novelraw Chapter 97: A Shocking Nomination at the Dinner Table
Chapter 97: A Shocking Nomination at the Dinner Table
That evening, in a private room of a club in Beijing with excellent privacy.
The dinner was nominally to celebrate the finalization of the role of Xiang Yu.
Yet the atmosphere in the private room was exceptionally strange.
On the redwood round table, the dishes were exquisite, the wine was aged Moutai, but almost no one was touching their chopsticks.
The head screenwriter was smoking one cigarette after another; the ashtray was already full.
Several producers sat upright, their expressions grave.
The veteran actor Liu Hanyu held a cup of hot tea, only taking small sips, not saying a word.
Director Wei Song was downing glasses of baijiu one after another; the wine decanter in front of him was already half empty.
This dinner, named a celebration but actually a "venting session," had an atmosphere depressed to the extreme.
The only exception was Jiang Ci.He was buried in his food, single-mindedly tackling the plate of pork with garlic sauce in front of him.
Sun Zhou sat beside him, feeling as if sitting on pins and needles.
He secretly kicked Jiang Ci under the table.
My Ci-ge, this is practically the Hongmen Feast 2.0, and you're still eating!
Jiang Ci paused his motion of picking up the meat, looked up, and stared at Sun Zhou with a pure "why are you disturbing my meal" gaze.
Sun Zhou: "..."
He gave up.
"The role of Liu Bang must be reconsidered," Wei Song put down his wine glass with a dull thud, breaking the silence.
His cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, but his thinking was exceptionally clear.
"Those few I had my eye on before, none of them can be used now."
The producer from Evergreen Entertainment had been looking rather displeased.
Peng Shaofeng conceding defeat, he couldn't do anything about that.
But now, he felt it was his chance to regain some face.
"Director Wei, I don't think it's a problem," he cleared his throat, adopting the air of an industry expert. "For the role of Liu Bang, there are plenty of capable actors in the circle. I recommend Teacher Zhang Jianian. He's won the Feitian Award for Best Actor, has high public recognition, his acting is steady, he can absolutely hold his own."
"He's too righteous," Wei Song rejected without even thinking. "Zhang Jianian is full of uprightness. He can't portray that street-smart, shameless scoundrel quality of Liu Bang, who could crawl out of a pile of corpses and still laugh while dividing the meat."
"Then... what about Huang Lei? He's quick-witted, brilliant at playing ordinary folk," another producer suggested.
"He's too handsome," Wei Song flatly refused again. "Liu Bang is someone who can throw away all face, cry and wail in front of everyone, a ruthless man who can say 'share a cup of my broth' when his wife and children are kidnapped. With Huang Lei's face, the audience wouldn't believe he could do such things."
The head screenwriter also joined the discussion, extinguishing his cigarette butt with a worried frown.
"The key is, it's not just a one-sided problem with Liu Bang now. It's about who can stand alongside Jiang Ci's 'Xiang Yu' without being completely overshadowed."
He looked at Jiang Ci; the kid had already finished the pork and was starting to study the next dish, steamed red spotted grouper.
The head screenwriter's voice held a bitter admiration. "Our Liu Bang can't just be an ordinary, ruthless hero. He must be someone who can go toe-to-toe with the noble Hegemon-King."
At that, everyone fell silent.
Liu Hanyu listened on the side, inwardly shocked as well.
He had only been there today to assist with the audition, yet that young man had forced him to kneel and improvise with just one word.
That sense of indifference to and control over all life, emanating from the very bones, was terrifying.
He completely understood Wei Song's dilemma.
The Evergreen producer still wouldn't give up; he wanted to push a mid-career actor from his own company into the role.
"Director Wei, I think you're overthinking it. Our company's Wang Yi, his acting skills are widely recognized as excellent. He's played emperors and also lower-class commoners; his versatility is strong. Presence like that can be pushed up through performance!"
"Pushed?" Wei Song sneered. "How? By seeing who can shout louder? Or who can glare more fiercely?"
Wei Song's words grew increasingly blunt.
