Hou Xiaoxian held the cup and looked at the two young men in front of him with great interest.

Zhang Jingchu's eyes were bright and she looked at Zhang Ran with a smile. She especially liked to watch Zhang Ran speak, and once she talked about movies, she was so energetic.

Jia Zhangke has been in the film industry for many years and is not a person who is easily convinced: "You all claim to be heroes who resist Hollywood. You said that if we don't make movies and don't make commercial blockbusters, Hollywood will go straight into it and Chinese movies will die. I think this is a delusional statement. Do you die if you don't make movies and Chinese movies?"

Zhang Ran frowned and said, "I will certainly not die if I don't make movies, but if the mainstream of the Chinese film market has always been art films, it would be really dangerous! There is a data in the film industry report at the beginning of this year. 70% of the audience think Hollywood movies are good, only 17% of the domestic movies are good, and 46.6% of the people think that Chinese movies are inferior. If there is no quota limit, our market has long been occupied by Hollywood. Director Hou is here, you can ask, how did Taiwan movies die? It is art films that have become the mainstream of the market."

Hou Hsiao-hsien laughed helplessly. In the early 1980s, there was a line dispute between Taiwan movies. Hou Hsiao-hsien and others took the art path, and another faction wanted to learn Hollywood. In the end, Hou Hsiao-hsien and others won, becoming the mainstream of the market, and eventually led to the collapse of Taiwan movies.

There are strong political reasons here. Since the Taiwan Site was kicked out of the United Nations in 1972, the Taiwan Site has been desperately trying to show its face on various international occasions. After Li **** came to power, he de-Sinicized it, which is reflected in the movies. He also wants to gain recognition from the three major film festivals and show his face internationally.

All those who can be shortlisted for the three major film festivals are art films. Therefore, after the Taiwan introduced the tutoring fund policy, it supported all art films and strongly supported art films that wanted to participate in international film festivals. In this way, art films became the mainstream of the market. While film festivals frequently won awards, they became niche movies that were only for a few elites to watch.

In the end, Taiwan movies were abandoned by Taiwan audiences, and the entire film industry collapsed completely. The annual production of movies changed from more than 100 to more than 10 movies.

Zhang Ran looked at Hou Hsiao-hsien and said, "Director Hou, you know the situation of Taiwan better than me. Please tell me how many movies there were in Taiwan last year? How many box offices were there?"

"Last year, there were only 15 local movies, and the box office combined was only 15 million, less than 1% of the total box office. Now many people blame me and said that I ruined Taiwan movies." Hou Hsiao-hsien sighed and his eyes were dim. ""Sad City" is indeed a very bad example, because everyone was misled to think that it was a normal state. But this is not the fault of art films, but a policy issue. Taiwan only has more than 20 million people, and even the most basic film industry cannot be established. Learning from Hollywood is not feasible, but the mainland has hope!"

Zhang Ran was stunned. "The City of Sadness" won the Golden Lion Award, which was the highest honor that Hou Hsiao-hsien won. Unexpectedly, he would admit the misleading effect of this movie. Zhang Ran suddenly understood why Hou Hsiao-hsien didn't make a lot of films later, and turned to support the new director desperately, probably because he wanted to atone for his sins!

Zhang Ran looked at Jia Zhangke and said, "The situation in our mainland is almost the same as that in Taiwan. After the Golden Bear of "Red Sorghum" directed by Zhang Yimou won the Golden Bear, countless directors went for foreign awards. Art films became mainstream. Unlike Taiwan, we are stuck in Hollywood movies, unlike Taiwan's doors, which have no restrictions on Hollywood. Otherwise, our experience will be the same as Taiwan's movies, and the entire industry will collapse!"

Jia Zhangke said disrespectfully: "Director Hou's name has been written into the history of film. Fifty years later, their names will remain, and their works will become the pride of Chinese people representing this era. By then, who will care about the gains and losses of the box office at a time and place?"

Zhang Ran sneered: "The box office gains and losses of time and place? Things are not that simple. Now young people in Taiwan are watching Hollywood movies, Japanese TV series, and Japanese stars. Do you know what this means? It means that when young people in Taiwan grow up, they will not be proud of China, they will not be proud of China, but proud of Japan, and even want to become Japanese! The situation in our mainland is not much better. Young people watch Hollywood movies, Japanese animation, and Korean TV series. If this continues, what should Chinese culture do? Our nation has many disasters and difficulties. What is the basis for today? It is our culture. If you want to destroy a nation, you will first destroy its culture! If our descendants do not take pride in our culture, then our nation will lose its cohesion!"

Hou Hsiao-hsien's hand shook slightly, and his face turned pale. Destroying Chinese culture, this hat is bigger than the Destroying Taiwan movie. What's even more terrifying is that what Zhang Ran said is the fact that not many young people in Taiwan are proud of being Chinese now!

Jia Zhangke retorted: "I don't say that I am right about business, I am opposing excessive commercialization. Xiangjiang movies were once glorious and claimed to be Oriental Hollywood. However, Xiangjiang movies were over-commercial and followed the trend very seriously, and the director eventually collapsed. Now we are in the mainland. Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" became popular, so there were "Heroes" and "Ten-Ambushes", and director Chen Kaige was also preparing to film "The Promise". Ning Hao's "The Sad" became popular, and a bunch of people followed the trend to make science fiction movies. We are following the old path of Xiangjiang movies!"

Zhang Ran nodded. In the golden age of Xiangjiang movies in the early 1990s, many production companies only tried to make shoddy money in front of them, while actors were exhausted to deal with it. At that time, a movie was often finished in half a month without a script, and it was all about on-the-spot performance. Even a zombie film was successful, then 100 zombie films were filmed; a hero film was successful, then 100 hero films were filmed. So Jackie Chan said that more and more shoddy and imitations, seriously ruined the audience's appetite and made the movie inevitably go to the road of death.

