In the 1980s, under the influence of Hollywood movies, the Hong Kong film circle set off a wave of science fiction.
Taking advantage of this trend, some filmmakers soon set their sights on the most well-known science fiction IP in Hong Kong at that time, the "Wesley" series.
Although Ni Kuang's novels are not pure science fiction, they can only be regarded as adventure fantasy novels with science fantasy.
However, compared with hard science fiction films that require large costs, soft science fiction novels such as "Wesley" are more suitable for Hong Kong and Taiwan filmmakers at that time to adapt into film and television works because of the relatively localized storyline and imaginative plot section.
Therefore, since the mid-to-late 1980s, the Hong Kong film industry has set off a "Wesley film fever".
Among them, there are many popular adaptations, such as: in 1987, director Xu Xiaoming went to the mainland to shoot the martial arts film "Mirage", which was adapted from the "Virtual Image" in the Wesley series, but changed all the names of the characters in the story.
Later, Xu Xiaoming also made a movie "Wesley's Overlord Unloading Armor", adapted from the original "Feng Shui".
In addition, there is the "Wesley Legend" produced by New Art City, which is a rich investment, a luxurious lineup, and also quite influential.
In addition to Xu Xiaoming, there is another director in Hong Kong, who has shot Wesley films twice, it is the famous cult film director Lan Naicai, who filmed the film "Yuan Zhenxia and Wesley" in 1986, which was the first Wesleyan film.
The film starred Chow Yun Fat, Maggie Cheung, and Qian Xiaohao, adapted from the original "Blood Curse", and also invited Ni Kuang himself to make a cameo, but because the screenwriter is Wang Jing, who is keen on magic reform, the story has been changed very outrageously, far from the original.
However, due to the strong star cast and the main horror hunting style, the film achieved a good response that year, with a box office performance of 10.22 million Hong Kong dollars, and as a result, five years later, director Lan Naicai launched a sequel "Old Cat".
This film is the most impressive version of the "Wesley" film of the fan shadow Jun, director Lan Naicai has already made such a cult movie as "Asura" and "Force King" at that time, so in this "Old Cat", the style is more dark and different, and it has become a science fiction horror film, and many plots are still known as childhood shadows.
In this issue of "Forgotten Cult Films", let's talk about this Wesley movie from 29 years ago.
Wesley's Old Cat
The Cat
The film was released in 1992 and is produced by Jiahe Company.
This film is the last directorial work of director Lan Naicai in the film circle, and the producer Cai Lan is Lan Naicai's partner for many years, and the two have worked together to launch Hong Kong comic book classics such as "Asura" and "King of Force", and have entered the Japanese market with this cult special shooting style.
Wesley in the film was replaced by actor Li Zixiong, who is known for shaping the image of villains in Hong Kong films, this film is one of the few films in which he plays a positive protagonist, the heroine is Wu Yongwei from Yajie, who was still a newcomer in the film industry at the time, playing Wesley's red-faced confidant Bai Su in the film.
However, the actress with the most drama in this film should be the alien princess played by Ye Yunyi, Who is the royal heroine of director Lan Naicai, and she has participated in previous films such as "Asura" and "Force King".
After the film was released that year, the box office response was not good, Hong Kong was released after only 7 days of release, and finally only received 2.73 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office, and it was impossible to even recover the cost, which made director Lan Naicai discouraged and decided to bid farewell to the film circle.
Tell the story again.
The film opens with Wesley's novel, and through his narration, leads to the origin of the whole story.
It is said that Wesley has a good friend named Li Tong, who has not been able to sleep peacefully lately. Because the room upstairs of the apartment building where he lived, there was often a knocking noise at night recently, which disturbed Li Tong and could not rest at all.
One night, Li Tong couldn't bear it anymore, so he angrily went upstairs to ask xingshi about his guilt. As a result, the door is opened by an old man (Liu Zhaoming), who describes a withered mallet, and there is a young girl (Played by Ye Yunyi) who holds a black cat in her arms in the room.
