Ma Yuhui's Personal Life

Write and direct 30 episodes of new dramas.

Ma Yuhui will write and direct a 30-episode TV series about the feud between China and New Zealand, costing more than S $2.2 million, which is similar to the wireless giant Genesis. It has been confirmed that China will contribute half, and Singaporean investors are still negotiating. Ma Yuhui said that the new drama will follow the sensational and ambitious route of the Hong Kong drama Genesis. This kind of drama is the weakest link in China at present, so there is market demand. The list of actors from both countries participating in the performance has not yet been determined, but he hopes that there will also be actors from outside the new media to participate in the performance. He hopes that the success of this drama will enable him to set up a TV production company in China for long-term development.

However, before he starts to shoot his own works, he will go to Shanghai at the end of the month to shoot 30 episodes of Gao Zhisen's new drama "Grand Theatre", and will cooperate with VanNess Wu and He for the first time.

Abandoning the filming of Chinese Soul+10 in June 5438, when he was filming Chinese Soul in China, Guan Wenjun, the executive producer of the play, kept urging him to hurry up and save money, and the promised budget could not be raised, completely ignoring the quality and cherishing the reputation of the work, so he had a disagreement with Guan Wenjun. One afternoon two months after the start of construction, Guan Wenjun broke into the hotel room with four big men with weapons, scratching their heads and hitting the wall, which made him stay in the hospital for a week.

After leaving the hospital, Ma Yuhui made three demands before agreeing to continue to finish the play in Inner Mongolia. However, only two weeks later, he hurried back to China to see a doctor because he was unwell and decided to give up filming the play.

He said that the production unit only met one of his three requirements, that is, providing bodyguards, which made him very disappointed and felt that he could no longer cooperate.

This is the first time I have encountered such a thing in China for many years.

Has the filming environment in China been infiltrated by evil forces to such a bad degree? Ma Yuhui said, in fact, this is a single example, he was there for so many years, the first time encountered such a thing. Chinese Soul will be broadcast on CCTV 1 The story tells that at the beginning of the founding of New China in 1950s, overseas students broke through many obstacles and returned to China to develop atomic bombs, missiles and artificial satellites. It is a major theme work. He thinks that he is rarely invited to film as a foreign director, so he must be careful. Unexpectedly, an unexpected episode will happen.

Singapore TV series missed the opportunity to enter China twice. In 1980s and 1990s, Singaporean TV dramas entered China and were welcomed by the audience. However, with the rise of TV dramas in taiwanese drama and South Korea and the mature TV dramas in Hong Kong, will the China market still accept Singaporean TV dramas? Can the Singapore flavor of Ma Yuhui's new drama stand the market test?

He said that Singapore drama was really popular in the early years, and people over 30 were deeply impressed. For people on the journey, as long as the title of the play is mentioned, nine out of ten will remember it and hum the theme song. People still remember the names of actors such as Li Nanxing, Chen Liping, Xiang Yun and Wenyong Huang, so people still have expectations for Singapore Opera.

In recent years, Ma Yuhui has often paid attention to the performances of local dramas in China. He said with regret that he had not seen the local opera broadcast by China TV, nor had he heard about it. The main reason is that the new media used to focus on family ethics dramas, and the Singaporean color was too strong to arouse the interest of China audiences.

He said that judging from the development history of local dramas, there were two opportunities to go out of Singapore in the past. First, from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, dramas such as Palette, Man on the Journey, Kunlun Slave, and The Road to Kingston set off a craze in China. First, in the 1990s, when President Li Fuyao was in power, he saw the limitations of the Singaporean market and once began to shoot costume dramas such as The Condor Heroes and the legendary swordsman to explore foreign markets. Ma Yuhui believes that if the TV stations at that time could seize the opportunity of the drama's popularity, boldly explore channels and introduce local writers to co-produce new dramas in China, the Singaporean drama would have a good chance to gain a foothold in China, and it would not be like this today.

A foothold in China requires popularity and personality.

Ma Yuhui was born in Hongkong, a Singaporean citizen, represented by the Tony Leung Chiu Wai version of Duke of Lushan. He was one of the first directors who immigrated from Hongkong in the early 1980s. He rose from director to producer and production manager, and was responsible for co-producing plays with domestic production units and TV stations, especially the Fan Wenfang and Li Mingshun versions of The Condor Heroes.

200 1 Due to the personnel struggle caused by the change of TV station, Ma Yuhui plans to shoot Jimmy Lin and Li Mingshun's version of Lu Xiaofeng under the condition of lack of resources. During the filming, it was reported that the budget was overspent and could not be completed, so someone else took over. Because the company's promise was not fulfilled, Ma Yuhui met many obstacles in his work and finally chose to leave.

He left his wife and two children at home and went to Hongkong and Chinese mainland to develop himself. He has successively filmed ATV's tragic and inspirational drama "Walk with Me" (starring Huang Lei), ATV's comedy "The History of Flower Field Xi" (starring Tan Yaowen), China's costume drama "Jiangshan Beauty" (Liu Xiaoqing returned from prison) and CCTV's drama "Golden Finger" (starring Lv Liangwei). Three years ago, "Gold" was arranged by CCTV, which had the largest audience, to premiere in the prime time of National Day, and the response was very good, so it stayed in Beijing.

At that time, he noticed that the costume martial arts drama was badly filmed in China, expecting the heat to subside, so he switched from his best costume martial arts drama to fashion drama.

The two works he is satisfied with have special significance. One is "Straight into the Golden Triangle", which was filmed in conjunction with the United Nations World Anti-Drug Day and went deep into the Yunnan border. The other is The Romance of Meizhou Island, which is based on the stories of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. It not only specially took a team to shoot Mazu in the birthplace of southern Fujian, but also traveled across the ocean to shoot in Taiwan Province Province. This is also the first TV series filmed by Chinese mainland with actors from Taiwan Province.

Regarding whether he can gain a foothold in China, he said with satisfaction that Hong Kong-born directors have always been considered good at shooting martial arts dramas, but he changed his style, tried other dramas, and achieved good results with a great sense of accomplishment.

Comparing the different filming environments in Singapore and China, he said that China people emphasize relationships, and the prerequisite for a foothold in China is good popularity and personality. "People helped you once and found that your character is not good, so they won't help you again." The income is more than twice that of being a producer in Singapore.

Ma Yuhui said that China needs a good director, and a capable director just needs to shoot the tricks well. "Not only the boss listens to you, but also the people below listen to you." But it's different in Singapore. He pointed out that there was group competition between the new media and the drama troupe at that time, and it was not enough to rely solely on the support of the boss. In terms of work coordination, personnel problems in various departments are more complicated, which often hinders filming.

He pointed out that the new media adopts the production center system, that is to say, in a play, the producer has the greatest power, while China adopts the director center system, and the crew always decides the director before shooting a new play. As a director of China, he has great satisfaction.

"In the new media, a 30-episode drama may be completed by 10 directors, resulting in inconsistent styles. In China, no matter how many episodes a director completes, the work is harder, but the satisfaction is greater. "

Asked how much he earned in China in recent years, he implicitly said that a well-known director like himself earned more than 20,000 yuan (about 4,000 Singapore dollars) in one episode and directed a 30-episode drama of 6,543,800+2,000 Singapore dollars. He shoots about two plays a year and earns 240 thousand yuan, which means he earns 20 thousand yuan a month.