In 1984, Huang Zihua graduated with a master's degree, returned to Hong Kong, and applied for TVB acting training courses, but it happened to be suspended that year, and had to apply for TVB's only screenwriting class that was still recruiting at that time, and decided to start from screenwriting and become an actor.
That year, Stephen Chow graduated from the acting training class and officially began to serve as the host of the children's program "430 Shuttle", and starred in many dragon set roles in works such as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes".
The life paths of the two kings of Hong Kong film comedy meet here, and they are hastily staggered.
The time is February 17, 2023, and Stephen Chow has not released a new work for four years after "The New King of Comedy". The box office of "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" led by Huang Zihua officially exceeded 100 million, setting the highest record for Hong Kong local Hong Kong films, surpassing Koo Tianle's investment in the big-production sci-fi film "Tomorrow's War" and Huang Zihua's own "Still Think You Are the Best" record, becoming the box office champion in Hong Kong film history (Asian film).
When it comes to Huang Zihua, the first reaction of many people in the past was: box office poison.
And now, he is the only box office elixir in the Hong Kong film industry.
Last year's "Still Think You're the Best" has surpassed Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu" and became the comedy champion in Hong Kong film history.
Now his "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" and "Still Think You Are the Best" rank first and third in Hong Kong film history respectively, even Stephen Chow, who reached the peak of the Hong Kong film industry in 1992, is difficult to reach such a box office height.
Because when the stars are like the sky, the Hong Kong film industry is also like the sky, and when everyone is used to watching Hong Kong films with the eyes of the sunset, Huang Zihua has created a new peak against the current.
Therefore, Huang Zihua's box office surpassing Stephen Chow is definitely not a transcendence in the sense of numbers, once inflation and market changes are calculated, the box office figures of different generations are meaningless.
But if the box office results of the two are measured on the coordinates of Hong Kong films, one is the glory of Hong Kong films, and the other is the king of bailouts. Which is stronger?
The theme of law is actually unpopular in Hong Kong movies, and the previous contemporary legal films led by Andy Lau, Leung Ka-fai, Cheung Kin Ting and so on, the box office in Hong Kong has never exceeded 15 million.
There has never been a legal film as cool and burning as "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer".
The key to the film's box office success is, of course, Huang Zihua's "poisonous tongue" lawyer Lin Liangshui, who is not afraid of power and adheres to the true color of justice and blood, and it is his awe-inspiring and iron-toothed stunning that makes Hong Kong audiences excited.
The "box office poison" that once "accused" of the flesh and blood history of the entertainment industry on stage was collectively named a "god" by the Hong Kong audience.
Looking at today's Hong Kong film industry, Huang Zihua is so red that he can't find an opponent for a hundred miles. In terms of personal box office appeal, looking around, there is no one who can hit. It can be said that today's Hong Kong rivers and lakes are the world of Huang Zihua alone.
Countless pent-up enthusiasm and rhapsody finally broke out collectively in that box office blockbuster.
And the Hong Kong film industry is really ten years of Hedong, ten years of Hexi.
But the box office surpasses Stephen Chow, why should Huang Zihua?
01 Poisonous tongue
Even if the box office breaks 100 million, "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" seems to have enough stamina.
In Hong Kong cinemas, you can still often hear full houses of pigs barking and even enthusiastic applause.
In fact, comedy + law, the former genre label, in my opinion, has not yet fully developed.
But the film is already worth the ticket price, behind which is the "Little Clever Complete Collection" of directors Wu Weilun and Huang Zihua.
First of all, the lineup is set up as a "chicken thief", Wang Danni and Liao Ziyu in "Anita Mui", the new generation of heroines of Hong Kong films with great momentum, to "Poisonous Tongue", the good sisters turned against each other, and a supermodel became a prisoner,
One with a cold shape, stunning everyone.
Xie Junhao, who faced off with Huang Zihua in the court in the film, is well-known in the mainland, but a "wine sword fairy" in a "Nanhai Thirteen Lang" is enough to seal a god.
Norma Lam and Wang Minde are recognized as the old faces of Hong Kong films.
This lineup is not expensive but practical, and the interpretation of many roles is in place, and it has audience popularity, which is the cornerstone of this play.
The selling point is to cater to the public: comedy + Huang Zihua. Huang Zihua does not act in comedy, and the audience will not admit it.
