After the filming started, many actors felt something different.
This movie is not like an ordinary urban movie.
Because the cost is simply too high.
Even Wu Li, who came to guest-star as Police Officer Cao, was stunned.
Han Zhou, at his own expense, transported a large number of sycamore trees to the location in Jinling and planted them on both sides of the streets.
These trees alone cost millions.
The cost of this movie and other things like that is huge.
How much will this cost? Will this pay for itself?
Although New World’s movies have been very profitable in the past two years, the mindset of ordinary people in the film and television industry is still stuck in the era when hundreds of millions of yuan is considered cool.
How can an urban movie make money if it has no special effects and no gimmicks?
They certainly didn’t know that the film had already paid for itself and made money.
In fact, purely for this movie, these expenses are very, very, very necessary.
Platanus is the name in this world and also its scientific name. In the previous life, Platanus had another name, called French sycamore.
This tree actually grows in countries like West Bengal.
It was cultivated and promoted by the first Intlanders who started horticultural business.
In the previous life, it was brought to Jinling by a French missionary and planted in the French Concession. Because it grows easily in the climate of Jinling, it was called French Wutong after it spread.
In fact, it comes neither from French braised chicken nor from Wutong.
There is also a legend in the previous life that a woman named Song liked this kind of tree, so a man named Jiang planted it all over Jinling.
This statement was originally made up by a male pheasant to filter the man named Jiang.
After all, petty bourgeoisie is popular nowadays, and this kind of editing makes people with the surname Jiang seem very romantic.
As a result, the effect was counterproductive.
Because the French-braised chicken sycamore tree produces something like willow catkins every year, which lasts for nearly two months. The people of Jinling hate this thing very much, so it makes the people of Jinling hate the surname Jiang even more.
God will not allow those with the surname Jiang to be washed in Nanjing!
The people sent by Jiang to garrison Nanjing to deal with the Sakura Army blew up all the ships before the war, trying to learn from the King of Chu who burned his boats and fought a desperate battle.
As a result, before the fight even started, the bastard ran away on a boat.
This resulted in countless civilians and soldiers in Jinling being unable to retreat, which gave the brutal Sakura people an opportunity and led to the subsequent shocking tragedy.
In fact, French braised chicken has nothing to do with them.
In Jinling, there are two tombs that have influenced the whole of China. One is the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang, and the other is the tomb of the founding father.
The French-braised chicken restaurants are all over Nanjing, which happens to be related to the founding father.
The founding father originally envisioned building a capital on the frontier and developing Greater China into a huge empire.
But this plan obviously doesn't work.
His second plan was to build Nanjing into the capital.
This plan is feasible and has been implemented.
So the people of Jinling are still grateful to the founding father.
At this time, it was popular in Jinling to use the Chinese parasol tree as a shade tree.
When it was known that the coffin of the founding father would be sent to Nanjing for burial, Nanjing decided to plant French-braised chicken sycamore trees along this avenue.
In this era when there is no planning for urban greening, the French-braised chicken tree quickly spread throughout Jinling because it is easy to grow.
This is why Jinling is filled with French-braised chicken.
In fact, it was a spontaneous act of the people of Jinling, not someone showing off their romance. Baldy, he doesn't know a thing about romance. The man surnamed Song is a hypocritical Christian, and the man surnamed Jiang also hypocritically follows him in believing in religion. It can be regarded as his courting of the man surnamed Song. As for romance, don't think too much about it.
Han Zhou had no choice but to plant sycamore trees in Jinling.
First of all, sycamore trees are extremely suitable for planting and growing in Jinling. After the establishment of the New China in this world, agriculture and forestry became the focus of attention.
At that time, there was no concept of invasive species, and many economic animals and plants as well as landscape animals and plants were introduced.
Among them, Jinling was once again chosen by history to plant sycamore trees.
This kind of thing is out of control and spreads all over the city.
With the development of the times, urban greening has gradually become the focus of the city's image.
When our ancestors planted trees, they did not consider the poor air quality that would occur later or the respiratory diseases that would plague future generations.
Now everyone is finding various ways to criticize it, so it is naturally impossible to plant sycamore trees for greening purposes.
The most commonly planted tree is the ginkgo tree, followed by plants such as fir, camphor, and metasequoia.
In other words, the greening of Jinling today is completely different from that in 2002.
