The Best Director

“Next up is Yang, be careful of him! He’s a great storyteller.”

The spacious private room was blurred with blue and purple lighting. Although the soundproofing was good, the hustle and bustle outside could still be faintly heard. Taking advantage of Halloween, Wang Yang wanted to relax his busy mind, so he accepted the invitation to attend Zachary’s party at the nightclub he hadn’t set foot in for a long time. The theme for tonight was naturally Halloween costumes. Not everyone was in heavy makeup or extravagant outfits—some might just wear a pair of horns and call it a day.

Dancing and drinking are the everlasting features of a club. If any movie fan recognized the tall man in the black leather jacket wearing a Sun Wukong Beijing opera mask as the amazing Yang, they would exclaim in surprise that the rumors were indeed true! The guy’s dance skills were really good. However, the superstar on the dance floor was Jessica with the Piggy mask. Her professional-level street dance skills and her seductive and charming dance moves made all the young people around her scream wildly.

Consequently, there were many suitors for Piggy, and to each one of them, Jessica responded by raising her left hand: “LOOK!” When they saw the ring on her ring finger, everyone walked away in silence.

Wang Yang realized that he was not like when he was 17 or 18 years old, when he could be one of the masters of the entire party; now if he played a little longer, he already felt “enough.” The two left the noisy crowd and returned to the relatively quiet private room, where they found Zachary, Eileen, Joshua and his love-struck girlfriend Alexis, as well as a few of Zachary’s good friends.

“OK, it’s my turn, but I strongly request to turn down the lights; it’s too moodless like this.” Wang Yang, with his arm around Jessica’s shoulder, sitting at the edge of the sofa, saw that it was his turn to tell a ghost story and smiled as he got up and walked toward the light switch. Soon, the private room was dimmed, and although people could still see each other clearly, there was an added eeriness. On the sofa, Joshua opened his hands with simulated tension: “Here it comes! He’s going to scare us again, watch out, watch out…”

“Hehe!” Everyone laughed lightly, and Zachary, leaning against the back of the sofa, laughed and said, “A few years ago when ‘Paranormal Activity’ came out, I would scare myself when looking in the mirror.” Eileen, sitting beside him, spread her hands and said, “I really thought you were dead before.” Drinking and laughing, and playing party games in the private room was a popular choice on November 1st—taking turns to tell scary stories and tales of ghosts and demons.

Most of the ghost stories previously told were related to religion, with demon possession, exorcisms by priests, ancient castles, and gloomy vampires… However, Zachary, Joshua, and a few others were not very effective in their storytelling, so that in the end, everyone was laughing and clapping, happy but not scared.

From the moment the room lights dimmed, Wang Yang remained expressionless, sat back in his seat in silence, took a light sip from his glass, and calmly said, “First of all, guys, I have to say that the following story is true.” Joshua quickly took the chance to brag: “Oh, Yang is starting, this is his trick!” Zachary’s friends Bachman, Sally, and Elaine all had curious smiles on their faces.

“I dunno.” Jessica shrugged indifferently, being eyed by everyone as if asking for confirmation, she didn’t want to spoil his mood. Joshua, confident in himself, shook his head: “Buddy, it must be fake.” Alexis pulled him a bit and smiled helplessly: “You don’t have to speak yet.” Joshua immediately shrank slightly, looking at Wang Yang, who seemed to be recalling something.

“Well, believe it or not, that’s up to you…” Wang Yang slowly put down his glass, looking careless. Telling a ghost story naturally requires some skills. He thought that without images or written words, relying solely on atmosphere and the personal imagination of the listeners, the storyteller needs to give them a high degree of immersion. Like with psychological horror films, it’s the way to make the audience scare themselves. Otherwise, without atmosphere or empathy, who would find it scary?

Fortunately, his storytelling ability was always quite good, and to create a scary atmosphere, he first had to act serious and solemn.

