Nowadays, when people mention Stephen Chow, they always position him as a comedian.
But before Stephen Chow became the famous king of comedy, Xingye's ideal was actually to be an action actor.
As we all know, Stephen Chow is an avid fan of Bruce Lee, he is also a kung fu fan, from the beginning of becoming an actor, Stephen Chow's films have never lacked action martial arts elements.
In particular, the three superstars in the history of Hong Kong kung fu films, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Donnie Yen, have all worked with Stephen Chow.
Needless to mention, in 1999, Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow each made cameo appearances in the films "Glass Bottle" and "The King of Comedy" directed by each other, and their cameos in each other's movies became colorful passages in the film.
Zhen Zidan and Zhou Xingchi were once contracted artists of TVB, and the two collaborated on the TV series "Uncrowned Vanguard" and a movie "Criminal Police Essence", which was also recommended by fans before this film.
As for Jet Li, Chow's only screen collaboration with him was in the 1989 film Dragon at the End of the World.
This film is not a particularly well-known and successful work in the acting careers of two superstars, Stephen Chow and Jet Li. After the film was released that year, the box office reputation was a fiasco, but unexpectedly, the film had a crucial impact on the career and life path of the two.
In particular, Jet Li fell in love with the actress Li Zhi in the play in the process of filming this film, but at that time Jet Li was already married to his wife Huang Qiuyan, and he was pregnant with a second child, so after Jet Li divorced, he was criticized by the media at the time as a scumbag who abandoned his wife and abandoned his son.
In this issue of "Forgotten Hong Kong Films", let's talk about this movie from 33 years ago.
"The Dragon at the End of the World"
Dragon Fight
The film was filmed in 1989 and was funded by the famous filmmaker Luo Wei.
In the Hong Kong film industry, Luo Wei is not a successful director, and most of his works are of mediocre quality. However, Luo Wei himself has made great achievements in the field of action movies, and has discovered three kung fu superstars, which has a very strong aura of kung fu films.
In the early 70s, Bruce Lee returned to Hong Kong from the United States, signed a contract with Jiahe, Luo Wei as a rescue director, and Bruce Lee cooperated with Bruce Lee on "Tangshan Big Brother" and "Jingwumen", becoming the highest-grossing director in Hong Kong, but later Luo Wei and Bruce Lee broke up unhappily.
After Bruce Lee's death, Luo Wei discovered Jackie Chan and took Jackie Chan to Taiwan to shoot several ancient dragon movies, but unfortunately, Luo Wei's talent in directing was really limited, and he did not know how to play Jackie Chan's personal characteristics. There was an evaluation that "Luo Wei is to Jackie Chan, just like Bian He is to Heshi Bi, with empty eyes and does not know how to carve", and therefore, later Jackie Chan left Luo Wei but became a big hit and became an international superstar.
In the 80s, Luo Wei became the "follower master" of the film circle, and what theme fire immediately followed the trend, and because luo Wei's film cost was not high, coupled with the glory of Hong Kong films in the eighties, Luo Wei's film company did not worry about making money.
In 1988, jet Li married his wife Huang Qiuyan and decided to live in the United States. At that time, six years had passed since the boom of "Shaolin Temple", Jet Li's influence in the film industry was not as good as before, and the box office reputation of self-directed and self-acting "Chinese Heroes" was less than expected, which made Jet Li disheartened, gave up his film career, and went to the United States to open a boxing gym for a living.
It was at this time that Luo Wei came out of the mountain to invite Jet Li to participate in the movie "The Dragon in the End of the World".
Luo Wei's original intention was to win another kung fu superstar, so he chose Jet Li, who was increasingly forgotten at that time, and the script of "Dragon in the End of the World" can be said to be tailor-made for Jet Li, Jet Li played a professional martial arts athlete who went to the United States to participate in martial arts performances, but at the same time, in order to conform to the trend of the times, the film integrated gangsters, gunfights, police bandits, martial arts, vendetta, brotherhood and other elements.
Another starring actor in the film was Chow Sing Chi, who was still a newcomer in the film industry at that time, when Chow Sing Chi had just starred in three movies "Wind Catcher", "Thunderbolt Pioneer" and "Best Son-in-Law", of which 1988's "Perak Pioneer" won the Golden Horse Award for Best Newcomer.
It is precisely because of his appearance in "Thunderbolt Pioneer" that Zhou Xingchi has received the attention of the film circle, and the role of the protagonist Ayou played by Zhou Xingchi in "The Dragon in the End of the World" is highly similar to the image in "Thunderbolt Pioneer". At that time, he had not yet created his own "nonsense" performance style, and although the performance was young, it was better than young and energetic.
The heroine of the film is the Hong Kong goddess Li Zhi, who does not play much in the film, but she has an affair with Jet Li outside the play. When starring in this film, Lee Chi had just ended a relationship with Macau gambling king Ho Hung-sun. Holding the title of beauty of Miss Asia, there were rumors in the Hong Kong media that the gambling king He Hongshen once wanted Na Lizhi to be the fifth aunt, and later the gambling king's second aunt used the jianghu forces to order Li Zhi to hunt down and kill, and Li Zhi was forced to be helpless and could only leave the United States.
