At noon on April 17, the full lineup of "Sauce Garden Lane", which has attracted much attention and controversy, was officially announced.
In order to avoid the battle for the position, the official announcement made a special note "in order of appearance", but what is interesting is that the big heroine Zhang Ziyi, who was determined from the beginning, is still ranked first in the cast list, and then the list of actors arranged in order of appearance is:
Wang Chuanjun, Yi Yang Qianxi, Mei Ting, Zhao Liying, Lei Jiayin, Liu Runxuan, Zhang Yu, Yang Mi, Kang Chunlei, Peng Yuchang, Yin Fang, Chen Guoqing, Zhang Jianya, Zhou Yemang, Dapeng, Xu Xiang, Li Xian, Sun Qiang, Fan Wei, This Sha, Wang Yang, Zhang Zifeng, Xie Na, Zhou Siyu, Zhang Yulin, Bai Yufan, Lin Yongjian, Zhang Xueying.
Judging from the list, it is basically certain that they are indeed arranged in the order of appearance, otherwise it is unlikely that Chen Guoqing will have more roles than Li Xian and Fan Wei, and Zhang Zifeng is unlikely to rank so low.
However, normally speaking, a 120-minute movie and a complete story line often focus on the roles of the male number one and the female number one, up to the male number three and the female number three, and then the actors in the future, in fact, there will not be too many scenes, or even one or two scenes, which have been repeatedly proven by too many movies, such as Feng Xiaogang's "I Am Not Pan Jinlian".
But looking back at the lineup of "Sauce Garden Lane", half of the entertainment industry has been found, and more than 20 big-name actors have been gathered, and it can be determined that Zhang Ziyi is the female number one, but how many big-name female stars are followed by Mei Ting, Zhao Liying, Yang Mi, Zhang Zifeng, Xie Na, Zhou Siyu, Zhang Xueying...... The stars with the fewest scenes are already female No. 6 and No. 7, and there are probably only one or two scenes.
"Sauce Garden Lane" was originally determined to play the female number one, and later there was news that Zhao Liying and Yang Mi would participate, because the two top stars wanted to match Zhang Ziyi, so it caused a lot of controversy, and for the first time, there was a situation where "fighting" was not for the female number one, but for the female number two, which was almost the first time in the entertainment industry. So the question is, why do so many celebrities squeeze their heads to participate in this project? I believe that if it weren't for Chen Kexin or "Sauce Garden Lane", if it were not for Chen Kexin and "Sauce Garden Alley", if it were replaced by another director and another film, the stars who were already accustomed to playing the male number one and female number one might let their agents directly refuse or even scold them back! Why is everyone so tolerant of "Sauce Garden Lane" and Chen Kexin?
The answer is the attraction of going to the international stage.
The quality of the films made by Chen Kexin in recent years is good, but to be honest, it is not too much at the box office, compared with the new generation of directors such as Wu Jing, Jia Ling, Guo Fan, etc., I feel a little behind. And "Chinese Women's Volleyball Team" had to be renamed "Winning the Championship", and after there was no news about the movie "Li Na" for a long time, Chen Kexin had some new ideas.
The project "Sauce Garden Lane" was first announced at the Busan Film Festival in October last year. At that time, Chen Kexin revealed that he wanted to cooperate with Zhang Ziyi in "The Case of Killing the Husband in the Sauce Garden", the story of a legendary woman in old Shanghai, and finalized Zhang Ziyi's female number one with the most scenes. "Sauce Garden Lane" is adapted from a true story, telling the story of the injury in 1944, a woman killed her husband who had abused her for many years with a knife, thus uncovering her miserable life one after another, and the fate of Zhan Zhou, played by Zhang Ziyi, has also been rewritten again and again with the changes of the times.
Judging from this plot synopsis, such a strong lineup gathered in the movie should also be connected with the fate of the heroine as the main line, each character appears at different stages of her life, you sing and I appear, create a group portrait, except for Zhang Ziyi, other actors will not have too many scenes!
And other actors are willing to participate even if they don't have many supporting roles and get a very meager salary, because this is a big international project.
It has not yet been determined where Chen Kexin will find the investment, but what can be determined is that the production company of "Sauce Garden Lane" is Changin' Picture, Chen Kexin was just established overseas last year, with the goal of pan-Asia, and it was announced at that time that it planned to launch 20 different types of works after its establishment, and expected to deliver four of them in the first four years, "Sauce Garden Lane" is one of them, and it is likely to be the new company's entrepreneurial work.
It is interesting to note that Chen Kexin originally revealed that the distribution plan of "Sauce Garden Lane" is to directly launch overseas streaming media, which is equivalent to bypassing the censorship of the domestic film bureau, in order to have a larger scale, more freewheeling creation, and a broader overseas audience.
But when the full lineup was officially announced this time, some media said that it would be released within the year, and the theater could already see the patch advertisement, for Chen Kexin, who has the attribute of "businessman", it must be a good thing that the movie can pass the review and be released on the big screen in the mainland, and it can earn the domestic box office, why not?
But in essence, "Sauce Garden Lane" is a film produced by an overseas company, targeting the overseas market, as for overseas streaming media, the two biggest ones are Netflix and Disney+, no matter which one has great influence, participating in this movie is equivalent to entering the international arena and touching the door of "international superstar".
Looking back on the years of domestic entertainment development, there are many "top-rated" stars, but too few can be called "international superstars", the female number one Zhang Ziyi must be, so she is the one who sits firmly in the position of the female number one, and others including Yi Yang Qianxi, Yang Mi, and Zhao Liying are not counted, because they have no international works that they can handle. Therefore, in the face of the temptation of the project "Sauce Garden Lane", even if they are supporting roles, they all rush forward! Stars are representatives of the struggle for fame and fortune, and the top stars are nothing more than that.