Chapter 7: She Began to Act

Half an hour later, by the large villa under the night sky, Fan Bingbing once again performed the sequence of climbing onto the buoy tower from underwater, including the subsequent descent into despair, helplessness, and loneliness, through to the discovery of the emergency kit and the desperate act of retrieving the flare gun.

Joey Wong, having just returned to the screen after a few years of retirement, gave a thumbs-up and praised, "Bingbing, you have quite a natural flair. This performance is solid; you’re a 'vase' that makes the grade. At your age, I wasn't nearly as impressive as you."

This single sentence left Fan Bingbing, already exhausted and feeling flattered, too embarrassed to do anything but shower Sister Joey with compliments. Li Wenyu, however, was somewhat speechless.

At the same age of twenty, Joey Wong had already swept through the film industries of East and Southeast Asia with *A Chinese Ghost Story*; she had already starred in one of the definitive masterpieces of her career.

Leslie Cheung also smiled and said, "This girl is young, but her talent is decent. What day are you planning to officially start shooting? The beach and seascape for the location have already been scouted."

With the team’s efforts, finding a beautiful beach in Hong Kong really wasn't difficult; there were plenty of uninhabited islands around. As for the lack of roads on these islands, Brother Leslie’s guest role as a driver was something that could be easily handled in post-production editing.

Li Wenyu nodded with a smile, "Today is the 4th. We’ll start filming by September 15th at the latest. The main reason for the delay is the time needed for swimming and surfing lessons. If the shoot goes smoothly and Bingbing’s acting keeps up, we can wrap up in October."

Spending fifty or sixty days filming a solo performance was plenty of time!

The shark special effects would take time, but the total screen time of the shark interacting with the lead actress was limited. Between the physical models and the digital effects, he felt very confident.

Leslie Cheung offered some more words of encouragement and then brought up his new project—another supernatural film in collaboration with Derek Yee, though this time Derek Yee would only serve as the screenwriter.

...

On September 15th, on a beach on a remote island, after the simple film crew held a low-key opening ceremony and began setting up the scene, Fan Bingbing leaned in toward Li Wenyu and said with a pleasantly surprised expression, "We’ve finally started filming. Director, do you think my acting has improved a little bit?"

Over the past eleven days, Li Wenyu had accumulated 11 attribute points. His own fitness had reached 79! He had given two of those points to Fan Bingbing, raising her acting skill to 71.

It was mostly because things were developing smoothly; Fan Bingbing had become more than half an ally. Spending a dozen days charming her and working side-by-side made the investment of those 2 points feel well worth it.

An acting score of 30 or 40 might both be abysmal—far below the passing mark—making them indistinguishable. However, there was a threshold between 69 and 70 that was difficult to describe in words.

The most intuitive reflection of this was that even in a performance without a real shark, during the few minutes of climbing the floating buoy tower and firing the flare gun for help, Fan Bingbing could perform excellently, no worse than the original version.

Of course, this was after forty-plus practice takes between swimming and surfing lessons over the last ten days. Every take allowed her to watch, analyze her errors, and learn again. Li Wenyu had discussed these few minutes of footage with her hundreds of times.

The final result truly exceeded the original; it just lacked the stylized, tragic makeup.

Fan Bingbing herself could clearly see that the final, best take was not just a little better than the first; it was significantly better.

Li Wenyu smiled with a bit of schadenfreude, "Performing well in a swimming pool is one thing, but the ocean is a completely different version. Once the buoy tower is placed in the shallow sea, swimming in seawater will be nothing like the pool."

Fan Bingbing, though intimidated, grabbed his arm and said, "Then you have to save me in time. The coach said that when it comes to swimming and rescue knowledge, you seem like a natural—going from a beginner to an expert in just ten days."

They went to the beaches of Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon every day to swim and surf together. With his fitness at 79, Li Wenyu had easily reached the level of a national-team swimmer and surface rescue expert.

With a solid foundation, learning any physical skill became much easier.

Li Wenyu nodded, "Let's start filming."

The first shot of *The Shallows* featured the protagonist in a denim outfit, backpack on her shoulders, walking toward the coast, changing into a one-piece swimsuit, and waxing her surfboard before heading into the water.

