The 34th anniversary of the release of "Two Heroes of Blood": Is Zhou Yunfa still suitable for this jianghu

On July 6, 1989, "Two Heroes of Blood" premiered in Hong Kong, marking its 34th anniversary.

"The True Color of Heroes" made Chow Yun popular all over the Chinese-speaking world, and "Two Heroes of Blood" made him conquer Western fans. Today, let's talk about the behind-the-scenes story of this work, the pinnacle of violent aesthetics.

In 1987, after becoming popular with "The True Color of Heroes", Chow Yun-fat decided to officially sign a contract with New Art City: within one and a half years, he made 8 movies; In the second year, Brother Fa completed the target ahead of schedule, so he signed 7 more parts.

In 1989, Mai Jia established New Art City Entertainment, Shi Tian established New Art City Entertainment, New Art City Pictures existed in name only, and the parent company Princess Jin was quite disappointed in this, so she left New Art City and produced movies independently.

"Two Heroes of Blood" is produced by Princess Jin, co-produced by Film Studio and Universal Pictures, produced by Tsui Hark and directed by John Woo, starring Chow Yun-fat, Lee Xiuxian, Ye Qianwen, Zeng Jiang, Cheng Kuian, etc.

John Woo began to conceive the script of "Two Heroes of Blood" very early, which originally told the story between two policemen. But the script was rejected by the top management of New Arts City and did not receive Tsui Hark's support.

In addition, the company believes that Zhou Yunfa must be able to make such a police film. But Brother Fa was too busy at that time, making two or three movies at the same time, and he couldn't spare the schedule at all, which made John Woo very frustrated.

After Brother Fa learned of John Woo's predicament, he personally went to Tsui Hark and expressed his willingness to take the movie. So "Two Heroes of Blood" finally started. Without Chow Yun-fat, this movie would not have been possible.

Each of John Woo's movies has to set an unforgettable classic scene, such as the dragon boat chase in "Blood". This is John Woo's own favorite scene, and he wants to use this dragon boat race as a metaphor for the mutual chase between the killer and the police in the movie.

In order to shoot this scene, the crew had already shot a lot of dragon boat racing shots 5 months ago, and reconstructed the entire scene when filming began to create a realistic effect. Later, the editor did not know how to start this paragraph, and finally John Woo personally edited it for three weeks to complete.

Although the dragon boat chase scene is already very exciting, the church shootout scene at the end of the film is the climax of the whole film. It took the crew a full 28 days to complete two shootout scenes inside and outside the church.

In the church shootout scene, Brother Fa's face was accidentally scratched, almost hurting his eye, and he insisted on treating the wound after filming. In this way, Brother Fa took this scar and completed the most handsome freeze frame in Hong Kong film history.

After the filming of the main scene of the church shootout, Zhou Yunfa suggested: The final ending should be that Xiaozhuang and Jenny should go out of the church together, ten fingers interlocked, generous to death, facing the rain of bullets and bullets of Cheng Kuian's army.

John Woo said: What's so tragic about this? It should be the two of them crawling towards each other, and then passing by, missing each other, and the two people were completely abandoned by fate, which is a real tragedy!

I have to say that John Woo, who looks honest and loyal, is so ruthless when he gets things done, even Mary Sufa, who likes to interlock his fingers, can only silently say behind his back: Are you teaching me to do things?

In addition, John Woo was originally set up: after Xiaozhuang's death, Jenny went to the airport alone and went to the United States to treat her eyes. When she stood alone and helplessly at the airport, the policeman played by Li Xiuxian suddenly appeared, took the money, went to the United States with her and took care of her, and lived a happy, shameless life together.

In fact, this ending is more hilarious but unfortunately the filming progress was already much delayed than originally planned, and Ye Qianwen did not have a schedule to shoot this again, so the crew had to give up and take Xiaozhuang's death as the final ending, and also set up the plot of Li Ying shooting for Xiaozhuang to commemorate this unforgettable man friendship.

Since their collaboration on "The True Color of Heroes 2" in 87, John Woo and Tsui Hark's creative concepts have been very different. By the time of "Two Heroes of Blood", the contradictions between the two had reached the point of irreconcilability.

Although John Woo has always had great respect for Tsui Hark, he not only regarded him as a brother, but also as a benefactor. But at that moment, he still felt that the time had come for the two to break up in tears and be wonderful separately.

The contradiction between Tsui Hark and John Woo is not a personal grudge, of course, it is not as simple as the difference in creative concepts, in the final analysis, it is still a contradiction between the producer-led creation and the director's creative freedom.

John Woo recalled: If the two of us made a movie together, the internal friction was too great. If we shoot the two separately, it will actually be good for everyone, and the audience can also see our different styles of works.

After "Two Heroes of Blood", John Woo filmed "Blood Street", the box office hit the street, and his will was depressed for a while; And Tsui Hark's "The True Color of Heroes 3 Sunset Song" also ended in failure, and he never touched the police and bandit films again.

Later, John Woo's "Across the Seas" and "Hot Hand Detective" pushed the violent aesthetics of Romanticism to new heights;

And Tsui Hark's "Smiling Rivers and Lakes" and "Huang Feihong" and "New Dragon Gate Inn" have also opened up a new world of martial arts movies.

Maybe we are all too nostalgic for the old and we no longer adapt to this quack. It doesn't matter who owes whom between friends, otherwise what do you want friends to do, right?