On December 30, 2023, the annual Hong Kong film "Goldfinger" will be released. This film is adapted from the "Jianing case" that caused a sensation in Hong Kong in the seventies and eighties of the 20th century, the case involved as much as 6.6 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the litigation costs exceeded 200 million Hong Kong dollars. This case remains a mystery to this day, and it is the most heavyweight of many strange cases in Hong Kong. Although the subject matter is well-known to many Hong Kong people, it has never been made into a movie. Until February 20, 2021, Emperor Group and the film's creator held a new film press conference in Hong Kong and announced the filming plan of the film, written and directed by Zhuang Wenqiang, starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung. As soon as the news came out, it attracted the attention of many Hong Kong film fans, because these are two well-known actors who have collaborated again since "Infernal Affairs 3". Hong Kong film fans not only look forward to the two competing with each other in acting, but also look forward to "Goldfinger" being like "Infernal Affairs" back then, once again bringing Hong Kong films back to glory.
Although this film tells the story of Hong Kong in the past, director Zhuang Wenqiang does not want to fall into the old Hong Kong film model. In an exclusive interview with a reporter from Nandu, Zhuang Wenqiang revealed that when editing "Goldfinger", in order not to fall into the trap, he drastically deleted a large number of scenes that the audience would feel familiar with. He emphasized that in the post-epidemic world, global audiences have watched a large number of films, and their level has improved. Therefore, the familiar elements of Hong Kong films are becoming more and more boring to the audience, and this phenomenon not only occurs in Hong Kong films, but also faces this problem in Hollywood films. American scholar David Bordwell believes that the secret of Hong Kong films is that "everything is over-the-top and all crazy", but this kind of high-concentration dramatic story is slowly abandoned by audiences in the post-epidemic era. Where should the future of Hong Kong films go, Zhuang Wenqiang tried to answer with "Goldfinger".
1
There are many stories of humanity in the world of finance
Nandu Entertainment: "Goldfinger" is partly based on the real event "Jianing Case", which is an unsolved case until now, and the blank behind the unsolved case needs you to fill, how do you balance fiction and realism?
Zhuang Wenqiang: It is precisely because I thought of a way to fill in the gaps that it was possible to adapt. The good thing about adapting a story is that there are a lot of unknowns in the story itself. This case can't be said to be an unsolved case, there are many things that we outsiders don't know, so I used my brain to create this story in conjecture. Even if someone knows the truth, I don't think they will come out and say that the story is far from the truth, but I am thinking about how to maintain the integrity of the story, whether it is true or false. What we filmmakers and moviegoers want to know most is whether these things will be an interesting story when they are put into a movie.
Nandu Entertainment: The most attractive point of this movie is that Tony Leung and Andy Lau cooperate again, this kind of movie of the confrontation between good and evil, many times the actors' play space and the audience's impression are tilted towards the villain, when you first wrote the story, did you ever worry about the imbalance between the roles of the two characters? Did they add drama?
Zhuang Wenqiang: First, when I wrote the script, I didn't think it was the two of them, I came to them after I finished writing it, because the script was already in that time. So if you ask me if the two of them have balanced their scenes, I should say that they have more opportunities to be together in the movie than in my original script. As for whether it will be balanced, I rarely do. You say that villains are usually more eye-catching, and you should think of it this way: if a character is three-dimensional and rich enough, he will be excellent. Of course, the audience must want to see something that is more obvious and obvious, and it is easier for everyone to discuss it.
We've been working together for so long, and before we started the film, we had already discussed the styling design, the whole story, and told them my opinion. I like to talk to actors about things because when they take on the role, they see a lot of things that I can't see. Do you think they will add drama themselves? This time it is less, this time the whole structure of the script is very tight, and the drama of the whole story tends to be financed that they don't know very well. The characters of previous Hong Kong films were very impulsive, quarreling at every turn, and pulling out guns at every turn, but this one is relatively mature, the characters are intrigues and intrigues, hiding things in their hearts, and the structure of the drama makes the things that would happen in Hong Kong films in the past less happen.
Andy Lau added a line to his role.
Tony Leung adds a bit of Liang style to his role.