It was a simple sequence, including shots of the beautiful waves.

After Fan Bingbing performed for two or three minutes across the multi-camera setup, Li Wenyu called out, "Cut! Take a ten-minute break, let's go again."

The crew members were already used to it. They were using digital cameras instead of film—it was a way for Fan Bingbing to grind out the right state before switching to film to save costs.

Once she stepped out of her performance, Fan Bingbing glared at Li Wenyu with a slumped face. They had done over forty takes of a tense, action-packed sequence, and now even this simple opening shot required a break and a retake? It was truly exhausting.

She had chosen this herself, abandoning the script team of Raymond Wong. Her manager, Hua Jie, had gritted her teeth and encouraged her to go with this project, even going as far as hosting a banquet to apologize to Raymond Wong. During this period, the Beijing circle in the mainland was eager to curry favor with the Hong Kong circle, and Li Wenyu was leveraging Leslie Cheung’s influence to get things moving.

They shot the opening scene seven times. As Li Wenyu was reviewing the shots of Fan Bingbing’s seventh costume change, she walked over and asked, "Does it look good?"

Li Wenyu nodded, "You certainly have a great figure."

During these long days of practicing swimming and surfing in remote locations, Fan Bingbing, despite her fame as "Jin Suo," was undeniably attractive.

When she made a surfing mistake, Li Wenyu would rescue her, pulling her onto the boat—the closeness had become routine. It wasn't about who was taking advantage of whom; they had simply developed a deep mutual understanding after spending so much time in the water.

If they were to cross a line, it would be a natural progression, but they were both focused on giving themselves a chance, holding onto this opportunity to prove their worth.

Li Wenyu hadn't pushed that boundary because he was afraid that if he did, he wouldn't be able to push her to hone her performance take after take.

His fitness attribute had risen from an "unhealthy" 58—back when he was just a tall, thin, lanky guy—to a well-defined, muscular physique. He hadn't grown taller, but he had put on some weight.

It didn't matter; he was constantly in the water and eating well, so the change was natural.

A moment later, he smiled, "Crew, prepare for the transition. We’ll shoot one more time on film, then we’ll move to the speedboat and underwater filming."

The protagonist enters the sea, starting with standard surfing—capturing the beauty of the water both above and below the surface. Fortunately, the water temperature in Hong Kong in September was still quite comfortable.

...

Two hours later, Fan Bingbing had shown Li Wenyu for the fifth time that her surfing skills were lacking, resulting in various falls into the sea and an urgent need for rescue.

Fortunately, his 79-point fitness made his surface rescue skills more than strong enough. As he hoisted Fan Bingbing onto the yacht for the fifth time, Li Wenyu couldn't help but say, "If our filming schedule gets dragged out, it's all because your technique is too poor."

He patted her back. Fan Bingbing wiped her face and hair, her eyes disheveled, and retorted, "Is this some kind of 'hero saves the beauty' brainwashing trick you’re pulling?"

"If you keep saving me a hundred times like this, even if I know it’s just work, just a script, I might instinctively end up a fool who’s had her heart stolen by you."

Li Wenyu was speechless, "Then just learn to surf properly!"

He glanced at the system, which popped up the observation mode.

Observation Target: Fan Bingbing
Acting: (71/100)
Emotional Intelligence: (83/100)
Health: (87/100)
Swimming: (72/100)
Surfing: (52/100)

...

Good grief. He hadn't been paying attention for a moment, and he hadn't realized that Fan Bingbing had already started "acting" him. Her surfing might be failing, but with a swimming skill of 72, she could easily handle herself in shallow water and small waves even if she fell off the board.

100 was the absolute limit of human capability. A score in the 90s meant Olympic-level performance. 80 was national-team level, and 70 was provincial-team level. Once he pushed her acting past the 69 barrier to 71, it was the difference between a municipal-level talent and a provincial one.

And her swimming was actually 72? That was absurd—he had never added points to her swimming.

Was this girl from the coastal city of Qingdao?!

Also, in less than a month, her emotional intelligence had risen from 81 to 83? Where on earth was she training that?