From the king of cults to the blockbuster in charge, or is he crazy!
Time Contributor | Xiao Gen
Find more possibilities for life in the movie.
The recent film market is very lively, "Disappearing Her" has led the market, "In the Octagon Cage" broke the game with sincerity, and "Chang'an 30,000 Li" has created the grandeur of the Tang Dynasty and aroused the trend of bard.
The previously highly anticipated "Drug Sweep 3: Man in the End of the World" is a little lonely.
Even if the reputation is average, this film is still very important.
It pushes Hong Kong-style blockbusters to a new height in terms of action, and the film's spring and autumn brushwork outside the story is also worth reading carefully.
And to talk about this movie, we must focus on his director: Qiu Litao.
"Drug Sweep 3: People in the End of the World"
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the release of "Drug Sweep 1".
Until now, many famous scenes in the film are still being talked about by netizens.
In addition to the protagonist, the film also created an impressive villain: the Eight-faced Buddha.
In a sense, "Drug Sweep 1" is already a Hong Kong film classic in the hearts of many fans.
Compared with Chen Musheng's steadiness and delicacy, Qiu Litao's works after taking over present a different look: magnificent, crazy, and subtle.
Sweep the drug trail
Obviously, "Drug Sweep 3: People in the End of the World" (hereinafter referred to as "Drug Sweep 3") is doing it for A-grade blockbusters.
Its biggest attraction is the upgraded action scenes.
Shortly after the beginning of the film, there is a tense and exciting gunfight, and as the plot unfolds, car chases and explosions take turns.
In particular, the endgame battle has reached the scale of a "small war", with aircraft bombing and artillery fire, which is a magnificent and tragic atmosphere rarely seen in Hong Kong-style blockbusters in the past.
In order to improve the realism and shock of the action scenes, the crew put a lot of effort into the shooting.
For example, car chasing scenes, trying new shooting methods, even actors with rich experience can't help but marvel at the "novelty to exaggeration".
In addition, the crew boldly used real guns and cannons.
According to statistics, there are as many as 18 kinds of real firearms used in the whole film.
In contrast, the story is much simpler.
"Drug Sweep 3" is about the beginning and end of the police undercover in the drug lord syndicate, and the police should cooperate with the outside to annihilate them in one fell swoop.
How undercover agents win people's trust, and what kind of inner struggle they will experience, the war between heaven and man, these contents, "Drug Sweep 3" is a brushstroke.
Of course, Qiu Litao also explained, such as Zhang Jianxing (played by Kwok Fucheng) chose to be an undercover agent out of voluntariness, and he likes the stimulation of switching back and forth between black and white, good and evil.
It can also be seen from the design here that after Qiu Litao took over this series, he had the intention of deconstructing "Anti-Drug" and undercover movies.
When filming "Drug Sweep 2", the story changed, the three protagonists changed two, and the film had almost nothing to do with the previous work.
He wants to use the break between Jizo (played by Koo Tianle) and Yu Shuntian (played by Andy Lau) to metaphorically the phenomenon that the people are becoming more and more divided in views or positions.
Then to "Drug Sweep 3", the film has a rewrite or even reverse writing of the previous work.
From the perspective of the chain of drug sweeping, Qiu Litao chose to trace the roots to present the ecology of the villages that produce drugs.
And many fleeting lines such as "I miss Hong Kong so much" also have room for interpretation.
In terms of personality, he even let Liu Qingyun play the villain Kang Sucha, and emphasized the brotherhood between the villains, which is obviously the "opposite" of "Drug Sweep 1".
On the whole, Qiu Litao is extremely executive and thoughtful, he can create thrilling visuals and insist on expression between the cracks.
This may be the fundamental reason why he can repeatedly direct Hong Kong-style blockbusters.
And how did he grow up?
The king of fast hands and intellectuals
Qiu Litao has always been the boss's favorite type of filmmaker.
The reason is simple: fast hands, good life, high return on investment.
Having this ability is not unrelated to his upbringing.
Qiu Litao has been weak since childhood, and his family takes good care of him, hoping that he can do a relatively safe civil service.
But he kept holding his breath, trying to break through the shackles of the flesh.
Later, he studied Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, where he obtained a master's degree and a doctorate. He also studied film at the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University.
After joining the film industry, he worked almost all kinds of jobs on the set: assistant director, cinematographer, editor, screenwriter, director...
Film type, raw and cold.
At the beginning, he became famous in the film industry because of his identity as a photographer, leaving masterpieces such as "Inside the Law" and "Divine Calculation".
In the 90s, he became famous for the large-scale films "Eight Immortals Hotel: Human Meat Char Siu Bun" and "Ebola Virus", these two works are full of horror, violence, and perverted pictures, and are regarded as cult classics by fans.
It is worth mentioning that Qiu Litao is still a rock music fan.
At the end of 1994, Dou Wei, Zhang Chu, He Yong and other singers participated in "Rock Chinese Music Power", the director is Qiu Litao, he also personally edited and produced DVDs.
With more opportunities, he began directing or participating in various genres.