The serious follow-up is indeed one of the reasons for the decline of Xiangjiang movies, but not the most important reason. What really causes the collapse of Xiangjiang movies is that the local market is too narrow and relies heavily on overseas markets.

South Korea, the Taiwan market was once the main export market for Hong Kong movies. However, in the late 1980s, Hong Kong movies became bubbled, and the interest of Taiwan audiences in Taiwan dropped greatly. In addition, Hollywood movies in the 1990s, the Korean market was first lost, and then Taiwan, the largest foreign market. The production cost of Hong Kong movies remained high, so there was not enough funds to invest in reproduction, so the entire market collapsed rapidly.

Zhang Ran has some research on Xiangjiang Films: "Xiangjiang Films are indeed a lesson. But Hollywood also follows the trend, but it will never go so far. The six major Hollywood film companies have scientific market demand analysis and evaluation systems for films, and this is what we lack the most. Therefore, we must learn from Hollywood and build our own film industry. This is very difficult and may take 10 or 20 years, but we must do this!"

Zhang Ran and Jia Zhangke are both independent people and cannot easily convince them. The two argue endlessly. From China to foreign countries, from New Wave to poetic realism, no one can convince anyone. Hou Hsiao-hsien was a little silent and seemed to be full of worries.

Hou Hsiao-hsien's movie "Coffee Time" premiered at 10 pm. Zhang Ran and Jia Zhangke fought until nine o'clock and had to stop the army. They came out of the cocktail party and each stopped a taxi to drive towards the Movie Palace.

Sitting in the car, Zhang Jingchu looked at Zhang Ran and smiled and said, "I just saw you and Jia Zhangke fighting like that, I'm simply afraid that you will fight!"

Zhang Ran laughed and said, "It's just that the opinions are different, so it's not enough to fight. A gentleman doesn't speak or move. Even if he really fights, you don't need to worry about me. How could Chief Jia's little body be my opponent!"

After Zhang Ran and the others entered the Movie Palace, they found that the people were not very full. Today, the Toronto Film Festival opened, and many people in the film industry went to Toronto, but the people who came here were basically Hou Hsiao-hsien's hard-core movie fans.

After the crew of "Coffee Time" entered the audience, warm applause rang out. In 1989, Hou Hsiao-hsien won the Golden Lion Award for "The Sad City". Fifteen years later, he returned to Venice and brought "Coffee Time".

After Hou Hsiao-hsien entered the venue, she did not sit down and walked over to Zhang Ran and said, "Zhang Ran, I just received the movie. Something happened at home. I have to go back to Taiwan tomorrow morning. I can't participate in your premiere. But when your movie is released in Taiwan, I will definitely buy tickets to watch it."

Zhang Ran smiled and waved his hand: "It's okay, you're busy with yours!"

It was almost ten o'clock, but the movie did not officially begin, and the audience suddenly started to clamor. People from the organizing committee had to run in and apologize to the audience, saying that they had to postpone it for half an hour.

Zhang Ran was a little surprised: "Why didn't you inform me earlier? Something could have happened, right?"

Jia Zhangke smiled and said, "You don't know that Mark Muller has made drastic reforms to the film festival this year. The reforms may have been too radical. The film festival has been in trouble now. The event has been arranged too much, and the film screenings have been postponed frequently. Two days ago, Johnny DePixun came to Venice, but the red carpet ceremony was held at 2 a.m. Al Pacino waited outside the theater for several hours in order to participate in the premiere of his film. Many people say this is the worst film festival, very amateur!"

Zhang Ran frowned and said, "I hope the premiere of "The Aviator" will not be in trouble tomorrow!"

Jia Zhangke looked at Zhang Ran and smiled and said, "Just like your character, I think there is hope to win the lottery!"

Zhang Ran seemed to be careless and shrugged, "You are jealous!"

It was until half past ten, and the movie finally began.

After the lights in the theater dimmed, subtitles appeared on the screen to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ozu Yasujiro's birth, and warm applause rang out of the audience.

"Coffee Time" tells the subtle love story between the two and their parents after the owner of an old bookstore fell in love with a girl who worked in Tokyo. The pace of the film is very slow, and the relationship between men and women always maintains ambiguous colors. The whole film is filled with nostalgia for the passing tradition, which is a typical Hou Hsiao-hsien style.

Zhang Jingchu looked at it seriously. Hou Hsiao-hsien is a master. As a literary youth, can she be called a literary youth if she doesn't even watch the master's works seriously? But the slow narrative rhythm of "Coffee Time" is enough to make people collapse. She was soon hypnotized by the movie and fell asleep on Zhang Ran's shoulder.

Zhang Ran couldn't help but laugh. Hou Hsiao-hsien fell asleep after watching the films. This was definitely a fake literary youth!

The movie was not very long and it ended soon. The enthusiastic audience blocked Hou Hsiao-hsien outside the cinema and talked about the movie, and the Japanese media were also conducting live interviews.

Zhang Ran and the others planned to leave, but out of politeness, they came over and said hello: "Director Hou, we won't bother you. Goodbye!"

"Goodbye!" Hou Hsiao-hsien nodded.

Zhang Ran and Jia Zhangke discussed and walked out. As soon as they walked into the hall, they suddenly heard Hou Xiaoxian shouting from behind: "Zhang Ran, Xiao Jia!"

Zhang Ran and Jia Zhangke turned around and looked at Hou Hsiao-hsien, not knowing what was wrong with him.

"You two have to work hard!" Hou Hsiao-hsien seemed a little lonely standing among the crowd, but his voice was very loud, "Don't let American movies dominate China! Keep our culture!" (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!