1905 Movie Network Special Counterattack! Reverse the fall! The Hong Kong movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" is full of stamina, and the more you fight, the more courageous you become.
The film has risen from the waist position of the schedule to the first place at the single-day box office. The industry also has high expectations for this, and the film schedule has risen, especially the proportion of prime shows is increasing, and the platform has raised its predicted box office many times.
Not only has the market responded well, but the film has maintained a score of 7.5 since the opening of Douban, becoming the new film with the highest reputation during the schedule. Needless to say, the film "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" (hereinafter referred to as "Kowloon Walled City") broke the deadlock of Hong Kong action in the film market in the past few years.
In recent years, Hong Kong films have been repeatedly criticized for talent faults and lack of talent. Especially in the past few years, Andy Lau, Leung Ka-fai, Aaron Kwok, Louis Koo, Cheung Ka-fai, Liu Qingyun, these veteran filmmakers have been constantly adjusted into new combinations and appeared in different films like a transfer formula.
"Kowloon Walled City" features Lin Feng, Liu Junqian, Hu Zitong, and Zhang Wenjie...... These relatively fresh faces are dominant, and they have taken the stage one after another and become the key core of the film. Even in the movie, the characters they played and the talker played by Louis Koo completed the handover, and at that moment the intertextuality seemed to be achieved inside and outside the play, and the spirit of Hong Kong cinema was also inherited.
Louis Koo also said that the future of Hong Kong action movies still has to be handed over to the next generation.
"In the future, we have the ability to be like Boss Gu, and we must continue this spirit." In an interview with the "Dialogue" column of the 1905 Film Network, Lin Feng, Liu Junqian, Hu Zitong, and Zhang Wenjie sighed.
This time, "Kowloon Walled City" has made Hong Kong movies stand up!
01.
Fierce, fierce, and extreme, the action scenes of "Kowloon Walled City" have primitive ruthlessness, hearty martial arts design, and combined with the bloody exaggeration of Hong Kong comics, to create a violent aesthetic of extreme madness.
Director Zheng Baorui's action scenes are mostly like this.
The film is adapted from the novel of the same name, and the novel has been adapted into a classic comic of the same name, and the origin of the creation blueprint has laid the foundation for the action of the film.
For this reason, Zheng Baorui found Kenji Tanigaki, who was born in the "Zhen family class".
In his early days, he integrated MMA (mixed martial arts) into Hong Kong action movies with Donnie Yen, and created classic action movies such as "Kill the Wolf", "Fuse", and "Rage: Serious Case". At the same time, Kenji Tanigaki, who is deeply influenced by the two-dimensional culture of Japanese comics and games, participated in the movie "Rogue Kenshin", which is the "ceiling" of manga movies in the hearts of a group of people.
Kenji Tanigaki's action style is known for being realistic and fast, and he has high requirements for actors. is different from Sammo Hung and other predecessors who were born in dragon and tiger martial artists, especially Lin Feng, Liu Junqian, Hu Zitong, Zhang Wenjie and others. Especially Liu Junqian, who plays Xinyi, has mostly starred in literary films in the past, and "Kowloon Walled City" is his rare action movie, which is extremely challenging.
To this end, the four of them conducted more than a month of action training before turning on the machine.
The crew has arranged an exclusive martial arts group teacher for each of them, and in addition to the basic martial arts movements, there will also be other training adapted to the character setting.
"The hardest part is physical training, but each shoot is 15 or 18 hours, and the training is enough for us to cope with the more than 10 hours of shooting. Of course, everyone suffered different injuries, big and small, but by helping each other, we were able to finish in a good state. Among the four, Hu Zitong, the youngest, said.
In the past in the industrial system of Hong Kong films, there were few cases where actors were left for such a long time to conduct special training. Faced with this experience, "Big Brother" Lin Feng said bluntly, "I really need it!" ”
Similar to the habit of director Wei Jiahui, who also walked out of the film system of Galaxy Images, director Zheng Baorui did not give the actors a complete script in the early stage. And Lin Feng, Hu Zitong, and Zhang Wenjie, who have experience in "Detective Wars", shouted that they were "deceived" by the director again, and many times they received the script on the set, "When we go to the scene, we rely on what we have learned in training to create." ”
Not only that, the scene design and camera scheduling of "Kowloon Walled City" are quite difficult, "We often go to the scene and collide with a lot of improvised things, and sometimes the effect is more realistic and better-looking." ”
02.
