Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Dan Aykroyd is a very humorous person in life. Ronald and he had a great time eating and drinking at the party. He made the party healthy, without the Hollywood convention of beauties and illegal drugs, just like drinking beer and chatting with old friends.

Maybe it's because Dan Aykroyd is Canadian, or maybe his good friend John Belushi died of drug abuse, anyway, this kind of party is very much to Ronald's taste.

Ronald got along very well with him, and the two of them agreed to invite John Candy, Michael J. Fox, and Cameron, Canadians who have made their way into Hollywood, to party together when they have time.

There are generally two types of comedians. One is like Bill Murray, who is very serious and boring in life, and being funny is just their job. They often need to copy other people's jokes, and then rack their brains to calculate the rhythm and the audience's reaction to make the jokes work best.

Another type is like Aykroyd, who is more humorous in life. In life, they are also very humorous people. They will laugh at themselves when they are not satisfied with their lives. It is very interesting to get along with them, and they are more relaxed when performing.

After resting at home for a few days, "Night of the Comet" is still a nail house in the theater. Several weeks have passed, and the box office of a single theater is still quite high. Atlantic's distribution capacity is unable to expand the number of screenings, but it can still hold more than 300 theaters. The box office is also rising by more than one million per week.

On the contrary, "Superman III", which was highly expected by Warner Bros., has seen a rapid decline in box office since the second week. Black comedy star Richard Pryor invested in this movie and got himself the role of the villain G, replacing the villain position of Lex Luthor played by Gene Hackman.

But his "colorful" language style, the vulgar jokes of black talk shows, and the atmosphere of the Superman series of movies are incompatible. The audience shouted that the movie was bad, and the reviews and box office were falling at the speed of light.

The news reached Pinewood Studios in London, and Helen Slater, who was playing "Supergirl" there, was nervous. Ronald had several transatlantic phone calls with her to dispel her worries. The intensive and high-intensity shooting made Helen a little nervous, and she began to be suspicious of the box office failure of the Superman series.

That day, Ronald received a call from Weintraub. The actor who played Master Miyagi, whom he had hoped for, had flown to Hollywood from Japan and asked Ronald if he wanted to meet him.

This was certainly not the business scope of a screenwriter and co-producer. But the actor who came was too famous. With the constant recommendations of Spielberg, Coppola, and George Lucas, Hollywood admired the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.

And the person invited by Weintraub to audition was Akira Kurosawa's long-time leading actor, Toshiro Mifune, who was known as "the greatest samurai on the Japanese screen."

Toshiro Mifune went to Weintraub's mansion with his translator. In his huge living room, Mifune politely bowed slightly to Weintraub and Avildsen and sat on the leather sofa.

"Do you mind if I smoke a cigar?" Mifune Toshiro asked in Japanese, and a young Japanese beside him helped him translate into English. Weintraub raised a match attentively and lit a thin Japanese cigar, and Mifune smoked it.

"Kurosawa-san, please introduce the hosts." Mifune said to the translator, looking at the young Ronald. He doesn't look like Weintraub at all, and it's impossible for him to be his child.

"Please let me introduce you. This is the producer of the film, Mr. Weintraub, who you are already familiar with. This is the supervisor Avildsen, who used to be the supervisor of the boxing movie "Rocky."

"Hello, Avildsen-san." Mifune nodded and saluted.

"This is the screenwriter Ronald," the translator Kurosawa-san introduced Ronald.

"Ha, such a young screenwriter? It's really surprising. He reminds me of your father, Kurosawa-kun."

"Mr. Mifune said you are very young, which surprised him."

"Thank you Mr. Mifune for the compliment. I like his 'Yojimbo' very much. This is my favorite of his works." Ronald heard the translation and said that he was a fan of Toshiro Mifune.

"Kurosawa-kun, thanks to you this time." After listening to the translation, Mifune asked the translator to convey his good impression of Ronald.

This young translator is none other than Hisao Kurosawa, the eldest son of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. He opened a small production company in America and monopolized all the business agents of his father Akira Kurosawa in America. He also helped Toho, Shochiku and other Japanese production studios to expand their business here.

Ronald looked at Mifune carefully and listened to him, Weintraub and Avildson discussing "The Karate Kid" through the translator.

Toshiro Mifune wore a light-colored suit. He had lost a lot of gray hair and combed it meticulously. But after all, he is old, and after a long journey, he can no longer hide his deep eye bags and a few subtle age spots on his face.

This Japanese star, who was born in Qingdao, Shandong in 1920, is already in his sixties. Ronald saw him yawning several times when he was discussing the plot with Avilson. It seems that his energy is a bit low.

Ronald got up to pour himself a cup of coffee, and when he passed by Weintraub, he whispered his discovery in his ear.

Weintraub woke up from the joy of seeing his idol and quickly got up, asking Mifune and Kurosawa to go to the hotel to rest first and have a deeper discussion later.

Mifune saw that it was Ronald who helped to remind him, and he also came over to smile at him and expressed his goodwill.

"Kurosawa-kun, please thank Ronald-san for me."

"I am your fan, Mifune-chan. I have seen all the movies you and Kurosawa Akira collaborated on that I can find in America." Ronald actually likes the swordplay movies shot by Kurosawa Akira, which have a cold temperament, neat narrative, and first-class atmosphere.

"Oh, I wonder which one you like best?" Mifune was waiting for the car at the door of the living room, and simply chatted with Ronald through Kurosawa Hisao.

