Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Daryl Vidal is no longer in Los Angeles. I checked his old karate gym and it has closed down and deregistered the company. His name is also not on the phone number register in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. I am trying to find a way to find it. His last rental record may have gone to other cities."

Richard reported to Ronald in the office about finding a karate instructor.

"Thank you, Richard. If you can't find it, I'll find another way." Ronald was very satisfied with Richard. He was always very attentive to the tasks he assigned.

"This is the karate you want, the information about Japanese Americans in California, and the records in various libraries in Los Angeles. I called you and asked..." Richard took out another piece of paper and recorded it. Several libraries have relatively complete collections of historical records of Ryukyu Karate.

Since the Japanese were hostile to America during World War II, they do not have complete cultural institutions in Los Angeles like other ethnic groups to collect and preserve the historical records of their nation. Many existing cultural institutions were built with money from Japanese companies after the economy took off, and have little history of local Japanese.

Over the next few weeks, Ronald spent time in various libraries, searching for the history of karate and Japanese Americans. He brought sorting cards and recorded interesting history whenever he saw it.

It would be better if the library can make copies. If you pay a little money, you can copy the contents of old magazines and newspapers. Even more convenient are several university libraries in Los Angeles, which are equipped with a microfilm photography system that can be queried on the computer, and then the microfilm can be retrieved, browsed with a special microscope, and printed directly when the required materials are encountered.

After Ronald's investigation, he discovered that Japanese Americans had actually settled in California on a large scale before World War II. It also introduced traditional martial arts such as karate and judo to the West Coast.

Before Bruce Lee was born, karate still focused on stopping, that is, until the point is reached, the moves will stop before they hit the opponent's vital points, and they will not really hit. This method dissatisfied the passionate American people, and the karate competitions held never attracted much support from the audience.

It wasn't until Bruce Lee demonstrated some of his unique skills at a karate conference that people became interested in karate. Various competitions began to be held in various places.

Under the influence of Bruce Lee's ideas, everyone began to formulate various karate rules for real fighting. The common point is to score points by hitting the effective part of the opponent's body. However, the rules of each tournament are different. Some only prohibit hitting the eyes, throat, lower body and other vital parts. Some pursue safety and must wear a lot of protective gear.

Even kicking the head and hitting the back of the body are prohibited.

In general, even the karate competitions in California are still in a state of confusion. There is no unified organization and association to set standards, and the levels vary greatly.

On this day, Ronald walked out of the Albert Kinney Memorial Library next to Venice Beach, which contains some information on early Japanese Americans in Los Angeles.

Ronald lived here for a while while filming "Rock High School" and also ran a portrait photography studio for a while, making a little money.

Break dancing is becoming more and more popular in Venice, Los Angeles. The scene in "Flash Dance" in which the heroine learns to dance with several Latinos and black people has become a new popular trend. Ronald saw several young men also forming a circle next to the terrazzo floor, imitating the dance moves in the movie.

One of the young people, who was using crutches, was still correcting others' movements and teaching them essentials. He seemed to be the boss of break dancing in this area.

Ronald felt curious, so he stopped and watched why so many dancers were convinced by a normal person.

"Come on, come on, handyman." Several young men shouted, asking the disabled man to dance a section.

The original meaning of handyman is a repairman, but this nickname is a bit strange to describe this person on crutches. Not only were his legs unable to walk, but Ronald looked a little stunted, a classic symptom of polio, and he must have been a bad repairman who had to climb up and down.

Handyman didn't refuse. He threw away his crutches and fell on the terrazzo floor. Then he prepared his hands, got up, and started the Thomas full rotation of gymnastics. His legs were weak, but it didn't hinder his wonderful movements at all, and he was almost out of his mind.

Then he straightened up like a carp and began to lean on his back to make a fulcrum on the ground and spin. Although his legs and feet are disabled, his movements are smooth and smooth, which is very beautiful. A pair of disabled legs turned, and there was no problem at all. All supported by two hands.

"No wonder he's nicknamed 'handyman.'" Ronald couldn't help but applaud beside him.

"Ronald, is that you?" A middle-aged woman passed by with a cloth bag and couldn't help but screamed when she saw Ronald.

"Ah, hello Mrs. Weber!" Ronald recognized her neighbor who was renting a house in Venice at the time. He had hired her and her daughter when doing portrait photography.

Ronald hugged her warmly and said, "I still work in the film industry, but I haven't seen you for a long time. How are you? How are you doing recently? How is your daughter?"

