Chapter 164: Performance and Huayi's Crisis
Faced with Zhang Yimou's determination to achieve his goal, Liu Zhou was really helpless.

Why didn’t Liu Zhou realize that Lao Mouzi had such a clingy side before?

"Director Zhang, I'm not lying to you, I'm going to be really busy from now on.

Things at Golden Harvest are almost finished, and I need to be there to take charge. Not only that, I also have plans to shoot a new movie this year, and the movie I shot in Hollywood is about to be released.

Look at all these things, how can I have time to act, especially to play the leading role?"

"I know you are busy, but time can be squeezed out, and I believe you can handle these things.

And even if you need to be busy during the filming, I can allow you to take time off."

"Director Zhang, this is really not possible. I don't have as much energy as you do. I'm afraid that I won't be able to perform well and I won't be able to do other things well either."

Seeing that Liu Zhou still refused to budge, Zhang Yimou had no choice but to use his ultimate weapon.

"Director Liu, I really supported you before. Now I just want to ask you for this. Don't you support me too?"

Liu Zhou was speechless at Zhang Yimou's words.

To be honest, Zhang Yimou really supported his work in the project of "Red Cliff". Even when choosing actors, he still mainly followed Liu Zhou's choices.

Thinking of this, Liu Zhou was also thinking about what he should do next.

First of all, at Golden Harvest, Zhong Lifang and Zou Chongyan have already roughly worked out a plan for the merger of studios and the adjustment of the company structure.

Liu Zhou just needs to go over and see if it is appropriate and then make the final decision.

Then there is the Hong Kong film that will be shot under the name of Golden Harvest. This is planned and Golden Harvest will announce it and start preparations once the adjustments are completed.

However, considering the speed of filming in Hong Kong, even if Liu Zhou is a little slower, it should be completed in a month or two.

As for Hollywood, the post-production of "Source Code" was completed at the end of last year.

However, Lionsgate postponed the release of "Source Code" in order to take advantage of the popularity.

Because Warner had already announced the release date of their big production "Batman Begins" early, which was scheduled for the summer of 2005.

So in order to take advantage of Christian Bale's popularity, Lionsgate plans to release "Source Code" after "Batman".

In this case, things in Hollywood don’t have to be too urgent for the time being.

Seeing that things seemed to be settled, Liu Zhou gritted his teeth and said, seeing Zhang Yimou's expectant eyes:
"Director Zhang, it's because of your face, otherwise I really wouldn't agree."

Hearing Liu Zhou's words, Zhang Yimou's slightly weathered face suddenly broke into a smile and said:

"Did you agree?"

"How can I refuse now that you've said this?"

"OK!"

"But I have a lot of things to do in the first half of the year for the role of Zhou Yu. If I play Zhuge Liang, I'm worried that I won't have enough time."

Zhuge Liang is the protagonist of the first part, and Zhou Yu is the protagonist of the second part.

Although the movie was not shot in sequence, the plot of the first part was still filmed at the beginning. If Liu Zhou played Zhou Yu, he could join the crew later.

"No problem! You can choose between the two roles. You can play whichever one you want."

"I have another request?"

"What do you want me to say?"

“Since we haven’t thought of a suitable candidate for the role of Zhuge Liang yet, why don’t we choose Qin Hao!
Not only is he a very competent professional, he is also quite famous and has the right appearance.”

Although Liu Zhou had his own selfish motives in choosing Qin Hao, Qin Hao was indeed suitable.

Don’t think that Qin Hao doesn’t look very handsome when he appears in public.

But he was still very handsome when he was young, so there was no problem for him to play Zhuge Liang.

Zhang Yimou considered the candidate proposed by Liu Zhou and agreed to it.

Qin Hao is not the most outstanding among the young actors in the mainland, but he is indeed suitable, and he can be regarded as returning the favor to Liu Zhou.

When Liu Zhou saw that Zhang Yimou agreed, a smile appeared on his face.

He never thought that one day he would be acting on the same stage with Qin Hao.

Now that I think about it, it seems pretty good to be able to play one or two roles.

Zhang Yimou and Feng Kuzi both won the Best Actor award when they became actors.

Liu Zhou doesn't seek to win the Best Actor award, he just wants to satisfy his acting craving and keep a memory.

Thinking of this, Liu Zhou couldn't help but look forward to acting.

"Director Zhang, I'll leave the subsequent invitation of actors to you. Now I have to go to Hong Kong as soon as possible."

"No problem, go ahead and do your work, but don't forget to memorize your lines. I'll be very strict on the set."

"Don't worry, you won't be able to find any fault with it then."

After dealing with these things, on the last day of February, Liu Zhou took a flight to Hong Kong.

At this time in the mainland, the actors who received Zhang Yimou's invitation all agreed without any surprise.

The casting of "Red Cliff" has always attracted much attention from people in the industry, and now everyone knows that it is true that Liu Zhou insisted on using only mainland actors.

Although it was unknown at the time whether Liu Zhou's proposal would be passed smoothly, in the mainland, the industry had a very high opinion of Liu Zhou. It can be said that Liu Zhou gained a lot of favor in the mainland entertainment industry because of the issue of the actors in "Red Cliff".

