Liu Zhenwei and Zhou Xingchi were once the best partners, in 1995, the two worked hard to make a classic romance film "Journey to the West", but because the concept was too advanced, the audience did not understand, resulting in poor box office.
"Journey to the West" is Zhou Xingchi's entrepreneurial work, Liu Zhenwei feels sorry for the trust of his friends, in order to make up for Zhou Xingchi's loss, decided to make another one for him, this time Liu Zhenwei chose his ghost film theme of light car familiarity, which has "Night of the Returning Soul".
"Night of the Returning Soul" may not be so well-known compared with Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu", "The King of Comedy" and "Nine Pin Sesame Officer", but I think "Night of the Returning Soul" is the most underrated work of Stephen Chow, which can be called the most classic in Hong Kong ghost films, with a Douban score of 8.0.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" >, plagiarism or tribute? </h1>
"Night of the Returning Soul" can be said to be "invincible melting terrier king" in the current view, and the film borrows a lot of classic masterpieces.
First of all, Leo played by Stephen Chow and the short hair style of A Qun cos played by Karen Mok are obviously from the shape of the killer and Xiao Loli in "This Killer Is Not Too Cold".
In addition, the Chainsaw Killings plot that appears later in the movie is also clearly a reference to The Shining and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Including the appearance of Ah Qun's Golden Retriever King, she danced awkwardly on the bed, and the TV was played with Wong Kar-wai's 1994 director's "Chongqing Forest", Ah Qun was imitating Faye Wong's dance, and at this moment, Ah Qun's shape was the only one she played in Wong Kar-wai's movie "Fallen Angel".
In the 90s, when the sense of copyright was not so strong, such a reference that can be called "melting terrier", but in the 21st century, whether it is a record or a film and television work, there are a large number of "tributes", but in essence, it is a "garbage work" that is copied in the true sense.
How do you tell the difference between plagiarism and true homage?
There is a scene in Diao Yinan's "Daytime Fireworks" where Wu Zhizhen and Liang Zhijun walk together, but they look like a bridge section, the two are obviously husband and wife, Liang Zhijun wants to hold his wife's hand, but his hand is behind him and he is compared with a rock scissors cloth.
First-class directors will use the language of the camera, rather than the dialogue of the characters to explain the relationship between the characters.
But in fact, this bridge section is a parody of the "Shooting Pianist" directed by the French New Wave film master Truffaut, which is unanimously regarded as a tribute to the classic, and "Daytime Fireworks" won two awards at the 64th Berlin Film Festival, Best Picture and Best Actor.
In the same way, "Night of the Soul" can be called a tribute to the classic because its imitation does not deviate from the original intention it wants to express, but amplifies the essence of the film.
And the real plagiarism is that even copying is not good, there is no core idea and no personal creation of the empty shell.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > second, the worst in history</h1>
The blackest (unlucky) character in this drama is the addict Daoyou Ming, who is extremely black and humorous, and even breaks my stereotype of an addict.
Twice borrowed money from Lu Sir and was beaten twice by him, the second time was even weaker, and he was stabbed by the Li couple who wanted to kill Lu Sir, and it was not easy for Lu Sir to save him and pick up his princess, but he became a meat shield and kept helping Lu Sir block the knife.
He himself lost too much blood, followed by forced to help the Li family daughter-in-law blood transfusion, when Leo saved the Li family daughter-in-law, the director specially used a wide-angle shooting shot, magnified Leo's punches and kicks on her, and the seemingly deadly beating that everyone looked like on weekdays actually saved her life.
The most brilliant thing about this movie is that although it amplifies the absurdity, under this spooky ghost film, all kinds of riots actually look reasonable.
Of course, the daughter-in-law of the Li family eventually died, and there was a particularly ironic scene before she died, she stood in front of the roof, shouting to jump into a ghost to find Zhou Xingchi to avenge them, but as soon as Zhou Xingchi said that he wanted to give her money, he immediately changed from a "volunteer vest" with a vicious face to a beautiful woman whose appearance was comparable to the top three of Hong Kong sisters, and the speed of her face change was staggering.