The film has a lot of hilarious comedy elements, such as those mean lines: "To be a man, the most important thing is to convince people with virtue... Dark calculations are another calculation. ”
But it is definitely not a comedy funny film, but more inclined to a feature film with profound content, and more like a Hong Kong film that the audience has been missing for a long time.
The real highlights of the movie are actually richer -
This is a story about how ordinary people fight against powerful people: supermodel Zeng Jieer is accused of manslaughtering her own daughter, and her representative lawyer Lin Liangshui is wrongfully imprisoned due to mistakes, and in the face of obstruction from powerful families, Lin Liangshui finally seeks justice for Zeng Jieer.
The film packs the comedy laughter of "Dong Du Xiao", evokes the serious discussion of the heart of justice, the suspenseful reasoning in the process of pursuing the truth, and in the specific process of overturning the case, it is also mixed with many types of elements such as collusion between officials and businessmen, black and white rampant, criminal investigation and solving cases, and the audience buys a ticket, which is equivalent to watching several plays.
And it turns out that as long as it is a good movie, the audience will like it, and as for whether it is a "family fun", not many people will care.
But the film's big cleverness in addition to the little cleverness is to figure out the audience's taste while always carrying a sense of unstinting courage.
"Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" is Wu Weilun's first directorial work. Previously, he was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Hong Kong Film Awards three times for "Informant", "Guild War" and "Cold War 2". Therefore, although his first work is a literary drama, it has the charm of a Hong Kong action film: the laughter is efficient and compact, the dialogue is concise, the rhythm is bright and full of tension.
Court films usually have a single scene, rely on dialogue, and the rhythm is easy to get slower, Wu Weilun boldly attracts the audience with dramatic advancement and actor acting skills in "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", the story has ups and downs, and the result is very happy, in short, it is more burning than action movies.
For example, the most lively scene - the reversal of the male protagonist court.
In the whole scene, the overall situation of the court trial was originally decided, and the audience knew that the heroine was innocent, but the victory was on the other side, but at the critical moment, the poisonous tongue lawyer played by Huang Zihua was like falling from the sky, and the battle was reversed.
I have to say that this paragraph reflects the director's precise rhythm control, and it is the key to the shocking of the movie.
Several people who have been wronged, calculated, and involved have united together, trying their best to eliminate all difficulties to wash away their grievances, the comfort of hoeing the strong and helping the weak, the clarity of sinking the wrongs, the joy of raising eyebrows, etc. are all included in it, these emotions are what the audience always wants, and the film is not only satisfied, but also shot high and funny.
This is a tightrope walking, but Huang Zihua's existence makes the film comfortably walk this tightrope... I didn't fall.
The movie is not without shortcomings: the rhythm in the second half is too scattered, the editing is too chaotic, and the twists are perfunctory, basically the parties are advised by Huang Zihua to stand up after refusing, not to mention the audience who have been in contact with the common law system, and they all know that the generous statement of the male protagonist of the finale is simply impossible to stage in reality.
But a good show of counterattack that upholds justice, is eclectic, and defeats the strong with weakness is still staged.
Because the film has one of the simplest and most effective methods:
If the plot is unreasonable, then give the scene to Huang Zihua.
02 Zihua Shen
Huang Zihua's acting skills in this film are indeed so amazing that there is no need to evaluate, or it can be said that a large part of this drama is supported by Huang Zihua alone.
The role deserves to be nominated for an Academy Award for Huang Zihua. There was no nomination, not that Huang Zihua did not act well, but that the Hong Kong Film Awards had limited vision.
Huang Zihua plays a serious role, the audience does not like it, generally the more annoying the character he portrays, the more the audience likes it. Lin Liangshui was such a disgusting character at the beginning, but in the end, it burned amazingly, and it was simply tailored for Huang Zihua.
It can also be said that this role, the entire Hong Kong film industry, is none other than him.
Because the "Zeng Jieer murdered her daughter" in the story is an iron case that is difficult to overturn, plus under the influence of the real murderer Zhong family and his wife, the entire real power faction is secretly obstructing, what to fight with them? The answer is to fight evil with ingenuity and fight poison with poison.
And Huang Zihua is actually integrated with the character, and with Huang Zihua's performance, the unreasonable places are also reasonable.
Huang Zihua's previous performance was played as two qualities.
A kind of "decaying (cheap)" of small people.
