What is even more unexpected is that the box office of "Song of Death", which was released in mid-September after "The Gem of the Sea", was even stronger.

However, this police and gangster film, which cost 200 million yen to produce, actually sold nearly 650 million yen in Japan, making it a small hit movie.

Why is this happening?

In fact, it is mainly due to the greatness of the action scenes that are far ahead.

It turns out that Akira Okamoto was preparing for this movie, when the filming of "Body Guard" was on the way.

In order to estimate the shooting cost as reasonably as possible, Aki Okamoto, who knew that he lacked production experience, visited the shooting site many times and spent a lot of time observing the on-site shooting for learning, especially focusing on understanding the particularity of action scene shooting.

As a result, when he was on the scene, when he saw Yuan Heping, he was impressed by the action design level of the "Eighth Master".

He was like seeing the new world, and he was eager to ask Yuan Heping to stay in Japan for a few more days after filming the movie.

No matter what he said, Yuan Heping wanted to take the position of action director in his "Song of Death".

For this reason, in addition to giving Yuan Heping a generous treatment that was no less than the director of the film, he was even willing to overthrow the male protagonist who was originally a burning artist but had no action foundation according to Yuan Heping's request.

Instead, among Japanese artists, they selected them again based on their qualifications in sports and martial arts.

Finally, through negotiations with Toei's agency, Chiba Shinichi, who was born in Japan's Sports University and became a disciple of Jikura's disciple, played the male lead in the movie.

At the same time, he also agreed to Yuan Heping's recommendation and brought the Japanese female star Michiko and Oshima Yukami, who were already well-known in Hong Kong City, into the crew, and served as the female villain who played the role of the female villain who had a fight with Chiba Shinichi.

In this way, Yuan Heping, who felt deeply indifferent, could not help but acted as the action guide for this "Song of Death".

You know, Japan's action scenes were originally limited, and they were never artistic and random fights.

What's more, the rival scenes in Japanese action movies are basically fighting between men.

In addition to Japanese sword and halberd films, and using samurai swords to chop randomly, modern police and gangster films are routines such as driving and chasing and shooting.

It should be said that in addition to the "Red Peony Gambler" series filmed by Junko Toshi in the 1960s, there are few female fighters in Japanese film history to this day.

As a result, in this movie, due to Yuan Heping's suggestion, two beautiful girls immediately acted as villains.

Whether it is a vicious move or agile or changeable, it can be said that Oshima Yugali and Michiko, who were trained by the Hong Kong City film industry, are easy to perform in action, each with their own characteristics.

But they all fell into the hands of the brave detective played by Shinichi Chiba.

Such a plot is exciting just thinking about it.

This even inspired the director of this film - a temporary change of the script was added to a female killer who used seduction and poisoning as a means of murder.

Since this character focuses on the beauty of the soul, the elegant and delicate body, rather than the physical fitness, Okamoto finally decided to play the role of the former "the first Japanese-active beauty" Shizuko Ogawa.

This makes this movie almost a special show for Chiba Shiichi's "hard-handed flower-breaking" one.

Although this film is difficult to change the clichés and the plot is conservative, what is commendable is that it is quite epoch-making and innovative in the fight scenes.

Especially for the Japanese market, it has made the eyes of those Japanese audiences who have only watched "Shaolin Temple" and "A Chinese Ghost Story" and have little understanding of Chinese Kung Fu movies.

On the day the film was released, all the Japanese audiences who entered the theater were surprised to find out - hey? Why are the Japanese police and gangster films different?

Ah! Our actors’ fighting scenes are already so awesome.

It's no worse than what was photographed by Port City and Mainland China...

Objectively speaking, although this movie will not bring such sensational visual effects to these viewers.

But it was refreshing and enjoyable to watch, and at least the male audience generally recognized it.

So, after word of mouth, the box office exploded.

Speaking of which, there is a little bit of the feeling that mainland mainland viewers will watch "Wolf Warrior 1" for the first time.

In fact, even Ning Weimin thought it was good after watching it.

In addition to discovering that Chiba Shinichi, Michiko, and Yugali Oshima are all familiar faces who watch Hong Kong movies. He couldn't help but be surprised how Akira Okamoto got such an action team, he also felt like he was watching the blackened version of "Charlie's Angels".

Well, the elements of commercial films are fully displayed in this movie. Although they are popcorn movies that don’t use their brains at all, they are “cool enough” and “the characters are pleasing to the eye”. These two points are very outstanding and are enough to satisfy the appetite of viewers who like this type of film.

Moreover, with his experience, he can even be sure that the market for this kind of movie video tapes is usually more potential and is likely to make more money than the local box office.

So for this, he had to admit that Akira Okamoto was not only lucky, but also had some brains.

This guy was able to learn humbly and make the best use of others. Only then did he win the first battle and achieve such good results.

Ning Weimin has even decided that as long as this guy is not overly inflated.

Then the profits obtained from these two movies can be left to him next year, so that he can run the film projects at will.

To be honest, Ning Weimin's biggest hope for Akira Okamoto is that one day, even if he doesn't have to plagiarize anything, the fog studio led by Akira Okamoto can maintain its position as the "sixth largest" in the Japanese film industry.

At present, Akira Okamoto seems to have some ability to achieve it, so Ning Weimin naturally does not hesitate to cultivate it.

In short, the actual achievements made by Mist Studio this year are indeed refreshing and energetic.

Not only did I maintain the reputation I finally earned in the first two years, but I also looked quite virtuous.

