On August 17, 1990, Hong Kong's rare war film blockbuster , "Streets of Blood" premiered in Hong Kong, which is now the 31st anniversary.
In Wu Yusen's hero film system, if "The True Colors of Heroes" is the highlight of heroism, "Blood Double Male" is the peak of violent aesthetics, and "Across the Sea" is the ultimate of romanticism, then this "Blood Street" is undoubtedly the limit of the director's bloodshed.
"Streets of Blood" is written and directed by Wu Yusen, starring Liang Chaowei, Jacky Cheung, Li Zixiong, Ren Dahua, Yuan Jieying and so on. After the success of "Blood Twins", with the support of the Golden Princess Cinema Line, Wu Yusen set up his own independent production company, and this film is his entrepreneurial work.
Prior to this film, Liang Chaowei won the 7th Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for "People's Heroes", and Jacky Cheung won the Best Supporting Actor at the 8th Academy Awards with "Carmen in Mong Kok".
And "The True Colors of Heroes" made Li Zixiong nominate three major awards for the Golden Statue Best Supporting Actor, the Best Newcomer and the Golden Horse Best Supporting Actor at one time, although the grain was not received, it was already the uncrowned king.
Wu Yusen's consistent three-person line, coupled with a tough guy Ren Dahua who has just returned to Hong Kong from Taiwan, it can be said that the main actors in this film are the most promising future stars in the Hong Kong film industry at that time.
In 1986, after the success of "The True Colors of Heroes", New Art City hoped that Wu Yusen could hit the iron while it was hot and make a sequel. But Wu Yusen was not willing to repeat himself, and at that time he had already conceived the story framework of "Blood Street", hoping to find three young people to perform, equivalent to the prequel to "Ying Ben".
However, neither New Art City nor Xu Ke approved of this idea, when Shi Tian, the second boss of New Art City, was in a low stage of his career and was depressed and depressed. In order to restore his confidence, Xu Ke and Wu Yusen rewrote a story, recreating their feelings for Shi Tian in the "Hero's True Colors Sequel".
In this way, the story of "Blood Street" was left to Wu Yusen himself. The first half of the film is based on Wu Yusen's personal experience.
Liang Chaowei's character prototype is Wu Yusen himself, while the roles of Jacky Cheung and Li Zixiong are portrayals of Wu Yusen's two slum friends.
Wu Yusen wrote all of his experiences in his youth into the script, according to Lao Wu's recollection:
"Jacky Cheung's character archetype is my neighbor, who often fights. I did something wrong once, was often chased by the police, and I often covered him and protected him because I knew he was a misunderstood person. ”
The character of Li Zixiong is another neighbor of Wu Yusen. His father is a garbage sweeper, but he has been working very hard, starting from the hotel waiter, all the way to the general manager, of course, he is not as bad as in the play.
In the second half of "Streets of Blood", Wu Yusen boldly pushes his vision from the slums of Hong Kong to the battlefield of Vietnam, in order to expand the film landscape. In order to strive for authenticity, the main creators spent four months to collect information.
Whether it is the current affairs and historical facts of Hong Kong, or the background and culture of Vietnam, the main creators have spent a lot of effort to collect. Some news materials and even war scenes can be transformed into drama as long as they can match the plot.
During the filming process, Wu Yusen cherished his team, especially the actors. He was afraid that the extras would hurt Liang Chaowei, so he simply went into the battle to run the dragon suit himself. Still, the lead actors are in a lot of pain.
During that time, due to the deserted shooting location and the easy injury of each explosion, Liang Chaowei was highly nervous and burst into tears every day.
Once, Liang Chaowei dubbed a scene and spent 45 minutes. For the effect, Wu Yusen has been very satisfied, but Wei Zai still feels bad and wants to rematch the whole section.
I don't know if on the set of the depressed atmosphere, this is not a mutual torture and decompression between Wu Yusen and Liang Chaowei.
When filming "Blood Street", Wu Yusen was forced to abandon the lineup of large cass centers on Zhou Runfa, and simply used all young actors, as if he was confidently proving his strength to the world: without Zhou Runfa, Wu Yusen was still Wu Yusen.
However, what is sad is that the blessing is incomparable, the disaster is not alone, Lao Wu not only lost the box office appeal of Zhou Runfa this time, but also bumped into the new box office force of Zhou Xingchi. Just the day after the release of "Blood Street", Stephen Chow's "Gamble Saint" was released.
As we all know, the release of "Gamble Saint" directly reversed the trend of Hong Kong commercial films. If the previous year's "God of Gamblers" was still cloaked in Wu Yusen's heroic film, then "Gamble Saint" completely abandoned heroism and completely opened up a new nonsense road.
The collision of the two is the direct cause of the box office failure of "Blood Street", of course, it is not expected. We cannot say that Wu Yusen lost to Zhou Xingchi, but we can only say that when the new trend came, he was caught off guard and unprepared, and it was definitely not a war crime.
How could Wu Yusen have thought that Zhou Xingchi, who played a small supporting role in his own directing "Righteous Courage" not long ago, would become the brightest box office star in Xiangjiang overnight? Who would have thought? That's the fun of fate, you stomp on you and you're numb.
In the end, as the most expensive film in Hong Kong that year, "Blood Street", which was shot for 30 million yuan, only received more than 8 million at the box office after its release, which can be described as a tragic street. The investor, Princess Jin, suffered heavy losses, which made Wu Yusen very guilty, because his previous films never made the company at a loss.
Unexpectedly, the boss of the Golden Princess not only did not blame Wu Yusen, but also shook his hand and comforted him kindly: "It doesn't matter the director, that money can be earned back at any time, this is the best movie since you made a movie." This made Lao Wu move, there was such a boss!
In order to thank the boss for his inclusive support and make up for the investment loss of the Golden Princess, Wu Yusen decided to temporarily collect his author consciousness and earn all the money back in the next play.
Therefore, he and Zhou Runfa, Zhang Guorong and other old friends joined forces again, pulled up Zhong Chuhong, who was about to end the film, and filmed a romantic classic - "Across the World".
Even writing the script, shooting locations, to completing editing, dubbing, and finally catching up with the New Year file, "Across the World" only took two months, and the speed was close to Wang Jing.
After the release, it was really applauded and applauded, and Wu Yusen earned back all the money lost in "Blood Street".
Time has passed, looking back, "Across the Sea" naturally received a full audience applause in business, but Wu Yusen is still grumpy about some flaws in the film, and "Blood Street" has always been his intention.
As with writing articles, sometimes you painstakingly write a so-called fine dry goods, thinking that it is a masterpiece, but the reader may not pay the bill; instead, you are hot-headed, and you can code a few words at will, but you get a lot of likes.
Whether it is a long story or a small test, it is actually a real level of play, what matters is your orientation - is it self-centered, or market-oriented?
As a self-dissected author film, "Streets of Blood" is undoubtedly a success; as a commercial film that points to the box office, "Across the Sea" is not a failure.
This is all the success of Wu Yusen, and of course, the success of the Golden Princess.
Before "Blood Street", Wu Yusen's hero films were all about brotherhood, while this one was about betrayal and loss. When a friend becomes unfaithful and unrighteous, is it necessary to insist on a love affair? It's a big test. This cruelty makes the audience feel that life is too pessimistic, and they can't accept such a fact.
Wu Yusen said: "I think this kind of film is enough to make once, if it is reproduced, it seems that I am pessimistic about life, there is no meaning." Because I am quite optimistic, that movie is just a temporary feeling, I am still full of hope for life, and I will not remake or reproduce a movie like "Blood Street". ”
(This article was first published on the public account: the birth of a word.)