Little girls have always been unable to hide their secrets.
After watching the movie and coming back, Wang Jinglu had a cheerful look for several days in a row.
Her look was really hard to hide, so that night Wang Jinglu's mom asked her: "What good thing did you encounter? Why are you so happy?"
The little girl jumped in fright, her eyes rolling around, and said: "I watched a good movie and thought the male and female leads were so happy."
This remark left Wang Jingluo's mother somewhat perplexed and bewildered.
And on the second day, before class, her girlfriends couldn't help but ask: "Hey, Xiaolu, why are you so happy? Have you decided to accept that white horse prince?"
"It's obviously Blue Prince Horse, okay?! That Lamborghini is so cool!"
"Hey, are you having an affair with Wangzi or Ma?"
"Cut it out, stop teasing them... I said, that guy is so handsome, just marry him already!"
"The key is Lamborghini, one look and you can tell they're definitely super rich at home!"
"You gold-digger, go die! Don't ruin our little Lu's view of love, okay?"
"Hey, you're a woman about to get married this summer break, what do you know about views on love or not? Marriage is the graveyard of love, and you're about to enter the graveyard, yet you still talk about love!"
"Hey, I'm saying, with all that you've said, have you considered Li Qian's feelings? He is her childhood sweetheart after all..."
"Cut it out, Xiaolu has already said so herself, they're just ordinary friends! Besides, what can Li Qian compare to others with? The other person is a top-notch graduate from Cambridge University, you see Li Qian, okay, he's made great progress recently, but he's only from a national university, our Xiaolu is going to be a big star in the future, he's not worthy of her! Only someone from Cambridge University would be worthy!"
Wang Jinglu had been listening with her head down as they spoke nonsense, until someone mentioned Li Qian, and she couldn't help but raise her head, timidly defending, "Hey, Li Qian isn't as bad as you guys say!"
"Huh?......"
A group of girls let out a chorus of surprised and questioning voices.
…………
After school in the afternoon, Li Qian rarely didn't stay at school to practice guitar.
At the newspaper stand at the school gate, he spent half a day selecting and finally chose two newspapers and one magazine to buy.
There are two newspapers: "Variety Express" and "Movie Weekly".
The magazine is "Huaxia Film Weekly".
Tonight, these two newspapers and a magazine are his homework.
Unfortunately, apart from some instant messages from the entertainment industry, "Variety Express" basically had nothing substantial, making Li Qian lament that he had spent a sum of money in vain. So, he just roughly browsed through it and threw it aside, deciding not to buy it again.
One of the most important things for him is the weekly box office statistics on "Film Weekly".
But things don't seem too optimistic.
"Alien 3" has officially gone offline, and before that, it swept through the North Pole Bear Country, taking away a box office of 170 million rubles, which is over $2 billion! In China, this big movie also took away as much as 325 million yuan, which is over $160 million, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film in the country's history. Here, "Film Weekly" lists some past data that must be mentioned: since 1975, when domestic box office statistics began to be detailed, there have been only 9 films with a box office of over 100 million yuan in China's box office history, including 4 imported films, namely "Alien 3"'s 325 million yuan from the United States, "The Best Lover"'s 158 million yuan also from the United States, "Star Wars" third part's 131 million yuan again from the United States, and "National Mission"'s 107 million yuan from the Soviet Union.
Notably, "The Best Lover" was released in 1982 and its domestic box office record of NT$158 million was not broken until 1988 by a domestic film. Prior to that, it held the top spot on the box office chart for over seven years! And if inflation is taken into account, its box office performance is also comparable to "Alien 3" today!
Li Qian held the newspaper in his hand and fell into deep thought for a long time.
"Movie Weekly" deliberately recalled this point, and the editors of this newspaper must have had some ideas, but unfortunately, they didn't really bring out any views on it.
Their approach is to shout loudly and take up a whole page to cheer for "White Vengeance"! Three film reviews, one editorial, all of which are strongly promotional, calling on people to go to the cinema to contribute to the box office!
Of course, "White Snake" also performed well, with a first week of only four days taking in over 148.3 million yuan at the national box office, and last week, its second week online, saw a small drop of just 12.5% from the previous weekend's take, earning 142.2 million yuan over seven days, bringing its two-week total to 290.5 million yuan.
According to the forecast of "Film Weekly", if this decline trend continues, even if it is only shown for 8 weeks, this film may break 800 million yuan. As for breaking 1 billion... If it can be changed to a long-line release in the later period, it's not completely hopeless after all, martial arts films are the favorite of Chinese people.
It is said that the investment in this film was less than 200 million, and it can be said that profitability has become a foregone conclusion.
To be sure, from a general point of view, "Movie Weekly" is still quite optimistic about the future development prospects of domestic films. As a result, Li Qian was somewhat... disappointed.
Opening "Movie Weekly", Li Qian's eyes lit up instead.
Its first film review was titled "The Wolf is Coming!"
The wolf is coming!
This review thoroughly analyzes the gap between domestic films and Hollywood blockbusters, represented by "Alien 3", from script creativity, directing skills, photography, editing to soundtrack, with a particular focus on Hollywood's special effects, expressing the author's deep concern as a film critic.
