Chapter 154 [Japan’s economy is collapsing, so I’ll go to the cinema]

“You want to invest in my movie?”

Li An was slightly startled and said, “Director Li, this is a foreign language film. I have made an investment budget, and it needs to be at least 800 million US dollars.”

“Sense and Sensibility” is not a big production, and the story basically takes place in “a manor”.

It tells the story of a British manor owner who passed away. Because the inheritance law stipulates that the property can only be passed on to males and not females, his daughters are facing the fate of being kicked out of the house, and finding a good husband becomes their urgent need.

The eldest daughter hid her love affair for the happiness of the whole family; the younger daughter was willing to make sacrifices in pursuit of love.

In the end, both “reason” and “emotion” got true love.

By the way, the actress who played the youngest daughter in this movie is the famous “Roasted Silk” Kate Winslet.

Li Yishu shook her head and said, “800 million dollars is not a problem, but Director Li An, are you sure you are ready to make a Hollywood movie?”

“What does Director Li mean?”

“Director Li An must have lived in the United States, right?”

“Yes, I studied in the United States for many years, about ten years.”

Looking back on the past ten years, Li An sometimes feels regretful. He just graduated in 1984 and spent a whole year looking for a good job but failed to find one. For this reason, he had to let his wife support him.

In 85, Li An couldn’t help it any longer and prepared to return to Taiwan to develop his career. However, he happened to sign a contract with William Morris Agency, one of the three largest talent agencies in the United States. This delayed him for several more years and he lived off his wife for several years.

It was not until 1990 that Li could no longer bear the days of being unemployed and living off his wife, so he returned to Taiwan. Coincidentally, the Taiwan News Bureau was soliciting excellent scripts at that time, and he created his first work, “Pushing Hands”, which made him famous.

“After ten years, Director Li An should know how important the first film is to a new director.”

Li Yishu smiled and said, “Although we both won awards from the three major European film festivals, it’s worthless in Hollywood. Even for art films, they have to aim to make money, and there are too many award-winning art film directors in Europe and the United States. We are the chosen ones.”

“So if Director Li An wants to shoot, I can invest, but it’s better to wait and see and make a detailed shooting plan.”

Hearing this, Li An nodded in understanding. He finally understood why Li Yishu was invited to Hollywood to make a movie, because Li Yishu had proved her ability to make money.

Both “Love Letter” and “Sword Rain” achieved box office revenue of over 1.8 million US dollars. The second film “Sword Rain” even reached million US dollars, and it earned more than million US dollars in North America.

Li An said, “I understand Director Li. I will formulate a detailed shooting plan after I return.”

“Okay, then it’s a deal. I will invest in your film, Director Li An. The purpose of establishing an art film company is to better promote Chinese filmmakers to the world…”

Although Li Yishu has never been in the system, he has learned a lot of principles from the Internet. He directly pushed his investment in Li An to a high level for the global development of Chinese filmmakers.

Perhaps it was because Li An had been a househusband for many years, that even though he was almost 40 years old, he was still moved by what Li Yishu said.

Li An, who was as excited as a chicken, was sent away.

Lee Ye-seok also smiled. Since the movie “Sense and Sensibility” won an award, it means it must have its own unique features. It also allows Lee An to continue making movies in Hollywood, which means it must be a good deal.

Now, Art (American) Film Company, except for participating in the investment of “The Sixth Sense”, is basically in an idle state, which is not good. We should always try to invest in some movies.

He decided that after “The Sixth Sense” was released, he would make a few low-cost movies that later became household names, such as “Saw”, “Final Destination” and “The Purge”.

For this type of movie, as long as the cost is controlled well and the first movie becomes well-known, you can find any director to shoot subsequent ones.

After all, for movies of this kind, the director’s ability is not important, but the quality of the film is the most important.
On April 4, after finishing most of her work, Li Yishu also set off for Hong Kong to participate in this year’s Hong Kong Film Awards.

However, before going to Hong Kong, Li Yishu also went to Japan first to visit Izumi Sakai, whom she hadn’t seen for several months.

This girl has been very busy lately.

Li Yishu’s arrival also allowed Izumi Sakai to take a rare day off.

You can’t do it without asking for leave~
Izumi Sakai, who had a little drink in the evening, also transformed herself into a wild female rock singer. She fought all night long, singing “Don’t Give Up” all the time.

a long time.

Li Yishu hugged Izumi Sakai and leaned against the head of the bed, snuggling with each other tenderly.

“Mr. Li, do you know? This song, “Don’t Give Up,” was written for myself.”

Izumi Sakai’s eyes flickered as he said, “I hope I won’t give up. I will keep up with you and try not to fall too far behind.”

what?
Li Yishu looked confused and didn’t quite understand what Izumi Sakai meant.

“No matter how far away,
My heart will be with you too,
Do you feel it?
I have been following your gaze.

No matter how far the distance is, my heart will be with you.
Chasing that distant dream…”

After Izumi Sakai sang a few lines of the lyrics in English, Li Yishu suddenly realized that this was the meaning of the song when translated.

He had always thought that this was an inspirational song, but he didn’t expect it to be an inspirational love song in the end.

“Mr. Li is so outstanding~”

Izumi Sakai snuggled in Li Yishu’s arms, resting her head on his shoulders, and said to herself, “Sword Rain was a big hit at the Japanese box office, and the previous Love Letter also achieved amazing results. Recently, a Japanese newspaper rated you as the world’s number one Chinese director…”

Listening to Sakai Izumizu’s gentle whispers, Li Yishu touched her head and said with a smile: “Izumizu-chan, you don’t have to work so hard. You have done a good job. There is no need to work so hard.”

