In recent years, foreign cold vampires and rampage zombies have swept our silver screen, such as "Twilight", "Blood Clan", "Busan Trip", "Resident Evil" and so on have set off a wave of drama chasing. At the same time, it evoked a nostalgia for me, the Hong Kong zombie films I chased over the years.
According to the records, as early as 1936, the Hong Kong Nanyue Film Company produced a "Midnight Zombie". This film is regarded as the first zombie film in the history of Hong Kong cinema, and it is also the first ghost film in the history of Hong Kong cinema.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Hong Kong also sporadically launched several zombie movies, such as Wang Tianlin's "Xiangxi Corpse Hunt", but the early Hong Kong zombie movies were not systematic, mostly imitating Western vampire movies, and their influence was extremely limited.
The first more influential zombie film in hong Kong film industry was Shaw's "Seven Golden Corpses" in 1974, which did not do well at the box office, but created a precedent for "kung fu zombie films". In 1976, Liu Jialiang's "Maoshan Zombie Fist" infused comedy and folklore elements into it, but unfortunately it was not scary enough. In 1980, Hong Jinbao's "Ghost Fighting Ghosts" created a "psychic kung fu comedy" that provided embryos for subsequent zombie films, a genre that was about to undergo a groundbreaking "corpse transformation".
1974 Shaw Company's "Seven Golden Corpses"
Liu Guanwei, who participated in the photography of "Ghost Fighting Ghosts", later became a director, and in 1985, he used a "Mr. Zombie" to open the "zombie era" in Hong Kong. Liu Guanwei's uncle was a Maoshan master who had listened to many related stories since he was a child. This innate advantage was implanted in the movie by him, creating the most grounded "Maoshan zombie film".
1980 Hong Jinbao's "Ghost Fighting Ghosts"
Now when everyone mentions zombies, the first thing that comes to mind is uniformly dressed in Qing Dynasty official clothes, with a stiff body, infinite strength, two hands forward, and jumping and walking. They rely on the breath of a living person to identify directions, so they can avoid zombies by holding their breath. This is the most novel localization invention of Hong Kong zombie films, which has been widely spread by the vivid presentation of "Mr. Zombie", which makes many children believe it to be true.
1985 Mr. Zombie
As for the profound Maoshan Technique, it is even more interesting. "Mr. Zombie" is simply the first Chinese zombie coping guide, and we have learned a lot of tricks from it. On the one hand, there is the professional "paper, pen and ink sword" (yellow paper, red pen, black ink, real knife, wooden sword) of the Taoist "Ninth Uncle", and on the other hand, there is a common remedy for warding off evil spirits such as glutinous rice. After watching this film, many people especially love to eat glutinous rice products.
Calm and capable masters paired with mischievous apprentices are a big tradition in Hong Kong films. After the release of "Mr. Zombie", the Taoist priest "Uncle Nine" played by Lin Zhengying became a hit and became the brightest face in Hong Kong zombie films. The image of him dressed in a Taoist robe, wearing a Taoist hat, and holding a peach wood sword is repeated in subsequent zombie films. He has a cold humor that does not smile, integrity and good face, when dealing with ghost zombies, he is full of wisdom and courage, and he is admired as soon as he appears, and that action is definitely more stylish than Ultraman. Many fans regard "Lin Zhengying As a synonym for zombie films" and insist that "zombie films without Lin Zhengying are not called zombie films".
In fact, in addition to The awe-inspiring "righteous face" of Lin Zhengying in hong Kong zombie films, Hui Guanying's slightly obscene but full of comedy "bitter melon face" is another classic. In "Mr. Zombie", Xu Guanying plays The apprentice Wencai of "Uncle Nine", a cute and timid womanizer, who unfortunately becomes a half-human and half-corpse in order to protect her beloved girl from being bitten by a zombie. In order to avoid blood clotting, he hangs on the iconic "bitter melon face" and helplessly dances with feelings, which is no less classic than the rabbit dance in "Pulp Fiction".
Another apprentice of "Uncle Nine" is Qiu Sheng, played by Qian Xiaohao, who and Wencai are like "cats and mice" who tear each other apart but hate each other and care about each other. Qiu Sheng is not as funny as Wencai, but he is extraordinary, and he has a sexual encounter with the female ghost played by Wang Xiaofeng in the film. This ghost love is very romantic, especially with the interlude "Ghost Bride": "Her vision, her vision, seems to be like the stars glowing, seeing, seeing, seeing, seeing, panicking..." The ghost bride dressed in red drifted from the tree to the back seat of Qiusheng's bicycle, and many fans still have memories of it.
