The "Ancient Puzzle Boy" series has many extravaganzas, and if "Brother With Thorns" is also counted, this is undoubtedly the most perfect ending in the hearts of fans.
Brothers are around, lovers are in front of you, and the regrets in the story are all fulfilled in reality.
Chen Xiaochun, Lin Xiaofeng, Xie Tianhua, the former ancient puzzle boys are all over half a hundred years old, and the images of the brothers running amok on the streets and taking pictures of each other can only be found occasionally when the BGM of "Gone with the Wind" sounds.
What many people don't know is that the "Ancient Puzzle Boy" series of comics did not end until last year, but quietly, without stirring up any splash, far less than the moment it was born more than twenty years ago.
01
The king of Hong Kong films
On the evening of January 25, 1996, outside the Tsim Sha Tsim Tung Chinachem Theatre in Hong Kong, a crowd of second-rate people shouted "Chan Ho Nam! Brother Pheasant!" The crowd was in full swing.
To be precise, these people are not fans, but the new little brother of Causeway Bay, as long as Chen Haonan gives an order, they can create a jianghu with their bare hands.
This is the grand occasion of the premiere night of "Ancient Puzzle Boy 1: People in the Jianghu", Wang Jing and Liu Weiqiang are stunned, I can also fire when I go here?
The improvised grassroots actors, the films filmed in 21 days, the production is rough, the schedule is not good, and it is exactly like a work for Liu Weiqiang to practice. Unexpectedly, it set a box office of 21 million Hong Kong dollars in the sluggish market, and sent Zheng Yijian and Chen Xiaochun to the top in one fell swoop.
After that, Liu Weiqiang took advantage of the victory to pursue, and used 14 days to shoot the second "Raptor Across the River", and for a time, the gangster culture swept throughout Southeast Asia.
At this time, Chinese mainland, pirated video stores are the spiritual granaries of young people, and under the nurturing of these gray soils, "Ancient Puzzle Boy" has become the king of Hong Kong films in the VCD era.
Boys of that era should be familiar with this poster:
Chen Haonan and his pony boy stood on the side of the street in the most handsome posture, with different shapes of guys copied in their hands, behind them were the chaotic street scenes with confusing lights, and under the earthy rhetoric of "the oil tip is the biggest, the hero of Causeway Bay is undefeated", this gang is so real and grounded, as if every young man in the urban-rural junction can imitate it at low cost.
As a result, at the junction of school and society, a large number of "Honan" and "Pheasant" emerged, who called brothers and brothers in their own imaginary gangs and pursued chivalry.
02
Out of the mix, sooner or later it is necessary to pay back
"It doesn't matter if I'm Hongxing's person, Chen Haonan will always be my eldest brother!"
After many hardships, the pheasant finally became the boss of the Taiwanese gang, but when Chen Haonan fell, he resolutely returned to Hong Kong to support the former boss, which won the pheasant a super popularity and set a loyal example for all the horse boys.
However, in the eyes of young people who are not deeply involved in the world, this kind of love is to use knives and guns to maintain the dignity and order of their brothers.
The fist is hard is the big brother, under the superficial cognition, all behaviors are flattened into violence.
In previous film and television works, the handling of contradictions between characters is relatively complicated, and in the tone of valuing harmony, it is full of adult-style pros and cons, which is complex and uninteresting in the eyes of teenagers.
And the ancient puzzle boys are very crisp, people don't talk much, come up and do it directly, through the stubble can achieve immediate heroic dreams and conquest desires, which is too addictive.
In the movie in just one hour, contradictions and conflicts will be staged frequently, but in reality, everyone is at peace with each other, and they can't wait for an opportunity to show the majesty of big brother for a month, so the so-called "chivalry" gradually becomes bullying, from robbing the pocket money of classmates to gathering horses to beat each other for the girls they like.
Gangs, brothers, women, faces, any one can make adolescent boys die.
Some people worship the big fei brother played by Huang Qiusheng, who was cut off his fingers after joining the underworld, and some teenagers imitated the plot of Gu Qiuzai, creating a sensational "Xiu MaoPing burning case" in Hong Kong.
To this day, the praise and criticism of this film are mixed:
There are countless works of gangster themes, countless villain roles in normal themes, but gu confused boy has become synonymous with problem teenagers, is it because it is guilty, or because it is too red?
Because this movie learns a lot of bad children, but compared with the children who are not brought bad, this probability is small and small, and the teenagers who are poked by the ancient puzzle boy have their own growth environment, if there is no movie, will they still run away?
Gu Qiuzai's popularity in the film market is only a few short years, but school bullying has always been widespread, so is this movie unjust?
Such an exploration will never be fruitful, only those who have awakened to the enlightenment can understand the reasons, and can also experience the big brothers' words "out of the mix, sooner or later will be repaid."
Now that 25 years have passed since this movie, and the fate of all the characters has been clearly explained last year, standing at this point in time to judge this work, I can only say that this is a very good work, but this is a comic that can only be felt by a niche group, but it was accidentally intruded by the teenagers of the public.
03
You don't understand pheasants
Chen Huimin, a former Hong Kong gangster and 14K gangster, said: "There are two sets of laws in Hong Kong, before 12 o'clock in the evening it is the law of the police, and after 12 o'clock it is the world of the underworld."
