Recently, with the popularity of "Brother With Thorns and Thorns", actor Zhao Wenzhuo has received a lot of attention.
As an actor, Zhao Wenzhuo has been in the industry for nearly 30 years, and his career has had peaks and valleys.
Born as a martial arts athlete, he debuted in "Fang Shiyu" and "Huang Feihong" at the age of 19, because of his solid kung fu foundation and good appearance temperament, he was once regarded as Jet Li's successor, and starred in many classic martial arts film and television dramas.
Zhao Wenzhuo left many classic works in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1990s, such as "Green Snake", "Knife", etc., and in the mid-to-late 1990s, he transformed the television circle and gradually became active in the martial arts drama market in hong Kong and Taiwan, and there were also many representative works.
But the fact that cannot be ignored is that although Zhao Wenzhuo has not lacked works since the film, he actually does not carry the box office.
During Zhao Wenzhuo's time in Hong Kong, almost none of the films starring in him were well-known, "Green Snake" and "Knife" did not have the box office as expected, and the two "Huang Feihong" movies, with Jet Li's version of Zhu Yu in front, led to thunder and rain at the box office.
The only movie that can be called a blockbuster is "Golden Jade Mantang", but Zhao Wenzhuo is basically equivalent to a cameo in the film.
Probably because the development of the Hong Kong film circle encountered a bottleneck, Zhao Wenzhuo chose to transform into the television circle. But in fact, Zhao Wenzhuo has not given up the film career, in 2010, Zhao Wenzhuo, who has not starred in movies for many years, brought a masterpiece "Su Qi'er".
At that time, the film played the slogan of "the first 3D kung fu production in Chinese", claiming to have invested up to 130 million yuan, which was a super large production in the mainland market at that time, and invited Jay Chou to appear as a guest in the sky, which attracted much attention that year.
However, after the release of the movie, the response was not good, not only the word of mouth fiasco, so far Douban only 5.0 points, the box office is even more dismal, 48 million box office can be said to be nothing. In a sense, the failure of this film has become a watershed in Zhao Wenzhuo's acting career.
After this film, Zhao Wenzhuo never starred in a kung fu martial arts movie with a large investment.
In this issue of "Forgotten Domestic Genre Films", let's talk about this watershed work of Zhao Wenzhuo's career ——
"Su Qi'er"
True Legend
The film was released in the Spring Festival slot in 2010 and was introduced to North America and South Korea successively.
The director is yuan heping, the world's first martial artist, and this film is his second director after 13 years. Yuan Heping once filmed the movie "Hero Haojie's Su Qi'er" in 1993, not to mention the theme of drunken fist, Jackie Chan's famous work "Drunken Fist" is also the proud work of Baye when he was young.
The screenwriter is Hong Kong female screenwriter Du Zhilang, her screenwriting masterpiece is the late Qing Dynasty hero trilogy, in addition to this "Su Qi'er", there is also "Huo Yuanjia" starring Jet Li, "Huang Feihong's Hero Has a Dream" starring Peng Yuyan.
Here is an interjection, after the release of "Su Qi'er", one of the reasons criticized by the audience is because the plot is too similar to "Huo Yuanjia", the story seems to be carved out of a mold, which is probably the screenwriter's self-tribute, which can also be called "I copied myself".
Entering the spoiler link, the film adopts a chapter back narrative, and the whole film is divided into two parts.
The opening scene is an ink painting with subtitles to explain the background of the story:
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the people's livelihood was poor, the internal and external difficulties, but in the chaotic world, a martial arts wizard Su Can was born.
The chapter in the first part is titled: World War I Fame.
The protagonist, Su Can, is a martial artist and a fierce general of the Qing court barracks, and he begins by leading a rescue mission. Go deep into the cottage nest hidden in the mountains and try to rescue the trapped Qing Ting Belle Grandpa (Xiang Zuo).
Along with Su Can, he also participated in the operation with his brother Yuan Lie (An Zhijie) and his long-time life and death friend Ma Qingfeng (Guo Xiaodong), whose identities were basically equivalent to the Qing Dynasty special forces, and carried out a special operation behind the enemy lines.
Under the leadership of Su Can, the Qingbing squad fights with the mountain thieves gang and risks rescuing the kidnapped Belle Grandpa.
The leader of the mountain thieves was highly skilled in martial arts, and led his men to fight with the Qing soldier squad, and Su Can, as the peak of the Qing soldiers' combat strength, naturally took the lead and fought with the mountain thief leaders.
Although Su Can successfully knocked the leader of the mountain thieves off the cliff, he could not stop the mountain thieves from being numerous, and Su Can fell into the encirclement. At this time, the righteous brother Yuan Lie persuaded Grandpa Belle to evacuate first, leaving Su Can alone to resist the army.
