Pei Qian’s heart skipped a beat.
This was bad—the worst-case scenario had occurred.
He never expected that this film would actually win the Golden Lion Award.
Pei Qian hadn’t held high hopes for this film before, since the idea had come from a spur-of-the-moment thought. He had simply wanted to portray the Tenda Group as an antagonist.
However, during the development process, Zhu Xiaocai and Yu Fei, the two people in charge, had each proposed their own views, extending Mr. Pei’s concept.
Then Pei Qian had flipped the film and game ideas around, and they had begun filming in this very casual manner.
But unexpectedly, this hastily made film had actually won the highest award at an international film festival.
The whole thing was absurd.
Although this was the seventh time a domestic film had won the Golden Lion Award—not exactly a historic breakthrough—it was still the first time in five years that a Chinese film had received this honor.
Compared to other film festivals, the Venice Film Festival tended to favor Asian films and had a special fondness for Chinese-language cinema.
That’s why many Chinese film directors had previously won this prestigious award.
But after 2007, there seemed to be a gap in this achievement. Even the Venice Film Festival judges had expressed regret over the gradual decline of Chinese-language films.
Therefore, for “The Future You Choose” to win the Golden Lion Award again was a tremendous encouragement for the domestic film industry.
Additionally, Lu Zhiyao’s Best Actor award was also something worth celebrating extensively.
As the acting benchmark for the new generation of powerful male actors, Lu Zhiyao had been continuously working to surpass himself. Many viewers had grown alongside him through one film after another, witnessing his increasingly refined acting skills and giving him more and more attention and support.
This Venice Film Festival was naturally a win for both fame and fortune for Lu Zhiyao, absolutely reaching the peak of his career.
But what left Pei Qian most speechless was Zhu Xiaocai’s acceptance speech on stage.
What did he mean by “Mr. Pei gave this film its spirit and flesh”? It sounded like this film was entirely his own doing.
The key issue was that Zhu Xiaocai’s award speech at such an important occasion had elevated Mr. Pei to such a high position that it was difficult for netizens not to make connections.
Predictably, before long, online discussions about this film and the Venice Film Festival would sweep across the internet like a tidal wave.
“I haven’t even seen this damn film yet, and it’s already won two major awards.”
“How am I supposed to explain this?”
Pei Qian felt desperate. During the film’s production period, he had been very busy with other matters and hadn’t paid much attention. After the filming and editing were completed, Zhu Xiaocai had taken the film directly to the Venice Film Festival, so Pei Qian hadn’t had a chance to watch it.
As a result, he didn’t even know what the film was really about before the bad news arrived—truly a sad story.
Pei Qian very perfunctorily responded to the good news from Zhu Xiaocai, Lu Zhiyao, and others. Then he began to check the discussions among netizens.
…
“Fei Huang Studio is amazing! The Golden Lion Award is definitely a very prestigious international award.”
“Yeah, although the Venice Film Festival favors Chinese-language films, winning this award definitely relies on solid strength. Moreover, they’ve won both the Golden Lion Award and Best Actor, two substantial major awards. This film is definitely worth looking forward to.”
“When will it be released? Does anyone know what kind of film this is exactly?”
“Not quite sure, the crew has done a good job keeping it secret.”
“The film is called ‘The Future You Choose,’ and it’s said to be a cyberpunk theme.”
“Is the cyberpunk theme similar to ‘Beautiful Tomorrow’? Then why not make a sequel to ‘Beautiful Tomorrow’?”
“That’s unclear, but judging from the current awards situation, this film should be better than ‘Beautiful Tomorrow.’ Everyone can look forward to it.”
“Director Zhu Xiaocai said in his acceptance speech that Mr. Pei gave this film its soul and flesh. I understand the soul part, which should mean the initial inspiration came from Mr. Pei, but what does ‘giving it flesh’ mean?”
“It seems to suggest that some real-life events provided some details or plot improvements for this film.”
“Is it related to the anti-Tenda alliance thing?”
“Possibly. After all, film stories are derived from reality but rise above reality, right? The anti-Tenda alliance affair was quite a sensation, so it makes sense to draw material from it and present some content in the film.”
“Then this film should be satirizing those companies in the anti-Tenda alliance. I wonder if we’ll see similar companies appearing in the film?”
“By the way, isn’t the film ‘My Property’ about to be released too? Didn’t it participate in this Venice Film Festival? If it had participated, it could have at least won something like Best Screenplay, since the original novel was so brilliantly written.”