Every character in Mr. Zombie is a classic, and in addition to these characters, the others are also impressive. The rich lady played by Li Saifeng is pure and lovely, at first as playful and foreign as "Thirteen Aunts", and becomes gentle and quiet after her father turns into a zombie. Lou Nanguang's image of the stupid sheriff is an imperious and unlucky nester, and this little character who is both a little hateful, a little pitiful and cute, has also become a common accessory in later zombie films. These characters, big and small, are now the most beautiful memories of zombie movies for movie fans.
Although it has been imitated continuously, "Mr. Zombie" has always been imitated, but it has never been surpassed, and it is still the supreme classic in the hearts of movie fans. As the most successful director of zombie films, Liu Guanwei still creates the "Mr. Zombie" series with the rhythm of "one a year".
In 1986, the second part of the series, Zombie Family, moved the time background from the beginning of the people to the modern era, with small zombies playing with children like "E.T", and large zombies taking to the streets to cause car crashes, shootings and explosions, magically interacting with the "Hero's True Colors" released at the same time. What's even more amazing is that "Zombie Family" successfully broke into the Japanese market, and the zombie boom poured into Toei.
Zombie Family (1986)
In the mixed zombie film market, Liu Guanwei relies on meticulous work to slow down and finally keeps his golden sign of "the originator of Maoshan zombie films". In 1987, the third part of the series, "Mr. Magic", still sold well, but it was not as good as the first in terms of word of mouth.
1987 "Mr. Phantom"
After the release of the fourth "Uncle Zombie" in 1988, it was finally a round to win back. "Uncle Zombie" temporarily lacks "Uncle Nine" Lin Zhengying, and in his place is the Dao Chief played by Chen You, the "Cold-faced Laughing Craftsman". He and the monk played by Noonma are inseparable, and each leads his disciples in a prank-style deception and secret fight. This monk's laughter was constant, whether it was the peanut rice and dried radish that flew across, or the big vat of oil that supported the big belly, and now I can't help but think of it. "Uncle Zombie" is full of various ghost horse ideas, which are particularly insightful. It shows you that the peachwood sword is also available in a variety of sizes, from S to XXXL. It also reminds you that the original Hong Kong movies were rich in pseudo-brides, such as the enchanting nanny played by martial arts star Yuan Hua in it, with orchid fingers, shaking white handkerchiefs, and a mouthful of "Oh, scared me to death". Yuanhua's image of the lady cannon here is really amazing, but in fact, he has already scared people once. That's right, he's the scary zombie in Mr. Zombie with heavy makeup. It is said that He found YuanHua to play a zombie because at that time, only he could complete the actions required in the film.
1988 Uncle Zombie
In addition to Liu Guanwei, there is a second "Liu" in the history of Hong Kong zombie films, that is, Liu Zhenwei, who later directed "Journey to the West" and "East becomes West". In fact, aiming at the theme of zombie films is because only Liu Guanwei is famous for shooting this genre, an opponent, who is better at "fighting".
In 1987, Liu Zhenwei and Wong Kar-wai collaborated on "Fierce Ghost Messenger", although Liu Zhenwei originally came to Liu Guanwei, but this "Fierce Ghost Mission" did not simply continue the style of "Maoshan Zombie Film", but seamlessly connected zombie films with popular fashion police films, thus creating a new sub-category of zombie films - "police zombie films". In "The Fierce Ghost Mission", the Maoshan Daoist played by Zhong Fa is just a formality, and the real task of eliminating the zombie falls to the head of a pair of police partners. Xu Guanying, who did not count the starring role before, provoked the beam with the song god Jacky Cheung this time, facing the zombies, they were extremely awkward and foreign, but in the end, they still used the bright light to eliminate the zombies in accordance with the classic method in Western-style vampire zombie films. In addition, the zombies in the film are no longer stiff Qing Dynasty widows, but modern fierce ghosts in suits, which can be regarded as a "combination of earth and ocean" and unique in the almost flooded market of "Maoshan Zombie Films". Moreover, "The Ghost Messenger" not only stole the bar bridge section in the classic thriller "The Shining", but also added a variety of thrillers and funny materials, the head underwear, the evil posture of the Kuixing kicking and fighting is another trick after "holding your breath", but it is more difficult and not elegant enough, so it has not been popularized. There are also cute lyrical small details in "The Haunted Ghost", wong Kar-wai's later "cup", "can", "key" here is based on a tape recorder, and the fierce zombies stop and pause after hearing the music it plays, and patiently enjoy it. This soothing pacing ghost horse was later expanded into Music Zombies in 1992.
