As a Hong Kong director with a very personal style, Du Qifeng has created countless classics in his film career in the past 40 years. In addition to "Gunfire", "PTU", "Underworld", which are familiar to audiences, there are also some films that are relatively low-key in Du Qifeng's work chronology, including heroic hero films, thrillers that explore cause and effect, and highly stylized inspirational films.
Although for some reason they have either been overlooked or misread, over time, people have gradually discovered the classic charm of these works. This issue of Hong Kong Cinema Takes You Through Five Underrated Toh Films.
1. True Heroes
The film is a masterpiece of the early style of Galaxy Reflection, with both a nostalgic retro atmosphere and Du Qifeng's signature violent aesthetic. It's just that this kind of experimental film is not popular with the market. The fiasco at the box office of the film also led to the danger that Galaxy Image was heavily indebted and faced with no money to pay rent and could close its doors at any time. But at the insistence of Du Qifeng, a low-budget Hong Kong gunfight film made the texture of an American Western.
This film is dominated by large blue and red tones, but also has a lot of warm colors, which is very visually impactful, and the poignant picture bursts out of the brotherhood between the protagonists. As much as this film is underestimated, Dawn is also underrated, and now when we mention Dawn, we often think of "Sweet Honey", in fact, in "True Hero", Dawn also shows good acting skills. Overall, "True Hero" is like the bottle of red wine in the film, which is worth revisiting again and again.
2. Big Guy
This film is co-directed by Du Qifeng and Wei Jiahui, and Andy Lau played by Andy Lau, who was originally a Shaolin Temple warrior monk, who was brutally killed five years ago because of his friend Xiao Cui, sat under the tree for seven days and seven nights and saw the cause and effect, because he thought that he could no longer be a monk, so he came to the flower world of sound dogs and horses, and met the policewoman Li Fengyi played by Cecilia Cheung, he saw that Li Fengyi's past life was a murderous Japanese soldier, due to the depth of his sins, this life is doomed to die. In the process of arresting criminals, He rescued Li Fengyi three or four times, but it was still difficult to escape the tragic fate of the "causal cycle".
"Big Guy" combines the fatalism that Galaxy Image is good at with Buddhist philosophy, gets rid of the concept of traditional folk tales, re-examines and thinks about "karma" with modern thinking, and makes a new interpretation of "everything cannot be taken away, only karma is carried", which is attributed to the script created by Wei Jiahui and the outstanding performance method of Du Qifeng Qifeng. In 2004, "Big Guy" won the best film at the Academy Awards, and Andy Lau won the Golden Film Emperor for the second time with this film.
The large number of deletions and changes to consider the mainland market is one of the reasons for the poor reputation of "Big Guy". When "Detective" was released in the mainland, Liu Qingyun's "seeing ghosts" became "seeing bad things in people's hearts", while "Big Guy" was changed beyond recognition, deleting all the fragments about the killing of the Japanese army, and the so-called "Big Man and Great Wisdom" was just the wishful thinking of the scissor hand.
3. Major Incidents
At the beginning of this film, it is a long shot of 6 minutes and 47 seconds, for which Du Qifeng specially invited the photographer of "The Lord of the Rings", but the other party retreated on the grounds of "incompetence". As a result, Du Qifeng had to "rely on himself", he led the original team of Galaxy Image, unprecedentedly rented a 160-foot long shooting track, set up a heavy boom of up to 25 feet, and finally completed this long shot with extremely difficult operation.
In the film, Lin Xue, Ren Dahua, Shao Meiqi, Zhang Zhaohui and other people who play supporting roles are all familiar faces in Du Qifeng's films, but the protagonists are Ren Xianqi, Zhang Jiahui and Chen Huilin, who have never worked together before. Under the careful tutelage of Du Qifeng, all three of them have created an unprecedented screen image. The two robbers are played by mainland actors You Yong and Ding Haifeng, the former left a deep impression in the following year's "Underworld", and the scene in which he and Ren Xianqi jointly took charge in this film portrayed the two bandits as flesh and blood, real and credible.
The story of the confrontation between police and bandits has long been common in Hong Kong films, but The plot of Du Qifeng's choice of the use of the media to fight psychological warfare between the good and evil sides has made the audience quite fresh. The relationship between the media and power is also one of the focuses of this film. In this age of information explosion, whoever controls the media has power. Du Qifeng's questioning and ridicule of this phenomenon is vividly displayed in the film.
4. Judo Dragon tiger list
This film is Du Qifeng's personal favorite work, but after its release in the summer of 2004, it was treated coldly by the audience and critics. In this film, Du Qifeng breaks the conventional narrative mode, full of obscure camera language, which causes an understanding barrier for the audience to a certain extent. When Situ Bao, played by Gu Tianle, learned that he was about to lose his sight, he chose to give up his dreams, gave up on himself, and indulged in alcohol all day long. It wasn't until he met Tony, played by Aaron Kwok, and Xiao Meng, played by Ying Cai'er, that this situation changed. One of them was full of momentum and the other was full of vitality, allowing Situ Bao to regain his dream of judo. In this film, Gu Tianle, Aaron Kwok and Ying Cai'er all presented their best performances since the film, which shows Du Qifeng's directing skills.
In order to pay tribute to Akira Kurosawa, Du Qifeng imitated the scenes in "Zi Sanshiro" in which the protagonist sang in the mountains and put on shoes for the heroine, adding a sense of humor and absurdity. At the same time, Du Qifeng also used this film to wave goodbye to Hong Kong's glorious era. Situ Bao refers to today's Hong Kong people, although the light is behind him, the future is dark, but still should not give up on themselves, just like Situ Bao plucked up the courage to say: I want to fight with you.
"Judo Dragon and Tiger List" as a whole is permeated with a sentimental temperament, Du Qifeng believes that happy romance will never be more important than painful romance. When you feel abandoned by the times and life has become short and difficult, you still have to face it tenaciously. Just like Situ Bao in the film, the real light can only be reached through the dark grass.
5. Banishment
The film is considered a sequel or companion to Gunfire. In fact, Du Qifeng once again created a relatively independent and complete gangster story. Unlike the battle of Tsuen Wan Mall in "Gunfire", every scene in "Banishment" is worth chewing and savoring repeatedly. Whether it is a verbal but meaningful literary drama, or a skilled gun battle surface in slow motion, Du Qifeng has shot a tense, cold and fierce atmosphere, and the protagonists are like Gu Long's wandering heroes.
"Banishment" is a romanticized presentation of Du Qifeng's gangster movie. With the slow passage of the camera and the rhythm of the loose and direct music, Du Qifeng brings the romantic poetry into every shot of "Banishment". This film can also be seen as Du Qifeng's affectionate tribute to American Westerns. The cooperation of editing, soundtrack, photography, lighting, and sets has formed Du Qifeng's unique and extremely pleasing sense of rhythm.
If "Gunfire" is about a spirited jianghu past, then "Banished" is a romantic and sad adult martial arts fairy tale.
This article was first published in the public number: Kowloon Ice Room, welcome to pay attention to ~