Today I want to talk to you about the entertainment aesthetics of Hong Kong films.
But all this, we must first start with a woman that the sheep likes, that is, Xu Feng. She is the helmsman of Tomson Films, the chairman of the Tomson Group, the mother of Tang Jiacheng, the Golden Horse Award for Best Actress, and Chen Kaige's Bole.
At the press conference of the 1993 Tokyo Film Festival of "Farewell to the King", even with the magnificent Zhang Guorong and the tall and elegant Chen Kaige on the side, it was impossible to hide the light of the 43-year-old Xu Feng.
Just by seeing this video, people want to find out what this woman who is not humble in her words, has observation, thinking, and judgment is coming from.
"He (Chen Kaige) can take a very simple story and shoot it with great momentum." "His previous works cost very little and didn't have a star. Then I thought, if I can give him a good story, a lot of money and first-class actors, he should be able to make a very good movie."
The expression is serious and concise, and it does not show any intention of trying to please you, but you will be attracted to her and make up the aura for her brain.
At the 54th Golden Horse Awards twenty-four years later, the sixty-seven-year-old Xu Feng received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
In the interview, some people said that she had a special kind of coldness, but the coldness was full of enthusiasm, which was very different from other actors at the moment.
Some people say that she has a very strong momentum in her. When she wants to do something, she will definitely do it herself, and she will not give up.
These descriptions and evaluations of Xu Feng are finally classified into a category of words, that is, chivalrous and chivalrous.
This label, in addition to fitting her own characteristics, is also because of the epoch-making martial arts movie "Chivalrous Woman".
In 1970, the 20-year-old Xu Feng was favored by director Hu Jinquan, in which he played the heroine Yang Huizhen.
The excellent performance not only made the title of the film herself a label. It also allowed her to work with Bole Hu Jinquan to open the curtain for the arrival of a big era.
That was the 1980s-1990s, the golden age of Hong Kong cinema.
In this era, there are too many memorable film works, too many shining stars, and everything about them has also filled the youth memories of countless people.
So that at the Mid-Autumn Festival Gala in the Greater Bay Area more than 30 years later, the most exciting and tearful passages for the audience are still the mixed cuts of Hong Kong films in the golden age.
We will always see people say that the public's nostalgia for Hong Kong films and many aesthetic phenomena in them is the filter of the times, not how good their quality itself is.
The sheep don't really agree with this. Because as long as you have carefully watched some Hong Kong movies in the 1980s and 1990s, it is not difficult to realize that Hong Kong films have actually riveted and made real efforts to meet the audience's viewing needs.
It is not difficult to find that Hong Kong films have firmly stood on the side of serving the public from beginning to end, and have tried their best to interpret the aesthetics of entertainment to a certain extreme.
It is perfectly normal for the public to like it and miss it.
Therefore, how Hong Kong films construct their entertainment aesthetics has become a very natural question in our minds.
Unique plot design & star image
First of all, from the script. Unlike Hollywood, which values the integrity and details of the script, the script of Hong Kong movies pays the most attention to unexpected plot design.
As for the background explanation between the plots, as well as the profound dialogue design, they are relatively secondary.
So we can see the common nonsense plots in Stephen Chow's movies
These plots are not intended to impress the audience ideologically, but are intuitive, sensual, and subconscious.
Simply put, you know it's exaggerated and unreal, but you're attracted to it, you just like to watch it.
In an interview in 1988, Xu Ke said very clearly: "Commercial films must entertain the audience, so that their emotions can be cathartic and their moods become better." Film is a mass medium, and I hope we breathe with the audience... The masses watch movies with their senses, not with their heads."
Dialogue requires the audience to think, it is a burden, then try to minimize it, the audience likes spectacles, then add more. So we can see that the beginning of "Gambler 2: Shanghai Beach Gambler Saint" is "Beijing Institute of Human Body Specific Function Application"
And a grandfather of the East Factory who suddenly broke into modern society
It's very absurd, but it just makes people feel particularly funny, and they laugh when they look at it, which is exactly the purpose of the director. In addition, Hong Kong films will also make full use of star images from various aspects such as dress up, character design, and plot development to provide entertainment value for the audience. For example, in "Three Heroes of the East", Maggie Cheung, who debuted in Hong Kong and was elegant and decent, was turned into Chen Qi, who was full of dirty words and nagging.
In the movie "Big Three Yuan", Zhang Guorong's character image was also designed to be a priest and Elvis Presley, which were very different from the previous Fei Jia Gongzi
And turned Yuan Yongyi, the head of the jade girl at that time, into a crazy and crazy prostitute. "East becomes West", and it is even more taking the entire "high-end" lineup of "East Evil and West Poison" to rectify the deception.
Including but not limited to neurotic Wang Zuxian
Liang Chaowei of the sausage mouth
Bluffing Lin Qingxia
There was also Ye Yuqing, the Princess of the Golden Wheel, who spoke Minnan
Of course, in the drama film, this means of making a fuss about the star will be more secretive.