Before, when they faced some injustice or even oppression, they could only protest and could not do much else.

But now Liu Zhou is the first person to stand up and support the mainland entertainment industry with practical actions, and he is also betting big on such a big project.

Yes, they think this is a gamble.

At this time, mainland actors themselves have little confidence in their own appeal.

But now Liu Zhou has really done it, and actually invited all mainland actors to this big production.

How could the invited actors not support it?

Even if there is other work, they will turn it down.

What's more, this project is very attractive.

As the cast of "Red Cliff" was announced, it immediately caused huge heated discussion in the outside world.

I didn’t expect that the crew of "Red Cliff" really didn’t use any actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In fact, many media outlets previously thought that the "Red Cliff" crew was hyping it up, but the fact is that they were not joking, they were serious!
Although they admired the courage of the "Red Cliff" crew, they were not optimistic about the film.

Therefore, many media outlets are predicting the bad news about this project, and some public intellectuals are even saying that Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou are completely overconfident and will definitely suffer a severe setback this time, wasting such a good subject matter.

Hong Kong and Taiwan media also predicted that "Red Cliff" with its big cast would definitely flop, and the five major film and television giants in the industry would become a laughing stock.

In addition to the pessimism about "Red Cliff", Liu Zhou's role as Zhou Yu was also a focus of discussion from the outside world.

As a popular director, Liu Zhou's fame in mainland China is no less than any top star.

Now he will actually appear in this big production, just as Zhang Yimou said, everyone is very much looking forward to it.

Even when Han Shanping and others heard the news at the beginning, they all called Liu Zhou, thinking that he had made a very correct choice.

Lian Jiang Zhiqiang and Zhang Weiping's attitudes seemed to have improved a lot.

No matter what the media say, the actors who are able to participate in such a big production as "Red Cliff" are undoubtedly very happy.

For example, in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan Province, Huang Xiaoming, who was filming The Return of the Condor Heroes, couldn't stop smiling.

Faced with the congratulations from the crew, the smile on his face became even brighter.

Not only Huang Xiaoming was happy that he was able to get the role of Zhao Yun, but Zhang Da Huzi and the Wang brothers of Huayi were also very happy.

Zhang Dahuazi was happy because Huang Xiaoming was the male lead in "The Return of the Condor Heroes", and now he had gained a lot of popularity for nothing, and he could hype it up again.

For this reason, when he faced the media, he talked about Huang Xiaoming's advantages, saying that he had already seen his extraordinary talent, and finally he talked about the TV series "The Return of the Condor Heroes".

As for the Wang brothers, they have been inviting Huang Xiaoming to join Huayi recently, and it can be seen that Huang Xiaoming seems to be very interested and has been quite enthusiastic towards them.

So they have high hopes for Huang Xiaoming.

Because since last year, Wang Jinghua has become increasingly restless, and the conflicts and differences between him and them have become increasingly greater.

While they began to split and disintegrate Wang Jinghua's management team, they also began to recruit artists that they could control.

Wang Xiaoming is the one they value the most.

The Wang brothers were planning to train him to be the top star of the company, so they had no objection when they chose Huang Xiaoming as the male lead in "The Return of the Condor Heroes" from Zhang Ji.

Because they felt that Huang Xiaoming was the person they were smuggling with them.

Now such an outstanding role of Zhao Zilong in the big production "Red Cliff" has been given to Huang Xiaoming, which is simply training artists for them.

How could this make them unhappy!

But the Wang brothers were obviously happy too early!

Not long after the crew of "Red Cliff" announced the cast, something shocking happened in the entertainment industry again.

Wang Jinghua, director of Huayi's brokerage department, publicly announced that he would lead a large number of artists including Chen Daoming, Xia Yu, and Hu Jun to join Chengtian Entertainment, which had only been established for two years.

This cutting-edge entertainment company, which was founded with support from Yiben Capital, immediately shocked the entire entertainment industry.

No one expected that Wu Kebo would be so cruel and almost drained Huayi dry.

It is completely a crime to offend the Wang brothers and even the Beijing circle.

The popularity of this incident even surpassed that of "Red Cliff" at one point, becoming a new focus of discussion outside.

Now many people are watching how the Wang brothers respond.

If this matter is not handled properly, Huayi will fall to the bottom.

At this time, the Wang brothers were indeed in a rage, and everyone in the company could clearly feel the aura they exuded.

"Wang Jinghua, how dare you!" Wang Zhonglei roared in a low voice.

They thought that even if they had conflicts with Wang Jinghua, at most they would just break up in a decent manner.

But I didn’t expect Wang Jinghua to do it so well!

This is completely pushing Huayi to death and completely breaking off relations with them.

At this moment, Wang Zhonglei wished he could cut Wang Jinghua and Wu Kebo into pieces to relieve his hatred!
But what they didn't know was that the situation was not yet the worst.

Before the two of them could recover from Wang Jinghua's betrayal, the news from Hong Kong dealt them a fatal blow!
(End of this chapter)