September 23rd, Monday.

Fei Huang Studio.

Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaocai were reviewing online film critiques about “My Property” and “The Future You Choose.”

For them, their work had technically been completed after finishing “The Future You Choose.”

Winning the Golden Lion Award and the current promising box office trend had already proven they exceeded the goals initially set by Mr. Pei.

Nevertheless, these two hadn’t relaxed.

While the entire studio had entered a semi-holiday celebration mode, Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaocai remained focused on online reviews and public opinion.

Because they clearly knew that the battle was far from over at this stage.

Although the film had achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success, it was still the final phase of the most important public opinion war.

The Anti-Tenda Alliance hadn’t lost yet; “My Property” remained a fulcrum for their counterattack, and likewise, Tenda Group naturally couldn’t afford to relax in the public opinion battle.

Zhu Xiaocai, while scrolling through web pages, said: “Currently we can’t determine exactly how many film critics Fanqi Media has hired, but two points are certain.”

“First, they’ve adopted a very clever strategy this time, which is quite thorny.”

“Instead of forcing negative comments like before, they’ve prepared two approaches.”

“The first is to attack ‘The Future You Choose’ as being more superficial in its expression compared to ‘My Property,’ not touching the core and essence, slightly inferior in profundity.”

“If that doesn’t hold up, then they praise both films but emphasize the parts in ‘My Property’ that allude to Tenda Group.”

“Second, they must have hired many film critics, using a survival-of-the-fittest model to cultivate the strongest one, which has basically surfaced now—this article.”

Huang Sibo looked at Zhu Xiaocai’s computer screen and saw a highly trending film review titled “Double Stars Shining! Chinese Sci-Fi Films Usher in a Bright Moment.”

The review was quite long, as it analyzed both films in detail.

From the content, this review didn’t show obvious favoritism toward either film; the analysis of both movies was incisive, and it discussed the techniques used in the films.

This was clearly a natural choice formed by netizens.

Fanqi Media, in order to create a bigger impact on public opinion, had obviously hired many film critics to write reviews and gave them general directions to freely express themselves, not wanting to impose their own perspective too much.

Among these, some film critics were obviously biased toward one film over the other, but these were easily seen through and couldn’t generate effective attention.

This review praised both films, albeit with some emphasis, and was the most effective among all reviews.

Moreover, this review indeed hit the right notes in its praise, whether analyzing the deeper implications of both films, the specific techniques used during filming, or the exquisite performances delivered by the actors—all were appropriately addressed.

But the “essence” of such reviews lies in being ninety percent true and ten percent false.

That is, using a large amount of truthful content to enhance the credibility of the article, then making misleading statements in some extremely subtle aspects.

Most people wouldn’t even notice any issues, and this type of content has the greatest influence.

The main thrust of this review was in the following paragraphs:

“Comparatively, I believe each film has its strengths and weaknesses, just with different focal points.”

“‘The Future You Choose’ focuses on a small character, implying a closed and desperate state of the entire society through his life changes. It can be said to see the big through the small.”

“In fully portraying this small character’s life, the audience can relate well to a specific person, naturally feeling more empathy for these emotions. Therefore, it’s not difficult to understand why this film could win the Best Actor and Golden Lion awards at the Venice Film Festival—because audiences can deeply identify with the character played by Lu Zhiyao and resonate with him.”

“‘My Property’ doesn’t create much identification with the audience, but consistently presents the entire society from the perspective of a calm observer. Although it also spends a lot of time portraying the life of the poor protagonist, this emotion is rational, cold, and almost devoid of subjective feelings.”

“The changes in the poor protagonist’s life are actually just a microcosm of the changes in the entire society. On the surface, it describes the changes in one person’s life, but in reality, it’s still describing the changes in the entire society.”

“So from this perspective, ‘The Future You Choose’ makes it easier for people to empathize, while ‘My Property’ stands from a more objective perspective, easily provoking deep thought.”

“‘The Future You Choose’ is more likely to win awards at international film festivals because these emotions after identification are common to foreigners as well, but the thinking mode of ‘My Property’ is more in line with the thinking of domestic audiences. From my personal perspective, I still prefer the expression method of ‘My Property’.”

