1992 was a year that changed Zhao Wenzhuo's fate.
Zhao Wenzhuo, who was still in college at the time, was played by director Yuan Kuixiang as the villain Jiumen Admiral in "Fang Shiyu".
As a result, director Xu Ke came to the crew to visit the class, so he boldly used Zhao Wenzhuo, who was a fashionable and newcomer, to star in "Huang Feihong 4".
In order to win the popularity of Zhao Wenzhuo, Xu Ke and Zhao Wenzhuo have collaborated on five films in succession, namely "Huang Feihong 4 and 5", "Green Snake", "Knife", "Green Snake", "Jin Yu Mantang", and a 22-episode TV series "The New Biography of Huang Feihong".
Several of the films that Xu Ke and Zhao Wenzhuo have collaborated on have now become classic Hong Kong films and are often mentioned.
After leaving Xu Ke, Zhao Wenzhuo followed the director who discovered himself, joined The Zhengdong Film Industry founded by Jet Li, and filmed the movie "Blue Blood and Blue Sky" in Zhengdong, which was a big investment, but in the end the box office was dismal, which directly led to the decline of Zhengdong Pictures.
Later, Zhao Wenzhuo switched to Yongsheng and cooperated with Wang Jing in two low-budget action thrillers "Primitive Weapon" and "Life and Death Fist Speed", both of which were poorly received, especially "Primitive Weapon" is basically an exploitation movie, and friends who have seen it understand it.
In addition to the above more well-known works, Zhao Wenzhuo's most underrated film is "Sparrow Flying Dragon".
Filmed in 1996, co-directed by Liu Zhenwei and Yuan Kui, starring Xiao Fangfang, the film was released that year with the slogan of the original team of "Fang Shiyu", but after its release, it was dismal at the box office, earning only 6.8 million Hong Kong dollars.
And because this film has not been repaired so far, the film source is only a version of the slag quality version, resulting in this film is relatively unpopular, on the rating website Douban, this film has only seen a few hundred people, compared to Zhao Wenzhuo's other starring movies, it can be said that it is quite unpopular.
However, the rating of this film is 7.0 points, second only to Zhao Wenzhuo and Xu Ke's "Huang Feihong 4 Kings' Wind", turning over the comments, many people believe that this is Zhao Wenzhuo's most underrated film in Hong Kong.
In this issue of "Forgotten Hong Kong Films", let's talk about this underrated work of Zhao Wenzhuo -
Sparrow Dragon
Mahjong Dragon
The film was released in 1997 by Film Art Creators.
Film Art Innovation Library is an independent production company, co-founded by Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei and veteran filmmaker Li Dawei, "Sparrow Flying Dragon" is the entrepreneurship of the three people after the establishment of the film company, in addition to producing classic movies such as "Time to Love".
"Sparrow Flying Dragon" is co-directed by Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei, who also served as the screenwriter of the film.
It is said that the inspiration for the film came from Liu Zhenwei's collaboration with Yuan Kui on "Fang Shiyu" and wanted to make another fashion action comedy. The original plan was to invite the original team of "Fang Shiyu" to shoot, but at that time, Jet Li was preparing to go to Hollywood after filming "Black Man" and "Huang Feihong's Lion of the Western Regions", so he did not star.
Therefore, the final lineup of the movie only invited Xiao Fangfang, a powerful actress who played Miao Cuihua, to continue her play path of Miao Cuihua in "Fang Shiyu" and continue to star in a funny image, playing a funny and funny middle-aged downcast policewoman.
Due to Jet Li's resignation, the male protagonist of the film was replaced by Zhao Wenzhuo. It just so happened that Zhao Wenzhuo wanted to break through the drama road at that time, so he changed the image of the past hero and played a professional gambler who had a previous prison record in the film. Of course, Zhao Wenzhuo is still indispensable to the display of kung fu in the film, so he is a master of kung fu and gambling skills.
In terms of supporting roles, another funny person in the film is the famous action stunt person Ke Shouliang, who plays the funny village chief who has always had a crush on the heroine Xiao Fangfang, and the main villain is played by Lu Huiguang.
In addition, the actress Lin Jiyun who plays the female number two in the film is also impressive, and the terminally ill girl she plays is also impressive, but unfortunately, she has not become a big hit in the film circle, and she has only appeared in a few movies for a short time, and she faded out of the screen.
