Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 823 Tokyo Film Festival Best Actor

The Okura Hotel in Tokyo is a Japanese-style hotel specially built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.All the interior decoration here is in the traditional Japanese style, which is in sharp contrast with the modern hotel on the outside.

"Good morning, sir, welcome, Ronaldo-san, ha, Diane-san. Please come with me, the room is ready."

The waiter, wearing spotless white gloves and a gown, bowed deeply before rising to usher Ronald and Diane into the suite they had reserved.

When Ronald arrived at the suite, there was a translucent window on the wall of the living room, and the reflection of the bamboo forest outside the window was reflected into the room. With the tatami mats on the floor and the low coffee table, there was a harmony between the West and the East. temperament.

"Thank you," Ronald took out his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a $20 bill, and handed it over.

"You're welcome, Ronald-san, please call me if you need anything." The waiter didn't accept the tip, but bowed to Ronald again, turned around and walked out.

"Eastern people think that their service is of high quality, which generally exceeds the level of the West. Your tipping is an insult to their service." Diane, also wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, came up to explain to the accused.She has stayed in Dongying for a relatively long period of time and has shot many commercials. She knows more about the customs and customs here than Ronald.

"My fault", Ronald put away his wallet with a smile. The interior decoration of this hotel is a bit old, but it is well maintained.

Steve Bannon persuaded him to stay here, which is one of the most prestigious high-end hotels in Tokyo.

Moreover, the chaebol in Japan learned that he lived in this hotel which was very close to the Emperor's Imperial Palace, only a 10-[-]-minute walk away, so they would have a better understanding of Ronald's strength.This is the highest representative of the Hefeng Hotel. Now the Entrepreneur Consortium of Japan has opinions on American entrepreneurs, and respecting their culture will be beneficial to the next discussion of financing.

"Let's go down to have some brunch. I heard that the Chinese hair dish here is very good." After tidying up with Diane, the two went down to eat hand in hand.

Passing through the wide lobby, the walls are decorated with diamond diamond texture, and four musicians are playing chamber music quartet in front of them.Musicians in suits and female audience in traditional kimonos.With simple geometric shapes and strings of lanterns hanging from the ceiling, Ronald feels that the East and the West co-exist wonderfully together for a moment.

When we arrived at the restaurant, of course Ronald ordered the hair-style toast that Bannon highly recommended.

"Sir, today's appointments are sold out." The restaurant waiter bowed again and told Ronald that he would please be early tomorrow.The toast here is rationed, and it will be gone after it is done.

"Do you have to make an appointment for toast? What the hell, come up with what you have." Ronald shook out the napkin and put it on. Dongying people just have a pursuit of form. In fact, if a kind of dessert is difficult to make, it will not be served. Well.

"The toast here is really good, but it usually comes in the morning." A familiar voice spoke English and said behind Ronald.

"Huh? Mr. Pike. Why are you here?" Ronald looked back, and it was the famous American movie star, Gregory Pike, who was slowly enjoying the toast with his hair in one corner.He was wearing a dark blue navy jacket, light colored trousers, a red tie, large glasses, and silver hair.

"Do you mind if we come together?" Ronald asked Gregory Peck.

"Come here, little Ronald, we haven't seen each other when I went to Huaguo last time. I also watched your latest movie. It's very good."

Gregory Peck waved, and the waiter hurried over to move the chairs, and Ronald and Diane sat at his table together.

"You are still so energetic." Ronald looked at him and said.

"I'm here to be a judge at the Tokyo International Film Festival, and you're also here to participate in the film festival?" Gregory Peck pushed the hair-style toast he ordered over to Diane, and then poured a cup of maple syrup on it .

"Thank you, um...it's delicious, like a soufflé." Diane started yelling, this toast is really delicious.

"They soak the bread in egg wash for 24 hours, then fry it and then bake it, so you need to come early to eat it." Gregory Peck is 70, and looking at Diane is like seeing a granddaughter.

"I'm not here to participate in the film festival," Ronald replied with a smile, "I'm here to release Dirty Dancing. Actually, I don't even know that there is a film festival in Tokyo that has a competitive unit."

"It's normal if you don't know. This is only the second time they've held it. It's the only A-level film festival in East Asia that has a competition unit, regardless of genre. They invited me to be the chairman of the jury to expand their influence."

"Mr. Parker, if you come to be the chairman, it will definitely be fair." Ronald couldn't help but think of Cannes this year, the award judging was messed up by that chairman.

"Well, I'm glad you said that, but we both know they're doing it because I'm cheap."

"Hahaha……"

Ronald laughed. Gregory Peck still has such a sense of humor. He is semi-retired and hasn't made much film in recent years. He likes to travel around the world and watch movies from other places.

