At the end of the 1980s, the Hong Kong film industry set off a trend of comic films.
At that time, Japanese comics began to sweep Hong Kong and Taiwan, and for a time, various Hong Kong films adapted from Japanese comics also emerged in an endless stream.
This trend of comic book adaptations began with 1988's "The Peacock Prince", which was a great success at the time, and director Lan Naicai later filmed a sequel to "Asura", two works that not only sold well in Hong Kong, but also in Japan.
By 1992, Hong Kong comic films ushered in the peak, and this year alone gave birth to three comic book classics.
The first is Lan Naicai's "Power King", which was not successful at the box office at the time, but was named CULT god work because of its extremely violent aesthetic, and became popular by the release of later audio-visual products;
The second is "City Hunter" cooperated by Jackie Chan and Wang Jing, the film is adapted from hojoji's manga, although it is not faithful to the original book, but because of the star gathering and high entertainment, it has become a classic in the manga adaptation of Hong Kong films;
In "City Hunter", dawn, one of the four kings who tried the bull knife, played a leading role in the "Demon Beast City" directed by Xu Ke in the same year, and the degree of evil in this film is not much better than that of "Force King", but it received more than ten million box office in that year.
However, because the style of the film was too advanced, resulting in a mediocre reputation, it was regarded as:
One of Xu Laowei's most underrated works!
In this issue of the "Cult Movie Awards", let's review this comic book 29 years ago -
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="25" > Monster City</h1>
The Wicked City
Released in 1992, the film is based on the novel of the same name by Hideyuki Kikuchi.
In 1987, the novel was adapted into an anime by director Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and it has also become a major reference for Hong Kong live-action films.
As a special effects maniac, Xu Ke, in this sci-fi style monster movie, plays his best spectacle display, and the display of various strange powers and hunting monsters in the film can be described as very imaginative.
The main cast of the movie is quite strong, the male actors are, led by the two kings Liming and Jacky Cheung, at that time they had not yet been awarded the four kings, but the popularity was already quite high, as well as the Japanese national treasure actor, Kurosawa Akira's royal male protagonist Nakadai Tatsuya joined.
The actress also brings together the two goddesses of the Hong Kong film industry, Li Jiaxin from Hong Kong and Li Ruotong, who is the first time to act in the film, both of whom contributed to the peak of the screen appearance in this film, especially Li Jiaxin also has a fully naked back shot in the movie, which can be regarded as the biggest scale in the early days of her debut.
In addition, there are the world's first martial arts instructor Yuan Heping and the villain professional Zhang Yaoyang playing supporting roles, and even the actor who plays Spider Woman in the opening scene is also the Japanese actress Reiko Hayama, which can be said to be a star who is full of gimmicks.
The film opens with a spooky narration that leads to the theme of the story:
The modern city is like a jungle made of steel and cement, and humans are just one of the species that parasitize it, competing with their peers every day and fighting against demon beasts.
Time is set in the near future, a world where humans and demons coexist.
In order to fight against the fierce and brutal demon beasts, the human side set up a secret SWAT team dedicated to dealing with the demon beasts. In the long struggle, the demon beasts are also divided into two factions, one faction integrates into human society and seeks peace with humans; the other faction tries to eliminate humans and dominate the world.
The story begins on the streets of Tokyo, where a pair of passionate kissing men and women walk into a hotel.
The woman dressed charmingly, raised her hands and feet to show charm, obviously a dusty woman, leading the man into the room,
The man pushed off to go to the bathroom, but after closing the door, he quietly pulled out his pistol and loaded the bullet.
The woman took the initiative to give her a hug, but the man had already pointed the muzzle of the gun at her,
Then the next second, the woman suddenly showed her fangs, revealing an ugly archetype, which turned out to be a spider monster.
The originally beautiful scene has also become a horror movie in seconds, and the man with a gun fights with the spider woman in front of him.
The man is none other than the protagonist, Aaron (Dawn), an anti-demon beast special policeman, who is ordered to track down a demon beast that is raging in Tokyo's red light district, and quietly follows the monster into the hotel in the name of Buying Spring, intending to destroy the monster that killed many people.
However, the power of the demon beast was beyond the ordinary, and Aaron gradually fell into the downwind,
At the moment of crisis, his partner Ah Qiang (played by Jacky Cheung) arrived in time to simply kill the demon beast and save Aaron's life.
Aaron and Cuong are both capable members of the SWAT team, and the two have made a lot of contributions from birth to death together, usually the two disguise themselves as ordinary office workers, and the headquarters of the secret SWAT team is hidden in an office building on the streets of downtown Hong Kong.
The head of the SWAT team is Captain Kashan, who also has a beautiful female secretary named Violet (Li Ruotong),
Recently, the SWAT team found a mysterious drug trafficking case, and a drug called "happiness" appeared on the market, which can greatly increase people's energy and finally exhaust their sperm and blood. According to intelligence, the outflow of this drug should be related to the demon organization.
