The plane slowly stopped at Narita Airport in Japan, the largest international airport in Japan and now Asia's largest, located in Narita City, Chiba Prefecture, UR kilometers away from downtown Tokyo. ??Although it was once occupied by the United States after World War II and faced the danger of national annihilation. However, in order to establish Japan as a bridgehead in Asia to contain the Soviet Union and the Red Wave after the war, the United States gradually lifted its castrating suppression of Japan in the early 1950s and replaced it with limited support. After the war, Japan was able to quickly realize its dream of rising again by relying on the countless wealth plundered from various Asian countries during World War II and the industrial foundation left during the Meiji Restoration. By the early 1980s, Japan was already the second largest economy in the world. Its economic aggregate was once more than half of that of the United States, and it had successfully achieved its dream of becoming a world-class industrial power that it had not been able to achieve before World War II. However, compared to Japan¡¯s current huge economy, which is so huge that even its father, the United States, is afraid of it, Japanese films have never been able to keep up with the pace of the country¡¯s economic rise. In fact, when it comes to Japanese films, looking back at its experience in the past century, there have been glories and brilliance, but more of them are experiences and lessons. Relying on the Meiji Restoration of the last century, Japan quickly became prosperous and powerful, becoming an Asian power and the number one in East Asia. As a powerful country, Japan's education, industry, and economic development brought it to Asia immediately after the birth of film, becoming one of the first Asian countries to be exposed to film. Before the start of World War II, the development of Japanese films took many detours. Like Charlie Chaplin, the famous comedian who was almost abandoned by American films because of his stubbornness, silent films dominated the Japanese market for a long time before the 1930s. Later, the introduction of the Russian Revolution influenced some Japanese filmmakers to a certain extent, and a large number of films with clear class and critical tendencies were born, such as "Proletarian News Briefing", "Children", and "Odagawa" , "May Day", "Noda Workers' Wave", etc. As a result, the Japanese government and chaebol regard domestic films as weak and cancerous, and have always implemented a policy of "limited support and mainly suppression." With the advent of World War II, this tendency reached its peak after Japan rapidly militarized and began to invade other Asian countries. So much so that during the war, the Japanese government had to set up relevant agencies and order domestic secret service agencies to cooperate. It prohibited the filming of films with critical social tendencies and encouraged the production of so-called "national policy films." Some Japanese filmmakers who do not want to join the trend are committed to putting pure literary works on the screen to express their conscience and escape strict censorship in the name of masterpieces. After Japan surrendered, although the film law enacted by the former military government was abolished, the strict censorship system still existed, but the US military occupation authorities replaced the government's censorship. Japan's conscientious filmmakers, who were personally educated by the war and occupation, put forward demands for democratization of film in order to defend the nation's democratic rights. However, due to the intervention of the militant faction of the Japanese Communist Party secretly supported by the mainland, until the 1980s, the mainland had always been The Red Movement exported the absolute main force of the revolution to Asia (even though many countries in Africa and South America were affected by communism), which intensified the conflict and eventually led to the intervention of the US occupation forces, which only achieved certain results. In the mid-to-late 1950s, with the re-emergence of Japan's economy, Japanese films were also deeply affected by it. There was a wave of "going abroad and independent production," and it once became the representative of Asian films in the eyes of Europeans and Americans. During this period, a series of "big directors" with considerable influence around the world were born, including Akira Kurosawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, and Kaneto Shindo. However, due to the excessive pursuit of art and human anatomy, Japanese films have since embarked on a wrong path of emphasizing literature and art over commerce. Entering the 1970s, with the birth of the post-war generation of Japanese, the new generation of Japanese who have not experienced the war and post-war pain are completely unable to understand the thoughts and profound meanings expressed by the older generation of filmmakers in their works. In addition, Japanese light electronics The development of industry has led to the rapid spread of television sets and has become a must-have item for Japanese families. The loss of audiences and competition from the small screen caused Japanese films to decline rapidly after passing through the last glorious twilight of the 1970s. It is worth mentioning that, like Hong Kong films before their decline in history, Japanese films also appeared during this period. A large number of crudely produced follow-up films, and many well-known Japanese filmmakers also invested in the production of pornographic films, which once made the once glorious Japanese films a must-have method for attracting customers in small video halls in Asia and even Europe and the United States. After the 1990s, despite relying on the powerful