The Hong Kong film industry in the 80s of the last century was the golden age of all kinds of horror thrillers.
Led by new wave filmmakers and promoted by film companies represented by Jiahe and New Art City, it has contributed to the prosperity of Hong Kong-style horror thrillers.
At that time, the Hong Kong film genre was full of flowers, with zombies, gods and monsters, supernatural spirits, female ghosts, murders and other themes emerging one after another.
I have previously recommended many classic horror thrillers from the 80s, such as: "Devil Fetus", "No Door to Hell", "Murder List", "Murder Cat", "Midnight Dinner" and other classic Hong Kong-style thrillers.
This issue is recommended for the Hong Kong suspense thriller "Heartbeat 100" filmed in 1987.
The film co-starred Maggie Cheung and Luo Mingzhu, who was popular with the "Happy Ghost" series at that time, the plot of the film is tense and exciting, the story is constantly reversed, and the scale is quite bold, which is the childhood shadow of many audiences in the video hall era.
In this issue of "Forgotten Hong Kong Films", let's talk about this classic movie——
"One Hundred Heartbeats"
Heartbeat 100
The film is produced by New Art City, and the screenwriter and producer are Huang Baiming.
At the peak of New Art City in the 80s, he actively explored various genres of films, and Huang Baiming was the creator of the Seven Monsters of New Art City, who was the best creator of the theme of weird power and chaos, in addition to supernatural comedies such as the "Happy Ghost" series, he also led the creation of many blockbuster horror films as a screenwriter and producer.
Huang Baiming's horror film creation began in 1982, which was a year of career take-off for New Art City, not only super-grossing movies such as "Best Partner", but also two horror thrillers with small and broad horror thrillers that won tens of millions of box office.
The two movies are "Night Terror" and "Little Life Fear", the latter has more comedy elements not to mention, just "Night Terror", may be the most curious and bold suspense thriller in the early days of New Art City.
The Taiwanese title of the film is called "One Hundred Heartbeats", the film mainly describes a psychopathic murderer, targeting women, and habitually strangling the victim with white fishnet socks, the other party targeted the female radio anchor played by Zhang Aijia, which triggered a series of thriller suspense stories.
This story was expanded by producer Huang Baiming into the movie "Wolf Kiss Night Terror" in 1995, starring Peng Dan, who had just arrived in Hong Kong at the time, and had previously introduced the movie.
"Night Terror" won nearly 10 million box office results after its release, which greatly increased the confidence of producer Huang Baiming, so he promoted Lu Jian, the screenwriter of "Night Terror", to be promoted to director, and found the actor of "Night Terror" Zheng Zeshi to co-direct together, continuing the suspenseful thriller style of "Night Terror", and using the Taiwanese title of the previous work to create this "Heartbeat 100".
The director of the film, Lu Jian, whose real name is Lu Xingming, is also a new wave filmmaker, who created a low-budget horror film "Cat Spirit" in 1980, but because he could not get the opportunity to be released, he entered the TV station as a choreographer, and joined New Arts City in 1982, and his first script "Night Terror" made him stand firm.
In the mid-to-late eighties, Lu Jian gradually transformed into a director, and his first independent director of a feature film was the sci-fi action film "The Last Battle" shot for Sammo Hung's Baohe Company, but unfortunately the film did not respond well after its release, but returned to the horror thriller field he is best at and shot "Heartbeat 100" achieved good box office results.
The starring of the film Maggie Cheung does not need to be introduced too much, she was not a movie queen at that time, she has always appeared in the movie as a young jade girl, another heroine Luo Mingzhu was discovered by Huang Baiming, and at the age of 15, she picked Da Liang to play the heroine in "Happy Ghost", and her eccentric and lively image made her a hit.
She and Luo Meiwei, Li Lizhen, Chen Jialing, and Yuan Jieying, who debuted at the same time, once formed the "Happy Girl Group", but chose to leave New Art City in 1987, and "One Hundred Heartbeats" was her last starring film during the New Art City.
The two male protagonists in the film are played by singers Lu Fang and Zheng Haonan respectively (incidentally off topic, according to the gossip reports of the year, Zheng Haonan had a love affair with Maggie Cheung during the filming), and the supporting actors in the film include Wang Qing, Cheng Kuian, Hu Feng and other familiar faces of Hong Kong films.
