that the hot money from coal bosses and internet capital hadn't flooded in yet, the various crews in the mainland entertainment industry were still relatively conscientious and relatively attentive to costumes, makeup, and props.

"Wow! This one of mine is so beautiful!"

Liu Yifei picked up the white gauze skirt labeled Lu Xueqi: "Eh? What is that smell?"

Seeing Lu Kuan saw her strange expression, walked over, and took the skirt.

Pungent odor, messy thread ends, chaotic stitches.

He pulled it gently with both hands, and with a *zi-la* sound...

It actually tore open!

"Where is the producer assistant? Xu Zheng?"

Boss Lu's face was livid, and he unceremoniously wanted to pull the bald Xu over to question him.

Liu Yifei looked at his expression timidly, knowing it was bad; this dead look meant he was going to lose his temper again.

"Director, here, I'm coming."

Xu Zheng was arranging for large props to enter the venue, including the exotic beast sculpture in front of the Qingyun Sect gate, sweating profusely.

"Where are the procurement documents for this batch of costumes? Bring them over."

The bald man secretly called it bad. Everyone on the scene looked at the white gauze skirt under Director Lu's feet and didn't dare to breathe.

The field staff who were transporting the sculptures held their breath, fearing to make a sound to attract attention.

Xu Zheng stammered: "Director Lu, let me explain to you, this..."

"Procurement list! Now?"

Seeing Lu Kuan didn't give any face at all, just staring at Xu Zheng with gloomy eyes: "I have directed three movies, produced one movie, and been the producer of two TV dramas."

"Is this the first time I've seen a producer who dares to deceive me?"

"Where is that Feng Chu? The vice president of Dong Shuangqiang's company? Where is he?"

Xu Zheng felt sorrowful in his heart. He originally wanted to communicate with Seeing Lu Kuan privately to prevent causing a misunderstanding with Dong Shuangqiang.

But if he continued to help hide it in this situation, the blame was about to be pinned on him.

*Dead friends are better than dead me*, I can only blame you for eating too ugly, taking this kind of thing to fool Director Lu.

Was he that easy to fool?

"Director, I'll go make a call, I'll bring the person to you within 10 minutes!"

Xu Zheng knew he couldn't handle this matter, and he didn't want to be a scapegoat, so he quickly changed his stance.

He still had a ruler in his heart about who was in charge of this *Zhu Xian* and this Tourism Satellite TV.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 222 =====