Chapter 055: A Pillory in Every Sense of the Word

Time flies, and the evening of April 21st arrived.

As Li Wenyu, Fan Bingbing, along with Yang Mi and Dong Xuan, stepped out of their car and walked the red carpet at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre, photographers and gossip paparazzi were snapping pictures furiously from all directions.

Fan Bingbing carried herself like a queen making a grand descent, while Yang and Dong looked far more conventional in ordinary evening gowns. Walking with cautious trepidation, they resembled mere attendants.

Today was the night of the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony.

Originally, Stephen Chow swept six major awards including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor with Shaolin Soccer.

This time, however, Li Wenyu had secured Best Screenplay nominations for both Tuen Mun in the Seabreeze and Miracle Boy, while The Beach earned nominations for Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume & Makeup Design.

Fan Bingbing was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Miracle Boy.

Before the envelopes were even opened, the outcomes had already been sealed. All three Li-backed films would take home their nominated prizes, with the Best Screenplay award naturally going to Tuen Mun in the Seabreeze—after all, it was the film that propelled Leslie Cheung to the Berlin Best Actor crown.

At this stage, the prestige of a Berlin International Film Festival Best Actor award far surpassed that of any Asian film festival.

As for Yang Mi and Dong Xuan tagging along? Li Wenyu still found it somewhat amusing. He had simply asked Andy Lau to keep an eye out and audition the two for a two-choice-one role.

In the end, for the pre-arranged Cat and Mouse, the female lead originally meant for Cecilia Cheung went to Dong Xuan, while the second female lead meant for Li Bingbing went to Yang Mi. Both actresses were now officially artists under Time Media.

Since they had already debuted, they could be quietly reserved for guest appearances in You Who Came from the Stars, which was set to start filming after October.

After walking the red carpet and entering the venue, Li Wenyu soon spotted Brother Rong approaching. Leslie guided the four of them toward their seats, and Li Wenyu, along with Fan Bingbing, sat in the front row right beside Leslie Cheung.

Dong Xuan and Yang Mi, on the other hand, were relegated to the very last row...

In the entertainment industry, where you sat at major ceremonies and high-profile events often spoke volumes.

Yet, at this stage, no one dared to voice any overt objection to Li Wenyu sitting in the front row.

Director Li of the Beijing Film Academy had just helped Brother Rong pocket one or two hundred million! And the DVD sales were still going strong; even Shaolin Soccer, accumulated over a few years, would rake in tens of millions of US dollars.

Moreover, he was currently helping Brother Rong, Charles Heung's China Star, and Huayi Brothers make a second massive fortune. Ever since the marketing concept of the "Buy One, Get Another Chance" campaign spread, groups of people were rushing to negotiate with individual cinema chains.

Any truly clever person could easily guess that this promotional tactic—designed to attract or rather "manufacture a psychological illusion among audiences that they had won a prize, struck it lucky, and scored a bargain, while actually luring them to bring friends and family along to spend even more money"—could genuinely explode box office earnings!

It allowed everyone in the film and television industry to reap huge profits.

The nickname "Little God of Wealth of Beijing Film Academy" was already beginning to circulate for Li Wenyu.

Even Cecilia Cheung couldn't manage a seat in the front row; her seating position fell far short of Fan Bingbing's.

Exchanging pleasantries all the way, Li Wenyu sat down and smiled, "Brother Rong, do you have something on your mind?"

Having rushed against the clock, Leslie Cheung had only managed to submit the final cut of Let's Embrace Happiness to Cannes on April 2nd, and over ten days ago, Cannes announced that the film had been selected for the Main Competition section.

Now that they were all sitting at the Hong Kong Film Awards, they would be heading to Cannes in May.

Leslie Cheung's smile was exceptionally gentle. "I heard that ever since you finished filming recently, you've been working overtime in your hotel every day writing a novel? Bingbing is your first reader, and she hasn't stopped praising your writing skill while on set."

"When can I get a sneak peek?"

The filming of The Auditor and Lost in Time, which had commenced successively on March 12th and 13th, had already entered their final stages of production by late April. Both were heavily dialogue-driven dramas.

Depending entirely on the performances of the actors, such films were shot the fastest.

The reason they hadn't wrapped up yet was because The Auditor crew featured a certain young actress named Yang Mi, who would often take twenty or thirty takes on a single scene before satisfying Li Wenyu. He had also personally spent a good deal of time coaching Yang Mi's acting.