Storytelling, "One Hundred Heartbeats" is a suspense movie that imitates the style of European and American youth thrillers in the eighties.
The film tries to replicate the success of "Night Terror", so the character combinations in the story are also very similar: the heroine who is interested in reasoning, the decent male protagonist is also a police officer investigating the case, and both movies are suspense thrillers with murder themes, and there are many bold and terrifying killing scenes in the story.
The opening of the movie is quite bold, a pair of young men and women are having a tryst to cheat, through the dialogue, it can be seen that the man's name is Shi Ren, he hooked up with his righteous sister-in-law, but he did not expect that this righteous sister-in-law took advantage of Shi Ren's unpreparedness and actually killed him.
At this time, the big brother behind the scenes, Dahai (played by Cheng Kuian), who was hiding in the shadows, appeared, he praised the woman for doing a good job, but suddenly made a move while talking and laughing, and actually killed the woman again, and then dumped the two corpses in the river.
Soon, police found two naked bodies.
After investigating the identity of the deceased, it was found that the male deceased Shi Ren was related to a recent robbery, when three mysterious robbers stole 15 million cash, and the police suspected that Shi Ren's murder may be related to the infighting of the robbery group.
At the same time, the young female screenwriter Maggie (Maggie Cheung), in order to find inspiration for the suspense movie script she is creating, decided to take her sister Zhuzhu (played by Luo Mingzhu) to live in Anle Village in the countryside for a period of time.
Just as the naked corpse case was reported on the news, Maggie learned that Shi Ren was from Anle Village, so the detective had a seizure and suspected that the other two robbers might also be related to Anle Village.
On the way to the countryside between the sisters, Xiao Fang (played by Lu Fang), who has been pursuing Zhuzhu for many years, also secretly followed, and met a mysterious motorcycle rider on the way, Xiao Fang had a conflict with the other party, and only after not fighting or knowing each other did he know that the other party was Du Nan (played by Zheng Haonan), a police officer who came to Anle Village to investigate.
The four of them arrived at Anle Village together, and along the way, they encountered many strange villagers, who seemed to be very unwelcoming to outsiders, especially Uncle Ren (played by Hu Feng), the owner of the nearby store, showing a mysterious expression.
Maggie rented an old house in the village that had been dusted for many years, and the sisters cleaned it with their friend Xiaofang and lived in the old house, but from the moment the three entered Anle Village, they encountered some unusual and terrifying events.
When her sister Zhuzhu was taking a bath in the bathtub, a snake sneaked in, which startled her, and what was even more strange was that someone was peeping outside the bathroom.
The next day, Zhuzhu and the three met the voyeur and learned that the other party was the nephew fool (played by Wang Qing) of Uncle Ren next door, the other party was crazy, and the snake was also raised by him.
At night, Maggie was writing alone, when she suddenly heard an argument from next door, and accidentally witnessed a horrific scene.
It turned out that two robbers were hiding in Uncle Ren's house next door, and one of the robbers was the sea, who quarreled with the mysterious boss who took the lead because of the uneven sharing of the loot. At this moment, the crazy fool came to meet the furious sea, and was beaten on the head by the sea.
This scene happened to be seen by Maggie, and immediately reported it to Dunant, a police officer who was investigating the case nearby.
Strangely, the police searched Uncle Ren's house and the plaster workshop behind it, and found any abnormalities, and the fool appeared in front of everyone without any abnormalities, causing everyone else to think that Maggie had recognized the wrong person last night.
It's just that Maggie doesn't believe it, but becomes more and more suspicious of Uncle Ren next door.
On this day, she saw Uncle Ren moving wooden boxes from the plaster workshop, believing that it was used to hide the corpse, so she quietly sneaked into the plaster workshop to find out. As a result, Uncle Ren found out that he wanted to cut her with an axe, which scared Maggie and fled in panic.
As a result, it was discovered on the same day that his sister Zhuzhu's dog was killed.
Police officer Dunant thought that someone was warning Maggie and Zhuzhu to leave Anle Village as soon as possible, but the stubborn Maggie refused to agree.
At night, the robber Haiyang continued to negotiate with the "boss", shouting that he would kill his girlfriend in order to get more money.