The police gangster family, black and white are difficult to distinguish, this is Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s, and it is the environment in which cowboys, the author of "Ancient Puzzle Boys", grew up.
During the Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty, the triad entered Hong Kong, and by the end of the 19th century, the number of gangs had reached one-third of the adult males of Hong Kong's Chinese.
The story of Gu Qizai is based on the triad. In the name of loyalty, they gradually made the gang bigger and stronger, and also maintained a relationship of confrontation and collusion with the regime through violence.
It sounds like a legend, but Cowboy makes it clear that the work is a "Hong Kong underworld realistic cartoon" depicting a low-level people who are violently suppressed.
The opening chapter of "Ancient Puzzle Boy" explains the background of the times:
"In 1956, the shek Kip Tail fire, the Hong Kong government in order to resettle the poor, a large number of construction of relocation districts, with the rapid growth of the post-war generation, tens of thousands of families living in small units, coupled with parents for the mouth of the mercedes, the cramming system is not perfect, many teenagers went astray, the migration of the district stadium is a heroic place for them to exert their energy, but also a hotbed for the cultivation of ancient puzzle boys."
How this group of children grew up, pheasants are a microcosm, he grew up living in a narrow and cramped housing village (Hong Kong slums), a corridor where several families live, parents are the bottom of society, no culture, can only do some dirty and tired and no money work, around the older children began to smoke and drink early to fight in groups, they are the pheasant a few years later.
When bored, pheasants like to run to the top floor, fold a pile of paper airplanes to fly, or talk to their favorite little girl about the future, under the eyes is where they live, these people's lives can be seen at a glance, one step forward is the high wall, the next step is the abyss, they can only survive in this narrow gap.
But the pheasant is eager to get ahead, he is afraid of being trampled, he wants to give the girl he likes a decent future, but for him, the right way is almost impossible, falling into the gang is the "way out" for these children.
The story always carries the romantic mood under the sunset through the nostalgic lens language, but for Chen Xiaochun, who grew up in the village, there is no romance at all: "The village depicted in "The Story of the Pheasant" has been very restrained, the village where I lived at that time was very scary, almost every day there was a firefight, at that time I always let people steal things, and if I didn't steal, I was beaten."
The pheasant in the film is full of money and full of noodles, but in reality, he is like his fathers, working as a hardware store, apprenticed to a barbershop, and playing in the kitchen, because of the identity of illegal child labor, he often dodges and dodges.
The village is full of pheasants, they are not worthy of worship at all, go to his jianghu righteousness, righteousness and loyalty, the common people who are willing to live this kind of knife edge licking blood days.
This huge group of people who have been forgotten in the change of the times, they do not know where tomorrow is, generations of confused and overwhelmed, can only classify the meaning of life as "the most important thing to be a person is to be happy" This classic self-deprecation.
At the end of "The Story of the Pheasant", there is a monologue by Luo Yonghao: "If someone sees the pheasant in the future and still thinks that the pheasant is a cynical and lustful person, you don't know the pheasant at all."
This sentence hides the words of the creators: If someone mentions The Ancient Puzzle Boys and still thinks that they are a group of naturally scummy and evil children, you have not seen their lives at all.
04
Ten ancient puzzle boys, nine decay to the end
Ten ancient puzzle boys, nine decay to the end, this is the fate of the ancient puzzle boys.
In the pen of the cowboy, those characters who have been in the limelight are all tragic endings without exception:
Chao Pi betrayed Chen Haonan and was killed by a truck when he fled; Dayi er was hacked to death by the viper gang; the pheasant broke with Haonan completely, and all his children died in the gang, and he himself was thrown off the roof of the building and fell to his death.
On the cover of the finale, Chen Haonan looked back in the crowd, the whole family died tragically, the brothers returned to the west, and he lost all his money in stock trading, and he became addicted to drugs under anger, relying on his girlfriend to stand on the street to support himself.
In the movie, the director let them stop at the most beautiful and spirited time, the last scene of "The Winner is King", the former street gangsters put on serious suits, walked together to talk and laugh, like a group of elites walking towards their bright future.
In 2018, Gu Qiuzai filmed a movie "Golden Brothers", in addition to the unchanging brotherhood, the story has no half-cent relationship with Gu Qiuzai, they are no longer underworld, but a righteous agent with high-end equipment, netizens questioned: "Is Gu Qiuzai holding a gun or Gu Qiuzai?"
This is probably the obsession of a generation, in fact, the end of The Ancient Puzzle Boy was already doomed as early as the moment they walked out of the house village and joined the gang, either falling into the cliff behind them, or relying on the director's gold finger to cross the high wall in front of them, no matter which way, there was no way back for the dream of the Ancient Puzzle Boy.
Unfortunately, this story is longer than the youth of a generation, and when all the truths are explained thoroughly, the children on the wrong path have already paid the price.
Author: Liu Toot Toot. Shiyafengshe (ID: shiyafengshe) looks at people and things with a rational attitude, and conveys emotions, new knowledge, culture and life with the background of culture. Culture changes lives, and faith shines into the heart.