After Grandpa Belle fled back to the camp, he ordered Yuan Lie to bring people and horses to rescue Su Can, but Yuan Lie shirked in various ways, claiming that it was too late to go now, and Su Can had no chance of surviving, making it clear that he did not want to save his righteous brother.
However, the protagonist has always had an aura protector, and Su Can actually escaped the siege and escaped the disaster, so he was praised by Grandpa Belle.
However, Su Can had the heart to remove his armor at this time and planned to go home to take care of his wife and children, so he took the initiative to resign to Grandpa Belle, and pushed all the credit to his righteous brother Yuan Lie, and then bid farewell to his friend Ma Qingfeng and returned to his hometown.
Su Can abandoned the great future to return to his hometown, originally wanted to study martial arts from then on, opened the Sect of The Patriarch, and was no longer separated from his wife Yuan Ying (Zhou Xun) and his young son, and enjoyed the heavens.
However, people in the jianghu, grievances are difficult to understand. The grudge of the previous generation has become the fate of the Su family that is difficult to resolve.
A few years later, the righteous brother Yuan Lie has now been promoted to viceroy, has become a military and political officer of the imperial court, and is now back home.
Su Can and his wife Yuan Ying were naturally happy for this brother from the bottom of their hearts, only Su Father felt uneasy about the return of this righteous son.
It turned out that Yuan Lie's father and Su Father were eight worship friends, only because Yuan Father went into the fire to practice evil skills, and eventually killed innocents indiscriminately, So Su Father killed him and promised to adopt the two children of the Yuan family and raise them to adulthood.
Later, Yuan Ying grew up and married Su Can, and Yuan Lie married Su Can as brothers, it seems that the two families have resolved their grievances, but Su Father has always suspected that Yuan Lie is still worried about the death of his father.
On this day, Su Can happened to be away from home, and Yuan Lie returned to the Su family's old residence with his people and horses.
Father Su took his daughter-in-law Yuan Ying out to greet him, and as soon as they met, Father Su noticed that Yuan Lie's eyes were fierce, and his skin was pale, and he was actually practicing the Five Poisons evil skill of evil and evil like his father.
Father Su knew that the other party had come to take revenge and begged Yuan Lie to spare his son Su Can, but Yuan Lie killed Father Su on the spot.
The sudden change made Yuan Ying too late to react, and his brother Yuan Lie ordered Yuan Ying and his nephew to be forcibly taken away, and then slaughtered the Su family.
When Su Can returned home full of joy, what awaited him was the corpses strewn across the field and the two killers lurking in the house.
The killer sneaked in and wanted to slip away, Su Can tracked all the way to Hukou Waterfall, saw his righteous brother Yuan Lie and his wife and children who were abducted, he understood the truth, and immediately started a fight with Yuan Lie.
Su Can's martial arts talent since childhood was extremely high, and his boxing skills were fierce, but he didn't expect Yuan Lie to actually open and hang——
His body was transformed, and the invincible Ugin soft armor was embedded in his body, plus he practiced a body of poison, so that his hands were poisoned, as long as he scratched the enemy, the other party would be poisoned.
The other party has a soft armor protective body, coupled with both palms with poison, Su Can is invincible, and his right arm is scratched, resulting in a broken vein of poisoning.
Seeing that Su Can was about to die, his wife Yuan Ying ventured with her husband Su Can to jump down the waterfall and drift along the river to the desolate Beidou Mountain downstream.
Yuan Ying took Su Can, who was seriously injured and unconscious, in the deep mountains and was desperate, and happened to meet the rescue of Yu Dajie (Yang Ziqiong), a high-ranking person who collected medicine for a living in the local area, and Yu Dajie often collected medicine in the deep mountains, because she knew how to cure diseases and detoxify, Su Can was able to save her life.
Su Can and Yuan Ying were recuperating in the mountains, but although the wounds on their bodies healed, Su Can was poisoned very deeply that day, resulting in the abolition of the tendons and veins of his right arm, so that his right hand became a waste, and it was impossible to even exert force, let alone restore martial arts to seek revenge on Yuan Lie.
Su Can was discouraged because of this, and felt that he had become a waste, so he was drunk all day to escape from reality.
Fortunately, his wife Yuan Ying did not abandon it, and has always accompanied and encouraged her husband Su Can, and finally made Su Can determined to reinvigorate.
Su Can was now seriously injured, in order to restore martial arts, he could only start a long process of rehabilitation, through continuous training, let his right hand return to normal, but Su Can knew that even if his martial arts recovered, it would still be difficult to defeat Yuan Lie.
