In the early 1990s, martial arts themes began to become popular in the Hong Kong film industry. In 1992, the emergence of "New Dragon Gate Inn" and "Undefeated In the East of the Smiling Pride of the Rivers and Lakes" pushed this "martial arts wave" to the peak.
In 1993, a large number of Hong Kong film directors focused on the shooting of martial arts films. This year, Chen Xunqi, an all-round director in the Hong Kong film industry, also found Dillon, a "martial arts professional", to cooperate in the filming of a martial arts film. It is the 93rd edition of "The Prodigal Son of the Border City".
This "Prodigal Son of the Border City" is well-made, but due to the excessive deletion of the original film's content at the time of release, the film's box office has been frustrated. In the end, the film was only released for 7 days before it was removed from the shelves, and only got more than 1.5 million Hong Kong dollars, buried under the tragic box office smoke.
Next, let's talk about this "Prodigal Son of the Border City" together, look at the deleted bridge sections in the film, and the reasons why these bridge sections have been deleted.
<h3 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > was originally a martial arts classic, but it was destroyed</h3>
The story of "The Prodigal Son of the Border City", adapted from Gu Long's martial arts novel of the same name, tells the story of his adopted son "Fu Hongxue" and illegitimate son "Ye Kai" after the tragic death of Bai Yu, the "Lord of the Divine Sword Gate", who went to Kanto to avenge him.
In order to restore the background of the story well, Chen Xunqi led the crew to Inner Mongolia for filming. The spectacular scene of the endless vast grassland and the galloping of horses in the film also attracted the attention of many viewers.
In addition to the vast grassland scenery, in this "Prodigal Son of the Border City", the excellent costume, chemical and Road design, the wonderful interpretation of the actors, and the lively action fights have added a lot of highlights to the film. However, the deletion of the story plot at the time of release caused the film's box office performance to suffer a major blow.
After the filming of "The Prodigal Son of the Border City", the original version of the director's cut was more than 140 minutes. However, when the theater was released, in order to take care of the audience's viewing experience, "The Prodigal Son of the Border City" was cut into 89 minutes, and the emotional scene between Fu Hongxue and Shen Sanniang in the original film was deleted, while Cuinong's scene was all deleted.
The deletion of emotional dramas has also led to some confusion in the plot. For example, when Ye Kai rushed to the "Gathering Building", at first he pinned a withered flower to his chest, but the next day it inexplicably turned into a green gold noodle.
At the end of the film, Ye Kai gave the golden noodles to Fu Hongxue and asked him to keep it well, don't throw it away, Fu Hongxue will smile. Because all the previous scenes of Cui Nong have been deleted, the appearance of this plot makes the audience very abrupt.
The most interesting thing is that Cuinong's scenes have been deleted, but in the final subtitles of the film, Cuinong's name still appears.
Not only Cui Nong, the deletion of Shen Sanniang's role has also caused a lot of bugs to the story.
For example, Shen Sanniang was originally with Ma Kongqun, but why did she suddenly go to help Fu Hongxue and Ye Kai. When Fu Hongxue and Ye Kai dueled, Shen Sanniang went to stop it, and finally died in Fu Hongxue's arms. The appearance of these plot bugs has made the audience confused.
"Most of the audience buys tickets to see martial arts movies, all for the fight scenes." Perhaps it is precisely because of this idea that when "The Prodigal Son of the Border City" was released, the distributor made a lot of deletions to the emotional scenes in the film, but the wonderful fight bridge section was retained.
Whether it is the snow fight at the beginning of the film, or the small town duel between Fu Hongxue and the golden-backed humpback dragon and the flying spider afterwards. Although these action scenes are wonderful, the problem of plot connection after deletion also makes the appearance of some play scenes appear very abrupt.
For example, the golden-backed humpback dragon fights with Fu Hongxue's town. Without any reason, without any foreshadowing, the two suddenly fought.
In 1993, on top of the Hong Kong film market, martial arts films ushered in a creative explosion. "East becomes west", "Taiji Zhang Sanfeng", "The Demon Sect Leader of the Dragon Slayer in Yitian", "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch", "The New Crane Needle", "New Meteor Butterfly Sword" and other works have emerged in an endless stream.
Although the play design of "Border City Prodigal Son" is excellent, the problem of plot connection makes it lose in the box office war, and finally it was only released for 7 days, and the box office is only more than 1.5 million Hong Kong dollars.
Although the film was flooded by the box office torrent due to excessive deletion of the content, Chen Xunqi did not give up the rescue of this "Prodigal Son of the Border City".
<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > from "Prodigal Son of the Border City" to "Invincible", opening the precedent of "a piece of double cut"</h3>
"The Prodigal Son of Border City" suffered a box office failure because of the deletion of content, but director Chen Xunqi was not willing to bury his work.
In 1995, director Chen Xunqi reordered the deleted scenes in "The Prodigal Son of the Border City". Expand the material by means of reshoots. Using these "deleted clips" and "reshoot clips", the movie "The Benevolent Invincible", also known as "The Benevolent Invincible of the Prodigal Son of the Border City", was edited.
