The argument that "Hong Kong films are dead" has not been sung for a day or two.
The annual output of Hong Kong films has plummeted, the box office of imported films has been alone, the box office of local films has been sluggish, and directors and actors have flown separately in a catastrophe, going north to the north and south to the south.
But that's a thing of the past.
Now, Huang Zihua answered with a "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer": Hong Kong films are not only not dead, but this fire will burn more and more.
32 days after its release in Hong Kong, "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" officially exceeded 100 million, becoming the highest-grossing local film in Hong Kong film history.
Hong Kong has a population of 7.3 million, and the film has 1.2 million moviegoers, and nearly one-seventh of the people in Hong Kong have gone to see the movie.
What is the concept of 1/7?
Just like Wu Jing and Guo Fan teamed up again to produce "The Wandering Earth 3", 200 million people across the country went to watch the movie, according to 40 yuan a ticket per person, the box office directly did 8 billion, and won a title "film history box office champion".
After obtaining such results, the director himself said that he was surprised, Wu Weilun said: "I never thought of 100 million".
Many people say that when Hong Kong films are dead, they always carry this sentence: The demise of Hong Kong films begins with martial arts films.
Hu Jinquan's "Xia Girl", Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Wong Kar-wai's "A Generation of Grandmasters", a film is often from the bamboo forest to the desert, swords collide, happy revenge, martial arts films were once a genre that best represents the romantic spirit of Hong Kong films.
Not only have these scenery disappeared, but the stories on the rivers and lakes, the heroes in the stories, and the chivalrous spirit have also disappeared.
"Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" is rare, this is a legal film shot like a martial arts film.
The plot of "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" is written in a martial arts style: Lin Liangshui, the hero with a broken arm, once accidentally injured an innocent mother Zeng Jieer, causing the latter to be thrown into prison just after losing her daughter, Lin Liangshui has since fallen into remorse and began to run around for this mother, wanting to rescue her from prison, but did not admit that it was the head of the Zhong family, the lord of the Jianghu Alliance, who framed them...
In the stereotype, the three elements that martial arts films must have are: wonderful and beautiful martial arts scenes, heroes who draw swords to help, and head-on duels that defeat the strong with weakness.
The three elements of martial arts films are alive in "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer".
The martial arts scene is naturally the most exciting part of the martial arts film, but "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" is a legal drama, and the so-called "martial arts" part is naturally concentrated in the courtroom space. The prosecution and the defense make moves against each other, and the court drama is mainly literary drama, but the excitement is no less than that of martial arts drama.
The witnesses are under the traction of the barristers, you sing and I appear, the opponent continues to make small moves behind the scenes, the right side does not let go, to deceive and deceive to sneak attack, the protagonist Lin Liangshui's speech before the jury is extremely wonderful, a sentence "in front of the law, three, six, nine, etc."
The hero of this film is naturally the protagonist Lin Liangshui, who is called "one-armed hero" by us, not because he really lost an arm, but because he also wanted to befriend the powerful and smelly feet, but sent innocent women to prison, and when he repented, he cut off his past self, which is not tantamount to cutting off his arm.
He was not a barrister with a sense of justice at the beginning, but a judge who went to work to set up a mess and speculated on BP stocks, and he did not repent until two years after personally sending the innocent Zeng Jieer to prison, insisting on saving people, breaking his head and bleeding to help people to the end, sending Buddha to the west, so that the prodigal son could turn back.
Finally, there is a duel scene in which the weak win the strong. This kind of scene often appears at the climax of martial arts films, the villain's oppression is the strongest, countless little brothers generally hit the protagonist, the protagonist makes strange moves, and wins before exhaustion, the audience is often a heart to the throat and eyes, after watching the duel fall back to the chest steadily, and a little refreshing.
The villain Zhong family's martial arts status as the leader of the jianghu alliance, politics and business take all, not only can manipulate the media to silence the masse, but also make the court full of their own people, and there are senior barristers sitting in the formation, buying witnesses to eliminate evidence one by one, arrogant to the point of openly engaging in small actions in the courtroom.
In contrast, the protagonist Lin Liangshui is a barrister who left the firm and took on the case independently, running around for Zeng Jieer, a young model who was wrongfully imprisoned without any background, and only rushed to the court after completing bail from the detention center at the last moment.
His performance in court was done in one go, breaking the psychological defenses of witnesses with several key pieces of evidence, just like the Cheng Bu Tang in "Reversal of the Referee".