What impressed me more was Andy (Andy Lau) told me that "men will become bad if they are rich, and women will be rich if they become bad", I listened to it and felt that it was of course good, better than the lines I originally thought, so I added it; Wei Tsai (Tony Leung) The role was not like this, it was originally gloomy and declining (low character), he was acting, and one day he added the idea of an "atomic bomb" and asked me if I could do it. I asked him why he was doing this overtime, and he said that he suddenly felt that this character should be like this, and that the character's energy should be more exposed for others to see. He reminded me all day long not to touch him, he was afraid that he would hit people after entering the play. He felt that he had become an untouchable, unoffended person when he acted. At first, I was skeptical that it was going to be such an exaggeration, so we made an insurance version in the first week. After watching it in the second week, we decided not to shoot the insurance version anymore, and all followed his direction. That's the play they added in.
Nandu Entertainment: Compared with your original script, have you changed a lot of things in today's finished film, and what are some of the things that have deepened your understanding of the whole story?
Zhuang Wenqiang: The original script, it depends on when you said it was originally, if you say that the script in 2017 must be different from now, because there is an epidemic in the middle, we can't find the scene, so I rewrote it all the way. But I didn't think much of what I was trying to do, and if I think something is interesting, I'll let it happen anyway. However, some plots may have taken two or three scenes to finish, and I will condense them into one scene.
Nandu Entertainment: You already had a lot of details about the financial industry when you wrote the "Eavesdropping" series, and "Goldfinger" also involved financial fraud, what is the special charm of the financial world for you?
Chong Man-keung: The reason why I made this story is because when I was a child, there were many stock market crashes in Hong Kong, which had a lot of impact on my life. Someone in my family buys stocks, and my friend's parents are on the run, so I started to have some interest in finance. After I learned about it, I realized that these things happen over and over again, not only in Hong Kong, but all over the world. I'm not writing this story entirely because I'm interested in finance, I don't think many people are going to rob anymore, and there are still a lot of movies about drugs, finance, and tech crimes, because these things are happening right now. Actually, I don't buy much stocks, the stocks I see are not a product, there is human nature in it. I asked people who are very rich in stocks, and in addition to selling stocks, they also sell properties and heavy metals, and they said that they are actually selling hope. Property prices in Hong Kong are notoriously expensive, and those who can't afford to buy a house are scolding, but guess whether the people who buy the property want the property price to fall, of course they don't. Real estate developers in Hong Kong are actually selling hope, and if you spend a lot of money to come in, the value will appreciate. The human part of this is worth writing as a story.
Nandu Entertainment: In addition to general data collection, were you influenced by other movies or TV series when filming this film?
Zhuang Wenqiang: "The Big Time" is one of my favorite TV series, and I like the style of the whole screenwriter. I say all day long that if you want to learn screenwriting, you just go to watch "The Great Era", until you don't know how to see it. In principle, all the things that can happen to human beings, "The Big Time" happens, and all the genres, "The Big Time" does. I can't really think of anything else. "The Wolf of Wall Street" is about a group of people who go to sell things, and they advertise that garbage can be sold very expensive. I only watched "The Wolf of Wall Street" once in the cinema or on TV, but I watched "Wall Street" more often, and that was when I was in middle school. "Wall Street" is actually about trading, about buying and selling stocks. In recent years, I have watched "The Big Short" a lot, and the reason why I have watched it many times is that "The Big Short" is too deep, and many people couldn't understand it at that time, and I watched it repeatedly to remind myself that I can't write things that are too deep, so that the audience can't understand them, how to make things very deep simple.
The movie "The Big Short".
2
The design of our whole play is theatrical
Nandu Entertainment: "Goldfinger" is warmly yellow in lighting, which often gives people a sense of illusion, what is the elegance of this movie in the lens?
Zhuang Wenqiang: The design of our whole play is a sense of stage. When I discussed the script with the cinematographer and art director after it came out, I had a vague feeling that they thought my script was too hard, there were a lot of realistic methods, and at the same time, I also had a few songs and dances. Because of the epidemic, we can't find the scene, we need to set up the scenery by ourselves, and building the scene by ourselves is to build the stage. We decided to start with Cheng Yiyan's office played by Wei Zai as a stage for character performances, so there is such an exaggerated office. For most of our extras, we are looking for dance teachers to rehearse, not for assistant directors. So when you see their movements, it's more theatrical, of course, it's not exaggerated to let them dance, but as soon as they hear the command, they will look at one side together, and take the first step with their left foot together when they start.
"Goldfinger" is warmly yellow in lighting, with a sense of stage.