Speaking of stories, "Sparrow Flying Dragon", as a collaborative work between Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei, naturally gathers the elements that the two are best at, kung fu + comedy + gambling film + love, the story is lively and extraordinary, Zhao Wenzhuo is responsible for martial arts, and Xiao Fangfang is responsible for funny.
The story begins with the release of the protagonist ghost head played by Zhao Wenzhuo.
Many years ago, in the gambling session, there was a saying that "the southern dragon, the northern ghost head".
The two are brothers and both are good at gambling, of which the master and brother are even better. However, the ghost head deliberately takes his girlfriend out of the jianghu, and is invited by his brother Tianlong (Lu Huiguang) to participate in a gambling game in the end, hoping to make a lot of money and then collect the mountain.
Unexpectedly, in this gamble, the ghost head and the tianlong were recognized by the two thousand, resulting in retaliation by the other party, the ghost head's good brother died tragically, and the fingers of the tianlong were also abolished, and they could no longer get out of the thousand.
Afterwards, the ghost head avenged his brother and single-handedly killed the enemy family, but he was also sentenced to prison for this, and has lost everything in his past life. Now that the ghost head is out of prison, he has long been discouraged and unwilling to gamble for a living, but unexpectedly, his brother Tianlong will not let him go.
Master Brother Tianlong wanted to coerce His Brother Ghost Head to gamble for himself because his fingers were abolished, and Ghost Head planned to leave the mainland in order to get rid of the pursuit. In order to obtain a foreign passport, he accidentally met the heroine, Hong Kong policewoman XiuDian, played by Siu Fangfang.
Xiudian people reach middle age, but they are heavily in debt. The fiancé died tragically before the two married, and left Xiudian with a bunch of debts, xiudian borrowed the villagers' money to gamble on horses in order to repay the debt, but the luck was not good, and he lost a fine light. Not only were the doors blocked by usury loans, but also the villagers in the village were faced with no face.
Xiudian declined for half a lifetime, in order to reassure his uncle, decided to return to his hometown in the mainland for a blind date, and published a marriage advertisement for this purpose. It just so happened that the ghost head wanted to come to Hong Kong to escape the pursuit of Tianlong, so he came to apply, and the two did this to start a fake couple.
At first, Xiudian mistakenly believed that ghost head was a stowaway, but ghost head took the initiative to identify himself as a mainland gambling king. XiuDian didn't believe it, so the ghost head took him to the casino and saw his gambling skills, and sure enough, XiuDian made a lot of money.
Xiu Tian begged Ghost Shou to teach her his gambling skills, and Ghost Shou thought that Xiu Tin could not learn it in a short time, so he only promised to help her win a large amount of money before leaving, and the condition was naturally to let Xiu Tin help her get a foreign passport.
In this way, the ghost head lived in the fishing village where Xiudian lived. In the fishing village, the ghost head accidentally met the "love enemy", the fishing village chief played by Ke Shouliang. He has a crush on XiuDian for many years, but Xiudian is indifferent, so he targets the ghost head in various ways.
As a result, the ghost head also became acquainted with the village chief's sister Ah Qun (Lin Jiyun). Young, beautiful and energetic, Ah Qun always dreams of going to Paris, so he works more than a dozen jobs at the same time to earn money, meets the ghost head of a foreigner for the first time, and becomes friends because of a ping-pong bet.
Later, Ah Qun suddenly fainted due to a seizure, and the ghost head sent him to the hospital, and then helped Ah Qun drive away the troublesome Gu Qiuzi, and showed his skills, revealing the ghost head tattoo on his back. The extraordinary and handsome ghost head made Ah Qun secretly feel affectionate.
However, due to the fact that Ghost Shou is still Xiu Tian's husband, and Ghost Shou is planning to leave Hong Kong, he can only avoid Ah Qun's active show of love.
At this time, XiuDian learned through the informant in his hand that the French gambling king was going to come to Hong Kong, and there would be a big gamble, so he wanted to let the ghost head win this gamble that was enough to change his fate for himself, and the ghost head also agreed to it.
However, just the day before the gamble, Ah Qun suddenly came to find the ghost head, and the ghost head happened to be absent, so he had to let Xiu Dian relay the ghost head on his behalf: Ah Qun was not suffering from epilepsy, but cancer.
She hopes to go to Paris in the last time of her life to realize her dream, and she will leave tomorrow, hoping that the ghost head can walk with her.
