Lu Chuan will shoot Jiangcheng. Will Sino-US cooperation become another film "Nine Layers"

American writer Peter Hessler-perhaps better known by his other name, He Wei-will be adapted into a film, directed by China director Lu Chuan. This means that the small town of Fuling, which has been forgotten for nearly 20 years, will be put on the big screen, and it is this representative who has made "Hoh Xil" and "Nanjing! Nanjing! "The director of the young.

In this regard, the American brokerage company CAA (Creative Artist) signed by Lu Chuan himself.

Agency) confirmed the matter and expressed support. At the same time, the draft also said that He Wei himself had watched Lu Chuan's films during his stay in China, and he was very appreciative of his "unique discovery and expression of human nature" in his films. This has also become one of the foundations of cooperation between the two sides.

Another Sino-US cooperation?

It is reported that this cooperation was finalized by the American producer Fugitive Film. Lu Chuan will participate in the filming as a co-producer and director. According to the position of American foreign media, Lu Chuan was chosen because of his "Hoh Xil" and "Nanjing! Nanjing! "and" The King's Feast "are highly recognized in the American film industry. He Wei himself also spoke highly of Lu Chuan's own film works.

However, after "The Nine-story Demon Tower", Lu Chuan acted frequently in the international film circle. According to reports, the earlier "Born" by Disney and Lu Chuan,

exist

China has been filmed and is expected to land in domestic cinemas in the second half of this year. The works are composed of SMG Shangshi Film Industry and Disney * * *, and the core team is composed of Lu Chuan and two documentary producers from Britain. It will mainly record the growth process of three national treasure protected animals in China: panda, golden monkey and snow leopard cub.

Being able to be the core of the team in the co-production may benefit from the help of Lu Chuan's signing agency. It is understood that the Chinese name of CAA organization is Innovative Artists Agency, and its signing stars include Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt and others, and Beckham is also its customer. In China, the company signed Ang Lee, John Woo, Yang Lan, Yu Nan and others. According to media reports, the company's vision is to vigorously promote "the successful operation of more domestic and co-produced films".

In recent years, CAA has successively cooperated with LeTV and Mango TV. On June 8 this year, 65438, Mango TV also signed a memorandum of understanding with CAA at CAA headquarters in Los Angeles, California, to discuss further cooperation. According to Zhang Zhao, CEO of LeTV Pictures, in an interview with China Business News, their cooperation laid the foundation for "seeking overseas markets in the future". Interestingly, Zhang Yimou and Lu Chuan, two directors signed by CAA, also signed a contract with LeTV, which became an important force for them to seek the international market.

Yu Nan, an actor, is a successful example of China's civil aviation operation in the international market. Because Yu Nan opened the international market with his works such as Eclipse and Marriage in tuya, he chose to sign a contract with CAA to continue to explore the international market. This decision also made Yu Nan the only female character in the Hollywood movie The Expendables 2.

What's more noteworthy is that according to the film critic Bi Chenggong, the contract signed by Lu Chuan himself and CAA Company is a "one-stop contract system", that is, Lu Chuan's own works are basically signed by CAA Company. Because CAA has its own co-production experience and team building, the technical risk of Lu Chuan's filming "Jiangcheng" may also be much reduced.

After the nine-story demon tower, will the IP change repeat the same mistakes?

However, based on the quality of Lu Chuan's works in recent years, many people don't have much expectation.

Jiangcheng is a collection of nonfiction works that authors He Wei 1996 to 1998 saw and heard when they were teachers in a university in Fuling, Chongqing. The book was published in the United States in 200 1 and was a great success.

Chili Hill Pacific Rim Book Award. Later, He Wei also released documentary works related to China, such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Pathfinding China and Strange Stone. Therefore, The Wall Street Journal praised him as "one of the most thoughtful western writers who pay attention to modern China".

There is also a selfie "Born in"

At the beginning of China, Lu Chuan, who mainly focuses on feature films, seems to be interested in returning to documentary works. Previously, Lu Chuan once revealed his "hard to classify" works in a speech (that is, born

exist

China) will be released this year. The material is completely from the real video recording, and my job as a director is to make up stories based on the material. He also said that the filming process is "very similar to returning to the original state of filming." "The feeling of focusing on the story and focusing on the image."

However, it is not difficult to adapt Jiangcheng into a movie. On the one hand, the perspective of the book is more personal, the details are scattered and unsystematic; On the other hand, documentary works often touch the gray areas in real life-just like the exposure and evaluation of the Cultural Revolution, ideology and some phenomena in the small town of Fuling in the book Jiangcheng-which usually means that such a film will face the risk of censorship or even withdrawal. As a result, many documentary directors' works have stepped out of the mainland screen.

Lu Chuan himself has a lot of experience in film and television adaptation. His last work, Nine-story Demon Tower, is a clever evasion of political thunder pool. In this film adapted from Muye Zhang's original novel "Ghost Blowing Lights Linglong Ancient City", the plot of grave robbery and Machamp's confusion was completely deleted. Instead, it is a mysterious institution to explore supernatural phenomena, alien race, and its "rolling" adaptation makes the former have little to do with the original work in essence.

This is exactly what the followers of Jiangcheng don't want to see-from the initial critical calm narration to the compromise of the film censorship mechanism. Especially under the current mechanism, such a scene is likely to become a reality. The domestic censorship mechanism has been changed several times, even TV dramas and online dramas are not immune. Wu Ershan, another director who filmed tomb-robbing works, once said that in order to cope with the film criticism system that the word "ghost" could not appear in the film, the original name of the film was changed from "Ghost Blowing Lights" to "Searching for Dragons"; Moreover, the act of robbing the tomb in the whole film has changed from "spontaneous" to "forced".

In response to this news, some people also expressed their support for Lu Chuan. One of the staunchest fans is from Hoh Xil. The film's douban hot comment is "that is an emotion to land and creatures." From this point of view, it is still in line with the meticulous observation perspective of Fuling Town expressed by foreign teacher He Wei in Jiangcheng.

However, the starting time and release date of this film have not been announced. According to CAA official disclosure, Lu Chuan's next focus will be the second part of the nine-story demon tower, 749: The Rise of Aliens. The film will continue to tell the story between the 749 Bureau and the ghost clan, and it is expected to start shooting this fall.