“After all, once the decision is made to film this subject, the depth of thought and connotation must be put first.”

“‘The Future You Choose’ added some techniques to win awards, shifting its focus somewhat. In my view, this is a minor flaw hardly worth mentioning, like nitpicking.”

“Of course, both films are actually excellent, making it difficult to distinguish which is better. I don’t think it’s necessary to put one down to praise the other, but rather focus on the profound implications that both films want to express.”

“These two films are actually expressing the same implication, which is that when a monopolistic enterprise controls various aspects of our lives, it inevitably stands in opposition to ordinary people and consumers.”

“Even in some special cases, certain enterprises achieving monopoly status through legal means is a phenomenon we should be vigilant about. That’s why various countries have antitrust laws. When laws don’t match reality, we need to consider adjusting the laws to prevent capital power from becoming excessive.”

“In ‘My Property,’ there’s a particularly thought-provoking segment. The rich man built his empire from scratch, step by step, to reach its current scale, and each step was completely legal. This left the poor protagonist speechless; he felt something was wrong but couldn’t articulate exactly what.”

“If we were to seriously deconstruct this rich man’s life, the first half portrays him as a brilliant and righteous fighter: self-made, constantly defeating competitors through his intelligence and wisdom. Of course, during the process of business innovation, he also inevitably provided a powerful driving force for social development.”

“But in the development process, as he continuously extended his reach into different fields and achieved monopoly, he eventually transformed into this villain figure. Everything he did, from his own perspective, seemed to have no problems, but ultimately brought disaster to the entire world.”

“In reality, we should also maintain reverence and vigilance about this point, always keeping capital in check.”

“Of course, this doesn’t target any company or individual, just as ‘The Future You Choose’ game wants to express: the big villain is not any specific company, but that invisible will that can parasitize any company.”

After reading this review, Huang Sibo nodded slightly.

He wasn’t agreeing with the review’s statements, but with Zhu Xiaocai’s earlier analysis.

The influence of this review was profound, as it indeed provided rich and detailed content that well analyzed both films. But the final paragraph, while appearing objective and fair on the surface, actually contained a special suggestion and guidance.

First, it expressed that “The Future You Choose” focused more on details and immersion, while “My Property” focused more on implications and ideology. This guided audiences to make a judgment: “My Property” had deeper implications and was naturally superior.

At this point, some audience members had already established this idea, but others might disagree or even feel resistant.

So the author immediately smoothed things over, saying both films were good with no clear superiority, and quickly shifted focus in another direction.

Both films’ implications attacked monopolistic enterprises, and the review emphasized the rich character in “My Property,” intentionally or unintentionally directing the target of attack toward Tenda Group.

A boss who built his business from scratch, constantly defeating competitors through his intelligence and wisdom, providing a powerful driving force for social development in the process, but continuously expanding into different fields, achieving monopoly—if one had to match this description to someone, it could only be Mr. Pei.

Although the review concluded by saying it didn’t target any specific company or individual, but rather the invisible will parasitizing companies, the spearhead was actually pointed directly at Tenda Group.

Because everyone could see that in the war between Tenda Group and the Anti-Tenda Alliance, Tenda Group had essentially won a great victory and would continue to achieve this strong or even monopolistic position in many fields in the future.

At this time, many people’s fear of monopolistic enterprises was actually growing secretly.

Even though many people had a good impression of Tenda Group, this imagination of an uncertain future still made people vigilant.

Just as described in “My Property,” the wealthy protagonist’s actions were all completely legal, earned through his own intelligence and wisdom. In the early stages of entrepreneurship, he might even have fought bravely against monopolistic enterprises, gaining the support of ordinary people.

But once a company truly forms a monopoly across most industries, and these industries can even work closely together and interconnect, would such a company with such enormous power gradually change for its own interests?

Changes wouldn’t be surprising—it’s human nature. Not changing would be the strange thing.

So through the interpretation of these two films, the spearhead was intentionally or unintentionally directed at Tenda Group, undoubtedly perfectly achieving the effect that the Anti-Tenda Alliance initially wanted.

The dagger was finally revealed!