20 years have passed since the golden age of Hong Kong police films, and the pattern of mainland police films has undergone new changes: half are occupied by American dramas such as "Crime Scene Investigation", and half are led by new crime themes such as "White Night Pursuit" and "Undocumented Crime", although the audience of old Hong Kong films will still think of classics such as "Sister of the Gun" and "Criminal Investigation Archives" from time to time, but for young people now, the imprint of that era is gradually fading.
In such an environment, the appearance of "Anti-Black" inevitably feels a little sudden. At the same time, the "Apostle Walker" broadcast in the same period caught up with TVB's last opportunity to make a blockbuster in 2014, and the appearance of the second part was relatively logical. But to tell the truth, in 2017, the story of the Hong Kong anti-black group is told in a serious way, not using Peng Haoxiang's black comedy method, and at first glance, there is always a suspicion of not entering the stream.
But after opening, basically the audience who has a little complex of Hong Kong films will be hit by it: not to say how sophisticated, but the row of Hong Kong actors is there, and the nostalgic mood will still make people's hearts slightly hot. Chen Xiaochun, Chen Guokun, Li Cansen, Liang Liewei, Ke Youlun, Wu Dairong, Chen Huimin, Wu Zhixiong, Wu Mengda... You simply don't know where the director got so many old acquaintances.
The director of "Anti-Black" is Song Benzhong, who is more like a live curry (referring to a temporary or small actor) on the Hong Kong set than the director, and has played a variety of bad teenagers in various gangster themes in the 90s. He talked to Interface Entertainment about his career as a table-cleaning brother on the set of Stephen Chow, and the glittering history of Hong Kong films in the 90s was more like a daily routine with old friends in his mouth.
Why did you make "Anti-Black"? For Song Benzhong himself, the meaning is relatively complicated: there are thousands of things he has accumulated on the set for many years, there is his heart to pay tribute to Ke Shouliang, and there is also the ambition to help the pheasant Chen Xiaochun "transform". Compared with the general industrial production of TV series, this "Anti-Black" does combine a lot of complex elements: Hong Kong return, O Ke Daily, Gu QiuZai Congliang. Therefore, it is difficult to summarize its evaluation in one sentence, and if you still have some concerns about Hong Kong in the 90s, you may wish to open it and take a look.
The following is the interface dialogue songbook, which has been edited and adjusted:
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"Pheasants are civilians, phoenixes are officials"
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Interface Entertainment: Because you are an actor yourself, in fact, the gangster theme of this Kind of Hong Kong film in the past two years has not been particularly popular, so I want to ask you why you want to do such a Hong Kong drama?
Song Benzhong: This is also how to say just right, it is like the heavens arranged. In the 2016 Lunar New Year, I just happened to go to Xiaochun's house to visit the New Year, and then I suddenly saw a few of them, so I asked Xiaochun, I want to guide a thing, if you guys are all put in the police station, it's funny. I started from this point. If you think about it, if you go to the police station, the police chief is Chen Huimin, and then the leader of the anti-black group is Wu Zhixiong, and then a few of them follow the big B brother... And then they think, eh, interesting. Then I asked Xiao Chun, do you do it, you played me before asking someone to write it out, he said okay, you go.
Then in less than a week, I already thought that this could be filmed as a drama and slowly made into the present. About ten episodes later, I checked the history of Hong Kong, looked up this thing called the anti-black group, and found that there was a lot of history in it that was originally why Hong Kong was taken away from the British, and the more I checked, the more angry I became, and then I felt that I had to write this thing, that is, when a group of anti-gangster groups found that the gang behind the gang was originally in collusion with the British nobility. This is a true fact.
Interface Entertainment: That whole drama has so many old Hong Kong drama bones coming, do you want to relive the ancient puzzle boy, or for other reasons?
Song Benzhong: The point is that the whole story attracts them, and now you see why they all come over, that is, every character, I have to think for them, and what they are most happy about is this.
Interface Entertainment: Just said that I want those ancient puzzle boys to play some roles in the anti-black group, but it seems that in the end only Chen Xiaochun became a policeman, why is this?
Song Benzhong: Of course, this focus is the problem of money, this you let a few of them combine to shoot a sky-high price, they themselves are making a movie called "Friendship of Years", that movie has been made so expensive, how can people come to shoot our web drama, shoot for so many days (laughs).
Interface Entertainment: So why did the timeline of "Anti-Black" start in 1987? Is it an integer year of regression?
Song Benzhong: No, I started in 1986, because it would take a while to change Koharu's role from an undercover to a normal policeman, and I wouldn't immediately turn around. It was only a few years before his girlfriend could bring the baby back. In fact, in the end, you see that Xiao Chun only likes one person from beginning to end is Han Bin (Note: Chen Xiaochun was the boss when he went undercover in the play), and we must solve the han bin thing.
Interface Entertainment: Yes, I know. Like Chen Xiaochun, his name after going undercover should be called Brother Phoenix, right? A shift from pheasant to phoenix?