In "Male and Female Love", daily fish, crooked reasoning is frequent, and golden sentences are constantly Hong Kong-style migrant workers, Yu Lotian.
A gag in "Dong Du Detective", Mo Zuodong who wears a trench coat that does not fit his body all day long. Without exception, they are some mean, flowery "little people".
But the more "decaying (cheap) the character, the audience likes to watch him, and the more cheap the character, the more the audience likes it, and although Lin Liangshui is a legal elite, he is a small person who is real to the extreme and can resonate with you.
The other, a dick-like growl.
This unique style began with "Dong Du Detective" and became "at the peak" of this film.
Because the real courtroom is actually quite calm, lacking the drama that movies need. During the script writing phase, the barrister, who acted as a consultant, pointed out that there were many scenes that could not happen, but the director decided to keep them.
In the final highlight of the film, Huang Zihua impassionedly accuses the powerful in court, although it is impossible for barristers in reality to be so emotional in court, but this scene has become the highlight of the whole film-
This scene adds up to almost 10 pages of dialogue, and the entire courtroom revolves around Huang Zihua alone.
Huang Zihua sprouted a large number of golden sentences, such as "In the past, everyone said that everyone was equal before the law, but today, everyone has changed their words, saying before the law, three, six, nine, and so on." ”
The director directly used a long shot, and Huang Zihua really acted this one-man show very cheerfully, and it was very "Hong Kong flavor".
The most important thing is that such a finale is extremely close to the true feelings of the audience and echoes the voice of the public.
Any work that can become a phenomenon must poke at the common social mood to some extent, and what "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" touches is people's desire for heaven and justice.
So although it is a literary drama, this finale is like a hearty fight in the finale of a Hong Kong action movie, "Jedi Strikes Back", "Happy People's Hearts" and "Cool"!
Why do audiences believe this story? Because Huang Zihua's poisonous tongue lawyer has tenacity and character background. As Huang Zihua himself evaluated, his role is a legal man, and after reading it, he felt that the grandeur lasted forever.
And at the end of the film, Huang Zihua's very dramatic performance method actually fits the characters quite well.
Zhengfang seems to be "weak", but when it comes to the closing argument, it is passionate and can turn the tide! The audience really felt Huang Zihua's infectious power as an actor, and it seemed to return to the shocking golden age of Hong Kong films.
The director said that before the official shooting, I never imagined that his explosive power would be so strong and his power could be so great.
It can be said that today's Huang Zihua's performance state, just like Stephen Chow at his peak, is not only the "drama eye" of the whole film, but also the soul character, but also with laughter and scolding, sweet and bitter, the role of 100 points is completed to 120 points, so that the audience is willing to enter the cinema to pay for the star master of the year, today's "Zihua God".
03 The new king of the box office
This was not the case with Huang Zihua back then, he was once a recognized box office poison in the Hong Kong film industry.
In 1990, "The Dragon in the World" starring Jet Li and Stephen Chow was released in Hong Kong, with a box office of 6.8 million and ranked 51st in the year, so a box office era belonging to Xingye is about to begin.
At the same time, a talk show called "The History of Flesh and Blood in the Entertainment Industry" opened in a small theater in Hong Kong.
Huang Zihua spent 9 months, wrote a script, spent tens of thousands of yuan out of his own pocket to save 10,000 people in the Hong Kong Cultural Center to rent a hall for 300 people to hold a performance, and then went to the street to distribute posters, ready to quit the entertainment industry after this ticket.
On the night of the performance on August 30, one-third of the audience came from friends and friends of friends, and the rest of the audience, one of his friends, Lin Zuhui, described it as "really not knowing what is sacred".
The 30-year-old Huang Zihua was full of young and vigorous immaturity and loneliness, wearing a black and white shirt standing alone on the stage, talking for 90 minutes, and tilting out all the sad past experiences experienced at the bottom of the entertainment industry in the past six years in a talk show tone, like spitting bitter water.
During the 90-minute performance, the laughter never stopped.
When someone asked him what this kind of performance was, he said it was called "Don Du Xiao".
This is the beginning of the story of Hong Kong Dong Du Xiao.
At the enthusiastic request of the audience, Huang Zihua opened three more games at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in October of the same year, with more and more games and more spectators.
On November 2, 2010, the performance venue of "Showbiz Flesh and Blood 2" was Hung Hom Stadium.
