The movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" is currently being screened.
There is a line in the popular movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City": In the future, the walled city will be the world of you young people. In fact, the director of this film, Zheng Baorui, is also using this line to talk about Hong Kong movies.
This starring Louis Koo, Lin Feng, Liu Junqian, Wu Yunlong, Hu Zitong, Zhang Wenjie, Ren Xianqi, Huang Debin starring, Sammo Hung friendship starring action crime movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" has been released nationwide on May 1, the film brings together three generations of Hong Kong film actors, when the story is two-thirds of the way through, the previous generation withdrew, the baton is completely handed over to the young actors, and the wonderful action scene at the end of 20 minutes is completed.
"Isn't it normal for Hong Kong films to be handed over to the next generation? If they can't do it, it's that we haven't given them a chance, and we have taken over from the previous generation and come step by step. Zheng Baorui solemnly told the Beijing News reporter.
Cheng Po-sui, director of "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", said that if the film does well at the box office, he will also consider making a second part.
Filming "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", Zheng Baorui wanted to do something different for the audience, "I don't have a big ideal, I want to change the audience's perception of Hong Kong movies, but we are looking for possibilities." "If the film does well at the box office, he will also consider making a second film, but he will not keep shooting, blindly repeating and sticking to a certain theme and genre, whether it is for himself or for the movie, it is a kind of consumption, he wants to try something new. In the future, he will have the opportunity to start shooting two "water-related" movies in the mainland, which are completely genres that he has not made before.
In addition to the dirty style, the walled city also needs to find the emotion of life
Hong Kong movies and dramas set in the Kowloon Walled City, such as the drama "Heroes of the Walled City" and the movie "Chasing the Dragon", will basically capture an iconic shot: an airplane almost closes over the Kowloon Walled City with a loud roar. Zheng Baorui said that this is a shot that only belongs to Hong Kong films in the eighties and nineties of the last century. At that time, the (Kai Tak) airport was next to the walled city, and Cheng still remembers that when he was a child and took a plane back to Hong Kong, when the plane was almost about to land, he would pass by the buildings of the Kowloon Walled City, and "you could even see the clothes drying underneath".
The plane that appears in "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" crosses the shot above the walled city.
For Zheng Baorui, this is a very magical picture. He reproduced this detail in The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City, with the plane crossing the walled city once at the beginning and one at the end. After Zheng Baorui's classmates watched the movie, they were most moved by this paragraph, as if they suddenly returned to the way they were when they were children, and they had a unique flavor. Later, the Hong Kong airport was moved to Lantau Island, and this picture was never seen again.
In fact, until the Kowloon Walled City was demolished in 1993, Cheng Baorui did not go there, "At that time, I lived in Mong Kok, and Mong Kok already had a lot of things to do, and rarely went to other districts. "Zheng Baorui's real contact with the Kowloon Walled City is through some film and television works, and even the art style of some foreign films, such as many Japanese films, are borrowing the feeling of the Kowloon Walled City.
Before the walled city was demolished, a Japanese team entered the walled city and produced a high-definition structural map of the walled city. In 2005, in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, there was a highly replica of the Kowloon Walled City Ancient Building "WAREHOUSE" - Kawasaki Warehouse Game Machine Park, which clearly restored the historical style of the Kowloon Walled City in the seventies and eighties of the last century.
Zheng Baorui thought about why even foreign countries were borrowing the style of the walled city, so he found a lot of materials and bought related books to read, "It's really cool, but I haven't fantasized about being able to really shoot the walled city." Zheng Baorui really re-acquainted himself with the Kowloon Walled City because of the filming of the movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City".
8 years ago, Hong Kong Infinite Power Company bought the copyright of the novel "Kowloon Walled City" written by writer Yu Er, and wanted to adapt it into a movie. After Zheng Baorui heard the words "Kowloon Walled City", he felt that it was impossible, "how can he have the ability to rebuild the walled city", so he pushed the project down.
Later, producer Zhuang Cheng insisted on the project, and after a few years, he approached Zheng Baorui again and asked him to think about it. This time, Zheng Baorui did not refuse at the first time, but went back to sit down with producer Ye Weixin, art Mak Guoqiang and others, "If you really build a walled city, do you think it is possible?" The answer he got was: It's very troublesome.
Zheng Baorui asked everyone to find some information first, and in the process of looking for information, he slowly felt that something different appeared, "I feel that you can't do without this place, it is very valuable, so we gritted our teeth and did it, rush."
Exterior view of the walled city in "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City".