Song Benzhong: Yes, the pheasant is a commoner, and the phoenix is an official. There is also the piece of Koharu, why does he like this role? You can't be a fool forever, you can't cut people to 60 years old, I think you still have to change it, otherwise everyone's impression of him is still stuck in the pheasant, but he has grown up, has become a father, how can it still be a pheasant? Pheasants don't have a family. You see he's trying to change people's impressions of him in this role.
Interface Entertainment: So what about Chen Xiaochun's remuneration in this drama?
Song Benzhong: He has been very good friends with me, we have been talking for more than 20 hours for many days, in fact, he has not filmed for more than 20 hours since he was in the film for so long, we are the first. There is also that we have decided on these actors very early on, we have a group of ourselves, and then the whole group, they are urging us to write a script every day, I want a script, I want a script, this is also quite funny.
<h3>Tribute to Ke Shouliang</h3>
Interface Entertainment: In addition to a classic element like Chen Xiaochun, is there any such tribute after that, can you spoil it first?
Song Benzhong: Yes, the place of tribute will soon already be there, the story of Ke Shouliang, The Black Brother (the cousin of the pheasant in "Ancient Puzzle Boy"). Because Brother Hei and I are very close, why I have been looking for Ke Youlun, because I have known him since I was a child. It should be that when I was 14 or 15 years old, there was a Hong Kong movie "Old Mud Girl", which told the story of some little girls who did not want to go home in Tsim Sha Tsui. The film was made by Ke Shouliang, who had just acted at that time and was still young. When I was a child, the first crew I saw was Ke Shouliang and Mo Shaocong filming, and at that time I had already seen Ke Youlun.
To a movie called "Boy Scout 2001", I was the main actor, and so was Ke Shouliang, so I have always been very close to black brother. When he had an accident, he was having a funeral in Taiwan, and there was a special edition of his that I edited, and I told Ke Youlun that we must make a movie in the future, and after the movie, we will go to your hometown of Taitung to play. I've been doing this all along. Our "Genius on the Left, Madman on the Right" has been filmed, and then we went to Taitung. You can now go to Youku to see these bullet screens, and a large number of bullet screens inside the bullet screens are said, which is particularly touching. Ke Youlun plays Xiao Hei, in fact, he plays his father.
Because the black brother is the person who influenced my life, especially when I was the director, he said a few words to my mother before he died, which I was inconvenient to say, but these few words changed my life.
I don't know where the power comes from, I have to shoot this story of him, I didn't expect to just give me this opportunity, to say the black brother again, this is of great significance. I called Ke Youlun and said you must hurry up and read the script, and the next day he cried and called me, called me my brother, and said he was very moved. I and he both felt like we owed his dad something, you know? After more than 10 years, we finally had the opportunity to do this, and then I also asked Ke Youlun to burn incense in front of his father's grave last month.
Interface Entertainment: Is the show "Anti-Black" a dream for you? There is the same ancient puzzle boy plot as Koharu, and there are some ideas to commemorate Ke Shouliang in it, is it a personal dream that has come true?
Song Benzhong: Yes, I didn't think of this in itself as a dream, but in this production process, in fact, you can also go to my circle of friends to see, I said when I shot, I am indeed very grateful. I have encountered many problems, but I have been able to solve them, and every time it seems that God is helping me. For months I could feel the question you just asked.
My name is Song Benzhong, my grandfather changed it, this name means originally Chinese. My mom was French, my dad was Hong Kong, and then my dad gave birth to me in France with my mom, but I grew up in Hong Kong and I haven't seen my mom since I was 1 year old. I will make a documentary with Chen Guokun next year (Zhang Shaojun, a senior inspector of the anti-black group in "Anti-Black"), and I have been looking for my mother.
When I was filming in my 10s, my adoptive mother said do you want to change your stage name? There is a very powerful I Ching master, he named my name a gua, using my name to draw a sentence, is a lifetime do not meet Bole, that is, lifelong no one to help you. There is a picture in this I Ching, which is a tree, and then there is a rope that binds the horse, and there is an old man next to it. As soon as I looked at this picture, I was scared of myself, I belonged to the horse, and I never met Bole in my life. But the name couldn't be changed because my grandfather had died.
In fact, I have been behind the scenes for 12 years, I was made by this sentence to change all my life, before I had a lot of dry fathers and mothers, Chen Huimin adopted me when I was 11 years old, Huang Qiusheng also adopted me, among these people, Lee Shau Kee, is the ki brother in "God Eater", he is also my dry father.
Basically these people have a lot of status in the film industry, but no one can help me. I finally understood the name Song Benzhong, what is the concept of never meeting Bole for life? Don't you go and ask for someone, can't you just do it yourself? You are a maxima, do you want people to ride you? Not really.