In this action movie, Liu Junqian and Zhang Wenjie are the two extremes of the "Four Youths in the Walled City" action scenes - the former has never had no experience in shooting action movies in the past, and the latter has even served as an action director in many low-budget action movies.
Liu Junqian's first fight scene in "Kowloon Walled City" was Chen Luojun played by Lin Feng, "I was actually quite nervous at that time, and I had to shoot more than 20 shots in almost every shot. ”
Shinichi is good at using butterfly knives, but it is not easy to become proficient in using a short and capable butterfly knife.
Even Nicholas Tse, who already has a foundation in kung fu, spent a lot of effort in order to practice the butterfly knife when filming "Rage: Serious Case". Liu Junqian, who learned from scratch this time, is even more so, "As long as I rest, I will continue to practice, and others will rest, I will continue to practice, and even practice until the end retching." ”
After the movement director Kenji Tanigaki saw it, he would only ask him to "vomit and continue practicing." ”
Even so, the director and the action director still have high expectations of him, "I think it's okay, just because I'm new enough, and my brothers are very supportive, which is a good thing, which means that I slowly went from 0 to 1 during the whole filming process." "Just like the character's name, Shinichi.
Although it was the first time to make an action movie, Liu Junqian still embedded small ideas in the performance design. In the final battle against Wang Jiu, there was a classic flying kick, "This action was added by Kenji Tanigaki, because this is a very classic action in Hong Kong action movies." ”
For Zhang Wenjie, ""Kowloon Walled City" is the coolest time in his martial arts career. ”
Kenji Tanigaki never repeats in action design, although the previous actual combat action has "Slaying the Wolf", and the comic-style action also has "Wave Swordsman Heart", but he will always have innovation to leave new works, "He doesn't have any special requirements for us, just try to relax and do it, make your own characteristics, don't learn to imitate anything, and play everyone's different style." ”
Although Zhang Wenjie's Sizai played a very good fight, he suffered a special loss in styling, wearing a mask for 80% of the scenes, "When I first went to do the modeling, I was still talking about why I was under the 'bottoms'." After the filming started, they all said it was very handsome. Later, after slowly getting into the role, I felt like it was a part of my body. ”
When the director subsequently allowed him to show his face, he felt that the time had not yet come, "This mask really gave me a lot of ideas to integrate into the character." ”
03.
In the movie "Kowloon Walled City", when the tornado played by Louis Koo was protecting the four people, he said to Xinyi through the roller shutter door, "How will you be a big brother in the future?" At that moment, Tornado passed the identity of the person who spoke to Shinichi.
Outside the movie, Louis Koo, the speaker of Hong Kong movies in everyone's eyes, seems to be handing over the stick of Hong Kong action movies to this group of young people.
At the Hong Kong Film Awards Awards in recent years, whether it is the guest or the winner, they will always say at the end of their speech, "Come on Hong Kong films!" ”
The decline of Hong Kong films has long been a cliché, and these actors, as experiencers in this era, as participants in the history of Hong Kong films, are working hard.
There is a line in the movie, "If you don't watch it now, I don't know if you will have to watch it in the future." This is also what Zhang Wenjie hopes to leave to the audience outside the play. In recent years, he has opened a movement training studio so that more people who are interested in it can learn.
He and Hu Zitong also starred in "Spreading Anger" starring Andy Lau and Nicholas Tse in the follow-up; and now Xinyi, who is favored by many audiences, Liu Junqian partnered with Wu Yanzu and Wu Kangren to star in the "Cold War Prequel" series; Lin Feng's topic and follow-up works do not need to be elaborated too much.
At the end of the movie, the four of them sit on the rooftop, watching the sunset in the distance, and the plane in the sky is passing by, as if it is also a hope for the future.
"Times are changing, in reality, the Kowloon Walled City no longer exists, it is something that the previous generation inherited from us, and we hope to use our own modest strength to continue to transmit this spirit." This was what Lin Feng thought Chen Luojun was thinking at that time.
Liu Junqian thinks that Xinyi is thinking in his heart, "As long as everyone is together, some things will not change." ”
Isn't all this exactly the footnote that this group of young people has drawn to Hong Kong action movies?
Look, there are still them in the future.