Chapter 543: Witch

Chapter 543: Witch

Chapter 543: Witch

The story of Galaxy Film's version of "The Witch" is actually not complicated. It is one of the stories in the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe - Korean Branch] formed by the previous "The Man from Nowhere", "Taken 2" and "Vice City".

This movie follows up on the Easter eggs of the previous "The Man from Nowhere" and "Taken 2". Xiumei, played by Song Zue, was originally supposed to escape to China with her sister Zhao Hailun and "uncle" Cha Tae-seok.

However, due to an accident at sea, Xiumei was separated from her sister and fell into the sea. As a result, she drifted back to South Korea and became a homeless child who had lost a lot of memories. She lived a life of hiding and was even caught by gangs and almost sold abroad.

Fortunately, this gang was destroyed because of Brian's attack (see "Taken 2" for details), and Xiumei escaped and was taken care of by a kind-hearted cattle farm couple.

The couple lost both their son and daughter, so they raised the little girl, Soo-mi, as their own child and named her Gu Ja-yoon.

In this cattle farm, Xiumei finally lived a good life for a few years. Not only did she go to school, but she even made good friends at school.

However, the family that adopted Xiumei was not wealthy. The cows raised by her father had reduced production, the market was sluggish, and her mother suffered from severe Alzheimer's disease. Xiumei herself also had strange migraine symptoms because of the shipwreck. Not only was the pain unbearable during the attacks, but she also had severe tinnitus and was often awakened by nightmares.

In order to solve her family's financial problems, Su-mi, encouraged by her best friend Do Myung-hee (Kim Sae-ron), decides to participate in a talent show because of the generous prize money.

In the talent show, Xiumei fully demonstrated her outstanding singing ability, easily overwhelming other contestants. She also performed an amazing magic trick - making the microphone float, which won unanimous praise from the judges and the audience, and successfully advanced.

However, on the way to their next performance, Soo-mi and Do Myung-hee meet a mysterious and handsome man named A-gui (Choi Woo-sik) on the train.

Agui claimed that he knew Xiumei and her sister, which irritated Xiumei.

She had been having nightmares recently. She always dreamed of the silent deep sea and a female voice calling in her ear, but the voice was very small and she could never hear it clearly.

Now after hearing what Agui said, she immediately recalled the vague scene. That woman seemed to be her sister.

However, when she wanted to ask Agui about the situation, this man smiled mysteriously, turned around and disappeared in the crowd. Even though she walked from the front of the car to the back, she could not find this man again.

Afterwards, Xiumei and her bestie came to Seoul, where her talent show was a great success, which meant that she was about to become a big star and get a lot of bonuses. Even her sister might come to her because of her fame.

However, after the performance, Xiumei's migraine and nosebleed reappeared and became more severe.

She was sent to the emergency room, and the doctor said that she had leukemia caused by a genetic mutation and that she had to undergo a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible.

But Xiumei, who has lost her memory, has forgotten who her biological parents are. Now it seems that the only suitable donor may be her sister, about whom she has a vague impression.

But where should she find her sister now?

Just when Xiumei and her bestie were at a loss, something unexpected happened: a group of people who looked like gangsters found the two girls and wanted to kidnap them.

In the critical situation, looking at her good friend being held hostage, Xiumei suddenly attacked and quickly got rid of these thugs with fierce, decisive and powerful means.

This scene shocked Xiumei's best friend, and Agui, who appeared at the same time, finally confirmed that Xiumei was the person he was looking for.

Later, as Agui told her story, Xiumei learned more about her sister.

It turned out that her sister Zhao Hailun worked for the Korean branch of the Huihuang Biotechnology Group. On the surface, the company's main business was medical pharmaceuticals, but in fact it was secretly engaged in cruel and illegal human experiments.

They try to create super humans through genetic modification and repeated stimulation of the subjects' brains to stimulate their potential.

In the end, the experiment did achieve some results, and some of the transformed children also possessed some superpowers.

In this process, Xiumei's sister Zhao Hailun naturally played a certain role.

But later her sister chose to betray the company and fled to China (see "The Man from Nowhere"), the Brilliant Group was also investigated by the United Nations (see "Distortion Crisis"), and the helmsman Dr. Chen Ang was wanted worldwide (see "Ball Lightning"), so the branch in South Korea couldn't take care of her for a while.

