In 1986, "Hara Zhenxia and Wesley" directed by Lan Naicai became an exhibit in the Hong Kong area of the "International Science Fiction Film Festival" in Shibuya, Tokyo. This brought him into the field of vision of Japanese filmmakers.
In the following years, Lan Naicai was basically filming Japanese comic live-action works, since the release of "Peacock Prince" in 1988, "Asura" and "Force King" are all Japanese comic adaptation works, only "Liaozhai Yantan" and "Old Cat" are not.
Ogino's "Peacock King" series has had a huge impact on our generation and is a cool borderless classic. At that time, the childish worldview in the boys' minds was expanded by two comic books. The mythological impressions of our generation on the countries of the world basically come from those two works. One is the animated "Saint Seiya", which is widely circulated in China. The foundation of everyone's Greek mythology and Roman mythology comes from him. The oriental mythology basically comes from "The Peacock King". And the scale of "Peacock King" was a wild drag at the time.
This "Peacock Prince" (known in Japan as "Peacock King") is a Sino-Japanese co-production, both sides have the right to speak, and the style of the film is also erratic. But in general, if you look at it separately, the scene of the Japanese scene where the shopping mall makes a dinosaur scene is still similar to the first story scene in the original work, and the first TV haunted scene in the original work and the scene of the hot hell have even been restored. Yasuda Narimi's appearance is also quite similar to the TV host Makoto Morimoto in the original manga. But the other scenes can't be played with the original eight rods.
At the film level, the styles that Hong Kong and Japan are good at are different, and Japan has more than 30 years of experience in close-ups, and at that time, the film stunt level left Hong Kong eight streets. Yes, the gap is so obvious, which is actually related to the Chinese and Japanese production systems. Hong Kong's long-term "seven-day fresh" production is too capitalist commercialization, the flow is too fast, and there is no accumulation to develop special effects, but as long as you calm down and invest money in development, these eight streets can catch up.
The advantage of Hong Kong movies lies in the action, in the martial arts scenes, this advantage can not be reproduced by the Japanese, there is no problem of several streets, and they cannot catch up in this life.
I didn't mean to brainlessly tout Hong Kong movies, the reality is that this is a precious property left by an era, and he can't be inherited. Bruce Lee raised hong Kong kung fu films to a height that no one else could match, but after his death, could Hong Kongers reproduce it? This is the difference between industrialization and skilled craftsmen. The Japanese left behind special effects that can be reproduced, that is their skill, and Hong Kong does not have such industrial capabilities, and even the ability of talent to make blood is depleted, so after Bruce Lee, there is no boxing. After Liu Jialiang, the real kung fu of the hard bridge and hard horse became less and less. Jackie Chan is still filming, but it is not clear who can take his class.
It can only be said that Hong Kong in that era was a real cow, full of talents, and it was hard to support an era of Hong Kong-style movies, and now, it is obvious that the downhill road can be seen.
What exactly? A typical scene was described in a documentary about the centenary of Hong Kong cinema, "Movie Xiangjiang". In the scene of a martial artist playing a complete set of martial arts, the average Hollywood director will let the martial artist play the whole set of boxing techniques, and then fight three times and shoot three times. Once with a distant view with a background, once with a close-up that ignores the background, and once again with a partial close-up.
This way the editor can get three complete boxing scenes, and the post-editing is comfortable.
And Hong Kong people are not, they only shoot once, so on the shooting scene to figure out where the editing point is, before a set of punches, the martial artist knows where to stop and cooperate with the camera position.
The contemplation mentioned here is not to shoot with ease after drawing a storyboard, but the director and martial arts instructor combined with the conditions of the scene and carried out in the brain as quickly as possible. This first of all requires a high degree of personal ability, such as the final ladder battle of "Huang Feihong". But the disadvantages are not so easy to summarize, a few masters once gone, it seems that there is only a chicken feather left.
Japan and Hong Kong once had the same starting point in the Shaw period, Shaw once sent a director to Japan to exchange and learn sword and sword films, and then Zhang Che's various violent martial arts films began the advantage of Hong Kong kung fu films in leading Asia, and the era when "The Peacock Prince" was released was the heyday of Hong Kong films, and Chinese and Japanese filmmakers used their housekeeping skills to complete this masterpiece. The special effects of the film were against the sky at the time, and it may be slightly rough to watch now, but it is still good, after all, the method of stop-motion animation has a unique material of real shooting, which has a real beauty compared to cg animation. This kind of beauty is believed to be understood by those who have seen Guo Dao's recent "Traces of the Lord".