“This is…” Scanning the young faces one by one, his gaze finally rested on the glasses on the coffee table, Wang Yang whispered: “It’s something that happened to me when I was still a child. Maybe on this Halloween, in this atmospheric room, sharing it with you guys would be a good choice. But are you really ready to hear it? OK, let me start with a question—are any of you familiar with the experience of sleep paralysis (ghost pressing down on the bed)?”

“I’ve had it once.” “Me too, it was terrifying.”… Instantly Zachary, Eileen, Jessica, and a few others all raised their hands; Joshua looked left and right, debating whether to raise his hand or not, then said to Alexis who had her hand up: “Uh, I’ve heard about it.”

“Yeah, it’s terrifying, isn’t it?” Wang Yang remained calm, knowing that when the listeners and the storyteller share a common experience, they subconsciously form more connections and become immersed in the storyteller’s narrative—it was a storytelling technique. He continued, “I used to do some research, and medically this phenomenon is called a sleep disorder, where your brain wakes up before your body, the muscles can’t keep up with the consciousness, and you have that foggy, immobilizing agony.”

Everyone nodded, the scientific explanation for sleep paralysis sharpening their focus. Suddenly, they saw Wang Yang’s brow furrow under the dim light, his voice low and fast: “But is it true? Is it really that simple? There are too many things, too many mysteries in this world that our current science can’t explain, so insomuch that it’s explained, it’s called science, but if it can’t be explained, then it’s theology. Various religions have different interpretations, with your soul floating out and a devil pressing down on you, trying to squeeze in, to snatch away your body…”

“I was 12 years old, and it was a camping trip,”

Wang Yang’s explanation of sleep paralysis abruptly stopped, allowing the listeners to use their imagination to fill in the blanks. However, they had been guided to believe that sleep paralysis wasn’t just a normal bodily phenomenon, but related to ghosts and demons. With gestures, he described the campground: “You know, by the riverbank, there are lots of big trees, and at night, the leaves rustle in the wind and the river flows with a gurgling sound…”

Everyone had camping experiences, and the atmosphere grew increasingly intense. Jessica naturally leaned closer to Wang Yang; on the other side, Eileen, Joshua, and other couples drew closer too, the whole night’s ghost stories weren’t as mysteriously oppressive as this moment.

“I was sleeping in a tent when I had an out-of-body experience! I was lying on the ground, I could see everything around me, but I couldn’t move or breathe, my chest felt so tight it was as if I was about to die…”

Wang Yang covered his mouth and took a deep breath with a shudder of recollection. Jessica couldn’t help but grasp his arm while the red-haired Caucasian girl, Sally, asked nervously, “Then what happened?” Wang Yang slowly twisted his neck and said, “Then my neck could move, uncontrollably moving, and I slowly turned to the left, oh my God… the tent, and a floating head, just hanging there.”

A flying head? Everyone felt a chill, and Wang Yang continued in a solemn, unhurried tone: “It was the face of a Caucasian man, with lots of beard, he just looked at me and laughed, laughed, laughed.” He grasped his hair in agony: “I was terrified, so very afraid! But I couldn’t move! I kept shouting for help, for help, but no sound came out. The guy just kept laughing, for about a minute, I don’t know, then he floated towards me, and I woke up startled.”

After a pause, he added immediately, “I thought I had woken up, but I hadn’t.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jessica, puzzled, her goosebumps standing on end. The others also felt a bit frightened by the dark and eerie mood. Zachary, clearly understanding, oh-ed and asked, “You mean you were still dreaming?”

“Yes, I don’t know if you’ve had such dreams, very strange.” Wang Yang spread his hands and looked at them as he described, “You think you’ve woken up, got out of bed, went to the restroom, drank a glass of milk. Suddenly someone rushes in and shoots at you, and then you really wake up.” Joshua immediately raised his hand and said, “I’ve had that, I’ve had that! It’s amazing!” Leah, Zachary, and a few others also raised their hands, while Eileen was a bit uncertain, “Seems like it, seems like…” Jessica smiled and said, “I’ve had that too!”

