Literary Master 1978

"What's your idea?" Lin Chaoyang asked.

"Don't you and my sister know a lot of celebrities in Hong Kong? Can we invite a few celebrities to the anniversary celebration of the clothing city next year?"

Lin Chaoyang looked at Du Feng in surprise. He didn't expect him to come up with such an idea.

Mainland stars can't satisfy you now, right? You still want to invite Hong Kong stars.

"It's a good idea, but it's too unrealistic."

"Why?" Du Feng was puzzled.

In the 1980s, it was true that the reputations of many Hong Kong and Taiwan stars were introduced to China, but their works were not very popular. The trend of chasing Hong Kong and Taiwan stars in China only started in the late 1980s.

In the early and mid-1980s, the Hong Kong and Taiwan stars with the greatest influence in the mainland were singers who had much more influence than movie stars, and their works were more familiar to people.

For example, Teresa Teng, Luo Dayou, Feng Feifei...

But the problem is that many people may have heard their songs, but may not have met them in person. It is difficult to create a sensation by inviting these people.

Moreover, you may not be able to invite him even if you spend money. Even if you can, the cost is much more expensive than inviting mainland movie stars like Liu Xiaoqing, so it is not cost-effective at all.

Du Feng was thinking about making a big move, but ignored the actual feasibility.

"Don't think about Hong Kong and Taiwan stars in the next one or two years. Just focus on the Spring Festival Gala and invite whoever is popular.

In recent years, the Spring Festival Gala has always invited unknown singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. You can contact them. The effect is definitely not worse than inviting those real Hong Kong and Taiwan stars."

Lin Chaoyang remembered that Fei Xiang would appear on the Spring Festival Gala in a few months. Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to invite him than to invite those stars from thousands of miles away?

The effect will definitely be sensational. It is estimated that the young ladies and wives at the scene will faint with excitement.

After Lin Chaoyang's persuasion, Du Feng gave up the idea of ​​inviting Hong Kong and Taiwan stars, "Okay, then I'll invite the people from the Spring Festival Gala."

At noon, Lin Erchun came back early one day. Du Feng saw that he was in a hurry and couldn't help asking:

"Uncle, you came back early today!"

"Haha, today is the house exchange meeting. The government has made some kind of computer to exchange houses, which is much faster than before."

As mentioned earlier, house exchange is a last resort for Yanjing residents to solve the inconvenience of going to work or school or to improve housing conditions. Usually, the two parties to the house exchange voluntarily negotiate.

In order to facilitate citizens, Yanjing City began to organize house exchanges between residents as early as the 1950s. In 1956, a special allocation department was established in the Housing Authority as a full-time agency for house exchange.

By the 1980s, Yanjing's population continued to grow, and the housing shortage situation was further aggravated. The Housing Authority began to hold house exchange meetings at the Working People's Cultural Palace in 1982.

Residents and enterprises in the eight districts of Dongcheng, Xicheng, Xuanwu, Chongwen, Haidian, Chaoyang, Fengtai and Shijingshan can exchange houses through the house exchange conference.

The house exchange conference was warmly welcomed by the citizens of Yanjing. Although the current house prices seem to be inexpensive, they are still out of reach for the vast majority of the working class.

On the other hand, the supply of commercial housing is pitifully small, and everyone has only one house. Many houses are still owned by the public, so it is difficult to have the opportunity to exchange houses.

In 1982, the first house exchange conference attracted more than 75,000 residents, of which 1,368 households exchanged houses.

By last year, this number soared to 3,151 households. And this is only a small part of Yanjing's annual house exchange. Last year, more than 37,000 households in Yanjing exchanged houses.

The house exchange had nothing to do with Lin Erchun. He went to see the excitement at the house exchange conference the year before last and discovered a business opportunity.

House exchange, work, school, and spacious living are all for these three things.

However, the proportion of residents who can change their housing after participating in the house-changing meeting every year is very low, and they have real needs to improve their housing. These people are all potential rental customers of Lin Erchun.

One house-changing meeting is enough for Lin Erchun and his subordinates to be busy for half a month.

Comrade Lin is no longer the commander without troops as he was before. He has several old men and old ladies under his command.

Du Feng chatted with Lin Erchun for a while and complimented him: "You really know how to make money!"

"Hey, what's the point of making money? It's just finding something for yourself to do."

Lin Erchun was modest, but he couldn't hide the pride between his eyebrows.

After lunch, Du Feng was about to say goodbye, and Lin Chaoyang suddenly remembered and said, "By the way, your sister asked you to buy more black windbreakers."

