Horror films are actually the styles that are closest to the artistic characteristics of movies.
Alfred Hitchcock, the "famous master of cinematic art", once said:
"Movies need to create suspense, and only suspense can make the audience have strong expectations."
Among his many excellent works, the one that can best confirm this sentence is undoubtedly "Horror".
"Horror" is not only one of Hitchcock's most skilled works, but also the pioneering work of psychological horror thriller.
The value of this film lies first in the fact that it opens up a genre of cinema, and secondly, it fully demonstrates director Hitchcock's insight into the psychology of the audience, constantly creating suspense when shooting the film.
Because of this, the film's great success also provides a model for future generations.
In 1989, "Horror Story" produced by Xu Ke and directed by Zhong Zhiwen was released.
The film gathers Lin Qingxia, Wang Zuxian, Li Meifeng, Wang Xiaofeng, and the four beauties staged a big scene of love and killing with intrigue and wit, so that the only male character in the film, sir Li, a policeman played by Li Zixiong, was completely reduced to a background wall.
Hong Kong films have always been dominated by male perspectives, and such works starring pure female teams were rare at that time.
Let's start with the story.
The heroine, Lin Chuqiao (played by Lin Qingxia), is a successful barrister who is about to immigrate to Canada, but receives a threatening letter before leaving.
The letter threatened her to pay $1 million or make her forged fake will public.
It turned out that 5 years ago, she had a serious loss in business, so she had no choice but to forge a will and take a sum of money donated by the rich man Chen Kangnian to St. Mary's Church for herself.
Suspense is coming, who is blackmailing her?
So after some temptation, Lin Chuqiao suspected that it was his close confidant, assistant Wen Jiayi, who had done it.
Wen Jiayi has followed Lin Chuqiao for many years, and her business ability is very good, but she suffers from low academic qualifications, has not been able to get the opportunity to be promoted, and now she cannot immigrate because of academic qualifications.
Therefore, with a grudge in her heart, she sent a threatening letter to Lin Chuqiao.
However, Wen Jiayi did not expect that the other party would suspect her so quickly.
So, she pulled her off the cliff and decided to take it.
Until one day, Lin Chuqiao's stockbroker Zhou Keyi sold all the stocks in her name, and the 1 million yuan she earned was sent to her home, and Wen Jiayi happened to be present.
Looking at so much money, Wen Jiayi had evil thoughts in her heart again.
But Lin Chuqiao was timid and afraid of things, and he knew where the money was placed, but he had a thief's heart and no thief's guts.
On the other hand, Wen Jiayi has a roommate named Wang Suqun (played by Wang Zuxian), who is usually kind and kind, and has no bad thoughts.
However, she has a younger sister, Wang Sujuan (played by Wang Zuxian), who has just come out of prison and owes someone a lot of money.
Therefore, in order to help his sister pay off his debts, he had to sneak into Lin Chuqiao's villa to steal money at the suggestion of Wen Jiayi.
The original plan was to take advantage of Lin Chuqiao's outings to sneak into the house secretly, so that he would not be aware of it.
However, that night, an accident occurred, Lin Chuqiao did not go out, and just happened to bump into Wang Suqun, who sneaked in.
During the fight between the two, Wang Suqun accidentally fell to the ground and received a bento.
Afterwards, Wang Sujuan blamed Lin Chuqiao for her sister's death and vowed to avenge her sister.
So she went to the supermarket and bought a packet of rat poison, cut her hair short, and pretended to be her sister.
He wanted to find an opportunity to poison Lin Chuqiao and take her money and go away.
So Wang Sujuan pretended to be a masseuse, and through Wen Jiayi's introduction, she mixed into her home.
Under the pretext of cooking for Lin Chuqiao, she put the rat poison into the soup.
However, Wen Jiayi also found that she tried everything to stop Wang Sujuan's plan.
At the same time, Lin Chuqiao found that Wang Sujuan looked very similar to the female thief who had infiltrated that night.
However, because of the forgery of the will, she did not dare to call the police to expose her, so she had to desperately negotiate with her.
That night, Wang Sujuan prepared dinner and waited for Lin Chuqiao to eat it.
Unexpectedly, the other party did not taste a bite on the grounds that the appetite was not good.
At this time, just as Zhou Keyi came to deliver the check, Lin Chuqiao took the opportunity to write a few large characters on the back of the check.
"Call the police, someone is going to kill me"
Not long after Zhou Keyi left, he saw the words on the back of the check and learned that Lin Chuqiao was in danger.
Unexpectedly, Wang Sujuan, who had already put up with it, decided to act immediately.
The two chased after me, Lin Chuqiao drove away from the house, while Wang Sujuan chased after me.
Finally, the car overturned on the mountain road, and suddenly a large truck passed by, and Lin Chu quickly saved Wang Sujuan's life.
After this incident, the hatred between the two was also reconciled.
At the end, it was originally a happy ending, and everyone lived their ideal life.
But the good times did not last long, skynet was restored without leakage, and the police finally arrested the four people.
At this point, the story ends here.
"Horror Story" is the first film directed by director Zhong Zhiwen, who also serves as the director of photography.
He is the first director in the history of the Hong Kong Film Awards to win the "Best Cinematography" consecutively, and the classic masterpieces "Fairy Tale of Autumn", "Nine Pin Sesame Officer", "Wong Fei Hung" and so on are all from his hands.
It is not difficult to find that although the story is a different story, the title is the same as Hitchcock's "Horror".
In the film, there is no element of horror, but because of the suspense set at the beginning, it can make people feel an inexplicable sense of tension and enhance the viewing of the whole movie.
The audience mistakenly thinks that they can anticipate the course of the whole story, but this is not the case, and it often catches people off guard.
This is very much in line with Hitchcock's general form of suspense, and the whole film has a good grasp of the atmosphere.
In addition to being commendable in terms of atmosphere creation, "Horror" also has many passages that pay tribute to the classics, such as the axe splitting door is imitated from "The Shining".
The biggest attraction of the movie is undoubtedly That Wang Zuxian plays two roles.
In terms of personality and appearance, the two sisters formed a sharp contrast, which is enough to reflect Wang Zuxian's acting skills.
Unfortunately, the best actress of the Academy Awards that year was Mei Yanfang, who belonged to "Rouge Buckle".
But thankfully, "Horror Story" actually made Wang Xiaofeng win the golden horse award and the Academy Award for best supporting actress double nomination.
In the film, Wang Xiaofeng played a timid and black-bellied little person into three points.
I have always felt that in the Hong Kong films of that era, many actresses did not lose their acting skills to men, or even more than that.
And this movie is the best proof.
As we all know, in the Hong Kong film industry in the last century, many beauties were born.
Zhong Chuhong, Lin Qingxia, Maggie Cheung, Yanfang Mei, Zhilin Guan, Maggie Cheung, Zuxian Wang, Min Zhang, Shuzhen Qiu....
However, there are only a few directors who really understand their "beauty", and Xu Ke is one of them.
As the film's executive producer, Xu Ke almost captured the sensuality of the four beauties.
For example, Lin Qingxia, who plays a barrister in the film, when she wears the dress of a professional woman, the beautiful curves of the whole person are at a glance.
Wang Zuxian, on the other hand, focuses on her appearance, and the camera falls on close-ups of her face.
Pure and sweet appearance, between the eyebrows is full of style, the appearance gives people an extreme sense of coldness.
It is no wonder that it may be this movie that Xu Ke discovered the beauty of the two, so he will specially create a role for them in the history of film.
One is Nie Xiaoqian, the "female ghost" of "Qiannu Ghost", and the other is the Oriental Undefeated in "Smiling Proud of the Jianghu".