Text/Seven-seven
Mr. Ho Pan's "Close to the Shadows"
In 2015, at an auction in Hong Kong, a photographic work called "Near the Shadows" caused many buyers to scramble.
In the end, the work sold for HK$375,000.
The author of this work is He Fan, and it is still his work from 1954.
He Fan has a lot of labels on him, he is a photographer, an actor, and a director.
Among these three fields, he is the highest in the field of photography, and at the age of 27, he has been world-famous, and has been selected as one of the "Top Ten Masters of World Photography" for 8 consecutive years.
At the age of 28, he has won nearly 300 international awards.
Compared with these remarkable achievements, director Ho Fan's identity is more widely known, and many people call him the grandmaster of Hong Kong's wind and moon films.
Mr. Ho Pan
One
In the early 1990s, Hong Kong cinema gradually declined.
Kung fu films and literary films have begun to decline, countless directors are facing the dilemma of no drama to shoot, and actors are not as easy to become famous as before.
Ye Yuqing, who was born from "Miss Asia", is one of them.
Since she won the third place of "Asian Sister" in 1985, she began to enter the show business circle, but after many years of mixing, she did not improve.
Finally, in the sixth year of her career, Ye Yuqing made a bold decision.
First, he shot a large-scale cover for a magazine, which caused a sensation in Hong Kong, and then filmed three wind and moon films in a row, laying the throne of his "wind and moon film goddess" in one fell swoop.
Sexy goddess Ye Yuqing
Among them, the director of "I Am Crazy for Qing" is the big cinematographer He Fan.
Among the many Hong Kong directors, Ho Pan is definitely the one who is unique, he is the only one who treats Fengyue film as a career.
Most of the famous Hong Kong directors have had the experience of shooting erotic films.
"Bodhi Ancestor" Liu Zhenwei also filmed in his early years, but as excessive, he never touched it again after becoming famous.
At the time of the decline of Hong Kong films, Wang Jing also filmed, and there were many films, but it was only a few years.
He Pan is different from them, in his lifetime, shooting about two dozen works, most of which are related to erotic films, spanning nearly twenty years.
Photography everyone, not into the flow of erotic directors, these two extremely contradictory identities, but in one, for He Pan is actually a very helpless choice.
Stills from a wind and moon film
Two
He Pan was born in Shanghai in the 1930s and came from a very extraordinary family.
When he was thirteen years old, his father gave him a Brownie camera, and the moment he pressed the shutter, Ho Pan's soul trembled, as if he had found the most novel toy in the world.
Since then, he has developed a keen interest in photography.
He Pan is also very talented, from a photographer to a master, he has only spent a few years, especially good at the combination of light and shadow.
Old Hong Kong under Ho Pan's lens
In those days, Hong Kong was a good place.
Many rich people in the mainland have sold their ancestral assets and moved to Hong Kong, and many Hong Kong stars have such a background.
For example, Hui Yinghong's family moved to Hong Kong when she was a child.
Another example is Li Zhi, her father also immigrated to Hong Kong early, at the age of 19, Li Zhi came to Hong Kong from Shanghai to find his father, and then began his own entertainment career.
He Pan also had such an experience.
At the age of eighteen, he came to Hong Kong with his family.
At this time, Ho Pan's photography skills have been very skilled, in the streets and alleys of Hong Kong, you will often see The figure of Ho Pan, with a camera hanging around his neck, recording the most authentic Hong Kong.
Ho Pan can be said to be a pioneer in Hong Kong street photography.
For the next two decades, Ho Pan was silently recording the changes in Hong Kong with his lens, and the "Near the Shadow", which sold nearly 400,000 yuan, was his work in this period.
Before the age of 30, He Pan had already achieved world-renowned results.
He Pan when he just became an actor
In addition to winning numerous world-class awards, Ho Pan's works are popular in various countries, so he has many titles in various countries:
Member of the Royal Society of Art, Member of the Royal Photographic Society, Member of the Photographic Society of America...