Finally, the author also made a special appeal to domestic film practitioners, which can be summarized in three points:
First, pay attention to the creativity and innovation of movie scripts, don't keep making martial arts films, no matter how much Chinese people love watching them, they will get tired of them eventually. The taste of filmmakers must lead the market, rather than following what is popular or profitable at the moment, which leads to a lot of blind imitation.
Second, seize the opportunity to improve the overall level of film industry equipment. Cameras that should be eliminated must be eliminated. If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools. No matter how good your story is, it can't withstand the damage of blurry and unclear movie screens. For film production companies, spending some money to buy or entrusting universities and research institutions to develop better cameras is a necessary thing. Moreover, China's film printing technology is also too outdated. If we don't seize the opportunity to develop and catch up, we will be strangled by others in the future.
Third, film production companies should immediately send people to Hollywood to learn special effects production, no matter how much money it costs! In the future, using computer-generated special effects to shoot big-budget blockbusters will become an absolute trend in the development of the film industry. This is a necessary law of capital development - high investment, high returns! Whoever neglects this point will definitely get hurt in the market!
From Li Qian's perspective, this film review is absolutely spot on! The last three suggestions are also absolutely solid and grasp the most critical points.
It can be said that this article has vision, content, perspective and direction... it's simply perfect!
So after reading this review twice, he even made a special note of it and remembered the author's name.
Huang Yu-jie.
…………
After school in the afternoon, Qi Jie still stayed alone in the office as usual.
Not bad, it was just discovered by her last night, a new book from an old author.
In the third period of the afternoon, there was no class for her, she sat restlessly in the office, actually waiting for the school bell to ring after school, so that she could read a book by herself comfortably.
But now, school is over, everyone has left, and the whole campus is quiet, but she feels that something is not right.
It was a story she had been looking forward to reading, but somehow, she just couldn't focus and couldn't get into it.
She let out a sigh, closed her laptop, stood up and decided to follow her usual routine by listening to some music first.
Recently, she has started to like running to the corridor on the fifth floor after school every day, sitting quietly on the stairs and listening to people singing upstairs.
It's as if every day she doesn't hear that crisp guitar sound, she feels like there's still some unfinished business in her heart.
She got up and opened the door, walking out of the office and going upstairs slowly.
But just after walking a few steps down the stairs, she suddenly discovered that today... seemed... there was no sound?
She was first stunned and then amazed.
Cocking one's ear to listen, there really is no sound!
"Didn't he come today?" she wondered in her heart.
Then, after some thought, she continued upstairs.
4th floor...
Fifth floor...
There is no movement at all!
For some reason, she felt a slight sense of unease in her heart.
Even footsteps seem to have become much more urgent suddenly.
She came to the old place where she used to come every day in the past, and she held her breath again to listen carefully.
There is absolutely no movement upstairs!
No coughing sounds, no drinking water sounds, and even less guitar sounds and singing voices!
She hesitated for a moment, then slowly climbed up.
She took a deep breath at the entrance of the rooftop and suddenly stepped out... empty!
She involuntarily let out a disappointed sigh, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, and some anxiety rising in her heart.
On the rooftop near the corridor, eight identical stone benches were arranged in a row.
Qijie stood at the entrance of the corridor for a moment, then walked over and casually found a stone bench to sit down. She gazed out at the empty rooftop, imagining the scenes that should have been there.
A boy, yeah, should be somewhat good-looking, because his voice is really nice to listen to, so he shouldn't look too bad either. Of course, maybe he'll have a bit of personality with half-long hair, and... maybe there will be one or two acne on his face?
Every day after school, the sunset sets in the west, and the remaining heat on the balcony is still scorching. He sits on one of the stone benches with a guitar in his arms, perhaps there is wind that blows his hair, or perhaps not... who knows!
It's very hot around, but there is no one, it's quiet, and it's suitable for a person's sentimentalism.
He brought with him a guitar and a thermos of warm water to moisten his throat during singing breaks.
Then he started playing guitar and singing songs.
Every time he sang two or three songs, he would stop and take a break, drinking some water.
Maybe it will be very hot, making his face flush red, with sweat dripping down from his chest, back, and cheeks, itching... then... he will take off his shirt like those boys playing basketball, exposing his bare chest, revealing the slightly thin pectoral muscles of a 17 or 18-year-old boy.
Then, he played one song after another, singing with abandon, yet completely unaware that just a few steps away, someone was sitting on the stairs, eyes closed, intently listening to every note, every melody...
…………
"I wonder if he will come back to sing again in the future?"
Ziqi sighed, as if wanting to recall something, or mourn something. She only felt a kind of sadness gradually spreading over her, like twilight, unstoppable, making people feel melancholy.
"I don't know which song he sang for his beloved girl after practicing so many songs, nor do I know if the girl accepted his pursuit?"
With these scattered thoughts in mind, Qijie looked back at the western sky.
Dazed, she just stood there quietly staring.
Until the sunset slowly sinks into the western hills.
The sky is bright and beautiful, with sunset clouds like flames.
She sighed and stood up, walking slowly downstairs.