Entering May, approaching the summer season, major film companies began to get busy.
Recently, two blockbuster new films have been finalized, one is "Megalodon 2" starring Wu Jing and Jason Statham, and the other is "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" by Chow Yun-fat.
The film is scheduled to land in theaters nationwide on June 21, after five years, after "Matchless", we can see Zhou Yunfa on the big screen again, which makes fans look forward to it.
As can be seen from the trailer, the theme reflected in the film is relatively alternative, very testing acting skills, the author predicts that "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" has a small outbreak volume at the box office, and the first target is 1 billion.
Brother Coffee will elaborate on the film in five key words.
The first key word: Liao Qizhi.
The film was successfully established in 2018, almost after the box office hit of Zhou Yunfa's "Matchless", "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers" basically completed the approval procedures.
In 2019, it entered the filming stage, and then encountered a three-year pandemic era, so the film has been in a backlog, from the establishment of the project to the release, which has taken five years.
A lot of things happened in the middle, the famous Hong Kong director Chen Musheng left, the golden supporting roles Wu Mengda and Wu Yiuhan also left us, and Liao Kaizhi, as one of the leading actors, also followed.
"Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" is TVB's golden green leaf Liao Qizhi's last movie before his death, which is bound to arouse the curiosity of the audience, after Wu Mengda and Chen Musheng's swan song set off a movie-watching frenzy.
Wu Mengda's "Action" won 174 million, while Chen Musheng's "Furious Heavy Case" hit the box office 1.3 billion, and many fans will walk into the theater to watch Mr. Liao Qizhi's last wonderful performance.
The second key phrase: God of gamblers.
During the heyday of the Hong Kong film industry, the famous celebrity with Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Stephen Chow, Andy Lau was Chow Yun-fat, and in the 80s and 90s of the last century, he contributed a lot of fine films.
For example, "On the Beach", "The True Color of Heroes", "Two Heroes of Blood", "Across the Sea", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Alang's Story", "Autumn Fairy Tale", etc., the most representative is the "God of Gamblers" series.
In 1989, Wang Jing created a precedent in the "Gambling" series, the first "God of Gamblers" made Chow Yun-fat and Andy Lau famous, and then gave birth to Stephen Chow's "Gambling Saint" and Andy Lau's "Gambler" series.
For a time, "God of Gamblers" became synonymous with Chow Yun-fat, and the BGM when he appeared became a generation of classics, among which, 1994's "God of Gamblers 2" achieved a high box office result of 52.54 million Hong Kong dollars, until it was broken by Jackie Chan's "Red Fan District".
After entering the new millennium, the gambling series was favored by Macau gambling king Stanley Ho, Bona Film and Ximihua's Suncity Group cooperated to develop the "Macao Vice" series, Chow Yun-fat once again came out of the mountain, the majesty did not decrease that year, and the box office of the series went all the way.
The God of Gamblers series is an important iconic symbol in the history of Hong Kong films, one of the classic representative works, and has become a treasure of Hong Kong cinema with its unique personality and exquisite production.
With this role, Chow Yun-fat left a strong mark in the history of Hong Kong cinema.
From 1989 to 2023, in these 34 years, Zhou Yunfa used "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" to recall the feelings of the God of Gamblers series, so that the audience can once again feel the temperature of the film, which will draw a perfect end to his "gambling series".
The third key word: anti-gambling.
The core of a war film is anti-war, and the core of a "gambling film" is of course an anti-gambling.
Previously, the gambling god played by Zhou Yunfa gave people a glorious side, and this movie directly came to a 180-degree turn, and the film has a completely different theme orientation from conventional gambling films.
The plot is like this: When he was young, Chow Yun-fat's bragging fai and Yuen Yongyi's Li Xi were a couple, because Ah Hui was addicted to gambling and owed a debt, Li Xi finally chose to leave Bragging Hui.
Decades passed, Li Xi was terminally ill, and had no choice but to entrust his son to Ah Hui to take care of, and gave him a reward of 100,000 yuan.
However, his son suffers from severe autism and cannot communicate with ordinary people normally, so Ah Hui decided to change his mind and quit gambling and took his son to a new page in life.