However, as the branch and the parent company were separated and taken over by a local Korean consortium, its original research on human genes and superpower transformation naturally received the attention of the new helmsman and was restarted.

At this time, Dr. Bai and Mr. Cui, who were still in charge of the experimental project and had not been held accountable, thought of Zhao Hailun, because the nanomaterials in her hands were one of the necessary conditions for conducting genetic modification experiments.

With the influence of the new agency in South Korea, they easily found Zhao Hailun's whereabouts. However, they were really powerless to do anything about Zhao Hailun who was in China and was protected by special departments.

But during the investigation, they also discovered Xiumei. Not only did they find out the relationship between Xiumei and Zhao Hailun, they even learned that Zhao Hailun had used a special medicine that he had stolen from the laboratory on his dying sister.

Now it seems that the effect of this potion is very good, and it successfully allows Xiumei to awaken her superpowers.

So this time Agui came with the organization's mission to bring back Xiumei, the special test sample. While studying the changes that have taken place in her body, he can also use Xiumei's identity to force Zhao Hailun to leave China.

Later, faced with Agui's threat to the lives of her adoptive parents and best friend, Xiumei had no choice but to follow him back to the experimental base of the Korean branch of the Brilliant Group.

In this base, Dr. Bai and others first conducted various examinations and tests on Xiumei to determine that her superpowers had reached level A.

At the same time, they also performed surgery on Xiumei to ensure that she could be controlled, and then used special gene repair drugs to help relieve her illness and restore her memory.

However, what these people don't know is that Xiumei has never actually lost her memory. Her voluntary appearance this time is actually just a part of the plan. The purpose is to attract this genetic modification organization and thus obtain the ability to solve her own genetic disease.

The two sides thus started a chaotic battle in the experimental base. Xiumei, with a weird smile on her face, completely went into a rampage mode and easily dealt with Dr. Bai, Mr. Cui, Agui and other people who were in her way. Not only did she successfully get the antidote, but she also learned the whereabouts of her sister.

At the end of the movie, a tube of genetic medicine specifically used to treat Alzheimer's disease appeared in front of Xiumei's adoptive mother's bedside, and a slender figure disappeared into the night at the bow of a cargo ship in the harbor.

After that, there are two more easter eggs in "Witch". The first one is that a group of American soldiers arrived at the ruins of the destroyed research base.

They were searching the scene, packing up the bodies of Dr. Bai, Agui and others, as well as the computers, data and files inside the base.

The head of the Korean chaebol who owned the base could only kowtow and bow, not daring to express any dissatisfaction. As for the second easter egg, in the laboratory of the Special Affairs Department, Zhao Hailun learned about his sister from Shi Qiang and knew that she had appeared in the suburbs of Seoul.

Zhao Hailun was very happy about this and excitedly expressed his desire to find his sister.

Of course, Shi Qiang would not agree with her rash behavior, so he comforted her and told her that Cha Tae-seok (the male lead of "The Man from Lonely Planet") had received the news and was on his way to find Xiumei.

On the other hand, retired agent Cha Tae-seok who was already in South Korea did not forget his old job. He quickly caught up with Soo-mi and found out the number of the cargo ship she was on, and knew that it would dock in China's Magic City.

But before he could notify Zhao Hailun in China to go to Shanghai to pick up her sister, new news came.

Because of the super hurricane that occurred at sea, coupled with the joint military action of the United States, Japan and South Korea (see "Ball Lightning"), the cargo ship that Xiumei was on had to deviate from its route and was forced to dock at the port of Japan, and obviously could not go to China.

"So your mission is to go to Japan and bring Xiumei back.

In addition, we have a comrade who was forced to land in Japan because of this incident, and we need you to bring him back as well."

Che Tae-sik listened to Shi Qiang's instructions on the other end of the phone, looked at the large and small ships anchored in the harbor, and a helpless expression appeared on his cold face.

If we just look at the plot of the movie, the story of "The Witch" is actually not that rare. Even with the reversal at the end, it is not as good as masterpieces like "Wushuang", "Source Code" and "Inception".

But in terms of film style, this movie with many Korean elements has its own unique distinctiveness. The gloomy gray tones, dark suspense elements, and large-scale pictures are enough to make domestic audiences shine.

It's like when you're tired of the main meal, suddenly a bowl of spicy and sour cold dish is served, which really whets your appetite.

