61 million Hong Kong dollars, before 2016, for a long time to occupy the first place in the box office of Hong Kong local films.
Douban score, from the beginning of less than 7 points (Kung Fu released at the end of 2004, Douban was established at the beginning of 05), quietly climbed all the way up, broke 8 at the end of 2017, climbed to 8.5 in 2020, and then to 8.7 points now, nearly a million people scored.
"Kung Fu" from the popularity is not good, to the word of mouth is more and more recognized, why?
Overwhelmed with jokes?
Dazzling martial arts design and special effects?
A novel and unique way of storytelling?
The plot is full of nostalgic elements, is the wine aged good?
Not at a glance but more comfortable the more you look at it?
Purely now the rotten film flood lining?
Eleven million reasons, summed up in four words: strong resonance.
This is a masterpiece of content, "déjà vu", memorable scenes, character images, bridges, lines, everywhere. There are historical memories, legendary figures, national culture, and tributes to various classic films, including old Hong Kong films in the 60s and 70s, other works by Stephen Chow himself, and some foreign films. They are melted in one furnace, and eventually the blue is better than the blue.
First, the pig cage wall
The main scene of the story is "Pig Cage City Wall", as the name suggests, the pig cage is not only a metaphor for the isolation and backwardness of here, the lowly status of tenants, but also the Cantonese harmonic pronunciation of the word "Kowloon" in its prototype.
Kowloon City Walled City, this place name that has long disappeared, what kind of existence was it back then?
Today's Hong Kong consists of three parts: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. In 1842, the First Opium War ended, and the Treaty of Nanking, the first unequal treaty in modern Chinese history, was signed, ceding Hong Kong Island. In 1860, the Treaty of Peking was ceded to Kowloon. In 1898, the British forced the Qing government to sign the "Special Article on Expanding the Boundaries of Hong Kong" and leased the New Territories for 99 years.
At the black spot is the Kowloon Walled City
Between Kowloon and the New Territories is a boundary street that runs from east to west, and the easternmost end of the street is a small area of more than 20,000 square meters, which is still nominally under the jurisdiction of the Qing government (because the New Territories are leased rather than ceded), which is the Kowloon Walled City. From the late Qing Dynasty to the early establishment of the Republic of China, warlords and civil wars, and then to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and after the war, Kowloon City Walled City has always been "three disregards", a large number of poor people at the bottom of society gathered here, and it is also a refuge for all kinds of people, dragons and snakes are mixed, gangs are rampant.
Stephen Chow was born in the kowloon slum and spent his entire childhood in a walled-like environment. Watching many of his movies, you can feel the closeness to the life at the bottom. At the beginning of "Kung Fu", the Axe Gang came to find stubble, and "Twelve Road Tan Legs" chose to leave the walled city in order not to involve other people, and cling to it - is this a certain portrayal of Zhou Xingchi's mood after he became famous? The son is not ugly, the dog is not poor, it is also the common memory of the older generation of Hong Kong people.
To the south of the walled city is the old Kai Tak Airport. In 1993, the walled city was demolished, and in 1998, the airport was also moved from kowloon city to Chek Lap Kok on Lantau Island, and the classic shot of aircraft flying over the nearby residential buildings in the old port film has become history ever since.
"Ultra Low Altitude Fortress"
Second, kung fu
Star Ye movies have a lot of fans, and Star Ye himself is a fan of Bruce Lee.
In an interview, he said he envied Yuanhua because "[Yuanhua] sometimes went out with Bruce Lee for dinner and bowling." ”
Therefore, it is not surprising that the new Jingwumen 1991, the King of Destruction, the Wu zhuangyuan Su Qi'er, the Great Inner Secret Agent Zero Zero Hair, Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang, Shaolin football, and kung fu elements can be seen everywhere.
Since "Kung Fu" is named after Kung Fu, of course, it cannot be less.
Stephen Chow talks about the kung fu shooting process
The pig cage wall is in tatters, the tenants are sloppy one by one, and the three points are like people and seven points like ghosts.