The old man apologized to Li Tong for the noise, but somehow Li Tong felt that the old man's room in front of him had a gloomy and strange feeling, especially the black cat in the girl's arms, which made him feel an inexplicable sense of fear in his heart.
It just so happened that Li Tong saw that the old man's hands seemed to be stained with blood, and he immediately confessed his fear and fled home in ashes.
As a result, the next day, when Li Tong went out, he happened to bump into the old man with the girl and the black cat to move together.
Li Tong took the initiative to ask the old man what he was doing in the room at night, but the other party was in a state of limbo, obviously unwilling to say it.
People are like this, the other party does not tell Li Tong, but arouses his curiosity. So when the old man moved out of the apartment, he quietly returned to the upstairs room, only to find that the house was a mess, full of blood, and a pile of flesh and blood blurred internal organs.
Li Tong was so frightened that he quickly called the police, but after the police investigation, they found that those were the internal organs of the cat, and the matter was not resolved.
Li Tong was so frightened by this that he told his adventurous friend Wesley, who was really interested in such strange events, and he suspected that the girl might be an alien, so he decided to investigate.
Wesley found clues from the moving company and followed the trail to find where the girl and the old man now lived.
However, the girl's black cat found Wesley, the black cat showed a fierce appearance, and even wanted to attack Wesley, Wesley was defenseless, and was actually knocked unconscious by the old man behind him. When he woke up again, it turned out that the girl and the old man had disappeared.
Meanwhile, the city's history museum is exhibiting an octagonal artifact from thousands of years ago.
Late at night, the girl with the black cat, with the help of the old man, sneaks into the museum and wants to steal the octagonal.
But just as he was in action, he was attacked by an ugly-looking meat-like monster, but fortunately the old man escaped with the girl.
The police launched an investigation into the matter, and some black cat hair was found at the scene, and Wesley, as a friend of the police captain Wang Sir, also came to the scene to assist in the investigation, and he immediately concluded that the black cat hair came from the black cat raised by the mysterious girl.
In order to investigate the black cat, Wesley found a good friend Lao Chen, who has a lot of dogs at home, and Wesley hopes to borrow a dog to deal with the black cat. The person who plays Lao Chen here is the writer Ni Kuang himself.
Wesley borrows a mighty black dog from Lao Chen, but at this moment, when the police force's Sir Wang leads the investigation of a bank robbery, he is attacked by the meat monster.
Under the superpower of the Meat Zhi Monster, the police were completely destroyed, and the Meat Zhi Monster was able to possess Wang Sir's body, and since then, with the help of the police power to track down the Black Cat Girl.
Speaking of Wesley's side, he used the octagonal device to set up a plan to lure the snake out of the hole, and sure enough, he attracted a black cat.
Wesley chased after the black dog, the fierce black dog can indeed restrain the black cat, Wesley Yu led the team to track all the way, but did not expect that the black cat was just calculating, leading the black dog and Wesley to the suburbs to kill.
The black cat with super powers eventually seriously injured the black dog, but in the end he was caught by Wesley, but he did not expect that this violent black cat actually chose to break his tail to escape, and the combat effectiveness was indeed explosive.
Wesley took the black dog to the pet hospital for treatment, and the cameo playing the pet doctor was Ni Kuang's friend Cai Lan.
The pet doctor helped test the cat's tail and told Wesley that it belonged to a cat that had been dead for a long time.
The investigation on Wesley's side lost its clues, and I did not expect that on the same night, the black cat girl actually took the initiative to come to Wesley's house.
It turns out that the black cat has no tail and is now seriously injured, hoping that Wesley will return the tail so that they can heal the black cat's injury.
The girl and the old man took the initiative to reveal the truth to Wesley, it turned out that they were higher beings who escaped from the alien planet to the earth, the girl was the alien princess, they have now been discovered by the alien evil forces, so they plan to leave the earth, but they need to help the black cat heal first.
