He, too, had once been a newcomer. He'd just been lucky enough to be recognized by Boss Moran and had climbed his way up from the bottom to his current position—he'd earned it through sheer effort. When he first graduated, he was constantly rejected—this company didn't want him, that one found him lacking. So what if you had a degree? In this day and age, if it's not from a prestigious university, and you don't have connections or a background, landing a satisfactory job is anything but easy.
After hitting wall after wall, he finally encountered his lucky break. So when he saw how seriously his friend was treating the film project, only to face repeated rejections just because he was Asian, he finally decided to make the call.
Working in this industry, he knew all too well how Hollywood—and Western cinema in general—viewed Eastern films. Every time a Hollywood blockbuster swept the box office and crushed local films, it felt like his heart was bleeding.
His boss dominating the global box office with film after film was nothing short of awe-inspiring. That legendary run at the all-time box office record had made countless people idolize her. He couldn't help but dream—what if one day, filmmakers from his own country could achieve that same level of success?
He and his childhood friend had grown up as next-door neighbors; saying they were "two kids who grew up wearing the same pair of pants" wouldn't be an exaggeration. From a young age, he had known how passionate his friend was about film and how much he had sacrificed for it. When his friend finally started shooting his own movie, he had even chipped in more than half his savings as an investor.
To be fair, his friend was somewhat lucky—he'd caught the attention of someone who appreciated his talent and had managed to get the film submitted to an international film festival, where it garnered some attention. But because the film didn't feature any well-known actors and lacked sensational marketing hooks, even though some viewers praised it, the awards it received weren't enough to earn him recognition in the West.
When he tried to find a distributor in the U.S., he was ridiculed repeatedly. Many of them hadn't even watched the film. They turned him down simply because he was Asian.
Fu Chuan had learned the details of all this from other people. So with a "I don't care if I get fired" attitude, he dialed his boss's number.
What he didn't expect was how surprisingly approachable the boss was. She immediately agreed to watch his friend's film. He believed that with her eye for talent, she would look past the discrimination and recognize the film's true value.
If she agreed to acquire the distribution rights, who would still worry about the movie flopping?
Come on, let's be serious—under the Moran Group's film division, whether it was Phoenix or Dragon Soul, not a single flop had ever come out of those studios.
Anyone in the film industry knew just how sharp Laila Moran's instincts were.
Any film she backed was bound to become a dark horse hit!
After hanging up the phone, Laila went back to work. When she reached a good stopping point, she remembered the movie Fu Chuan had mentioned earlier. Opening her email, she saw an attachment waiting for her.
After spending a few minutes downloading the file, she put on her headphones and, adopting the mindset of an ordinary viewer, began watching.
The film told the story of a volunteer teaching program. After graduation, a young woman, eager to escape her family's arranged matchmaking, set off on a solo trip to another city. There, in a local inn, she saw a notice on the wall from an elementary school deep in the mountains urgently seeking volunteer teachers. That's how her journey into the mountains began.
There, she met fellow volunteers who each had their own motivations for being there, and she got a real taste of the bittersweet reality of being a teacher.
The film was packed with humor, emotion, sorrow, love, friendship, and even the heartwarming bonds between teachers and students.
After finishing the film, Laila thoughtfully took off her headphones and began reading the director's profile included in the email.
Fu Chuan had gone into extreme detail—short of listing how many baby teeth the director lost as a child, he'd covered nearly everything. Clearly, their relationship was very close.
As for the film itself, Laila believed it was a good one.
She picked up her phone and called Fu Chuan directly. "Why hasn't a film like this been released in the East?"
"Uh... it seems he offended someone and couldn't get a release permit," Fu Chuan admitted, blushing, feeling ashamed that such shady things still existed in his homeland.
But he couldn't lie either. His boss wasn't the kind of person you could fool. Instead of telling one lie and having to cover it up with more, it was better to be honest from the start. Besides, his boss was a total "Eastern culture buff"—she probably knew more about these behind-the-scenes games than he did!
As it turned out, that was exactly the case. In her previous life, Laila had seen far worse than this. Fu Chuan's explanation made her sigh in understanding. This was a film with a mainline, patriotic theme—the kind of film typically supported in the East. It didn't make sense for it to aim for the Western market instead of targeting the audience it was made for.
If the director had simply been too proud to care about the Eastern market and only wanted to break into the West, then no matter how good the film was, Laila believed that kind of mindset wouldn't take him far.
"I've seen the film," Laila said. "It's a very solid piece of work. The filming and editing are well done. It's got both laughs and tears—a rare and commendable film."
When Fu Chuan heard his boss praising the film like that, his eyes practically lit up like lightbulbs. "Then… Boss, are you willing to—"
"Unfortunately," Laila gave him the answer he didn't want to hear, "I can't distribute this film."
"Why not? Didn't you say it was a good movie?"
"It is," Laila replied, "but it has its limitations. If it were released in the East, it would be loved by many. But here in the West, this genre likely won't find much of an audience."
Even though she really liked the movie, Laila didn't want it to become a financial stain on her company's record.
It wasn't an issue of quality—it was about the cultural and historical gap between East and West. Some viewers might enjoy the film, but expecting it to recoup its costs in the Western market? That was highly unlikely.
And in Laila's company, unless a film made millions—sometimes even tens of millions—no one would dare call themselves a New Wave Initiative success story. Even low-budget films produced under the initiative always turned in strong profit margins. The revenue generated would then be reinvested into the program to support more up-and-coming filmmakers.
Sure, Laila could technically hand this film off to Phoenix Reborn for distribution. But she couldn't bend company rules just because she liked a movie. Let's not say foolish things like "rules are made to be broken." If she didn't uphold the rules herself, how could she expect others to?
Fu Chuan could hear the regret in his boss's voice—and he felt it too. His friend had poured his soul into this film. He'd begged countless people for help, sold his house, borrowed heavily—only to be denied even a screening opportunity due to some shady "offended the wrong person" nonsense.
It just wasn't fair.