The Kowloon Walled City presented in previous film and television works is a place where pornography, gambling and drugs gather, which is very chaotic and in the "three regardless" zone. But this is not the style of the Kowloon Walled City in the 80s that Zheng Baorui wanted, and he discussed with the artist Mak Kwok-keung to get rid of the taste of the past and try to find an emotion in the architecture and atmosphere of the walled city. Many people who can't live outside can find a living in the walled city, where there are many unlicensed food processing factories where they can make a living.
In Cheng Po-swi (left), the Kowloon Walled City has its dirty style and unique human taste.
"In such a dirty environment, it doesn't mean that they don't have feelings, I think there should be a relationship, this relationship has an impact on the protagonist, I think it can be added, so I slowly start to build step by step, so we haven't given up the dirty style of the walled city, but I think there should still be a taste of people's life in it. Zheng Baorui liked this taste very much, and he began to slowly fall in love with this place.
The action scenes want a comic feel, but not too much
"The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" is most talked about by the audience for its action scenes, and the credit behind this is inseparable from the action director Kenji Tanigaki.
Kenji Tanigaki is Japanese, because he liked Hong Kong action movies since he was a child, came to Hong Kong in the nineties of the last century to do martial arts, spoke fluent Cantonese, and later joined Donnie Yen's martial arts team, became a member of the Zhen family's class, and is also the only Japanese action instructor in the Hong Kong Action Stuntmen Guild. He has won the Best Action Design at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards for the films "Evil Does Not Prevail" and "Rage: A Serious Case" respectively.
Kenji Tanigaki (left) and Zheng Baorui (right) at the shooting site.
Zheng Baorui and Tanigaki Kenji have known each other for a long time, and when filming "Journey to the West: Havoc in Heaven", Tanigaki Kenji came to the mainland to help Donnie Yen design a few scenes. In Zheng Baorui's impression, Kenji Tanigaki is very familiar with Hong Kong culture and fully enjoys Hong Kong life, "I said, your Japanese food is really delicious, he said, what is delicious, Hong Kong's tea restaurants are the best in the world." ”
In Zheng Baorui's view, the most powerful thing about Kenji Tanigaki is that he can integrate the advantages of the two places, add Japanese animation culture to Hong Kong action movies, and when he returns to Japan to film, he can also bring Hong Kong's unique action methods into Japanese movies, such as the popular "Rogue Kenshin" series. Therefore, when Zheng Baorui was preparing for "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", he immediately asked Kenji Tanigaki to be in charge of the action part.
The first scene after the movie started is the fight between the walled city intruder Chen Luojun (played by Lin Feng) and the walled city leader Tornado (played by Louis Koo) in the barbershop. During the shooting, Zheng Baorui tried two action points, one was a tornado throwing a cigarette, and after fighting with Chen Luojun, he rose to the ground and caught the falling cigarette with two fingers. Another action was a tornado punch, and Chen Luojun flew out and crashed into the iron flower cage. Zheng Baorui said that these two action designs determine the action style of the whole film.
"I told the action director that I wanted the feeling of a manga, but I couldn't get past that, and I didn't know until I tried it. Zheng Baorui said that Chen Luojun tried many times in the scene where he flew out, and at first he hit the iron flower cage directly, the action was too real, and it was too exaggerated and unreal to turn around and bump into it. After the final trial, Zheng Baorui felt that it was right to turn half a circle, he wanted to make the audience feel pain and feel strength during the action, but it would not be too exaggerated, "We will use this scale as a reference for the later actions."
Most of the action scenes in the whole film take place in the Kowloon Walled City, which is narrow and cramped, which creates a lot of difficulties for the filming of action scenes, but also allows Kenji Tanigaki's action design to be fully exerted in the limited space. Zheng Baorui emphasized, "We didn't deliberately widen the space of the walled city because of the action scene, it would be unreasonable, or do this thing in a narrow space, it will become a feature, a little flavor in it."
For Kenji Tanigaki, the challenge in terms of action design for this drama is that many times it is impossible to imagine what the scene will look like. Zheng Baorui said that the method of setting up the scenery of this play is different from that of other plays, and there are drawings for the setting of other plays, and there are drawings for the first scene of this play, but there are no more from the second scene. Artist Mak Guoqiang often asked on the set, can we build a staircase here, and then add a wall? The scenery teacher was at a loss, how to build, and whether there were any drawings? Mak Guoqiang said, it doesn't matter, you can build as much as you like, because there were no drawings for building buildings before the walled city.
The fight scenes in "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" were almost all filmed in cramped and cramped scenes, which created a lot of difficulties for the filming of action scenes.
In the film, Chen Luojun entered the Kowloon Walled City for the first time and met Xinyi (played by Liu Junqian). Zheng Baorui told Kenji Tanigaki that he didn't know what the scene of this scene was like, but he wanted the two to fight from the second floor to the third floor. Kenji Tanigaki thought of borrowing power, because the walls of the walled city were very close to each other, and people could use the walls on both sides to borrow power to bounce up.