This time, Huang Zihua opened eight consecutive games, and the venue was full.
After carefully watching the content of Huang Zihua's talk shows, I know that he is very different from the talk shows in the mainland, the scale is larger, there are no taboos, with a large number of daily jokes of small citizens in the city, with deep reflection on social hot topics, making good use of double entendres and advanced paragraphs.
Wong Zihua's Dong Du Smile is held up on the altar in Hong Kong, not only because of its funny, but also because of its deep core and the variety of Hong Kong society contained in its core.
90-10 years is the 20 years of Stephen Chow's box office myth, and it is also the 20 years when Huang Zihua blooms on all sides, but the box office cannot.
In 2000, the sitcom "Male Love and Female Love" led by Huang Zihua was broadcast on TVB late-night broadcast, and the result was well received as soon as it was broadcast, with an average rating of 48% and a maximum rating of 50 points, and won "Best Drama" and "Best Actress" the following year, only the emperor was sidelined, but Huang Zihua lost unjustly, and the emperor that year was the actor of "Washing Wrongs" Ouyang Zhenhua.
In the play, Huang Zihua's various "anti-roll master" golden sentences became the most popular topic among Hong Kong young people at that time, and the entire drama did not have a big adulterous incident, but used a variety of trivial real problems to tell the story, thus laying the foundation for Huang Rihua's comedy style.
In 2002, the domestic TV series "Very Citizen" starring Huang Zihua was launched, and he played the male protagonist Puyi.
In order to perform Puyi's loneliness born in the last days, and the powerlessness in the face of fate, Huang Zihua desperately lost weight, lost 30 pounds, and even suffered from depression for a while.
There is a scene in the play where Puyi came to Wen Xiu's grave again, and when he was preparing to worship, he saw Wen Xiu's childhood sweetheart before entering the palace, all over the world.
Sihai asked him how he still had a face to see Wen Xiu. Pu Yi said: The old society harmed me and also harmed Wen Xiu.
Sihai: "How can you still defend yourself, you just haven't reformed well." ”
Puyi, played by him, took two steps back and knelt down sharply. When he went to the grave for Wen Xiu, because the slope was too steep, he stumbled and almost slipped down the slope.
The two scenes pushed an old and tangled Puyi in front of the audience.
This drama is enough to prove that Huang Zihua's acting skills back then cannot be underestimated.
But once he entered the film industry, he couldn't.
Just in 2002, Huang Zihua directed and acted in "A Mosquito Chicken Bodyguard", which completely hit the street with a box office of 170,000.
In 03, SARS swept through Hong Kong, and his Dong Du laughed that the audience was all covered with masks and still filled the venue.
Although the movie does not sell well at the box office, as long as he walks on the stage of laughter, he is the unrivaled box office king.
However, in July 2018, 58-year-old Huang Zihua held his last performance at the Red Hall in Hong Kong - "Golden Basin Mouth".
Inside, the audience shouted "back water" happily, and he choked up and sang a song "Phantom Sea", and when he finished singing the last sentence, he flicked the microphone fiercely and waved out of the stage.
After the performance, Huang Zihua closed the wheat.
Since then, his Dongdu laughing performance, staying on the Internet for people to reminisce, his movie box office legend, officially opened.
In 2018, "Agent Dong Du", as Huang Zihua's first film work launched after Dong Duxiao's "Golden Basin Mouth", won more than 44 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office, becoming the box office champion of local films in 2018.
In order to let Huang Zihua wash away the name of box office poison, many Zihua fans spontaneously organized to go to the theater to swipe tickets.
In 2020, Huang Zihua's "Grandmaster of the Dynasty" grossed more than 25 million Hong Kong dollars, and was the box office champion of Hong Kong's New Year file that year.
2022's "Still Think You're the Best" is basically completed in a house, telling about the family, love, and friendship between the 6 protagonists, and the Hong Kong box office exceeded 70 million.
"Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" has exceeded 100 million.
From the box office poison of 170,000 to the king of the box office that exceeded 100 million, even Huang Zihua's film is estimated to dare not make it up like this, because it is too bizarre, or in other words, legendary.
Huang Zihua established his unshakable position as a box office brother in the hearts of the audience. This status is so solid, no matter how the wind and rain blow, how the red man changes, his old man only needs to open the golden mouth, just like the brother Fa in a trench coat and picking up the machine gun to strafe back and forth, Jackie Chan jumped down from several floors, which can bring a huge number of topics and box office to the movie.