In order to replicate the year 2002, Han Zhou simply chose to plant trees, the Chinese sycamore trees that were used to cook braised chicken.
How many of these green plants can survive after being planted, or whether they can survive, are not things Han Zhou needs to consider.
If I can contribute to the film and affect many people's lives, then it is worth it.
Han Zhou is also a detail-obsessed person when it comes to set design.
For example, in the original version, in 2002, Cheng Yong’s pharmacy that couldn’t sell its miracle medicine actually used a large area of ​​white glass doors.
This is a bit funny.
Han Zhou followed his own memory.
The storefront should be made of aluminum alloy. There is another wall inside the store, with a white glass window, and then there is another low-quality aluminum alloy door with white glass. This should be the more popular door in the small streets and alleys in the Magic City area of ​​Su Province in this era.
Moreover, this thing was only popular from 2002 to 2006. After 2006, it basically disappeared from the streets. Stores that were not renovated during this period would not use this thing.
This kind of detail is actually completely unnecessary, but Han Zhou just wanted to capture it.
Because Han Zhou, when he watched "Dying to Survive" in his previous life, he didn't notice that this happened in 2002!
It was only when I was writing the script and recalling the past that I discovered the subtitles reminded me of [2002, Magic City].
This information is very important.
In 2002, spending 30,000 to buy one month's worth of medicine, is that the same as in 2008?
In 2002, a person from Jinling who lived in Shanghai sold his house and was able to afford medicine for one year.
After 2008, if people from Nanjing and Shanghai wanted to survive, they had to sell their houses and move to the countryside. The money from the sale of the house was enough to pay for their medicine for the rest of their lives.
This kind of information directly affects whether the audience will have a deep enough impression of the badness of pharmaceutical companies.
Of course, the original version also tries to reveal some information about the era through some simple details.
For example, there was a game of solitaire played on the computer screen in the drugstore, an obviously old-fashioned computer with a big back, and an ancient computer system.
For example, the pitifully small TV in Cheng Yong’s father’s room.
However, the other objects in the same picture where this detail occurs are completely detached from the real 2002.
For example, next to the cabinet where the computer is placed, there is a wooden-framed glass medicine cabinet, which doesn't look like an old item.
For example, the shelves at the back are made of stainless steel.
This stainless steel rack was not cheap enough to be bought to store miscellaneous items in that era.
The most eye-catching thing is the boss chair, which is not something this small drugstore should have.
For example, the windows in the room with the same screen as the TV should have either wooden or aluminum alloy frames.
But in fact, the window frames in the movie are plastic steel.
Although the white plastic steel has turned yellow, this thing should not have appeared in an old and dilapidated house built in 2002.
These images, these objects, look old and have many holes.
Either the style is old, but the item is actually new.
Or the item is old, but the style is new.
Han Zhou has such a good memory that he can clearly remember what is in each picture and can easily tell which ones have problems.
Therefore, in my own scenery, I can say that I strive for perfection.
To the extent that many older actors really feel like they have returned to 2002 as soon as they walk into the store.
The audience clearly realizes that this is 2002, that a five-yuan pork head can make a person eat to their heart's content, that popsicles are now selling for two cents, that a haircut only costs two yuan this year, that the house price is only two thousand yuan this year, and that the median salary is eight hundred yuan.
Only then will they understand what kind of devilish contract this medicine costing thirty thousand a month is.
Only then can you understand that there is only a fine line between being a chronic myeloid leukemia patient and being dead.
These details can undoubtedly enhance the quality of the film.
In the early stages of filming, Han Zhou did not have any scenes and all the crew members were in the process of getting used to the new scenes.
After the filming of "In the Name of People" was completed, Chen Xiaoyong returned urgently and took on the task of photographer.
Han Zhou always appears in the crew dressed as Lu Shouyi, and Han Zhou has been thinking about how to play Lu Shouyi better.
The original version of Lu Shouyi is really awesome to be honest.
If there was no Huangmao character, Lu Shouyi would definitely be one of the most outstanding supporting characters in the whole play.
But with the character of Huangmao around, Lu Shouyi is not good enough.
It can be said that Lu Shouyi is a wonderful supporting role, and Huangmao is a classic supporting role.
However, Han Zhou is an actor-level figure, and his demands on himself are much higher than Huang Mao's. Han Zhou has been thinking about how to highlight the role of Lu Shouyi.
