Zhao Youri was just about to speak when Zhang Kailin stood up over on the other side, ready to step in and wrap things up.
Before either of them could move, *bam!*
Zhang Tiancheng lunged forward like an arrow, reached out with his left hand to grab Zhou Quan by the collar, and dragged him backward in a fast stride.
In the blink of an eye, they reached the wall at the back. With a loud *thud*, Zhang Tiancheng slammed Zhou Quan hard against the wall.
Then, with a deafening crash, his right fist smashed into the wall right beside Zhou Quan's cheek.
The impact left a distinct fist imprint gouged into the wall, and flying debris peppered Zhou Quan's face.
Yet at that moment, Zhou Quan didn't feel a hint of pain—he was scared out of his wits.
"Get the hell out of here! If I hear you flapping your gums on my set again, I won't mind playing the brute for once."
With that, Zhang Tiancheng released Zhou Quan and walked toward the director's chair.
Everyone stared at the fist imprint on the wall, then looked back at Zhang Tiancheng, their hearts filled with terror.
"Tiancheng, who taught you those moves? How come I never heard your aunt mention it?"
Zhang Kailin walked over, looking so astonished that he even forgot he was supposed to address Zhang Tiancheng as Director Zhang on the set.
Hearing Zhang Kailin put it that way, Zhang Tiancheng no longer needed to hide his relationship with him in front of the crew.
"Uncle-in-law, I learned martial arts after I went to Beijing for school."
*Uncle-in-law?* Everyone was utterly shocked. With a connection like that, he'd kept it hidden the whole time.
Zhou Quan and the camera crew panicked. Offending a Mainland newcomer was one thing, but offending Zhang Kailin meant they were completely screwed.
They were all employees of Edko Films. Offending Zhang Kailin meant getting the boot.
Being with a company versus being a freelancer were two entirely different worlds. Without a company, you had no connections, fewer crews would hire you, and you couldn't make money. With a company, productions were lined up for you. Even if the company didn't assign you to a shoot, you still received a monthly base salary to put food on the table.
Right now, the Hong Kong film industry was in a slump, and many practitioners relied entirely on the company's base salary just to eat. As for freelancers, they couldn't find work at all.
If they were fired by the company, they'd have to switch professions or risk starving to death.
"Mr. Zhang, I..."
Zhou Quan wanted to beg for mercy, but before he could finish, Zhang Kailin cut him off.
"I don't want to hear it. Take your camera crew and get back first. How we handle this later is an internal company matter. If you say one more word, I'll call logistics right now."
The implication behind Zhang Kailin's words was crystal clear: if you take your people and leave now, the company will deal with you according to standard rules and regulations; but if he called the logistics department himself, he would handle it personally, and every last one of them would be kicked out of the company for good.
Zhou Quan didn't dare say another word. Handling it according to company regulations meant that causing trouble on an assigned set would only result in having their base salary suspended for three months. Three months—if they toughed it out and picked up some odd jobs, they could still scrape by.
But if they got fired, they wouldn't even know what to do with themselves. They couldn't possibly survive on odd jobs forever.
With his tail between his legs, Zhou Quan led the camera crew away. Zhang Kailin told everyone to take a half-hour break, then pulled out his cell phone and called Edko Films to request a replacement camera crew.
The new camera crew arrived swiftly, showing up in less than half an hour.
Zhang Tiancheng's fighting display had cowed everyone present. Even though the newly arrived crew members hadn't witnessed his skills firsthand, they saw Zhou Quan's crew slinking away in disgrace.
As veterans of the Hong Kong film industry working for the same company, they didn't need to guess to know that Zhou Quan's attempt to stir up trouble had blown up in his face.
Since Zhou Quan had failed so miserably, none of them had the guts to try anything. The consequences of rebellion were far too severe.
With no one left to cause trouble, the rest of the shooting went smoothly.
There were no night shoots scheduled for today. At a little past six in the afternoon, once the day's shooting plan was completed, the crew headed back to the nearby hotel to rest.
To make filming more convenient, Zhang Tiancheng and Zhang Kailin had also moved into the crew's hotel.
After dinner, Zhang Tiancheng went back to his room to shower. Emerging fresh from the bathroom, he picked up his cell phone to chat with Zeng Li on the phone while reviewing the shooting schedule for the following day.
"Pear, let me tell you—Hong Kong has entered the humid season. The air is dripping with wetness, and if you hang your underwear outside, it will literally never dry."
"Pfft!"
Zeng Li's silvery, chiming laughter rang out through the phone.
"Sounds like you're going to run out of underwear to wear."
"I'll just buy more. I bought twenty pairs all at once so I can change every day."
"Haha!"
Zeng Li's unrestrained, carefree laughter echoed through the receiver.
*Knock, knock.*
A rap sounded at the bedroom door.
Zhang Tiancheng glanced toward the door just as Zhang Kailin's voice drifted in from the hallway.
"Tiancheng, open up. I want to talk to you about something."
"Pear, I've got something going on here, I'm going to hang up first," Zhang Tiancheng said in a low voice into the phone.
"Okay, go ahead."
After ending the call, Zhang Tiancheng got up and opened the door.
"Uncle-in-law, what's up?"
"Come in and we'll talk."