The producer's face turned red then white, and finally he couldn't hold back.
"Director Wei, you're just being stubborn! No matter how amazing Jiang Ci is, he's still just a newcomer! For the sake of one newcomer, to completely overturn the entire casting plan of the whole crew, is that really necessary?"
"It is necessary!" Wei Song stated resolutely.
The atmosphere in the entire private room dropped to freezing point.
Everyone was at their wits' end.
Just then, Wei Song's gaze suddenly fixed on Jiang Ci, who was busy eating.
"Jiang Ci!" Wei Song suddenly called out.
Jiang Ci swallowed the fish in his mouth and looked up with a bewildered expression.
"Huh? Director Wei, you called me?"
"Who do you think can play Liu Bang?" Wei Song, driven to desperation, was grasping at straws.
Jiang Ci blinked.
Liu Bang?
He quickly ran through the few actors he knew in his mind.
Then, one person's face surfaced.
"That... I met Teacher Qin before on the Palace Conspiracy set, the Film Emperor Qin Feng."
Jiang Ci's voice wasn't loud, but it clearly reached everyone's ears.
"I think he's quite suitable."
"Pfft—cough, cough, cough!"
The Evergreen producer, who had just taken a sip of soup, almost spat it out directly.
He looked at Jiang Ci with an incredulous gaze, coughing until his face was red.
Qin Feng?
Are you crazy!
That's the Triple Crown Film Emperor!
You, a newcomer, playing a male lead, dare to suggest nominating Qin Feng to play a supporting role for you?
Wei Song was also stunned.
He hadn't considered that name at all.
Mainly because Qin Feng had just finished filming Palace Conspiracy; the industry rumor was he was taking a break for over half a year.
But Wei Song, looking at Jiang Ci's earnest face, found himself inexplicably asking a follow-up question.
"Why do you think he's suitable?"
Jiang Ci thought very seriously for a moment, then gave his own analysis.
"I saw him act when I was on the Palace Conspiracy set."
"When he's not speaking, he just sits on the side watching. When he looks at people, it feels like nothing can be hidden from him, like he sees everything crystal clear in his heart."
"But then, he doesn't seem like a star. When he's not filming, he wears an old man's undershirt, holds a big tea mug, no different from the old security guard at the studio gate, like an ordinary, utterly average uncle."
Jiang Ci struggled to organize his words, trying to express his feelings clearly.
"Isn't that exactly Liu Bang?"
"Looks like a nice old guy from the street, someone anyone could step on, doesn't seem to have much temper."
"But in reality, he understands everything, sees who's human and who's a ghost clearer than anyone. When the crucial moment comes, he's more ruthless than anyone."
Jiang Ci felt that Qin Feng's aura of "an ordinary uncle who sees through everything" fit the role of Liu Bang perfectly.
A terrifyingly bright light instantly flashed in Wei Song's eyes.
Right!
Qin Feng!
How did he not think of Qin Feng!
All his previous thinking had been confined within the framework of "finding an actor who can oppose Xiang Yu."
So he was looking for domineering ones, sinister ones, deeply scheming ones.
But he forgot that Liu Bang's greatest trait isn't opposition.
It's "compatibility."
It's the ability to bend and stretch! It's great wisdom appearing as foolishness!
A god-tier "Xiang Yu" must be paired with an equally god-tier "Liu Bang"!
That is the highest level of adversarial acting! That is the true Chu-Han Contention!
Wei Song stood up excitedly.
"Jiang Ci! You're a damn genius!"
Everyone present was dumbfounded.
A huge problem that had troubled the entire core team was just solved like that?
The Evergreen producer opened his mouth, unable to say a word for a long time.
He felt the world had become too surreal.
However, he quickly found a new point of attack.
He sneered and spoke slowly.
"A good idea."
"Then, the question arises."
"Who will go invite him? Who can possibly invite this semi-retired Film Emperor Qin?"
Wei Song couldn't stand this Evergreen producer's noise any longer. He leaned forward, hands braced on the table, and said word by word:
"My crew, my people, no need for an outsider like you to worry!"