What is a box office superstar? Here it is.
04 Heroes grow old, heroes rise
Huang Zihua is actually two years older than Xing Ye.
But 62-year-old Huang Zihua looks at least 10 years younger than 60-year-old Stephen Chow, and behind Stephen Chow's gray hair, although there is a factor of "bone marrow donation", the audience is never allowed to see white heads in the world.
Stephen Chow's highest-grossing film in Hong Kong was "Kung Fu" written and directed in 2004, with a box office of 61.27 million, and the last film starring was "Yangtze River No. 7" in 2008, with a box office of 51.44 million in Hong Kong.
The last director's film, 2019's "The New King of Comedy" has a box office of 21 million in Hong Kong. It's still not bad, but it's no match for the new generation of box office king Huang Zihua.
Since 2018, Huang Zihua starred in the worst Hong Kong box office: 25 million.
When heroes age, heroes rise. Looking back, we can only sigh: the wind and moon are ruthless, but it was already unknown at that time.
Looking closely, the king of the two generations of comedy is actually the same.
For example, the comedy core of the two - is it sad? Sad. Is it painful? Suffering.
Is it funny? Too funny.
This is the top comedy, cutting yourself open, turning tragedy into laughter, and presenting it to the public.
And "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", which made Huang Zihua reach the peak again,
The story can be said to be a modern version of "Nine Pins Sesame Officer".
Both kings of comedy love to raise cockroaches in their works, and their names are both Xiaoqiang.
Both are equally patriotic.
Stephen Chow jumped excitedly at the live broadcast of the successful Olympic bid.
And Huang Zihua has always taken a firm position: Hong Kong was originally Chinese, and Britain's return to Hong Kong was returned to its original owner.
He also made a domineering speech at the award ceremony: I trouble you to go back and tell the Japanese that the Diaoyu Islands are Chinese.
But there can only be one king of comedy in an era.
In "Male Love and Female Love", Huang Zihua laughed at himself through the mouth of the character -
Zheng Yuling's character said, you can do a talk show. Yu Lotian said, unstable.
The heroine said, how can it be unstable, there is a person named Huang Zihua who has been doing it for ten years, and he mixes well.
Yu Lotian said, four or five lines.
Now no one dares to be his four-way. But his success is limited to Hong Kong entertainment.
Because Huang Zihua's roots are Dong Du Xiao, after the rise of Dong Du Xiao in Hong Kong, it influenced the entire Cantonese cultural circle, but the country reached the Liangguang region at most.
Xingye movies can sell 3.4 billion in the mainland, and if he is willing to star in "Kung Fu 2", 5 billion is not a problem. And Huang Zihua's "Still Think You Are the Best", the highest box office in the mainland, will exceed 100 million.
Behind the box office, there are the cloud-turning hands of the times, and there are also individual choices:
How much Stephen Chow, who was at the peak of the Hong Kong box office, was based on Hong Kong culture, and how accommodating his later films were to the domestic and even international markets.
And the laughter, highlights, and roots of Huang Zihua's movies are always in Hong Kong.
In fact, the trend of Hong Kong films has not changed, it is Stephen Chow who has changed.
An era that belongs to Xingye will always go away in the hustle and bustle. The rivers and lakes that once belonged to him must always be occupied by someone.
And Huang Zihua's film just gave the Hong Kong audience what they wanted most, and he naturally ordered it at that time.
Looking back at the passage of time, Sheng songs and shadows rise and fall one after another. Behind the lives of the two generations of comedy kings and Hong Kong box office kings, what determines success or failure is fate, choice, and situation.
No one replaced anyone, just like Stephen Chow did not replace the previous generation of Hong Kong comedy king Hui Guanwen, but the tide pushed him forward.
Everything may be just as Huang Zihua sang at the end of the last Dong Du laughing performance: hard work for half a life, want to be a little star in the peaceful and prosperous world, win left (over) there is sugar, one loss, there is nothing left.
Time flies, don't stop for the king, life is in the world, the true system (is) needs energy positive;
Many difficulties, sad, talk and talk (not) clear, I look back, look at this red hall until I wake up,
To be able to laugh with you (here) is counted... Phantom Sea.