In this "Invincible Benevolent", the emotional drama between Cui Nong and Fu Hongxue is taken as the main line of the story. The plot bugs that appeared in "The Prodigal Son of the Border City" were also explained in this "Invincible Benevolent".
"Why is Cuinong's golden noodle pinned on Ye Kai's chest, and what is the emotional relationship between Shen Sanniang and Fu Hongxue?" The answers to these questions, in this "Benevolent Invincible", director Chen Xunqi gave answers.
In order to bring freshness to the audience, director Chen Xunqi also remade a new story ending in this "Invincible Benevolent".
In "The Prodigal Son of border city", Ma Kongqun found out the traitors, and also got the golden armor and ghost cloak, became the big boss, and was eventually killed by Fu Hongxue and Ye Kai.
In "The Benevolent Invincible", Ding Baiyun is the final boss, Fu Hongxue killed Ma Kongqun, thinking that the revenge would be repaid, and left kanto. Ye Kai, on the other hand, found Ding Baiyun's residence and eventually stabbed the enemy.
In "The Invincible Benevolent", Fu Hongxue rode into the Wan Ma Tang and killed the bridge section of the Ma Kongqun, still using the old shots in "The Prodigal Son of the Border City".
And the big battle between Ye Kai and Ding Baiyun is obviously a new shot of the reshoot. It may be because Dillon was not found when making up the film, so this "double male story" of Fu Hongxue and Ye Kai finally became the plot of Ye Kai single-handedly picking the BOSS.
In 1994, with the full opening of the introduction system of the mainland film market. In 1995, director Chen Xunqi introduced the edited "Invincible Benevolent" to the mainland film market.
In the 1990s, the mainland film market was still in a stage of development, and the box office data of films was rarely made public. Therefore, how this "Invincible Benevolent" performed in the mainland that year, we do not know.
However, if you want to come to this "Invincible Benevolent", the box office in the mainland should not be too good. After all, the mid-90s were the era of "pirated discs".
It is worth mentioning that in addition to being a director, Chen Xunqi is also a film scorer. In Wong Kar-wai's "East Evil and West Poison", "Chongqing Forest" and "Fallen Angel", the soundtrack of the film was completed by Chen Xunqi.
Coincidentally, Wong Kar-wai's "East Evil and West Poison" is also the same as Chen Xunqi's "Prodigal Son of the Border City", playing a "piece of double cut" operation. First it was released in 1994, and in 2009, a "final version" was launched.
Later, in "A Generation of Grandmasters", Wong Kar-wai once again made a "double cut" operation, first launching a version in 2013. Later, in 2015, a reset version was re-cut based on the deleted footage.
I don't know if the "Sunglasses King" 's "one piece of double cut" operation was learned from his old friend Chen Xunqi.
<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > 1993, "Hapless Dillon" and the buried "martial arts classics"</h3>
In 1993, Dillon's luck seemed to be exceptionally bad.
On the big screen of Shao's martial arts in the early years, Dillon's "Fu Hongxue" image in "Tianya Mingyue Knife", "The Sword of the Three Young Masters", and "Mingyue Sword Snow Night Annihilation" was loved by many audiences.
The role of "Fu Hongxue" is as classic for Dillon as "Chen Jiaju" for Jackie Chan and "Huang Feihong" for Jet Li.
In 1993, the 47-year-old Dillon, under the persuasion of director Chen Xunqi, once again put on a black robe, picked up a short knife, and embarked on the jianghu road.
Although he did not have the appearance of his youth, but after many times of screen shaping, Dillon's temperament portrayal of the role of "Fu Hongxue" was still to the point of freedom. No lines, no action, just a look, can make people feel the cold temperament of "Fu Hongxue".
However, it is such a work with good acting skills and wonderful fighting, but because of excessive deletion, it has suffered box office Waterloo. What's even more frightening is that the box office setback of "The Prodigal Son of the Border City" in 1993 was just the beginning for Dillon.
In addition to "The Prodigal Son of the Border City", Dillon also cooperated with Hong Jinbao in "A Knife to the City" and "Barefoot Boy" with Du Qifeng in 1993.
However, it was above the box office market in 1993. "A Knife to the City" was only released for 9 days, and the box office was only more than 1.9 million Hong Kong dollars. "Barefoot Kid" was only released for 12 days and only grossed more than 3.9 million Hong Kong dollars.
In the mid-1980s, with the decline of the martial arts film market, Dillon was fired by Shaw and fell into a career trough. In the early 1990s, the recovery of the martial arts film market also made more and more directors focus on this "veteran martial arts actor".
In 1993, Dillon starred in three consecutive martial arts works, the quality of these three works is harder than one, but the box office is worse than one. The 1993 Hong Kong film screen became Dillon's last prolific moment. However, this year's three consecutive box office defeats also made him discouraged by the film market.
In 1994, after Dillon and Jackie Chan collaborated on "Drunken Fist 2", they chose to fade out of the Hong Kong film screen.
With the baptism of time and the passage of time, "A Knife To the City" and "Barefoot Boy", which had dismal box office results that year, began to be recognized by more and more fans.
The "Prodigal Son of border city" cooperated by Chen Xunqi and Dillon has also won more and more praise from more and more audiences because of the complementary plots of the two works.