Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

Chapter 171: Recruiting People from Zhuying

In May 1995, Teresa Teng, a singer who influenced an era, died of an asthma attack in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The entire entertainment industry was shocked by this, and many artists temporarily ended their schedules and went to Wanwan to attend Teresa Teng's funeral.

However, this has nothing to do with Zhou Ziheng, as he doesn't even know Teresa Teng.

Indeed, he also admired the other party very much, as he had listened to many of Teresa Teng's songs when he was a child.

But if he didn't know her, he didn't know her. It was impossible for him to put down his work and run to Wanwan to attend the funeral just for someone he didn't know.

Compared to the Hong Kong and Taiwan entertainment circles which were all shocked by Teresa Teng's death, although many newspapers in the mainland were also reporting on the incident, the frequency of reporting was very low.

At this time, the attention of the mainland media was almost entirely focused on the Hollywood blockbuster "True Lies" which was introduced and released on April 20th.

This film is the first product of the mainland's announcement last year that it would introduce ten blockbuster films every year.

Last November, the mainland introduced its first Hollywood blockbuster, "The Fugitive", which also achieved very good results, earning 25 million box office in the mainland.

In comparison, True Lies is even more powerful.

After three weeks of release in mainland China, the film has already earned over 40 million yuan at the box office, directly setting off a movie-watching craze in the mainland.

Because "True Lies" was so popular at the box office, the media almost focused all their attention on it.

Today’s media reported: “True Lies set a new box office record yesterday.”

Tomorrow the media will report: "True Lies is expected to become the first movie released in the mainland to gross over 100 million yuan." (Shaolin Temple cannot be counted among them)
Apart from the news about "True Lies" and Teresa Teng's death, the hottest news in mainland China recently is the news that Zhou Ziheng is a director.

To be honest, Zhou Ziheng's role as a director this time has been questioned by media throughout the Chinese-speaking world.

Hong Kong and Taiwan needless to say.

After Zhou Ziheng announced the "Swindler" project in April, he was unanimously questioned.

Needless to say, film critics have questioned whether Zhou Ziheng is really getting too cocky. A singer who has barely acted in a few plays is becoming a director. If this isn't cocky, then what is?

Even several musicians who had previously praised Zhou Ziheng expressed pessimistic views on the matter.

Luo Dayou, a famous Taiwanese musician, said:
"As everyone knows, I have always admired Zhou Ziheng's musical talent. He is a leader among the younger generation of Chinese music. If he continues on the path of music, sooner or later, he will leave a strong mark in the history of Chinese music.

But I really don’t understand why he wants to do something, why he doesn’t make music, but goes to make movies.”

The famous Hong Kong composer Joseph Koo also said:
“Young people need to suffer a little.”

Not to mention Jacky Cheung, who directly mocked:
“He thinks he’s a god.”

However, there are also people who support Zhou Ziheng.

For example, Hong Kong's famous composer, director, actor, and screenwriter Chen Xunqi expressed his support for Zhou Ziheng:

"He and I are actually the same type of people. I started out as a composer, and after I became a top musician in this field, I thought about trying other industries.

Then I became an actor, then a martial arts instructor, and then a director.

Although I dare not say that I have achieved very good results in these industries, I can still boast that I have made good achievements in various industries. "

Comments from outside did not affect Zhou Ziheng.

Attention is actually a good thing.

As long as there is attention, no matter what the movie ultimately turns out to be like, the early box office will not be low.

This won't cost him much.

On the 11th, Zhou Ziheng was introduced to meet people from the Pearl River Film Studio.

"Tazza" requires a lot of extras. Even some of the roles that have a lot of scenes still need actors.

Since this film was chosen to be shot in Guangdong, it was natural that the Pearl River Film Studio would be needed to help.

Before the 90s, Lingnan-style films were popular in China, and the Pearl River Film Studio was the oldest, largest and most powerful comprehensive film company in South China.

As early as the 1960s and 1970s, Zhuhai Film Studio was unique in the Chinese film industry with a large number of films with Lingnan characteristics.

The more representative films include the feature films "South China Sea Tide", "Seventy-two Tenants", "The Sand Chamber", and "The Chase".

These films not only truly won over audiences in Guangdong and even China, establishing the status of Lingnan films in the Chinese film industry, but also formed the unique style of Lingnan films.

After 1979, with the arrival of the second climax of Chinese film, Zhuhai Film Studio, located in Guangdong, the forefront of reform and opening up, ushered in the peak of the southern Guangdong film industry and produced films such as "Spring Rain", "People Dealing with the Devil", "Homesickness", "Against the Light", "Hometown Accent", "Liao Zhongkai", "Yamaha Fish Stall", and "Sun Yat-sen".

Over the past decade, Zhuying has produced dozens of feature films and science and education films that have won awards at home and abroad. All of them are popular across the country and are widely welcomed by audiences.

At the same time, many film talents who admire Zhuhai Film Studio also gathered in Guangzhou from all over China to realize their dreams of making money and becoming stars at Zhuhai Film Studio.

This place once became the forefront of Chinese films.

However, after the 90s, Chinese domestic films began to enter a low period and the entire film market began to shrink. Zhuying, like other old film studios in China, faced a new transformation.

In March, the country implemented the "9550" project to encourage the creation of high-quality mainstream films.

This has affected Zhuying's policy to a certain extent.

In April, Zhuhai Film Studio officially announced that it would join the 9550 Project, focusing on creating and shooting main-theme films.

In the early to mid-1990s, Zhuying filmed all kinds of subjects.

The sudden change now is definitely not a good thing for some of its internal personnel.

It just so happens that the trend of starting a business is getting bigger and bigger.

Many people in the Pearl River Film Studio were ready to make a move.

Zhou Ziheng was very attracted by these talents.

After discussing with the people at Zhujiang Film about the use of extras and some ordinary supporting actors in "Tazza", he immediately found the person in charge of personnel within Zhujiang Film and found a list of some people who had resigned.

After a week of contact, Zhou Ziheng recruited thirteen talents from these people in various fields.

Zhou Ziheng divided these people into two groups for use.

Some of them were directly recruited into Hengyu Film.

Hengyu Films is a film company invested by Zhou Ziheng, but at present, he has no one of his own except Florence Hui, who is in charge of the financial power.

To be honest, Zhou Ziheng was also worried that as time went by, the film company would suddenly become someone else's.

Therefore, it is necessary to add some of your own people to the company.

He didn't want the Metropolitan to be disbanded and Johnnie To to recruit new people, and then Hengyu would be dominated by Johnnie To alone.

Although the money is in his hand.

But we still have to take precautions.

As for the other group of people, Zhou Ziheng placed them in Hengyu Cinemas.

Pearl River Film Studio is a large studio, and many of those who resigned were previously engaged in distribution work.

Putting them in Hengyu Cinemas will help build up the cinema chain faster.

(End of this chapter)