In 1991, Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark, who was at the peak of his creative work at the time, decided to launch a bold theme plan - to make a film series based on the national hero Wong Fei Hung.
This move undoubtedly carries a huge commercial risk, because in the past, kung fu films mostly stayed at the extreme of showing fights and action, and rarely dabbled in the themes of patriotism and heroism.
But director Tsui Hark has a clear idea in his heart - to arouse justice and glory in the hearts of the audience through the power of national heroes.
Under the decision of director Tsui Hark, the title of the film was set as "Once Upon a Time: Top Gun", and the popular action star Li Lianming played the lead role of Huang Feihong. The film successfully touched the hearts of countless audiences through Jet Li's restrained and deep interpretation, coupled with an impassioned nationalist soundtrack.
The wonderful mobilization in front of and behind the scenes made the film an unprecedented success, breaking the box office of 10 million Hong Kong dollars in 13 days, and finally reaching a record-breaking box office of 21 million.
Such a dazzling performance has undoubtedly completely opened up the market for the new theme of "Huang Feihong Movie".
After the success of Once Upon a Time, Tsui Hark soon released a sequel to the series, Once Upon a Time 2: A Man Should Be Self-Reliant, in 1992.
The film gathered many of the top action stars at the time, and the most eye-catching was the duel scene between Jet Li and Donnie Yen, two powerful stars. The two staged a vigorous fight performance in the film, pushing the thrill and aesthetics of Chinese kung fu to a new height.
It was in the cooperation with Jet Li that Donnie Yen had a deeper understanding of the worldview and characters of this series of films, and even had the urge to interpret this role by himself.
So in 1993, the peak of the "Wong Fei Hung Movie" market, Donnie Yen chose to shoot the prequel movie "Young Wong Fei Hung: The Iron Horse" to realize his idea.
The film mainly tells the growth and experience of the teenager Huang Feihong, which is an organic supplement to the theme of the entire series. Donnie Yen played the juvenile Wong Fei Hung, and the whole process of interpreting the role from a novice to a grandmaster of the final generation has won a lot of praise.
At the same time, Yuan Biao, who had an excellent cooperation with Jet Li in his first movie, also chose to explore this market. He decided to shoot a movie with Wong Fei Hung's disciple "Ghost Feet Seven" as the core character through a side story.
The title of the film is "Wong Fei Hung's Ghost Feet Seven", which tells the story of Ghost Feet Seven clearing up grievances for Master Wong Fei Hung. Yuan Biao performed this character with a strange personality and strong martial arts very wonderfully and expressively, which was widely praised.
1993 can be said to be the climax year of the "Wong Fei Hung Film" market. This year, Jet Li and Tsui Hark continued to cooperate and launched the third film in the series, "Once Upon a Time 3: The Lion King".
The film continued the high output value and visual style of the first part, and once again achieved a very high box office and word of mouth. And Donnie Yen and Yuan Biao also launched their own "Wong Fei Hung" biography and prequel movies respectively, competing head-on with Jet Li.
As a result, it can be said that Jet Li successfully defended the box office champion. The box office of "Once Upon a Time 3: The Lion King" is as high as 27 million Hong Kong dollars, and Jet Li's second movie "Once Upon a Time: Iron Fighting Centipede" also has a score of 18 million, completely overwhelming other opponents.
This fully proves Jet Li's box office appeal and influence in the role of "Huang Feihong".
and Donnie Yen and Yuan Biao's prequel movies, the box office results are difficult to compare, with only 6.8 million and 7.6 million respectively, less than half of Jet Li's movies.
It can be seen that in this competition of "Once Upon a Time Movie", Jet Li successfully maintained his dominance on the subject.
After 1993, as the market gradually became aesthetically tired of "Wong Fei Hung Films", such films began to decline, and the market reputation and box office were not as good as in previous years.
In 1994, Tsui Hark had to officially announce the end of his "Once Upon a Time" series of film shooting plans. So far, the curtain has come to an end, and it is the "Wong Fei Hung Film Fever" that began in 1991 and lasted for 3 years.
In fact, for many years, Tsui Hark has always had infinite hopes and ambitions for making big-budget movies. He aspires to break the framework of the Hong Kong film industry and make epic sci-fi films with Hong Kong bullet time.
However, due to financial and technical constraints, these grand plans have been difficult to realize. After the end of the "Once Upon a Time" series, Tsui Hark gradually shifted his focus to Hollywood, hoping to get more production resources and space there to realize his film dream.
The failure of the "Once Upon a Time" series was undoubtedly a major blow to Tsui Hark's creative career. In the years that followed, he was in a state of boredom and depression.
For a while, the entire film industry was worried about whether this once unrivaled new director would collapse.
Fortunately, Tsui Hark, who has experienced too much, did not give up his passion for movies. After a short period of adjustment and recuperation, he regained his pursuit and passion for the film industry.
The world has finally seen that the legendary filmmaker Tsui Hark is moving forward towards a more glorious film life.
Although the curtain finally came to an end, the "Wong Fei Hung Movie" craze still left a strong mark in the history of Chinese cinema. It successfully combines the legendary stories of national heroes with the ultimate performance of body movements, showing the world the unique charm of Chinese kung fu themes.
Among them, those classic fights and action scenes have also become the iconic images of Chinese action movies, and they are widely circulated in the hearts of the audience.
Nowadays, with the rapid development of film production technology and market model, the theme of "Huang Feihong" is fully expected to make a comeback and usher in new glory. We have reason to believe that action superstars such as Jet Li, Donnie Yen, and Yuan Biao will join forces again one day in the future to reproduce the demeanor of this legendary national hero on the big screen.
At that time, a new and more wonderful "Wong Fei Hung" movie world will surely come into our eyes again, which will feast people's eyes. Let's wait and see the new chapter of Wong Fei Hung's film.