Once inside the room, Zhang Kailin closed the door behind him and took a seat on the sofa.
"Tiancheng, do you know why I didn't step in right away during the daytime?"
"I know. You wanted me to handle it myself so I could establish my authority on the set."
Zhang Tiancheng wasn't an idiot; how could he fail to understand something like that?
Zhang Kailin nodded with a look of gratification.
"Tiancheng, to be a good director, besides knowing how to make movies, you also have to know how to manage the people under you. If your methods aren't tough enough, the people below you will undermine you and reduce you to a figurehead. This applies no matter where the crew members are from—Mainland crew members are no exception.
"Furthermore, a good director needs his own core team. The cinematographer is particularly crucial within that team; you must find a cinematographer in the future who is on the same wavelength as you.
"A cinematographer who can collaborate seamlessly with you will make directing so much easier.
"Directors like Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, and Wong Kar-wai here in Hong Kong, or Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang in the Mainland—every major director has their own core team. Cinematographers, art directors, and the like have worked with them for years. All it takes is a single word about what is required, and they immediately understand."
...
...
...
Zhang Kailin talked at length, covering practically everything a director should and shouldn't do, as well as the various issues Zhang Tiancheng might encounter in the future.
Zhang Tiancheng benefited immensely from the conversation.
The teachers in the Directing Department at the Central Academy of Drama wouldn't teach you these things; they only taught you how to direct films. The knowledge Zhang Kailin was imparting would help him avoid countless mistakes and spare him from a lot of detours.
...
With no one in the crew making waves, filming proceeded smoothly.
The actors' performances were all up to par, and Zhang Tiancheng was even less of a problem. As the male lead of this picture, his character didn't require much emotional fluctuation anyway, making it a breeze for him to play.
Most of the dramatic scenes were wrapped up in eight days, and next came the action sequences.
The first action scene was set in a bar restroom.
Once everything was prepared, Luk Kin-ching raised his megaphone and shouted, "Action!"
As the clapperboard snapped shut, Zhang Tiancheng strode into the restroom from the doorway.
An extra with makeup bruises on his face hurried out of a toilet stall and rushed over to Zhang Tiancheng's side.
"Boss, Boss..."
Zhang Tiancheng stopped in his tracks and expressionlessly pulled a thick stack of cash from his jacket.
The extra snatched the money and bolted toward the restroom exit.
Next, Zhang Tiancheng walked toward a triad lackey played by a stuntman standing on the opposite side.
This scene was prepared with multiple camera angles. In the left-side profile shot, the triad lackey backed away in panic.
In the close-up shot as the camera pushed in, the stuntman pulled a switchblade out of his pocket.
Meanwhile, the right-side profile shot also zoomed in, focusing on what was, in the context of the film, a wooden toothpick casually snatched from a fruit platter on a bar table in the main hall.
As Zhang Tiancheng closed in step by step, the stuntman retreated all the way against the back wall.
"Damn it!"
Following the script, the stuntman cursed in fright and lunged forward with the dagger to stab Zhang Tiancheng.
Zhang Tiancheng calmly dodged the strike, then flashed forward to jab the wooden toothpick into the stuntman's arm with lightning speed.
The prop toothpick had a tail end that instantly went limp upon impact, pressing flat against the stuntman's arm. Though the tail crumpled, the rigid middle section still instantly ruptured the blood pack hidden beneath the stuntman's sleeve, sending fake blood spurting out.
Zhang Tiancheng immediately pulled back the wooden toothpick, its tip stained red with fake blood.
This prop toothpick had been meticulously crafted by the props department; the tail end looked just like a normal wooden toothpick, but it was actually very soft and possessed great elasticity, allowing it to spring straight again in an instant.
"Ah!" the stuntman screamed in agony.
Zhang Tiancheng struck again, driving the blood-stained tip of the toothpick toward the stuntman's chest.
The blood pack beneath the clothing on his chest burst open. The next second, Dick Wei, who had been waiting by the restroom entrance, stepped inside at the wave of a crew member's hand.
"Cut! Props department, check it!" Luk Kin-ching yelled through his megaphone.
The props team immediately inspected the door of every stall. Once the check was complete, Luk Kin-ching shouted into the megaphone, "All departments, get ready!"
"Action!"
The clapperboard clapped, and Zhang Tiancheng instantly slipped back into character. Hearing the gunshot echo from behind, he released the stuntman and dove headfirst into a nearby toilet stall.
"Cut! Props, reset the props." Luk Kin-ching roared through the megaphone.
Action scenes were a breeze for Zhang Tiancheng. Movements that seemed immensely difficult in Zhao Youri's eyes were effortless for him to execute.
Yet the action sequences were driving him up the wall.
Action scenes were a huge hassle: after filming at most ten seconds of action, they had to cut, reset the props, and inspect them.
That stop-and-go rhythm filled him with irritation.
Still, he knew that action sequences were simply made that way—unless you ran into the kind of opponents who could coordinate flawlessly and were willing to shoot with real, full-contact blows regardless of injuries, action scenes would always be a matter of constant, disjointed stops and starts.
Enduring the frustration brought by those fragmented beats, Zhang Tiancheng managed to complete his daily shooting schedule day after day.
As time marched on, June 20th arrived, bringing them to the penultimate scene.