economy of the second most powerful capitalist country, Japan¡¯s movie box office can contribute more than one billion US dollars in total box office every year. In the past year of 1991, Japan's total box office revenue was as high as 15UU. billion (equivalent to approximately US$158.9 billion). However, Japan¡¯s box office revenue is calculated separately by overseas and domestic films. Domestic films are about 5.7 billion, with a market share of 38. Compared with overseas films, which generated about NT$90 billion in box office revenue, Hong Kong films accounted for about 18.84% of the total box office. Last year alone, the Japanese market contributed NT$400 million (approximately US$18.4 billion) to Hong Kong films. The box office is surprisingly nearly 20% higher than the total box office in Hong Kong. This shows the importance of the Japanese market to Hong Kong films. In my memory, Hong Kong films accounted for half of Japan¡¯s box office before 1993. In 1945, after successfully wiping out the stubborn resistance of local European films, Hollywood blockbusters turned their guns and attacked Asia. The influence of Hong Kong films in Japan quickly dropped to only one-third or a quarter of its previous level. In 1997, as "Princess Mononoke" launched a counterattack by Japanese local films, the Japanese government soon introduced a film protection law. It was also in this year that Hong Kong films were completely sunk by the onslaught of American blockbusters. After 1999, the Japanese horror movies that followed the rise of "The Ring" in turn invaded Hong Kong and successfully staged a good show called Turn. Regrettably, although live-action films such as "The Ring" only brought short-term glory to Japanese films, Japanese filmmakers have successfully relied on animated films to become a beautiful landscape in the world of film. In contrast, Hong Kong films have completely declined since the arrival of the new century, and as the talented older generation of filmmakers have aged, they have no chance of rising again. A sad piece of modern history. The four-hour flight is neither short nor long. Lin Xiaozhi and the others boarded the plane at Cathay Pacific Airways at 9:30 in the morning. The group had a fairly delicious lunch on the plane. When they arrived in Japan, it was already past noon. As soon as he got off the plane and walked into the lobby to search for a while, one of his entourage spotted several employees of Media Asia's Japan branch who were waiting there holding up traditional Chinese signs. The first person was none other than Zheng Fei, who has now been promoted to Vice President of Media Asia. His former assistant Deng Yuanlong was also an old man who had been with him since the Xinya period. Because he has been following Zheng Fei back and forth between Japan and South Korea in the past few years, after Media Asia considered setting up a Japanese branch last year, he relied on the fairly good Japanese he had learned by himself in the past two or three years to become Media Asia Japan. The person in charge of the branch. "Here, please, the car is ready." Several years of training have made Deng Yuanlong, a young young man in the past, quite impressive now. Lin Xiaozhi is no stranger to him, and helped stuff all the luggage into their Toyota to pick them up. After getting into the business car, I got into the same car with him and asked with a smile: "How is the publicity in Japan? Can you keep up?" "Japan wants to spend a lot of money on advertising the movie on TV stations. And we still need to get the approval slip from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Association). Fortunately, Kadokawa helped us with the activities, so we have already received the approval slip. However, considering the publicity funds, we can only do it at this TV station. The advertisement will be placed for about a week. In addition, we have purchased advertising space in several Japanese newspapers and movie magazines with large circulation, and the theater has also agreed to put our promotional posters in the most conspicuous positions. If we want to add banner promotions and get the best current period and show, we need to give up the pre-distribution box office revenue. ""These greedy little devils"" Lin Xiaozhi frowned and cursed. Japan's box office statistics were relatively confusing before the new century. The total box office received by each movie screened in Japan is the so-called pre-distribution box office, while the share that actually falls into the hands of the film producer is called post-distribution revenue. After distribution, the revenue from theaters, distributors and taxes is taken out, leaving less than 30% of the total box office revenue for the film producers. After several years of reputation management in Japan, Media Asia has gained slightly more than other Hong Kong companies, but it is far behind the five major American film giants. Therefore, the box office revenue before distribution is not just a profit of one or two points. If "League of Assassins" becomes a hit in Japan with a box office of 3 billion yuan, it will be equivalent to a loss of 3 billion yuan in net box office income after distribution. It can be regarded as a relatively ruthless one in Japan. "We must establish a theater chain of our own in Japan as soon as possible." He waved his hands and said coldly, but there was not much anger in his words. The Japanese are originally very united and xenophobic. As outsiders, most Hong Kong film companies have encountered difficulties from Japanese theater chains in Japan. In Hong Kong, only Golden Harvest, a film company that has been working hard in the Japanese market since the 1970s and relied on Bruce Lee, Cheng Long and other martial arts superstars to build a group of die-hard movie fans in