But it is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Big mom, skinny eldest son, glasses old man, little fart child, casually a humble tenant, enough for you to drink a pot. This continues shaolin soccer's witty theory that "kung fu is definitely suitable for men, women and children".
The first masters to appear are: Coolie Tan Legs, Tailor Clematis, and Fried Hawker Goro Bagua Stick.
Coolies have to run on their shoulders every day, there are many iron rings hanging on the hangers of the tailor's shop, and isn't the handlebar pushed by the vendor equivalent to two sticks?
In the folk, these professional matches are specially designed, which is similar to the shaolin football ending to integrate kung fu into life: palm pushing the cart into the parking space, knife method to trim branches, light work to prevent banana peel falls.
Then there was the sonic gong of heaven and earth, and the sneak tailor also used the eagle claw gong.
Wearing sunglasses, hats, and long shirts, he came from the folk artist Blind Ah Bing.
Ah Bing, proficient in traditional instruments such as erhu and pipa, was talented, and created famous songs such as Erquan Yingyue, which were rescued at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and died of illness in 50 years, and a large number of songs such as plum blossom three lanes have been lost since then. He was the illegitimate son of a Taoist monk, and after his father's death, he took over as the lord of the Leizun Temple in Wuxi at the age of 25, contracted the vices of prostitution, gambling and smoking, and after being blind, he wandered into the rivers and lakes, and grew up on street sales for more than ten years. Therefore, when the movie is exaggerated, there is such a sentence in the world: Strictly speaking, we are just selling songs.
"A song of liver and intestines, where to find the end of the world to find the sound", the film feels strange and inexplicably tall this sentence, mixed with the Boya broken piano and the ancient song "Guangling San" Nie Zheng stabbed Han puppet allusion, to ridicule the two killer friends.
Using the guqin to emit sound wave gong, killing people invisibly, reminiscent of "Six-Fingered Piano Demon".
The chartered in-laws played by Yuanhua Yuanqiu are jokingly called "Yang Guo" and "Little Dragon Girl" in the film, a Taiji, a lion roaring.
The Fire Cloud Evil God, The Toad Gong was borrowed from Ouyang Feng.
It is said that Zhou Xingchi specifically contacted Jin Yong for this purpose and paid 60,000 Hong Kong dollars for the use of the character.
Big horn
The protagonist is reborn and fought a decisive battle, using the most iconic Chinese kung fu such as Tai Chi and Wing Chun.
The final climax is the defeat of the Toad Gong by the Rulai Divine Palm.
3. Tribute
The protagonist saved the little heroine when he was a child and shouted: Let go of the girl! In 1994, "The King of Destruction" "Invincible Hot Wheel" saved Zhong Liti, and it was used. As long as the hero shouts out this sentence before saving the United States, the whole person is eight times more confident in an instant?
"Sauce explosion" classic line: Charter wife, how come there is suddenly no water? In the 73rd Shaw film "Seventy-Two Tenants", Hu Jin played the chartered mother-in-law Bagu, stipulating that each person was only allowed to use two buckets of water per day. Chu Yuan's own bank is to shoot gulong martial arts, shoot seventy-two tenants purely to play tickets, follow the trend of Hong Kong's pre-1970s rose to the market comedy, unintentionally insert willow to play the box office champion of the year, 5.6 million overrule Bruce Lee's "Dragon Fight Tiger Fight" 3.4 million a big cut (of course, Dragon Fight Tiger Fight also has international box office).
Zhou Xingchi went to the pig cage wall, despised the four-eyed boy on the bus, and was beaten violently. "As a clerk, it's reasonable and logical to wear gold wire glasses. I'm wearing it so well, why do you have to target me?! Shaolin Soccer: "I'm a car repairman, and it's reasonable to carry a wrench with me, right?" The same actor Feng Mianheng, the scumbag ex-boyfriend of Liu Piaopiao in "The King of Comedy", is also him.
There is a dialogue in the film where the protagonist is beaten half to death and survives with his gifted self-healing ability, and the chartered wife says that if our son is still alive, he is as old as he is, either a doctor or a lawyer. The chartered public took over the sentence, and it is not bad to be a martial artist. The "resentment" of the glasses man and the so-called "noble profession" are not so cold, these details seem to be careless, and more or less reflect the heart of Xingye, who was born poor and is a kung fu fan: "Every time you slaughter dogs, the negative heart is mostly a reader."