What’s so great about “Witch” is not only its artistic conception, but also its unique female perspective and action style.

You should know that in commercial films around the world, films with female characters as the main characters have always been rare, especially now when feminist rights have not yet reached their peak, most films still have men as the protagonists and women as supporting roles.

However, "The Witch" is a movie that absolutely focuses on a female lead, and its protagonist is Xiumei, played by Song Zue.

The audience watched her, an extremely cute girl, performing a violent performance on the big screen, and the contrast brought a strong sensory stimulation.

What's more, the action design of "Witch" is also very unique.

There are many movies about superpowers in the world, and Hollywood superhero blockbusters are even more popular, but there are not many that can perfectly combine superpowers and action design like "Witch".

Especially the second half of the movie, the battle that took place in the research base was extremely exciting.

The fierce fighting where every punch hits the flesh, every move is deadly and so swift that it is difficult to see with the naked eye, coupled with the special effects of using flesh and blood to shatter bricks, smash iron doors and block bullets, combined with fast editing, multi-angle shooting and smooth camera movement, really makes people's adrenaline surge.

The key is that Song Zue's acting skills are also strong. The switching between the two identities of "silly and sweet" and "dark-bellied witch" is extremely natural.

A girl who looks weak becomes a witch who kills people without blinking an eye. This contrast did not feel abrupt to the audience.

Even the few slaps she gave Agui in the playful way when she was beating him up in the base, and the line "I'm A-level because the highest level is A-level", give people a sense of release as if they were reading a cool novel.

Under such strong sensory stimulation, even though the release was not strong, the box office performance of "The Witch" was not low.

Although it only earned more than 9000 million on the first day of its release, the number became 1.1 million on the very next day, and then the box office increased slightly for several consecutive days.

At the same time, thanks to the movie "The Witch", Song Zu'e, a somewhat outdated child star, also gained a large number of fans.

Especially on the TikTok platform, Song Zue posted a short travel video in Tokyo as Xiumei, and took photos with Bai Jingting and Wang Baoqiang to warm up for "Detective Chinatown 3". Her number of fans increased by one million overnight.

Many fans have even promoted her to the top of the new generation of young actresses, competing with Zhang Zifeng, who is also a child star.

However, just when the box office of "The Witch" was rising steadily and the situation was looking good, a sudden piece of news cast a shadow on the future of this movie.

Because in mid-July, the Bald Eagle actually planned to deploy medium- and long-range missile defense radar systems in South Korea, and this decision immediately aroused dissatisfaction from all parties around it.

After all, this behavior is no different from the enemy placing a ward next to your own fountain when playing LOL. Who can tolerate this?

Therefore, the originally friendly relationship between China and HG suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse.

Needless to say, this kind of thing has an impact on the commercial trade between the two countries. However, another area that is extremely seriously affected is the cultural exchange and cooperation between the two countries.

As one of the small countries in the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea has been vigorously developing the cultural and entertainment industries over the past decade or so, and the so-called "Korean Wave" has swept across Asia.

Although with the rise of China's cultural industry and the cultural opening-up strategy proposed by Wang Hao, the influence of South Korea's cultural and entertainment products in the Asia-Pacific region has gradually declined, but because of China's great cultural opening-up and the access to such a large market, South Korea's entertainment companies and celebrity artists have also prospered.

But now that this incident has happened, the situation has changed 180 degrees.

Soon after this news hit the headlines of major newspapers and online news in China and South Korea, the market value of South Korean entertainment companies began to plummet. Share prices of SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and FNC Entertainment plummeted, frightening the top executives of those companies.

And that’s not all. Because of this incident, Korean stars’ commercial activities in China have dropped by 90%. Many concerts, fan meetings and other events originally scheduled to be held in China were unilaterally cancelled after the organizers with a keen sense of smell noticed something wrong.

At the same time, Korean stars are also losing a lot of advertising endorsements from Chinese brands, not to mention that their "audio, video and related services" products sold to China are facing a sluggish sales situation.

All of a sudden, the entire Korean entertainment industry began to panic. After tasting the sweetness of China's cultural openness, they were actually reluctant to leave and could not do without it.

Under such circumstances, "The Witch", a Sino-Korean co-production that is currently in theaters, has naturally been pushed to the forefront. Not only does it face the risk of being withdrawn from theaters, but it also shows signs of being boycotted by the general public.

(End of this chapter)