Rebirth in 1985

Chapter 754: The King of Comedy

In fact, Lu Shaohua's Phoenix Entertainment Company is indeed a hodgepodge. Let's not talk about anything else, just talk about the cinemas in Hong Kong. The company only has one, and it is a very small one. Whenever the company shoots a new film, it will take it to other people's cinemas for premiere.

Helplessly, all the cinemas in Hong Kong are already taken, so Lu Shaohua can only take this approach to survive. Lucky Phoenix Group is one of the largest companies in Hong Kong. Once a movie comes out, many companies will give face and give a little time for the premiere.

Among them are the cinemas under China Star Cinema Company, which is also owned by Xiang Huaqiang. They have given strong support and sometimes even postponed the premiere of their own company's films to give prime time to Phoenix Entertainment's films.

Given Xiang Huaqiang's status in Hong Kong, he doesn't have to consider anyone's wishes when doing things. Even the Chief Executive of Hong Kong can be on an equal footing with Xiang Huaqiang. However, when it comes to the matter of Phoenix Entertainment Company, Xiang Huaqiang gave enough face, which made the outside world feel very strange.

However, what the outside world does not know is that the Xiang family was able to survive after Hong Kong's return to China entirely because of Lu Shaohua's previous guidance and the good relationship between the two families, as well as the care of Lu Chang, an official stationed in Hong Kong. Otherwise, the Xiang family would have become a target of a severe crackdown long ago.

Therefore, it is entirely Lu Shaohua's credit that Xiang Huaqiang can continue to survive in Hong Kong. How can Xiang Huaqiang not give him face? Moreover, Lu Shaohua destroyed a gang last time, so Xiang Huaqiang could get a piece of land without any effort, and he owed Lu Shaohua a favor.

People who are involved in black gangs are the first to show loyalty. Xiang Huaqiang is undoubtedly one of them. It is not hard to understand why he would squeeze out some time to premiere the film produced by Lu Shaohua's company. Moreover, Lu Shaohua is not too excessive. He usually won't compete with China Star for the film screenings on important holidays and Saturdays and Sundays.

But then again, even though Phoenix Entertainment is a weird company, no film company dares to underestimate it. Most of the films produced by Phoenix Entertainment are good and have extremely high box office, which is something other film companies cannot compare to.

On the other hand, as for records, most of the singers under Phoenix Entertainment are talented singers, and their records sell very well, which has established the company's unshakable position in the record industry.

This is also the reason why, although Phoenix Entertainment is a weird company, it is still one of the best companies in the Hong Kong entertainment industry and is definitely not comparable to those shell companies.

Xiang Huaqiang was naturally aware of all this, so when Lu Shaohua mentioned Sibu Xiang Company, Xiang Huaqiang smiled back, shook his head helplessly, and said, "Go out and ask people what the movies and records produced by Phoenix Entertainment Company are like? I'm sure everyone will say they are top-notch."

"Anything produced by Phoenix must be of the highest quality."

This slogan is not just said casually, it has traces to prove its existence and is the result of a long period of accumulation. Whether it is cars, household appliances, records or movies, they are all high-quality products and none of them are defective.

Of course Lu Shaohua knew all this, so when Xiang Huaqiang mentioned the word "quality", Lu Shaohua's vanity was greatly satisfied.

It is not the best if you say it is good yourself. It is the best if others say it is good.

Now Xiang Huaqiang has agreed, and Phoenix Group was founded by Lu Shaohua. As the founder, how can he not be happy and vain when he is praised?

However, Lu Shaohua did not come here today to discuss these things with Xiang Huaqiang. He brought Chiyoko Anteng here to meet Xiang Huaqiang, so that any problems encountered in Hong Kong in the future can be resolved quickly without him having to always step in.

Well, this is the primary purpose of Lu Shaohua bringing Chiyo Andeng here. There is also a more important purpose. Lu Shaohua wants to come to Xiang Huaqiang to find a movie, a movie that will be popular and suitable for Chiyo Andeng to participate in.

It’s not that there are no good films or popular films in Phoenix Entertainment Company, but there are more of them with Xiang Huaqiang. After all, Xiang Huaqiang started to get involved in the film industry more than ten years ago. He has a wide network of contacts in this field, and he has countless screenwriters and many films under him. You never know when you will come across a good movie if you try.

It's true. When Lu Shaohua brought up this matter with Xiang Huaqiang, Xiang Huaqiang seemed to have guessed it long ago. He took a pile of scripts from the side of the office and threw them to Lu Shaohua, then said, "You can take a look at it yourself. If there is a suitable movie, our two companies can cooperate."

Xiang Huaqiang had long known about Lu Shaohua's vision. Not long after Phoenix Entertainment Company was established, Lu Shaohua got several movies from him. The box office of those movies were all extremely high, which made Xiang Huaqiang very depressed.

There was no way. The script originally belonged to Xiang Huaqiang's company, but was later divided up by Lu Shaohua. Although the two people's investments were equal, Lu Shaohua took some of the money in the later period. How could Xiang Huaqiang not be depressed?