King of Comedy, Jackie Chan cameo
When I went to the gate of the pig cage walled city, I saw a group of children playing football and said casually: Still playing football? Stephen Chow's previous work was Shaolin Soccer. Self-deprecating, but also confident, means that any subject can be shot well.
The blackmail sauce exploded unsuccessfully, playing a trick on a group of tenants: short to admit, beaten to stand firm. "Ancient Puzzle Boy 1" Beautiful Kun famous sentence: If there is a mistake, you must admit it, and if you are beaten, you must stand up straight.
The Axe Gang lobby offers a statue of Daguan Gong, but it is the most immoral thing to do, which is too ironic. In 2008, "Capture the Marshal" anti-bone boy Ah Fa's famous sentence: Call him to worship Guan Laoye, did not call him Guan Laoye.
From the sixties and seventies to the present, the Axe Gang has been scandalized, and the villain of the ten thousand years in the movie, Star Master, has also followed the current.
The fame of Wang Yaqiao, the leader of the Axe Gang, is second only to the "Three Tycoons of Shanghai", and the gang is mainly poor workers, and everyone has a small plate axe at the waist is standard. Of course, he is not a good man or a good woman, but without talking about private morality, only talking about national righteousness, Wang Yaqiao is much more conscious than Du Yuesheng and Jin Jinrong. After 9/18, Wang Yaqiao set up an iron-blooded hoe traitor group and repeatedly organized the assassination of Japanese officers, traitors, and important members of the Appeasement Faction against Japan. Sponsoring the South Korean Yin Bongji, he sneaked into Shanghai's Hongkou Park to kill the Japanese dispatch commander Shirakawa Yoshinori. Refusing Chiang Kai-shek's co-optation, he sent his brothers to lushan to assassinate him, but failed, stabbed Chiang Kai-shek twice, and Sun Fengming mistakenly hit the deputy car, seriously injuring Wang Jingwei. For such a crazy man who despised all glamorous fish, the Japanese and Chiang Kai-shek hated each other with itchy teeth, but there was nothing they could do. Shen Drunk, a great agent of military command, once said: The people of the world are afraid of the devil, and the devil is afraid of Wang Yaqiao. Wang Yaqiao has a strong sense of personal heroism and simple justice, and if it is placed in the Spring and Autumn Warring States, the four major assassins must stand aside. Later, he changed his mind and decided to defect to the Communist Party, sending letters to Mao, Zhou and others, but unfortunately he did not make the trip, because he was too righteous, he was tricked into assassinating in Guangxi by Dai Kasa in the name of his brother and wife.
Mao's appraisal of Wang Yaqiao was: "There is no crime in killing the enemy, and there is merit in resisting Japan." Subsections are under-checked, and major events are not confused. Whoever creates tragedy for China will create tragedy for whom. The story of this man deserves to be written into history. ”
Wearing glasses, looking like Sven Wen, he is one meter six tall, but he has done a person who is one meter eight angry
The axe gang came to make trouble, and the charter wife said "It's raining, hurry home to collect clothes", so that the tenants are honestly staying at home. "Journey to the West" says that the Tang monk who is angry and deadly does not pay for his life: "Thunder, rain to collect clothes."
Axe dances a group of people, borrowing from West End Stories. Song and dance film, swept the 34th Academy Awards in 1962. Singing and dancing without a word, and it is a nest of people fighting group dances, completely releasing themselves. The story is also quite old-fashioned, two groups of gangster teenagers look at each other unfavorably, this side of the man and the woman over there in love, and finally tragic, obviously borrowed from Romeo and Juliet. The 2021 Spielberg remake deliberately picked a full sixty years of release, which shows its impact on the older generation of people in the United States. The new version of the North American box office is only about 40 million US dollars, and the big directors can't save it, proving that the heyday of song and dance films is long gone. Such a small amount of borrowing like kung fu is very interesting as a condiment, and it is too embarrassing to sing and dance at large lengths and dominate the main body.