This year is my 26th, almost 27th year in the industry. Since I was 11 years old, I have been running around the scene since I was 11 years old, 365 days a year, I have 364 days on the scene, because the dry mother who adopted me is a mass actor, the movies of the 80s are my mother as a mass actor, it can be said that 80% of Hong Kong movies are monopolized by them, and I have followed more than 1,000 movies on the scene. I've seen all the Hong Kong directors you can tell, and I've seen how he makes scenes. So I saw how the elites of the 90s in Hong Kong filmed, and I also saw Liu Weiqiang from "Ancient Puzzle Boy 1" to "Infernal Affairs" to "The Great Cause of Building the Army", and also watched how Du Qifeng turned galaxy into such a big company as it is now. So I especially understand how they succeed.
What's the point? They have several elements of success, the first is that everyone has a tacit understanding, the production team, including the actors, and everyone behind the production has a heart. Movies are group things, and I have this time and place right now. I only understand to this day why my parents were not around when I was a child, and I had this opportunity to enter the film circle, because it was these people who absorbed their experience and unconsciously learned their things, and then I had the ability to operate "Anti-Black".
I had never seen a Hong Kong director control so many actors before, and it was difficult to be in the same scene. This big brother said no, that big brother said, you can't control them at all. It's because of my relationship with them from childhood to adulthood that they listen to me.
But I also had my challenges and they always felt like I was a kid, so he wouldn't have confidence in me in the beginning. But after all this I have opened up all of them.
"Don't be a bad person"
Interface Entertainment: Like yourself, you also played a prince chicken in it, why play this role?
Song Benzhong: Because there was a scene in it that I thought of early on, there was the only person who played the daughter-in-law of the pheasant, I played Xiaochun's childhood in "Ancient Puzzle Boy 1", and then Xiaochun needless to say, he was the general representative of the pheasant, Li Cansen was the pheasant in the campus film, Liang Liewei was the pheasant in the new order of the jianghu, 4 pheasants sat together, and then hit 4 pheasants so it was 8 pheasants. Then this year is the Year of the Rooster, and 8 chickens must be red.
Interface Entertainment: The ones you just talked about on the set, Liu Weiqiang, Zhou Xingchi, that should be regarded as a more brilliant era of Hong Kong movies, so is this drama also nostalgic?
Song Benzhong: Why do we pick the 90s? You have to have a big background to have a big hero to appear, this shooting these stories always have to find a chaotic world, a chaotic world out of heroes, and then you say that the most chaotic time in Hong Kong must be before the return to the motherland. I hope that you will not forget the spirit of our Hong Kong people in the past, that is, we are not afraid, we are united, we do fast, hong Kong itself is a super big challenge, there are challenges in all aspects.
Interface Entertainment: We've seen some viewers see "Anti-Black" as a sequel to Gu Qiuzai.
Song Benzhong: A change, it's like we come to a pheasant to phoenix concept, and then Youku does a pretty good job, nostalgic Newport drama. Big husband that era was a super hot police story TV series, and then the big husband song was also super hot in that year, and now in the police training school they still sing big husband, so this big husband has a great influence on the police. It is that before Peng Haoxiang filmed the big husband there was a plot of buying spring, so he degraded this, in fact, the big husband has always been a song sung by the police themselves.
Interface Entertainment: So do you think that for today's young people, will the film of Gu Qiuzai still have any significance?
Song Benzhong: Yes, just don't be a bad person. Where did the real nine-year-old puzzle boy in history go? If you die, you won't end well. This is also what I added later, because I shoot things, don't say dirty words, don't smoke, I don't want to teach the next generation, so the people who die inside have a monologue, which is to make this clear. Sometimes when the underworld is not his own (active) to be, it is the times and the environment that force him, maybe the movie at that time and his friends around him, as well as his environment, where he grew up will be affected. The previous Gu Qiu Boy really affected many children in the mainland, and this Xiaochun also said in his previous visits that he did have a little regret, he did not control the pheasant thing before, let a group of young people imitate him, this we are responsible as the media.
Interface Entertainment: Yes.
Song Benzhong: Like President Xi Jinping also said that the biggest thing in our literary and art circles is to instill good ideas in the people, don't mislead these children, smoke well, and say dirty words are very good, don't do it. Especially now that the Internet is difficult to manage what children see, it is still not necessary to shoot things randomly. There are some people who have not studied and think that it is okay to go out and cut people, which is very dangerous.
I just said that the eldest husband caught fire in the TV series 40 years ago, so that the young people in Hong Kong want to become policemen, after 1970, 1980 was the super peak of Hong Kong to become a policeman, that is, maybe only 2,000 people went to be policemen before, and then more than 10,000 people became policemen, do you understand the difference? This positive energy thing, so I also feel that the atmosphere of Hong Kong has returned to 20 years.
I still hope that this concept can continue, when I was a child, I did see that the Hong Kong neighborhoods all loved the police, and the police used to take special care of us, because when they were managed and bullied by the British, only their own people loved their own people. Chinese strange, what type of Chinese is it? It is only when people are bullied that they will unite, and I hope that this spirit of Chinese will be displayed, and unity can be achieved.