“It seems it didn’t participate. Not sure what the reasoning was. The situation with this film is even more mysterious than ‘The Future You Choose.’ Almost no information has leaked out until now.”
“But regardless, this month’s films will feature an array of talents, worth looking forward to.”
Netizens were all enthusiastically discussing and greatly anticipating the release of these excellent films.
Pei Qian felt very distressed.
With this level of attention, the box office for “The Future You Choose” would definitely not be low when it was released.
He could only hope that after the film’s release, its performance would gradually decline from a high opening, earning less at the box office.
Pei Qian noticed that in the comments, many people were also discussing another domestic film called “My Property.” Many viewers seemed to have high expectations for this film as well, since it was adapted from a classic original novel by one of the country’s top science fiction authors.
Many people were calling this month’s film schedule “two stars shining,” wondering which would triumph—”The Future You Choose” or “My Property.”
Pei Qian hadn’t paid much attention to the film “My Property,” because just from the name, it didn’t seem promising.
Moreover, Pei Qian felt a bit unlucky. Previously, any film that competed with Fei Huang Studio that he paid attention to would immediately flop. Even Hollywood blockbusters couldn’t withstand his “curse,” let alone a small domestic film.
“The Future You Choose” had already won the Golden Lion Award. In this situation, it would be very difficult for an ordinary domestic science fiction film to challenge it.
Pei Qian resigned himself to fate, and could only wait quietly.
According to the original plan, in the second half of this month, the game would be released first, and then the film would premiere.
After all, the game release time was relatively flexible, and adjustments wouldn’t matter much. But once a film’s release date was set, it couldn’t be easily changed.
Pei Qian silently prayed: he only hoped that both the game and the film would receive praise but not commercial success. Good reviews were fine, but please don’t make too much money.
…
Meanwhile, in Shanghai.
Nie Yunsheng and Lu Xiaoping from Fanqi Media were having a confidential meeting in the conference room.
The news that “The Future You Choose” had successfully won the Best Actor and Best Film Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival had naturally reached Nie Yunsheng and Lu Xiaoping immediately.
For various reasons, the film “My Property” had not participated in the Venice Film Festival.
One reason was that the director didn’t want to go.
This director was a very capable and individualistic director who felt that the overall core story of “My Property” was aimed at domestic audiences.
Even if it participated in the film festival, it wouldn’t perform well and probably wouldn’t win any awards. So there was simply no need to go through the trouble; they would focus all their energy domestically.
Lu Xiaoping also felt that this could create a numbing effect on Mr. Pei, making him unaware of the danger posed by this film.
Moreover, they previously thought that “The Future You Choose” would have difficulty winning the Golden Lion Award. If it only won minor awards, there wouldn’t actually be much impact.
Now the situation had suddenly become unpredictable.
With the release dates approaching, Liu Xiaoping and Nie Mingsheng were both a bit nervous. After all, they knew that the success or failure of this film would greatly affect whether their final strategy could succeed.
“Director Lu, what do you think about these two films?” Nie Yunsheng asked.
Lu Xiaoping didn’t panic, but rather calmly said: “Although Mr. Pei’s film successfully won the Golden Lion Award, which poses a minor threat to us, I believe the overall situation hasn’t fundamentally changed.”
“I’m very confident in the solid strength of ‘My Property.’ Although ‘The Future You Choose’ can win awards internationally, it won’t necessarily win in terms of domestic audience reception and box office.”
“Besides, there’s a very important point.”
“This time, Mr. Pei’s film winning awards has actually exposed a crucial piece of information to us. If we can utilize this well, we might find the key breakthrough to victory.”
Nie Yunsheng raised an eyebrow: “Is that so? I’d like to hear more.”
Lu Xiaoping explained: “Director Zhu Xiaocai let something slip during his acceptance speech.”
“He said real events that occurred in reality gave flesh to this film, meaning that some elements in the film’s plot were directly drawn from reality.”
“Combined with the fact that this film has a cyberpunk theme, we can guess some things now.”
Nie Yunsheng suddenly realized: “You mean this film has incorporated many companies from the anti-Tenda alliance, making allusions to reality?”
Lu Xiaoping nodded. “Combined with the film’s title—’The Future You Choose’—isn’t it obvious?”
“Mr. Pei has clearly made this film an important part of the public opinion war against our anti-Tenda alliance. The title is suggesting to all netizens and viewers: choosing Tenda means choosing the right future.”
“Then in the film, as enemies of the Tenda Group, we naturally appear as antagonists.”
“Can’t we make something of this?”