Chapter 135: From "I'm Not Filming" to "I Will Film!"

It must be said that, facing such a beautiful woman, Wu Xiang's previous remark was thoroughly ungracious and utterly blunt—blunt to the point of leaving her stranded with no graceful way down. At that time, Gao Yuanyuan already enjoyed no small measure of popularity, which only made the humiliation sting all the more.

"To put it bluntly, it was very affected and entirely fake. I saw acting, but that performance did not stem from your inner self; you were merely altering your facial expressions according to my instructions. In reality, aside from the movement of the corners of your mouth, your eyelids, and your eyebrows, I could discern no difference whatsoever between those performances of yours and your current state," Wu Xiang pressed on mercilessly.

"How could you possibly tell?" Unable to help herself, Gao Yuanyuan's voice pitched higher.

In truth, before coming here, Gao Yuanyuan had received this news from her manager and hadn't taken it as anything particularly significant. After all, although this director Wu Xiang possessed a certain reputation within the domestic industry, she, Gao Yuanyuan, had starred in internationally acclaimed award-winning films. Her acting skills had received international validation, and she had even earned a nomination at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Consequently, Gao Yuanyuan possessed genuine self-confidence; she had assumed this would be nothing more than a routine formality. Yet now, the situation had turned entirely on its head.

"Why wouldn't I be able to tell?" Wu Xiang countered with a question of his own.

"Because, because..." Gao Yuanyuan stammered, unable to voice her actual thoughts. She could hardly blurt out, *My acting has been internationally validated, so what the hell are you?*

Saying something like that would be far too vulgar, entirely unbefitting of Gao Yuanyuan's style, even if that was precisely what she wished to say in her heart.

"Just because you recently starred in an internationally award-winning film? While I am merely a domestic director, is that it?" Wu Xiang helped her articulate what she wanted to say but dared not utter aloud.

"You, you..." Gao Yuanyuan desperately wanted to ask how he could possibly know. Did he possess telepathy?

In reality, Wu Xiang had perceived it long ago. This great beauty before him frequently spoke insincerely, and right now that tendency was glaringly obvious.

Setting everything else aside, although Wu Xiang had not been a model student at the Film Academy, the sheer volume of performances and acting styles he had witnessed was more than abundant. Even ignoring all that, given Wu Xiang's status as a transmigrator who had spent time in the television industry, he understood these things intimately.

Gao Yuanyuan—despite her immense fame, striking beauty, and exorbitant acting fees—had never once been recognized for her individual acting prowess. She possessed not a single personal acting accolade. No matter how professional the jury, she simply never won.

If one or two judges or awards were rigged, could virtually every award both domestically and internationally be rigged?

Take *Beijing Bicycle*, the film she had just shot which happened to be banned domestically: its victory had nothing whatsoever to do with her acting; it had won the Jury Grand Prix.

In other words, throughout the vast majority of her acting career, Gao Yuanyuan had essentially functioned as a vase—an exceptionally striking vase!

"I'm done shooting!" Gao Yuanyuan flicked her sleeve, turning on her heel to leave.

"Do you want to remain a mere vase for the rest of your life?!" With a single sentence, Wu Xiang struck straight at the core of her soul.

Gao Yuanyuan froze. Having just turned away, she stood there motionless. After a moment, she suddenly whipped around and blurted out, "What right do you have to call me a vase?! My previous film was selected for the Berlin International Film Festival!"

Having finally said it, Gao Yuanyuan felt a profound sense of relief in her heart.

"Hehe, the Berlin International Film Festival—a Silver Bear, was it? Those two male leads were new geniuses, weren't they? And you were nominated as well, right?" At this moment, Wu Xiang laughed genuinely because he discovered that Gao Yuanyuan was actually much more agreeable now; at the very least, she was no longer so affected and fake.

Yet those two male leads were the ones who won the awards, not you, Gao Yuanyuan.

"What are you laughing at?!" Sure enough, seeing Wu Xiang laugh provoked Gao Yuanyuan's fury. What on earth was this director in front of her putting on airs for? What international awards did he possess himself? He hadn't even won any domestic accolades—what qualification did he have to critique this film?