One day, when Su Can was practicing martial arts on a nearby mountain, he happened to bump into a white-bearded old man with a white-robed youth. The two seemed to be extremely skilled in kung fu, and they could even walk on the ground in the mountains and forests, jumping several feet away with a casual jump, and their light skills made Su Can very impressed.
Su Can was curious, and ran and followed all the way, only to come to a Ten Thousand Buddha Cliffs and saw the white-robed teenager and the white-bearded old man. Su Can wanted to learn from his teacher, but the white-robed old man told him to win the battle against the Martial God.
Su Can knew that the white-robed and gold-armored youth in front of him was actually known as the Martial God (played by Jay Chou).
Su Can fought with the other party and found that the martial god was indeed ridiculously high in martial arts, and almost all of Su Can's martial arts moves could be easily cracked. From then on, Su Can went to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Cliff every day to fight with the Martial God, practicing in constant frustration and injury.
Su Can's martial arts are perfect, and his wife Yuan Ying is very happy, but one day Yu Dajie, who went up the mountain to collect medicine, came to see the two, but found that Su Can's demeanor was not normal, and after diagnosis, he found that Su Can actually practiced excessively, and now he is in a rage and suffers from a fever.
Therefore, Sister Yu suspected that Su Can's meeting with the white-bearded old man and the martial god was simply his fantasy.
His wife Yuan Ying did not believe it at first, until one day he followed her husband and came to the so-called "Ten Thousand Buddha Cliffs" on the mountain, only to find that the martial god that her husband said did not exist at all, and only her husband beat himself in madness.
Sister Yu asked Yuan Ying to persuade Su Can to give up practicing martial arts to resolve the illness, but Su Can insisted that his martial arts had improved by leaps and bounds, and under the guidance of the martial god, he had learned a set of exquisite boxing techniques that he had practiced in drunkenness.
Yuan Ying knew that she could not convince her husband, so she left in a daze, leaving a letter, planning to face her brother Yuan Lie alone, hoping to let Yuan Lie let her son go.
Su Can saw his wife's letter and immediately went down the mountain to the Governor's Mansion.
Yuan Lie ordered his sister Yuan Ying to be buried alive in a coffin, and then ordered his killers to ambush Su Can, who had rushed to the rescue.
At this time, Su Can's martial arts advanced by leaps and bounds, single-handedly entering the Governor's Mansion, and finally fighting with Yuan Lie.
During the fight, the two accidentally fell into the Thousand Snake Cave that Yuan Lei used to practice poison, and fought in the hole.
Su Can's drunken fist kung fu made Yuan Lie powerless to deal with it, so he had to rely on poison to force the other party to be unable to use his full strength, and as a result, Su Can wrapped the chain around his hands and relied on a pair of iron hands to beat Yuan Lie.
However, in the process of fighting, Su Can fell into madness and bent on killing his enemy Yuan Lie.
Su Can's son was unable to stop him, and eventually Yuan Lie was killed. Yuan Lie was the only one who knew where his wife Yuan Ying was buried. It was too late for Su Can to regret it, and by the time he found the place where the coffin was buried, his wife Yuan Ying had already lost his breath.
Because of his impulsive actions, Lian Lian killed his wife, which made Su Can heartbroken, plus killing the officials of the imperial court, so he had to go into exile all the way to the Sino-Russian border in the north.
The story thus begins in the second chapter: Drunken Fist Master.
In the long years of wandering, Su Can wore ragged clothes and lived like a street beggar.
However, his martial arts were becoming more and more powerful, and he still often saw the "Martial God", and the drunken fist kung fu taught to him by the martial god was becoming more and more skilled, and the name of drunken fist Su Qi'er was derived.
When he was down, he was actually reunited with his former friend Ma Qingfeng, who was now the head of the Qing Barracks. Su Can's son could not bear to wander with his father and wanted to take him in, but Su Can's son insisted on living with his father.
At this time, the local Russian businessman set up a ring to let the Western boxers compete with the Chinese boxers, but in the ring, they shot viciously, treating the lives of the Chinese boxers as grass and mustard, which caused the dissatisfaction of the head of the church, Ma Qingfeng.
Ma Qingfeng decided to take the stage on behalf of the Chinese people, but the foreigner boxers were tall and powerful, and the difference in strength between the two sides was obvious, so Ma Qingfeng was seriously injured.
Seeing that he was about to die in the ring, Su Can finally couldn't help but take a shot and went on stage to fight with the Russian Hercules.
The combat effectiveness of the Russian Hercules was indeed explosive, and Su Can was difficult to confront the other side, but in the end he still relied on drunken fists to defeat him.
At the end of the film, Su Can narrowly won the ring, defeated the arrogance of the foreign boxers, and achieved the legendary story of a generation of drunken boxing masters.
From the current point of view, this "Su Qi'er" can still be said to be a Chinese kung fu blockbuster.