Horror films include the "Yin Yang Road" series and "Qingwei"; Crime films include "The Judge of the Subject" and "Renegade: Hidden Criminal"; Romance films include "Love Fantasy" and "Male Up and Female Down"; gangster films include "Black and White Road"; literary films include the "Ten Days of Sex Workers" series; Biopics include "Ip Man's Final Battle", "Qiu Jin, the heroine of the competition", and cartoons such as "Old Master 2001"...
In addition, he has also served as the cinematographer of important Hong Kong films such as "Flowing with the Current" and "Seven Swords".
Qiu Litao filming efficiency is extremely high, such as "The Judge of the Priest", which was filmed in 20 days.
Moreover, he can guarantee better quality.
Therefore, he has always been favored by investors.
However, he is also an intellectual in his bones.
He wrote a monograph entitled "Cultural Thinking and Practice of a Film Director" to record his interests and pursuits.
Looking at Qiu Litao's works, two characteristics can be summarized: sociality and humanistic care.
For example, "The Judge of the Taxi", which focuses on the phenomenon of taxi drivers refusing to board and asking for sky-high prices; For example, "Ten Days of Sex Workers", he uses a de-curious perspective to present the daily life of sex workers from a head-up perspective.
And he positioned himself as a "worker", took over a job, and did one thing well.
He does not have the baggage and burden of many expressionists, his only dream is to soak in the set, and it is the greatest luck to be able to keep making movies.
Of course, there are also game games, such as making a few commercial films that the boss wants, and changing to a work with unique expression.
Because of this execution and tenacity, he was finally seen by more insightful people, which changed his career.
The turning point was "Bomb Disposal Expert".
A leader in Hong Kong-style blockbusters
Starting with "Bomb Disposal Expert", Qiu Litao began to control high-cost commercial films.
In increasingly grand scenes, he does a good job of beating workers on the one hand, providing explosive, imaginative visual spectacle; On the other hand, he injects his own madness and anger into the work.
For example, "Drug Sweep 2", which is a very impactful work.
Especially the final decisive battle, Jizo and Suncheon racing in the Central Subway, its fierceness and intensity are worthy of the name of "Heaven and Earth Showdown".
In order to present this scene, Qiu Litao led a team of thousands of people to find a 3,000-square-meter vacant land and build the Central Metro Station according to the ratio of 1:1.
This stems from his insistence on "live-action shooting".
The reason why this scene is worth elaborating on is not only that it satisfies the audience's imagination of the visual spectacle, but also that this extreme scene strictly corresponds to the extreme character tearing.
Jizo and Suncheonshi went out of the same house, and later embarked on two completely different paths, and their ideas were constantly split, so that the blades met until they died.
And Lin Zhengfeng (played by Miao Qiaowei), who represents the rule of law, was helpless throughout the process.
Three people, each with their own reference, rich in meaning.
In the end, "Drug Sweep 2" won 1.3 billion+ box office.
Bomb Disposal Expert 2 is even more outstanding.
The film blew up Hong Kong's iconic Tsing Ma Bridge.
It also presents the consequences of the bombing of Hong Kong International Airport in an imaginative way.
And these scenes also serve the story.
The core design of Bomb Disposal Expert 2 is that "the bomb man becomes the most dangerous bomb".
The reason?
Wrath.
Pan Chengfeng (played by Andy Lau) was exiled to the civil service because of his broken leg, and he was dissatisfied in his heart and shouted the slogan of "use up and abandon", which was deafening.
After Pan Chengfeng lost his memory, Pang Ling (Ni Ni), the chief inspector of the anti-terrorist special forces as a decent counter-terrorism team, and the mastermind behind the resurrection meeting (played by Xie Junhao) as a villain gave him two completely different memories, which made him fall into division.
His anger can only be vented in the escalation of destruction.
The visual picture resonated with the theme characters, producing excellent results, and the final box office of the film was 1.3 billion+.
With these two works, Qiu Litao has consolidated his position as a first-line director.
Going back to "Drug Sweep 3", it also has expressions.
For example, in the film, in order to be undercover, the police have to block bullets for villains, and even accidentally kill people; In the decisive battle, the police also had to pick up firearms and fight to the death against drug dealers and the Thai military.
The boundary between good and evil has been blurred again and again, leaving only the helplessness of the same return.
For example, Qiu Litao also specially gave shots to show the mourning of the village after the battle.
These details all point to the cost of undercover and drug sweeping.
Unfortunately, on the whole, the above content is not the main line, and its biggest problem is that the action scenes are too dense to unfold the story, and the characters are drowned in the bombardment.
However, fans who know Qiu Litao well will still be looking forward to him.
He is a professional migrant worker, and meeting the needs of the boss is the first task. And once he is given enough creative space, he will definitely be able to surprise the audience.
Let's list a few important projects that have not yet been released: "Customs Front", starring: Jacky Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Wu Zhenyu, etc.; "Operation Moscow", starring: Zhang Hanyu, Andy Lau, Huang Xuan; "Bomb Disposal Expert 3", starring: Andy Lau...
Qiu Litao has already carried the banner of a Hong Kong-style blockbuster.
He deserves this responsibility and glory.
Because success often belongs to people who are talented and persist in running to the end.