mesbooks Chapter 320 A confidante tests the waters, and the premiere is a great success.
Chapter 320 A confidante tests the waters, and the premiere is a great success.
Chapter 320 A confidante tests the waters, and the premiere is a great success.
In Kitahara Shin's secluded and luxurious private estate in Chiyoda Ward, fruitwood crackles peacefully in the fireplace. The room is warm and cozy, filled with the subtle aroma of black tea.
However, in the spacious area with its large leather sofas, there was a subtle sense of tension.
Nanako Matsushima, Rie Miyazawa, and Takako Matsu—three top actresses whose mere presence in Japan could shake the entertainment industry—were currently seated around a mahogany coffee table. On the table in front of them were several English gossip tabloids that had been shipped from North America.
The front page of the newspaper featured a slightly blurry, candid photograph taken in the distance. The background was the eerie Blackwood Island in the Atlantic Ocean, and the main subjects of the picture were Kitahara Shin and Eva Green, a young European girl with a cool and aloof demeanor who was impossible to ignore, dressed in a Gothic dress.
The bolded English headline is particularly eye-catching: "A New Face at Kitahara Productions? A Mysterious European Aristocratic Heiress Joins 'Shutter Island'—Is it a Clash of Art or a Transnational Romance?"
"Not only was she given the opportunity to appear on screen, but I heard this noble lady has already packed her bags and is preparing to fly to Los Angeles to officially sign with the North American branch of the Kitahara Group." Rie Miyazawa picked up her exquisite bone china teacup, took a sip of black tea, and a hint of subtle sourness flashed in her charming eyes. Her slender fingers tapped lightly on the table. "She's only been filming for a few months, and she's already brought back such a beautiful French girl. It seems the sea breeze in North America is indeed very alluring."
Nanako Matsushima wore a beige turtleneck cashmere sweater today, looking gentle and intellectual. She glanced at the photo in the newspaper, her eyes slightly lowered, a gentle smile still playing on her lips, but her tone held a subtle, intriguing softness: "Rie, you can't say that. The president has always valued talent, and since Miss Green was chosen, she must have exceptional acting skills. However—European and American girls do tend to be more straightforward and passionate, I wonder if the president will find it bothersome on set."
Compared to her two older sisters who were frantically teetering on the edge of uncertainty, the youngest, Takako Matsu, seemed somewhat at a loss.
She's just here to deliver a document. In terms of their relationship, although she and Kitahara Shin shared a passionate kiss when filming wrapped on "All About Lily Chou-Chou," their relationship remained purely innocent and naive, never crossing the line into deeper physical intimacy.
So, faced with this chaotic scene of a "real confidante interrogating her about gossip," Matsu Takako was completely at a loss for words. Her face flushed, she glanced at the charismatic Eva Green in the newspaper and couldn't help but feel a pang of inferiority. She possessed neither Rie's arrogant charm in managing men nor Nanako's shrewdness in strategic retreat; she could only stand there like a frightened quail, silently holding her teacup, too afraid to utter a word.
Just then, steady footsteps came from the entrance hall.
Kitahara Shin, dressed in a dark gray custom-made suit and still carrying the chill of the outside air, stepped into the living room.
Seeing the three women gathered together, and the conspicuous North American tabloid on the table, Kitahara Shin raised an eyebrow slightly, a knowing smile flashing in his eyes. He knew these women's minds all too well; in this world of fame and fortune, no woman would be without a sense of territory when facing such an outstanding partner.
"What are you chatting about? It's so lively." Kitahara Shin took off his suit jacket, casually handed it to the maid who came to greet him, and walked calmly to the sofa, sitting down between Nanako and Rie.
"We were talking about the new muse you discovered in North America, President." Nanako launched the first attack. She naturally leaned down and poured Kitahara Shin a cup of hot tea. She knew Kitahara Shin had always been drawn to her gentle, sensible, and unassuming nature, so she looked up at him with an exceptionally innocent and somewhat adoring gaze. "This Miss Green is so beautiful; you can't find that kind of elegance in Japan. President, she must be a very good actress, right?"
Nanako's tactic of feigning retreat was quite clever. On the surface, she was praising someone, but in reality, she was testing whether Kitahara Shin was attracted to the girl because of her "beauty" or her "talent".
Rie Miyazawa scoffed softly, crossing her arms and tilting her chin slightly, displaying her signature tsundere attitude: "Some people are really busy as bees. Even while filming a suspense movie, they manage to snag a noblewoman from Europe. If they go to Hollywood again, we probably won't have enough rooms in this manor!"
Faced with this covert attack, Kitahara Shin did not act guilty or rush to explain like an ordinary man.