Japan, can make Japanese theaters give some face. Lin Xiaozhi also admitted this. Media Asia, which has only begun to enter the Japanese market in recent years, has achieved outstanding results, but this time it is extremely difficult to ask Japanese distributors to cooperate with them in adjusting the release time. If they want something better, The number of games and publicity is tantamount to completely subduing the little devils who have a strict sense of hierarchy and respect their seniors and qualifications most, unless they can continue to deliver better results for a few more years. Otherwise, there is only one solution, and that is to intervene in Japanese theaters. And this time he will go to Japan in person, one of the reasons is for this. Now a good thing has happened to him. Kadokawa Shoten, one of Japan's largest publishing groups, has been experiencing instability in its top management since the middle of last year, with frequent controversial personnel appointments and dismissals. He is about to witness a wonderful drama of internal strife. staged. Kadokawa Shoten was founded by a Japanese scholar in 1945A publishing company founded by Yuanyoshi Kawakawa with his surname, it initially focused on publishing Japanese literary works as its main business. Before his death, it had developed into a well-known large-scale publishing company in Japan. In the 1970s, Kadokawa Genoyoshi and his eldest son Kadokawa Haruki entered the company as president and promoted the Henggawa Official History series to the general public, creating the company's peak period. However, in the late 1970s, Haruki Kadokawa set up Kadokawa Pictures to get involved in film production despite the opinions of the company's senior management, which caused a stir in the market in the first few years. But unfortunately, when he chose to enter the film industry, he caught up with the last dusk before the decline of Japanese films. The subsequent decline of the Japanese film industry soon caused him to suffer a lot. As a result, the film production industry that Kadokawa Haruki, who was somewhat of a literary and proud man, not only failed to bring the performance improvement he promised to the group, but also suffered losses almost every year since the 1980s. In the past two years, although I have earned a lot of dividends by hooking up with Media Asia and acting on behalf of several of Media Asia's popular movies to be released in Japan, not a penny from them has been put into the group's pocket. Instead, it has been invested in The bottomless pit-like Kadokawa movie was in vain. Looking back at Haruki Kadokawa¡¯s younger brother, Rikihiko Kadokawa, as the vice president of Kadokawa Shoten, the magazine departments such as I and Tokyo Ik, which he is responsible for, have seen their revenue increase year by year in recent years. For a time, the glory completely overshadowed his brother Haruki Kadokawa. In addition, Kadokawa Haruki has a bad temper and never allows others to question his decisions, which makes some senior officials of Kadokawa Group who have followed him in starting a business since his father's time very dissatisfied. According to information obtained by Lin Xiaozhi, at the beginning of last year, some shareholders and senior executives of Kadokawa Shoten planned to take advantage of the boom in the Japanese stock market in the past two years to make a fortune from the group's listing, and forced it to sell Kadokawa Pictures, which had been operating at a loss. However, this plan was categorically rejected by Haruki Kadokawa, who did not want to be restrained, and then began to clean up those group executives who dared to challenge him, thus completely intensifying the internal conflicts of Kadokawa Bookstore. In history, many high-level executives of Kadokawa were purged by Haruki Kadokawa in the past two years, allowing Haruki Kadokawa to temporarily win the power struggle. But perhaps due to the butterfly effect brought about by Hayashi Takatomo's rebirth, his younger brother Kadokawa Rihihiko, who originally did not participate in the internal strife of the Kadokawa Group, but later chose to peacefully resign with some of his subordinates and left Kadokawa Shoten due to dissatisfaction with his brother Kadokawa Haruki's domineering and stubbornness, is now Not only did he join the power struggle within Kadokawa Bookstore, but he also became the leader of the team that forced his brother Kadokawa Haruki to have a hand in the palace. Things were very beautiful all of a sudden. Seeing that his position as vice president was in jeopardy, his confidants continued to Being kicked out, he is in danger of being driven away by his brother Kadokawa Haruki at any time. It seems that Kadokawa Yukihiko has decided to take a risk. While he is constantly collecting evidence that Kadokawa Haruki has used his position to embezzle the group's assets in the past ten years, he has not forgotten to choose a suitable successor for Kadokawa Pictures, which he had long wanted to sell off. , the buyer may be the one who helped him get the position of president of Kadokawa Shoten. Unfortunately for Media Asia Group, the boss Hayashi Hoshioji is both ambitious and has sufficient funds and strength. Therefore, before Kadokawa Rihihiko was sent to Hong Kong by his brother to sign a contract with Media Asia to buy out the novels of several well-known movies such as "Resident Evil" When I got the copyright, I took the opportunity to hook up with him. One of them wanted to buy Kadokawa Pictures and gain a foothold in Japan through its theater chain. The other wanted to sell this money-losing product to get the money to help him drive away his brother Haruki Kadokawa and get Kadokawa Bookstore. The two parties hit it off and had a tacit understanding. Some verbal agreements were reached.