In 1996, the popularity of a film opened a new era of "gangster" theme in the Hong Kong film industry, this year, Liu Weiqiang took the young Zheng Yijian and Chen Xiaochun and others to shoot "Ancient Puzzle Boy" in fifteen days to sweep the theater line, with a box office of 120,000 injected a new theme of "gangster" into the Hong Kong film industry.
In the following five years, there were six consecutive works of "Ancient Puzzle Boy", including the new biography and fan, each film received a super high box office, because the influence was too large, resulting in a bad tendency to make many young people's thoughts appear bad, in the subsequent films, Chen Haonan, played by Zheng Yijian, stepped onto the podium and warned young people to study hard.
And "Ancient Puzzle Boy" also made Zheng Yijian and Chen Xiaochun become popular stars, Chen Haonan and Pheasant once became synonymous with them, and the success of the "Ancient Puzzle Boy" series also triggered a climax of police film imitation, such as "Mengjia", "Friends", etc., and the film industry has risen a "gangster" boom.
Even today, 25 years later, the lines of the "Ancient Puzzle Boy" series are still deeply rooted in people's hearts, and similar themes are being flipped.
This is not recently the emergence of a big online movie called "Re-fight the Jianghu 2021".
The film invited the Academy Award for Best Newcomer and the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor Li Cansen to play the villain role.
Although the main actor did not put together the lineup of "Ancient Puzzle Boy", he still invited Chen Xiaochun, the actor of "Pheasant", who has been active in the mainland in recent years and recently revived the second spring of his career with variety shows such as "Brother With Thorns and Thorns".
This "Re-Fight jianghu 2021" is very similar to "Ancient Puzzle Boy" in the plot framework, and it also tells the story of the jianghu feud of the little people.
This time the story is set in the overseas new city, Brother Shan (Chen Xiaochun) with Anan and Old Lin Jinpo to wash their hands and quit the jianghu, but the jianghu is not what you want to retreat, fifteen years later, the gangster big brother Ta Li asked Lao Lin and Anan to transport illegal items for them, after being rejected, the angry Ta Li led people to beat up Lao Lin and others.
Fortunately, Brother Shan arrived in time to rescue the two, and Ta Li also drove off the cliff in the process of pursuit, Ta Li's brother Chanon decided to take revenge on the three brothers of Shan after learning the news, he first solved Lao Lin and Anan, and then kidnapped Brother Shan's daughter Xiaonuo, asking Brother Shan to go to the shipyard to meet, in order to rescue his daughter, Brother Shan broke into Chanon's base camp alone, and the story officially began.
After the IP of "Ancient Puzzle Boy" was launched, this "Re-Battle jianghu 2021" continued to occupy the first position of the network hit after the start of broadcasting, and the film won the first place at the box office on the first day of its launch, which was quite amazing in terms of popularity.
However, the high popularity does not represent a high reputation, the score of the film has been as low as 3 points since its launch, and what is even more difficult to look at is that there is not much praise on Douban.
After watching this 70-minute net university, I have a new understanding of the net big follow-up remake classic, in my opinion, this "Re-Fight jianghu 2021" 3 points still have room to fall, because there are too many slot points.
Groove point one: too much attention to imitation, with Chen Xiaochun sitting still difficult to hide the decline
Although in the name of reproducing classics, this "Re-fight the Jianghu 2021" gives people a sense of déjà vu that draws a tiger not an anti-dog, giving people a strong smell of cottage.
With the protagonist is the "pheasant" Chen Xiaochun in "Ancient Puzzle Boy", but without Zheng Yijian's "Chen Haonan", the whole film is a bit dramatic, without Chen Haonan, the pheasant brother seems to be very thin.
For example, after the daughter Xiaonuo was taken away by Chanon, Chanon asked Brother Shan to go to the shipyard to meet, originally Brother Shan wanted to call Xiao Feng as a helper, did not expect that Xiao Feng, who had left the jianghu for many years, adopted the orphan Xiao You, she did not want to break the peaceful life, helplessly, Brother Shan could only go to the banquet alone, and then in the captain, he saw that Brother Shan was beaten by Chanon without the ability to fight back, at this time, how many people wanted Chen Haonan to bring someone to help.
Not only that, now Chen Xiaochun is more than fifty years old, not when he was rich and powerful, many action scenes used a lot of stand-ins, and there was no such loneliness as a "pheasant", in fact, looking at Chen Xiaochun's works over the years, it is not difficult for you to find that the box office and reputation of many of Chen Xiaochun's works are not very good, such as "Stupid Plan", "Black and White Labyrinth" and so on.