The film was shot in 2008, with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the domestic film industry at the time, and the film was also the first time that a Chinese kung fu film used large-scale computer special effects, and post-production alone took ten months. The film coincided with the release of Avatar in the post-production stage, which led to a global 3D movie boom, so the filmmakers took advantage of the situation to convert the special effects part of the film to 3D format.
In terms of actors, Zhao Wenzhuo was 36 years old when he starred in this film (the film was filmed in 2008), he had not acted in a movie for seven years, and the last theatrical work was the costume history film "Hero Zheng Chenggong", so "Su Qi'er" as Zhao Wenzhuo's return to the big screen after many years, especially the investment is so huge, obviously it is high hopes.
The cast of the film is quite strong, the heroine is the actress Zhou Xun, the villain An Zhijie, the actor who plays the martial god is Jay Chou, the supporting cast includes Yan Ni, Liang Jiaren, Liu Jiahui, Guo Xiaodong, Xiang Zuo, in the end of the Easter egg part, and the big director Feng Xiaogang made a cameo appearance as a city thief.
In addition, in order to break into the international market, the film also invited some Hollywood team, Yang Ziqiong played a worldly high-ranking yu sister, "Kill Bill" actor David Caraddin cameo behind the foreign boxer, the world mixed martial arts gold belt winner Li Lie bow played the leader of the mountain thief, so the lineup can be described as luxurious.
In addition to the luxurious production team, another big selling point of this film is the gimmick of 3D kung fu films.
Its use of 3D technology to make martial arts films is not the first of its kind, in the 70s Hong Kong and Taiwan had a stereoscopic martial arts film, the mainland also filmed a stereoscopic movie "Thirteen Sisters", the first attempt to use stereoscopic technology to package martial arts action scenes.
However, these early 3D martial arts films are relatively rudimentary in technology, still stuck in the era of soil method stunts, and the 3D stereoscopic effect is still highlighted by the simple way that the actor does martial arts actions or throws weapons at the camera. In this sense, this "Su Qi'er" is the first 3D kung fu film to be completed using computer special effects.
However, due to technical limitations, "Su Qi'er" is not 3D in full film, but only some shots and clips have 3D effects, the whole film is 110 minutes, but the 3D footage adds up to only about 20 minutes.
One of the sections is The white-haired martial god played by Zhao Wenzhuo and the white-haired martial god played by Jay Chou unfolds a "peak duel" at the Ten Thousand Buddha Cliffs, this 3D playing scene is interspersed with the 2D plot, and the other 3D effect is the "Thousand Snake Cave Duel" between Su Can and Yuan Lie, where a thousand poisonous snakes and scorpions at the bottom of the ancient well are entrenched, attacking Zhao Wenzhuo and An Zhijie who fell into the well, enhancing the thrilling sense of the plot.
From the overall performance point of view, the film's 3D effect is actually very mediocre.
After all, in that year, 3D technology was still very expensive, the film in order to control the cost of the use of post-authoritarian 3D, but in fact, only the special effects screen was adjusted, relying on post-production technology to artificially layer the front and back scenes on the 2D screen, and then after adjusting the perspective relationship, it was re-combined into a 3D picture, the overall presentation effect was very mediocre, especially at that time, the mainland audience had just watched "Avatar", and there was no harm in the two without comparison.
Not only that, but what is more chicken is that the movie is not fully 3D, which leads to the audience needing to wear glasses and take off glasses many times to watch the movie during the viewing process, and the audience at that time reacted that this viewing experience was very unsatisfactory.
In addition to the hard wounds in technology, there are also many flaws in the software aspect of the film, such as the old-fashioned naked eye of the story, the plot of "Huo Yuanjia" itself was criticized as too preachy in that year, and the film actually imitated the trend, making a low-end version, and the plot was even more novel.
The strangest thing is that the film is divided into two chapters, but the two paragraphs are not evenly matched, the previous chapter is nearly 80 minutes long, and the last twenty minutes of suit suddenly turn to the next chapter, allowing Su Can to compete with the Russians, but this plot has nothing to do with the first half, and it is clear that the director has to force it in order to imitate "Huo Yuanjia".
Of course, this film is not without advantages, the martial arts action designed by Yuan Heping is indeed full of ornamentation, and the picture soundtrack of this film is also first-class, after all, the photographer is Zhang Yimou's royal photographer Zhao Xiaoding, and the person responsible for the soundtrack is the soundtrack master Mei Linmao.
Unfortunately, the first-class production, the second-rate script and the completely chicken rib 3D gimmick, made the film finally a dismal ending. The acting path of the lead actor Zhao Wenzhuo was also greatly hit, and after this film, Zhao Wenzhuo never starred in a kung fu movie with a large investment.