Therefore, under the situation of Luo Wei, Jet Li, who lived in a foreign country, met Li Zhi, who also stayed in the United States, plus Zhou Xingchi from Hong Kong, counting the fledgling new director Deng Yancheng, the team of "The Dragon in the End of the World" was born.
As mentioned earlier, Luo Wei is a "master of following the trend", although the story of "The Dragon in the End of the World" is an original script, but the entire core concept is actually the story of Bruce Lee playing the remaining routines in "Raptors Across the River" more than ten years ago, and the story of Chinese kung fu masters crossing foreign countries to fight against foreign criminal and evil forces.
In the United States in the 1980s, a Chinese martial arts team was invited to San Francisco to perform martial arts.
Among the accompanying martial arts team members are two martial arts masters with extraordinary skills, the pure-hearted master brother Li Guoguo (played by Jet Li) and the brother Wang Wei (played by Di Wei).
Li Guoli has been training in the martial arts team for many years, and his performance has attracted applause from the audience, including a Local Chinese fan brother Ah You (Zhou Xingchi), who admires Li Guoguo, who is highly skilled in martial arts.
After the performance of the martial arts troupe, the original team members had to board the plane to return to China, but when they left, the brother Wang Wei did not say goodbye.
Li Guoli found that his brother had left the airport and followed him all the way to try to persuade his brother to return to China with him. However, his brother Wang Wei longed for a life abroad and wanted to rely on his martial arts to get ahead in the United States, so he refused to leave with his brother Li Guoguo.
After Li Guoli's persuasion was fruitless, he left his wallet to his brother Wang Wei, and there was a photo of Li Guoli in his wallet.
Unexpectedly, Li Guoli's kindness brought misfortune to himself.
When his brother Wang Wei left the airport, he met a policeman, and because of the language barrier and Wang Wei's impulsive personality, he lost his hand and beat the police to death. Afterwards, Wang Wei fled the scene, but accidentally left Li Guoguo's wallet.
Based on the photos on the wallet at the scene of the crime, the police believed that Li Guoli was very suspicious and immediately arrested Li Guoli.
Li Guoguo, who carried the pot for no reason, was forced to stay in a foreign country.
On this day, on the way to the police escorting Li Guoli to trial, a child standing in the middle of the road caused a car accident.
Li Guoli smashed the car window to save people and escaped in chaos, but he was not familiar with the local life and faced a desperate situation.
In order to clear his grievances, Li Guoli jumped off a bridge and began a career of escape.
The fugitive Li Guoli originally planned to find help from his fellow villager Ah Ping, hoping to inquire about Wang Wei's whereabouts, but unexpectedly, Ah Ping was involved in a gang dispute and was being hunted down and killed by a gang of gangster killers.
Ah Ping escapes with his sister Ah Ling (Li Zhi), who has just come to visit relatives in the United States, and during the melee, Li Guoli arrives and rescues Ah Ling, but Ah Ping is killed in the pursuit.
Soon the police arrived, and Li Guoli fled in a hurry, at which point the truck driver Ah You passed by. Ah You admired Li Guoguo very much, and without saying a word, helped Li Guoli and took him back to his uncle's house who opened a supermarket.
Since then, Li Guoli has helped in the supermarket opened by Uncle Ah You's house, mixing with Ah You all day, and at the same time, with the help of the local Ah You, hoping to find his brother Wang Wei and clear his grievances.
At the same time, in order to get ahead, the master brother Wang Wei chose to join the gang and became a thug.
Wang Wei has a good martial art, plus dare to fight and dare to fight, quickly reused, and quickly become bigger and stronger in the gang, but also because of Wang Wei's sudden ascension to the throne, causing the jealousy of Marco, another elder brother in the gang, and began to secretly confront Wang Wei.
Later, Li Guoguo was accidentally reunited with his brother Wang Wei, and he hoped that his brother would surrender himself and be able to return his innocence, but Wang Wei refused to agree, so the two broke up unhappily.
Afterwards, the brother Wang Wei felt guilty because he was involved in the innocent back of the master and brother, and decided to help the master and brother Li Guoguo also get a passport, so he took Li Guoli to ask for help from the black boss Marco, but he did not expect that Marco had long been dissatisfied with Wang Wei and deliberately let Wang Wei eat in person.
What surprised Li Guoli even more was that at the side of the black boss Marco, he saw Ah Ping's sister Ah Ling, who had been saved.
The other party is now the mistress of the black boss Marco, and she is really a trickster.
Back to Li Guoguo's side.
Li Guoli and Ah You became friends, but Ah You was a rotten gambler, and he owed a lot of money as he was addicted to gambling, and was often beaten by the gangsters who collected debts, fortunately, Li Guoguo, who was highly skilled in martial arts, came forward to help him solve it.
On this day, Wang Wei led a gang of gangsters and horses to trade with local drug dealers.
