In the early 1990s, the development of Hong Kong films entered its final golden period. At this time, Hong Jinbao fell into the bottleneck period of his career.
At the end of the 1980s, the box office of film works such as "Oriental Condor" and "Dragon Drama Phoenix" suffered setbacks, which put "Hong Jiaban" facing huge economic pressure. In the early 1990s, as the competition in the Hong Kong film market became more and more fierce, Hong Jinbao's "Baohe Film" was also discontinued in 1992.
After the closure of the "Baohe Film", Hong Jinbao's directing career completely fell into a trough. Because of "steady losses and no profits", the filmmakers are unwilling to invest and shoot for Hong Jinbao, and even the old owner "Jiahe" is not willing to contribute generously to him.
When Hong Jinbao was in a difficult situation, a senior Hong Kong film producer reached out to him, and this person was Luo Wei.
When he was young, Luo Wei was a famous director of kung fu films, and Bruce Lee's "Big Brother Tangshan" and "Jingwumen" were his representative works.
In the mid-1970s, Luo Wei began to transform into a producer, and the first kung fu actor he discovered was Jackie Chan. However, later Jackie Chan left Luo Wei and entered "Jiahe". Of course, these are all afterwords.
From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, Luo Wei ran two film companies, "Four-Dimensional Pictures" and "Wanli Pictures".
Although these two companies have not produced "landmark Hong Kong film works", with their accurate control of the low-cost Hong Kong film market, Luo Wei has also ensured the stable operation of the two companies.
In 1992, when Hong Jinbao was in distress, Luo Wei's "Wanli Pictures" funded "Hong Jiaban" to complete the filming of the movie "Mr. New Zombie". Unfortunately, the "zombie film market" in the early 90s was in a downturn, and after the release of "New Mr. Zombie", it also suffered a major setback at the box office.
After the market failure of "Mr. New Zombie", Hong Jinbao is eager to revive the name of "Hong Jia Ban" through a new work. And Luo Wei also hopes to recover the loss of "New Mr. Zombie" through a high-level work.
In the early 1990s, the "Huang Feihong" series cooperated by Xu Ke and Jet Li was highly respected in the market. At this time, Luo Wei hoped to imitate the characteristics of "Huang Feihong" and shoot a film of the same type.
Hong Jinbao is very much in favor of this idea. So in 1993, "Wanli Pictures" invested in "One Knife and Allure" directed by Hong Jinbao, which officially entered the Hong Kong film market.
"A Knife to the City" was a lot of investment and excellent quality, but it failed to be recognized by the audience at the time, and the box office performance was dismal. And Luo Wei's "Wanli Pictures" has also become precarious because of the loss of this "One Knife in the City".
The two cooperations not only failed to achieve market benefits, but also put "Wanli Pictures" in a deep predicament, and Hong Jinbao was very guilty about it.
In order to help "Wanli Pictures" tide over the difficulties, in 1996, Hong Jinbao found a group of friends in the circle, and shot the action comedy "Fortune Five Luck Stars" under the label of "Wanli Pictures".
In this issue, we will talk about this "Fortune Five Luck Stars", and at the same time, talk about the past of Hong Jinbao and the film industry of "Wanli Pictures".
In the early 1990s, "martial arts films" and "gambling films" could be described as two major creative themes with great box office appeal above the Hong Kong film market.
Works such as "Undefeated in the East of the Smiling Pride of the Rivers and Lakes" and "New Dragon Gate Inn" successfully set off a "martial arts boom" in the Hong Kong film market at that time. And works such as "God of Gamblers" and "Gamblers" have broken box office records again and again.
In 1994, Wang Jing's "God of Gamblers 2", with a box office performance of more than 52 million, defeated Jackie Chan's "Drunken Fist 2" and Zhou Xingchi's "Domestic Lingling Paint", and successfully won the box office championship.
At this time, Hong Jinbao, who was immersed in the bitter fruit of the defeat of "A Knife in the City", could not help but focus his attention on the theme of "gambling film".
In this "Fortune Five Luck Stars", Hong Jinbao imitated Wang Jing and integrated the "gambling film" element into the "Five Lucky Stars" story.
At the beginning of the movie, Shangguan Feihua (played by Gong Xuehua) went out of the thousands in the "Gambling Competition", defeated the "gambling king" Lei Tian (played by Chen Guantai), and became a new generation of "gambling kings".