"Of course I have to laugh. That film *Beijing Bicycle*, right? Didn't you feel there were serious problems with it?"

"What problems?" Having completely abandoned her restraint, Gao Yuanyuan found herself squabbling openly with Wu Xiang.

"Very well, let me mention a specific detail. When this film was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, didn't members of the audience burst out laughing? I recall media reports stating that the film was highly favored—and indeed, it later won the Silver Bear. But do you know why the audience laughed?" Wu Xiang remained entirely calm; he was simply reasoning with her now.

"Why did they laugh? Wasn't it because the movie was funny and had comedic moments?" Gao Yuanyuan considered the question utterly idiotic.

"The first part of what you said is correct: the film is amusing. But as for comedic moments—I failed to see any." Wu Xiang's statement seemed logically flawed, yet pregnant with hidden meaning.

"Are you kidding me?" Gao Yuanyuan found it inconceivable.

Gao Yuanyuan looked at Wu Xiang with absolute seriousness, showing no trace of joking as he said, "You can go and watch the film yourself. If you can actually laugh out loud, then consider my words utter nonsense!"

"You—if you can't laugh, who are you blaming?" In truth, Gao Yuanyuan had already watched the film. For reasons unknown, she could not manage a genuine laugh in her heart, though she certainly smiled on the surface.

Forget it, Wu Xiang decided to stop beating around the bush. Facing a woman so incapable of speaking her true mind, he had no other recourse. "As a countryman myself, when I watch a film like that, I simply cannot laugh. But I happen to know why the German audience laughed. Would you care to hear it?"

"Speak!" Deep down, Gao Yuanyuan now suspected that the Director Wu before her was quite possibly unhinged, but her curiosity compelled her to know why, as she had been puzzled by that exact question at the time.

"This film has a major flaw—a flaw that cannot be ignored. The entire narrative of *Beijing Bicycle* revolves around that bicycle. Yet, there is something wrong with that bicycle. Quite simply, the bicycle was issued to one of the protagonists by a courier company, but it is fundamentally not a good bike. To be precise, the bike appearing in the film is not a mountain bike at all; it's an urban hybrid commuter bike. We can tell because of several distinct features: it comes equipped with metal mudguards and lacks a front suspension fork, both of which indicate it is merely an ordinary commuter bike. Yet within the film, those youths into biking, those cycling experts—every single person who lays eyes on this bicycle proclaims it to be a magnificent bike. Isn't that a glaring flaw?"

Wu Xiang recounted this fluently. Prior to his transmigration, he hadn't possessed any particular expertise regarding mountain bikes either, but after transmigrating, he had genuinely learned a great deal from Brother Kun. Since he rode bicycles regularly in his daily life, he had naturally acquired some eye for the subject. Moreover, specifically for today's audition, Wu Xiang had rewatched the film—via a pirated copy, of course. Yet upon watching it and connecting it with previous reports, Wu Xiang had quickly understood: the German audience at the time was laughing at their ignorance of bicycles.

"How is that even a flaw? It's just a prop! You're simply arguing for the sake of arguing!" Having heard Wu Xiang's explanation, Gao Yuanyuan found it utterly incomprehensible. What massive bearing could the quality of a bicycle possibly have on a movie?

"It doesn't matter whether you admit it or not, the Germans could spot it, and their laughter stemmed precisely from this glaring flaw."

"You're talking nonsense!"

"Listen to me finish. Germany is a country with a highly developed cycling culture; they have countless cyclists, and very professional ones at that. Do you think they wouldn't be able to distinguish what constitutes a good bicycle? A decent hybrid commuter bike costs at most around a thousand yuan, and that's for a brand new one, whereas an entry-level mountain bike starts at over 3,000 yuan. Their laughter was directed right at that point: passing off a battered ordinary bike as a magnificent machine. It's an outright challenge to their intelligence, understand?" Wu Xiang laid out the facts in an orderly fashion.