"My favorite scene is the duel between you and Nakadai Tatsuya in 'Tsubaki Sanjuro'. I've always wondered how you rehearsed that killer move, it was like you and Mr. Nakadai Tatsuya were having a real duel, the emotions were so good."

After listening to Kurosawa Hisao's translation, Mifune nodded and replied, "We have to thank Director Kurosawa. If he hadn't said that it couldn't be filmed well, he would have to fight with real swords, Nakadai-kun and I wouldn't have been so scared, and we could have filmed it in one take, hahaha."

"So you didn't rehearse that scene?" Ronald was surprised, but it could also explain why the two of them had such an emotional outburst. If they rehearsed more, the emotional reaction would be much weaker.

"It was also a coincidence. The props that operated the mechanism made a mistake, and the switch was turned too high, causing too much blood to spurt out too quickly from Nakadai Tatsuya's body. Everyone thought I really cut Nakadai-kun, and the script supervisor screamed. You can still hear it when you watch the film.

I was a little worried, so you can see how nervous I was in that shot. I was thinking that I must not make any mistakes, otherwise I would waste Nakadai Tatsuya's kindness."

"The car is here, Mifune-kun." Kurosawa Hisao reminded him from the side.

Ronald helped open the car door and sent Mifune to the car.

He now understood why Kubrick called him to ask about some scene shooting methods.

The last duel scene of "Tsubaki Sanjuro" was very neat and tidy, but Ronald always had a question. Generally speaking, there are two ways to shoot a fight scene. One is like the lightsaber duel in "Star Wars", where two actors swing their weapons in one place, so that no one is in danger of getting hurt.

The second method is the method of westerns. Both sides swing their weapons at each other. If the protagonist has no weapon, hit his torso and feed him a move so that he can block it with his hands. The advantage of this method is that it is not as rigid as the first method and is more realistic.

However, both methods have a disadvantage, which is that you have to feed the moves. If the camera is focused on the two duelists and takes a close-up, you will find that the actors themselves do not feel the danger of a real fight, so it is difficult to perform the emotions of the moment between victory and defeat.

In order to film the fear, relief, unwillingness, etc. of the moment of victory and defeat in the duel, Kurosawa Akira threatened the actors to use real knives if they did not shoot well. He really did everything to make a movie. However, the coincidence of the prop opening the water pipe also happened to stimulate the real reactions of both parties.

In order to have this texture, the final duel scene of "The Karate Kid" must be well designed to make the two protagonists succeed at once. If a second take is taken, there will be no strong natural reaction as in the first time.

"But this shouldn't be something I should consider," Ronald shook his head. His occupational disease came back again. He kept thinking about how to design the scene. Avildsen filmed the boxing scene in "Rocky", but it was well received. I guess he has his own way.

"Ronald, John, I think it's a great choice to ask Mifune to play Mr. Miyagi. The samurai in Master Kurosawa's movie, teaching Danny karate, American audiences will be delighted." Weintraub returned to the living room and pulled Ronald and Avildsen to discuss.

Weintraub insisted on Toshiro Mifune to play, but Ronald and Avildsen both saw that Mifune was too old to act in action scenes. Miyagi has a lot of scenes teaching Danny, and it's too cruel to let a man in his sixties practice karate again.

"Mifune is of course the spokesperson for the image of Japanese samurai, but I'm afraid his action scenes won't produce satisfactory results." Avildsen immediately objected, "and he speaks in a slow dramatic tone, which is out of touch with the requirements of film lines after the New Wave."

"Huh?" Ronald glanced at Avildsen and thought, "Didn't you teach me not to convince the producers directly of your own ideas, but to make them feel that they are your own ideas?"

"That's Toshiro Mifune. As long as he appears on the screen, the audience will be happy." Weintraub is obviously also a fan of Japanese movies. He likes the swordplay films of directors such as Kurosawa Akira very much.

"There are not many Americans who have actually watched Kurosawa Akira's movies. I think most audiences heard Kurosawa Akira's name through Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg." Avildsen expressed his opinion again.

"What do you think, Ronald?" Weintraub didn't disagree with Avildsen's statement, but Toshiro Mifune appeared in the first movie he produced. This temptation was too great, which was equivalent to his dream coming true.

"I'm thinking about a question, Mr. Weintraub. In our script, Mr. Miyagi's identity is arranged as a Japanese-American. He is usually an apartment repairman. He likes potted plants. His shortcoming is English grammar. It sucks.

But he usually has no problem communicating with people. "Ronald asked the question from another angle.

"You're right, but what next?" Weintraub asked.

"So Miyagi is actually a person who cannot speak English with correct grammar. Isn't he a little different from a person who cannot speak English at all?"

"Yes." Weintraub thought for a while and felt that it made sense. "In that case, you made me think of another question. Mr. Mifune does not speak English, so when he performs his lines, will he People think he is a real Japanese, not a Japanese whose English grammar is completely wrong but can communicate with ordinary people?”

"What we need in our movie is a master who can explain the moves and impart life experience to Danny. If such a person cannot speak English, he will not be able to convince the audience."

Weintraub seemed to have discovered a blind spot and turned to Ronald and Avelson.

"You know what? Mr. Weintraub, I think you are right. Master Miyagi should be more like Master Yoda in Star Wars. Inversion does not prevent him from imparting the wisdom of Skywalker." Rona De echoed.

"Very good, John, we will still arrange an audition for Mr. Mifune tomorrow, but according to my opinion, he has little chance." Weintraub drank the remaining coffee with a little regret.