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Have you watched the last few popular Hong Kong films?
"The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" is a hot-blooded and exciting Hong Kong-style cool film close to everyone's memory, and the director is Zheng Baorui, who just won the best director for "Murder" at the Academy Awards;
"Under the White Sun" and "Youth Diary" are real-life Hong Kong films, which also have a big reputation, with scores of 8 and 8.4 on Douban.
"Under the White Sun" is about abuse in social welfare institutions, and "Youth Diary" is about the suicide of teenagers.
Hidden under such a judgment is actually a misreading of Hong Kong films.
That's right, on the surface, Hong Kong movies are swords, guns, sticks, and sticks + handsome men and beautiful women, and they are a lively group of warblers singing and dancing.
But in fact, those are just a kind of disguise for Hong Kong films.
Realistic films have always been the favorite of the Academy Awards
At the Academy Awards some time ago, there was a scene that many people were unhappy about: "The Bad Tongue Lawyer" defeated "Under the White Sun" and won the best picture.
In addition, Lin Baoyi lost to Tony Leung's "Goldfinger" and lost the Golden Statue actor, so many people are saying that the Academy Awards are still too old-fashioned, and it is becoming more and more difficult for low-cost realistic films to be recognized in this industrial system.
Goldfinger
There is some truth to such a comment.
After all, a big reason why "The Bad Tongue Lawyer" has gained so much recognition is because it broke the box office record of Hong Kong movies, and for a sluggish market, more such films are needed to boost morale.
That's right, but it's also a bit one-sided, "The Bad Tongue Lawyer" itself is also using the packaging of cool films to reflect the real problems of Hong Kong society.
"The Bad Tongue Lawyer"
Speaking of the Academy Awards itself, its affirmation of reality-themed films has also exceeded many people's imagination.
In the years when the Academy Awards were first awarded, most of the best films were given to small-budget films.
They are also realistic themes.
For example, the best movie in the first session was given to Fang Yuping's "Father and Son". It is a "sketch" about the Chinese-style father-son relationship, which aims at Hong Kong's civilian society and is a masterpiece of Hong Kong realistic films.
Its box office is only more than one million, not only did it not cause any movie-watching craze, but it didn't even cause much discussion, which was much smaller than the splash of "Under the White Sun".
And most of the subsequent editions were like that.
For example, the second best film was given to Xu Anhua's "Running to the Angry Sea", the third best film was given to Fang Yuping's "Half of the People", and the fourth best film was given to Yan Hao's "The Year of Flowing Water...... Later, Zhang Wanting's "Illegal Immigrant" and Fang Yuping's "American Heart", these low-cost, realistic works have all been affirmed by the best director.
Perhaps we can say that the Academy Awards were created to affirm these high-quality reality films that have little impact on the market.
This is inseparable from the rise of the New Wave.
At the end of the 70s, a group of filmmakers who studied abroad returned to Hong Kong, such as Tsui Hark, Hui Anhua, and Tam Ka-ming, who first polished their work on TV for a few years, and once they moved to the big screen, they started what we call the new wave of Hong Kong directors.
These movies were different from the fist (kung fu movie) plus pillow (Fengyue film) that was popular at the time.
Although they still follow the framework of genre films, such as action movies and horror films, they actually tell about real Hong Kong social problems.
For example, Tsui Hark's "Type 1 Danger", like "Diary of a Youth", talks about the problem of students in Hong Kong.
The movie comes from a social news, and this news was revealed at the beginning, on the radio, a voice read: "This afternoon, the bodies of two 13-year-old students were found in Aberdeen Primary School, and it is said that these two students may be playful ......"
Under the influence of these films, Hong Kong films have gradually formed a vein of realistic themes.
There is a continuation of the directors of the New Wave here.
For example, Xu Anhua, I still remember the emotion when I saw "Woman, Forty" many years later.
Under the plain lens language, it honestly tells the internal and external difficulties of a middle-aged woman, as well as her complex heart.
Especially the shrewdness of bargaining when buying fish at the beginning, the shrewdness and wisdom of a commoner housewife, we rarely even see it in other movies.
Woman, Forty
In addition to the directors of the New Wave, there are many more who follow.
For example, Er Dongsheng's "The True Story of the Crazy Guy", Jiang David's "Invisible Talk", Zhang Zhiliang's "Caged People", etc., etc., they are the same as films like "Under the Daylight", they care about the stories around them, as well as the most real life at the bottom.
Caged People
It's a pity that such a plain reality film was gradually forgotten because of its lack of commerciality.
Today, when we talk about Hong Kong films, we often talk about Wang Jing and Wu Yusen, not Fang Yuping and Yan Hao.
But has this tradition really disappeared?
Practical problems are the root of Hong Kong films
Tsui Hark and Ann Hui have caused a certain degree of influence, but at the same time they have not been able to generate sufficient box office returns for the same reason: in their films, the perception of reality is stronger than the entertainment attribute.