"Are there any good films that have entered the competition in recent years?"

"Let me tell you, there is really a Huaguo movie that moved me very much. It was directed by a young man surnamed Wu. The techniques and lens language are a bit backward, but it is very simple and powerful. The actor is also very good. With power, I saw a different movie.

It was the Briton in the jury, who was always making trouble with me. He raised a lot of opinions, but none of them could hinder my determination. "

"I heard that the chairman of the jury has a lot of power?" Ronald didn't know how the film festival works, he just spoke from the farce of the Cannes awards that he experienced.

"I have a lot of power, but I can only persuade them, not decide by myself. Would you like to watch this movie? I can throw out your opinion as a reference during the meeting."

"I may have a different opinion from you, I will only speak according to my own opinion." Ronald didn't eat the hair-style toast, so he joked with Gregory Peck who occupied the last two .

"Haha, of course. American people are free to express their own ideas. But I strongly doubt that you have the same aesthetics as me. What you said in Huaguo last time won my heart. Movies are not limited to Hollywood. One way of shooting."

"Well, there are government-funded ones like Hair Country, I don't understand either."

"Hahaha..." Diane laughed, picked up a piece of toast with a fork, and put it in Ronald's mouth.

"Well, it's really delicious." Ronald also felt that Dongying chefs put more thought into such a small food than the main course.

"Well, Mr. Pike, if there is still a screening of that movie, I will go to see it, and I will write my opinion to you."

"Of course, I will ask them to screen a special show for you. This is a story about people in the northwest of Huaguo who have been digging wells to find water for hundreds of years and have been failing."

"Sounds good," Ronald ate an omelette Benedict, "These Japanese people make an English breakfast, which is even better than the British. By the way, the one who opposed you in the jury Who are the Britons?"

"Alan Parker, British Londoner."

"It's him, no wonder." Ronald didn't expect to meet the director who was "famous all over the world" in Tokyo.Why didn't he make a movie and came to Tokyo.

Ronald agreed to Gregory Peck, and then waited at the hotel until Bannon, who had just returned from the American embassy next door.

"We're going to meet with the representatives of Kadokawa Bookstore and Johnny & Associates tomorrow."

"Okay, let's get in touch with them first, by the way, what are you doing at the embassy?"

"Things on Wall Street, many things overseas, need the assistance of the embassy." Bannon replied, "How do you arrange the evening? I will meet my former friends."

"I also went to meet old friends, and I met Gregory Peck. Now there is a film festival here, and he is a judge."

"Ah... isn't 'Her Royal Highness' coming?" Bannon is also a big fan of old Audrey Hepburn-Pike movies.

"I haven't heard of it."

……

In the evening, Ronald, together with Diane, came to the place Parker had mentioned and watched a Huaguo movie.

The movie with only subtitles and Chinese lines is called "Old Well". Diane couldn't understand it, and Ronald sometimes translated some plots for her.

But the power of the movie itself is very strong, and Diane's own guessed plot is also very close.The pace of this movie is not fast, and the audio-visual language is a bit behind compared to the great development of Hollywood in recent years.

Ronald and Diane looked at the front and could guess the direction of the plot behind.Even so, the performances of the leading actor and the two heroines, as well as the performances of the supporting actors, are all excellent, directly hitting the common heart of mankind.

In the end, the male protagonist - whose name translates as "beneficial to well water (Wang Quan)", relying on the bride price earned from the marriage of his first love and the dowry from the widow's wife, finally produced well water, and the camera ended on the side of the well for more than 100 years Because of the failure of digging the well, the name of the ancestors appeared at the end, and the name of the main character appeared at the end, success!

Diane couldn't understand the lines and was moved to tears.

Ronald felt that the simplicity of the movie was the most powerful force.If the actor's performance is strong enough, it can replace skill and story, and also move the audience.

"I agree with you. I think this is a very moving movie, especially the simplicity of the leading actor Yimou with strength. His silence can move the audience more than his lines."

Ronald wrote a short review, called up the waiter, and told them to deliver it to Gregory Peck.

"Ronald, I knew you would agree with me." Early the next morning, Parker called, and he was very satisfied with Ronald's comments. "Tomorrow I will vote you A year's worth of comments can crush the minds of Britons..."

"I'm glad I can help you." Ronald put down the phone, sorted his clothes, went out to find Bannon, and went with him to make an appointment with the president of Kadokawa Bookstore and Johnny's Office.

……

"Ronald, old friends meet again."

Haruki Kadokawa, and Johnny Kitagawa, meet Ronald at an intimate sushi restaurant.

There is only one table of guests here at noon every day, and basically only senior executives of large companies and some politicians can make an appointment. Ordinary people can only wait for the time, and the lucky ones can show off in the circle of friends for a long time.

