In just a few months, the box office record of Hong Kong movies has been set again!
Last year, "Tomorrow's War" and "Still Think You're the Best" broke the 60 million local box office ceiling, and the latter simultaneously snatched the comedy throne occupied by "Kung Fu" for 18 years.
As a result, everyone is saying that Hong Kong films have a renaissance.
Who would have thought that this year came a more fierce -
"Poison Tongue Lawyer"
(aka "Poisonous Tongue")
Starring, Huang Zihua again.
What was once a box office poison has now turned into a box office elixir, and it can only be said that Zihua Shen is worthy of being Zihua God.
After the film was released in Hong Kong at the beginning of the year, it quickly replaced "Tomorrow's War" as the box office champion within a month, and is now the first Chinese-language film in Hong Kong, China with a box office of more than 100 million.
It not only triggered a collective movie-watching frenzy among Hong Kong citizens, but also achieved a rare "double explosion of box office word-of-mouth", which can be called an out-and-out phenomenal film.
The reason?
In addition to the strong mass base of Zihua God, the answer may lie in one word: cool.
PS: There are slight spoilers below, but it does not affect the viewing of the movie.
Grievance
As a standard legal film, the cases involved in "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" are not unusual.
The film mainly revolves around a "supermodel child abuse case".
Supermodel Zeng Jieer (played by Wang Danni) was accused of abusing her daughter at home, which eventually led to her death and death.
Behind the case, there is obviously another hidden secret: Zeng Jieer was actually framed and wrongfully imprisoned.
Lin Liangshui (played by Huang Zihua), who had just turned from judge to lawyer, took over the case to practice, but due to his temporary dereliction of duty, Zeng Jieer was indirectly sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Out of guilt, Lin Liangshui vowed to retract his confession and appeal.
As his investigation deepened, the truth of the entire case also surfaced step by step.
Everything turned out to be Hong Kong's top wealthy family, the Chung family, who reversed right and wrong behind their backs and played with justice.
From this, white becomes black.
A mother who lost her daughter innocently became a poisonous woman who caused the whole Hong Kong to blame her, which can be described as an aggravation of injustice.
The defense lawyer group led by Lin Liangshui also constantly fell into many difficult obstacles...
Under the simple arrangement of the case, what the film really wants to tell is actually the story of "how to fight the powerful at the bottom".
Poor vs rich, jurisprudence vs power, eggs vs high walls.
Lin Liangshui and Zeng Jieer are both from the bottom of Hong Kong, and in the context of reality, this is almost an impossible lawsuit to win.
As in the trailer, Lin Liangshui's deafening line -
"In the past, everyone said that everyone was equal before the law, but now, everyone has changed their words, saying that before the law, the poor are dead!" (It is said that the original lines that have not been modified are more ruthless and vigorous)
Why is this far?
At the beginning of the film, a common phenomenon in Hong Kong's legal circles is exposed, lawyers want to make a lot of money and improve their status, they can only compete to be the "life saving charm" of the rich, and the law has thus become the "umbrella" of the financial owners.
In an environment where the powerful are at large and cover the sky with only one hand, a low-level lawyer vainly tries to reclaim fairness and justice with his mouth and poke through the dark and ugly state of reality.
This intention of the film is undoubtedly to be close to the audience's emotions to the greatest extent and reflect the wishes of the people, so as to resolve grievances and vent grievances.
Time Jun, who watched the screening not long ago, has to say that in this regard, it has indeed achieved great happiness, and even the second half of the film has completely become a cool film.
And the biggest attraction and coolness of the whole movie is, how did Lin Liangshui succeed?
Slut
In fact, Lin Liangshui is extremely unprofessional and unreliable.
As soon as he appears, he plays with his life and fishes, a mouth is mean words, he doesn't like to pat the leader's, and he doesn't want to pretend to be socially decent.
In this way, after 30 years in the judicial circle, after returning, he is still the most unpopular "garbage lawyer" in the eyes of others.
Before meeting Zeng Jieer's case, he had already made up his mind to transform into a slut who knelt and licked the powerful in order to seek wealth from now on.
To put it bluntly, Lin Liangshui is still a small person struggling for life, and even has a somewhat villain style.