The film's restoration of The Original Ogino is very well placed. Whether it is the Peacock's Japanese monk costume or the little ghost encountered in the Japanese scene in the film, it is very similar to the shape in the manga. Chinese audiences may feel uncomfortable at first glance, because the Tibetan monk played by Yuan Biao in the Chinese version is called a peacock, while the original Japanese peacock of Hiroshi Mikami, although the costume is exactly the same as the manga, is called auspicious fruit, and even wrote a line to ridicule, saying that it is better than Luo Han Guo. (Young people may not understand, here is talking about Zeng Zhiwei, who is called Luo Hanguo in Jackie Chan's movie.) But this problem did not exist when it was released in Japan, Hiroshi Mikami played a peacock, and Yuan Biao played a role called Kong que. The pronunciation is different, but the literal meaning is the same, which also indicates the setting of their twins in the film.
The heroine of the film, Yasuda Narimi, is still famous in Japan, and is still active, and it is said that she was said to have her in the new "Fukushima 50" in Japan a few days ago, and in 88, Yasuda Seimi's appearance was still very resistant, youthful and beautiful, very eye-catching. But the biggest highlight of the film is the female supporting Ye Yunyi. People familiar with old Hong Kong films know that Ip Yunyi's position in the history of Hong Kong cinema is similar to that of Xiulan Dumbo in Hollywood. From the 70s to the present, the representative of the beautiful girl of the Lolita department is Ye Yunyi, who is considered to be an ancient person, and there is no successor to this name at present. In most of the list of dream lovers after the 80s, Ye Yunyi absolutely occupies a place. With Lori's appearance, Ye Yunyi has participated in many post-80s childhood classics.
The problem is that Ye Yunyi was born in 1973 and was 15 years old when she made "The Peacock Prince" in 1988. It's not a tenderness, it's real Lolita! Ask the audience at the time who could stand it.
"The Peacock Prince" was a fire in Japan, and Ye Yunyi was selected by Japan's ROADSHOW magazine as the first "Most Popular Foreign Female Star of the Year", becoming the hottest Hong Kong artist in Japan and South Korea that year. This is Ye Yunyi's second film, she and Lan Naicai have established a good relationship, and then appeared in Lan Naicai's films many times, including the triolar film "Li Wang".
I have said so many stories of "red beauty and thin life" before, this time is no exception, Ye Yunyi chose a path that Hong Kong female stars at that time wanted to take in 1995, married into the rich, met and married Hong Kong toy rich businessman Chen Baihao, and had a child the following year. But five years later, in January 2000, due to the breakdown of Ip's relationship with her husband after giving birth to her daughter, she filed for divorce with the court and insisted on custody of the two children, and in May, the court ruled that Ye Yunyi was granted custody of one son and one daughter, and the ex-husband Chen Baihao paid a one-time compensation of HK$8 million and another HK$5,000 per month in maintenance. Her wealthy businessman husband insisted that his investment had failed, declared bankruptcy, and never paid compensation.
A sigh!
Ye Yunyi exploded, or "The Peacock Prince" fire, Lan Naicai made a sequel "Asura" non-stop, hoping to make a profit while it was hot. This sequel is a complete exploitation movie, and it is Ye Yunyi who exploits it. Yuan Biao, as the protagonist of the previous game, even just made a cameo. The only advantage of "Asura" is the actor, the male actor has the fashionable and young and handsome Abe Hiroshi, which is handsome and unreasonable. Actresses are even more amazing, Ye Yunyi's appearance is not much to say, but also found a fashionable and pure Li Lizhen, the Japanese side to provide three actresses to play the three rounds of ni the appearance is also against the sky, so beautiful like a cloud of movies are not common until now. The plot of the film collapsed to the extent of the "Elementary School Museum" manga, and the special effects were much worse than the previous ones, and it seemed that the budget was not high.
Because "Asura" is really broken too bad, except for the beauty is useless, so it is still not mentioned, and the previous game mixed together to talk about special effects.
The special effects of "Asura" should be the highest level in Japan at that time. Different from the style of the People Wearing Leather Jackets in the Toho Monster Amnesty Film, most of the scenes in this film should be exquisite model freeze-frame production, the shot of Luo I's transformation in the film is up to several minutes, the shape of Luo I's rift woman is also very avant-garde, and the character design has a hunting style of the future digital age, which is completely different from the silly big black and thick shape of people wearing leather jackets, giving people a strong visual stimulation. Comparing the Hong Kong-style special effects in "Qiannu Ghost 2" in the same period, the difference is obvious. Lan Naicai's over-interpretation of Luo I's transformation in the film is also a little bit exploitative. I have to say that the shape of the woman with the crack is really amazing, especially after the head is split, the expression change is also made, which is very meticulous. The treatment of evil spirits in "Asura" is the same freeze frame at the technical level, and the micro-expressions when the evil ghosts rebel are also extremely vicious, and the details are full of points.
The two peacock kings, overall look down the Japanese flavor is still slightly stronger, not enough Hong Kong flavor.
Next, the next Japanese manga adaptation is Japanese manga tetsuya Sarutobi's "Force King".