He picked up his teacup, took a sip, then put it down, stretched out his long arm, and naturally pulled Nanako and Rie into his arms at the same time.
"That newspaper article was made up by a tabloid in Los Angeles to grab attention." Kitahara Shin's tone was calm and confident, exuding an aura of absolute control. "Eva is indeed a very talented actress; she has a natural dark gothic quality. I signed her because Kitahara's branch in Hollywood needed a Western weapon that could crack the European and American markets."
At this point, he lowered his head slightly, his deep gaze fixed on the two women in his arms, his voice becoming low and magnetic: "Hollywood is just a business arena for making money and expanding territory. No matter how the scenery outside changes, what I love most is still the comforting feeling of home."
He didn't make any long oaths; he simply stated the facts, which dissolved the bitterness in the hearts of these two intelligent women.
Upon hearing this, Rie, though still muttering to herself, instinctively went limp in his arms. Nanako, her eyes also full of smiles, leaned gently against his shoulder.
Across from her, Matsu Takako watched Kitahara Shin defuse the crisis with unwavering admiration. Kitahara Shin noticed the somewhat neglected girl and beckoned to her: "Takako, why are you sitting so far away? Come here."
Matsu Takako blushed and obediently walked over, where Kitahara Shin pulled her to sit beside him.
"All About Lily Chou-Chou was a great success, and your acting has already shown great promise. The company has a big production next year, are you ready to take the lead?" Kitahara Shin's topic about work cleverly defused Matsu Takako's embarrassment and also made her feel her importance in Kitahara Shin's eyes.
In this silent test, Kitahara Shin remained unmoved, using absolute confidence and just the right amount of gentleness to smooth out all the undercurrents.
1
That evening, after comforting the three women with their own thoughts, Kitahara Shin went to a more private and quiet duplex villa on the other side of the manor.
This is a private space belonging to Akina Nakamori and Izumi Sakai.
Compared to younger female stars who still need to test the waters to gain a sense of security, these two legendary divas, already at the pinnacle of the Asian music scene, have long since transcended the stage of uncertainty and anxiety in their relationship with Kitahara Shin. They are truly women who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Kitahara Shin in both spirit and career.
Outside the French windows, snowflakes drifted down silently.
In the spacious home theater, the main lights were off, only a few dim floor lamps casting a warm glow. Kitahara Shin, dressed in loose loungewear, sat on a soft carpet, the coffee table in front of him covered with various intricate stage design drawings and technological concept sketches.
Izumi Sakai, wearing a white turtleneck sweater and carrying two glasses of red wine, sat down next to Shin Kitahara. Akina Nakamori, wearing a silk nightgown, hugged Shin Kitahara's neck from behind like a lazy kitten, resting her chin on his shoulder.
"What is this? It looks like something out of a science fiction movie." Akina asked curiously, looking at the complex optical refraction patterns on the blueprints.
Kitahara Shin took the red wine from Izumi and pointed to the blueprints with a smile: "This is a new technology I plan to introduce for your joint Asian tour in 1999—holographic projection."
"Holographic projection?" Quanshui was slightly taken aback. As a musician who was demanding in terms of stage effects, she immediately grasped the weight of this word.
"Yes." Kitahara Shin's eyes gleamed with confidence. When he was in Silicon Valley discussing the digital ecosystem with Steve Jobs, he not only secured the exclusive distribution rights for Apple in Asia, but also secretly acquired several startups that were developing glasses-free 3D and optical projection technologies.
"With the arrival of the new millennium, traditional concert formats have become less effective at creating a truly impactful experience for audiences," Shin Kitahara patiently explained to them, outlining his vision for the future. "I want to use this technology to create incredible visual spectacles on stage. For example, when Akina is singing, a virtual Gothic castle can instantly rise up behind her; when Izumi is singing rock, the stage can transform into a sea of stars suspended in space. We want to make every concert a groundbreaking visual and auditory feast."
As Kitahara Shin described the blueprint, Izumi and Akina's eyes shone with an incredibly bright light.
They are true artists; only the thrill of constantly pushing the limits in their careers and always staying at the forefront of the times can make their souls tremble. Only with Kitahara Shin do they feel that they are not just singers, but are making history.
"If it really comes true, it will absolutely revolutionize the entire music industry." Izumi looked at Kitahara Shin's profile, her eyes filled with undisguised love. She didn't need to ask about any North American rumors, because she knew that this man had poured his most core and amazing efforts into them without reservation.
Akina turned her head and gave Kitahara Shin a hard kiss on the cheek.
At this point, Akina's mindset had undergone a complete transformation. If it were the old Akina, she might have been anxious about her age and eager to have a child with Kitahara Shin to solidify their relationship.
