CH 20

March 15, 2021kaychandra

Chapter 20: Box Office Success

Translated and edited by KChandra

Although his acting skills were good, no one in the entire cast was bad at acting. With these powerful actors, he learned a lot of things that the previous three crews couldn’t bring him.

Because the role he played had a lot of scenes with the role played by Nie Qicheng, this veteran actor who always strived for perfection often dragged Gongxi Qiao with him to find out the feeling of the scene. When he had nothing to do, Nie Qicheng liked to make tonic soup[1] to drink, and most of these soups went into Gongxi Qiao’s stomach, so that under such a hard shooting schedule, Gongxi Qiao did not lose weight, but also gained a pound of meat.

“Old Nie, are you raising Xiao Qiao as your own grandson, ah?” Director Wang sat with Nie Qicheng and looked at Gongxi Qiao, who was filming, and said in a joking tone, “your pot of tonic soup, at least leave a bowl for me, ah.”

“How old is the kid, and how old are you?” Nie Qicheng patted Director Wang’s protruding belly, “I think this child is quite flexible. When he first joined the crew, his sense of the lens wasn’t particularly good, but now he’s no worse than a film emperor or a film queen.”

Director Wang smiled. He didn’t know if it was because Gongxi Qiao had the quality of attracting old people, but several old artists in the crew were full of praise when they mentioned Gongxi Qiao. Even Old Nie, who had always been very strict with his juniors, said so, so it was clear that Gongxi Qiao was really a good person.

Looking at Gongxi Qiao’s fair and delicate face, Old Wang shook his head in his heart. Old people liked white and pure youngsters, and Gongxi Qiao’s face was rare enough to attract people.

It was a cold winter, but Gongxi Qiao had to shoot a summer scene. In addition to dressing coolly, in order to avoid white puffs of air when speaking his lines, he also held ice in his mouth to reduce the temperature difference between his exhaled breath and the air.

After a scene was shot, Xiao Yao and He Peng surrounded him with their coats and hot water bottles, and the other artists’ assistants also gathered around to show their concern.

“Thanks.” Gongxi Qiao held the cup with his frozen and somewhat numb hand and took a big sip of the warm water before he felt like his whole body finally had some life in it.

But thinking that this was his last summer scene, Gongxi Qiao breathed a sigh of relief. After thanking the assistants once again, he hugged the hot water bottle while wrapped in his military coat and went to the side of Director Wang and Old Nie, as they both had electric heaters there.

Seeing Gongxi Qiao’s frozen face, Director Wang and old Nie got up and moved to make way for the best spot by the heater. Old Nie pushed the heater forward a few times to bring it closer to Gongxi Qiao. “The crew cared about us old guys and filmed the summer shots of us first, so you young people suffered.”

“For us young people, freezing is a form of exercise. You shouldn’t grab this rare opportunity from us,” said Gongxi Qiao, pulling on his military coat, “You should give this good thing to us young people.”

Nie Qicheng was amused by his words, and then said, “It’s right for young people to have this kind of spirit. I asked the assistant to boil a soup to dispel the cold. It doesn’t taste very good, but the effect is good. Remember to drink a bowl.”

Then Gongxi Qiao was stuffed with a bowl of strange tasting cold repellent soup. He didn’t know if it was a psychological effect, but he really felt that his limbs and bones were gradually warming up.

Liang Yumeng sat in a corner sheltered from the wind. After drinking a few mouthfuls of hot tea, he looked in Gongxi Qiao’s direction and said to his assistant in a somewhat complicated tone, “It’s good to be young.”

“Brother Liang, you’re really the best age for a man. Why are you suddenly saying this?” The assistant gave him a new cup of tea. Following Liang Yumeng’s line of sight, he lowered his voice and said, “A young man with a hairless face, there’s nothing manly about it.”

Liang Yumeng shook his head and said thoughtfully, “As a senior brother, I like newcomers with potential the most.” He was able to come this far without relying on his acting skills alone. His relationship with Gongxi Qiao in the crew was only okay, but with people like him, it was better to befriend than to offend.

To be able to enter this kind of crew with shallow qualifications and to be liked by the old-timers wasn’t something that could be done just by being young and having a good face.

The assistant froze, then nodded and smiled: “Qiao Shao is indeed quite hard-working and progressive, attracting people.”

The higher a person climbed, the better they would know how to conduct themselves. Gongxi Qiao, as a fresh newcomer, had not been belittled and suppressed in the crew. Whether it was out of sincerity or hypocrisy, the seniors were taking care of him. And each of these seniors was more modest than the next, never posing as big shots.

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Looking at those big celebrities who were like family, Gongxi Qiao sighed in his heart that people who could climb to the top had a good emotional IQ. Otherwise, their superb acting skills and beautiful faces would be useless.

On this side, the ‘National Industry’ crew was still shooting intensively, and on the other side, the movie ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ finally passed the review[2] and approached theaters. It was released twenty days before the Chinese New Year peak period.