The "teenagers" of the United States are really mature...
Star Ye was humiliated by the glasses man, and in a fit of rage, he went to rob Huang Shengyi, and the poster on the wall was the 1935 American song and dance film "Top Hat", four Oscar nominations. In 1935, it also coincided with the time background of kung fu.
The axe gang is a black suit with a top hat, a dancer wears a top hat, and the cutter also wears a top hat, which means "dancing martial family". As Chen Jiashang, director of "Jingwu Hero", said, Chinese martial arts is not only a skill, but also an art. There are also good and evil that do not lie in the direction of the line, but in how you personally choose.
The charter wife chases after the protagonist. Looney Tunes, an American cartoon of the same period as Tom and Jerry and Mickey Mouse Donald Duck. One of the classic images is Bugs Bunny, the other is the BB bird (named after the Roadrunner, who always makes a whistle-like beep in his mouth), which is called the Running Bird in Hong Kong.
Crooked Wolf and BB Bird
The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. At first, the chartered mother-in-law was reluctant to take care of the affairs of the jianghu anymore, and The Iron Fist used this sentence to persuade them before he died. Lines from Uncle Peter Parker in 2002's Spider-Man.
The charter wife defeats the heavens and the earth, and instantly moves into the car to warn the axe gang leader, pinching his fist and touching his nose, all of which are Bruce Lee's signature stinky fart actions in the movie. In the end, the protagonist uses one enemy and one hundred enemies and a crazy flat axe gang to pay tribute to the part where Chen Zhen went to the Hongkou dojo to single out a room of Japanese samurai in "Jingwumen".
Xingye went to the "Abnormal Human Research Center" to fight the evil god of the fire cloud, and a vision appeared at the entrance of the center. The American 84-year-old movie "Ghostbusters", a shot of the big boss when he appeared.
Blood gushed out of the Fire Cloud Evil God Room. The Shining in the 1980 Kubrick thriller.
The Fire Cloud Evil God was not original to Zhou Xingchi. In the 1950s and 1960s, a popular Cantonese feature film, in 1964-65, director Ling Yun filmed five episodes of the film "Rulai Divine Palm" based on the Shangguan Hong novel "Rulai Shenpao" serialized in Ming Pao (copying another martial arts novelist Liu Renyang's "Heavenly Buddha Palm"), the protagonists of which were Gu Han Soul of the "Fire Cloud Evil God" and his apprentice Long Jianfei. Lemon plays Gu Han Soul, Cao Dahua plays Long Jianfei, the heroine Yu Suqiu (Jackie Chan's master Yu Zhanyuan's daughter), Lin Feng, Yuan Xiaotian (Yuan Heping's father), and Han Yingjie's supporting roles.
This is one of the martial arts films of the older generation of Hong Kong people before Jingu New Wuxia became mainstream. At that time, the classic also burned the Red Lotus Temple, and more than twenty films were filmed, and Guan Dexing and Cao Dahua's version of Huang Feihong were filmed sixty or seventy.
The old version of the ancient Han soul this killing Matt shape, the soul
In the early 1980s, Shaw remade a role of Rulai Tianzun (Ancient Han Soul Master), and invited the elderly Cao Dahua to make a cameo. The soul of the ancient Han is Wan Zi Liang, and the dragon sword fly is Er Dongsheng. Where did the old version of the ancient Han soul learn the Rulai Divine Palm, and there is an answer in this version. As for how Rulai Tianzun could do this trick, the movie only used a sentence "self-created nine styles of Rulai Divine Palm".
Star Ye must have seen the 82 version, and he was naughty on this detail. "Kung Fu" gave this trick to the protagonist, and the fire cloud evil god became the main villain, and finally the evil god was subdued, and poorly asked if he could teach him. Haha, is this the meaning of converting to evil after worshiping the master? So the self-taught, discerning, and classless protagonist (Star Master) has become the legendary Rulai Tianzun? Isn't that all on the string?
The Fire Cloud Evil God grabbed the bullet, and the Axe Gang was shocked. This background music style is a bit strange, borrowing the opening song of the 82nd edition of Rulai Shenpao.