Even the angular pose is the same
The 63-year-old Huang Zihua is naturally not as handsome as Cheng Butang Long, but he performed a texture that sings for justice but is not rigid in this "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer". People can't help but sigh that Zihua Shen is worthy of being Zihua God, the older the more tasteful, the older the more superb his acting skills.
But, no one should have thought that what broke the box office record of "Tomorrow's War" was not an urban gunfight movie, not an action movie, not a comedy, but a legal movie with comedy colors.
Compared with other legal movies, this "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" has many special features. In addition to breaking the box office, it is also one of the New Year films on the big screen in Hong Kong's New Year stall, and at the same time, it is also a "main theme cool film" belonging to Hong Kong.
This is a film made for Hong Kong people, which is a layer of the main theme of poisonous tongue lawyers.
The uncrowned king of Hong Kong pop culture circle, Huang Zihua, sits, and well-known TVB stars such as Tse Junhao and Norma Lin help, and the new generation of Wang Danni and Liao Ziyu joined.
In the eyes of mainlanders, ordinary peanut sandwiches are actually Hong Kong people's luxurious and invincible double-layer giants, with TVB stars as bread, lettuce that came later, and original meatloaf, fragrant!
Meatloaf is of course the starring Huang Zihua, once known as "box office poison", he is the founding grandmaster of Hong Kong Dong Duxiao (talk show),
Go to the Red Hall to open a special venue, the venue is full. In recent years, he has concentrated on making movies and has become Hong Kong's "Shen Teng".
What does Shen Teng mean? Box office elixir, with him is a comedy movie, must be in the best schedule (New Year file), the passers-by are invincible, it must be right to see him...
Now the top three Hong Kong films at the box office have two starring Huang Zihua, namely "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" and "Still Think You Are the Best"
And the cool layer lies in the narrative, that is, the return of the "chivalrous spirit".
Barrister Lin Liangshui prodigal son turned back to fight for the orphan girl, and justice and common sense defeated the powerful Zhong family, and the wrongful imprisonment was lifted and justice was done. At the end, he walks to the sun-drenched basketball court to rescue the grandmother who has been entangled by rogue citizens... It's just too positive.
The chivalrous spirit of drawing the sword to help, hoeing the strong to help the weak, helping the common people to be weak, and resisting the persecution and wrongful imprisonment of the powerful can be called classical.
Since the 90s, "Shaw's Silent Shadow, Jiahe faded out, and the Chinese stars who rescued the market have not survived 2007", small production companies have no leader, the number of Hong Kong films has plummeted, and Hong Kong films that once had influence around the world have stagnated.
When Hong Kong films declined, this chivalrous spirit also disappeared. The spirit of romance is exclusive to the well-funded era of romance, when the production company only seeks to survive, and does not have the strength to respond to romance.
Hong Kong's local box office has been occupied by various co-productions and foreign language films in the past ten years, "× War", "×× Action", "Chasing ×" and "×× Expert" have become the mainstream of the screen, and gunfights, explosions and action scenes have become the most accessible visual spectacle and box office guarantee after martial arts.
The actors are nothing more than Liu Qingyun, Koo Tianle, Tony Leung, Leung Ka Fai, Andy Lau, these old faces come and go, and the theme of the story is also caught in the infinite cycle of brotherly walls, terrorist attacks, blood and sea feuds, and psychopaths, in short, it is a police and bandit war, and it is an unchangeable variation of heroic stories.
These movie stimuli are stimuli, but the care for the people at the bottom disappears, the real life of ordinary audiences is only the background board of these spectacle movies, the nameless person in the story, the innocent stall owner who was overturned when the police and bandits chased, and the ordinary and bland face of the camera sweeping over the crowd.
Films that speak for ordinary people, speak for the bottom, and pay attention to the psychological conditions and circumstances of victims and victims have broken out at the same time in recent years, whether the small cost forced the quality of the script, or the screenwriters captured the common feelings of the Hong Kong audience about the times, we don't know.
We know that there are successors to "Stepping on the Snow and Finding Mei", the left hand "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" and the right hand "Justice Corridor", one set a box office record, is a chivalrous spirit return to the spirit of the other hand is more in-depth, questioning whether this judicial system is really righteous, or is it a well-choreographed show?
"Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" appeared at the box office, justice returned, and the situation was as lively as if Zhen Huan returned to the palace from the Ganlu Temple, firmly and solemnly declaring: Hong Kong movies are back.
Design/Vision: Strong