June 20, 2001.
The Fast and the Furious and Jurassic Park 3 were set to premiere in two days.
Although the two films were releasing at the same time, they would not be competing for box office revenue. After all, the screening schedules had not yet reached the point of squeezing each other out.
In fact, with their joint promotional campaign, the two films could even boost each other.
At ten o'clock that night, Taylor Swift, at home in Nashville, finished an entire day of vocal practice.
Ever since she had run into Lin Yuan on the train half a year ago and received his support, her musical journey had become increasingly smooth.
She was filled with happiness over it:
Who could be as lucky as she was, having chased an idol only for that idol to turn around, help her, and become her business partner?
In order to live up to Lin Yuan's faith in her, she had worked harder on her music than ever before these past days.
She hoped she could grow quickly and deliver an answer that would satisfy him.
After a busy day, she sat down in front of her computer and opened the IMDB website.
The Internet Movie Database, or IMDB, had been founded on October 17, 1990.
Over the past decade, it had gradually developed into the world's largest website for sharing and reviewing movie information.
Some domestic users might not have been very familiar with this site, but mention similar platforms like Douban Movies, Mtime, or Zhihu Movies...
And they would be instantly familiar.
In her previous life, Bezos, Amazon's founder, had acquired a stake in IMDB in 1998 and gradually taken full control of it.
But in this life, thanks to Lin Yuan's strong recommendation, Mr. Eisen had recognized IMDB's importance much earlier and entered the game aggressively.
In the end, he reached an agreement with Amazon and obtained a total of 40% of IMDB's shares.
After all, for a movie information website, gaining the support of Mr. Eisen, a representative of Hollywood capital, was also essential.
Hollywood capital had previously not valued this area, which was why Amazon had been able to monopolize it. But once the other side wanted a slice of the pie, sharing was the wiser choice for opening up a broader path.
After Mr. Eisen invested in IMDB, Lin Yuan played an even greater role. He proposed a series of modification suggestions based on his experience from the future, making the website's design more user-friendly and practical.
Taylor loved those changes.
She skillfully opened the promotional video Lin Yuan had filmed for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon from her favorites.
The page showed that the video had already received more than five million views, with over 250,000 likes and positive ratings. It ranked among IMDB's top ten popular movie-information videos.
That number might have seemed insignificant in the future, but in 2001, it was absolutely astonishing.
Even more than twenty years later, videos on YouTube with over ten million views were still considered viral hits.
Not to mention that this was 2001, before mobile internet. Every one of those clicks had come from users sitting in front of their computers and clicking them one by one.
Taylor opened the video again. Over the past days, she had lost count of how many times she had watched it.
If five million clicks were a medal of honor, then Taylor's sweat had surely gone into forging it.
As the white-clad youth in the video danced with a longsword in his hand, Taylor was immersed in it once again.
No matter how much time passed, this video remained her favorite. The amazement of that first viewing had been etched into her heart.
After she finished watching the promotional video, the page displayed a newly added expanded recommendation feature.
Among the recommendations was another promotional video filmed by Lin Yuan, its cover screenshot showing that same white-clad Eastern youth.
Lin Yuan is so sneaky, riding his own popularity. But that transition is really smooth.
This was not the first time Taylor had clicked on this promotional video, but she knew that if she had seen the related recommendation for the first time, she would definitely have continued on to watch it while still wanting more from the previous video.
As a result, this video had already received more than 500,000 views despite having been released for only ten days, and the number was still rising rapidly.
Taylor lightly clicked her mouse and opened the video.
In the image, beneath the moonlit night, Lin Yuan wore white robes and held a sharp sword, perfectly connecting to his appearance in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon promotional video.
It was still a short sword dance, but this time, the mood it conveyed was dreamlike and ethereal.
Even though Taylor had watched it many times, she was still drawn in by the sword dance.
She believed that viewers who had not gotten enough of the previous sword-dance video would definitely continue watching this one with great interest after clicking on it.
And if they kept watching, they would fall into the promotional trap Lin Yuan had set.
Lin Yuan, dressed in white, sent streams of sword light sweeping through the cold moonlight, creating a hazy sensation as though it were all part of a dream.
"Buzz!"
Suddenly, Lin Yuan leaped into the air and slashed out with a fierce strike. The sharp sword light seemed to cut through space and time itself.
Within that cold, fierce flash of sword light, the image was split down the middle, dividing into two...
The shot shifted to a highway, where Lin Yuan, now dressed in modern clothing, was bent over and clinging to the roof of a speeding truck. It was a clip from Lin Yuan's action scene in The Fast and the Furious.
Seeing this, Taylor smiled knowingly again. That sly transition... Lin Yuan really knows how to play with people's hearts.
Because the shots before and after the transition were both close-ups of Lin Yuan's face.
So although the setting and era had changed, the protagonist had not. It gave people the feeling that these were Lin Yuan's two lives across two different lifetimes.
This clever approach could minimize the viewers' resentment when users drawn in by the Eastern classical sword-dance video were coaxed into watching promotional videos for entirely different films.
Before the audience could even question, Why did this suddenly make a 180-degree turn and show me this? and close the video with a bad review,
Lin Yuan was flung off the truck in the next moment, looking as though he was about to fall to the ground.
At that moment, the camera suddenly pulled back, revealing the entire filming set. Every viewer would be shocked to discover that the shot had been filmed on location!
Didn't that mean Lin Yuan's life had been in danger?
Would he be all right?
The next shot cut to Lin Yuan slamming heavily onto the ground.
He staggered to his feet, his eyes bloodshot as though blood might burst from them at any moment.
Medical personnel hurriedly rushed forward, surrounding him and administering emergency aid.
This footage had been recorded on the set of Jurassic Park 3.
At this point, the promotional video ended, and a line of text appeared in the center of the screen:
To bring you the best visual experience, we fear no danger! The Fast and the Furious and Jurassic Park 3 will officially premiere on June 22.
In this promotional advertisement, Lin Yuan had cleverly edited together two dangerous action scenes, perfectly presenting the peril of how hard he fought on set.
Viewers who saw it would inevitably be filled with curiosity: that Eastern youth who had danced with a sword earlier was actually so reckless with his life when starring in other action films?
This looked like behind-the-scenes footage. It had been filmed on location, right?
Was he okay?
The audience's appetites had all been whetted, and they became extremely interested in going to the theater to watch the two films.
The video advertisement not only received a large number of likes, but the comments section was also overwhelmingly positive, with people expressing curiosity and anticipation for the films.
After all, the last person they had seen throw himself so fearlessly into movie roles had been Jackie Chan. Lin Yuan's performance easily made them draw that comparison and develop a favorable impression of him.
But most of them had not realized that after being lured into watching a bait-and-switch advertisement, not only had they not gotten angry, they had even left positive reviews!
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