Chapter 840
So what if I trick you?
Wing Wah built two photography studios, each 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, as well as a black and white developing room, a dubbing room, and a bungalow called an office building, which was quite large for Hong Kong at the time.
Yonghua's debut work, the historical epic "National Soul", was touted as a million-dollar production, but the actual production cost was the same as the later "Secret History of the Qing Dynasty", which cost 400,000 Hong Kong dollars.
However, the additional cost of nailing the set panels and carving the doors and windows for "National Soul" was only HK$200,000 more, so the two films together cost less than HK$1 million.
The term "gold dollar" was used to make people think it was US dollars, which was a promotional term to make it sound more impressive. However, at the time, it only cost HK$40,000 to make a Cantonese film called "Seven Days Fresh," which was still an amazing investment.
When Liu Qi was in Chongqing, he had a lover named Xu Jizhuang. Xu Jizhuang fled from Shanghai to Hong Kong in 1947 for embezzling US dollar bonds issued by the Nationalist government. This case is known as the Xu Jizhuang corruption case.
Prior to the major corruption case, Xu Jizhuang also participated in the gold price fraud case in 1945. At the end of the War of Resistance against Japan, the legal tender was severely devalued. In order to withdraw currency and stabilize prices, the Nationalist government launched the "legal tender converted into gold deposit" business.
On March 28, T.V. Soong convened a meeting with a small group of people, including Finance Minister Yu Hung-Chun, and decided to significantly increase the price of gold from 20,000 yuan per tael to 35,000 yuan, with the implementation scheduled for the following day, the anniversary of the Huanghuagang Uprising.
However, the news was severely leaked. That afternoon and evening, the various state-owned banks in the mountain city broke with tradition and worked through the night to process gold savings transactions. Many dignitaries and insiders rushed to buy in large quantities.
Overnight, the amount of gold sold nearly doubled, reaching 21,447 taels. The news was made public the following day, causing a public uproar and resulting in a major fraud case that shocked the world.
The Control Yuan's in-depth investigation identified key figures. Guo Jingkun, the director of the Central Bank's Business Bureau, who was also a participant in the meeting, leaked the news of the price increase to his friend, Li Dashao, the general manager of Daye Printing Company. Hours before the news was announced, Li Dashao used the huge sum of money he had just received from printing money to frantically buy and store gold, making a huge profit.
This corruption case had far-reaching implications, involving Xu Jizhuang, the four major families, and Du Yuesheng. The investigation was loud, but the punishment was minimal; Li Dashao was only prosecuted and a sum of foreign exchange was frozen.
Before Yonghua started construction, Young Master Li contacted an old acquaintance to inquire about the frozen foreign exchange. Someone helped him smooth things over, saying that if the foreign exchange was used to purchase film equipment to shoot a morale-boosting movie, it could be unfrozen.
So, Li Dashao went all out and spent $200,000 to order advanced film equipment from the United States to shoot "The Soul of the Nation".
"The Soul of the Nation" is adapted from Wu Zuguang's play "Ode to Righteousness". It praises Wen Tianxiang's unyielding spirit. He was loyal to the soon-to-be-overthrown Zhao Song Dynasty and would rather die for his country than surrender to the Yuan Dynasty rulers.
Regardless of what "National Soul" is like, the hype surrounding its million-dollar production, along with its successor "Secret History of the Qing Dynasty," created unprecedented records in mainland China.
At that time, Yonghua's mainland distributor was Li Dashen, the production manager and studio director of Shanghai Guotai Film Industry. Except for the distribution of North China and Northeast China, which was handled by Ren Tianjing's Dazhong Film Industry, Li Dashen handled all other distributions across the country.
The distributor for Dazhong Film Industry in North China was Tian Jiafeng, and the distributor in Northeast China was Xu Fuluo. Due to the extreme price fluctuations, there were many ups and downs every day, so they used all their daily income to buy gold and US dollars and deposited them, handing them over to Li Dashen in one lump sum when settling accounts.
However, Li Dashen did not hand it over to Yonghua immediately. Instead, he waited until the gold yuan was converted into silver yuan and tin yuan before converting the gold yuan into Hong Kong dollars and remitting it to Hong Kong based on the original total revenue. In this way, it was like a short man falling down the stairs from the rooftop to the basement. The box office revenue that originally had the opportunity to be exchanged for more than one million Hong Kong dollars was reduced to only 5 Hong Kong dollars.
