sinovels Location of Chapter 97, "The Seven Deadly Sins"
Location of Chapter 97, "The Seven Deadly Sins"
Chapter 96, "The Seven Deadly Sins," Location Selection
Before the buzz surrounding the Magnolia Awards had even died down, Director Mo called Luo Jinnian's cell phone.
"I've finished the budget for 'Seven Deadly Sins,' when are you coming to Beijing to take a look?"
Director Mo's voice carried an barely suppressed excitement. He had been preparing for this film for three months. From the day Luo Jinnian handed him the script for "Seven Deadly Sins," he had plunged into it like a miner in San Francisco who had discovered a gold mine and refused to come out.
Luo Jinnian flew to Beijing early Saturday morning.
Director Mo was waiting for him in the office of Early Spring Culture. The conference table was covered with things: topographic maps, scene concept drawings, storyboard sketches, and a laptop with a densely packed budget sheet on the screen. Director Mo was wearing a wrinkled plaid shirt, and his hair was much longer than when they last met. He took off his sunglasses and was rubbing his sore eyes, with obvious dark circles from staying up all night.
Luo Jinnian pulled out a chair and sat down, her gaze sweeping over the documents on the table. Director Mo didn't exchange pleasantries; he simply turned his laptop around and pushed it in front of Luo Jinnian.
The total budget is 80 million.
Director Mo pointed to the numbers on the screen and explained one by one, "Da Tou is in art direction and post-production color grading. Seventy percent of the film takes place on rainy nights, so we need a perpetually damp, dark city where the sun never shines. This isn't something that can be solved by shooting in a studio; we have to find a real location."
In the previous life, the city where "Seven" was set seemed to be perpetually raining, with an ever-present gray-yellow sky and perpetually wet streets. That kind of texture cannot be replicated through post-production color grading; it requires using cinematic language and art design to imbue the scene with that atmosphere during filming.
Director Mo continued, pointing to a concept art piece on the table. "We visited an old industrial area in Cleveland. The architecture there was really interesting—abandoned warehouses, old apartment buildings, rusty iron bridges—everything perfectly matched the city in 'Seven'."
He showed Luo Jinnian photos on his phone, "Look, all the windows of this building are broken, and the walls are covered in graffiti, but the building itself has a beautiful structure. With a little aging, it could be the murderer's primary crime scene."
Luo Jinnian looked at it for a few seconds and asked, "How much higher is the cost of filming in Cleveland compared to in China?"
"It's much higher." Director Mo didn't hide it from him. "In the past, the team needed visas, local co-production support, equipment that had to be transported from China or rented locally, and the actors' schedules had to be re-coordinated. But if we wanted to recreate the feel of the original work, we couldn't find suitable locations in China. I went to Chongqing, Qingdao, Dalian, and Wuhan, but none of them had that feeling. The rain in Chongqing is misty, the rain in Qingdao is salty, and the rain in Dalian is too clean. More importantly, 'Seven' itself is a story about a foreigner."
"Then Cleveland."
""
Turning to the budget page, Director Mo spread out storyboard sketches all over the table.
The narrative pace of *Seven* is completely different from the previous two installments. *The Hidden Corner* is like a slow-cooked soup, *The Long Season* is like a prose poem, while *Seven* is a hammer that strikes from the very first minute, relentlessly focused on the theme without giving the audience a moment's respite. Within the first five minutes, the murderer has already killed someone, and as the police begin their investigation, the time lock is already set, set to retire in seven days. The murderer must complete the seven deadly sins within those seven days.
"This timeline is crucial." Director Mo drew a line on the storyboard with his finger. "The cases in the first five days need to be fast-paced, swift and decisive, with no more than ten minutes of screen time dedicated to the investigation of each murder. The sixth day's 'jealousy' and the seventh day's 'anger' need to slow down. The closer we get to the truth, the slower we need to go. We even gave the audience a false intermediate goal in the middle—a brilliant pacing design."
He flipped through a few more pages and pushed them over. "The scenes between Somerset and Mills are the core of the whole film, and that's where I spent the most time. Somerset is an old cop who has seen through everything and has lost hope in the world. Mills is a young man who hasn't been educated by the world yet, and he still firmly believes that he can change something."
""
"I plan to cast Wang Jingchun as Somerset." Director Mo wasn't surprised when Luo Jinnian mentioned the name. Wang Jingchun played the veteran policeman Chen Guansheng in "The Hidden Corner," and that calm and experienced temperament is similar to Somerset, but Somerset is colder, lonelier, and closer to death than Chen Guansheng.
"The actor for Mills," Director Mo paused for a moment, "my first choice is Zhu Yilong."
Luo Jinnian thought for a moment, and Zhu Yilong's face appeared in her mind—that face could perfectly portray both gentleness and gloomy violence. The character of Mills required a transformation from gentleness to violence, a process of being gradually driven to the point of losing control, not being insane from the start.
This kind of transformation is something that Zhu Yilong is a rare talent among male actors of the new era.
"John Doe, this role is the most difficult to play." Director Mo turned to the last page of the script. "The entire film revolves around him. He's only on screen for less than twenty minutes, but he's the core of the whole movie. You can't portray him as a complete madman; you have to portray him as someone who firmly believes he's chosen by God. Every look in his eyes has to have a certain... how should I put it—a kind of divinity."
,,.
Luo Jinnian recalled Kevin Spacey from his past life. That actor later had an accident, but his performance in *Seven* was undeniable. His screen time was short, his lines few, but every scene sent chills down his spine. He portrayed a certain conviction—"I don't feel I'm doing evil, I'm acting on behalf of God"—that was the truly terrifying aspect of John Doe's character.
"We'll have to take our time to find the right person," Luo Jinnian said.
Director Mo nodded, circled the page, and wrote "To be determined".
"What's the highest budget you can get?" Director Mo flipped through the budget sheet; the total on the last page was seventy-eight million.
Luo Jinnian glanced at the number and said something that made Director Mo sit up straight in his chair: "Anything under 100 million doesn't need my approval. Anything over 100 million, come talk to me."
Director Mo looked at him, the corners of his mouth slowly curving up, and then he extended his hand, "Then I won't be polite."
""
The two hands are clasped together.
On the plane from Beijing back to Zhanjiang, Luo Jinnian mentally reviewed the budget and storyboard plan prepared by Director Mo. The budget was 28 million for art direction and set design, 30 million for filming and production, 15 million for post-production, 10 million for actor salaries, and 20 million for marketing and distribution, totaling 93 million. Director Mo ultimately didn't quote 100 million, managing to reduce the cost of the Cleveland co-production and bringing in more equipment from China. This man is prudent; he knows when to push forward and when to back down.
Outside the window are clouds, below the clouds is the sea, and beyond the sea is Langya City.
Luo Jinnian felt homesick as soon as he left home. He was essentially a homebody who disliked going out. He closed his eyes and began to work on the script for "Seven" in his mind. It wasn't the movie script from his previous life; it was a new version he designed and revised for Director Mo. This version tightened the opening timeline, made the scenes between Somerset and Mills more tense yet full of new life, and made some adjustments to John Doe's final scene to make it more in line with Chinese language habits.
A literal translation would be "I killed them because they were guilty," which is too blunt and doesn't sound like something said to oneself. It should be "This world is not worth saving," but it can't be too despairing, because this person didn't kill out of despair; he killed because he felt the world could be saved, but his method of saving it was completely wrong and inhumane.
Luo Jinnian silently recited the line in his mind, adjusted the position of a word, opened his eyes, and wrote the line down in pencil on the back of the airplane's vomit bag.