1RomanceEB Chapter 59: Things Have Changed
Chapter 59: Things Have Changed
In June, the domestic film "Crazy Stone" was released.
Liu Yu saw this news in his hotel room in Los Angeles.
He finished work early that day, took a shower, and lay in bed browsing domestic news. The headline in the entertainment section had a new face.
Ning Hao, wearing a large gold chain, looked more like a gangster than a director.
The news headline was very impactful: "Ning Hao's 'Crazy Stone' Becomes an Instant Fame, Multi-narrative Subverts Domestic Comedy."
Liu Yu clicked in and took a look. He wasn't exactly familiar with Ning Hao, but he wasn't a stranger either.
The two had met when they were at the Beijing Film Academy. Ning Hao was in the photography department, two years ahead of him. They would nod to each other when they met on campus, and that was it.
Liu Yu first met Ning Hao at a barbecue stall near the school gate. Ning Hao was drinking with some photography students, and in his excitement, he slammed his hand on the table and said, "I'm going to make a film that no one can understand."
People around him laughed at him, but he didn't get angry. He picked up his wine glass and drank it all in one gulp.
Later, Liu Yu made "A Moment to Remember," and Ning Hao is still making short films.
Later, Liu Yu went to Berlin, while Ninghao was still filming underground movies.
Zhong Lifang attended the premiere. She had told Liu Yu beforehand, "Boss, I'll go see Ning Hao's movie for you and report back."
Liu Yu pieced together the details of the premiere from messages sent by Zhong Lifang.
She said the atmosphere was great, and the audience laughed many times. It wasn't the kind of awkward laughter that comes from being tickled; they were genuinely amused by the storyline.
She said Luo Jin sat next to her and laughed from beginning to end, until tears came out of his eyes.
Crazy Stone uses a multi-narrative structure, and the story and jokes are all original.
The story takes place in Chongqing. A group of thieves, a factory manager, a security guard, and several other people are circling around a rock. Everyone has their own agenda, and everyone thinks they are clever. In the end, they are all played by fate.
Comedy films in recent years can be roughly divided into two categories.
One type is Hong Kong-style slapstick comedy, which takes things to the extreme and uses exaggerated physical movements to make you laugh.
Stephen Chow's films are the best of their kind. There are too many imitators, but they all end up looking like dogs trying to imitate tigers, and the whole screen is full of people acting crazy and silly.
Another type is Feng Xiaogang's Beijing-style comedy, which wins with its witty lines. Ge You can stand there and do nothing, just his face and mouth are enough to make the audience laugh for more than an hour.
Crazy Stone is neither of these two types.
It relies on an ingenious narrative structure and dramatic conflict, with several parallel storylines, where unrelated people are brought together by a stone, leading to a series of coincidences, misunderstandings, and a cycle of cause and effect.
The dialogue is quite witty, but it's not carried by the dialogue alone.
Sure enough, a few days later, the media began comparing Ning Hao and Liu Yu.
"Ning Hao Liu Yu, who is the leading director of the new generation?"
"From Berlin to Chongqing, Liu Yu turned left and Ning turned right."
"Crazy Stone VS Hearing Girl: Two Paths of Two Geniuses."
Liu Yu read one article and then stopped reading; such comparisons were meaningless.
......
June 27, Hong Kong.
The final scene of "The Man from Nowhere" was filmed here.
The filming location was an old industrial building in Kowloon, where most of the exterior tiles had fallen off, revealing gray-black cement, and the iron railings on the windows were rusty.
Next to the building is a narrow alley, with several green trash cans piled up at the entrance.
The crew filmed a chase scene here, in which Daniel Craig runs down the fire escape from the rooftop of the building, through narrow alleys, and finally disappears into the crowd at the street corner.
This scene took a whole day to film.
The fire escape ladder was very narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass through, and the whole ladder was shaking when Daniel ran up it.
Sammo Hung stood below, looking up and shouting, "Be steady, be steady!"
Liu Yu stared at the shaky screen behind the monitor. When it came to the seventeenth take, Liu Yu finally shouted "Pass!"
At 3 PM, the last take was completed.
Liu Yu sat behind the monitor and watched the last replay.
In the scene, Daniel's figure disappears into the crowd at the corner of Kowloon Street, and sunlight leaks through the gaps in the buildings, casting a dappled light on his shoulder.
The scene was even better than he had imagined. He was that retired special agent, lonely, silent, and covered in scars, walking down a street where no one knew him.
Filming has wrapped.
There was a moment of silence on set, then applause broke out.
......