After the game, Lei Tian died of depression. Shangguan Feihua, in the name of "gambling king", vigorously engaged in "charity gambling competitions" and took advantage of the opportunity to "launder money" behind his back.
Cao Sir (played by Cao Dahua) is an old friend of Lei Tian, and he is aware of Shangguan Feihua's suspicion of "money laundering", but there is no evidence.
In public and private, Cao Sir wanted to deal with Shangguan Feihua, so he summoned the "Five Blessing Stars" and hoped that they would handle the case.
Summoned by Cao Sir, Rhino Skin (played by Feng Quanfan), Da Sheng Di (played by Wu Yaohan), Luo Han Guo (played by Zeng Zhiwei), and Ginseng (played by Miao Qiaowei) arrive one by one, but Partridge Cai (played by Hong Jinbao) is unable to attend the appointment because of a leg injury.
For the sake of the "Five Blessings", Partridge appointed his cousin, the Shaolin monk "Qingpu Liang" (played by Liu De), to come to the appointment instead of himself.
After the gathering of Wufuxing, Cao Sir explained the specific circumstances of the case and arranged for "female police superintendent" Ah Yan (played by Feng Xiuyan) to be responsible for the operation.
After listening to the task, Citi Ginseng, Luo Han Guo and others all cried bitterly and tired, and played the drum of retreat. Ah Yan said that "Hui Lin", the daughter of "Gambling King" Lei Tian (played by Ye Fanghua), will also participate in this action. When everyone saw Huilin's sexy figure, they were determined to stick to the task and eliminate the evil.
In fact, Hui Lin, who has a sexy body, is not Lei Tian's daughter. Ah Yan, who is in charge of directing the operation, is lei tian's daughter.
Cao Sir knew that the Five Lucky Stars were lustful, and if there were no beautiful women to accompany them, they would not go on a mission at all. Therefore, Cao Sir found Hui Lin, the "Flower of Chinatown", and lured several people to complete the task.
Due to the lack of partridge dishes, Cao Sir was worried about the safety of the "Five Lucky Stars" in the operation, so he arranged a "SWAT team member" to secretly protect everyone. Coincidentally, this "SWAT team member" looks exactly like partridge vegetables, and his name is "Kohlrabi" (played by Hong Jinbao).
Cao Sir hopes that Wufuxing will blend into the "Charity Gambling Competition" to find out the situation of Shangguan Feihua, so he arranges for the "Gambling Bully" (played by Zheng Peipei) to teach Wufuxing "Gambling Skills".
Kiyoura Liang was the most talented and soon understood the skills taught by the "gambling bully", but he was a monk and insisted on refusing to go to the "gambling table".
The rest of the four lucky stars, while taking the opportunity to rub oil on Hui Lin, while studying carelessly, but also learned a lot of "gambling skills".
Partridge, who lives in the hospital, heard that the operation was paid 100 million, so he planned to sneak out of the hospital and participate in the operation. Unfortunately, he was stopped by the female nurse "Adam" (played by Peng Dan) on duty.
After a fist-and-foot fight, Partridge was trapped by Adam, and in desperation, he wrote to the Four Lucky Stars for help. However, the four lucky stars are immersed in the "gentle township" and do not pay any attention to partridge vegetables.
Seeing that the Fuxing had achieved success, the "gambler" decided to conduct a test for everyone.
Just as the so-called ten gambles and nine deceptions, the "gambling bully" found the "Thousand Kings" (played by Chen Baixiang) and let the four lucky stars and Hui Lin cooperate to make a game to see if they could deceive the "Thousand Kings".
At the poker table, Si FuXing and Hui Lin cooperated tacitly, but in the end they lost to the "Thousand Kings". Qingpu Liang, who was observing from the sidelines, found that when the "gambler" dealt cards, he always helped the "Thousand Kings" to cheat, which led to the failure of everyone.
"Gambler" tells Sifuxing that some seemingly just people are actually the most unjust. Lei Tian lost to Shangguan Feihua before, because the "dealer" on the day of the game accepted bribes and secretly helped Shangguan Feihua cheat.
After the end of the game, the "Thousand Kings" left, and at the same time took the money of the lucky stars. However, this money was originally the cost of the lucky stars to participate in the "Charity Gambling Competition".
In order to raise funds and participate in the "Charity Gambling Competition", Cao Sir came up with a brilliant idea for several Lucky Stars.