"I'm fine. My daughter has graduated from high school and works as a cashier in a supermarket. She works very hard, and her boyfriend is a nice Latino boy. After graduating from college, he works in a law firm..."

Mrs. Webber has some Irish ancestry, and actually has a feud with America's British cousin. They are also predominantly Catholic, so they do not shy away from intermarrying with Latinos who are also Catholics. Moreover, Latinos can go to college and work in law firms. For Mrs. Weber's daughter, they are very good marriage candidates.

I invited Mrs. Weber for a cup of coffee, and it was an unexpected surprise to meet old neighbors. Ronald decided to set the protagonist's background to Mrs. Webb's family. A single mother of Irish descent, for a job opportunity, took her daughter, no, it was her son in the script, and drove all the way to Los Angeles to pursue her dream.

The Weber boy's dream girl was set up as a local upper-middle-class family, with a large independent house in the suburbs. The father's job was well-paid, and the mother was a full-time housewife. She was also the school beauty at school.

The boyfriend of the school beauty is a classmate of the same school, and he also belongs to the wealthy middle class. Because of his violent tendencies, he formed a bullying organization with a group of little boys and bullied the weaker boys every day. One day when he beat up the protagonist, his violent behavior was discovered by his girlfriend, so he broke up with her on the spot.

The boyfriend of the school beauty thinks this is the fault of the protagonist. He wants to get back together with his girlfriend to no avail, so he bullies the protagonist every day. The protagonist is often bullied by him and his face and body are covered with scars.

The protagonist couldn't bear it, so he found a karate training class, became a disciple of a Ryukyu karate master, and learned the secrets of authentic Ryukyu karate. The protagonist shines in the tournament and wins the championship.

But the heroine in Dream Lover saw that the protagonist had also learned martial arts and won the championship through violent means. She thought of her violent ex-boyfriend and was neither salty nor indifferent to the protagonist.

The ex-boyfriend of the school beauty failed to get back together again, and this time he came to beat the protagonist to vent his anger. After learning martial arts, the protagonist defeated the bully and ordered him not to harass his ex-girlfriend, the school beauty.

In the end, when the protagonist was able to beat the bullying boy hard, he put down his fist again, because with martial arts, it is not necessary to use the same violent means to bully him back.

The heroine who happened to see all this changed her view of the protagonist because of this incident and kissed him.

After writing the main story, Ronald began to work hard every day to add details and small stories about the characters. Without the help of dreams, it is estimated that this movie may not have done well at the box office, it has not been made into a video tape, and I have not seen it in my previous life.

While Ronald is working hard every day, "Valley Girl" is in its fourth week, and his "Night of the Comet" will follow next week.

Came to the offices of Atlantic Pictures again, and Martha Coolidge, the director of "Valley Girl," was also there, and Ronald chatted with her for a while.

In the first two weeks, "Valley Girl" received quite good reviews, but its average box office dropped by 30% in the second week. The movie, which had been prepared for release for a month, saw its box office drop by only 5% in the third week.

Atlantic thought it would be a counterattack in terms of word-of-mouth, and arranged for 100 more theaters in the hope of getting a Cinderella hit (sleeping hit). However, the box office in the fourth week was disappointing, with a drop of more than 40% compared to last week.

After four weekends, "Valley Girl's" weekly box office has dropped by $1.5 million. The Atlantic's prediction is basically accurate. The audience for this kind of urban funny teen romantic comedy is very concentrated in big cities, and the potential audience is also rapidly dwindling.

Atlantic has concentrated its filming in theaters with good early performance. The total number of theaters showing has dropped to more than 200, and it is estimated that it will continue to fall next week, and the weekly box office will drop below one million US dollars.

"Anyway, the total box office is close to nine million US dollars. I finally succeeded." Martha Coolidge was also very emotional when chatting. The filming of this movie was also very difficult, but fortunately the final result was good, and she is not afraid that she will not be able to gain a foothold in Hollywood in the future.

"Yes, congratulations. Your first movie has earned more than 10 million at the box office. It is estimated that it will be able to exceed 15 million by switching to long-term screening."

"Good luck to you too, Ronald, and I hope your movie will be a success too."

Ronald knew in his heart that Martha Coolidge was still a little unconvinced. Her movie's weekend box office figures at a single theater were still good, around two thousand. If her "Night of the Comet" couldn't significantly surpass it, Atlantic Ocean would still have allocated more theaters to her "Valley Girl."

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