The million gold dollars were a lie, but the million Hong Kong dollars invested were real money. Young Master Li had already held a celebration banquet in advance, but this is the result. Yonghua's start was a huge loss.
In his early years, Li Dashen and a certain actress surnamed Lan, who had the air of a national mother, both worked for the left-wing Dian Tong Film Company. At that time, Zhang Shankun's Shanghai Xinhua Company adopted a flexible strategy of switching between left and right, distributing some films under Xinhua and producing others under Huaxin. Therefore, Li Dashen was hired as a distributor for Xinhua.
With this connection, Li Dashen naturally became Yonghua's distributor.
Li Dashen tricked Li Dashao. Regardless of whether Zhang Shankun knew about it or was involved, he definitely had to take responsibility. Zhang Shankun was removed from his position as an advisor and went to establish his own Great Wall Film Company. At that time, almost all of Yonghua's actors and directors followed him to other companies.
Tao Jin, Gu Eryi, Gu Yelu, Gao Zhanfei, and a few others formed another left-wing film company called Da Guangming Film Studio. They made several films in Hong Kong and recently moved back to Shanghai.
The Grand Film Company did not cause much of a stir in Hong Kong, but instead became entangled in the love stories of Li Lihua and Zhou Xuan.
Li Lihua's husband, Zhang Xupu, the richest man in Qingdao and the young master of Taifeng Department Store on Xiafei Road, known as "Little Shandong," didn't live off Li's family for long before Li's mother sent him back to Shanghai, and they got a divorce.
To understand why Zhang Xupu ended up living off a woman, one only needs to look at the guest list at his engagement banquet with Li Lihua. The guests included Minister Ding and Minister Mei from the Wang Jingwei regime, and the officiant was Ding Mocun—a whole bunch of traitors.
Not long after Li Lihua's liberation, she often strolled hand in hand with Tao Jin on Nathan Road. Li Lihua loved Nathan Road to death. Even when Zhang Xupu replaced Tao Jin, she didn't care at all and still strolled hand in hand on Nathan Road. The men who accompanied her could be changed, but hand in hand and Nathan Road could not be changed.
The two seemed to be serious. Tao Jin originally planned to dump his wife and two children and marry Li Lihua, but he was tricked back to Shanghai by Gu Eryi and his group, and the matter between the two ended there.
It's rumored that Li Lihua has been flirting with Yan Jun recently. Whether they've been seen holding hands on Nathan Road is unknown, and there's no gossip about them circulating outside. However, it's certain that something is going on between them. Sin Yiu-man has already found hush money payments made to newspaper reporters for the two of them in the accounts of Friendship Film Company.
As for Zhou Xuan, during her collaboration with Da Guangming Film Industry, her case of using someone else to conceive came to light. She lost both her money and her reputation. During that time, she was in a daze and almost went insane. Once, when she was not in her right mind, she was taken advantage of by Shi Hui, who was known in the industry as a "brat".
Later, another artist followed suit, taking advantage of Zhou Xuan by applying the same prescription.
Jin Sangzi is beautiful, but her life seems to be not so good.
Returning to Young Master Li, it is said that Yonghua's talent pool was completely depleted at the time, and Young Master Li almost spat out a mouthful of blood. Fortunately, at that time, filmmakers from Shanghai arrived in Hong Kong every day, and there were almost as many people making movies as there were moviegoers. Yonghua's positions were filled again in just a few days.
After that, without the hype king Zhang Shankun, Yonghua became more pragmatic, no longer making mega-productions, and instead made several films with budgets slightly higher than the industry norm. They found a new distributor in mainland China to handle distribution, and finally saw a return on their investment.
However, as the situation in mainland China changed, Li Dashao discovered that box office revenue in some northern regions was no longer being collected, and this situation quickly spread from north to south. Before long, not a single penny was collected, and Yonghua lost its largest box office market and suffered a huge loss.
Even without Zhang the butcher, we still need to eat mixed-breed pigs. Since the inland markets are no longer viable, Young Master Li is expanding into Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe.