For example, in the movie "Holy War", the director's means of "deceiving" Guan Zhilin is to arrange her as a group performance when she appears, which is used to stimulate the audience's expectations for the follow-up plot
Quick Clips & Comic Color Matching
In addition to the script and actors, the Golden Age Hong Kong films also have their systematic approach to pleasing the audience in terms of shooting, color matching, editing and other technical aspects. For example, the editing rhythm of Hong Kong films is usually very fast, and a shot is generally cut to less than 6 seconds. When it comes to action movies, the editing tempo only accelerates further. Like the climactic showdown in the movie "Jingwu Hero", the length of each shot is controlled within 2 seconds.
The frequency of people's blinking is 2 to 6 seconds at a time. This means that when we watch this fight, our eyes are open and closed, and one or two shots pass. Such a rush of fast shots gives the audience a real breathless gaze and a hearty viewing experience.
As a result, a battle is watched, and it is almost as enjoyable as if you were fighting it yourself.
In terms of color. The most noteworthy thing is undoubtedly the comic color scheme that was first applied by Xu Ke and then became popular in Hong Kong films.
Its advantages are that it is very colorful, and it is low cost but extremely efficient in creating a sense of drama. For example, Xu Ke's "New Shushan Swordsman" filmed in 1983 is a very typical example. The atmosphere is full of red and blue
There are also classic frescoes green
However, the most familiar to everyone should be Zhou Xingchi's "Journey to the West" series.
The red and blue of Sun Wukong's confrontation with the Bodhisattva
Tang Monk sang Ony You, eerily red and green
There are also metaphors for Goku's emotional entanglement with Zixia, desolate yellow and pale blue-green
Let us deeply imprint the strange atmosphere of "Journey to the West" in our brains.
Of course, these color applications, from the current point of view, are actually a bit rough.
But in that low-resolution era when even color television was not fully popularized, these "fast and rough" colors will undoubtedly leave a strong visual impression on the audience, and even be called a surprise.
A high level of harmony between sound, color and lens
In addition to the plot design mentioned above, the actor "trick", the quick editing, and the comic color matching.
Hong Kong films will also further enhance the audience's viewing experience through a high level of coordination of sound, color, picture, action and lens. For example, in "The Ghost of Qiannu", this grandmother came to find Xiao Qian, and Xiao Qian covered up this passage of Ning Caichen.
To create tension, the scene, which doesn't require a fight and is only 5 minutes long, fits more than 170 shots. That is to say, two seconds a shot is also rich...
The extreme rapid coordination of sound, picture and action makes the whole scene extremely smooth and smooth, flowing and beautiful.
But if there is a lens that is not in place, Xiao Qian will not be so thrilling and not stained with the slightest fireworks.
This high level of coordination has reached a breathtaking level in martial arts films and police films.
For example, in "Huang Feihong 2: Boys Should Be Self-Reliant", this section of bamboo ladder fighting will basically be impressed by people who have seen it.
From the setting to the action design, to the camera arrangement, scene scheduling, all of them are full of sincerity and the workload is amazing.
Not to mention the various life-threatening jumping scenes and thrilling chase scenes in Jackie Chan's movies
It can be seen that the Hong Kong films of the golden age are like this, providing the audience with an all-round and three-dimensional entertainment aesthetic. With the imagination of the imagination, it strives to mobilize the audience's sense of pleasure, as well as the psychological needs of the desire to succeed, take risks, get rich, be loved, and worship heroes.
Although with the large-scale invasion of Hollywood entertainment blockbusters connecting theaters in the mid-to-late 1990s, as well as the popularity of home VCDs and the proliferation of pirated CDs, the golden age of Hong Kong cinema was finally over.
But its aesthetic legacy still profoundly and widely affects us today.
It is precisely because of the star-making mechanism of "equal importance of beauty and individuality" in that era that we will see that batch of beauties who still shine in our hearts and have their own charm.
It is precisely because I understand the principle of Hong Kong film entertainment aesthetics. We will understand that the scene in which Zhao Benshan appeared in "A Generation of Grandmasters" and caused the audience to laugh is not a bug, but a classic, Hong Kong film to please the audience, and its effect has long existed in the expectations of the Sunglasses King.
Of course, the Hong Kong films of the Golden Age also contain a lot of low-level and vulgar fun, but that is not the focus of what Yang wants to discuss with you today.
What Yang wants to say is that through the study of Hong Kong films, we will find that the difficulty of creation of popular literary and artistic works based on entertainment aesthetics is actually not lower than that of many works that are "tall and cannot be understood".
High-quality entertainment aesthetics are not as easy to pursue as we think, as if it can be easily achieved by putting down the body.
This means that using "away from the public" and "deviating from people's basic needs" to endorse taste and judge value does not have natural justice, and it is likely to go to narrowness.
Because entertainment can be sincere, and seriousness can also hide hypocrisy.