So in the later period, Xiang Huaqiang showed the script to Lu Shaohua several times, but he did not discuss cooperation. Instead, he asked Lu Shaohua which one he liked, and then he would invest to shoot it. The final result also showed that Lu Shaohua had a unique vision, and none of his movies had bad box office results.

Lu Shaohua has vision and Xiang Huaqiang has plenty of scripts. He is eager to see Lu Shaohua's approval for a few movies, and then he will find one to cooperate with Lu Shaohua, and invest fully in the other films to start filming, striving to premiere them early next year. Then the box office champion in 1999 will basically belong to China Star Film Company.

Lu Shaohua did not disappoint Xiang Huaqiang. He rummaged through the pile of scripts for a long time, looked at the title, changed to another one, and then changed again. He took it out to read the contents, and changed again and again. After changing dozens of books, Lu Shaohua finally found a movie that interested him.

There were four big characters "The King of Comedy" written on the cover of a script. Lu Shaohua felt that the name was very familiar at first. After flipping through the contents, he finally made up his mind.

"Yes, this is the one."

It has been confirmed that the "King of Comedy" in his hand is the "King of Comedy" in his memory. Information about "King of Comedy" automatically flashed in Lu Shaohua's mind. He learned that this film "King of Comedy" won the box office championship in 1999, and received an unprecedented 2980 million. The starring actors are Stephen Chow, Cecilia Cheung and Karen Mok.

"Let's take this one, The King of Comedy. Just looking at the name, you know it's a comedy. And now Hong Kong comedy seems to have great potential and a good future." Lu Shaohua praised it, paused, and then got to the point. "Uncle Xiang, how about cooperation or arranging a supporting role for me?"

The script was written by Xiang Huaqiang, who took a dominant position. Even though Xiang Huaqiang mentioned the cooperation between the two companies, Lu Shaohua thought it would be better to ask.

"I keep my word. Let's cooperate and shoot together. As for the supporting roles, it's not a problem. You can take the script back and ask Mr. Chen to take a look. Then we can arrange the roles that he likes and shoot the film as soon as possible." Xiang Huaqiang made the decision cheerfully. Then, Xiang Huaqiang made a request. "But before that, you have to help me pick a few more that you think are good, so that I can start working next year."

Xiang Huaqiang proposed an additional condition, which could be regarded as compensation for the good film taken away by Lu Shaohua. In this way, while cooperating, he could plan around the good film selected by Lu Shaohua next year, that is, in 1999.

"No problem." Lu Shaohua agreed readily.

Are you kidding? Lu Shaohua got a box office champion movie, which is equivalent to snatching food from Xiang Huaqiang's mouth. Although Xiang Huaqiang agreed, Lu Shaohua felt a little awkward. It is also his duty to help Xiang Huaqiang pick a few movies, as compensation.

The next things were much simpler. Lu Shaohua helped pick three films, all of which were ideal films in his memory. After handing the scripts to Xiang Huaqiang, he didn't say a word and just sat there quietly.

Lu Shaohua knew that at this moment Xiang Huaqiang was already focusing on the script and had no time to discuss other things with Lu Shaohua.

This was indeed the case. When he took the script handed to him by Lu Shaohua, his eyes lit up and he began to read the script.

After roughly reading the general content of the script, Xiang Huaqiang breathed a sigh of relief, folded it, flicked it with his fingers, looked at Lu Shaohua with a satisfied smile, then stood up, locked the three scripts into the safe under the desk, and then returned to sit on the sofa.

"I have read these three scripts before, but reading them normally is completely different from reading them now. Well, at least the feeling is different. Now I feel it is a good movie at a glance." Xiang Huaqiang said with a smile.

Indeed, I don’t know if it’s psychological or something else, but when the script came from Lu Shaohua’s hands, Xiang Huaqiang had a completely different feeling when he read it. Maybe it was intuition, he thought it was a good movie, or to put it bluntly, a good movie that could make money.

In response, Lu Shaohua smiled. His mission was completed, and there was nothing serious to do next, so all he could do was chat.

Calculating the time, Lu Shaohua hasn't been together with Xiang Huaqiang for a long time. Today is a good opportunity for them to reconnect.

Speaking of chatting, Xiang Huaqiang couldn't avoid a lot of complaints about the financial crisis. Many people know that when the Asian financial crisis came, Li Ka-shing and Ho Ying-tung made a fortune, and the one who helped them make money was Lu Shaohua, the boss of the Phoenix Group.

Xiang Huaqiang was one of the people closest to Lu Shaohua, but he didn't take him with him to make some money, so of course Xiang Huaqiang would complain.

However, Xiang Huaqiang also knew that with his wealth he could not keep up with the pace of Lu Shaohua and the others. After all, they were playing with big money, and each move involved tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, or even tens of billions of dollars. He, Xiang Huaqiang, had not reached that point yet.

However, Lu Shaohua also said that if there is a chance next time, he will definitely bring Xiang Huaqiang with him. This made Xiang Huaqiang happy, and he finally changed the topic and started talking about everything under the sun, turning to some more gossipy topics.