After that “waking up,” she ran outside the house and opened the mailbox, there was a letter from San Francisco, she was overjoyed, but when she opened it, the letter was completely blank, then she really woke up. Jessica remembered that dream vividly.

Wang Yang didn’t give them too much time to think, controlling the mood, he went on, “Dreams are actually layered, I don’t know why, but their structure is one within another, most people have only experienced two layers, maybe forever stuck on the first layer.” Bachman, who had never dreamed within a dream, looked at them with understanding and suddenly felt a bit envious. What did it feel like?

“So I thought I had woken up, oh, it was just a nightmare! Then I ran outside the tent, there was no one around, but in the dream, it didn’t feel strange to me.” Wang Yang shrugged his shoulders, his palms gesturing, “No one there, so I walked a distance into the woods, then suddenly lots of people rushed out and grabbed me, they were all madmen, wanting to tear me apart… I startled awake! But I hadn’t.” Joshua couldn’t help but interject, “You were still in a dream? You had a triple-layered dream?”

A triple-layered dream?! In this terrifying atmosphere, everyone was even more creeped out.

Wang Yang silently nodded, took a breath before saying, “The out-of-body experience in the tent was the third layer, the woods was the second layer, and then I returned to the first layer.” In fact, he had indeed experienced a triple-layered dream, which was a personal record, waking up from school to home and then home again. He wasn’t in a rush to describe the first layer, his eyes steadily sweeping over everyone, bringing them a sense of horror: “What do you think? It was dark all around, very narrow, I was in a tunnel, you could only crawl towards the light ahead…”

He gently mimicked the motion of crawling forward, everyone’s brows furrowed, and they heard him say, “That light turned out to be from a watch, ticking. There was no way forward at the end, I was going to turn around and crawl back, but when I turned my face… it was that man’s laughing face!”

“Oh…” Everyone suddenly felt a surge pass through them, their scalps tingling and goosebumps rising all over. Joshua quickly looked back; there was nothing in the darkness. Zachary, Eileen, Leah, and the others all looked around uneasily, nothing there! Jessica was already clinging tightly to Wang Yang’s arm, murmuring, “The Lord is with us, the Lord is with us…”

Watching everyone’s reaction, Wang Yang couldn’t help but suppress a laugh, wiping his forehead and said, “That face startled me awake all at once, and this time I really woke up, right there in the tent.” Joshua bit his teeth and asked, “So those things just now… were you talking about a dream?” Wang Yang shook his head, “I’m talking about reality. What do you guys think? I heard some noises coming from underground, drip-drip-drip…”

He picked up his glass to take a sip of alcohol and shrugged, “Later, the police found a corpse under the tent, and it was on the TV news—a long-missing white man. It was that man; he’d been murdered and buried there.”

Another surge of shock washed over everyone as they looked at each other in dismay, stuck in a chilling and eerie sense of horror—just like the feeling when watching ‘Paranormal Activity’…

“Boom!” Suddenly, there was a noise, and the door to the private room opened. The bustling noise from outside flooded in, which undoubtedly felt like the violent body-throwing scene at the end of ‘Paranormal Activity,’ throwing those immersed in horror into chaos.

“Oh my God! Ahhh—!” Joshua suddenly screamed, flipping backwards, his grip on Alexis causing her heart to skip a beat as she also shouted, “Ahhh—!” Sally, Bachman, Elaine, and others had their fright ignited as well, screaming in panic like Zachary and Eileen. Jessica, who was most afraid of psychological horror, threw herself into Wang Yang’s arms. Was it that man?! She screamed in fear, “Yang—”

“HELLO? What’s wrong with you guys?” The room’s blue-purple lighting was restored, and Zachary’s young friends stood at the door, all wearing puzzled and amused expressions. They saw everyone on the sofa still shaken. Zachary, Joshua, and others had one hand in front of them and the other holding their girlfriends, with only Wang Yang sitting there as usual, stroking his fiancée’s shoulder, and shrugged at them, “It’s nothing.”