He Pan's works are also collected by many world-famous museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the National Library of France, and so on.
Young and famous, rich family, in addition to He Pan is also handsome and handsome, can be called a winner in life.
However, He Pan was not satisfied with the status quo, and in the early 1960s, he plunged into the Hong Kong film and television circle, laying the groundwork for his later becoming the director of Fengyue Film.
Young and promising
Three
Initially, He Pan did not enter the film circle as a photographer or director.
Instead, as a field reporter, he did some odd jobs on the set, and later transformed into a signed artist of Shaw Company because of his handsome appearance.
In 1965, He Pan participated in several films with the theme of "Journey to the West" in a row.
He played tang monk in the TV series, and also attracted the love of many fans, and people thought that he would become a big star.
At that time, the media magazine used "Tomorrow's Star" to describe He Pan, saying that his face was very beautiful and he was a typical youth of the times.
The media's evaluation of Mr. He Pan that year
Every photographer has a director's dream, and so does Ho Pan.
Just when others are optimistic about He Pan and think that he will be the next movie emperor, it turns out that he has only been an actor for one year, and he is not an actor.
At this time, he and Wu Yusen became close friends.
The two crossed the ocean to Spain on the other side of the ocean, where the two were immersed in light and shadow, with no competition for fame and fortune, only the purest film.
His works have been selected for many international film festivals.
and Mr. Pan's family
However, just when Ho Pan was intoxicated with filmmaking, a harsh reality was placed in front of him, and after the 1980s, there was no market for art films in Hong Kong.
Photography is also an extremely expensive career, and He Pan is caught in a dilemma, choosing bread or continuing his dream.
In the end, He Pan compromised and chose to shoot the wind and moon film that was in full swing at that time:
"At that time, Hong Kong was dominated by money, box office, my food and clothing parents were box office, an artist, no creative freedom like the walking dead, let me go to make a wind and moon film is simply humiliating." 」
The word "humiliation" to describe He Pan at that time is the most appropriate.
Often the boss will throw the rotten script in front of him and let him shoot...
Although he chose to compromise and went to shoot the Wind Moon film, He Pan still maintained an artist and was stubborn in the end.
Personable Mr. Ho Pan
Four
Unlike other directors of Fengyue Film, He Pan does not use simple and rough sensory stimulation.
Instead, with the keen aesthetics of the master of light and shadow, he carefully carved out a beautiful and moving picture, and woven a dream of wind and snow for the audience.
Therefore, in the career of director He Pan, many works are bad films, but some of them have become heirlooms.
In 1986, his "Ukiyo Style" was not only included in the list of "300 Oriental Classic Films" in the German Film Yearbook, but also used as a textbook by Beiying.
Mr. Ho Pan on the set
His work "Three Degrees of Temptation" is also the first Wind Moon film in Hong Kong to exceed 10 million box office.
Of course, the two factors of good quality of works and high box office are not enough to push him to the status of "the grandmaster of the Hong Kong Wind and Moon Film Generation".
Ho Pan's character is equally admirable.
The actors who have worked with He Pan have praised his good personality.
Gentle, elegant, humble gentleman is people's evaluation of him, He Pan never gets angry on the set, and he is also very patient with actors.
So even if He Pan shoots a wind and moon film that others look down on, people will give him a thumbs up when they mention him.
In his later years, Mr. He Pan's style is still the same
Mr. Ho Pan spent his life with art and hardly had any rest.
In 1996, the elderly Ho Pan moved out of Hong Kong to the United States to reunite with his family.
He carried more than 10,000 negatives with him, completed restoration work in the United States, and published them in volumes, while he also taught himself PS and stopped creating his previous works.
In 2016, Mr. Ho Pan died of illness in the United States.
But his writings have endured for a long time, such as "Ho Fan: A Memoir of Hong Kong", "Yesterday's Hong Kong", and "Life Theatre", which record the Hong Kong of an era.
Mr. He Fan's favorite work "The Twilight Journey"
This is also the most precious gift that Mr. Ho Pan left us.
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