Originally, the case had always been investigated by Ah Qiang, but as soon as Aaron returned from a business trip to Tokyo, Captain Kazan transferred the task to the more important Aaron.
Not because Ah Qiang's ability is not as good as Ah Long, but because Ah Qiang is a combination of demons and demons, and has half of the demon beast genes in his body, so he is not believed by the captain, and Ah Qiang is aware of the prejudice of the captain.
His situation is very embarrassing, neither fully believed by humans nor accepted by the demon beasts, this huge sense of contradiction makes him feel bitter inside, only his friend Aaron and the female secretary Violet have been encouraging and supporting him.
In the bar to buy drunk Ah Qiang accidentally encountered a case of demon beast injury, Ah Qiang chased to the back kitchen of the bar, only to find a liquid demon beast and mechanical demon beast, Ah Qiang was not able to defeat the two demon beasts besieged, fortunately Aaron arrived, the two joined forces to repel the demon beast.
Later, Ah Long receives information that the source of the happy pill is likely related to the chairman of the large group, Yuan Dazong (Zhongdai Dafu), and Captain Kazan suspects that Yuan Dazong himself is a demon beast, so he asks Ah Long and Ah Qiang to infiltrate Yuan Dazong's birthday feast together to investigate.
After eavesdropping, Aaron discovers that Yuan Dazong, as the chairman of the Demon Beast Group, is not the mastermind of creating "happiness". On the contrary, Yuan Dazong, who longed for peace, learned that happiness flowed out of the group and had been investigating the source of the drug.
Yuan Dazong has a son named Ghost Zhongdao (Zhang Yaoyang), who is a radical in the demon world. He was fierce and cruel, and ambitious, always wanting to provoke a war between demons and humans, even his own father did not pay attention to him.
During the internal investigation of the Yuan Group, Aaron accidentally meets his former lover Fan Ji (Li Jiaxin).
Three years ago, when Aaron was on a mission, he was rescued by the demon beast Fanji, whose kindness made him feel good, violating human laws and falling in love with Xianji. However, Aaron eventually abandoned Phantom Ji because of the difference between the demons, and Phantom Ji later married Yuan Dazong and became the titular stepmother of the Ghost Sect.
The reunion with Fan Ji made Aaron fang inches chaotic, and at this moment, he was discovered by the ghost people, and the two immediately began to fight.
At the same time, at the Yuan Dazong Birthday Feast, the Liquid Demon Beast suddenly appeared, relying on the liquid demon beast's ability to change its form at will, attacking all the guests at the banquet, and even Yuan Dazong was cut off an arm because he was defenseless.
Phantom Ji is also kidnapped by the mechanical demon beast and injected with "Happiness", and eventually escapes with the injured Yuan Dazong.
Aaron escapes from the building with the help of Ah Qiang, and the SWAT team receives the order to dispatch a large group of men and horses to arrest the fleeing Yuan Dazong.
At this time, Yuan Dazong was seriously injured and took the poisoned Phantom Ji with him, and the two were in urgent need of treatment, so Captain Kazan speculated that they would definitely hide in a place with a lot of electricity, and use electricity to assist the rebirth dafa of the demon beast to heal the wounds.
Sure enough, Yuan Dazong was hiding in the power station with Xianji at this time, quietly "charging" his body!
The SWAT team surrounded the power station, and Yuan Dazong knew that he could not escape, so he let Fan Ji escape alone, but he was arrested by the SWAT team.
Due to the escape of Fan Ji, Captain Gasan believes that the SWAT team has internal ghosts to leak intelligence, and Ah Qiang, who naturally has the gene of a demon beast, has become a back pot man, and Captain Gasan did not even do any investigation, and directly ordered Ah Qiang to be suspended.
On the other side, the fleeing Phantom Ji asked the ghost for help, hoping to use his power to rescue Yuan Dazong.
However, for the ambitious ghost People, he had long wanted to take his father and replace him with a more vain attempt to possess everything from his father, including this young and beautiful stepmother, Fan ji.
Oni Zhongdao takes advantage of Fanji and threatens her to poison Aaron, and then tells the truth after winning the hand, in order to split The relationship between Fanji and Aaron.
Fortunately, Ah Qiang arrived in time to save Ah Long's life, but what he did not expect was that Ah Qiang not only had no merit in saving people, but was blamed by Captain Jiashan, and was still treated as an internal ghost, making Ah Qiang have a hard time arguing.
The suspended Ah Qiang did not give up, launched a solo investigation into the case, and indeed found the shocking truth -
The secretary Violet is the inner ghost, and she has been taking bribes from the ghosts to secretly help him smuggle "happiness".