“What’s wrong with me? I had Wang Yang tell a ghost story!” Joshua caught his breath repeatedly, and Zachary frowned, “What’s wrong with me, listening to Wang Yang’s ghost story…”

Everyone looked at each other’s frightened expressions and couldn’t help but burst into laughter, steadying their nerves with a drink. Sally praised with a laugh, “Magical Yang, now I know why you don’t make horror movies. You really shouldn’t—it would scare people to death!” Eileen looked helplessly at the joyously laughing Jessica and said, “Jessie, keep your fiancé in check. I almost fainted from fright!” Alexis re-adjusted her hair, “I’m definitely going to have nightmares tonight, Lord have mercy…”

“Hahaha!” Jessica laughed, mouth wide open. Although she was also one of the “victims,” seeing them frightened by the one she loved most made her extremely happy. She laughed and looked at Wang Yang, who winked his left eye with a smile, and she playfully scolded, “You jerk.”

With the door closed, the private room quieted down again, and the people who walked in asked with puzzled laughter, “What happened?” “Anything interesting?” Zachary raised his glass to take a drink and chuckled, “Yang told a ghost story, and scared us all.” Eileen called out to Wang Yang, “Yang, that’s fake, right? Those dreams, that man, they’re all fake, right?” Joshua confirmed, “Fake!”

“You know…” Wang Yang’s smile gradually stiffened and his expressionless face returned as he let out a long sigh, “You know… that story is true, no no no, just kidding… it’s true, no, just made it up on the spot.” Seeing his hesitation, everyone laughed, “What are you trying to pull now?” He calmly said, “Maybe I should tell you the whole thing. Actually, it was a four-layered dream, finding the body was just me returning to the first layer, understand? I talked to that man…”

“Don’t let him talk anymore, change, change!” Joshua, feeling a new chill, couldn’t help but shout out, drowning out Wang Yang’s voice, and looked around, “Alexis! It’s your turn to tell a story next!”

Everyone nodded in agreement, with the unanimous decision to silence Wang Yang made by the only couple in the room, passing the microphone to the harmless Alexis, who quickly brought a Catholic priest exorcism story to the stage.

On Halloween night in North America, less than ten people were scared out of their wits by a “supernatural dream” of psychological horror; while countless others were frightened into nausea by the gore and perversity of ‘Saw’ in various cinemas, satisfying horror fans who sought to be terrified, solidifying that after the sci-fi horror ‘Death Illusion,’ Flaming Films had released another grinder masterpiece!

“I really love the unexpected endings; they leave such a lasting impression! I usually dislike splatter-type horror films, but not ‘Saw.\'” —jayinthedark; “I don’t understand the critics’ dissatisfaction; this is the most terrifying, suspenseful horror movie I’ve ever seen.” —Nicholas-W; “I couldn’t watch it all, I was afraid I would throw up (I fainted watching ‘Paranormal Activity’), I haven’t seen many horror films, but ‘Saw’ is unforgettable.” —Evelyn…

As time hurried past Halloween, when October 31st to November 6th became history, ‘Saw,’ which was made on a budget of 3 million US dollars, grossed 36.19 million at the box office in its first week, claiming the North American box office championship. Ranked second was ‘The Matrix Revolutions,’ which grossed 35.31 million in three days; and third was Disney’s animated feature ‘Brother Bear,’ with a box office of 18.09 million.

The third-week release of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” placed fifth with $10.19 million, followed closely by “Step Up” with $9.56 million, bringing its North American total box office to $68.08 million US dollars; additionally, “Freddy vs. Jason,” directed by Yu Rentai and shown in several dozen theaters, ranked 43rd with $103,800.

