novelraw Chapter 84, "The Story of the Green Hairpin," became a huge hit upon its release.
Chapter 84, "The Story of the Green Hairpin," became a huge hit upon its release.
While Tanglou was working hard to produce "The Hidden Corner," Kiwi's "The Golden Hairpin" project, with a large investment from the platform, also entered the post-production stage.
Since winning this project, Gong Yu has devoted a great deal of effort to it and placed high hopes on it.
Meanwhile, Gong Yu had been keeping a close eye on Tang Lou's progress and was aware that Tang Lou had purchased all the copyrights to Zi Jin Chen's novels and that they had recently started filming an adaptation of one of the novels.
Kiwifruit also held a special meeting to analyze the Tanglou project, which is part of "The Hidden Corner".
"President Gong, we have already learned that Tanglou's drama is a low-budget web series, with an investment of less than one-tenth of our 'The Golden Hairpin'."
"The director of this drama is a complete novice. Before joining the crew, he was just a small boss at GG Company. He is incomparable to a top director like Lin Yufeng."
"In terms of the actors' status and fame, there's no comparison. Wu Yifan and Yang Zi are much more popular here."
"The male lead over there is just a nobody actor who makes art films. This is his first time transitioning to a web series. I guess he's forced by circumstances to compromise for the sake of pay."
"The most talked-about character in the entire series is Zhang Zifeng, who only managed to ride on the coattails of 'Detective Chinatown.' How can a series like this compare to our high-quality productions?"
The analysis by several professionals is certainly very reasonable and well-founded.
What future can a web series with such a low investment, terrible actors, and a novice director have?
Gong Yu, who also started out in content creation, after a professional evaluation, couldn't see any possibility of this kind of suspense drama adapted from a short story becoming a hit.
"In that case, let's speed up post-production and make sure to promote it by the end of this month. 'The Golden Hairpin' is the most important project for our entire platform to turn things around."
"This is also a crucial battle to showcase the reputation and strength of our high-quality self-produced drama platform to the outside world. We must completely suppress Kugou's 'The Hidden Corner'!"
Gong Yu is still very confident about the upcoming competition.
As time went on, kiwifruit took the lead!
Yang Zi and Wu Yifan were the first to promote it on Weibo.
Zhang Yishan, a friend of Yang Zi, also expressed his support for "The Golden Hairpin" on Weibo!
All channels selling kiwifruit have also begun promoting and advertising this top-tier production.
Wu Yifan was already very popular, and with the help of Kiwi Fruit's marketing, he directly topped the Weibo hot search list.
After its premiere, "The Golden Hairpin" immediately topped the viewership charts in its time slot.
Both Yang Zi and Wu Yifan gave excellent performances in their roles.
Lin Yufeng also demonstrated his ability as a top director of period dramas, and the show garnered over 20 million views within 24 hours of its release!
Yang Zi and Wu Yifan's roles have also become a hit!
Wu Yifan became popular again, and he publicly supported kiwifruit on Weibo, while subtly criticizing Coolcat.
They don't even care about the upcoming "The Hidden Corner" on KuMiao, after all, the protagonist on the other side is just an 18th-tier nobody named Qin Hao.
In Wu Yifan's opinion, someone like Qin Hao wasn't even worthy of carrying his shoes!
The immense popularity of "The Golden Hairpin" has finally restored the reputation of kiwifruit.
The publicity team brought up the old story of how Tanglou missed out on the show because they didn't buy the rights.
Furthermore, they added fuel to the fire by claiming that Tanglou, after losing the copyright to "The Golden Hairpin," was spurred into blindly hoarding a large number of copyrights of little value.
In particular, he foolishly spent tens of millions to buy out all the copyrights of the completely unknown, third-rate writer Zijin Chen.
His words implied criticism of both the original novel and the adapted web series of "The Hidden Corner".
Under the influence of Wu Yifan and Yang Zi, many fans also began to boycott and ridicule "The Hidden Corner".
Qin Hao and Zhang Zifeng were also subjected to sarcastic remarks.
Qin Hao, a nobody, is supposed to be quite principled, so why is he humbling himself to film this kind of web series for a few dollars? Is this a compromise after marrying an old lady and not being able to support the family?
The so-called "literary heartthrob" has taken on a poorly made web series, shattering his carefully constructed image!
In short, "The Hidden Corner" received a lot of negative reviews even before it was released.
Coolcat Hangzhou Business Unit.
Xin Shuang, a member of the post-production team for "The Hidden Corner," has been basically sleeping at the company these past few days, working tirelessly day and night.
With the launch just around the corner, Xin Shuang really didn't expect the kiwi fruit side to come on so aggressively.
The comments were even more appalling, and as the director of the show, he was naturally looked down upon by many.
After all, he didn't have any successful cases before, and he had only made some adult films.
Xin Shuang has been under a lot of psychological pressure these past few days. It's not that he's afraid of failing, but rather that he's worried that his incompetence will implicate President Tang.
Although he really liked the finished product of the drama, it far exceeded his expectations.
However, this is only a short series of twelve episodes, and it is completely incomparable to the large-scale costume dramas with hundreds of millions of yuan invested by iQiyi, which often have sixty or seventy episodes.
Seeing how popular "The Golden Hairpin" is, especially the male lead Wu Yifan's huge influence, really makes me a little anxious.
The rest of the crew of "The Hidden Corner" were also somewhat nervous.
This is the first time we've produced a short series like this, and since it's from the brand that Coolcat is preparing to launch its brand new Mist Theater, this first series can't afford to fail, otherwise the brand will be ruined before it even gets any recognition.
The staff members were quite impressed to see that Tang Lou remained relaxed and composed.
"Mr. Tang, can our 'The Hidden Corner' really compete with 'The Golden Hairpin' from iQiyi? They're so popular, especially the male and female leads who have such a huge fan base."
Tang Lou was not worried at all about the employees' reactions.
The more popular "The Golden Hairpin" becomes, the more Wu Yifan will gain wider recognition, attracting more fans and generating more related topics, the better.
Tang Lou is now waiting for the perfect opportunity. When his momentum reaches its peak, he will release all the dirt on Wu Yifan that he has, and then we'll see how badly Kiwi will suffer!
Seeing the rising popularity of "The Golden Hairpin," the kiwi platform went all out, pouring all its resources onto the show.
They also hired a large number of online trolls for marketing and promotion, especially linking Wu Yifan's top-tier image with "The Golden Hairpin"!
Riding the wave of popularity, Wu Yifan received many invitations from variety shows on different platforms and began recording them.
As "The Golden Hairpin" becomes more and more popular, Wu Yifan is gaining more and more recognition.
On KuMiao's side, Shen Yan was getting restless. He hesitated, wondering if he should release "The Hidden Corner," a show that was going to be the direct competitor, at this moment.
In terms of investment, director, and actors, it is completely unable to compete with "The Golden Hairpin". However, the relevant publicity has already been launched. If it avoids the limelight and postpones the release, wouldn't it seem too cowardly and afraid of the battle before it even begins?