However, lately, Akina has been shocked to discover something every time she looks in the mirror.
Nourished by the high-quality ingredients subtly provided by Kitahara Shin (actually the hidden vitality emanating from system items), and nurtured by the stress-free and blissful life she had been living during this period, her condition was simply unbelievable! Her skin was firm and radiant, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes had completely disappeared, and her overall appearance was even more vibrant and energetic than when she first debuted at the age of 2000.
A few days ago, she attended a music awards ceremony. Her contemporaries, and even those a few years younger than her, all showed obvious signs of fatigue and the marks of time. But she, standing on the stage, seemed like a miracle of reverse aging.
This return to normalcy allowed Akina to completely let go of all her age-related anxieties.
She discovered she still had plenty of time and boundless energy to shine on stage. Since she wouldn't grow old, and Kitahara Shinya was constantly leading them to even greater heights, why bind each other with the mundane practice of having children?
"Shin-kun." Akina hugged Kitahara Shin's neck tightly, her voice filled with an unprecedented relaxation and coquettishness, "This technology sounds expensive, are you planning to spend all the dollars you earned in Hollywood on us?"
"What's this little investment compared to my two aces dominating Asia?" Kitahara Shin put down the blueprints, turned around, and hugged Akina.
With a smile, Izumi leaned against Kitahara Shin's other side and raised the wine glass in her hand.
The three of them gently clinked glasses under the warm light.
The rich aroma of red wine lingered on his lips and teeth. Kitahara Shin savored this rare moment of tenderness as he discussed the concert details with them.
It was a perfect night, a blend of grand ambitions and tender moments with a soulmate. For Kitahara Shin, this was the life a true leader should lead—unburdened by petty emotional entanglements, but instead, guiding the outstanding people around him towards a brighter future.
North America, Los Angeles, Hollywood's grand theater.
Tonight, the Hollywood Walk of Fame is tightly cordoned off by a red warning line stretching hundreds of meters. Countless spotlights illuminate the night sky as if it were daytime.
The grand global premiere of "Shutter Island" has officially begun here!
The scene was absolutely astonishing. Hundreds of mainstream media outlets from around the world crowded both sides of the red carpet. Because Kitahara Productions adopted a tough stance of "absolute secrecy and no test screenings" in the early stages of the film's promotion, it actually raised the curiosity and appetite of the entire Hollywood to an unprecedented limit.
When Nobuki Kitahara, dressed in a sharply tailored black haute couture suit, walked the red carpet with co-star Nicolas Cage and Eva Green, who had flown in from Europe in a stunning dark haute couture gown, the flashbulbs were so bright they were almost blinding.
However, behind the frenzy on the red carpet, the professional film critics and veteran Hollywood producers who had taken their seats early in the theater harbored completely different thoughts.
In Hollywood, a niche industry rife with class prejudice, many people were hostile towards Kitahara Shin, this suddenly emerging Asian director.
In their view, Kitahara Shin's previous film, Resident Evil: Origins, was merely a cheap trick relying on lavish CGI effects and sensory stimulation. Such purely industrial popcorn movies might make money, but getting a ticket to the Oscars was simply a pipe dream.
"I heard this is a psychological thriller?" A veteran New York Times film critic, sitting in the middle VIP area, pushed up his glasses and gave a sneer to his colleague next to him. "The only master of psychological suspense in Hollywood is Hitchcock."
An Asian director, instead of sticking to his zombie and gore films, dares to tackle such a profound subject? I bet this film is utterly pretentious and full of cheap jump scares.
"That's right." A white Oscar judge next to him nodded in agreement. "Nicolas Cage has been going crazy with action movies these past few years. The fact that he would take on a script that wasn't even screened is a huge mistake for him. I think this movie will most likely be a major blunder in his acting career."
The entire screening room was filled with an atmosphere of prejudice, scrutiny, nitpicking, and even anticipation of a laugh.
It was exactly 8 p.m.
The theater lights slowly dimmed, and the giant screen lit up.
There were no deafening explosions, nor any fancy computer-generated special effects.
The film opens with a thick, impenetrable sea fog. A dilapidated ferry toils along in the gloomy waves.
The deep, somber, and seemingly nerve-wracking cello accompaniment slowly filled the screening room.
Nicolas Cage plays Teddy, the male lead, who stands pale-faced on the deck, his eyes revealing a deep weariness and vigilance.
"A classic, cheap suspense opening: fog, an isolated island, and a preoccupied detective." The acerbic film critic jotted down a note in his notebook with a sneer.
