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1 Title: Chollywood - Writer(s): Simon J Young, Jack li Format: Treatment Pages: 153 Reader: Elaine Wong Read on: 09/24/15 Setting: Los Angeles, Bejing Time: Present Day Genre: Comedy Drama Budget: ( ) High (x) Medium () Low Logline: A sarcastic comedy drama following a film school grad who gets a sudden chance to direct a big time film in China Evaluation Idea Story Dialogue Writing Commerciality Characters ( ) Excellent ( X) Good ( ) Fair ( ) Poor ( ) Excellent ( ) Good ( X) Fair ( ) Poor ( ) Excellent (X ) Good () Fair ( ) Poor ( ) Excellent () Good (X ) Fair ( ) Poor ( ) Excellent (X ) Good ( ) Fair ( ) Poor ( ) Excellent (X ) Good ( ) Fair ( ) Poor Project Writer ( ) Recommend ( ) Strongly Consider (X) Consider ( ) Consider with Reservation ( ) Pass ( ) Recommend ( ) Strongly Consider ( X) Consider ( ) Consider with Reservation () Pass Characters

2 Name Age Description Dan 30s A talented young filmmaker, a ghostwriter by day, tries to get his break making a film about Chinese fantasy novel. But he is sad to find the industry is full of talks about the market, and whether the story will sell. Jenny 30s Dan s fiancée, an ambitious event planner who leads Dan to his meeting with the producer. Yu Ting Zhang 30s Established producer who believes in Dan s story and takes Dan on board to direct a big-time film in China. Guo Zong 50s Yu Ting s boss, all about sex-appeal and market Zilei Huang 30s An A-list jerky star in China, has bad acting and the worst mannerism. Xiao Ling 20s Typical young hot model turned actress; kinda dumb but sexy Synopsis Dan is an award-winning student filmmaker. But once he graduates from University of Southern California and starts to pitch his stories, he gets a sense of the reality that all producers want to make commercial films that sell. Dan eventually gives up his filmmaking dream, and gets a job as a ghostwriter in Los Angeles. But he doesn t want to turn up like his coworker Paul, who becomes psychotic because he is too bitter writing for some stupid writers who have no talents themselves. So he gathers his strength to finish a screenplay. When he talks to his fiancée Jenny about it, Jenny immediately sees great potential of the script, and urges him to take his chance to network in one of her up-coming event that she is in charge of planning, where there will be many big-shots/producers from the industry. At the party, Dan is insecure about pitching his idea. David, a film producer notices him and starts to talk to him. Dan starts to pitch his idea, but David, a typical American film audience, just makes fun of Dan s idea, and teases him about making the story into a Kung Fu martial arts piece. Dan is frustrated. And a beautiful chinese woman, Yu Ting, approaches him, and starts to ask him about the script. Dan inadvertently tells her about the story, only after he finishes that Yu ting tells him she is a film producer in China and is interested in making the film and letting him be the director. Everything then moves quickly and Dan has to postpone the wedding with Jenny. In the meantime, he has to move to Beijing for the film. Even though things seem to go well, there are strings attached. To make this film, the executive producer of the film, Guo Zong, insists that Zilei Huang and Xiao Ling

3 be the stars of the film, even though Zilei, an A-list star is known to have the worst attitude, and Xiao Ling, doesn t seem to have any actual talents except having a hot body. When it finally comes to production, things are difficult for Dan. Zilei comes on set without reading the script beforehand; refuses to have rehearsals. And on top of it, Guo Zong s rich writer son, constantly crashes the set with his loud fancy car. And Guo Zong requests to have wardrobe change for Xiao Ling, when he realizes that cleavage is not shown enough. Dan also notices something strange between Zilei and Yu Ting, and later finds out Yuting and Zilei used to have a thing. Dan is frustrated and calls home to Jenny. He misses her, but she is tied down with work and is unable to visit him in Beijing. The production doesn t get better. Zilei s acting is extremely bad. He always pauses between each line. Then Dan finds out he is cheating by having his assistant read the lines to him through headphones. Frustrated with how everything is turning out, Dan hurts himself accidently in the hotel room. Yuting finds out and drops by his hotel room with medicine and bandaid. In Los Angeles, Jenny gets her big break as well, and is asked to move to New York to head an event planning department. She talks to her friends and realizes that it means her future with Dan is more uncertain than before. The next few days, Dan continues to work hard on set but things stay the same. Yuting and Dan have no control over the situation and after set one day, they both get a bit more to drink. The next day, Dan is a bit hungover and has a bit of headache, but is sober overall. But Yuting is not. Yuting shows up on set drunk, falling knees down at Zilei s feet suddenly, giggling suddenly, or throwing prop tofu at Zilei. Dan has to stop the shooting, and help Yuting out. When he is sending Yuting back to the hotel, Yuting flops herself onto Dan, and tells Dan that she thinks Dan is a great guy. She hints at Dan that she wants him to stay with her at the hotel. But Dan remains still. Jenny finally gets to talk to Dan on the phone and tells him about her new opportunity in New York. She asks Dan to move with her to New York when he finishes shooting the film in China. But Dan frankly tells her that he might continue to stay in China. Another shooting day, due to the technical issue of the headphones, Zilei cannot hear his assistant s lines, and starts to make up his own ridiculous lines. Dan could