At this moment, the figure outside the door swayed, and the sea slashed with a sickle, only to find that it was his mother's garbage mother.
The sea that accidentally killed his mother was shocked, but he did not expect that the "boss" behind him suddenly shot to kill the sea.
There are more and more dead people, Maggie suspects Uncle Ren, but the other party has an alibi, leaving her helpless.
So Maggie sneaked into the plaster workshop again, and found that the crazy fool suddenly became no longer stupid, and wanted to chase and kill Maggie, but fortunately, the police officer Dunant appeared, so that the other party did not dare to act rashly.
Maggie accidentally saw the style of socks worn by the murderer from the police information obtained by Dunant. However, due to scruples about his sister Zhuzhu and his friend Xiaofang, they decided to leave Anle Village.
As a result, he was chased by a mysterious truck on the road, but Maggie was quick and forced the truck off the cliff. The three escaped and returned to the village to report the crime.
At this time, the behind-the-scenes "boss" who has been hiding the deepest finally revealed his identity, it turned out that the fool also had a twin brother Along, who killed the crazy fool, and then has been pretending to be crazy and selling stupid to hide his eyes.
Uncle Ren had an internal conflict with Along because of the sharing of the stolen goods, and it happened that the police also found Uncle Ren's residence, and the two sides exchanged fire. Along took the opportunity to shoot Uncle Ren, and then continued to pretend to be a fool, wanting to hide from the sky.
But when the police leave, Maggie notices Aaron's socks, knows that he is the one who hunted him that night, and panics breaks a plaster statue with the body of a fool, and Maggie confirms the twins' secret.
At this time, Dunan found that the fatal shot could only be done by the house from the extent to which Uncle Ren's wound was penetrated by a bullet, and after confirming the suspicion, he began to suspect the "fool" in the house, and immediately rushed back to fight with Along. 、
However, Dunan was defeated by the fierce Along, and at a critical moment, Aaron accidentally rolled into the haystack of the plaster workshop, only to be entangled by the poisonous snake raised by the fool, and finally died in the mouth of the viper.
This is the end of the story of the movie.
As far as the production of the film is concerned, this "One Hundred Heartbeats" is placed among similar Hong Kong films in the 80s, which can be regarded as a more serious overall film. Don't use ghost routines to be scary, all rely on camera editing and actor performances to create story suspense, and the creation of a thriller atmosphere is also excellent, and the setting of the twin murderers in the end is indeed unexpected.
Director Lu Jian followed the shooting methods of European and American B-grade films, and arranged many sudden violent and bloody scenes to create sensory stimulation, such as: the garbage woman was slashed in the head with a sickle by her son Dahai, or although Dunant's shocking half-cut body when he pulled up the black police, it was very tense.
In terms of roles, the villain played by Wang Qing is a highlight of the film, this film geek known as "weird-looking, green-faced fangs" in this film plays two roles in this film The acting skills are quite outstanding, especially the mentally handicapped role of the fool, in the eighties it was easy to sell pitiful cliché sensational acting, and he played this role in a relatively plain way in limited scenes, forming a strong contrast with the murderous and vicious Aaron later.
The inferior place is the heroine played by Maggie Cheung, although the young Maggie Cheung has a youthful temperament, but the acting skills are more jerky and immature, and the movie is not successful enough for the heroine Maggie, although the reasoning playwright looks very much like the role setting of the puzzle solver, but carefully think about it from beginning to end she did not reason out anything (the setting of confirming the murderer through socks is also a bit sloppy), at most as a witness, it is not as good as the key Zhang Aijia in "Night Terror".
In addition, the movie has many common problems with low-cost suspense films: pretending to be mysterious and atmospheric but in fact there are too many unnecessary false shaking, but the mystery that focuses on is slightly not strong enough, and in order to end in the latter section, the characters begin to be inexplicable, and the comedy arranged by the choreographer in the first half and the heroine's appearance of the scene also make the style of the film not advanced enough.
As a result, in a restored version released later, a scene at the beginning of the film was cut for more than a minute.
At the end of the article, I especially miss Luo Mingzhu, an actress who has passed away. She died on May 27, 2016, the death was quite sudden, after Hong Kong media reported that she was preparing for a "comeback" and participated in film and television dramas, but soon after she died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 47.