Unexpectedly, the sworn enemy Marco was bent on getting rid of Wang Wei, so he secretly betrayed Wang Wei's trading intelligence, resulting in Wang Wei's men and horses being surrounded by the police during the transaction, and the two sides launched a fierce gun battle.
Ah You happened to deliver the goods through the scene, took advantage of the chaos to take away a bag of white powder, and took it home to hide.
Ah You plans to sell the powder in his hand to the local black gang in exchange for a million dollars to make a windfall.
Ah You was dreaming of a windfall from heaven, but he did not expect that the white powder he put in the laundry detergent box was used as washing powder by his unsuspecting uncle, and all of them were overturned in the pool, and a million dollars were completely lost.
What was more troublesome was that this bag of white powder stolen by Ah You caused him more trouble.
After the street trade failed, the gang began to look for the lost white powder, and finally found Ah You through the black gang, and Ah You slipped away when he saw that it was not good.
Wang Wei thought that Li Guoli and Ah You were in the same group, so he found Li Guoli and asked him to hand over his things, but Li Guoguo did not know about this at all. Wang Wei decided to tear his face and ordered his men to kidnap Ah You's uncle.
After learning that the white powder was soaked, Wang Wei was worried that he would not be able to go back to make a difference, and in anger, he brutally killed Uncle Ah You, and then went to hunt down Li Guoguo and Ah You, who wanted to avenge his uncle, but was killed on the spot by Wang Wei.
Li Guoli was chased and killed by the gang, injured because of the outnumbered crowd, and was rescued by Ah Ling, who passed by in a critical moment.
Under the care of Ah Ling, Li Guoli went to Wang Wei after recovering from his injuries to settle a grudge, and the two fought each other.
Soon after the two began to fight, the black boss behind Wang Wei also sent someone over, because Wang Wei lost a batch of goods, and the black boss ordered to kill Wang Wei.
So Li Guoli and Wang Wei joined forces to deal with the gangsters, and after a fierce battle, Li Guoli and Wang Wei successfully solved the gang, but Wang Wei was seriously injured and died in the melee.
This concludes the story of the film.
This film is the first independent director of director Tang Yancheng, who became famous in the Hong Kong film industry by relying on a series of exploitative crime films shot in the 1990s.
When filming "The Dragon at the End of the World", his personal style had not yet taken shape, and the film's story itself was relatively roughly produced, so the film did not achieve much response after its release, and only received 6 million at the box office in Hong Kong.
However, in some plots, it can still be seen that director Deng Yancheng's personal bad tastes, such as when Ah You took Li Guoli to the dancers' club to find a black gang deal, the film appeared a rather bold scene, which was deleted in many versions.
Looking at it now, the reason for the failure of this movie mainly lies in two aspects, on the one hand, the script is more cheesy, basically the number of typical Hong Kong gangster crime films in the eighties, the story conflict is seen at a glance, the characters are simple, the plot is sloppy and chaotic, and many scenes are filmed very chicken, such as the heroine Li Zhi's line, and the handling of salvation is very sloppy.
On the other hand is the mediocrity of the action scenes. Although Jet Li himself is a martial arts master, his martial arts partial equipment routine drills, put in the movie action play, need excellent martial arts guidance to design, in order to play Jet Li's personal advantages.
The action director of "Dragon in the End of the World" is Di Wei, and his most well-known role should be Luo Sancang in jackie Chan's movie "Plan A", and he is indeed a kung fu master, but Di Wei is obviously not an excellent martial arts instructor.
The action design in the film is relatively simple, only the final showdown between Jet Li and De wei at the end of the film is still somewhat ornamental, and most of the rest of the time is unremarkable.
Of course, even if the film itself fails, it does not affect the significance of the film to the three main actors in the film.
For Jet Li, he became acquainted with his future lover Li Zhi through this film, and at the same time, it was also because of the filming of this film that Jet Li met director Luo Wei's son Luo David, and later it was because of Luo David's relationship that Jet Li was invited by Jiahe to star in Xu Ke's "Huang Feihong" series, so that his career took off.
However, later Jet Li and Jiahe broke up because of the film contract problem, so they parted ways with David Luo, and later made a case of Cai Ziming being shot by the gangsters, which is the last word.
For another lead actor, Zhou Xingchi, in "The Dragon in the End of the World", it can be seen that Zhou Xingchi's exploration and attempt in performance style, in this unsperforming film, he has initially shown his acting skills and talents that will soon dominate the film world in the future, especially the last scene of driving away and unable to bear the condemnation of conscience and resolutely returning to save Jet Li, the entanglement in the hearts of the little people is very expressive.
"The Dragon at the End of the World" was released in 1989, and the following year, Stephen Chow took over the role of "Gambling Saint" directed by Liu Zhenwei. After the release of the film, it was a great success, and the final box office reached a staggering 41.32 million Hong Kong dollars, not only won the Hong Kong box office champion of the year, but also broke the Hong Kong box office record, and Stephen Chow's nonsense comedy won the gods.
In 1989, on the eve of the take-off of the careers of the two superstars, "The Dragon at the End of the World" undoubtedly has a special significance.