Part 2 of Chapter 81
Please Like Her 32 – Happy Birthday
February 16th.
With much anticipation, <Salvation Plan> officially premiered in the movie theater.
At 8:30 PM.
All the staff entered the theater in advance, while the creative team discreetly took seats in the back row.
Soon, the audience started trickling in.
The theater was large, and even the less ideal front rows were filled with people, indicating the high demand for tickets online.
As expected, most of the audience brought their families along, just as Yue Qi had initially thought.
Before long, the movie began to play.
It was a traditional commercial comedy film. While the editing and filming were not particularly impressive, Yue Qi always aimed to introduce innovations steadily. From the beginning, he laid down a recurring storyline, piquing the audience’s curiosity.
As various comedic elements unfolded, the theater echoed with laughter and joy.
Shang Lu’s character alternated between a gentle, beautiful young girl one moment and an expressive comedian the next, creating a striking contrast. Her delicate appearance paired with her sassy personality provided many comedic moments. While Shang Lu hadn’t found it particularly funny during filming, she now found herself laughing along with the audience.
Shen Xian complimented Shang Lu, “Your expressions are so exaggerated; it’s genuinely entertaining.”
Shang Lu blushed slightly and covered her face, saying, “I didn’t expect to look this ugly when filming.”
“Ugly? What are you talking about? You look so pretty and interesting,” said Yue Qi, who was sitting on the other side of Shang Lu. He continued, “Everyone is laughing; that’s the best feedback.”
“True,” Shang Lu responded with a serious expression, but then made a funny face at him the next moment.
Laughter filled the theater, with one burst of merriment following another. The audience was engrossed in the movie’s plot, and they didn’t notice the commotion in the back row.
Until the movie ended.
One audience member asked, “Why did it end so soon? I didn’t get enough of it.”
A friend who had come along advised, “Stay a little longer; there’s bound to be a post-credits scene.”
In the past, after a movie ended, many audience members would typically get up and leave. However, today was different; the theater’s lights hadn’t come on, and everyone was eagerly waiting for the post-credits scene, while discussing the amusing plot they had just witnessed.
And right at this moment, the front row lights lit up, and the staff wearing <Salvation Plan> crew down jackets stepped onto the stage, holding a microphone and said, “Hello, thank you all for coming to support our <Salvation Plan> even at this late hour. I am the assistant director, and you can call me Xiao Zhang. Next, let’s invite our creative team onto the stage, and you can freely discuss anything you’d like.”
Everyone naturally stood up and walked down in order.
The audience sitting in the audience let out gasps and then applause, with many of them taking out their phones to take pictures.
The microphone was naturally handed to Yue Qi, who briefly greeted the creative team and the audience in the audience seats, and then talked about his creative concept and introduced the movie.
Next was the interactive session.
Audience members raised their hands continuously, asking questions related to the movie’s plot, sharing their viewing experiences, or even expressing their admiration for their favorite actors.
Until one young man raised his phone and stood up, saying, “I don’t have any questions, but there are many professionals discussing this movie on the internet. Director Yue, would you be willing to accept the evaluation of industry experts?”
Yue Qi didn’t mind and said, “Go ahead.”
The young man read from his phone, “Renowned director and filmmaker, Teacher Song Zeqian…”
The audience burst into laughter once again.
As movie enthusiasts and fans of Yue Qi, most of them were aware of the conflict between Yue Qi and Song Zeqian.
Yue Qi rolled his eyes directly.
The young man couldn’t help but laugh halfway through.
Shang Lu gave him a thumbs up and said, “This student has a great sense of humor.”
Encouraged by Shang Lu, the young man continued reading Song Zeqian’s evaluation from his phone, “Teacher Song Zeqian believes that overall, the film is decent and qualifies as a commercial film. However, he doesn’t understand why a comedy film, which claims to be funny, made him laugh so little. He thinks it might be due to the director’s lack of humor.”
An audience member shouted, “Director Yue, I found it very funny! Don’t underestimate yourself!”
Yue Qi said directly, “Your reaction just now is the best evaluation. I’m actually looking forward to see if some filmmaker’s new works in the realism genre can make me cry.”
Everyone could tell that Yue Qi was referring to Song Zeqian’s upcoming film <Evil>. They eagerly joined in, joking and eagerly anticipating Yue Qi’s own movie reviews when it’s released.
Shang Lu stood up to smooth things over since she acted in both movies, saying, “Director Song really has a high threshold for laughter. We had a recording session earlier where we couldn’t laugh with water in our mouths, and I laughed thirteen times while Song Zeqian only laughed once.”
Duan Anguo also followed: “That’s right, it’s because Director Song’s threshold for laughter is too high, but our Director Yue has a heart of stone and his threshold for tears is also very high. Let’s wait and see!”
Yue Qi : “…?”
Yue Qi looked at Duan Anguo: “You don’t seem to be praising me, do you?”
Laughter erupted again on the scene.
The whole atmosphere of interaction with the audience was in a very relaxed and pleasant state.
Until 11:50, Yue Qi looked at the audience and said, “Just now, our box office has already exceeded 400 million on the first day, thanks to everyone’s support. I also hope that everyone can give us their honest feedback on the internet after going back. If there are no more questions, we’ll end it here today. Goodbye, everyone!”
There were no more questions from the audience below, but they wanted the autographs of the leading actors.
Everyone else was signing, and Shang Lu had already prepared a pile of signed photos, which were directly distributed on the spot.
A little girl smiled with her eyes curved: “Lulu, you’re really amazing. You prepared all this in advance.”
Shang Lu shook hands with her, feeling a little guilty suddenly.
Actually, it wasn’t for the fans, she just wanted to leave as soon as possible after it was over.
Shang Lu glanced at the time again, it was 11:55.
Shang Lu looked up and expressed to the staff that she wanted to leave, and the staff immediately understood, “Teacher Shang, please come this way.”
Shang Lu stood up and bowed to the audience who still wanted to talk to her, then walked out with the guidance of the staff.
It seems the author has forgotten that Shang Lu played a psychopath in [Salvation Plan], her classmates were death by various mean in each time loops, and she’s always the first student who died. 😐😐😐
Well, there’s a zombie movie and drama with comedy genres. But, as far as I know, it’s still NOT family friendly (especially not kids friendly). Considering the amount of death depiction in [Salvation Plan] and how “innocent” SL’s character was when talking about it, I can’t imagine how it’s become family friendly comedy while also convinced the audiences that the students death of Duan’s character and time loops weren’t his hallucination/dream/imagination.
It confused me too. It was described as a comedy all the way through but then there’s the people dying etc. Who watches that as a family film?