However, as the plot unfolds, when Teddy and his assistant arrive at the eerie, Gothic-style Blackwood Island, and when they enter the C-section building that houses severely mentally ill patients—
The disdain and whispers that had filled the screening room began to disappear without anyone noticing.
Kitahara Shin's full-power "director's domain" during filming, coupled with the "visual tension" and "millennial filter" provided by those epic equipment, resulted in a chilling emotional impact in the final film.
The oppressive gray-green color scheme, the editing technique that constantly interweaves between dreams and reality. Teddy's mind is filled with flashbacks of the horrors of the concentration camps during World War II, and his wife who turned to ashes and bled in the flames (a hallucination featuring Eva Green, which, although only lasting a few seconds, is stunning and eerie enough to make your heart clench).
All of this was like an invisible hand, gripping the heart of every audience member!
They found themselves completely unable to objectively examine the film. Forced to follow Teddy's perspective, they were plunged into a profound panic and confusion. They began to doubt the island's doctor, the assistant, and even their own sanity.
The film critics, who had initially been prepared to nitpick, had long since put down their notebooks. Cold sweat beaded on their foreheads, their bodies involuntarily leaning forward, their eyes glued to the big screen, their breathing becoming rapid.
Nicolas Cage's acting in this film possesses an unprecedented and terrifying explosiveness. The sense of fragmentation, the frantic struggle between lucidity and madness, evokes a profound and immersive despair in everyone present.
Finally, the movie reached that earth-shattering ending.
When Teddy finally breaks into the lighthouse, which is believed to be used for human experimentation, ready to uncover the dark truth...
The attending physician sat there calmly, took out the files, and told him: You are not a federal agent; you are patient number 67 here, Andrew Ladis. You shot and killed your wife because she drowned their three children, and to escape the pain, you fabricated all of this.
This moment.
The entire Hollywood theater seemed to have been sucked out of all its air.
A soul-shattering shock, like a Category 12 hurricane, directly blew the skulls off everyone present!
Those self-important judges and critics, their pupils contracted sharply, their minds replaying every detail of the previous two hours. Those seemingly illogical parts, those nurses' evasive glances, those patients' eerie conversations—in that instant, everything fit together perfectly!
This is not some cheesy suspense film at all.
This is a grand hypnosis session lasting 120 minutes, targeting not only the male protagonist but also all the viewers!
In the film's final scene, the protagonist, "cured" but unable to face the harsh reality, calmly sits on the steps and utters the iconic line that will go down in film history: "This place makes me wonder—do you want to be a living monster, or a dead real person?"
He then calmly walked toward the guards who were preparing to perform a lobotomy on him (severing his emotions and memories to turn him into a walking corpse).
The big screen slowly went black, and the end credits began to roll.
The screening room was deathly silent.
Pure, suffocating silence.
No one stood up, and no one spoke. The group of seasoned filmmakers, accustomed to all sorts of Hollywood blockbusters, were now completely rooted to the spot, goosebumps rising all over their bodies.
This deathly silence lasted for a full minute.
Suddenly, the veteran Hollywood mogul who had won the Academy Award for Best Director, sitting in the front row, stood up abruptly and clapped his hands vigorously.
This seems to be a signal.
Then, the second, the third—until all two thousand audience members, including those sharp-tongued film critics, spontaneously stood up.
Thunderous applause, excited screams, and even suppressed sobs erupted like a volcanic eruption under the dome of the Hollywood Theatre! The applause lasted for nearly ten minutes!
Within hours of the premiere.
In a late-night, hastily printed special edition, the Los Angeles Times devoted a full page to a film review worthy of being recorded in history: "Please forgive our previous ignorance and arrogance. Shin Kitahara's *Shutter Island* delivers a resounding slap in the face to all Hollywood suspense films! This is not just a movie; it's an extreme dissection of human nature, a visual deception so perfect it's despairing! Nicolas Cage delivers the greatest performance of his career, and Shin Kitahara—he proves himself not only a king of special effects but also an undisputed master of psychological suspense! If this film doesn't win all the major awards at next year's Oscars, it will be a disgrace to the entire Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!"
The New York Times' chief commentator went even further, writing in bold, scathing font in the art section's headline column the following day: "Forget about regional prejudices! Shin Kitahara is the Hitchcock of our time! The script and cinematography of *Shutter Island* are so perfect, not a single superfluous punctuation mark! This is a masterpiece that will leave you in a cold sweat late at night after watching it!"
This was accompanied by an unprecedented explosion of positive word-of-mouth.
The official global release of "Shutter Island" is no longer just an ordinary film distribution.
With this film, Shin Kitahara's name was officially engraved on a golden throne in the pantheon of Hollywood that no one could shake!