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The sunlight poured softly and abundantly into the study, reflecting on Wang Zhongjun's tired face, his hands clenching a thick stack of court execution notices, his wrinkled brows full of endless helplessness and bitterness. Once upon a time, he was the famous film and television giant, but now he is burdened with billions of heavy debts and is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Wang Zhongjun's gaze stumbled over the window, and he caught a glimpse of the orderly street trees outside the window, and his heart suddenly recalled the glory of the past.
Back in 2009, Huayi Brothers successfully stepped on the stage of the capital market, and when its market value reached its peak, the total market value even soared to an astonishing 89.4 billion yuan, known as "China's first film and television entertainment stock". At that time, he was full of ambition and endless expectations for the future of the company.
However, now the demands of creditors are coming and going, and he can barely breathe. Wang Zhongjun slowly put down the document in his hand gently, and his face showed deep tiredness. As the leader of the company, he may have made some bad decisions, but his ambition and determination to strive for excellence are real and unwavering. It's just that the cruelty of reality is unbearable.
Wang Zhongjun straightened his waist and walked to the window with a firm step. He stared out the window at the green trees and suddenly saw that the treetops were already covered with autumn frost flowers.
Since he was a child, Wang Zhongjun has been burning with a burning fire in his heart, that is, he dreams of being admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts for in-depth research and shining in the palace of art. Since childhood, he has had a strong interest in the art of painting and extraordinary talent, and has repeatedly won excellent results in various art competitions.
However, fate seemed to play a huge joke on him, and he failed to get into his ideal school after all.
Fortunately, Heaven did not completely abandon the young man. In 1990, with full of enthusiasm and dreams, Wang Zhongjun bid farewell to his hometown and embarked on the road to study in the United States. During his four years in a foreign country, he made unimaginable hardships and hard work, and finally successfully obtained a degree in media in 1994.
With graduation imminent, Wang Zhongjun began to think about the direction of his life. As an overseas student, he finally saved up $100,000 in entrepreneurial capital through work-study and careful budgeting in a foreign country.
As the huge door of the motherland gradually opened to him, Wang Zhongjun resolutely chose to return to China and devoted himself to the torrent of China's economic prosperity in the 90s of the last century.
As soon as he arrived in the capital, Beijing, the young business magnate immediately contacted his younger brother and affectionately told him about his soaring entrepreneurial ambitions.
Although Wang Zhonglei still had doubts about this matter, when Wang Zhongjun gave him 5% of the company's shares with great generosity, he could only sigh at the wonderful change of fate and decided to take this step bravely.
So, with the support of their families, the two brothers worked together to build that blessed advertising agency - this is the glorious and eye-catching starting point of Huayi Brothers' entertainment empire.
In that era full of challenges and opportunities, China's economic development is on the road of exploration, and the future of private enterprises is still uncertain. However, with his extensive experience and discerning insight accumulated during his overseas studies, Wang Zhongjun successfully grasped this once-in-a-lifetime entrepreneurial opportunity.
He was surprised to find that the largest chain enterprise in China at that time, the bank, did not have a unified logo design, which was undoubtedly a huge business opportunity.
With the opportunity to design a unified logo for the bank, Huayi Advertising Company quickly accumulated its first valuable wealth. However, for this young man who grew up in the army compound, his eyes were by no means limited to this.
At the end of the 20th century, Wang Zhongjun was keenly aware of the huge potential of the domestic film and television market.
At that time, Chinese film and television works mainly relied on borrowing from Hong Kong and Taiwan dramas, and the development of the local market still needed to be deepened. Wang Zhongjun did not hesitate to act, he actively looked for partners and co-created the TV series "Psychological Clinic".
Although this work, which is positioned in the emotional healing department, failed to achieve the expected high ratings after it was broadcast, what is unexpected is that the return on investment of this TV series is as high as 100%! This exciting figure undoubtedly makes Wang Zhongjun's love for the film and television industry more unwavering.
In this way, Huayi Brothers began the journey of entering the film and television industry in an all-round way, and they firmly seized every opportunity to become the leader in this industry. In 1998, Wang Zhongjun teamed up with the famous directors Feng Xiaogang, Jiang Wen and Chen Kaige to shoot the movies "Endless", "The Devil is Coming" and "Jing Ke Assassinates the King of Qin".
However, the final result was beyond everyone's expectations, and only "Endless" with Feng Xiaogang received considerable box office revenue.
Faced with Feng Xiaogang's role as a "cash cow", Huayi Brothers made a decisive move and quickly signed a long-term and exclusive agreement with the heavyweight director, firmly consolidating him in their own brand camp. Feng Xiaogang has naturally become a sacred symbol in the hearts of Huayi Brothers employees, representing the company's most influential status as a gold medal director.
As expected, with the popularity of Feng Xiaogang's New Year series of films again and again, the future of Huayi Brothers has become extremely bright.
By 2000, Huayi Brothers had established a solid foundation in the field of film and television production, and then expanded to the surrounding fields in an all-round and in-depth manner. This time, Wang Zhongjun, one of the founders of Huayi Brothers, set his sights on Ms. Wang Jinghua, who was a popular showbiz elite at the time and was known as the "No. 1 Economist in the Mainland".
In order to attract this powerful figure to join, Huayi Brothers spared no expense and generously provided 50% of the shares to create a new brokerage company, which Wang Jinghua was solely responsible for operating and managing.
With the concerted efforts of both parties, Huayi Brothers has successfully signed many top stars such as Li Bingbing, Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei, Hu Jun, Chen Daoming, etc., which has further expanded and enriched the company's film and television territory.
Since then, Huayi Brothers' film and television industry has entered a stable and healthy development track, showing a vigorous and upward prosperity.