Wesley immediately returned the tail, only to see the princess immediately reconnect the cat's tail, and the special ability of the aliens surprised Wesley.
Just when the two sides turned enemies into friends, sir Wang, who was controlled by the monster, actually took a weapon and killed Wesley's home.
Wang Sir now has a monster hanging blessing, ordinary weapons can not hurt him at all, and finally the old man chose to die with Wang Sir in order to protect the princess, but although the flesh of the undead Wang Sir was burned to the point of blurred flesh and blood, he still refused to give up the pursuit.
Wesley fled with the princess, and the crowd came to the observatory, where the alien princess used the telescope to make contact with her home planet. Alien civilizations have been highly developed, they invented physical transmission technology, without relying on spaceships to achieve interstellar travel.
However, just when the princess wanted to leave with the black cat, the king sir, who had completely turned into a monster, refused to let them go.
Thus, an ultimate scuffle unfolded. At this time, the monster had swelled into a huge mountain of flesh, and even surrounded the entire tall building.
Seeing that the princess and Wesley were cornered, the black cat stepped forward, and it turned out that it was the secret weapon of the aliens.
The black cat can become a large killer with the activated triangle, which can destroy the monster's cell tissue, so the black cat jumps into the monster's mouth in a critical moment with a pennant and detonates it.
After killing the monster, the black cat can actually be resurrected, so the princess takes the black cat and "flies" back to her planet in the form of an electric wave.
At the end of the film, Wesley wrote about his bizarre experience into his "Wesley" series of novels.
"Wesley's Old Cat" was filmed in 1992, and director Lan Nai is recognized as a cult geek in the Hong Kong film industry.
None of the films that passed through his hands can be cleaned, and in the end it must be stuffed with all kinds of hunting special effects, dripping monsters, fragmented limbs and broken arms, etc. If you have watched "King of Force", you must be familiar with his style.
"Old Cat" is the second part of the Wesley series filmed by Lan Naicai, the previous work "Yuan Zhenxia and Wesley" mainly involved supernatural elements such as witchcraft and poison, while "Old Cat" is more inclined to science fiction suspense stories. But after all, it is Lan Naicai, who is keen on cult elements, so this film still has a strong sense of horror and horror, and many picture plots are quite fierce and evil.
The shortcomings of this film are actually very obvious, the script is too simple and sloppy, so simple that the protagonist Wesley has been reduced to a characterless tool man supporting role in the movie, and the limelight is all snatched away by the girl Ye Yunyi who plays aliens.
Ye Yunyi lightly violated gravity and jumped on the roof of the Tenement Tower, which should be a rare romantic clip in Lan Naicai's movie, even if she is dressed in black, it is difficult to hide the innocence and cuteness of the girl.
And the most regrettable thing is that Bai Su, played by Wu Yongwei, as Wesley's confidant with a red face, although there are various styles of styling in the film, it is a pity that he did not participate in the story throughout the process, completely reduced to the role of soy sauce, and truly responded to the sentence "The story is not enough, the welfare comes together".
Another big selling point of the film is Lan Naicai's unique cult close-up aesthetic, the design of the slime monster in the movie, quite Cthulhu flavor, the suspense flavor of the whole film is also done very well, and the first half is basically loyal to the original, and the second half in order to enhance entertainment, added a lot of monster slaughter scenes.
But the hard wound of the film may also lie in this, "Old Cat" was released as a low-budget thriller in that year, but its production and cass are not the same as the "Wesley" legend in New Art City in previous years, and the production gap makes the film badly commented after its release.
However, with the passage of time, the reputation of this film has gradually rebounded, and many people think that this movie was placed 30 years ago, which is a rather wonderful suspense thriller, and those special effects scenes that look rough now, look at it now, but also have a different style of the times.