In 1989, Stephen Chow became a new idol on the Hong Kong screen with "Gestapo" and "He Comes from the Jianghu". During the propaganda period, when people constantly asked Zhou Xingchi how those "nonsensical" passages were written, Zhou Xingchi tirelessly explained to everyone: "This is the result of Wan Zi (Wan Ziliang), Hao Ge (Liu Jiahao), Da Ge (Wu Mengda) and me, as well as vigorous joint efforts!" ”
The person who was called "vigorous" by Stephen Chow is the famous Hong Kong director and screenwriter Li Lizhi.
Li Lizhi is the director of Stephen Chow's first unit drama "Brother's Girlfriend" and the creator of many classic dialogues in "Gestapo" and "He Comes from the Jianghu". After that, Stephen Chow bid farewell to the career of dragon set, and the two joined hands to open the famous "nonsense" era in the Hong Kong film industry.
The reason why Zhou Xingchi can become the "king of comedy" is largely due to the help and support of Li Lizhi and others behind him.
From acquaintance and friendship to the final disagreement and parting ways, this friendship has witnessed the glory and decline of Hong Kong cinema.
Today's story begins with the acquaintance of Zhou Xingchi and Li Lizhi.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" >01 week Li first acquaintance</h1>
One day in 1986, Zhou Xingchi, who had just been transferred to the DRAMA group of TVB, received a phone call from a man named Li Lizhi.
Li Lizhi was originally a warehouse manager, not from a science class. But he kept writing letters to Zhong Jinghui, a senior Hong Kong director and stage actor at the time, and wrote for several months that he finally impressed Zhong Jinghui, accepted him as an apprentice, and let him start as an assistant director.
At first, Li Lizhi worked for Asia Television, but he was always suffering from not having a chance.
Therefore, Zhong Jinghui recommended Li Lizhi to Li Tiansheng and jumped to TVB.
Unexpectedly, "the tree is dead, the people are moved to live", after arriving at TVB, Li Tiansheng arranged for him to be the director of the Taiqing unit drama "My Brother's Girlfriend".
Li Lizhi, who had just arrived, found two actors to perform this play, one was Wu Qihua and the other was Zhou Xingchi.
As for why they want to find them, because they are famous for daring to steal the scene, Wan Ziliang's drama dares to rob. And Li Lizhi is also famous for his love of stealing the limelight, and when he was an assistant director, he began to grab the limelight of the director. The so-called sympathy for each other, more or less.
Since this is the first time that Stephen Chow has starred, he is very nervous with his shy nature. After the actors were fixed, everyone went to Lantau Island to shoot, Li Lizhi asked Zhou Xingchi to wear a red dress, and the simple Zhou Xingchi really wore a red jacket.
After the drama was broadcast, Wan Ziliang set up a banquet to comfort the front and back of the stage, pointing at Li Lizhi and saying: "On a hot day, you let Xingzai wear a jacket, and you are not allowed to bully my apprentice after that." ”
Everyone laughed together, and in this way, Zhou Xingchi not only did not fight with Li Li and did not know each other, but also became Wan Ziliang's apprentice.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" >02 back pot man</h1>
After Zhou Xingchi became popular, Li Lizhi also officially became a film director from a warehouse manager. At the same time, he also became an executive producer, filming film and television dramas with Du Qifeng, Chen Musheng, Qiu Litao, and Zhuo Botang, among which Li Lizhi's "Tears of Heroes" and two episodes of "Yue Yu Fei Long" proved his good directing skills.
However, li Lizhi became a "back pot man" next.
After the release of the movie "Love Saint", the boss Xiang Huasheng walked out of the movie theater, and heard the audience scolding: "Li Li held the shooting of what things, thought it was watching "Hardcover Chasing Girls", but he made a single stick film, and fooled people with the title! ”
Li Li holds the words of suffering, because this movie is really Zhou Xingchi's "flying work", and how Xingye wants to play Li Lizhi cannot control it at all.
After the release of the film did not meet expectations, Li Li held the "cold bench" for several months.
There are many similar examples, when filming "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang", Zhou Xingchi pulled his classmate Li Jianren to a cameo, and Zhou Xingchi made Li Jianren string like a flower in order to spoof, and it was a beard, and it was a nostril, and the "upside down sentient beings" Ruhua destroyed Li Jianren's original restaurant boss image.
At the same time, in this movie, Zhou Xingchi subverted the previous images of Chen Baixiang, Zheng Peipei, Yuan Qiongdan and other actors.