Lost in Time was even more absurd. In her quest for an award, Fan Bingbing would find fault with takes that were completed in a single shot and insisted on doing them over two or three times. On numerous occasions, veteran actor Sean Lau was utterly overshadowed and struggled to keep up, finding the experience rather agonizing.

Lost in Time was directed by Derek Yee, who had called Li Wenyu three separate times just to vent. He complained that Fan Bingbing's acting in this film was divine, simply out of this world, and begged him to spare them any more torture.

At most, the film might contend for Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards, but competing for Best Actress at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards was out of the question—let alone dreaming of targeting Berlin, Cannes, or Venice.

Since it wasn't competing for top-tier international awards, there was really no need to put oneself through such torment!

In the original timeline, Cecilia Cheung's version of Lost in Time had also been selected for the main competition section of the Berlin International Film Festival, but walked away empty-handed. After all, you hadn't poured money, connections, and personal networks into it!

Seated nearby, Tsui Hark also chuckled. "Director Li, I've also heard from Derek Yee that your new project is extremely thrilling and exciting. Is it a sci-fi work? Are you aiming for commercial success or chasing awards?"

"I also heard your company is preparing to produce an idol drama? Something along the standard of Meteor Garden or Autumn in My Heart? If you need me to make a cameo, just say the word."

Old Tsui was currently feeling somewhat numb; he hadn't yet recovered from the massive box office disaster of The Legend of Zu, and he was currently directing Black Mask 2, which was originally destined to flop miserably as well.

It took him a full three years of recovery and filming after that massive flop before he finally managed to put together Seven Swords—which also flopped!

Yet Tsui Hark still felt a sense of grievance. If The Legend of Zu had enjoyed a large-scale promotional campaign like the "Buy One, Get Another Chance" event and other high-profile marketing strategies upon its release, he certainly wouldn't have suffered such devastating losses.

He still had confidence in Black Mask 2; he was simply missing a friend like Li Wenyu to lend a helping hand.

Li Wenyu laughed in spite of himself. "Director Tsui is too polite. What I'm writing is commercial fiction; once it's finished, I will definitely ask Brother Rong and Director Tsui to look it over and offer your guidance."

Through attribute allocation, he had long since raised his English proficiency to the (92/100) tier, and his physical fitness attribute to a height of 170 before stopping. Since then, his unallocated free attribute points had accumulated to a total of 23.

Spanning three and a half months starting from January 3rd, the creation of Interstellar had already been completed!

The novel, spanning a total of 250,000 words, could be fully published in a single volume.

This was a substantial word count. Sci-fi master Liu Cixin's original novella The Wandering Earth was only a little over 20,000 words, so Li Wenyu's writing of Interstellar had deliberately padded the word count to match the scale of a Jurassic Park novel.

Right now, he was utilizing his writing proficiency and English level—both soaring at a rating of 92—to conduct a second editorial review and translate the English version.

When the time came, he would share the English manuscript with Brother Rong and Old Tsui to gather reader feedback. Tsui Hark had studied abroad in the United States, and Brother Rong had studied in the UK, so neither had any issues with English.

The time that followed passed amidst laughter and chatter. Soon, the hosts took the stage, and the award ceremony officially commenced—everything followed a routine, procedural formula.

He and Fan Bingbing took turns going up to accept the major trophies for Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, and Best Art Direction, while Stephen Chow swept the night's heavy-hitting awards.

The Best Actress award for this edition went to Sylvia Chang.

Li Wenyu could only sigh inwardly. If one were to travel back in time to the era of Red Cliff, when John Woo was riding high, the status and market value of mainland China's film industry would have plummeted drastically instead.

In Red Cliff, that era represented an utterly absurd disparity in class barriers, where frantic efforts were made purely to elevate star status and trample others, completely disregarding quality.

No wonder Red Cliff bombed with such magnificent splendor!

Right, Li Wenyu suddenly recalled that John Woo was about to make his return to the Chinese-language film circle.

The financial losses incurred by his project Windtalkers were nothing short of catastrophic—infinitely more disastrous and pitiless than Wong Kar-wai's worst boxes. A whole string of films like Red Cliff, The Crossing, and Manhunt were, in every conceivable sense, pillars of shame for Chinese cinema.

And certain individuals were about to spend a decade churning out those exact monstrosities...