For Wang Jing's persistence in making "Chasing the Dragon 3", many people do not understand, because in the film and television industry, when a film sequel box office is not ideal, it often means the end of the movie story.
Especially Wang Jing, he himself once said that he is a businessman "can not let investors lose money", after knowing that the box office of "Chasing Dragons 2" was dismal, then why did he not believe in this evil and insist on making "Chasing Dragons 3"?
Let's first take a look at the glory of "Chasing the Dragon", which was a movie in 17 years and earned 577 million at the box office. Its success is not unique, and it is inextricably linked to many hong Kong movies that were acclaimed and popular at that time.
For example, the movie "The Biography of Inspector Leiluo" starring Andy Lau and the movie "Lame Hao" starring Lu Liangwei, it is not difficult for us to find that the characters or character images in "Chasing the Dragon" have traces of borrowing from these classic movies.
At the same time, in terms of content, this movie can represent the classic genes of Hong Kong gangster movies, with social chaos, the corruption of power, coupled with the help of Andy Lau and Zhen Zidan's powerful stars, and it is also expected to achieve such results.
"Chasing the Dragon 2" suffered a Waterloo at the box office, only 309 million, which is far from people's expectations.
It is reasonable to say that it should not be, because the story of "Chasing the Dragon 2" is based on the real events of Zhang Ziqiang, the "gangster of the century" in Hong Kong, Wang Jing also consulted the old news of the case that year, and communicated with the same party in the case.
For insurance, four film emperors were also invited to join Liang Jiahui, Gu Tianle, Lin Jiadong and Ren Dahua, but even if it was such a double insurance, the audience still did not buy it, which disappointed Wang Jing and made the audience feel that the former "Hong Kong films" had a tendency to be eliminated by the market.
Of course, this movie also has its own shortcomings, relatively thin in character settings, only paying attention to the promotion of the plot, ignoring the interactive connection between the story and the characters, so that the audience is bored, so it is not accepted.
I think every director has a dream in his heart, Wang Jing wants to shoot "Chasing Dragons 3", is not very willing to the failure of "Chasing Dragons 2", or wants to use "Chasing Dragons" as a series OF IP.
Although we often say that Wang Jing makes bad films, in fact, he was a very talented director before making commercial films. It can be said that in the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, if you want to leave the names of Wong Kar-wai, Wu Yusen, and Du Qifeng, you must also have Wang Jing.
Although his works are not as distinctive and elegant as the previous ones, they are easy to understand. And he shoots movies involving a wide range of subjects, what gambling films, comedies, martial arts films, as long as it can sell money, he will do it, many of which are made purely for money, but it does not mean that he does not have the ability to make good movies, depending on what he thinks.
And this time in "Chasing dragons 3", Wang Jing has improved the story to avoid the shortcomings of "Chasing Dragons 2" as much as possible. The focus is on the story of Chinatown in 63 years, between the Chinese Federation and the Italian gangsters.
Although the overall framework still looks full of Hong Kong flavor, in the past two years, Wang Jing has interacted more and more with netizens, and many interviews have also made clear the shortcomings of her previous films, so this time she insists on making "Chasing Dragons 3", which should be to build her own film brand.
The only regret is that "Chasing the Dragon 3" tentatively set Gu Tianle and Zhen Zidan in terms of actors, and Andy Lau will not play the leading role because of the relationship between the schedule, but director Wang Jing said that he would find him a cameo.
I firmly believe in his ability, he used to pull all kinds of stars together to act in movies, this time I hope Wang Jing will do a good job, let us see different Hong Kong films.