In the action scene at the end, the "Four Youths of the Walled City" and the villain fight from the ground to the rooftop, involving different scenes. Zheng Baorui gave Kenji Tanigaki a rough idea of the action process, and Kenji Tanigaki designed the action, and then deployed it on the basic scene, and turned it into the scene that was finally needed. "We set up the set up and gave the action director a day to let them line up here first. Zheng Baorui said that the crew used this method to run in the action scenes step by step.
Louis Koo has a lot of action scenes in the film, he vomited his bitterness at the premiere, and sometimes the actors fought all night, and finally cut it out for only ten seconds. Zheng Baorui said with a smile that it is basically like this every day, and it is very troublesome to shoot action movies, and it takes a lot of time.
You can't fight for the sake of fighting, and you have to do enough literary drama
Zheng Baorui knows that you can't fight for the sake of making action movies, you must also do enough literary drama, and it is difficult to do it without dramatic conflict. There are many characters in the film, and it is very difficult for the audience to remember the characteristics of each character and their relationship, and he spent a lot of time communicating with the screenwriter.
The villain Wang Jiu played by Wu Yunlong did not have too many scenes in the front, but in the end he became an important role, in fact, the film has a lot of details on the role, telling the audience how he rose to the top step by step. Zheng Baorui said that the relationship between Wang Jiu and the big boss actually had more interesting things in the front, but it was cut later due to space problems, but the audience can still feel how this character was established.
There is a scene in the film where the "Four Youths of the Walled City" sings karaoke, which is the first time that the four of them have worked together on the set. On the first day of shooting, Zheng Baorui felt that the effect was not very good, "because they didn't get acquainted with it on the first day, I knew that no matter how hard I forced them, I wouldn't force them out, OK, let's go first." Two or three months later, Zheng Baorui reshot that scene, and the taste was completely different. The scene where the four of them played mahjong for the first time was also filmed twice before and after.
The scene of "Four Youths in the Walled City" playing mahjong has been filmed twice before and after.
"They know that I have to force them no matter what, but instead of forcing you on the spot, you can't force them to communicate emotionally, and you have to give them time to build relationships. Zheng Baorui said.
The 20-minute action scene at the end of the film is very burning, and Zheng Baorui always wants to integrate some emotional scenes into the fast pace. First, Chen Luojun entered the walled city, and then the other three brothers joined, and the four of them fought separately, and finally dealt with Wang Jiu together, and there was a friendship between brothers who did not give up. Zheng Baorui really wants the audience to feel their relationship, but if the previous drama is not done well, it is useless to do anything here, "I also know that the previous literary drama does not have much space to explain this matter, but I still hope to establish a relationship in a limited space."
Two-thirds of the way through the story, it's completely up to the next generation
As a famous action actor, "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" is Sammo Hung's rare work in recent years. He plays a villain boss in the film, and there are not too many scenes, Zheng Baorui knows that when there is not much space to describe this character, he can only stand up for the role through the actor's personal strength. When he first looked for an actor, he wanted to find an actor who made the audience feel weighty, and soon thought of Sammo Hung.
Zheng Baorui and Sammo Hung have worked together many times, and when he directed "Journey to the West: Monkey King Three Fights the White Bone Spirit" and "Kill the Wolf, Greedy Wolf", Sammo Hung was the action director. What impressed Zheng Baorui was that as long as Sammo Hung came to the set, he and all the staff would unconsciously get up immediately and be respectful. "During the filming of "Kill the Wolf, Greedy Wolf", Thai action actor Tony Jia knelt down directly when he saw Sammo Hung for the first time. Zheng Baorui said that the eldest brother has that kind of aura.
Sammo Hung is old and strong, and he still has a strong aura and sharp movements when he shoots fight scenes.
In the film, Sammo Hung has two fight scenes. In recent years, he has an old knee injury and rarely acts in action scenes again, but he reminded Zheng Baorui that there is no need to accommodate him, when designing movements, this role can be played how it should be played, and don't avoid the movements of the lower body because of the inconvenience of the legs.
There is a line in the film: In the future, the city will be the world of you young people. In fact, Zheng Baorui is also using this line to talk about Hong Kong movies.
Many people often mention the glorious days of Hong Kong movies, but in Zheng Baorui's view, those are all in the past, and it's time to hand them over to the next generation. Even though several young actors in the film don't know how to fight, they are very interested and work hard to train, and Zheng Baorui will give them space. Because the power of young actors will move people, when they are in this industry for 10 or 20 years, this power is gone, "Louis Koo works very hard, but no matter how hard he works now, you also think that he is acting, not real power, but young people have that energy, make a punch, the audience can feel his hard work, that is really for young people."