4 not hold it anymore and make a big joke out of Zilei and humiliates Zilei in front of everyone. Zilei is infuriated. Yuting immediately tries to fix things. She manages to convince agents of Zilei so that he will finish shooting, but the condition is for Dan to apologize to Zilei personally. Privately, Zilei asks Dan to kneel down to apologize. Dan kneels. Zilei goes on with a big lecture for dan about how he is the most influential person, and Dan should not dare go against him. Yuting confronts Zilei in the next scene, scolding him about how much he has changed since he has gotten famous. But Zilei is not ashamed at all. Yuting and Dan read script and rewrite script late night before the last shooting day. When it gets late, they both get a little tired. Dan falls asleep on the couch. Yuting moves close to Dan until their nose touch. They stay, watching each other. Then Yuting leans in and kisses Dan. After a minute, they stop and it gets awkward. On this last shooting day, Dan tries to avoid Yuting. The Film wraps successfully. In the wrap party, things get a little out of hands with all the reporters. Reporters crowd around Zilei and ask him if he uses stunts for another movie. Proud and conceited, Zilei shows off his stunts action, trying to proof he never uses a stunt man. But during the little performance, he stands up tall on a chair, and trips over, and falls down the building. He is pronounced dead. Everyone is shocked. But soon after, Guo Zong, and everyone start thinking about how much money they can make with the film, because everyone is interested in seeing the last film that Zilei made. On a prescreening, Dan s voiceover is heard. He laments about the cost of chasing after his dreams, and the darkness behind the glamour of filmmaking. The last scene shows him talking on the phone with Jenny; Their relationship seem to be sacrificed as they each pursue their career. Comments It s a story about the behind-the-scene of the movie industry. About how producers only look for sellable scripts, and how writers/directors struggle to keep their artistic vision intact. Also it looks into the unprofessionalism of the Chinese film set: when the executive s son constantly crashes the set, the A-list actor never memories lines, and when all the executive wants is to have a hot girl on screen to create sex appeal.

5 The comedic points are all a little familiar and can be cliché but nevertheless interesting to guess who exactly the writer is trying to make fun of. Although the idea and the story isn t that new or creative but the character and the plotline are interesting enough to make me keep reading. Dan is an American-born and educated filmmaker who has to make a choice between his career and relationship eventually when he gets this big gig in China. This struggle plays out throughout the entire film, but the dialogue and the set up is not strong enough to let the audience feel more. The stakes aren t raised enough. The subplot of the producer, Yuting Zhang starts falling in love with Dan is also out of nowhere. The ending reaches its dark comedic anticlimax when the A-list jerk star suddenly falls off the building and dies at the film wrap party. Even though there were funny elements early on in the script to signify that this is a comedy, the death still seems too absurd and too sudden. But I get that the idea is to show how corrupt the film industry is, because the executives immediately want to see how the death can profit the film. I think the story has some good intentions. It definitely has a lot to say about the film industry. But I think all the points are very explicit, and superficial. As a comedy, the jokes are not that funny and very out-dated (eg, men having nosebleed when Xiao Ling shows her boobs; the crew member all having diarrhea), and it is quite a hardhitting preachy movie. It tries to make fun of the way how the industry wants sellable and bad quality film, but at the same time, this film presents itself as one of those films. So somehow, even without much merits or depth, it s one of those movies that I can see getting made and shown in the theaters just because of its accessibility to a wider audience.

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