“Another commercial miracle for Flame.” In Yahoo Entertainment’s weekly box office commentary, the astounding success of “Saw” was reported: a budget of 3 million, a 90% audience approval rating, and an opening weekend gross of $36.19 million! According to normal conservative estimates, its final North American box office gross would be at least $70 million, with the potential to reach $130-150 million worldwide, yielding a 50-fold return! How could this not be considered a success, a miracle? As these miracles occurred so frequently and concentratedly, everyone had no choice but to praise again, “Flame truly has a golden touch.”

“The birth of ‘Saw’ was not easy. Seeking investment for the production, James Wan and Leigh Whannell approached all film companies in Australia, to no avail; they faced the same fate in Hollywood, until they finally turned to Wang Yang, who immediately agreed to back them. From the beginning, he admired ‘Saw’ immensely and promoted it tirelessly, even setting plans for a sequel before it was released. Now, Mr. Magic has once again proven to the world his extraordinary vision.”

After a few words in praise of Wang Yang, the commentary review continued, “‘Saw’ features meticulously thorough character psychology and a level of gore on par with any horror film, an unquestionable masterpiece. James Wan, at 26, made a remarkable directorial debut on the big screen, and he has a bright future ahead of him. In the next few years, I believe he will bring us more groundbreaking sequels like ‘Saw 2’ and ‘Saw 3’. Flame would not want him to be a one-hit wonder director.”

Yahoo Entertainment’s view represents one half of the mainstream voice. The other half, comprised of media and critics, consider James Wan to be a psychologically-disturbed psychopath, a serial killer, and ‘Saw’ to speak of twisted humanity; they believe it should be pelted with rotten tomatoes and taken offline, without any sequels like 2, 3, or 4.

Thomas Delrap of “Bold Weekly” wrote sarcastically, “I was fully prepared to abandon an arm and a leg to flee from this atrociously vile film.” Frank Ochein of “Cinema Eye” wrote, “Wan treats those horror sequences as sacred pleasures, fully exploiting the potential for perversion. Sadly, ‘Saw’ is nothing more than loud, pompous talk.” Brian Odoroff of also wrote mockingly, “If there were an annual election for strippers, ‘Saw’ would be the prime candidate for 2003.”…

On the Rotten Tomatoes website, the freshness ratings for “Saw” had fallen to 50% and 37% respectively, with a continuing downward trend. The more elaborate and brutal scene setups made the fans enjoy it more but also incited even more intense criticism from the American film reviewing community.

If the director were Leigh Whannell, a white person, or if James Wan were an Asian-American, he might be experiencing a different reality. A 26-year-old director has crafted such a box office miracle, and regardless of the film itself, he deserves high praise and adulation.

Likewise, Richard Kelly, who released “Death Illusion” at the age of 26 through Flame Film Distribution, received two freshness ratings of 85% and 63%, an audience approval of 77%, and unceasing accolades from the review community as “astonishing” and “clever.” Richard Kelly, lauded as a supernova and fearful of becoming a “one-hit wonder,” has had no plans for a new work and has declined several arrangements from Flame.

Wang Yang, born and raised in America at the age of 18, received a more tolerant reception. His DV film “Paranormal Activity” boasts freshness ratings of 72% and 98%. Of course, since it dates back a long time, the then newly established was not yet mature, with few collected reviews mostly from recent times. If it were back then, the ratings would probably be around 70%+ and 60%+. From once being pejoratively called DV-BOY, DV-KID, DV-BABY, and doubted whether “he could make a second movie,” to now being the awe-inspiring Mr. Magic who conquered everyone, Wang Yang still walked a longer road than others.

However, with this came growing expectations and increasing criticism. For example, almost everyone believed that the last major release from Flame in 2003, a film by Mr. Magic Wang Yang featuring Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada,” would deliver enjoyment, adhering to the Law of Mr. Magic.

※※

※※

※※

PS: Asking for recommendation tickets, seeking recommendation tickets, wow, thank you all! The best brother’s book “Who Am I” is highly recommended. ^0^(