The film has undergone three name changes, the title of the project is "The Sun Years", then changed to "I am not a gambling god", and finally determined to be "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers".
The title of the film is very intuitive to express the theme of anti-gambling, the content will be somewhat similar to "I Am Not the God of Medicine", based on literary and artistic plots, using acting skills to impress the audience, so that everyone can play a warning role while watching the movie.
Self-redemption and anti-gambling must be the spiritual core of this movie.
The fourth key word: Hong Kong movies.
In recent years, Hong Kong films have been declining, and in the first half of this year, except for "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", the rest of the Hong Kong film box office has all hit the street.
Including Kwok Fucheng and Tony Leung's "When the Wind Rises Again", Kwok Fucheng and Lin Jiadong's "Disconnected Network", Jackie Chan's "The Spirit of Dragon Horse", Chen Jiashang's "Storm", Peng Shun's "Shocking Rescue", Mak Siuhui's "Prosecutor's Storm" and so on.
Coupled with the fact that a group of old Hong Kong filmmakers have left us, it seems that Hong Kong films are not accepted.
The main reason for the above problems is that the screenwriter is not good at breaking the generation with young actors, there is no good script, the audience does not like to watch it, and the box office is unlikely to explode.
And the main creator of "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" is from "Infernal Affairs" screenwriter Zhuang Wenqiang, after "Matchless", Zhuang Wenqiang cooperated with Chow Yun-fat again, and the director was directed by the famous Hong Kong photographer Pan Yiuming.
Previously, films such as Jackie Chan's "New Police Story", Huang Zihua's "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse's "Furious Heavy Case", Bai Baihe's "Monster Hunt", and Koo Tianle's "Drug Sweep" were all written by Pan Yaoming.
Chow Yun-fat plays the first male protagonist, Yuen Yongyi in "God of Gamblers 3" plays the heroine, and there are also Fang Zhongxin, Liao Qizhi, An Zhijie, Huang Debin, Cai Yizhi and other casts to join the star.
It can be seen from the main creative lineup that the quality of this film is guaranteed, and when Hong Kong films are in decline, good film scripts are needed to inject vitality into the market.
When filming "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers", there was also an accident, Brother Fa accidentally hit his head on the set, bleeding nonstop, and the battle-hardened Brother Fa calmed everyone and said that there was no need to worry, and he was sent to the hospital after simple treatment.
Chow Yun-fat's professionalism made everyone present admire, no matter how difficult Hong Kong films will continue, because Hong Kong filmmakers do not stop, they are painful and happy!
The fifth key word: schedule competition.
On June 21, this schedule is still good, and "Jurassic World" and "Spider-Man" opened in this schedule in previous years, and the box office performance was great.
This week, I met two competitors, one is "I Love You" directed by Han Yan and starring Ni Dahong, Hui Yinghong, Leung Ka Fai and Ye Tong, focusing on dusk love.
The crowd faced by the movie is relatively specific, plus literary romance films, it is not easy to break out, so it makes little sense to compete with "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers".
The other is the suspense movie "Disappearing Her", this movie has a lot of origins, written and produced by Chen Sicheng, starring Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni, Wen Yongshan and Du Jiang.
tells the story of his wife, who mysteriously disappeared during her wedding anniversary trip, reappeared, thus triggering an unspeakable secret...
Zhu Yilong's "Life Events" last year won 1.7 billion at the box office and won the Golden Rooster Award actor crown, which is the second theatrical blockbuster after his successful transformation, and the number of people who want to watch the movie is among the best.
is the biggest competitor of "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers", as long as the release bears the first wave of word-of-mouth impact, the share of theatrical films has not fallen significantly, with Zhou Yunfa's box office appeal, there is still hope of victory.
Therefore, to sum up the five key words, "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" refers to the 1 billion box office, which is not groundless, and the hope is very large.
In the half-hologram state of Jet Li and Zhou Yunfa, it is not easy to see them fighting in the film industry again.
In the future film market, Hong Kong films will have better performance, and I hope that starting from "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers", the trend of Hong Kong film revival will rise wave after wave.
I also hope that Tsui Hark's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", Nicholas Tse and Jackie Chan's "New Police Story 2" will all be a box office hit.