Izumi Sakai said stubbornly: “No, I must catch up with Li Jun, so that I won’t be left behind.”

Although she is a bit introverted, she is a gentle person with a strong heart. She looks like an artistic goddess on the surface, but she is a strong person on the inside. “Okay, then Izumi-chan has to work harder so that you can keep up with me.”

Li Yishu smiled. Now Izumi Sakai still has a chance to catch up, but in a few years, she will probably choose to lie down.

Hearing this, Izumi Sakai smiled brightly, pressed her face against Lee Yi-su’s chest, and whispered, “The Japanese economy has been bad recently. I suspect this is also a factor in the huge sales of my song ‘Don’t Give Up’.”

Li Yishu raised an eyebrow: “How bad is it?”

“I don’t really understand it, but since February, the newspapers have been filled with pessimistic articles, and the TV stations have been reporting on people going bankrupt and committing suicide by jumping off buildings…”

Izumi Sakai sighed and said, “I don’t know when Japan will be able to get out of the shadow of the bursting of the economic bubble.”

Li Yishu had a strange look on his face. It might take Japan 30 years to get out of the economic shadow, and it might not even come out. Before he was reborn, he remembered that the Japanese yen exchange rate had started to depreciate again.

Izumi Sakai suddenly remembered something and quickly sat up straight, saying apologetically, “Mr. Li, I’m really sorry. I asked you to buy this house before. I heard that the house price here has dropped a lot now.”

“It’s okay. A house is bought to live in. Besides, it’s not worth much, just a few hundred thousand dollars. If it drops, it drops.”

Li Yishu shook his head. From the moment he bought the house, he had been prepared to lose money.

“But it’s already a lot.” Sakai Izumi pouted and said, “I’ve been working for so long, and I’ve only earned a few hundred thousand dollars.”

Li Yishu was surprised: “So little? Didn’t your single sell 200 million copies? And the previous concert…”

Izumi Sakai said: “I can’t help it. The Japanese economy is really bad this year. The prices of tickets and singles are not very expensive, and my share of the profits was only adjusted last month.”

Is the economy so bad?

Li Yishu frowned. It seemed that there would not be much hope for her to expect high box office in Japan in the future.

I just don’t know if Canon Group can hold on?
Previously, for “Central Station”, he attracted a $200 million investment from Canon, and he also hopes to continue to attract investment from Canon for his next works “Nobody” and “The Reader”.

“Jingle Bell–“

At this moment, Izumi Sakai’s cell phone suddenly rang. She got up from the bed and picked up the phone. When she saw the number was from Kuroda’s agent, she subconsciously said, “What’s wrong, Kuroda’s agent…”

“Woooo…”

A woman’s voice came from the other end of the phone: “Ms. Sakai, it’s… it’s me.”

“Mrs. Kuroda? What’s wrong with you? Where’s Mr. Kuroda?”

“Kuroda, he committed suicide~”

“what?!”

Izumi Sakai was stunned.

Mr. Kuroda committed suicide?
Izumi Sakai asked hurriedly: “Mrs. Kuroda, what is going on?!”

Li Yishu noticed that her tone was not right, so she stood up and walked to her side.

“He, his stock market went bankrupt, and he left a suicide note asking me to say sorry to Miss Sakai. I won’t be able to accompany you to the album signing event next month.”

Izumi Sakai hung up the phone in despair, then looked at Li Yishu with tears streaming down her face: “Li Jun, Kuroda’s agent…he, he committed suicide~”

Izumi Sakai still respects agent Kuroda who has always taken care of her.

She knew that her personality was not suitable for interpersonal communication, so Kuroda helped her with some of the usual interpersonal interactions, which helped Izumi Sakai solve a lot of unnecessary troubles.

Including getting to know Lee Yi-su, to some extent, it was agent Kuroda who helped make the connection.

“suicide–“

Li Yishu frowned, he didn’t expect that agent Kuroda was dead. He had a good impression of this agent, who was a very nice person.

I just didn’t expect that I would be on the verge of bankruptcy and suicide.

Even an agent like Kuroda, who has excellent singers, could not bear the financial pressure and chose to commit suicide. You can imagine how bad the economy in Japan must be.

It feels different when someone around you jumps off a building and commits suicide because he can’t bear the pressure, rather than dying from illness, an accident, or natural causes.

Sickness, accidents, and natural death are all destined to happen according to fate.

But jumping off a building to commit suicide is not destiny, it can only be said to be a matter of time and fate.

If Kuroda’s agent could ask Izumi Sakai for help, or ask himself for help, he would most likely not have ended up in this dead end.

This also reminded Li Yishu of Mika Nakashima’s song “I Once Thought About Ending It All”.

In the next two days, Li Yishu did not leave Japan, but stayed at home with Izumi Sakai and guided her in writing a similar song.

In total, Lee Yi-su earned about 70 to 80 million U.S. dollars from Japan. She will give them a song first, and then wait for “Nobody” to be released~
To some extent, this movie fits the current state of collapse of the Japanese people.

A woman who can’t move below the neck and has trouble pooping and peeing can live a different life, so why can’t they?

Everyone, go to the cinema and contribute to the box office!
It would be better to shoot a special ending, letting Hu Guangsheng and Ma Jiaqi live happily together and be positive and optimistic. This is also in line with the Japanese people’s current yearning for a better mood.

(End of this chapter)