Among domestic actors, directors don’t actually pay much attention to these details. Many characters highlight personality traits, which are not what the director wants at all, but are added by the supporting actors themselves.
However, some people add these to highlight their personality traits, while some people just do it to add drama.
The original version of Lü Shouyi also added some details, such as the orange, which runs through almost all the scenes of Lü Shouyi in the movie.
And then there are the iconic multiple masks.
But these two things are too ordinary and too common to highlight the characters.
For example, Huangmao’s biggest feature is his yellow hair. He talked about shaving his hair and going home for a long time, and finally he got into a car accident with a flat head, which made the audience remember this character forever.
Han Zhou studied the role of Lu Shouyi for a long time and felt that this character was weakened.
The reason is simple.
In reality, if you want to buy generic drugs, you must have several characteristics. The first is to have a way to find India, and the second is to have culture and ideas.
Lu Yong in real life is such a person.
In the movie, the prototype of Cheng Yong is Lu Yong, and isn’t the prototype of Lu Shouyi also Lu Yong?
But the reality is that after the filming, although Lü Shouyi performed well, it seemed that he did not have enough roles.
In the five-member team of Miracle Medicine.
Cheng Yong is the backbone, Lu Shouyi is the military advisor, Huangmao is the one who does the dirty work in every team, Sihui is in charge of business, and the Godfather is the translator.
The Han Zhou version has made certain adjustments to several people.
First of all, Cheng Yong is not only the backbone, but also has strong cohesion. In the original version, Cheng Yong’s cohesion is not enough to explain the problem.
There is a point in the original plot that after Cheng Yong stopped selling medicine and Zhang Changlin stopped selling medicine, Lu Shouyi quickly ran out of medicine to buy and his condition worsened.
This is absolutely illogical.
Lü Shouyi wanted to survive very much. The whole film showed that he wanted to survive. So would he not make second-hand preparations? Would he not leave the drug dealer's contact information? Would he not find a second agent?
This logical loophole arises because Cheng Yong did not show enough cohesion, did not fully display his personal charm, and did not demonstrate the characteristic that Ah San only recognized him.
This loophole will not be a loophole only if Ah San has no contact with anyone except Cheng Yong and the new agent he arranged.
So first of all, Cheng Yong's personal charm needs to be strengthened. His loser vibe is too strong, too much. His character needs to be adjusted from a loser to a person with great ambitions but unfulfilled ones.
It is also because of this that Han Zhou's version of Cheng Yong was ambitious at the beginning and wanted to give his wife and children a better life. He heard that the United States was very profitable, so he believed them and ended up running to the United States, washing dishes for three years, and returning in a miserable way.
Then in the past three years, his wife had an affair and hooked up with a rich man, which further stimulated Cheng Yong's desire to make money.
Therefore, the emergence of Lu Shouyi and the "bringing of generic drugs" were sufficiently stimulating to Cheng Yong.
I don't know why the original version didn't choose a similar approach that could easily establish the character's image. Instead, it chose to make Cheng Yong a loser, and a bad guy who beats his wife. This setting is completely useless to the plot.
In order to give Cheng Yong external motivation to make money, he had his father cured of cancer and his children go to the United States to push things forward.
Compared with the excitement later on, the first three minutes of Cheng Yong's performance can be said to be extremely boring and is the most unsuccessful part of the entire movie.
It is also the most redundant and untenable part.
Selling drugs together, how could Lu Shouyi not know that Cheng Yong was essentially a bad person? If he knew it clearly, would he put everything on Cheng Yong?
It is also because of the adjustment of Cheng Yong’s role.
Lu Shouyi's role is very clear.
He is a smart man and knows what to do, but he doesn't have the ability to do it himself, so he needs to find a capable person to cooperate with him, not just a military strategist, but a planner.
How the entire team moves forward is entirely in his hands.
Offer advice when it is time to offer advice, and hire people when it is time to hire.
Cheng Yong was responsible for turning his plans into reality, bringing together the people he recruited, and turning his suggestions into reality.
Then why didn't Lu Shouyi, who was so smart, dare to do it himself?
Because, I’m a coward.
Lu Shouyi is timid.
Therefore, the details of Lu Shouyi's performance also need to be adjusted.
For example, when the original version surrounded the medical representatives, Lu Shouyi was standing on the outside with disdain.