南都娱乐：本片穿插了几首英文歌，如《Too Darn Hot》《Money, Power, Lies》《Let's Get to The Top》，歌名很明显对应了电影具体段落，我想问下为何选这几首英文歌而不是一些大家熟悉的经典广东歌？
Zhuang Wenqiang: It's not a choice, it's a new work. Classic songs are very expensive, such as the scene where Wei Tsai was raised, and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" was played, which was very expensive. I spent all day telling my young screenwriters that the script would say which song would be there, and then we would ask for the price, which was astronomical. I also wanted to buy a song by Elton John, no need to ask, two million starts (one million lyrics, one million music), maybe plus the lead singer, and then count, according to the international copyright. To tell the truth, if you ask Faye Wong and Eason Chan to sing a song, they are all millions. The content of the song corresponds to specific passages, which is what our music director Dai Wei thought.
抬起梁朝伟的那场戏，放的是《Can't Take My Eyes Off You》。
Nandu Entertainment: In the end, Cheng Yiyan said, "If you hadn't arrested me back then, the current shareholders would have been developed", Cheng Yiyan tied up the interests of Hong Kong people, and his downfall can be said to be a burning stone. In a way, do you think this character is a "necessary evil"?
Zhuang Wenqiang: You're right, that's why this kind of person is bound to appear. First of all, you have to understand what kind of industry finance is, for example, if you do media, you sell information, and finance sells money, and they really treat money as goods. To put it simply, for example, if the yen interest rate is low now, they will borrow the yen and come back to buy US dollars, the yen is 1 cent, the US dollar is 5 cents, as long as the difference in the exchange process is less than 5 percent, it is a net profit. They are doing money transactions, but Cheng Yiyan in the movie is outrageous in that when he went to borrow from the bank, he told the bank that the money he borrowed from the bank was to make double the money and come back, and the bank wondered if it would not be able to collect it. The bank will negotiate that since it has borrowed so much money, it can give more interest at that time, and the bank is actually doing business. borrowed 1 billion, but finally repaid 1.1 billion, so that the bank was willing to borrow, so Cheng Yiyan took 1 billion to invest in other things. "Necessary evil" does not mean that they do it specifically, but that they do it consistently. You might say that they've made so much money, why don't they take their own money out? If it's you, will you do it, the money is already in your pocket, you won't. "Necessary evil" here actually refers to the fact that our world works this way, but it depends on when everyone is not happy, and you fall into it when the world is working. They don't want to lose, and it's best to keep appreciating, but with "gravity", this kind of thing can't happen. I expect this to happen again in the future, and it will be even bigger.
Nandu Entertainment: Liu Qiyuan finally asked himself "Is it worth it to catch a person for more than ten years", he said, "It's not like that", in fact, he didn't answer this question positively, but questioned this question, what do you think Liu Qiyuan guarded in the end?
Zhuang Wenqiang: Do you think it's really unanswered? This question is also a question I ask myself all day long, is it worth it if I spend so much time making a movie all day long? What is the value of the audience just watching it? Why don't you spend time to do something more meaningful when you collect so much money and spend so much money to make a movie? This is something I can't stand on all day long, and this has something to do with the Hong Kong I live in.
Hong Kong says to be professional all day long, but Hong Kong is a place that does not respect professionalism. I have already talked about this movie at the beginning, Wei Zai's role and Hua Ge's (Ren Dahua) role said "I originally wanted to come to Hong Kong to build a house, but I didn't expect to become a speculator", Hua Ge scolded him "Don't dream, Hong Kong is not a place for dreaming". When I first started reading movies, people around me told me. At first, I studied engineering and then became an engineer, and then I paid my own tuition to study film. Hong Kong is such a place, and they don't think it's a big deal to pursue their ideals. Andy's Liu Qiyuan is a person who pursues professionalism, he used to be a police officer, and then he turned to ICAC, and then arrested corrupt police officers, you think about what he is carrying behind him. At that time, Cheng Yiyan also laughed at him. Andy also thought about this question, when he asked me, I told him "you are purely professional", his role is to believe that the law enforcer is to enforce the law, this is professionalism. In fact, this role failed twice, the first time he caught the corrupt police, who knew that in the end, the corrupt policemen in Hong Kong were pardoned, but this is also fate, the police who were once investigated by him saved him; the second time, after checking the civil servants and businesses, they were all failures, and Cheng Yiyan was only sentenced to three years in the end. How can you not ask the question of whether it is worth it, but if you ask me the answer, the answer really can't be counted like this, only to do it. It's the same thing I thought about making a movie, if I wanted to make a movie every time, I wouldn't be able to make it.
3
I cut all the familiar stuff
Nandu Entertainment: Many people will compare "Goldfinger" with "When the Wind Rises Again", the original version of "When the Wind Rises Again" has a duration of more than 6 hours, and it was finally cut to 2.5 hours, is the 2-hour duration of "Goldfinger" set at the beginning, or is it finally cut into 2 hours for the market?