Having money can make ghosts grind here into money can make people human.
After the death of the Daughter-in-law of the Li family, in order to prevent her from turning into a ghost to avenge, Zhou Xingchi gave everyone training, he made a helmet-style flight number, and the police officer thought that he was fooling himself, so angry that he smashed the helmet, threw it off the roof, and hit Daoyouming downstairs.
He chased after the ambulance that came to pick up Zhou Xingchi on the road, but he couldn't catch up, and as a result, he turned his head and was hit by the car again.
The role of DaoyouMing perfectly explains the "Hard Life" sung by Side Tian, never die, the whole movie has been watching him borrow money from people to take drugs, but he has not seen him successfully borrow money to take drugs, but has been watching him being abused and stabbed.
In the Hong Kong films I watched in the past, Daoyou should be a very tragic character, and the existence of Daoyou is to teach people not to touch poison, which is a real negative teaching material.
But in "Night of the Returning Soul", this role is more funny than tragic, after watching this movie, I learned that the original Daoyou can still act like this, and the original Daoyou can still have such an ironic and cute contradictory character.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > third, the people living in mental hospitals are crazy? </h1>
There is a short description of the Aoyama Mental Hospital where Stephen Chow lives, in which the mentally ill people talk about either Van Gogh or mathematics (I don't know if they go climbing the mountain or not), and they are very similar to Leo, who are not so much crazy as a group of logically clear human beings.
Ah Qun asked Zhou Xingchi why he was put in a mental hospital, and he replied that because I was not afraid of anything, many people said that I had a neurosis.
Imagination, he said, is more important than any knowledge, and imagination can make the impossible possible.
From this, I can easily think of Gao Ming's "Genius on the Left and Madman on the Right", in which most of the so-called "mentally ill people" are like Leo, thoughtful, and in his world view, no theory can push him down.
It can only be said that their ideas cannot be explained by existing science for the time being, let alone accepted by the current society, so they look "abnormal".
In fact, it is not that they are not normal, but the existing era, which cannot accept these ideas that seem very crazy today.
Therefore, the author of this book has repeatedly stressed that you must not pay too much attention to what the mentally ill people say, and do not think deeply about the worldview they tell you, otherwise you will go crazy sooner or later.
Aqun is convinced of what Leo has to say, so she ends up using a chainsaw to slash at leo, who is possessed by the ghost, but in the end, she kills Leo and is sent to a mental hospital herself.
The film ends with Leo finally appearing in front of Aqun, but we never know if this is a hallucination of Aqun or a real Leo.
The absurd to the real plot in front of it makes this ending look extremely frightening, is everything that happens in front of it a fantasy of Ah Qun, or is there really a ghost in this world?
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > four, stop scaring yourself! </h1>
There is a very interesting bridge section in front of them, Chow Xingchi said that Ah Chang Ah Qiang (the two police officers) was actually scared to death, because they did not have any wounds on their bodies, they were not firm in their faith, which led to the fierce ghosts formed by the Li couple taking advantage of the void.
But it reminds me of the protagonist of a short story in Genius on the Left and Madman on the Right.
There is a person in order to verify whether the skull perforation can obtain superpowers, did a lot of investigation, and then decided to take himself as a test object, he asked the doctor to do the skull perforation surgery for himself, the result of the operation he found himself "psychic", he can see the ghost, so he was frightened to immediately find the author of various consultations, and later went to ask the doctor who did the operation for him to find out that in fact, the doctor only gave him an epidermal wound, cut a small piece of skull, there is no skull perforation at all.
The so-called "psychic" is only a complete psychological hint to himself.
"Night of the Returning Soul" and "Genius on the Left and Madman on the Right" have the same magic, and the deaths of Ah Qiang and Ah Chang, like the people with perforation of the skull, stem from their own strong psychological cues.
In real life, whether there is a ghost or no ghost has always been an idealistic statement, with or without it, depends on whether you believe in the cow, ghost, snake god in your heart or not.
But believe that man is something more elusive than any strange theology. (Author: Song Juhan)