The staff began packing up the equipment. Some squatted down to remove the cables, some disassembled the tracks section by section and carried them away, and some walked around the set with garbage bags to pick up beverage bottles.
Yang Zi ran over from the corner, her face still covered in the dust from filming, her eyes red-rimmed. She stood in front of Liu Yu, tilting her head back, and opened her mouth to speak.
"Brother Liu Yu, are we done filming?"
"We're done filming." Liu Yu reached out and wiped the dust off her face. "You can go home now."
Yang Zi blinked; the thirteen-year-old girl had already learned not to shed tears easily.
The wrap party was held at a restaurant in Central.
Han Sanping flew in from China specifically for this purpose, his face bearing a standard smile.
He shook hands with Daniel Craig and exchanged a few polite words through a translator; he chatted with Sammo Hung for a bit, and the two seemed to have a very warm conversation, with him praising the young woman as having a promising future.
Finally, he walked up to Liu Yu and patted him on the shoulder.
"Liu Yu, congratulations." Han Sanping's tone was very formal. "After this film is finished, your resume will be even more complete. You've worked on all three types of films: commercial films, art films, and co-productions. From now on, your words will carry more weight in the domestic film industry."
Liu Yu smiled and said, "Chairman Han, what you said puts a lot of pressure on me."
"Pressure is the driving force." Han Sanping raised his glass. "Come on, let me toast you."
A lot of people came from Hong Kong. Andy Lau was wearing a black polo shirt and a baseball cap.
General Manager Yang also arrived, dressed very formally. He chatted with Han Sanping for a while, and it was unclear what kind of cooperation they were discussing.
Jackie Chan arrived last, wearing a sports jacket and looking travel-worn, as if he had just rushed from the film set. He hugged Sammo Hung, and the two exchanged a few words in Cantonese, with Sammo Hung smiling broadly.
Liu Yu couldn't remember how much he had drunk.
He would drink whenever someone offered him a toast, mixing white and red wine, until his tongue was sore from drinking so much.
The last fragment of his memory was of him leaning against the wall at the entrance of the restaurant, staring blankly at the Hong Kong night view.
Han Sanping came out from inside, stood next to him, and lit a cigarette.
"Liu Yu, are you alright?"
"It's nothing," Liu Yu said, rubbing his temples. "I'm just a little dizzy."
......
When Liu Yu woke up the next day, he found himself in a hotel room, still dressed and wearing the same shoes, lying on the bed with the blanket tucked under him in a crumpled mess.
He sat up and rubbed his temples; his head felt like it had been hit with a hammer, throbbing with pain.
On the bedside table was a glass of water and a white pill, with a note next to it, written in Zhong Lifang's handwriting.
"Boss, take your medicine before you sleep. Lu Yang and the others went back to Beijing first. Are you going straight back to Changsha or going back to Beijing first? Send me a message."
Liu Yu stared at the note for several seconds, then put the pill in his mouth and swallowed it with water.
He picked up his phone and saw three unread messages. Two were itinerary confirmations from Zhong Lifang, and one was from Yan Danchen.
Yan Danchen posted her message last night, which consisted of only one sentence: "Filming wrapped up? Are you tired?"
Looking at the message, Liu Yu noticed that she had been sending increasingly shorter messages lately, unlike before when she would add emojis or send several messages in a row.
Now it's just a sentence, or even a few words, like completing a task.
He thought for a moment and replied with two words: "Just woke up."
I waited for five minutes, but there was no reply.
He put his phone on the bedside table and went to take a shower. When he came out, he checked his phone again, but there was still no reply.
He dialed the number, it rang twice and was then hung up.
A little while later she sent me a message: "I'm filming, I'll call you tonight."
Liu Yu stood by the window, holding his phone, looking out at the densely packed skyscrapers of Hong Kong.
He hadn't had a proper conversation with Yan Danchen for half a month.
It's not that they don't want to talk about it, it's just that their schedules never align.
He was filming in Los Angeles while she was filming in Beijing. He finished work while she had just started; he got up while she had just gone to sleep.
They would occasionally get through on the phone, but they could only exchange a few words, because either she had a gig or he had a night shoot.
Their conversations became shorter and shorter, increasingly resembling a task being completed.
"Have you eaten?" "Yes." "What were you filming today? Action scenes? Are you tired?" "I'm okay." After saying these words, both of them fell silent, unsure of what to say next.
He scrolled through Yan Danchen's chat history, scrolling up several screens before finally finding the last call record that lasted more than ten minutes.
That was the night the news broke about Liu Yifei visiting the set; she called him and asked, "Don't you have feelings for her?"
After that, their calls never lasted more than five minutes.
She always hangs up first, and she always hangs up very decisively.