Every year, Hong Kong movies always bring some surprises.
Erdong Pictures recently announced the film list and schedule for 2021, including "Wind Forest Volcano", "Tomorrow's War", "New Heavenly Dragon Slayer", "Detective Wars", "Money Empire: Battle of the Pinnacle" and other Hong Kong productions are expected to meet the audience this year.
However, because these movies have no prior evaluation, fans are only cautiously looking forward to it after marking "want to see", after all, there are many bad films that waste the luxury lineup, and I have not seen a movie full of Hong Kong flavor for a long time.
Then, the ongoing 71st Berlin Film Festival unexpectedly filled our expectations.
Directed by Zheng Baorui and starring Hong Kong Academy Awards film Emperor Lin Jiadong, the suspenseful crime movie "Wisdom Teeth" has exploded in advance!
The film was shortlisted for the special screening unit of this berlin film festival, and is the only Chinese film shortlisted, and the film critics who watched the film premiere in Berlin basically gave the film a four-star and five-star praise, and many people brushed the screen with five stars.
This is very rare for a Hong Kong film in recent years.
Dark, depressing, and large-scale, it was dizzy and breathless to watch, and it seemed to sweep the level of the Academy Awards. The black and white poster is also very mouthy and extremely stylized, so it needs to be cut and coded to be easy to send out.
(Cut poster of Wisdom Teeth)
After the first wave of word-of-mouth came out yesterday, "Wisdom Teeth" quickly rushed to the first place in the Douban hot search, and more than 15,000 viewers have marked it as wanting to see, and it seems that this wave is stable.
"Wisdom Teeth" is adapted from the novel of the same name by Remy, a well-known criminal psychology novel writer in the mainland, and yes, it is the Remy known for the "psychological crime" series, who also served as the screenwriter of the film. Speaking of which, the audience may be a little hesitant: can mainland books mix with Hong Kong directors and actors?
Of course, the story background of the novel is actually very similar to Hong Kong, "Next to the city, there are always forgotten and soon-to-be-replaced old neighborhoods, which is a complete portrayal of Hong Kong." Director Zheng Baorui said, "I was deeply touched when I saw it, and the story and characters were very attractive to me."
The story of "Wisdom Teeth" revolves around a serial murder case, the newly graduated Ren Kai and the newly reinstated Zhan Ge partner to solve the case, but the case can not be solved but caused a series of accidents. Brother Zhan re-encounters the street boy who killed his wife and children, and the hatred is hard to dispel; Ren Kai carelessly loses his gun and is mistakenly captured by the murderer, and the crisis is approaching step by step...
The suspenseful police and gangster theme is very suitable for hong Kong to unfold, and this has always been the best theme of Hong Kong films.
Director Zheng Baorui, probably one that many fans love and hate, is not in a stable state: he has both sharp masterpieces, such as "Dog Bites Dog", "Accident", "Kill the Wolf 2", and also has a "Journey to the West" series that is very different from other works.
(Zheng Baorui and Chen Guanxi on the set of "Dog Bites Dog")
2006's "Dog Bites Dog", many fans are impressed, and this movie is also considered to be the most brilliant one of Chen Guanxi's acting skills.
Zheng Baorui is Du Qifeng's galaxy image origin, in 2009, he directed Gu Tianle and Ren Xianqi starring in the police film "Accident" shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Venice Film Festival.
Although he has always been relatively "wandering", Du Qifeng praised him as a wizard, and also said to the outside world that he and You Naihai formed the next galaxy image golden partner of "Du Qifeng + Wei Jiahui".
This time," "Wisdom Teeth", should be Zheng Baorui holding his breath and once again wanting to prove his work, so it once again highlights his extremely personal style.
The trailer that has been released before "Wisdom Teeth" is completely black and white, and the atmosphere presented is eerie, dirty and depressing, full of destruction, and hidden secrets: garbage, back alleys, people, and the smell of daily life are intertwined.
The main filming locations of "Wisdom Teeth" were selected in To Kwa Wan, Kwun Tong and other places in Hong Kong. Those old buildings and back alleys are unique features of Hong Kong, and they are also the taste of Hong Kong in the eyes of mainland audiences, full of the childhood of generations, but with the development of the city, they inevitably disappear, fortunately, they are all ingested and recorded one by one.
In order to create the sense of hell that the film needs, the crew has to prepare 15 truckloads of garbage every day for the set. Large-scale shots such as stumps and corpses that appear from time to time in the film are even more chilling.
(The trailer is quite large, screenshot code)
"Wisdom Teeth" deliberately uses black and white pictures, which invisibly increases the sense of oppression and shock of the film, making the atmosphere thick and making people breathless. The actor Lin Jiadong said that when he saw the color scene on the set, he already felt that the director's shooting was dark.
In such a dirty and chaotic environment, the actors have suffered a lot, and it is already common to eat with garbage and snakes, insects, rats and ants.
The heroine's actor, Liu Yaser, needs to lie in garbage dumps, sewers and other places, and only wear shorts and vests according to the needs of the plot. In order not to affect the sound effect of the scene, she refused the protective bag provided by the crew, which can be said to be quite dedicated.
Liu Yaser has starred in Zhao Wei's first directing film "To the Youth We Will Eventually Pass Away", and in recent years she has often appeared in Hong Kong films, and her collaboration with Hui Yinghong's "Lucky Me" has made her a great hit.
(Arthur Liu in "Lucky Is Me")
She waited for the role of "Wisdom Teeth" for 13 years, and even though it was challenging, she was willing to play. It turned out that the effort was worth it, and people who had seen the film praised her, it seemed, and it felt like the trophy after the Academy Awards was almost delivered to her.
Lin Jiadong, who plays the male protagonist Zhan Ge, is also very hard in this movie, in order to shoot action scenes, he accidentally injured his ribs, the doctor asked him to rest for three months, but the director only let him rest for three hours.
"Wisdom Teeth" is the first script that Lin Jiadong has picked since winning the Academy Awards in 2017, so he is very serious about this performance.
Li Chun, who plays Ren Kai ("The Legend of the Demon Cat" and "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle"), is the son of the great director Ang Lee, who has been tirelessly trying to get rid of his father's huge aura and follow his own path as an actor.
In addition, the Japanese actors who play the scavenger Hiroyuki Ikeuchi ("Ip Man"), Shen Zhenxuan ("Acts"), Liao Ziyu ("Chunjiao Save Zhiming") have also paid a lot, and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi has lost 30 pounds in a month.
(Starring Lin Jiadong, Liu Yaser, Li Chun)
The director is demanding, the actors have strong adaptability, and without their profession, there will be no first wave of good reputation of "Wisdom Teeth".
Dark and cold is Zheng Baorui's strength, very "galactic image", "Wisdom Teeth" is his return to his own style after "Dog Bites Dog", "Accident" and "Kill the Wolf 2", and exerts the aesthetics of violence to the extreme.
(Hiroyuki Ikeuchi director Zheng Baorui)
Being able to move the story of a mainland novel to Hong Kong was also credited to another screenwriter, Au Kin-er. She is one of the screenwriters of Galaxy Image, du qifeng and Wei Jiahui's right-hand man, and has won two academy awards, representative works such as "Mobile Force", "Big Man has Great Wisdom", "Detective" and "Death Gold".
It is worth mentioning that the entire film lasted 8 years from planning to production, pouring out a lot of director Zheng Baorui's feelings for Hong Kong.
This "wisdom teeth", look forward to it.
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