However, behind this prosperous world, a crisis has quietly grown. The loss of talent has undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to Wang Zhongjun.
Although Huayi Brothers has suffered such a serious brain drain, with the unremitting efforts of Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, the company's development path has not been stagnant. In order to retain the former "cash cow" Feng Xiaogang, Wang Zhongjun once again sincerely asked him to return, and even did not hesitate to use the company's profits in the next few years in return, and finally successfully persuaded Feng Xiaogang to join Huayi again.
With Feng Xiaogang's great help, the Chinese New Year movie once again achieved amazing box office results, bringing huge profits to the company. Driven by this shareholder wind, in 2009, Huayi Brothers finally got its wish and stepped onto the stage of the A-share capital market.
This is undoubtedly an important milestone in the company's development history, attracting the attention and favor of countless investors.
The injection of capital has injected new vitality into Huayi Brothers, enabling it to further expand its business territory. Just a year later, in 2010, they spent more than 3,000 yuan to acquire a 51% stake in Huayi Music, a subsidiary of Huayou Digital, which has a deep historical relationship, and the latter officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huayi Brothers.
After the music company was reunited under the Wang Zhongjun banner, they quickly moved on and won a series of impressive achievements!
They have successfully signed many top artists in the industry, such as powerful singers Shang Wenjie, He Jie, Chen Chusheng and popular idol Zhang Youhyuk, etc., and jointly created a series of wonderful music projects, including record production, concert planning, etc., which have brought fruitful economic benefits to the company.
Just when the diversified development of Huayi Brothers was booming and prosperous, a sudden turmoil broke this beautiful situation.
In 2013, Huayi Brothers and veteran comedy master Stephen Chow jointly created the movie "Journey to the West", which achieved an astonishing box office performance of 1.2 billion yuan. However, just when the two parties should have shared this joy, a dispute over the issue of splitting accounts caused a serious rift in their relationship, which eventually led to the two parties breaking up and even going to court.
This turmoil is not only a crisis of trust, but also a heavy blow to the integrity and professionalism of Huayi Brothers.
It is worth noting that the box office performance of "Journey to the West" is as high as 1.2 billion yuan, compared with a "supplementary agreement II" reached between Huayi Brothers and Stephen Chow in an email: If the box office exceeds 500 million yuan, Stephen Chow will receive a dividend of more than 80 million yuan, which is obviously insignificant.
According to the previous agreement, Stephen Chow should have received a considerable dividend income. However, when he happily took the "Supplementary Agreement II" to the Wang Zhonglei brothers to fulfill their promise, they were ruthlessly refused. Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei openly denied the content of the agreement previously confirmed by email, which made Stephen Chow, who has always been honest and trustworthy, feel extremely angry and disappointed.
Faced with such a predicament, Stephen Chow had to file a lawsuit to take the Wang brothers to court.
However, due to the lack of a formal written contract as evidence, he eventually lost the case, and his rights and interests could not be effectively protected. What's worse is that afterwards, Wang Zhonglei publicly derogated Stephen Chow's "understanding of the movie is really limited", which further intensified the contradiction between the two sides.
The scandal undoubtedly left a stain on Huayi Brothers' reputation that is still difficult to erase.
However, even more jaw-dropping scandals are coming!
In 2018, an outstanding host inadvertently revealed a shocking news in a popular TV program starring Chinese-Huayi Brothers and many of its well-known actors have been carrying out illegal activities such as tax evasion for many years, bringing immeasurable huge economic losses to the country!
As the relevant departments launched an in-depth investigation into the incident, the truth finally came to light.
It turned out that Huayi Brothers ignored national laws and continued to evade a large amount of taxes for several years for the purpose of profiteering, seriously violating national laws and regulations. This insider revelation has deepened the public's bad impression of Huayi Brothers, and the company's market value has suffered a heavy setback, falling sharply like a waterfall.
The exposure of the tax evasion scandal undoubtedly became the last straw that crushed Huayi Brothers. The creditor was like a hungry beast, holding the execution notice step by step, making the two brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei almost out of breath.
In the face of such a severe predicament, their only lifeline is to rely on the box office of the movie to turn the tide. However, the reality inexorably tells us that even if the company later released high-praise blockbusters such as "Fanghua" and "Di Renjie's Divine Dragon King", its box office revenue could barely make ends meet.
In 2021, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei were included in the list of "persons subject to execution" by the court.
At the stake between life and death, Wang Zhongjun resolutely decided to take a desperate gamble and turned his attention to the emerging mobile game industry. They have carefully orchestrated a comprehensive development strategy and have achieved a certain level of success in the field.
However, those insignificant gains can be said to be a drop in the bucket compared to the huge debts that Huayi Brothers has been mired in.
Looking back on the ups and downs of this once glorious film and television empire, it is not difficult to find that its decline was actually foreshadowed. The starting point of everything is precisely because of the account-sharing turmoil with Stephen Chow, and Huayi Brothers' betrayal and deviation from integrity have made the outside world have great doubts about its reputation.
The outbreak of the tax evasion scandal completely pushed it off the altar, and it is difficult to climb to the top again. There is no doubt that Huayi Brothers suffered such a fatal blow precisely because of their arrogance and greed.
It pursues only short-term and superficial profits, completely ignoring the importance of long-term sustainable development, lacks the most fundamental integrity and established ethical standards, and even goes so far as to violate the law to achieve its goals, and its decision-making members only focus on immediate gains and losses, but fail to have a clear understanding of their own mistakes.
Now, the two brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, who were once in the limelight, have shown a tired posture, and they have finally tasted the bitter fruits of the arrogance and arrogance of the past.
A tragedy like "Meng's mother's three migrations" was staged in their lives like this. The glory of Huayi Brothers may have become a passing thing in history.