As for Southeast Asia, there's no need to expand there. Just connect with the purchasing managers that Loke Wan Tho or Run Run Shaw have placed in Hong Kong. Sell a film for tens of thousands of dollars, and don't worry about the box office. Just wait patiently for the funds to come in.
Alternatively, a revenue-sharing model could be discussed, but this approach is not advisable. Not to mention the foreign exchange controls in Singapore and Malaysia, bringing the money back to Hong Kong would incur some costs, and there are very few trustworthy issuers in the world.
Well, it's probably not in Singapore or Malaysia.
Who dares to share the profits? Fine, once the film is off the screens, there will be a pile of bills for publicity, entertainment, and other expenses. If you do the math, you'll find that you haven't made a single penny, and you'll even have to come up with more money to cover the shortfall.
In North America and Europe, Li Dashao has made some noise. Earlier, "The Secret History of the Qing Dynasty" was released in Paris and distribution contracts were signed with several European and Middle Eastern countries. A few days ago, "The Soul of the Nation" was released in a cinema on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Newspapers were filled with articles about "promoting national prestige" and "national self-confidence," with paid advertorials appearing one after another, creating quite a stir. It seemed as if they were trying to distort Queen's Road East into a U-shape.
There are some praises for Yonghua among the common people, but it's really useless. It's fine to say a few nice words about Yonghua over tea, but if you ask him to buy a ticket to see a movie, he'll retort, "Making a living is hard enough, why would I watch Wen Tianxiang? I'd rather mindlessly watch Fan Man, wouldn't that be better? You little brat, this is your national vendetta..."
……
Sin Yiu-man reappeared at Kallang Airport, sitting in the car and gently patting Ouyang Shafei's thigh, handing her a document with his other hand, "Take a look at this."
Ouyang Shafei took the document, flipped through it for less than half a minute, then looked up at Xian Yaowen and said, "The company's box office revenue has been eroded by so much?"
“It’s more than that.” Xian Yaowen said calmly, “It’s common practice in the industry for distributors to profit from box office revenue and inflate expenses. I was prepared for this a long time ago and set a bottom line. Lu Laosan and Shao Laoliu haven’t crossed my bottom line yet, but it’s hard to guarantee they won’t in the future.”
Do you know why I chose you to be the manager of Youxing?
Ouyang Shafei laughed and said, "Mr. Xian has a discerning eye and has discovered my talent."
"It's not as wonderful as you think." Xian Yaowen chuckled as he looked at Ouyang Shafei's face. "To say something you may not like to hear, it's only been less than three months since I last saw you, but your face has obviously aged. You're aging too fast. In a few years, you'll only be able to play mother roles."
Ouyang Shafei said coquettishly, "Mr. Xian, isn't it too heartless to say I'm old to my face?"
Sin Yiu-man did not respond, but continued, "There are many veterans in the company who are in their prime. Your advantages are not obvious, or rather, you have no advantages at all. In the future, new talents will emerge one after another. Even if I treat you differently, in three to five years, you will only be able to stand aside."
Ouyang Shafei's expression changed slightly.
"As an actor, your path ahead isn't wide, but becoming a manager is different. A golden road lies before you. At Friendship Film Studio, you no longer need to fawn over anyone, including me. You just need to diligently execute the strategies I devise and achieve the goals at each stage. Understand?"
“I understand.” Ouyang Shafei nodded. “But Mr. Xian didn’t seem to say why he chose me.”
"You are good at assessing situations and making the best choices at every step. You have good interpersonal skills and can handle relationships with others well. These two points are enough to show that you are competent for the position of Youxing Manager."
Xian Yaowen patted Ouyang Shafei's thigh lightly, "One more thing, your belt is good. It's loose when it needs to be loose, without any hesitation, but it's also very tight most of the time. That's very good, excellent. Please keep it up."
Ouyang Shafei's eyes were alluring as she asked, "Is Mr. Xian giving me a hint?"
“You can take it as an implication, but not what you think.” Sin Yiu-man turned to look out the car window. “You had three daughters?”
"Yes."
"It must have been very painful to give birth to your first child, right?"
"It almost killed me with pain."
"You were much better when you had your third child?"
"Having experience with this, I didn't feel much pain." Ouyang Shafei suddenly realized, and smiled knowingly. "Mr. Xian, you're really special." (End of Chapter)