Zhuang Wenqiang: I'm not exaggerating, my first version was 3 hours, and then I cut out some scenes and turned them into 2.5 hours, cutting out some scenes of love and love. After reading it, Zhang Shuping helped me cut it into the current 2-hour version. There won't be an extended version, but what you end up making already determines your approach to storytelling. I challenged some things this time, I gave up a lot of elements of previous Hong Kong films, such as you forcibly add an emotional line into it, and there are some grievances and hatreds, in fact, I have filmed, but I still gave up. I've watched the last few years, and people don't really want to see these things, and you see Oppenheimer, too, and it's only slightly mentioned in its emotional line. The film is much more complex than ours, it talks about atomic physics, it shows more characters than we do, and the three interrogations are cross-cut. When I watched Oppenheimer, we had already cut it, and what I saw was that we were all facing the same problem — we all chose to abandon the old way of expression. For example, I cut the scene where several brothers sit together and drink and call each other brothers. Looking back at these episodes now, it's really not good, I think it's so sour (ugly).
Nandu Entertainment: Will "Barbie", the global box office champion in 2023, also be another way out?
Zhuang Wenqiang: "Barbie" is even more outrageous, it is actually four stories, and it is also a slogan movie, which has been calling slogans. It's hard to say, when I went to the cinema to watch a movie in the past ten years, I noticed that many people in the mainland will play with their mobile phones when watching movies, as if they are watching movies live by themselves. I was Xi at first, but now I'm a little Xi to it. I found that making a movie requires greater sensual stimulation to stimulate the audience, and the plot cannot be dragged on. The movies I have liked in recent years, such as "The Worst Man in the World", are very good movies, but no one has watched them. "Past Life", it basically has no story, but why do so many people resonate? "Holiday After the Sun", the father and daughter go on a trip, it is filmed in the way of a home theater, but it has a great response. The recent "Fudu Youth", this movie actually has no story, just watching Wu Kangren's performance. Some people will come out and say that there is no story. In the three years of the epidemic, our whole concept has changed, audiences around the world are watching movies at home, good movies, bad movies, big productions, small productions, and even very alternative movies that they wouldn't watch before. Three years later, the worst thing happened, and "Mission Impossible 7: Deadly Reckoning (Part I)" failed. The failure of this movie is a big revelation, it can't be a bad movie, it's simply the ceiling of action movies on the planet, but why don't people watch it now? "Fast and Furious 10" is not like this, "The Expendables 4" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark 5" are all bad. And "Mission Impossible 7" also talks about AI, which is not without new things. Traditional commercial films are all gone, and now they are all alternative films, such as the rise of A24. The most popular movie recently is "The Voice of Freedom", which is about human trafficking, and it is very cleverly made, it seems to be an action movie, but it has never been hit.
Everyone's viewing Xi is different, and they no longer want to go into the theater to see familiar things. The clips I cut away are things that everyone will think will be familiar, and it is a pity that the backstory of Ah Sa's character was cut, in fact, her character Zhang Jiawen met with Cheng Yiyan before he was imprisoned, and she will also have a relationship with the later killer. But I'm afraid that everyone will think that it is the familiar things of "Wushuang" again, so I still cut it.
Zhuang Wenqiang said that it was a pity to cut the backstory of Ah Sa's character.
Nandu Entertainment: In this case, what creative directions do you think will break through in the future of Hong Kong films?
Zhuang Wenqiang: You haven't seen "Youth Diary" yet, don't worry, you will be able to see it later. The way to tell the story in "Youth Diary" is really not the kind it used to be, and it must follow the story. Let the story be as dramatic as it should be, rather than forcing drama. used to say that Hong Kong films were "all over-the-top and crazy", but if you watch too much, you will get tired of it, maybe after more than ten years, maybe everyone will like it again. The problem with several Hong Kong-made big action movies before is that the characters are too much, and the audience begins to feel that the characters are not like this.
Nandu Entertainment: In recent years, both the mainland and Hong Kong have a kind of nostalgia for Hong Kong in the past, do you think this nostalgic trend will in turn affect everyone to meet a new group of Hong Kong creators?
Zhuang Wenqiang: In the future, when you interview the creators of "Youth Diary" and "Under the White Sun", you will know the difference between them. You ask me if it will have an impact, and I will say it won't have a big impact, when will it have an impact, and you do something that comes out, and it's very profitable, and it will have a big impact. But I don't think that's going to happen.
Written by: Nandu reporter Liu Yifan
Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee