Literary Master 1978

"The Chess Master" is the third film adapted from Lin Chaoyang's original novel, and the fourth film written by Lin Chaoyang. This film can be said to maintain the consistent high standard of Lin Chaoyang's screenwriting films.

Not only does it accurately restore the essence of the original novel, but more importantly, it also maintains the texture and style that a high-quality film should have.

In addition to the credit of the original novel and Lin Chaoyang, the screenwriter, it is also inseparable from the ingenuity of director Chen Huaikai.

As a meritorious director of Yanying Studio, Chen Huaikai's directing skills and artistic sense are quite outstanding.

He followed the film "The Chess Master" from beginning to end for two years, and he was striving for perfection in the film.

The novel "The Chess Master" has a deep readership base, and coupled with the hot topic of the Sino-Japanese Go Challenge in the past one or two months, the movie "The Chess Master" quickly triggered a large-scale viewing craze among the audience as soon as it was released.

After more than half a year, the cinemas in various districts of Yanjing once again saw the grand scene of audiences queuing up to buy tickets to watch movies.

Many cinemas also began to spontaneously advance and extend the screening time to ensure that the audience can see the movie.

All these phenomena show the popularity of "The Chess Master", which can be said to be the most popular movie since the beginning of 1984.

More than half a month after the movie was released, the movie-watching craze swept the country, almost the same as Yanjing.

In early November, a new issue of "Popular Movies" was released and the cover was a handsome face full of bookishness and nobility, which was the photo of Tony Leung in "The Chess Master".

As the first magazine in the Chinese film industry, "Popular Movies" has a very high status and influence both in the industry and among movie fans, and the sales of millions of copies per issue are proof of this.

It uses Tony Leung's photo as the cover of this issue of the magazine, which also shows the popularity of "The Chess Master".

When "Behind the Curtain" was released last year, "Popular Movies" also made a special issue to report on this film, but Tony Leung's photo only appeared on the inside pages of the special issue.

This time, "The Chess Master" was very popular. It was the first time that Tony Leung Ka Fai appeared on the cover of this national-level film magazine. It was also the first time that a Hong Kong film actor appeared on the cover of "Popular Movies", which was also a record.

A Hong Kong actor went to the mainland to shoot two movies in a row. It is said that he was also banned by Taiwan Island because of this.

What a good promotional material!

He is simply a living treasure of the barrel station department!

Originally, "Popular Movies" wanted to interview him, but unfortunately Tony Leung Ka Fai returned to Hong Kong during this period, and recently he was also promoting the release of "The Chess Master" in Hong Kong.

"The Chess Master" was jointly invested and produced by Yan Film Studio and New Kunlun Films, so it is naturally not a problem to be released in Hong Kong.

However, New Kunlun Films is a small workshop in Hong Kong. In the Hong Kong film industry where Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest and Cinema City are the three major players, it is not easy for them to find a powerful distributor.

It is true that "The Chess Master" is a co-production, but it is basically a co-production. Most of the film's front-stage and backstage staff are from the mainland, and only one male lead, Tony Leung, and a few backstage staff are from Hong Kong.

Moreover, these people are not well-known in Hong Kong. Even though Tony Leung, a Hong Kong actor, has just won the Best Actor Award at the Academy Awards, he is just an insignificant little figure in the film industry.

The Hong Kong film market is highly commercialized. For such a film with a "mainland" label, distributors are naturally cautious. In the end, Li Hanxiang could only choose the Lianhua Cinema Chain.

Since the 1970s, there have been four major cinema chains in the Hong Kong film market.

These cinema chains together control nearly 90% of the cinemas in the Hong Kong film industry. Cinemas are the channels for film distribution and the lifeblood of the film industry.

Controlling cinemas means that these cinema chains have the greatest voice in the Hong Kong film industry.

Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, and Golden Princess, which are well-known to later generations, are all film giants with their own cinema chains.

As early as the 1960s and 1970s, apart from Shaw Brothers, a giant in the film industry, there were not many production companies in Hong Kong that were tied to cinema chains.

But in the 1970s, Shaw Brothers' right-hand man Zou Wenhuai left to found Golden Harvest. He deeply realized that cinema chains meant the right to speak in the film industry.

So he invested heavily in cinema chains, and at the same time vigorously promoted the independent producer system and satellite company system.

Allowing creators to participate in dividends provided a more free creative environment than Shaw Brothers, and gradually cultivated Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung, Cheng Long, Yuen Biao, Mak Dang-hung and other popular figures in the Hong Kong film industry.

This decision allowed Golden Harvest to rise rapidly in the early days of its business, and also allowed Princess Jin, who was also a cinema giant, to see that Shaw Brothers' studio system and salary system could no longer keep up with the development of the times.

The combination of cinema chains and production companies, and the satellite dividend system with a hundred flowers blooming is the general trend.

So Princess Jin followed Golden Harvest, using talents in an unconventional way, and vigorously supported small and medium-sized production companies. Xinyicheng was one of the production companies supported by Princess Jin.

In addition to these three, there is another cinema chain in Hong Kong that is not well-known but has considerable strength, that is, the Lianhua Group.

The Lianhua Group is a cinema alliance composed of Nanyang, Nanhua, Yindu, Huadu, Guobin and other cinemas as the backbone.

Compared with the previous three, the independent Lianhua Group is more loosely organized and less powerful, so it is not well-known in the Hong Kong film market.

But one good thing about Lianhua is that they all belong to Chinese-funded theater chains, so there is no difficulty in releasing mainland movies here. If "The Chess" is to be released in Hong Kong, this is naturally the first choice.

However, the release is coming, and the promotion of the movie is a problem.

The investment scale of "Chess Master" is small. There is no big company or capital behind it, and there is no star cast. It is too difficult to attract audiences to the cinema to watch the movie.

