Chapter 198 Refresh the record
In a private room of the Rich Man Nightclub in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, Zeng Zhiwei, Tan Yonglin, Chen Baixiang and others were sitting together drinking.

Talking about the recent "boycott Jiang Heng" incident, Zeng Zhiwei said disdainfully: "I didn't expect that a big Hollywood director is also strong on the outside but weak on the inside, and actually bowed to Jiang Heng like that!"

Chen Baixiang laughed: "It's for the sake of making money. Jiang is very powerful in the mainland. Old Wu wanted to make money in the mainland, but he angered them. From production to release, he has to bear the consequences."

Tan Yonglin continued, "That's right. If someone were willing to lose money and make a blockbuster movie to compete with Red Cliff, Old Wu would be dumbfounded!"

Zeng Zhiwei looked puzzled. "Why are all the films made by this Jiang so popular?"

Chen Baixiang took a sip of wine, put it down and said, "The special effects are awesome, I feel they are even better than those in Hollywood. Li An's "The Hulk" is totally not on the same level as Jiang Heng's!"

Zeng Zhiwei agreed with this statement, but he didn't understand why Jiang Heng dared to invest so much to make a commercial blockbuster with excellent special effects.

Aren’t you afraid of box office failure and losing tens of millions of dollars?

He really hopes Jiang Heng will pay compensation!

As early as several years ago, when Jiang Heng was preparing for "The Matrix", he had a conflict with him.

Later, when Jiang Heng became famous, he was forced to apologize to Jiang Heng.

But deep down, Zeng Zhiwei really couldn't swallow this humiliation, and hoped every day that Jiang Heng would suffer a box office failure.

The result was that Jiang Heng's films were all huge hits, which disappointed him every time and made him feel like he was going to have a heart attack.

I thought I could take advantage of the feud between Jiang Heng and Wu Yusen to stir up trouble and call on everyone to isolate Jiang Heng.

As a result, before anything happened, Wu Yusen was the first to admit defeat and ask for reconciliation.

Upon seeing this, those people in the Hong Kong entertainment industry also stopped their activities.

After all, the Hong Kong market is really sluggish, and these people are still counting on the mainland market to make money to support their families!
With Wu Yusen unable to carry the banner, how could these people dare to continue to confront Jiang Heng? Some of them even went north to admit defeat.

Zeng Zhiwei didn't want to endure that humiliation, so he stayed in Hong Kong and refused to leave, so he went to have a drink with his good brothers.

Tan Yonglin and Chen Baixiang are both semi-retired and don't care about Jiang Heng's influence. They just drink and chat together.

When they were talking and drinking, Chen Baixiang said, "By the way, I have to go to the movies with my wife tomorrow. Forget about what you said before about boycotting that!"

Tan Yonglin also said: "I am the same. I have to bring my wife and children to watch it. It's not that we are not brothers, but we really have no choice!"

Zeng Zhiwei had a very frustrated expression and said exaggeratedly: "No way, didn't we agree to be good brothers and stand together? How could you not support me?"

Chen Baixiang patted Zeng Zhiwei on the shoulder and said, "We definitely support you mentally, but the problem is that your wife has given you orders, so you have to obey! Please be considerate, please be considerate!"

Tan Yonglin also said something similar, which made Zeng Zhiwei very depressed. "Damn it, I'll ask two girls to come and accompany me, it's better than you two barbecued pork!"

Chen Baixiang smiled and said, "Then let's go first, so as not to delay you?"

“Roll, roll, roll!”

Since they were friends for many years, Zeng Zhiwei was not polite and waved his hand to send the two men away.

Then he murmured, "Damn it, what's so good about a monkey show?"

He immediately tilted his head and said, "How about I find a girl to go watch it with me? Damn, it should be hard to buy tickets, right?" Just as Zeng Zhiwei expected, "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" was extremely popular on the first day of its release in Hong Kong, and the prime time tickets for popular cinemas were sold out.

There are only a few tickets left for non-prime sessions, and the seats are relatively bad.

Zeng Zhiwei drove around the city and saw long queues outside the cinemas. He was too lazy to take his girlfriend to watch the movie. He cursed, "Damn, I don't understand. What's so good about this movie? Isn't it just Monkey King fighting monsters? How many times has it been shown on TV?"

The female companion said, "It's different. I heard that the monsters in the movie are very realistic and scary, and the fighting scenes are also good to watch. In short, it's very exciting!"

Zeng Zhiwei sneered, "Why, is it more exciting than being with me?"

The female companion waved her hand and hit him on the shoulder, "You are so bad!"

Zeng Zhiwei laughed, "If a man is not bad, women will not love him. Does that mean she loves me more?"

"Hate it, drive carefully!"

……

Although some celebrities in the Hong Kong entertainment industry called on everyone to boycott Jiang Heng's movies, they couldn't even come up with a decent slogan and the citizens ignored it.

Hong Kong films nowadays are becoming less and less impressive, and Hollywood blockbusters are lacking in appeal due to the lack of sense of immersion. I wonder how many Hong Kong citizens regard watching Jiang Heng's special effects blockbusters as one of the must-do things during the summer vacation and the Lunar New Year holiday. How could they not go and watch it?

On the first day of its release, the film grossed a total of 312 million Hong Kong dollars, breaking the previous record.

In mainland China, "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" was also released as expected.

Because it is a film invested and distributed by China Film Group, there is no competition from foreign blockbusters in the same period.

As for domestic films, no one is stupid enough to compete with Jiang Heng in the same period. "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" dominates the Lunar New Year period, and there is nothing else the audience wants to watch.

Coupled with the same usual production standards, the box office performance on the first day of release reached an astonishing 5080 million, finally breaking the million mark.

To be fair, this movie is just a lively and good-looking commercial blockbuster. If there is any connotation, it is nothing more than a satire on the relationship between Laojun and the nine-tailed fox in the film.

But many film critics were excited, extremely excited.

Because there are fewer and fewer satirical movies on the market, not to mention satirical movies, even satirical crosstalk and sketches are becoming less and less.

A film critic wrote: The nine-tailed fox in "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" is undoubtedly a satire on the phenomenon of officials' wives. Jinjiao and Yinjiao are the two young masters, while the Qingniu Jing combines the roles of secretary and driver, and shows more powerful social energy than the young masters.

This time, the origin of the story comes from the greed of the nine-tailed fox. She wanted to eat the flesh of Tang Monk, which led to the actions of the Golden Horned, Silver Horned and Green Bull Demons. At the end of the story, the director let Sun Wukong kill all these people, which reflects the reality more.

Because in the easter egg plot, they were all resurrected without exception, just like those evil people in reality, as long as their backers do not fall, "death" is only temporary.

After this film review was published, it received a lot of praise.

In Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia, "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" also achieved good box office results.

In North America, the film "A Series of Unfortunate Events" starring Jim Carrey and produced by Paramount was released on the same day. The film was originally ranked 18th in the annual rankings and was not very competitive. When it met "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan", it was directly crushed.

However, "Meet the Fockers 2" which was released a few days later had some strength. It originally achieved a total North American box office of 2.79 million US dollars, which had a certain impact on the box office of "Journey to the West".

(End of this chapter)