The opening credits of Shaw's Divine Palm animated the old version of the character image
Shi Jian, the villain of the fifth episode of the old version, "Iron Mask Shura", continued to play the villain "Ten Thousand Swords Heavenly King" in the 82nd version, both of which were "Heavenly Stump Feet", and both were finally defeated by Rulai Shenpao. "Kung Fu" gives "Heavenly Cruelty" a "ground deficiency", and the lack of two killers in heaven and earth is to ridicule heaven and earth. If he is born, he will be born in heaven, and he will always be the life of the second oldest. So when the Axe Gang leader compliments them as the number one on the killer list, the two brothers "reflexively" say: Wrong! The first is the Ultimate Killer King, the Fire Cloud Evil God.
"Bigfoot Neck Disease"
"Laser Foot"
The sloppy image of the fire cloud evil god is in line with the "great heroes" of the Great Inner Secret Agent. "The great hero must be handsome and handsome, but it is just the wishful thinking of you who are rising to the bucket."
Stephen Chow originally wanted to design a Hollywood-like robot villain. He was particularly good at terminating this mouthful, the black magic mirror black leather coat of the pulling shape. "92 Family Happy Events" dressed up as a Terminator to bubble Maggie Zhang, "Truancy Veyron 2" Uncle Da incarnated as a Terminator to save people at school, a Fall me, simply original... "The King of Destruction" was awkwardly robbed of "light" in the street in the middle of the night, and then hard concave Schwarzenegger just transmitted to the earth of the "domineering" shape.
There are 92 happy events in 92 homes
Truant Veyron 2
The King of Destruction
But one day, when he inadvertently saw Liang Xiaolong take off his wig and look half bald and untrimmed, Zhou Xingchi had a flash of inspiration and decided not to take the usual path.
When Liang Xiaolong was young, he was masculine and upright, and the contrast with the fire cloud evil god was huge. Audiences who have watched "The Great Hero Huo Yuanjia" will find it interesting.
Grab the bullet with your bare hands, borrowing from the bullet dodging section of "The Matrix" in 1999.
Xingye opened the second vein of Ren Dou, reborn, and changed into white clothes and black pants and black cloth shoes, which is the shape of Bruce Lee in "Dragon Fight Tiger Fight".
Yuan Xiangren, who sells the secret of the divine palm, can be said to be a "professional manufacturer of dog skin plasters", and Hong Riqing, who teaches sleeping dreams Luohan fist in "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qi'er", is also him.
Fourth, the intention
The story begins when the protagonist tries to save a little girl when he is a child. Two simple children, the girl grew up to sell candy, kindness does not change, and the protagonist helped people fail, but was humiliated by the group of children peeing, in a state of mental immaturity, arbitrarily dare not believe in goodness, think that strength is everything. The process of chasing power made him the most hated look he had ever been. Finally, when this self-loathing reaches its extreme, it is a great enlightenment, it is the maturity of values, it is understood that strength and goodness are not dualistic opposites, and the meaning of seeking power is precisely to better protect the good in the world. Kindness can bring more goodness, and when a girl grows up, even if she has such a big defect of not being able to speak, she still maintains a kind and inclusive heart, is it not because she felt sincere kindness when she was a child?
Candy and kung fu tips are all means to make the world a better place, one is love, the other is strength, and the other is indispensable. Only believing in strength and abandoning love as if it were a shoe, it is inevitable that you will not become the kind of person who is the Axe Gang and the Fire Cloud Evil God, except to destroy or destroy. Having love in your heart but lacking strength not only can't help others, but also makes yourself extremely miserable. But this is the price of growth, and while trying to strengthen yourself, if you are not careful, you will lose the most precious things. When the protagonist is fully enlightened, he not only finds the direction of life again, but also gets the real power: the Palm of the God, the Buddha, in everyone's heart.
Finally, Yuan Xiangren ran out again to "deceive the child" and held a bunch of secrets in his hand. Descending Dragon Eighteen Palms, Nine Yang Divine Skills, One Yang Finger, and Nine Swords of Solitude, which one will the child choose this time?