"Black windbreaker? What do you want to buy that for?"

"You will know in two months."

There is a time difference between the pirated videotapes in the mainland and Hong Kong. Many videos will be transmitted to the mainland in three or four months at the fastest, and half a year or a year at the slowest.

Given the popularity of A Better Tomorrow, this speed may be much earlier.

A few days later, the autumn wind gradually became bleak, and winter in Yanjing was coming.

Liang Zuo suddenly ran to Lin Chaoyang's house and said that he wanted to invite him to a class reunion, and Lin Chaoyang happily went.

After getting married, Liang Zuo lived in a large courtyard in Xinxian Hutong, Dongcheng District. To enter the hutong, you must first pass through the public toilet. Even in winter, the smell is not very good. This is also the norm in most hutongs in Yanjing today.

After entering the house, Li Tong had just arrived. Liang Zuo talked to the two for a while and got up to go to the toilet outside.

At this time, Wang Xiaoping came and brought a long-lost familiar face.

"Xiao Cha!" Li Tong shouted excitedly.

Everyone greeted each other. Liang Zuo came back and wanted to shake hands with Zha Jianying when he saw her. Wang Xiaoping slapped his hand away in disgust.

"Didn't you just go to the bathroom?"

"Then let's follow the American custom."

Liang Zuo smiled and hugged Zha Jianying.

After a while, two or three more people came to Liang Zuo's house, and everyone was finally together.

Lin Chaoyang heard everyone chatting and found out that the main purpose of today's party was to welcome Zha Jianying back to China.

When Lin Chaoyang was in Yanjing University, he was not very familiar with Zha Jianying. When they met, they just greeted each other politely, but Zha Jianying looked at him twice more.

Zha Jianying went to the United States to study in 1981, and it has been five years since then.

During this period, she first obtained a master's degree in English at the University of South Carolina, and then studied comparative literature at Columbia University and obtained her second master's degree.

After graduating this year, she applied for a job at the New York Times. She came back this time because the New York Times decided to send her back to the Yanjing office.

When talking about work, it is inevitable to talk about salary. When everyone heard that Cha Jianying said her salary was 1,800 US dollars, they were all dumbfounded.

1,800 US dollars, converted into RMB is 6,000 RMB!

"Xiao Cha, you really made the right move to study abroad. One year's salary is enough for us to earn for a lifetime." Wang Xiaoping's tone was full of envy.

Among the 1977 class of the Chinese Department of Yan University, not many people decided to study abroad when they graduated, after all, self-funded study abroad was just beginning at that time.

Many people are unsure about going to study abroad in a foreign country.

In the past two years, whether it is self-funded or publicly funded study abroad, more and more people have become more and more eager to study abroad. Even Wang Xiaoping and others who have been working for a few years are a little eager to move, not to mention the successful example of Cha Jianying.

With the identity of a "sea turtle", Cha Jianying became the focus of this gathering.

She talked to everyone about her various experiences of studying and living in the United States in the past few years, and everyone was full of envy.

"You should really go to the United States if you have a chance. It's really different from China."

Cha Jianying's words revealed a sense of superiority, but she was restrained.

Given the economic gap and social development between China and the United States in the 1980s, it was normal for her to have such a sense of superiority.

"How can it be as easy as you say! At the beginning, only a few of you were determined to study abroad. Now everyone is getting married and having children, which is even more impossible." Wang Xiaoping said.

Liang Zuo smiled and said, "Xiaoping, you might as well point my name."

"You are not the only one who got married and had children."

"Who else, Li Tong, my master... Forget it, my master doesn't count, he can go abroad anytime he wants, and he has settled in Hong Kong."

Lin Chaoyang hurriedly said, "No, don't make up rumors about me, I am just a guest in Hong Kong, and I am not sitting here with you now?"

"What about my master's wife?" Liang Zuo asked him.

"She lost her job and had no choice but to go into business."

Wang Xiaoping joked, "We also want this kind of opportunity to go into business."

While the few people were telling jokes to each other, Cha Jianying's eyes lingered on Lin Chaoyang with interest.

She stayed in the United States for several years, but she did not lose contact with China and had always been in touch.

When she corresponded with her classmates, she would occasionally talk about Lin Chaoyang. She knew that he had become more famous in recent years than before. What surprised her even more was in June this year.

She received a letter from Wang Xiaoping from China, saying that the movie written by Lin Chaoyang won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cha Jianying was very surprised to get the news. She usually didn't pay much attention to entertainment news, and then she went to check it out, and indeed found the award information of "The Truman Show". At that time, she was a little sighing.

