Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

Chapter 176 Fighting against Hong Kong Circles with One's Own Strength

Zhou Ziheng was originally rejected and disliked by Hong Kong filmmakers.

He became even more disliked after he collaborated with Fox to import two films from the United States, "Brave Heart" and "Die Hard 3".

There is no other reason, these two Hollywood blockbusters were introduced to Hong Kong by Zhou Ziheng.

Zhou Ziheng immediately took "Brave Heart" to Hengyu Cinemas for release on July 22nd.

This is the first film released after the establishment of Hengyu Cinema Line.

Hengyu invested a lot of money in publicity.

After the release of "Brave Heart", it immediately took Hong Kong by storm, defeating "Singing in the Midnight Sun" which was released at the same time, and won the box office championship of the week with a box office of 7 million in the first week.

The momentum of this movie is still very strong, and it has seriously affected Golden Harvest's "Firestorm" which will be released in August and Yongsheng's "The King of Comedy".

During the mid-90s, Hong Kong films were still very strong.

However, due to the impact of Hollywood blockbusters, Hong Kong films were already on the verge of collapse.

Hong Kong filmmakers generally hate Hollywood movies.

After all, Hollywood movies are notoriously competitive.

Now, after the establishment of Hengyu Cinemas, it directly announced a cooperation with a Hollywood company, and may screen Hollywood blockbusters for a long time in the future.

what is this?
This is seen as a betrayal by Hong Kong filmmakers.

Yes, they clearly excluded Zhou Ziheng from the circle, and almost all companies joined together to not supply films to Zhou Ziheng's theaters.

Just like Taiwan, in order to force the Taiwanese market to surrender, they simply cut off the supply of movies to Taiwan.

This resulted in Taiwan having to reach a cooperation with Hollywood even though there were no movies showing in theaters.

Now, the same thing happened to Zhou Ziheng.

They defined Zhou Ziheng as a traitor, which is really ridiculous.

Compared with the previous exclusion of Zhou Ziheng by the Hong Kong circle.

This time, the hatred of people in the Hong Kong circle towards Zhou Ziheng seemed to have reached a peak.

In early August, after "Brave Heart" once again beat "Firestorm" to win the weekly championship, the Hong Kong entertainment industry was completely furious.

The first person to step forward was none other than Jackie Chan, the top star of Golden Harvest.

“We have been expanding this market since the 1980s, and we let foreigners know that Hong Kong films are not inferior to Hollywood films.

We have promoted Hong Kong films to the world, allowing a large number of foreigners to know our culture.

But today, someone became a traitor.

When we were in the most difficult times, he not only did not share the hardships with us, but instead brought in outsiders.

He is a sinner, yes, I think he is a sinner.”

As soon as Jackie Chan opened his mouth, he put a big hat on Zhou Ziheng's head.

Soon after, a large number of Hong Kong artists, directors, or film company owners began to criticize Zhou Ziheng in the media.

Wong Jing: "I don't know him, and I don't want to know him. I can say directly that he is not worthy of my evaluation."

Sammo Hung: "A self-righteous guy who thinks he can do whatever he wants in this circle just because he makes a little money from singing."

Xiang Huaqiang: "I actually admire him very much. I once offered him a salary of 50 million for 10 movies to invite him to film for our company, but he refused.

I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but later I heard that he wanted to play by himself.

I thought, it’s normal for children to have their own ideas.

What he shouldn't do is break everyone's rules.

Don't we know that Hollywood movies make money? We all know.

If I wanted, I could have also reached a cooperation with the big Hollywood companies and imported movies from them, but I didn't do that because it was against the interests of all of us.

Hollywood movies are industrial products, and their huge technology allows Hollywood movies to sweep the world.

But this is not good for Hong Kong films.

He could destroy Hong Kong cinema and make a generation’s efforts go to waste.”

(“The decline of Hong Kong films began in 1995. In that year, Zhou Ziheng had a misunderstanding with some local companies in Hong Kong. In a fit of anger, he fled to the United States and reached a cooperation with Fox, from which he brought back the film Brave Heart.

This film achieved very impressive results after its release in Hong Kong, but it also had a serious impact on the Hong Kong film market, causing audiences to begin to lose confidence in Hong Kong films and turn to Hollywood blockbusters.

Therefore, I have always said that he is the culprit and promoter of the decline of Hong Kong films, and it is also the regret of our generation. "

——Excerpt from the book "Who Am I - Jackie Chan" published by Shanghai People's Publishing House in 1999)
The entire Hong Kong film industry was in an uproar.

They bombarded Zhou Ziheng and began to spontaneously exclude Zhou Ziheng.

Starting from August, when you opened the Hong Kong newspapers, you would see people in the industry criticizing Zhou Ziheng.

In an instant, Zhou Ziheng seemed to have turned into a street rat, hated by everyone and wanted to be beaten by everyone.

However, this sentiment is mainly spread within the entertainment industry.

The general public, on the other hand, has no problem with him.

After all, compared to the Hong Kong films that have become increasingly uglier in recent years, the Hollywood movies he brought back are indeed good.

But even if it was just the Hong Kong entertainment industry targeting Zhou Ziheng, it also had a certain impact on Zhou Ziheng.

First of all, after a large number of Hong Kong bigwigs collectively spoke out to exclude Zhou Ziheng, Johnnie To and other people who had originally joined Hengyu Films all backed down and announced their withdrawal from Hengyu Films.

Zhou Ziheng actually didn't blame them.

After all, no matter how you look at it, Zhou Ziheng is single-handedly going against the entire Hong Kong circle.

No matter how bold Johnnie To and others were, they did not dare to stay in Hengyu any longer.

Besides, they are actually from the Hong Kong circle!

Maybe they themselves were also very dissatisfied with Zhou Ziheng for directly turning the table over and introducing Hollywood movies.

In addition to the large number of people who originally joined the company leaving the company, the biggest impact on Zhou Ziheng was probably the collective ban on Zhou Ziheng by the entire Hong Kong circle afterwards.

Yes, it is a ban.

The Hong Kong Film Company, the Hong Kong Artists Association, the Directors Association, and several other associations joined forces to ban Zhou Ziheng.

First of all, all the film companies unanimously decided not to invite Zhou Ziheng to star in any film in which they participated in the investment and production.

Then the Hong Kong Actors Association directly issued a ban, prohibiting local Hong Kong actors from participating in films produced by Hengyu Films.

Then, in the media, these actors spoke out collectively and banned all major media from reporting any news about Zhou Ziheng. They would not accept interviews from any newspaper that reported the news.

It can be said that almost the entire Hong Kong is banning Zhou Ziheng.

When faced with this situation, most people would have no choice but to give up the Hong Kong market and go home.

But for Zhou Ziheng, this cannot completely ban him.

First, the record company.

EMi is an international company, a British company, and these actors and directors from Hong Kong cannot influence them.

The second media is that Zhou Ziheng bought a newspaper himself.

If you don't report me, I will report it myself!

As for the actors, at worst I can use people from mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, or even Japan, South Korea, Europe and America.

Who cares about you?

(End of this chapter)