After learning of Ah Qun's message, the ghost head hurried to the airport, but on the way to the airport, he bumped into tianlong, a brother who came to hunt down and kill him. The ghost head knew that if the master brother couldn't find himself, he would definitely not let Xiu Tian let them go.
Therefore, after a difficult decision, the ghost head gave up going to the airport, turned around and went back to save Xiudian, and engaged in a life-and-death duel with Tianlong.
The ghost head chose to cut off his finger, hoping that Tianlong would let himself and others go, but Tianlong refused to give up, so the two began to fight in the warehouse of the fruit market, and set up a life and death bet, if anyone fell off the ring made of fruit boxes first, they would have to pay the price of their lives.
After a fierce fight, the ghost head successfully defeated the Tianlong. Although he missed the gamble, Xiudian experienced this life-and-death test and learned to look away. What surprised the ghost head even more was that Ah Qun actually did not leave by plane, but had been waiting for him.
At the end of the story, there is a happy reunion ending, the ghost head took Ah Qun to France, the two spent the happiest years, and Xiu Dian also waited for the village chief's true love, and from then on began to transfer, winning a lot of money at the gambling table.
This "Sparrow Flying Dragon" is not the highest-grossing film made by Zhao Wenzhuo in Hong Kong, but it is the most breakthrough film in his personal drama path, so much so that in the recent variety show "Brother with Thorns", Zhao Wenzhuo also mentioned this movie to Yin Zheng of the same team.
Hong Kong films in the 1980s and 1990s were so passionate about story stew that they had to cram any commercial elements into a film, such as "Sparrow Flying Dragon". The film is Liu Zhenwei's nonsense comedy, but also Yuan Kui's best martial arts action elements, and the core of the story is the unchanging love scene in Liu Zhenwei's movie, although the plot is very chaotic, but the whole film laughs and scolds but does not lose warmth and romance.
The film's executive producer, Li Dawei, said in an interview that the film's intention is actually to make a story about "love", and the whole film runs through love, family affection and friendship.
In the film, Xiao Fangfang and Zhao Wenzhuo fake marriage, the two start from Li, ending with love; Zhao Wenzhuo and Ah Qun, played by Lin Jiyun, developed a terminally ill love. In addition, there is Ke Shouliang's crush on Xiao Fangfang, the feelings between Xiao Fangfang and a class of ancient puzzle boys, etc., and the construction of the emotional bond between these characters is actually quite moving.
Liu Zhenwei is very good at writing the romantic love of the male and female protagonists, Zhao Wenzhuo and Lin Jiyun are on the balcony late at night, using a paper airplane to show their inner mood, and Xiao Fangfang's funny skills are indeed first-class, and many cold and humorous lines in the film are impressive.
For example, Zhao Wenzhuo explained his identity as a gambling king to Xiao Fangfang, Xiao Fangfang thought that the other party was deceiving himself, so he said his identity: I am not afraid to tell you that I was born in the Nine Yin White Bone Cave in my previous life, the master was a fire cloud evil god, my fame skill was the Ten Thousand Buddhas Chaozong, I became famous at the age of three, when people called "Southern Emperor Beiqi", 'Beiqi' Fan Xiudian was me...
This passage is very blind to listen to, but Xiao Fangfang said it with a very serious expression, which has a funny and cold humor effect.
The reason why the film allows Xiao Fangfang and Zhao Wenzhuo to partner is probably that the director hopes to use Xiao Fangfang's ghost horse to dilute Zhao Wenzhuo's serious aura. And Zhao Wenzhuo, as a star, actually shows kung fu more times in the film than gambling skills, from the beginning to the end, he is simply the most capable gambling king in Hong Kong gambling films.
Unfortunately, the front and back parts of the film are somewhat fragmented, the gambling element is completely abandoned in the second half, and the final finale becomes a martial arts fight in the kung fu movie. Coupled with the fact that the film was released, it coincided with the recession of the Hong Kong film market, which eventually led to only more than six million box office.
After this film, Zhao Wenzhuo has successively participated in films such as "Blue Blood and Blue Sky" and "Primitive Weapons", without exception, the box office has been dismal. Zhao Wenzhuo was discouraged, gave up his movie dream and turned to the television circle, but instead turned his career around because he starred in the martial arts drama "The Wind and clouds dominate the world".