Although the film is not brilliant, but in terms of variety shows, with a cute personality, Chen Xiaochun has become a regular visitor to mainland variety shows, and almost all the variety shows he participated in have good ratings, and in the film, Chen Xiaochun still continues the law of film and television downturn.
Secondly, too much pursuit of the feelings of "Ancient Puzzle Boy", such as Chen Xiaochun is called Brother Shan, and his two subordinates, one is Lao Lin and the other is Anan, is not very corresponding to the name of the person in "Ancient Puzzle Boy".
The same is true in terms of plot, such as the scene at the beginning of the film, Ta Li sitting in the car listening to music and shaking his head, which is the same as the character of Lei Yaoyang in "Invincible", who also likes to listen to elegant music and do crazy things.
The shot of Brother Shan writing orthography on the wall of the prison to count the time is exactly the same as the shot in "Golden Brothers" in which Chen Haonan went in, and the pheasant locked himself up alone in his home and wrote the word "positive" every day to calculate Chen Haonan's time out.
Not only that, in the play, Cha Nong, played by Li Cansen, broke into the base camp of human traffickers and held a grenade, just like the pheasant in "Ancient Puzzle Boy" in order to save Chen Haonan is very similar.
Most importantly, in "Ancient Puzzle Boy", Chen Haonan lost a small stutter, and in "Fight again in the jianghu 2021", Xiao Feng sacrificed his life to save Brother Shan's daughter, there are too many similar shots in the film, but in terms of performance, it does not surpass the original, which makes the audience look like a fish in the throat.
Slot two: The story is too old-fashioned
The story of "Fight Again 2021" is really too old-fashioned, the narrative mode of the whole story is not reversed in the slightest, and many viewers can think of the solution after seeing the first half.
You see this content, 18 years ago, Brother Shan took people into an armed struggle, was sentenced to prison, triggered his wife to give birth prematurely, although the child was saved, but the wife lost her life, after being released from prison, Brother Shan decided to wash his hands in the golden basin, and then took his daughter Xiaonuo to live an ordinary life.
Fifteen years later, the good brothers Anan and Lao Lin were beaten by Ta Li, Shan Ge fought righteous rescue, Ta Li unfortunately lost his life, and then Ta Li's brother took revenge, took away Xiao Nuo, let Shan Brother pay for his life, with the help of Xiao Feng, Shan Ge finally found his daughter after all kinds of hardships, and the two good brothers including Xiao Feng were killed for this, and Shan Ge also went to prison again, and after he was released from prison, he took Xiao Nuo and Xiao You to live an ordinary life.
In fact, the whole story is simply a story of revenge, although this way of expression was very popular in the 90s, especially the fierce gunfights, drag racing, action scenes have made the audience watch the blood boiling, but there is no slightest reversal, and let the audience feel bored, after all, it is now 2021, that old-fashioned plot mode is obviously not in line with the audience's aesthetics.
In general, this film carries a lot of shots from "Ancient Puzzle Boy", with a flat and direct way of expression, giving Douban a 3.0 rating is actually not unjust at all.
The fluttering of this work also reflects the two major chaos of the net market
First of all, the net market is currently more keen to imitate and remake popular IP
Taking "Ancient Puzzle Boy" as an example, in recent years, there have been many imitations of the Internet, such as Zhang Hao's "Hao Ge vs Ancient Puzzle Boy", "Jianghu Academy", etc., and then there are imitations of Zhou Xingchi's classic works, such as "New Truant Weilong", "Comedy Star", etc., but these film reviews have been tragically thrown on the street because they only imitate the skin and have no essence.
Secondly, many supporting roles in Hong Kong films only look down for gold
I have to admit that the current Hong Kong films are indeed lonely, and the low salaries of many actors in TVB have once become the audience's talk after dinner, in order to live in the golden age of Many Hong Kong films supporting roles have entered the mainland to seek gold, the focus is that they only care about gold mining and others do not ask.
For example, Huang Yishan, Huang Yifa, such as spending them in the name of Zhou Xingchi's original people and horses to shoot the net, the result is to let the vain consume the audience's feelings, and even Wu Mengda has also participated in the "Legend of Debao of the Shaolin Temple" and has been complained about, although he knows that actors also need to make money, but at least they must have a little professionalism.
And "Re-fight the Jianghu 2021" although there is the blessing of the ancient puzzle boy IP, but the audience still unceremoniously gave a 3.0 rating, fully proved that the current audience is not a fool, if you want to get the audience's recognition, you must carefully polish the script.