Before Ah Qiang, who had found out the identity of the traitor, had time to report it, he was discovered by the ghost path and others, but fortunately, Guan Xianji appeared and blocked the ghost path.
It turned out that in order to rescue her husband Yuan Dazong, Fan Ji investigated the "banquet assassination case", and it turned out that the mastermind behind the scenes was ghost Zhongdao, so there was a battle between "stepmother" and "stepson", and finally Fanji fell into the hands of Ghost Zhongdao again.
And Ah Qiang relied on the demon beast power awakened at a critical moment to escape the disaster, and Ah Qiang, who escaped the day, had intended to report the internal adultery to the captain, but he did not expect to be bitten back by Violet.
The fainting Captain Kashan does not trust Ah Qiang, who has demon beast blood, and in anger, Ah Qiang kills Violet, and then risks letting Yuan Dazong go, determined to join forces to eliminate the ghost path.
Because his friend Ah Long could not let go of Fan Ji, he also went to rescue Fan Ji with Ah Qiang and Yuan Dazong.
At the same time that Yuan Dazong escaped from the SWAT team building, the villain boss Ghost Dao's plan to destroy the world has begun!
Taking advantage of the arrest of Yuan Dazong, oni Zhongdao launched a powerful demon-enclosed space above the tallest building in order to quickly reverse time and return humanity to primitive society. At the same time, the Ghost Sect sent two killer liquid demon beasts and mechanical demon beasts to hunt down and kill the three of Aaron.
Yuan Dazong easily killed the two demon beasts, and the most evil scene was that Yuan Dazong turned the mechanical demon beast into a human flesh motorcycle, and finally exhausted the demon beast by riding the motorcycle until it ran out of oil.
At the end of the story, Yuan Dazong, Ah Long and Ah Qiang fight the ultimate showdown with the Ghost Dao.
With the blessing of the human magnetic field released by the QIgong masters of the SWAT team, the protagonist group successfully killed the ghost dao, but Yuan Dazong quickly aged in this battle because he exhausted his own magic.
As for Ah Qiang, in the process, he triggered the blood of the demon beast in his body and became a demon beast, but because he did not want to hurt humans, he finally chose to commit suicide.
At the end of the story, Fan Ji leaves the city with the aging Yuan Dazong, leaving Aaron alone.
On his deathbed, Emperor Yuan Dazong sat on Fanji's car and left his last words:
You see how lonely this city is, I hope that in the future, human beings will no longer need the "happiness" of demon beasts...
The story of "Monster City" can be said to be quite novel and avant-garde in the Hong Kong film market in the 1990s, and the story of the film is actually closer to the Hollywood superhero theme, somewhat similar to the Hong Kong version of "X-Men", which tells the story of a group of anti-monster SWAT teams in the future society that specialize in dealing with demon beasts lurking in the human world, with the confrontation and killing between humans and demon beasts.
Although the plot setting is a little cheesy, at the time, it was a magical movie with a lot of imagination.
As a director, Xu Ke lived up to the name of the old monster, played a brain hole in the film, and restored the wonders of the demon beasts in the original work on the screen, the combination of the demon beasts and game consoles, elevators and motorcycles in the film, as well as the devouring clock, the closed space of the demon that rewinds time, etc., although limited by the age, the special effects in the film are more of the local special effects, which makes people have to marvel at how rich their imagination is.
The whole film integrates science fiction, monsters, thrillers, gunfights, martial arts and even hunting elements, the film is very special in cinematography and lighting, emphasizing a sense of psychedelicism, with all kinds of strange monsters to produce a sense of strangeness, from some details, Xu Ke may want to create a cyberpunk version of the modern fairy tale film.
Tsui Ke's films are keen on all kinds of metaphors, and this film is no exception, and the film, like the later "Green Snake" by Tsui Ke, tries to present a gray world where there is no distinction between good and evil. There are not only people and demons in the city, but also sinister desires.
Lurking into human society has become the chairman of the big business demon head, seemingly righteous human dawn is not as good as the seemingly evil demon beast leader to the lover, the half-human and half-beast hybrid Jacky Cheung and the demon beast leader finally saved everyone, time is a tool for killing, happiness is the drug of the demon beast world.
All of this makes this film the most CULT film of Xu Ke.
Of course, the film can not deny that the script is chaotic and the editing is out of control, the logic of the film is incoherent, the lack of transition in the middle, the later stage is relatively rushed, the front is laid for such a long time, the back suddenly accelerates, the plot develops rocket, so that the film is finally mediocre.
But as a comment from a netizen: Although the story is weak and lackluster, Li Jiaxin and Li Ruotong at that time were so beautiful that people were poor in words, and they could only sigh that the Hong Kong movies of that era could be so dazzling and beautiful even if they were stewed!