1987 Liu Zhenwei's "Fierce Ghost Messenger Pavilion"
In 1988, Liu Zhenwei took advantage of the hot iron to shoot "Fierce Ghost Academy". Inside, Xu Guanying was unfortunately bitten by a zombie and infected with corpse poison. In the flickering light and dark moonlight, his "bitter melon face" struggles helplessly between change and invariance, fangs or not, sometimes changing into a human and sometimes a corpse. This half-human, half-corpse image is the vivid embodiment of Hong Kong, an Oriental who has been bitten half by a Western vampire, shedding two kinds of blood and having a dual identity.
Another highlight of "The School of The Fierce Ghost" is Wong Kar-wai's devotion, in which he makes a cameo role, wearing a trench coat, flashing by. Wong Kar-wai later never wrote zombie films again, but Liu Zhenwei was happy to upgrade zombies tirelessly, in 1989's "Fierce Ghost Building" and 1990's "Corpse Heavy Land", Liu Zhenwei engaged in ghost horse experiments.
Liu Zhenwei, who relied on Western elements to fight in zombie films, later returned to tradition and studied many new zombie killing tricks. The most special thing is the way to defeat zombies by incarnating as historical and mythological figures. Eight Immortals, Nezha, and Jing Ke have appeared one after another, and Yang Guifei, Wang Zhaojun, and Zhao Feiyan have performed on the same stage, which is dazzling and doubly crossed, and it seems that Liu Zhenwei has long had the habit of "big talk". This trick later spread to other zombie films. For example, at the end of Dong Wei's "Exorcism Police" in 1990, the three policemen incarnated as Liu, Guan, and Zhang, and the three palms combined to get rid of the vicious female demon. In that era of unbridled creativity, Hong Kong films did not care about intellectual property rights at all.
In the history of Hong Kong zombie films, there is a person whose films may not be as famous as that of "Er Liu", but his obsession with zombie themes is absolutely victorious. This person is Huang Ying, the original author of "Mr. Zombie". As a zombie-level enthusiast, Huang Ying is most keen to open a "zombie academy" for readers and audiences. This kind of academy not only explains the source of fear, but also shows how to overcome it, so that the audience can feel safe like eating a "reassuring pill", which is also one of the charms of Hong Kong zombie films. Huang Ying's death is also said to be related to his hobbies. In the 1990s, he borrowed a loan shark for poor capital flow for zombie films, but later lost all his money and was beaten to death at home by debt collectors.
Huang Ying's tragic death also reflects the subsequent decline of Hong Kong zombie films. Although Hong Kong filmmakers use diversity and madness as a fierce medicine to rescue zombie films, they are still powerless to return to the sky. By the mid-1990s, the Hong Kong film industry was in an overall slump, with few jumping zombies on the screen. Lin Zhengying's death in 1997 caused fans to sigh with regret, and they even decided that "there is no zombie film after Lin Zhengying". In the post-Lin Zhengying era, as a kind of attachment to the zombie boom, some new zombie films have come out sporadically, such as Liang Honghua's "Mr. Corpse Chaser" in 2001, "Millennium Zombie King" supervised by Xu Ke in 2002, Liu Jiahui's "Shaolin Zombie" in 2009, and Luo Shouyao's "Zombie New Warrior" in 2010. But these zombie movies are really a rotten one, so much so that some netizens joked: "People who dare to watch this kind of bad movie are really brave." ”
In 2013, Mak Junlong's "Zombie" (aka "Seven Days Reborn") attracted much attention. In the film, we are pleased to see the familiar faces of Lou Nanguang, Chen You, and Qian Xiaohao, who have been absent for a long time, see voldemort-like zombies with long fingernails jumping and creating fear, and hear the classic episode "Ghost Bride" in "Mr. Zombie", whether this "Zombie" is an elegy for Hong Kong zombie films or a new horn, it is a precious summons to Hong Kong zombie films.
2013 Mak Junlong's Zombie
However, some of the current zombie films, imitating the predecessors are not four different, the use of a large number of five-cent special effects scenes, the japanese sanmao horror mixed in, greatly weakened the humor and funny of the previous zombie films, zombies have become less lively. However, the past has become a thing of the past, and zombie films cannot be revived from the dead. If no one innovates, zombie movies will only be dusty underground forever.