We look at it with hindsight, the comedic effect is indeed out, but how do actors let go of psychological baggage when shooting? Who should explain the controversy that arises after the shooting?
These dirty and tiring tasks were all done by Li Li behind his back for Zhou Xingchi.
Gong Li, who is well known to everyone, is not willing to play an ugly "faceless" paragraph, and after being hyped up a few years ago, Gong Li herself came out to respond that she regretted it.
Li Lizhi said in the interview: "Gong Li's refusal to play ugly is that our communication is not in place, but I want to take this opportunity to praise her, never late, tantrum, play a big card, very actor morality, she just does not adapt to nonsense comedy." ”
The actual situation is that Gong Li regretted entering the crew of "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang", and she and Zhou Xingchi also had many unhappiness in the play, and Behind Li Lizhi was selfish, using a beautiful close-up to save Gong Li.
The same situation also appeared in the filming of "The King of Comedy", Cecilia Cheung auditioned with the first scene of the first episode of "Long Holiday", and Tomoko Yamaguchi went to Takuya Kimura's house to find her husband, because Chow Personally liked the love treatment of "Long Vacation".
As a result, Cecilia Cheung was selected, and Li Lizhi invited Hyuga Daisuke of "Long Holiday" to do the soundtrack after many hardships.
It is even more regrettable that the casting of this movie had an accident, originally planning to move the team lineup of "He Comes from the Jianghu", but Tian Qiwen sent a wrong notice, and did not contact Wan Ziliang when he contacted him, so he had to ask Wu Mengda, who was filming in the mainland at the time, to rescue the scene.
At that time, Wu Mengda had a high fever and was NG over and over again on the set, and Li Li couldn't bear it and let Zhou Xingchi come out to preside over the overall situation. Everyone is a friend: this side of the box, "Da ge" high fever does not retreat, it is very difficult to shoot; that side of the box, how to explain to Wan Ziliang?
Sandwiched in the middle, Li Lizhi is very uncomfortable, because this movie is the brand head of Zhou Xingchi's company (Xinghui), Li Lizhi does not intervene, but Li Lizhi is also the director of this movie - temporary change of roles, the director did not notify the actors?
Li Lizhi had to text wan ziliang himself to explain, and at the same time he also designed a classic bridge section with Zhou Xingchi to pay tribute to Wan Ziliang: the scene where Yin Tianqiu and Du Juan'er (Karen Mok) had a runny nose when they auditioned, which was taken from the end of "Rogue Tycoon", and Wan Ziliang's snot remained on Zheng Yuling's face.
So we look at it with hindsight: Zhou Xingchi is a pure person, and he can do the ultimate for his artistic pursuits. But filmmaking is a team job after all; when he insists on going his own way, someone is fine as a "back pot man", leaving these people who do dirty and tired work behind their backs, and he often does not please himself while he is tired. This can be seen through the word of mouth of his later film works.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="55" > resentful</h1>
Many people believe that Stephen Chow's becoming the "King of Comedy" originated from the "Journey to the West" series.
In fact, after Zhou Xingchi and Li Lizhi filmed "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang" and "The King of Destruction", people called it "Xingye".
At that time, the two had already consciously begun to eliminate the dross in "nonsense" and were ready to wave north, but Zhou Xingchi turned around at this time to cooperate with Liu Zhenwei, and the box office failed.
What is intriguing is that the two also cooperated in the previous year with the best work "Domestic 007" with double success in word-of-mouth and box office.
At that time, although the investment in this film was close to 20 million, the boss Xiang Huasheng believed that "the title alone is worth 5 million, you can shoot it."
So after the success of this movie, when Li Li originally planned to shoot "008 Rescue Da Wenxi" with Zhou Xingchi, Zhou Xingchi had no intention of starring, and then decided that Liang Jiahui would play 008, but in the end it was not filmed; then prepared "009", asked Liu Qingyun and Gu Tianle to co-perform, the press conference was released, and the heroine Yang Ziqiong's "Flying Eagle" failed, and the whole plan became a bubble.
The failure of the "Journey to the West" series made Zhou Xingchi think bitterly and decided to re-shoot the subject he was good at. However, when it came to filming "Night of the Returning Soul" and "The Great Inner Secret Agent Zero Zero Hair", Li Lizhi only acted and did not direct, and Zhou Xingchi's co-director became Gu Dezhao.