This is very strange. If you are disdainful, why go to the scene and waste the bus fare?
In fact, it was just to show that Lu Shouyi was cowardly and did not perform well.
Han Zhou's modification was that in the end someone threw the medical representative's feces on the bucket handed over by Lu Shouyi.
Before the crowd got excited, he handed over the bucket and then slipped away to watch from a distance.
With this change, it is revealed that the person is resourceful but lacks courage.
He wants to do a lot of things, but he doesn't have the courage to do them, but he has the courage to encourage others to do them.
Therefore, the benefits obtained are also weakened.
It felt good to throw the medical representative's shit on him, he just handed over the bucket without throwing it, so it felt a little good.
Selling medicine is very profitable, but he just gave the idea, so the profit is small.
Realizing how powerful Huangmao was, he wanted to recruit Huangmao into the gang, but he didn't even dare to stop Huangmao from taking the medicine by himself. However, he dared to suggest that Cheng Yong recruit Huangmao into the gang.
Similar actions like handing over the dung bucket appear throughout the entire movie, reinforcing his characteristics many times.
The other characters also need to be deepened.
The first one is Sihui. In order to save her daughter, Sihui works in a nightclub as a dancer and even thinks about satisfying Cheng Yong to deepen their relationship.
However, Cheng Yong did not refuse out of a sense of justice, but rather he had the desire but not the courage.
The original version probably took into consideration the character of Sihui's mother and did not dare to go too far, but just used metaphors. Many people are willing to think about it in this way, but more movie fans will not think too much about it at all.
Why not be more direct?
Therefore, in Han Zhou's version, Sihui was directly arranged to perform on the stage, and the charming moments were used to deepen the character with the contrast between the stage and backstage.
And there is no such scene as the one between Sihui and Cheng Yong which is not erotic but just awkward.
Han Zhou added a new plot for her, which was not to let Cheng Yong show off, but to let Cheng Yong use money to buy the foreman to dance.
But it was Sihui herself who insisted on going dancing.
After watching the brilliant dance with admiration, Cheng Yong asked Sihui why she still danced now that she had no shortage of money. Sihui's answer was: "I'll make as much money as I can."
Later, the character Lu Shouyi had no money to buy medicine and died. Why was Sihui's daughter able to afford the medicine and survive?
Han Zhou's plan for her was to seize every opportunity to make money, and then save it all to provide a way for her daughter to survive.
When setting up, we have to consider that 'a mother must be strong'.
Lu Shouyi's will to survive is so strong that it has reached the sky, but Sihui's spiritual belief in letting her daughter survive is even stronger than Lu Shouyi's.
The character of Huang Mao is a little bit bad at speaking and not very good at talking, but he is brave and fierce, and he is the only one who truly shows himself to be a good person among the five people.
His characteristic is simplicity, and he judges a person based on morality rather than emotion.
This was also the biggest shock that Huangmao gave to Cheng Yong.
Therefore, the plot of Gun and Ammunition at the beginning only highlighted Huangmao's bravery, but did not highlight the fact that Huangmao was a good person.
After all, there is a conflict between the before and the after.
In Han Zhou's version, Huang Mao's appearance was replaced by a story about a real patient told by Chen Cheng.
Huangmao was the one who used the contact information to contact the Indian drug dealer, but found that the call could not be connected, so he ran to ask the police why the call could not be connected.
And he didn't steal the medicine to save himself.
It was because his co-worker, who was also a chronic myeloid leukemia patient, could not afford the medicine and his health had collapsed, so Huangmao tried to find a way to get the medicine.
And he didn't just rob them, he paid the cost price after snatching the medicine.
Because he learned that this was the price of medicine in India.
After his medicine was stolen, Cheng Yong thought that if everyone did this, how could he continue his business? So he went with Lu Shouyi to block Huangmao.
Finally, they found Huangmao distributing medicine to his fellow patients at his residence. They felt that Huangmao was not a bad person and had strong fighting ability, so they recruited Huangmao into the team.
The original Huangmao story is similar to this one, but there are inconsistencies between the beginning and the end. With this slight adjustment, the entire character becomes consistent.
After all, he is a supporting character and there is not much space to show his changes, so this is the most perfect state.
We often find a problem when watching movies.
Some people's plots are very abrupt.
In fact, it’s not that the director didn’t consider it or the screenwriter didn’t write it.