After all, Li Hanxiang invested hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars, but he didn't want all these investments to be wasted, so he could only rack his brains to get some publicity resources for "The Master of Chess".

Tony Leung Ka Fai had just won the Best Actor Award at the 3rd Hong Kong Film Awards, but was banned by Bay Island. This is a pretty good publicity point and can be used as a focus of publicity.

The remaining actors are all from the mainland and have no reputation in Hong Kong. It is useless for him to promote it.

Then there is the behind-the-scenes lineup. Director Chen Huaikai is also unknown in Hong Kong, and screenwriter Lin Chaoyang...

Li Hanxiang looked at the name "Lin Chaoyang" and couldn't help but think of the days when Lin Chaoyang dominated Hong Kong Island three months ago.

This kid made quite a few headlines in gossip magazines in those days, and it would be a pity not to take advantage of it.

Two days later, a promotional release about "The Chess" appeared in some entertainment tabloids in Hong Kong. "In order to make this film, the Academy Award-winning actor was banned from the Bay Island." "The Academy Award-winning actor was banned and moved to the mainland to maintain his career." livelihood"……

At first, the editorial style of these entertainment tabloids was normal, but after a few days, the content gradually became outrageous.

"The latest movie of Brigitte Lin's rumored boyfriend is released" ""The Chess Master" is released, the movie about Brigitte Lin and her rumored boyfriend's romance"...

The entertainment tabloids are unscrupulous. The article titles are full of all kinds of eye-catching words, but the content is basically based on rumors.

Although readers who are attracted by the headlines often curse after reading newspapers and magazines, their bad nature as human beings still makes them deceived time and time again.

After more than a week of publicity, "The Chess" was finally officially released in Hong Kong on November 3.

Lianhua Cinemas is the weakest among the four major cinemas in Hong Kong, with only 23 screens for "The Chess".

Fortunately, these days, Li Hanxiang's propaganda campaign launched by entertainment tabloids has been very effective. On the first day of its release, the average attendance rate of "The King of Chess" exceeded 40%.

Such attendance means that the theater chain is profitable and is off to a smooth start.

On the second and third days, the attendance rate of "Chess Master" further increased, once exceeding 60%, which means that theaters can make a lot of money from "Chess Master".

For three consecutive days, the cumulative box office of "Chess" reached HK$1.056 million.

Compared with those annual blockbuster movies that often gross more than 20 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office, such achievements are of course nothing.

But "The Chess" is, after all, a "three-no" movie with no big-name stars, no big investment, and is produced in the mainland. The theater chain where the film is released is the weakest among the four major theater chains in Hong Kong, Lianhua. The achievements have been extremely difficult.

In the days that followed, the reputation of "The Chess Master" continued to grow, attracting more and more Hong Kong audiences to the cinema.

Half a month after its release, the film's cumulative box office has exceeded HK$7.2 million. If nothing unexpected happens, the box office is expected to exceed HK$10 million when the film is released.

This box office figure can put it in the top 20 of Hong Kong Films of the year. It is a domestically funded co-production with no big-name stars, no decent publicity and distribution resources, and the box office exceeds 10 million Hong Kong dollars. It is considered a small hit no matter what!

Therefore, in recent days, more and more Hong Kong film companies have turned their attention to this "three noes" movie from the mainland.

After some careful inquiry, these people were even more surprised.

It turns out that this movie is actually an adaptation of the work of a mainland writer who caused a lot of heated discussion in Hong Kong a few months ago. The original novel has sold millions of copies in the mainland and has a huge influence.

The cast of the film is basically all mainlanders. The only actor in Hong Kong, Tony Leung Ka Fai, has just won the Academy Award for Best Actor, but he is not well-known in Hong Kong.

In addition, he was banned by the Bay Island last year, and has long been automatically classified as a first-rate "box office poison" actor by various film and television companies.

But now, these Xiangjiang film and television companies are surprised to find that Tony Leung Ka Fai, an actor who has been banned by the Bay Island authorities, is alive and well, and seems to be getting better and better as he lives.

From last year's "Curtain Curtain" to this year's "Chess Master", the cumulative box office of his films as the leading male actor has reached nearly 40 million Hong Kong dollars.

This kind of box office performance is definitely not considered a first-line star in Hong Kong, but for a newcomer who has only made his debut for two or three years, it is already an extremely exaggerated performance.

The success of a movie is the credit of the director, screenwriter, and film and television company, but it is not that simple to have two movies in a row become a hit.

Everyone spread the word, and many producers began to believe that Tony Leung was a lucky guy.

Xiangjiang people have always been very superstitious in this regard. Many people believe that if they cooperate with such people, they will also get good luck.

As Tony Leung's reputation grows, the blocking order from Bay Island is no longer a deterrent to the production companies in Hong Kong.

After all, compared with the unpredictable Bay Island market, real sales in Hong Kong may be more important.

So, production companies began to contact Tony Leung Ka Fai, hoping to invite him to star in their films. His salary also rose all the way, and one production company even offered him a salary of 500,000 Hong Kong dollars.

This salary standard has reached the level of first-line movie stars in Hong Kong, and it is something that Tony Leung, a newcomer, never dared to think about before.

The hot sales of "The Chess Master" made Tony Leung Ka Fai the most popular movie star in the Hong Kong film industry in the past two months, and he was in the limelight.

Compared with his glory, Hong Kong film and television companies are not so concerned about Lin Chaoyang, the original author and screenwriter. After all, most film and television companies are still pursuing immediate benefits.

Chasing a screenwriter, how can the effect and benefits brought by chasing a star be as great!

But not everyone in the world is short-sighted. A few people with unique vision often bet on bigger treasures than those speculators!