Subtext, every child has a martial arts dream, or some other tall, beautiful dream, only to find out when they grow up that those are just dreams after all, and there is a gap with reality, or even incompatible. What a precious emotion it was to have a firm belief in it when I was a child.
What filmmakers do is to realize everyone's dreams, bring the unattainable dreams in reality to the screen, and carry out artistic processing. Dreaming of this thing, believing in it is unbelief and not believing in it. Even if the vast majority of people can't achieve it, as long as there are still people who believe, at least no one in ten thousand people can catch it. If one day everyone does not believe, how desperate will the world be?
Sauce explosion finally soaked the girl (temperament is still so obscene), Tooth Jane lowered the glasses man, chartered in-laws no longer have to fight and kill, leisurely arm in hand shopping, the protagonist and the fat man opened a candy store. Everyone's wishes come true, the gods and immortals are married, and there is peace and tranquility.
When you can't believe the warm picture at the end of the film, stop and think back to what you looked like in the first place. The male and female protagonist montages back to the state of a child, which is the meaning of this. The original intention has always been there, whether to continue to take the wrong path, or to find it, all in your thoughts - wrong to the point of the fire cloud evil god, didn't the protagonist also give him the opportunity to repent?
Fifth, the genius is exhausted
All of Stephen Chow's classic works are comedy and tragedy cores, and they are all for themselves and the common people who have suffered the same as himself, and they have suffered grievances before they became famous, and they have found wings for those broken dreams.
Single-parent families, poor families since childhood, and an unstable living environment, resulting in a sensitive, unsociable, and stubborn personality.
As an adult, he ran a dragon set for more than ten years, was not taken seriously, and this distrust was even more dramatic.
Because he takes money too seriously, because of the strictness of film creation, he broke up with many of his peers and friends (in the later stage, including Wu Mengda, who everyone thinks should be closest to him, Kung Fu, Yangtze River Seven, Mermaid, and Journey to the West, he can no longer see "Xingda Match").
Luo Huijuan, Zhu Yin, And Karen Mok, several relationships ended without a problem (the last Yu Wenfeng even went to court).
To put it bluntly, the love scene is frustrated with the mall, and these experiences have become the driving force and creative source of Stephen Chow's career.
From the 1990 starring role in "Gamble Saint" began to become popular, won the Annual Box Office Championship in Hong Kong many times, and "Chow Sing Chi Nian" in 1992 was the top five seats at the box office.
But because of his nonsensical style, the industry's evaluation of him has always been "dog meat is not on the table". Gambling Saint, Truant Weilong, Death Judge, Domestic Ling Ling Lacquer, Big Talk Westward Journey, the Academy Awards five nominations for the film emperor are not allowed, the best film, the best director is around him, not even once nominated.
Until 2002, "Shaolin Soccer" finally became the film emperor, and the best movie and best director were packaged together in the pocket. In 2004, "Kung Fu" won the best picture again, and won the Golden Horse Award for Best Picture and Best Director. Since then, the ridicule and indignation of the "award ceremony" at the end of the "Great Inner Secret Agent Zero Zero Hair" in 1996 have disappeared.
"Well, I'll award tonight's grand finale, Best Actor, I'm sure everyone will guess, yes, it's Ah Fa ——————————'s father-in-law!"
"I went from start to finish with that scene, which was a standard work for all to see."
"You're not bad, but superficial, contrived, and slightly exaggerated."
"Those are the worldly people's opinions of me, you should not know the goods."
"I really don't feel that I have communication with you, I just think that you seem to have no way to enter the play, you really don't know how to act." 」
"Kung Fu" is the most complete burst of talent after Stephen Chow's mentality after Shaolin football, and a big summary of past creations. Let everyone watch it well, but this time it is more about fulfilling his own dreams. If his films have since become mediocre, I just want to say that it is because all the grievances of the past have been erased in the kung fu movie.
A filmmaker who has come out of a dream, what else can he do to continue to make dreams for everyone? In particular, Zhou Xingchi is the kind that dreams deeply, and has always used his not very good dreams to bring everyone laughter. When he pulled his foot out of this dream and exhausted his strength, he could no longer go in.