This has led to a gradual tilt of the scales in an era when the box office is king.
After all, film is an art for the public, and in a normal market environment, what should be what the people care about, filmmakers will shoot.
But do people only care about entertainment? In fact, they care about the reflection of reality beyond the senses.
Not to mention firewood, rice, oil and salt, who wouldn't pay attention to the unreasonable things that happened around them?
So in such a situation, the focus on practical problems has already been injected into the bones of these filmmakers.
Take comedy, for example.
Xu Guanwen, the king of the first generation of comedy, basically shoots subjects of various social problems.
For example, "Deed of Sale".
It is talking about the "Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" in that era, the workers worked tirelessly and tirelessly for the capitalists, and if you couldn't create profits for them, you could only be abandoned by the system and jump from high-rise buildings.
Deed of Sale
And what about Stephen Chow, the king of comedy of the second generation?
On the surface, his films are nonsensical, funny, and unreasonable.
But if you look at the characters in his films, as well as the behavior, gangsters, capitalists, real estate developers, etc., they are actually derived from his life experience in Hong Kong society.
Take, for example, his most recent "The New King of Comedy".
The story is about chasing dreams, but under the cloak of chasing dreams, what we can see is the difficulties and slim prospects of a large number of low-level group performances.
To put it bluntly, he is standing in the position of the masses at the bottom, speaking for them and cheering them up.
The New King of Comedy
And what about those movies where the warblers sing and dance and shout and kill?
The same is true.
Jackie Chan's "Police Story", policeman Chen Jiaju risked his life to arrest the big drug lord, a standard police and bandit action movie.
The scene in the movie where you drive through the village and down the hill is indeed visually bursting and cool, but have you noticed the house halfway up the mountain?
In the process, we saw the problem of shantytowns, old and shabby, disorganized, with chickens, geese and ducks flying around a single wooden board separating generations...... It is in stark contrast to the residential areas of the wealthy.
Police Story
The shantytown was filmed according to the reality of that era.
Therefore, practical problems are the root of Hong Kong films.
Although it is bizarre on the surface, and there are many strange case themes, it goes to the extreme of being a dog and a horse, which makes people ignore the way it should be.
But in the end, this is the starting point of Hong Kong films.
fades away from the flashiness, this is the true face of Hong Kong films
Back to the current topic of Hong Kong films.
It is not so much that these Hong Kong films are "new", but rather a return, a return to explore the most essential issues of Hong Kong films.
For example, the problem of dementia people in "Under the White Sun", has anyone filmed it before?
Yes, there are not too many movies such as "Why Have Me" and "The True Story of the Crazy Guy", and they all caused a certain repercussion back then.
"Why Have Me" - "Fat Cat Wandering"
The student question of "Youth Diary", has anyone filmed it?
In the early years, "Pretty Girl" and "The Owl and Dumbo" were all movies that focused on student issues.
It's not that these current films are talking about playing the rest of the predecessors, but that the realistic themes of Hong Kong movies have actually continued, and they have never been broken.
It's a pity that these Hong Kong films are not only in the mainland, but also at the box office in Hong Kong.
"Diary of a Youth"
"Under the White Sun" and "Young Diary" will have a box office of more than 10 million in the mainland, but in Hong Kong, it will only cross 20 million, and this is almost the highest level of this kind of film.
There is such a point of view in the Hong Kong film circle, which means that these directors who shoot Hong Kong reality films often have no commercial thinking, resulting in the film not being a blockbuster, and there will be no movies to make after that.
Of course, there is some truth to this view, but at the end of the day, most people actually believe that such stories have nothing to do with "me".
These are just distant cries.
They need stories that are emotional, that can trigger physiological empathy, and they need films that match their imaginations.
Just like "Disappearing Her" or "All or Nothing", just looking at the synopsis, we will think that these are realistic movies, but the question is, do they really discuss real problems?
The realistic theme is just a coat, and what is hidden in it is nothing more than the logic of a cool film, and it is just emotional incitement.
On this basis, we can say that it is not that Hong Kong films can't go out, but that movies that don't vote for the audience's favor can't go out.
This is not only a Hong Kong film, but also a very real problem faced by Chinese films.
But even so, we are still happy to see Hong Kong films become what they are now, or in other words, if we take off the flashy coat, we will find that this is the true face of Hong Kong films.
In the past, we often said that Hong Kong films were all over-the-top and crazy, and the result of this was that we would think that Hong Kong films were only over-the-top and crazy.
"Explosive Point"
In fact, the so-called excesses and madness are only temperament and not essence.
In fact, the background color of Hong Kong films has always started from the bottom, it does not do those high-minded serious discussions, does not shoot those artistic experiments that are pretentious, it has always stood with the people.
Without the underlying perspective, there will be no glory of Hong Kong films.
Now that the coat of entertainment has been abandoned, it is difficult for such low-level care to cause any kind of sensation, but we still hope that it can last longer at the moment when traffic is king.
After all, movies are meant to be that.
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