Because when she went abroad, Lin Chaoyang had not had any of his works adapted and released. In her impression, Lin Chaoyang was just a writer. Unexpectedly, a few years later, he had won a grand prize at a foreign film festival.

What surprised Cha Jianying even more was that a few days later, she actually saw the movie poster of "The Truman Show" at the entrance of a movie theater on the street in New York.

"The Truman Show" is going to be released in the United States?

With curiosity, Cha Jianying went to watch the film in the first few days of its release. It was unexpectedly good and memorable.

At that time, Cha Jianying was still thinking, no wonder it won three awards at the Cannes Film Festival.

After a few days, Cha Jianying found that many American classmates around her, even professors, had watched this movie.

This phenomenon was completely beyond Cha Jianying's expectations. In her impression, Americans rarely watch foreign movies, and Hong Kong movies only have a market in Chinatown.

Cha Jianying couldn't help but talk to the classmates around her, and then she learned that the scale of "The Truman Show" in the United States was not small, at least it was definitely much larger than those Hong Kong kung fu movies that were only shown in Chinatown.

In the movie, Truman's desperate attempt to escape from Taoyuan Island and his pursuit of freedom were highly praised by her classmates.

Only then did Cha Jianying realize that the popularity of "The Truman Show" in the United States was largely due to the values ​​of the film.

But Cha Jianying thought carefully about the plot of the film and felt that Americans may have only seen the four words "pursuit of freedom" but did not see the absurdity and irony behind the film.

Cha Jianying also specially asked her classmates to send her a copy of the original novel "The Truman Show". After reading the novel, she became more convinced of her feelings, and began to educate her classmates about the hidden meanings in the movies and novels. .

Whenever someone questions her science popularization, Cha Jianying will say: "You know, the screenwriter of this movie and the original novel are my friends, and we were in the same classroom back then!"

At this time, those doubts will disappear immediately. Tried and true, she has been a little transparent in school in the past few years, and she has been in the limelight several times.

"I went to see "The Truman Show" when it was released in the United States. It was well written and shot." Zha Jianying praised.

Lin Chaoyang thanked him, but before he spoke, several people around him started asking questions.

"Is "The Truman Show" still released in the United States?"

In this era without the Internet, the dissemination of information had great limitations.

"Yeah, the box office was pretty good. I remember it was almost over 10 million US dollars." Cha Jianying said.

Everyone was immediately surprised when they heard this, "Ten million dollars? Oh my god!"

Liang Zuo stared at Lin Chaoyang with bright eyes, "Master, how much did you share in the ten million US dollars?"

Everyone's eyes also looked at Lin Chaoyang.

"This kind of movie is released with overseas rights bought out, and the box office has nothing to do with me."

Everyone couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when they heard this, "It doesn't matter!"

At this time, Zha Jianying asked, "The box office doesn't matter, and the copyright buyout price doesn't matter either?"

Her question made everyone's eyes focus on Lin Chaoyang again.

"There is a one-tenth relationship." Lin Chaoyang said truthfully.

Wang Xiaoping asked curiously: "How much is one-tenth?"

"That adds up to $1.8 million."

Everyone couldn't help but take a breath of air.

$1.8 million?

This impact was much greater than Cha Jianying's monthly salary of 1,800. Those present had all known that Lin Chaoyang's writing fees for writing books were very high, but no matter how high the fees were, they were always within the scope of everyone's knowledge.

But now movies adapted from novels are so profitable, which is really beyond everyone’s awareness.

After everyone calmed down for a while, Liang Zuocai murmured: "No wonder, Master, you ran away to Xiangjiang. If it were me, I wouldn't even bring you back."

"It's not as exaggerated as you think. "The Truman Show" is so profitable because it won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. It is an exception."

Liang Zuo shouted: "That's one million US dollars. It's enough once in a lifetime. This much money is enough for my grandchildren to spend!"

Everyone couldn't help laughing.

After laughing, when everyone looked at Lin Chaoyang again, it was difficult to look at him as an equal, and they looked up to him unknowingly.

Even Zha Jianying, who had just returned from the United States and was somewhat arrogant, was the same.

Seeing this, Lin Chaoyang had no choice but to guide everyone to change the topic and start caring about everyone's personal lives.

Among the people present today, the only ones who are not married are Cha Jianying and Wang Xiaoping.

Li Tong asked Wang Xiaoping if she had a boyfriend, and she said no.

"We haven't discussed it yet, are you planning to be an old girl?" Li Tong asked sarcastically.

Wang Xiaoping glared at him, "You, the police, are quite lenient!"