Cao Sir arranged for an undercover agent to approach Shangguan Feihua and find out the vault where she hid the money, and then asked the Fuxing to go and steal, and use Shangguan Feihua's money to defeat Shangguan Feihua in the "Charity Gambling Contest".
However, when the Fuxing took action, some accidents occurred. Although the money arrived, Ah Yan was arrested. At this time, everyone found out that Ah Yan was Lei Tian's daughter.
While participating in the "Charity Gambling Competition", he also wants to rescue Ah Yan.
The "Five Lucky Stars" soldiers are divided into two ways, Qingpu Liang is responsible for rescuing Ah Yan, Luo Han Guo, Da Sheng Di, Rhino Skin, and Chinese Ginseng go to participate in the competition, and Hui Lin also participates in the competition as the "Daughter of Thunder Heaven" to help Ah Yan win the finalist qualification.
Qingpu Liang successfully saved Ah Yan, and Hui Lin also rushed to the final under the guise of Ah Yan's identity.
In the final, Ah Yan replaced Hui Lin, intending to "avenge her father" at the card table. Rhinopi and the others cooperate with each other to help Ah Yan deal with Shangguan Feihua.
Like all gambling films, in the most critical game, Ah Yan and Shangguan Feihua both chose "stud". The two men's cards are 10% off with a sheet of spades.
This 10 of spades was originally in the hands of Ah Yan, but when the dealer borrowed the card, he secretly exchanged it to Shangguan Feihua.
After the opening of the cards, Shangguan Feihua won the victory with the same flush card type. Ah Yan accused Shangguan Feihua of cheating, and the judges opened the card pile and checked the cards, and found two cards of spades 10.
Originally, after the reminder of "gambling bully" and "thousand kings", Qingpu Liang and Ah Yan developed a way to crack the "dealer cheating", that is, to use cheating to deal with cheating.
At the same time as the "dealer steals the card", Ah Yan also secretly stuffed a sheet of spades 10 in the card pile, and the "dealer" was busy cheating and did not pay attention for a while.
The referee found that Shangguan Feihua had cheated and wanted to investigate it thoroughly. Shangguan Feihua was worried that in the investigation, his "money laundering" was exposed, so he decided to use force to solve the problem. She gathered her men and surrounded the scene of the game, intending to kill the ring.
However, Cao Sir had already anticipated everything, and he arranged kohlrabi and took the "special police" to guard the periphery. After a fierce action fight, Shangguan Feihua was arrested, and Wufuxing successfully completed his mission.
After the mission, the "Five Lucky Stars" received a large bonus. Kiyoura Ryo is a monk and does not covet the money, so Rhino Skin decides to transfer the money to partridge vegetables.
When they arrive at the hospital, the four of them give the money to Partridge, and it turns out that Partridge and the female nurse Adam have become lovers. Partridge did nothing, but he had both money and lovers, which made Sifuxing extremely unhappy.
The four of them were clamoring to get the partridge back, and in a clamor, the story of "Fortune and Five Lucky Stars" also came to an end.
In 1992, Hong Jinbao directed "The Legend of God of War" for Andy Lau, and the result was lost. In 1993, Hong Jinbao directed "A Knife to the City" for Luo Wei, and the result was another loss. It may be seeing their own "unlucky" attributes. In this "Five Lucky Stars of Fortune", Hong Jinbao gave up his job as a director and handed over the filming of the film to his old friend Chen Xunqi.
Not only Chen Xunqi, in this "Five Lucky Stars of Fortune", Hong Jinbao used his personal connections to find a lot of friends in the circle to help, and many of them still did not pay, friendship to help.
At the end of the movie, Hong Jinbao also subtitled to thank those friends who do not care about their own interests.
In terms of plot design, although "Fortune Five Luck Stars" integrates the elements of "gambling films", but also imitates Wang Jing's style, and designs a lot of nonsense bridges, the overall pattern of the series is continued - in the early stage, several Lucky Stars "gags" and "bubble girls"; the later story enters the main line, and everyone completes the task together; finally, through an action scene, the end is completed.
In the Hong Kong film market in 1996, the work of "Five Lucky Stars in New Bottles" did not win the favor of too many audiences, and only achieved a box office performance of more than 2 million Hong Kong dollars, which can be described as extremely dismal.
Luo Wei's "Wanli Pictures" failed to come back to life because of "Five Lucky Stars". The film also became the last film work produced by Wanli Pictures.
(End)