But the edited version was too long, so I had to reluctantly cut some parts.
All the plot inconsistencies are not actually incoherent in essence, but the story is too long-winded, so some things have to be cut to reduce the movie time.
Since he had watched the original version and heard so many patients' stories, Han Zhou naturally had to correct these parts.
Try to use the simplest story, dramatic conflict and the clearest method to directly establish the personality and character of each character.
And the priest is no longer a translator in Han Zhou's 'Five Medicine Gods'.
The priest’s job is to teach people not to be superstitious!
Responsible for explaining the efficacy of the medicine to patients, popularizing the efficacy of the medicine, and popularizing various knowledge related to chronic myeloid leukemia.
With this identity and doing this thing, the effect is the most explosive.
The priest's job naturally led to the discovery that Zhang Changlin was selling fake medicine.
It was natural for the priest to bring a group of five people to find Zhang Changlin.
And this job and this identity create even more jokes.
In essence, this film actually has a lot of comedy in it.
But since many characters are patients, there aren't many jokes to be had.
But with Han Zhou's design, the priest was no longer a patient, and the conflict between the two extreme identities of priest and popular scientist was used purely to create jokes.
This makes the priest go from being the least noticeable member of the "five-man group" to being the one who is responsible for the comedy.
The framework of Han Zhou's version was also built and adjusted based on this, with the addition of real patient stories and a filming cost several times that of the original version.
The effect is strived to be better than the original one.
Although this change only improves the texture slightly at each point, it may even be a waste of effort.
But if there are more details like this, the quality of the movie will be improved by half, which is definitely not a problem.
The funny priest, the planner Lu Shouyi, the strong and wise mother, and the brave and good man Huangmao.
After the images of these four characters are further deepened, when Cheng Yong proposes to run away, it can arouse the audience's disdain for Cheng Yong, bringing the greatest dramatic effect and conflict.
In the original version, Lu Shouyi was mediocre in the early part, but his performance in the later part when he was suffering from illness was brilliant enough and left a deep enough impression on the audience.
Huangmao also left a deep impression on the audience when he was selling medicine with Cheng Yong and was accidentally hit and killed by a truck in the bucket.
But after the adjustments, the impression they made in the early stages was deep enough.
Cheng Yong's backstab made them seem even more helpless.
Make the audience more worried about them.
And after the knife is handed out, it will hurt people more.
On one hand, people use knife skills to enhance the audience's perception of them.
On the one hand, the audience has already recognized them, and then they are stabbed again, which is doubly painful.
It's hard not to improve the quality of the movie.
The only downside of this approach is that the role of the male protagonist Cheng Yong is weakened and becomes hateful.
In the previous version, I had originally planned to film a protagonist who was not a good person, but firstly, I didn’t tell him the prototype, and secondly, it wasn’t thorough enough.
Han Zhou simply did it thoroughly, sought the prototype's consent, and then made Cheng Yong appear as an ordinary person, or even a bad character who loves money like his life.
It felt even better when this character finally turned into the good guy at the end.
Although the whole process is annoying and the role is reduced, the ending of Han Zhou's version is different from the original.
The original ending was kind of lame.
When Cheng Yong was arrested, countless patients came to see him off.
But when I was released from prison, no one came to pick me up.
I don’t know if it’s because all the patients died back then, or if it just shows that the patients have no conscience.
If it is the former, then it is nothing more than a bit of smearing, smearing society.
If it is the latter, it is smearing the patient group as ungrateful.
Therefore, up to now, few people have the courage to do a film review and analysis of the last segment.
In the original version, when the police were catching drug dealers, the patient argued with reason and showed his desire to survive vividly, but he did not show true gratitude or justice.
In reality, thousands of patients jointly wrote a letter requesting that Lu Yong not be punished. While fighting the disease, they traveled around to help repay Lu Yong.
Han Zhou's version naturally also used this version, but Cheng Yong really sold medicine and made a profit from it, so the process was more tortuous.
And in the end, no patient saw the scene of Cheng Yong being sent to prison.
Instead, the patient captured the scene of welcoming Cheng Yong out of prison.
This version also greatly weakens Officer Cao's presence.
In fact, the police don't need to have a strong presence in this movie.
This time, Han Zhou changed almost a large part of the content of "Dying to Survive".
This time, Han Zhou began to try out his own story and his own abilities.