He handed over the ending part of the movie to the young people to play, and the senior actors were also very cooperative, "Xiao Qi (Ren Xianqi), Gu Tsai (Louis Koo), and Big Brother (Sammo Hung ) know exactly what my position is, and I have no opinion at all, no one told me, whether I played the end or not, why did I die so early, I haven't heard this kind of complaint." Zheng Baorui said that if you don't take this step, young people will never be exposed and will never be able to come out.
Zheng Baorui decided early on that when the film was two-thirds of the way through the story, it would be completely handed over to the next generation, and the previous generation would leave. And the role of the villain Wang Jiu is particularly important, if he is not powerful, the end will not have to be fought for so long. When choosing actors, Zheng Baorui decided to find an action actor who knows how to fight, and he had to be different in terms of momentum.
The villain Wang Jiu played by Wu Yunlong is a crazy cult.
However, actors who can move may be relatively weak in performance, but Zheng Baorui didn't want to give up, and soon Wu Yunlong, who was an action actor, appeared in his field of vision. Wu Yunlong has played some more positive roles before, and also played Bruce Lee ("Birth of the Dragon" 2016). But in the process of chatting with him, Zheng Baorui found that he was "quite stupid", so he tried on the style for him, and he couldn't recognize the original appearance at all. After that, Zheng Baorui began to slowly grind the role with Wu Yunlong, "You laugh, a little more, a little crazier", Zheng Baorui used laughter to let Wu Yunlong find a way to enter the play, he felt that if this character often laughed like this, he might be a little neurotic, and told Wu Yunlong to let go and play.
During the filming, Wu Yunlong felt that he was Wang Jiu, and he was completely open, and some reactions were not expected by Zheng Baorui. For example, there is a scene where others call him the underworld, and he improvises a thumbs up and sticks out his tongue. Wu Yunlong is also very happy to play the role of Wang Jiu, and no director has ever been able to dig out the other side of his performance. In Zheng Baorui's view, many audiences will have a stereotype of actors, but he likes to find a possibility in actors to help them build up their confidence step by step.
Closing yourself off is the scariest thing about creation
At this year's Hong Kong Film Awards, Zheng Baorui won the first Academy Award for Best Director with the movie "Murder". Since the release of "Journey to the West" in 2018, Zheng Baorui has basically taken root in Hong Kong, not only directing "Wisdom Teeth", "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" and "Murder", but also participating in pure Hong Kong films such as "Wheat Roadman", "Off the Internet" and "Tailgating" as a producer and producer.
In an interview with the Beijing News, Zheng Baorui said that he would not limit himself to only making Hong Kong films or mainland themes in terms of creation, and he was very afraid that he would only shoot one kind of thing, even if he stayed in the same company for too long, or cooperated with some people for too long. In terms of creation, Zheng Baorui has a very open attitude.
Zheng Baorui said, "Sometimes closing yourself off is the most terrible thing in creation."
If the results of "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" are very good, Zheng Baorui will also consider filming the second part, but he will not keep filming, "I have experienced the non-stop filming of the "Journey to the West" series (in addition to the previously filmed "Journey to the West: Havoc in the Heavenly Palace", "Journey to the West: Monkey King Three Fights the White Bone Spirit", "Journey to the West: Daughter Country", and may also direct "Journey to the West: Borrowing a Banana Fan" and "Journey to the West: The True and False Monkey King" in the future In fact, it's good for me, it's good for movies, it's all harm, it's too expensive, and if you keep doing this thing, you almost have to slow down first and do something else first. So "Wisdom Teeth" and "Murder" are very important works for me, and I began to find the taste of making movies, and the reason why I like movies and why I keep doing them."
Zheng Baorui revealed to the Beijing News that there may be two dramas to be filmed in the mainland in the future, a costume film and a modern film, "both related to water", which are completely themes that he has not filmed before. If he only shoots one genre, he may retire after 30 films, and he still wants to keep shooting, so he can only keep trying new things. Even if it is a small-budget film made of only 10 million, he can express some of his personal thoughts, and he has not given up, he still wants to shoot.
For the future of Hong Kong films, Zheng Baorui still maintains a relatively positive attitude, "I think I will shoot when I have the opportunity, just like spring, summer, autumn and winter, Hong Kong films are experiencing winter, we hope to go slowly step by step, and then go forward is spring, but if you don't go, that spring will never come."
Audiences are welcome to watch the film "The Siege of the Walled City of Kowloon" at the Dolby Cinema at Paragon to enjoy the ultimate audio-visual experience.
Beijing News reporter Teng Chao
Edited by Huang Jialing
Proofread by Liu Yue