Li Lizhi said sadly: "Gu Dezhao and I used to be good friends, he said he wanted to be a director, I would teach him." But when he really became a director, the combination of Zhou Xingchi, Li Lizhi, and Gu Dezhao suddenly disintegrated, and the story that he thought of could be sold by himself, everyone was a director, and it was inevitable that they were all enemies! ”
As soon as Li Li held this, the media was in an uproar, and the honest Luo Jiaying also expressed similar views.
Therefore, when Zhou Xingchi filmed "Shaolin Football", Luo Jiaying, who originally had a role, finally did not have the opportunity to star, and Li Lizhi, who was originally a director, became an executive director.
At this time, Zhou Xingchi made a comeback with the shadow of the failure of the "Journey to the West" series, and the scene was very serious.
Zhou Xingchi was angry because Zhao Wei did not want to strip his head, Tian Qiwen was hospitalized for filming the scene of the beer bottle smashing his head, and Li Lizhi was scolded for several hours and other news came out endlessly.
It was hard to wait for the movie to be released, but Li Lizhi said publicly in the media: "Except for me and Gu Dezhao, there will be no other one who can continue to be friends after being scolded by him!" ”
The media interpreted it as the two people breaking up and opposing each other, which is actually taken out of context, because Li Lizhi also said later: "It is not a problem that cannot be tolerated, as a director, his kind of scolding I will understand, sometimes suffered for many hours, those vents are not considered scolding?" The children did not have overnight feuds, and the brother class did not care about these. ”
But it is undeniable that Li Lizhi moved out of his office at Xinghui Company after the release of "Shanglin Football", and the two have not cooperated since.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="77" > drifting away</h1>
After Parting Ways, Lee Lee and Stephen Chow went to the mainland to develop, writing books, opening film and television schools, studying gastronomy, and traveling east and west for the development of the Greater Bay Area.
Someone asked him about Zhou Xingchi again, and he thought about it: "As an artist, he has played to the extreme; as a director, I also congratulate and thank him for having so many wonderful performances in front of me, which is enough!" ”
On June 29, 2021, Li Lizhi excitedly announced on the social platform: "This year, Li Lizhi, who has been promoted to the elderly, takes the bus for free, thank you to my country!" ”
Some netizens asked him: "Iron leg floating on the water" still has the opportunity to cooperate with Ling Lingqi and Dawenxi?
Li Lizhi did not reply, perhaps the answer was not even known to himself.
For Zhou Xingchi, after cooperating with Du Qifeng in "Death Judge" and "Jigong", the two did not cooperate anymore; after cooperating with Li Lizhi in "Shaolin Football", the two did not cooperate anymore; after cooperating with Liu Zhenwei in the "Journey to the West" series, the two did not cooperate anymore; after cooperating with Wang Jing in "Thousand Kings 2000", the two did not cooperate anymore...
He became the "King of Comedy", standing at the top, standing tall and hanging from the shadows, and the heights were cold!
Some time ago, Zhou Xingchi was exposed to be recovered 70 million commissions by his ex-girlfriend Yu Wenfeng, and 841 million yuan in liquidated damages by the New Culture Film and Television Company, and many small partners naively left messages in Li Li's comment area: "Why don't you help him?" ”
But when you understand the beginning and end of the two people's grudges, think about it: how can Li Lizhi help Zhou Xingchi?
Economically, not to mention, in the movie, Chow Sing Chi's "Bruce Lee" that has been preparing for filming since the 1990s has not yet started, the release time of "Mermaid 2", "Kung Fu 2", "Tai Chi" and "Monkey King" is far away, and the blueprint of his Journey to the West series has only drawn "three strokes"... After all, Zhou Xingchi is only one year younger than Li Lizhi, and he is also a 59-year-old white-haired old man!
Today's Zhou Xingchi has truly achieved monopoly of power. However, the most urgent issue before him is to finish the film as soon as possible. After all, there are still so many people in the company waiting to eat, and the audience is still looking forward to his performance.
Throughout the film industry, very few people can do all the work of actors, directors, and film and television company owners. If Zhou Xingchi can do it, people's evaluation of him will reach a new height. If it doesn't work, the law that "the core of comedy is tragedy" will be reproduced in him.
In any case, the best partner of Zhou Li from the final mutual appreciation to the final strange road, it is really regrettable. Let's end with a poem by the Tang Dynasty poet Xu Hun.
Lao Ge twisted the boat, and the red leaves and green mountains and water rapids.
The sunset wine is far away, and the wind and rain are all over the West Building.