In him, there is still a process of conscience constantly returning.
In the past, most of such hateful and reformed protagonists existed in Stephen Chow's comedies, and from this point of view, "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" is indeed worthy of the modern version of "Nine Pins Sesame Officer".
The protagonists of both films have taken similar extreme measures in order to redress the wrongful conviction.
In "Nine Pins Sesame Official", it is "corrupt officials and traitors, and Qing officials want to commit rape." ”
In "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", it is "Of course, to be a man, you must convince people with virtue, secretly calculate, and calculate differently." ”
During the appeal, Lin Liangshui, who did not talk about martial virtue, used all kinds of tricks, bad tricks and even illegal means to obtain various clues; During the trial, he did not hesitate to scold the street and mess around the court again and again.
But on the other hand, the opponent is not a fuel-saving lamp.
The Department of Justice invited senior barrister Kim Yuen Shan (played by Tse Kwan Ho) as the prosecution lawyer, and the Chung family also convened an elite group of lawyers from all over Hong Kong behind the scenes to advise themselves.
The two sides continue to confront each other strongly in the courtroom, fighting words, driving the emotional rhythm and dramatic tension of the entire film all the way.
Ironically, when the judicial system has rotted to the bone, Lin Liangshui's practice of "treating the law as a child's play" has instead achieved the sword going the wrong way and fighting poison with poison.
At the critical moment, he also exchanged for an important god-level assist, what is it, the Time Sovereign will not spoil it first.
In short, there are 5 trial scenes in the whole film, and the result of each one stirs the audience's emotions layer by layer, from the beginning of the grievance to the final turnover, step by step to form a strong empathy with the protagonists.
The most noteworthy thing is that Huang Zihua not only interprets the lowly and stylish barrister this time, full of personal charm, but also has a one-shot acting highlight show at the end.
The degree of spicy and banter of the lines can be called the essence of the whole film, which is definitely worth looking forward to.
Cool tablets
Having said so much earlier, you can probably guess that this film will be a film that focuses on emotional output.
Looking at the masterpieces of Hong Kong production in recent years, from Qiu Litao's "Bomb Disposal Expert 2" to Chen Musheng's "Rage", to Wei Jiahui's "Detective War", they are all venting a certain complex emotion.
One word can be uniformly distilled: anger.
In the past few years, the epidemic has hit, the market has withered, most people's lives have stopped, and movies are no longer movies.
Under the influence of environmental factors, the collective consciousness of Hong Kong film creators is pointing to provide a cathartic outlet for reality.
Back to "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", that is to reverse the world of "sky without eyes" to "sky has eyes".
The reason why the film is popular in Hong Kong is precisely this point that steps on the general mood of Hong Kong citizens, although the film will not become a reality, but also provides hope and strength for reality.
Like Chen Yongshen, the director of "Still Think You're the Best", the director of this film, Wu Weilun, is also a senior screenwriter.
Previously, he accumulated a large number of screenwriting masterpieces, such as "Cold War 2", "Guild War", "Informant", "Kill the Wolf", etc., it can be seen that most of them are mainly action movies.
"Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" is his debut film as a director, and the whole film is a literary drama, but in the control of the rhythm, there is also a hearty mood that does not lose the scene, and every line on the trial scene is also written wonderfully enough.
And choosing to create such a story, the director also said in an interview that in the play, he wanted to call for an "outdated" sense of justice to return, and outside the play, he wanted to experiment with the early Hong Kong film creation model and whether it could be accepted by the current audience.
The answer is obvious.
The early Hong Kong film style means that we are most familiar with the kind of "everything is overdone, all is crazy".
It can be said that "Poison Tongue Lawyer" follows this principle in terms of editing rhythm and character design.
It is naturally retro and nostalgic, and it is not difficult to understand that it will be welcomed if you can see the "return soul" of the golden age of Hong Kong films.
What Time Jun likes more is the signal behind the film that Hong Kong movies have not given up.
We have not given up on nurturing new forces, on continuing the traditions of the past, and on the fierce expression rooted in local realities.
Therefore, there is the current achievement of "Hong Kong film rejuvenation".
Maintaining this momentum, we can still expect Hong Kong films to get better next.