Wen Lee Shen Meow
Filmmaker Wang Jing. Photo/Acan
Wang Jing, who is 66 years old this year, is undoubtedly the most prolific film and television practitioner on the planet, and since he began entering the film and television industry as a screenwriter, he has worked as a producer, director, screenwriter or producer for more than 400 film and television drama works.
Wang Jing's works are not short of those that are still regarded as classics, but he is not regarded as the "king of Hong Kong films" or "the king of comedy" because of his prolificity and his profound influence on the style of Hong Kong cinema, or the classic comedies he has made with Stephen Chow.
Wang Jing once responded to this in an interview: "What is a bad film? Who defines it? But he never denied his high emphasis on the commercial value of movies, and in his view, making money is the first priority of movies.
This is not only the value orientation of the early development of the Hong Kong film industry, but also related to Wang Jing's own special experience as a teenager. In the early years, the sudden changes in his family forced him to make a living with his father Wang Tianlin, who was a director, and share the worries of his family.
He later recalled the experience: "I decided to take the path of not talking but being pragmatic, and I could no longer let my family suffer the same as my father." So for 30 years I only made commercial films, but dare I say, I gave my family the best I could offer. ”
However, if some people have doubts about Wang Jing's over-commercial works, then they definitely underestimate this veteran filmmaker who has stood in the film industry for more than 40 years.
In addition to comedy, there is at least one subject matter, and he can make good works as long as he wants.
The movie "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon" released on May 1. / Stills from the movie "Chasing the Tiger and the Dragon"
Counting the "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon" released on May Day, Wang Jing has made five films around the black-and-white jianghu stories of Hong Kong Chinese Detective Lu Le, drug lord "Lame Hao" and others. Whether it is the early works "Five Hundred Million Detective Leiluo", which has been regarded as a classic of Hong Kong films, or the later "Money Empire" and "Chasing the Dragon", the film has a good performance at the box office and word of mouth.
About "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon", about her film career, about today's film industry, and what others say about herself, Wang Jing chatted with New Weekly about her ideas.
The following is Wang Jing's self-description.
Filmmaker Wang Jing.
When I was a teenager, corruption seemed to be rationalized in Hong Kong. At that time, people would actually think that this was reasonable, and it was quite convenient. So everyone was corrupt in a dignified manner, and the citizens acquiesced.
There was a martial arts star who hit and killed people with an unlicensed car, and finally found the "right person" to dredge, fined money, and did not sit in prison for a day. Everyone thinks this is normal, just find the right person.
The character of Xu Le in the story ("Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon", based on the Corruption Inspector Lu Le of Hong Kong in the 1960s) is not a specific person, he is a symbol, and many of the things that the Corruption Inspector did in the 1950s and 70s were concentrated on him, and he was the representative of this group in that era.
Wu Zhenyu played Xu Le in "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon". / Stills from the movie "Chasing the Tiger and the Dragon"
Previous works mainly about how these people commit crimes, corruption, how they live when they have money, etc., this time "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon" mainly describes the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, telling the process of their complete inability to fight the criminal network that the police and the underworld added together, and then slowly find a way, from weak to strong, and finally succeed.
When the ICAC was first established, I was in college, and I was young and didn't feel anything. The first impression of the place is that the salary is high, and many students pull us to apply for the examination, saying that the ICAC is recruiting people, and the salary is higher than that of ordinary government workers. I asked, "How many?" "They say they have a monthly salary of HK$4,000. I didn't care when I listened, after all, I had already started writing at TVB at that time, and I could get 6,000 Hong Kong dollars a month.
I started writing at TVB when I was 19 years old and then as a director. In my day, you wanted to make movies yourself, and your family was very rich, buying an 8mm or 16mm camera and buying film to make a film. So there was no training opportunity at all, and the first time I touched the camera was when I was first a director. I begged my father to take me, because I couldn't even tell the viewfinder and the monitor, and I didn't know how many shots the camera had.
At that time, the atmosphere of seniority on the set was also very heavy. In addition to the director, even if it is an assistant director, if you want to find a photographer to see the material, the photographer will directly slap you on the head: "Is it what you saw?" "It was like something very tall and unfathomable.
Now there are mobile phones that can make a movie, so many software applications can be used to cut films, basically everyone can be a director. If you really want to say that it is difficult to be a director today, the difficulty is that you have not persuaded yourself to fight for a chance. You can shoot for the institution, or you can make your own micro-film and put it on the Internet. Can't go to the theater line can do online movies, now the mainland to make online movies, expensive investment of tens of millions of yuan, and the cost of Hong Kong movies in the 90s is the same... There are too many opportunities to be a director today.
Wang Jing: There are too many opportunities to be a director today. Photo/Acan
But few people can figure out what making a movie is. Our generation of Hong Kong directors, the first idea of filming is to shoot the most people want to see, many Hong Kong directors today are not, he shoots what he wants to shoot, whether there is anyone to see is not important, no, I ask the government for money. Today, when a film is made in Hong Kong, if the script is passed, the government can fund it, so many people make the first film, and then there is no second film.
Like the previous "Fallen Man" and "Mai LuRen", they were funded by the government, but after that, the director did not have a second work, and they were all "a piece of directors". He doesn't change, who let him shoot? Definitely. Everything has to prove itself commercially, and you have to sell it at least, or it's a personal hobby.
Regardless of the market, I have a lot of ideas on the film that I particularly want to achieve, but it is impossible to do what I want to do under realistic conditions. Since it is impossible, what do I want to do?
From the moment I understood what a movie was, I only made movies for one group of people: young people aged 15-35. This is true of all my films. Because after the age of 35, the probability of people going to the cinema is getting lower and lower every year. By the age of 50, it is remarkable to be able to go to the cinema once or twice a year, and basically be dragged by the family. This is Hollywood's years of industry experience, very accurate, and true for any mature society.
So now I don't make comedies anymore. I'm a man in my sixties and don't understand the jokes of young people. Charlie Chaplin stopped making comedies at my age, and Stephen Chow didn't make comedies now, and when he reached a certain level, he couldn't make comedies. Still filming, must be a lack of money. Like Blake Edwards, who made "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Pink Panther" series when he was young, the famous director, when he was old and ran out of money, and remade "Pink Panther", it was not so funny. Hard, the sense of humor is not right.
Blake Edwards directed the Pink Panther series. / Stills from the movie "Pink Panther Series: Stealing Incense and Stealing Jade"
Young people may still like some of our previous works, but even if I reshoot them as they are, the feeling of shooting them is not right. If you can't get into that state, you will feel like you're doing childish things.
I don't think much of myself, and naturally I don't care about other people's evaluations. Moreover, whether the film is good or not, the standards are different in different eras and different backgrounds. "Ah Fei Zheng Biography" was scolded to death when it was released in 1990, so tragic that the boss did not want to mention it, and as a result, after a few years, it suddenly became very popular in the college student circle in South Korea, and it also affected the college student circle in the mainland and became a classic of a generation. In 1993, everyone in Hong Kong scolded what it was, and Taiwan also scolded, and the film company was closed, and as a result, it became a treasure in the mainland college student circle a few years later. Evaluations of films always change with the times and values.
None of my own works are particularly fond of them. Looking at my own things, there are always bad things, and I always feel that it would be better if I were to reshoot here and there. But the highest pursuit of making movies is still to make money.
For me, making a movie is a job, it's a simple thing, nothing remarkable. When the society evaluates the works, everyone listens to the entertainment and is happy, and we also complete our work. If someone thinks he's an artist because of this, how great things he makes, I really advise him to save it, the movie is not so powerful.