Reporter Wang Zhun: Contrary to many professional directors who have won awards, your films are always out of luck with the awards. "Journey to the West" seems to be the only exception, winning a non-mainstream screenwriting award.
Liu Zhenwei: It was the Hong Kong Film Critics Association that gave the Screenwriter of the Year Award. But when the awards ceremony was over, I left the scene and lost the lecture in the taxi. I've been doing movies for so many years, I've never won an award, and I haven't won a big or small director's award once, and I care about this award, so I called the Critics Society and asked them to make up one for me. After many years, I discovered that my real favorite position was that of a screenwriter rather than a director.
The above is a true record of Liu Zhenwei's participation in Wang Zhun's interview. Liu Zhenwei, the director who claims to know Stephen Chow the best, wong Kar-wai's iron brothers, once lost his bottom pants in order to make a movie. It was this man who supported the most brilliant 90s of Hong Kong cinema.
We now look at "Journey to the West", as well as "East Evil west poison", are classic films in the classic, but when they were first released, they were all failed movies, at least at the box office, they all lost a lot, and lost the company bankruptcy.
Liu Zhenwei placed great hopes on "Journey to the West", and when he came out, he found that he was very wrong, and his mood was also very low. During this time, he cooperated with Stephen Chow on a "Night of the Returning Soul", created under such a failed mood, and was in a very bad mood when writing the script, and only wanted to quit the film circle after filming. In the finale of "Night of the Returning Soul", he arranged for Zhou Xingchi to say to Mo Wenwei, you take the sword to split me, I don't go to hell, who goes to hell? That is to say, Zhou Xingchi if you want to be born again, you will cut off me Liu Zhenwei. This is exactly what he wants to say to the Hong Kong film circle, you just destroy me.
Zhou Xingchi understood Liu Zhenwei, and disappointing his friends was Liu Zhenwei's real inner thought at that time.
Liu Zhenwei had been living in a Hong Kong hotel for 8 years when filming "Journey to the West", talking to his wife from Monday to Friday, and only meeting him for dinner on Saturdays and Sundays, but his wife has always supported him and has no complaints. So when he wrote the story of "Journey to the West", he realized that he was 39 years old, and for more than 10 years before that, every day was work, work. When people reach middle age, they suddenly find that they have not done a lot of things well before, and they feel that they owe this girl too much and too much. If there really was a "moonlight treasure box", he would start over, from lovers, husbands, and friends. I hope I can do a little better, and I want to turn around and give myself another chance.
Sure enough, people who love movies are very romantic, and this kind of renewed romance is truly integrated into the hearts of modern people.
In addition to creating classics with Stephen Chow, Liu Zhenwei and Wong Kar-wai can also be regarded as "friends of tribulation".
Liu Dao said that he and Wong Kar-wai have many similarities, such as family background, attitude towards work, such as seriousness about a matter. Moreover, both of them were naturally naughty. He and Wong Kar-wai met in 1985, when Director Liu was already the president of Century Corporation, and Wong Kar-wai was just an unknown screenwriter at that time. Once, also inexplicably, he made a cameo in the film he supervised, just that day the director was not there, but found Wong Kar-wai as a substitute, Director Liu found that the substitute director was still quite serious, and transferred the machine back and forth. I talked to him, and then I found that he had his own ideas, and I felt that he was a talent. When we first met, I felt sorry for each other.
However, for some time afterwards, both of them were unlucky and unpopular. Liu Zhenwei's company collapsed, and Wong Kar-wai lost his job in the screenwriting industry. Both were so depressed that they couldn't even afford a taxi. Sometimes they arrange to talk to the investment boss about the script, and they try to arrange it at the time of dinner, so that they can rub a meal and rub a cigarette. Fortunately, when they met Deng Guangrong later, the three conditions proposed were also agreed, so they analyzed the lineup pattern of the Hong Kong film market at that time, and the action movies had Xu Ke and Liu Jialiang in filming; Literary and art films are filmed by Xu Anhua; Comedy includes Huang Baiming, Xu Guanwen and a bunch of other people.
They counted, only the black comedy had not been filmed, and they were ready to make this. Deng Guangrong's company "Shadow Master" was thus established. Under the struggle of Liu Zhenwei, Wong Kar-wai joined the creative group, and the first "Fierce Ghost Messenger Hall" that the two of them cooperated with, which was the only time Liu Zhenwei let Wong Kar-wai be his screenwriter, and also found that Wong Kar-wai wrote really slowly, so slow that he also wanted to fire him. Later, there was no way, sitting opposite Wong Kar-wai every day, and I couldn't go back until I finished writing, so I forced the script out. Fortunately, I made some money in this movie, and later filmed "Carmen in Mong Kok" and "The Legend of Ah Fei".
Later, they began to prepare for "East Evil and West Poison", they found an investor surnamed Cai, and as soon as the investor heard that they could find ten big stars, they were very excited to invest on the spot. It is time to start shooting, and Wong Kar-wai's slow kung fu is coming again. Just filming the scene of "Ouyang Feng" and "Hong Qigong" in the bathhouse was filmed for more than a month. Lin Qingxia, Zhang Guorong, Liang Chaowei, Maggie Cheung, Liang Jiahui, every day do not know what they are doing, but they have to stay there, at that time there are still three months before the New Year, it took a month, Liu Zhenwei thought at that time, bad, there is still more than a month to finish, a little bit of a feeling of soup. I had to rush the ducks to the shelves, and first shoot the comedy film "East into West" to save the emergency. From that day on, in less than ten days, he only wrote a scene of Liang Chaowei's sausage mouth, and he started it in a hurry. What happened after that is not clear, just keep shooting and changing, keep changing and shooting, is the only film script he has not started since he started, because his original films were all about drawing movie scripts.
Now it seems that the movie that came out of this way was full of an unexpected comedic effect, and it is estimated that Liu Zhenwei himself never had such inspiration again, so the great director was also forced out. It was a huge pressure. Just bitter those ten big stars, go to Wong Kar-wai at night to shoot a play, one by one the bitterness seems to be the death of the whole family, during the day to Liu Zhenwei here crazy crazy crazy performance very happy play. Every actor is schizophrenic.
In fact, when filming "East becomes West", there is also an episode, that is, Liu Zhenwei hid in the hotel and spent 5 to 6 days to write the script of the movie "Fang Shiyu". After filming, I slept a lot, and then continued to shoot "East becomes West". Liu Zhenwei is really a genius-like filmmaker, but he himself has not dared to toss himself like this since that time.
Maybe he was really tired, after filming "Night of the Soul", Liu Zhenwei went to Canada with his family and stayed for five years. Really a good husband who is a wife and goddess.
Later, Wong Kar-wai softly and hard bubbles called him back to Hong Kong, but unfortunately, Liu Zhenwei at that time was probably the real Jiang Lang, and the later works were not satisfactory, but he felt good about himself. The Hong Kong movie environment is setting in the sunset, and it is also a luxury to hope that he can turn the tide again.