"Hello, how is the Dongying film market now?"

Ronald got straight to the point. He wanted to sell the film to Dongying, and he also wanted to bring in investors from Dongying.

"You don't know yet. In the past two months, Japan and the United States have been fighting fiercely over the chip issue. NEC, Toshiba, Fuji and other companies are all considering whether to give up the American market because of the dynamic memory chip. .”

"What chip?" Ronald looked at Bannon.

"Dram, a kind of chip on a computer, the manufacturing cost in Japan is much lower than ours now, so those old men in Congress will start to wield the big stick of sanctions again."

"In the beginning, it was textiles, then electrical appliances, then automobiles, and now chips. America's free trade concept is not the case when dealing with Japan." Haruki Kadokawa is Japanese, and he has retained American nationality Johnny Kitagawa is different. He straight to the point talked about the current form of friction between Japan and the United States.

"Now we, pro-American industrialists, are under a lot of pressure to operate in Dongying." Johnny Kitagawa also said beside him.

"Free trade is two-way. Your teacher prevents our films and other cultural products from entering the Japanese market, and our intellectual property products are pirated by you in large numbers."

"Don't say you don't know," Ronald stopped the two entrepreneurs who wanted to refute, "Now the strongest product of Dongying is the game console, and most of the characters in it are plagiarized from Hollywood. For example, that King Kong, and your latest Contra, the two protagonist fighters are obviously Schwarzenegger and Mr. Stallone."

"We're not here to quarrel, right? We're here to talk about cooperation." Johnny Kitagawa also understood that the agreement signed by the two countries, in fact, Japan is trying its best to use various secret means to not cooperate.

Dongying is a vertically integrated market, and several large financial giants control many industrial chains.Take the film industry here as an example. Bookstores and newspapers are the controlling shareholders of several major film producers, and they also control most of the theaters.

As for the copies of Hollywood movies, on the one hand, they secretly asked the owners of the movie theaters not to release or release fewer copies;

"Of course, what do you think, so that the 'audience' of Japan can accept our Hollywood movies?"

"Why don't you make some Japan-Mizuki cooperation movies?" Kadokawa Haruki raised an idea, "We Dongying people should not only be ridiculous villains in Hollywood movies, but also have some positive images. And Hollywood is in Japan. There are still too few movies that are filmed, as long as you are willing to cooperate, we have plenty of people here who are willing to invest."

Ronald and Bannon looked at each other. This method is better than what they discussed. Isn't it just to get a few positive characters from Japan and put part of the story in modern Japan?

……

"Happy cooperation", the two presidents chatted with Ronald and Bannon about a cooperation framework, and they will continue to invite Ronald to go to Kitagawa's site to watch their artists perform.

Ronald declined the invitation, saying it could be postponed for a few days.He would go back with Diane to see the results of Mr. Gregory Peck's strategizing.

"Is Di Ansang here too? Why not let her be the award presenter at this film festival?" Kitagawa and Kadokawa also have a lot of say in the film festival.It was finalized in a few words, let Diane be the award presenter for the best actor of the film festival, which will greatly enhance the influence of the film festival.

After leaving the restaurant, Ronald pulled Bannon aside, "Who did you meet at the embassy yesterday?"

"Don't be like this, it's just an acquaintance in the business department. Now the chip friction between the United States and Japan has become very acute. The agreement is imminent. All American businessmen who come here must inquire and report the situation."

"Well, don't overdo it." Ronald understood that Bannon was not simply a Wall Street banker.

……

"Has the diamond ring commercial been filmed yet?" Ronald returned to the hotel and had dinner with Diane.

"There are still a few more to be shot tomorrow. I dyed my hair blond on purpose, you see." Diane showed Ronald the blond hair.

"Why don't you pause tomorrow, they invited you to be the award presenter at the film festival."

"Oh, really? I haven't given out an award yet? What was it for, and who was it?"

"I don't know, let me ask." Ronald dialed the switchboard and asked them to transfer to Gregory Pike.

"Mr. Parker, Diane will be the best actor award presenter. Let me ask if your vote has a result?"

"My boy, your evaluation has been a great help. I won the best film award, and the best actor, both won by 'Old Well', and the British only got a special jury award, and the most Good leading actress."

"Oh, who is that?" Ronald also felt happy for Huaguo Movie after hearing Parker's report. Director Wu and leading actor Yimou can both win awards. It is said that this is Huaguo's first actor and film festival award in many years.

Don't know who the heroine is?
"Australia's Rachel Ward, her new film 'The Umbrella Woman' has to balance things out."

Well, being an acquaintance again, Ronald felt that Ward's new film was not very good, so he had to come to this new film festival to expand its influence.

(End of this chapter)