"How about I introduce one to you?" Li Tong didn't care about her tone, but he planned to be a month old man.

"No need." Wang Xiaoping said firmly.

Everyone noticed something was wrong, and after questioning her carefully, they finally pried Wang Xiaoping's mouth open. It turned out that she had been in a relationship with a young man from Yanjing TV Studio since last year.

"Let's just talk. What else are you hiding from us?" Zha Jianying complained.

Wang Xiaoping looked shy and said: "They are so rude, who knows how they will make fun of me?"

Several other people were shot while lying down, shouting that they were wronged.

Everyone got together after lunch and chatted until the evening.

Liang Zuo went to eat, and Li Tong shouted Dong Laishun, which won everyone's unanimous approval.

The Crown owned by Lin Chaoyang also made a splash at Liang Zuo's wedding the year before last. It could carry four people. Because there were lesbians, we couldn't squeeze in. Three people had to ride bicycles.

As soon as winter comes, business in Donglaishun has improved, and it is full of people. Everyone has a lively meal.

After dinner, Liang Zuo arranged to watch "The Truman Show" together.

It has been more than half a month since the film was released. Although it has been affected by pirated video tapes, it is still a film that won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

"The Truman Show" is still enthusiastically sought after by many movie fans, especially those book lovers and literary and artistic young people, who praise this movie to the sky.

The film itself is of high quality, has the aura of winning awards, and has a wave of loyal fans.

After "The Truman Show" was released, a movie-watching craze quickly formed. This craze was different from the wave of national movie-watching like "Wreaths Under the Mountain", but rather pursued fashion and formalism. .

It's a bit similar to the feeling of later generations of artistic young people showing off in a cafe with a book by a writer like Marcel Proust.

After coming out of the cinema, Liang Zuo exclaimed: "The filming was really good!"

In fact, it was not the first time for most of them to watch this movie, and everyone agreed with Liang Zuo's evaluation.

This may be due to the fact that the film won an award, but a considerable part of it is due to heartfelt recognition.

"I remember there was a lot of controversy after The Truman Show was published, but there seems to be no movement recently."

Li Tong's tone was a little teasing.

“It’s not that there’s no movement, it’s mainly that there’s no more trouble.

Many critics previously said that the content of "The Truman Show" was unrealistic, but when it was made into a movie, foreigners liked it, won awards, and made their faces swollen.

Now that the movie is released, the expression of images is more intuitive than words.

The imagination shown in "The Truman Show" is indeed beyond the thinking of ordinary people, but it is about very practical things.

Facts speak louder than words, what else do they have to say? "

Liang Zuo was Lin Chaoyang's idiot. He felt extremely relieved when he saw that none of the critics who had criticized "The Truman Show" made any move.

“There seem to be more reviews praising The Truman Show in magazines recently than before.”

Wang Xiaoping said something, which confirmed Liang Zuo's words, and everyone laughed.

After talking about the movie and time, everyone was ready to say goodbye.

Zha Jianying suddenly said to Lin Chaoyang: "Chaoyang, if you have time later, can I make an interview with you?"

Lin Chaoyang hesitated and said, "Okay."

After everyone separated, Zha Jianying and Wang Xiaoping stood together, and they were going home together.

Wang Xiaoping saw that Zha Jianying was still looking in the direction of Lin Chaoyang's taillights and asked, "What else are you looking at?"

"It's nothing, I just think he has changed a lot." Cha Jianying's eyes were a little complicated.

"Is he big? It's okay. He was famous when he was in school."

Wang Xiaoping thought of when he was in school, because Lin Chaoyang didn't want to see Mengyu Shi, Zha Jianying had a big opinion against him.

When the words came to her lips, she suppressed them.

"But some things are really unexpected. How do you think he maintains such strong creative energy? Even if he writes novels, the scripts are so good."

Wang Xiaoping couldn't hide his envy and admiration in his tone.

She has been writing since she was in school. After graduation, she went to work as an editor at "People's Literature" and was a colleague of Tao Yushu.

It's a pity that neither writing nor editing has made him famous, so she also knows better the talent and dedication required for Lin Chaoyang to achieve his current achievements.

Zha Jianying's lips moved, but in the end he didn't say anything.

For some people, acknowledging the excellence of others is equivalent to admitting their own shortcomings.

The day after the beginning of winter, Lin Chaoyang returned to Xiangjiang with his baby.

We haven't seen each other for more than half a month, and both children miss their mother a little bit.

After putting their two children to sleep at night, Tao Yushu and Lin Chaoyang sat on the balcony and enjoyed the night view of Victoria Harbor.