Especially in terms of economic benefits, it is so good that it is a bit unreasonable.

After all, all the film and television projects in the Mist Studio have achieved profitability throughout the year, so no work is dragging us down.

So far, the profit amount created by film and television dramas can reach about 9 billion yen, which is more than 70 million US dollars.

Even among the "Five" films in the Japanese film industry, not every company can achieve this digital income.

Like Hi-Hi and Toei, there have been no such popular movies this year, and I'm afraid this year will be very difficult.

After all, revenue is one thing, profit is one thing.

However, this is not the entire benefit of the industry under the name of Keiko Matsumoto. If the box office share generated by Ning Weimin bought for Keiko Matsumoto and the total broadcasting licensing fee paid to the TV station, the total amount is more than 500 million yen.

Including the revenue from Taurus Palace's music publishing this year, it will be more than 3 billion yen.

There is also the artist agent of Matsumoto Firm, which is divided into about 1.6 billion yen.

The entertainment business belonging to Matsumoto Keiko's name, the current revenue can be calculated as much as 15.5 billion yen, which is converted into US dollars in total.

Even if we take the interest cost of Matsumoto Kyoko's bank loan operation, it is expected that the final annual income will reach 150 million US dollars.

For this era, film and television companies and music companies that can make so much money in three years of initial development are really rare.

Even if you look at the world, the companies under the name of Keiko Matsumoto should have amazing profits, no less than the high-quality assets of those well-known production companies.

To put it bluntly, an entertainment group based in the film and television and music industries has begun to take shape. Although it is still in a dormant development period, I believe that as long as this development trend is maintained, in the near future, it will definitely develop into a transnational industry tycoon and get a share of the global entertainment market.

Of course, Ning Weimin also knew that there was still a long way to go to achieve this goal in the end.

In addition to the need to withdraw from good works continuously every year, it is also important to spend a lot of money and accumulate resources in advance in order to achieve this.

This not only refers to attracting outstanding artists and directors, but also to acquire the copyrights of various classic film and television works and music works, and even the copyrights of literary and comic works.

For example, a large part of the film and television works filmed in Hollywood every year are scripts derived from novels.

Among them are large-scale classic movies such as the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings series.

Superhero movies based on Marvel, as well as film and television works that Japanese people like to adapt based on comics or even electronic games, are common phenomena in the future.

After all, the future is the Internet era and the era of big IP. These intangible cultural assets can not only create amazing economic benefits in themselves, but also be resources for re-creating literary and artistic works.

Some Hollywood companies, like some, even have fixed expenditures of about 10% of their revenue every year when purchasing scripts.

Hollywood's "Seven Majors" have all established their own script library, and then distributed this part of the cost of each movie.

Even the Mizu Studio itself is based on the authorization of all works by Kiyoshi Matsumoto.

Then Ning Weimin, who has a long-term vision, naturally knows how to start in advance. Just like when he bought a film library in France, he was willing to spend some money as a favor and help his wife accumulate some valuable cultural resources in Japan as much as possible.

For example, the primary goal he set was this year. Haruki Murakami, the most dazzling star in the Japanese literary world, triggered a literary craze.

Haruki Murakami started writing since she was 29 years old, and her first work "Listen to the Wind" won the Japanese Group Photo Newcomer Award.

In 1988, the fifth work of his career, "The Forest of Norway", was launched and sold well, making him famous and becoming a real famous writer.

So far, sales in Japan have exceeded three million copies.

Moreover, Ning Weimin also knew that this work was just beginning. In the future, "The Forest of Norway" will change from a best-selling novel to a long-term sales novel, and will be adapted into a movie by various countries and released one after another.

Even since then, almost every work by Haruki Murakami has been popular, which has influenced a large number of literary and artistic young people and writers in East Asia.

In particular, Haruki Murakami is actually a staunch anti-war person.

He was not as unwilling to face the sins caused by the Japanese during World War II, and even because his father participated in the war against China, he felt that he was not worthy of eating Chinese food, and he repeatedly publicly expressed his shame on his father's sin back then.

Such views and positions also made Ning Weimin reborn, so in late October, Ning Weimin began to contact him.

Not only does it represent Fog Studio's request to bring "The Forest of Norway" to the screen, it requests to buy out the film and television shooting rights of this novel.

In addition, Ning Weimin also proposed to purchase the Chinese copyright of this work as a Chinese and the owner of Huiwentang Bookstore, and was preparing to translate the novel into Chinese and sell it in mainland China.

As expected, Haruki Murakami showed great patience and kindness to Ning Weimin who took the initiative to visit.

Originally, according to Japanese industry rules, it is not too much to say that the filming rights of a hot novel like "The Forest of Norway" cost 50 million yen, while the copyright of the novel is calculated by multiplying the printing number by the price and then multiplying by 6% or 7%.

But at that time, since the Republic had not yet joined the World Copyright Convention, it was impossible to grasp the sales situation in mainland China. Haruki Murakami should have made a claim according to Japan's copyright. In this case, the total price was 80,000,000 yen.

As a result, Haruki Murakami was precisely because Ning Weimin was from the Chinese, and considering that Ning Weimin had to hire a dedicated person to translate his novels in China, the mainland of China is the third world, and the consumption level is not high.

So he took the initiative to give Ning Weimin a serious defeat because he valued the influence of his works.

At the price of 50 million yen, the right to shoot and distribute the Chinese novel to Ning Weimin.
To be continued...