The investment cost of ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ wasn’t high. It was also the kind of urban idol comedy film liked by urban white-collar workers. The main male and female leads and the supporting male lead weren’t big names, but they were still more or less popular, so the investors weren’t worried about not getting their money back. However, they didn’t have high expectations for the box office. If Gongxi Qiao hadn’t made additional investments, the film’s post-publicity fees wouldn’t have been available.

But surprisingly, the first day of the movie’s release, the total box office actually reached 30 million yuan. Because the major theatres arranged for a small number of screenings, almost every screening was full.

The methods of cinemas were always realistic. They saw that ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ was full at every screening, and increased the screening rate by 20 percent on the second day, which almost caught up with the hot costume production ‘The Moaning Wind’.

Unlike the small investment of ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’, ‘The Moaning Wind’ was shot by a famous director, starring big-name artists. It was a grand costume drama, and the publicity never stopped before its release. Compared with ‘The Moaning Wind’, ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ was basically a grassroots film, and the total investment wasn’t as much as the pay of a few main actors in the other film.

No one would have expected that this grassroots movie would actually explode at the box office. On the opening day, it got a good result of 30 million at the box office. The movie ‘The Moaning Wind’, which had been released for five days, had grossed less than 200 million, and they felt some pain on their faces.

On the second day, the box office of ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ was soaring all the way to the top. All the major theaters were full, and the box office revenue was even higher than the first day.

Even major social networking sites had a lot of netizens frequently mentioning the movie.

East to West: #warmly recommend ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’#, this movie is so funny that I basically laughed from the beginning to the end of the film, but when the elder brother took the hand of the female lead and put it into the hand of the male lead, I almost cried along with them. Such a good brother, give me a dozen.

Winged Fish: the love of the male and female lead is really sweet, but the plot is really funny. By the end of the movie, my jaw was about to dislocate. The whole screening room laughed so much that the roof was almost lifted up. I didn’t expect Qiao Shao to play such a brotherly role so vividly, give him a hundred praises.

The film’s unexpected popularity also attracted the attention of film critics. Many critics felt that, although the plot was simple, the film was innovative, and the characters portrayed by the protagonists were also very vivid. Most importantly, under the pressure of work and life, the audience needed such a film to relieve stress and relax.

The famous film critic Third Brother said on his own long microblog: This is a very successful commercial film. What makes people praise it is that the perspective of the two main actors is well captured. Chen Hao’s deep love and determination make many viewers believe in love again. The heroine’s concept of love and affection is also worthy of praise. She didn’t choose one thing and give up the other, but solved the conflict in the right way. After seeing many heroines who gave up their families for love, the heroine’s performance in this movie is simply a sight to behold.

Of course, the most noteworthy performance is Gongxi Qiao’s in the movie. In most movies and dramas, this kind of older brother who breaks up the loving couple[3] is mostly an unpleasant person, but such an annoying person, in Gongxi Qiao’s interpretation, becomes the ideal brother of many people. I believe that many of the female audience who watched this movie will regret that they don’t have a brother.

In fact, it isn’t difficult to make a good movie. All it needs is a good script with good actors and director. Unfortunately, such a simple condition is what many films and TV works lack today.

Such a movie that makes everyone feel reassured and touched, and smile with relaxation, is worth the ticket price.

Third Brother was a well-known toxic film critic. Many films were criticized under his pen. For example, the recently released blockbuster ‘The Moaning Wind’ was described by him as a ball-breaking romance between a man and woman both courting disaster, so the fact that he now praised a small-budget film simply dropped the jaws of many movie fans.

When the box office of a big film was high, people praised it with a couple of sentences at most and moved on. But when a small-budget movie suddenly exploded into a big hit, it would become the topic of media attention.

Under the attention of the media, the box office of ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ soared high, and the weekly box office even exceeded 250 million. Several small bosses who invested in this drama almost went crazy with joy. Of course, Gongxi Qiao, who was also an investor, also earned a lot.

When the news of the box office success of ‘Lord Brother-in-Law’ reached the crew of ‘National Industry’, everyone congratulated Gongxi Qiao. Finally, they let him off after Gongxi Qiao invited everyone to cook hot pot with him out of his own pocket.

What artists feared most was the title of box office poison, so that even if their qualifications were high, they were not liked by investors, who were the most realistic. They only looked at money, not people.

So sometimes in this line of work, resources, acting skills and emotional intelligence weren’t enough, but luck was enough.

The next day after the hot pot, many people treated Gongxi Qiao with a bit more cordiality, and there were more people looking for him to act with them if he had nothing to do.

Gongxi Qiao was clear about the intentions of these people, but very polite on the surface to everyone. As long as the other party didn’t have malicious intentions, then he wouldn’t care.

In this life, who didn’t struggle for their own benefit?

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