The temperature in Yanjing is already below zero, but the temperature in Xiangjiang is still 22 or 3 degrees Celsius, and the evening breeze is intoxicating.

"The movie "Fantasy Girl" is scheduled to be released the day after tomorrow, and Golden Harvest originally wanted us to compete with New Art City's "The True Story of Heroes."

I'm not worried about movies like "Heroes" that follow suit, but we can't let Golden Harvest manipulate us like that. We're not their satellite company.

I said that in the worst case, we would just stay on the Shaw and Shuangnan lines. Anyway, the market is neither hot nor cold during this period, and it doesn’t make any difference if we go earlier or later.

Seeing my tough attitude, they moved "Youth and Fury" to December. "

Lin Chaoyang looked at Tao Yushu with soft eyes and asked, "Are you angry?"

Tao Yushu's expression was relaxed, "There's nothing to be angry about, it's all business. Jiahe just wants to avoid risks. They only invested 2 million in "The Girl", but 5 million in "Youth and Fury"."

"Jiahe controls the theater chain, which means it has the initiative. This kind of thing will definitely happen in the future. For us, the best way right now is to get closer to Yindu and Shaw Brothers."

Tao Yushu nodded and added, "Mi Gao has been in contact with me during this period and wants to cooperate with you again."

Lin Chaoyang smiled and asked, "Has he finished enjoying the applause?"

Since Xu Guanwen returned with great honor, he has participated in endless activities every day, not only in Xiangjiang, but also in Bay Island, Haojiang, Malaysia, Singapore...

With the popularity of "The Truman Show", he has traveled all over East and Southeast Asia in the past few months and is so popular that he has no friends.

"Flowers and applause always come to an end, and it's been half a year. He said that he has received many scripts in the past six months, but none of them have caught his fancy."

With the success of "The Truman Show", Xu Guanwen naturally turned his back on those crude commercial movie scripts popular in Hong Kong.

Being crowned Best Actor at Cannes is a great honor, but it is also a shackle for him.

"What Lin needs now is rapid development. We can't put too much energy into art films. We should wait for a while before discussing cooperation."

Tao Yushu held his hand on the railing, feeling the night breeze, "I think so too. I plan to make two more movies after "The Hardcover Chasing Girls" is released."

"One is for Wang Jing, where is the other one?"

"I recently got in touch with a husband-and-wife team who returned from studying abroad. They made a low-budget film called "Illegal Immigration" last year, which did well at the box office."

"Zhang Wanting?"

"Yes. The couple wrote a script, which I think is good. If they can get their money back, they can bring it to our company."

"Have you contacted the director of New Art City?"

In recent years, Cinema City has been full of talents, and many famous directors in later generations came from them.

"There is no connection with the popular ones like Ringo Lam and John Woo. If you poach them, isn't it equivalent to declaring war on Cinema City?

There is a director named Johnnie To who is very interested in our Lin Group. He filmed the third part of "Happy Ghost" this year, and the box office was average. Cinema City has never planned to give him a movie."

Ah Du, a god and a ghost, Lin Chaoyang thought with some disdain.

Forget it, the company is in need of people now.

When he heard the name of Johnnie To, Lin Chaoyang couldn't help but think of the Sunglass King. He should be a screenwriter in Cinema City now, right?

The current Lin Group certainly can't afford such a scumbag, so he will have to wait until he has money in the future.

The couple chatted about the company's affairs until late at night before going back to the room to sleep.

In the blink of an eye, it was already mid-November. The popularity of "A Better Tomorrow" when it was released in Hong Kong has gradually passed, but its influence is still there.

Walking down the street, you can see little Mark wearing black windbreakers and holding toothpicks.

Not surprisingly, this scene will appear on the streets of many Asian countries and regions in a while.

Two months after "A Better Tomorrow" was released in Hong Kong, Lin's Pictures finally received the box office revenue settled by Cinema City, including several countries and regions that have ended the screening, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Among them, "A Better Tomorrow" earned NT$115 million in Taiwan, which is more than 55 million Hong Kong dollars when converted into Hong Kong dollars, topping the box office performance of the film in various countries and regions overseas.

In this round of screenings, the total box office settled for "A Better Tomorrow" reached 187 million Hong Kong dollars, and the box office share attributable to the producer was 82.45 million Hong Kong dollars.

Lin's Pictures received nearly 22 million Hong Kong dollars in box office revenue according to the investment ratio, and the cash flow suddenly became abundant.

In the future, with the overseas release of "A Better Tomorrow", Lin's Pictures will also receive some overseas box office revenue and copyright buyout revenue.