Wu Xiang's point was simple: laughter is not always of the same kind. They were laughing *at* you in derision!

"I—I don't believe it!" Gao Yuanyuan simply refused to admit defeat.

"Let's analyze it logically: what kind of decent bicycle would a courier company issue to its couriers? Furthermore, as a student surrounded by a group of cycling enthusiasts, wouldn't he know what a good bicycle looks like? Could a courier company afford to equip every single courier with a stunt-capable bike? Since the male protagonist loved bicycles so much, how could he possibly resort to stealing money from home and buying a subpar bike off the black market? How could someone who understands bikes—someone who would spend 80 yuan on a single pair of brake pads—fail to realize that this bicycle was nothing special at all? And how could all the cycling enthusiasts fail to see that this was merely an ordinary bike? Isn't that a severe flaw in the plot? Where is the logic?"

Wu Xiang was addressing the fundamental plot holes of the script. *Beijing Bicycle* could essentially be summarized as 'a bloody tragedy caused by a bicycle'!

If the bicycle had merely been a generic prop, its quality wouldn't have mattered in the least. But the problem was that in this film, the bicycle served as a supremely critical prop; the entire plot hinged upon it. Therefore, the details concerning this bicycle could not simply be ignored. For an ordinary bike to be hailed by everyone as a 'magnificent machine'—wasn't that jarringly discordant?

And how could someone who understood bikes spend a high price in the black market on such an ordinary bicycle? Had that been the case, the bloodshed would never have transpired. For a film that won a Silver Bear at Berlin to possess such monumental logical flaws—what on earth was wrong with this world?!

Gao Yuanyuan was finally dumbfounded. All the reviews she had previously heard regarding this film were glowing, filled with a sense of regret over why such a film had been banned. Yet today, upon hearing Wu Xiang's line of reasoning, she found herself completely devoid of any counterargument, because Wu Xiang was entirely correct—the plot was indeed structured that way.

"Then why did this film win the Silver Bear?!" This constituted Gao Yuanyuan's final weapon. If Wu Xiang dismantled this question as well, her defeat would be absolute.

"Do you want to hear the real answer?" Wu Xiang countered.

"Speak!" No matter what it was, Gao Yuanyuan wanted to hear it now.

"The year is 2001, and Beijing is bidding for the Olympics!"

That was Wu Xiang's answer. To the ear, it seemed to bear no relation whatsoever to the film winning a Silver Bear.

Yet Gao Yuanyuan understood instantly, though she found it impossible to believe. "You—you are talking utter nonsense!"

Judging by Gao Yuanyuan's tone, an answer seemingly so unrelated to the film filled her with profound insecurity. Could this possibly be the genuine answer?

"Am I talking nonsense? The English title of this film is *Beijing Bicycle*, explicitly telling you the location. Yet what kind of Beijing is depicted in this film? Over 80% of the runtime is shot in hutongs slated for demolition, filled with so much loess and dust that it felt as though they had returned to the Loess Plateau. Is the cinematography of this film aesthetically pleasing? Let's set aside the matter of the bicycle and focus purely on the movie itself: from the very beginning all the way to the final brawl where they fight over the bicycle, chaos reigns supreme. But let me ask you: where were the police? Not a single police officer appears throughout the entire film. Yet for a city hosting the Olympic Games, urban security and public order are crucial evaluation criteria! Surely you cannot be entirely unaware of these facts?"

Wu Xiang's battery of questions left Gao Yuanyuan completely shell-shocked. She had never imagined that she might have inadvertently served as a political instrument while simultaneously casting a shadow over her own hometown.

This was the classic case of being sold into servitude while helping the enslaver count the money—except that with a film festival award, there was only prestige and no monetary prize, meaning she hadn't even technically been sold for cash.

Gao Yuanyuan could no longer utter a single word; her entire worldview had been utterly upended.

"If you wish to make a proper film, give me a call, and I can still teach you how to act. If—"

"I'll do it!" Gao Yuanyuan gave her response instantly, rendering any phone call entirely unnecessary.