Speaking of the king of comedy, everyone will first think of Stephen Chow, in fact, before Stephen Chow became famous, there was already a king of comedy in Hong Kong, he was Hui Guanwen.
Run Run Shaw once said: In this life, I have only seen two wrong people, one is Bruce Lee and the other is Xu Guanwen. The former is a kung fu superstar that everyone is familiar with, so who is Xu Guanwen, who can be compared with Stephen Chow and Bruce Lee?
For example, if Bruce Lee is the originator of kung fu films, then Xu Guanwen is the grandfather of the comedy world. He is known as the "cold-faced laughing smith", single-handedly elevated the status of Hong Kong comedy, he is not only the film emperor of the first Academy Awards, but also the first president of the Hong Kong Artists Association, and won the 15th World Outstanding Chinese Award.
The first king of comedy in Hong Kong
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > the eldest brother of the Xu family, who was snubbed because he did not look as good as his younger brother Xu Guanjie</h1>
Xu Guanwen was born in 1942 in Panyu, Guangdong Province, the eldest in his family, with three younger brothers and a younger sister.
Among them, the public is familiar with the three brothers of the Xu family: Xu Guanwen, Xu Guanying, and Xu Guanjie
Because his family was poor, Xu Guanwen was the eldest son, so he took up the burden of the family very early, and since junior high school, Xu Guanwen has gone to school while going to night school to teach English part-time.
The three brothers of the Xu family: Xu Guanwen, Xu Guanying, and Xu Guanjie
Later, in order to save tuition, Xu Guanwen was admitted to the free teacher training college, and after graduation, he officially became a secondary school teacher.
But after being a teacher for a while, Xu Guanwen quickly realized that this was not the life he wanted, and he was determined to change his destiny.
So he resolutely resigned, and after 3 years of hard work and half-study, Hui Guanwen was admitted to the University of Hong Kong Chinese as he wished.
Here, Xu Guanwen systematically learned the knowledge of writing, laying a solid theoretical foundation for his subsequent creation of civic comedy.
At the same time, he also served as the school's student president and debate team leader with excellent organizational and presentation skills.
After graduation, Xu Guanwen entered THE TVB under the introduction of his brother Xu Guanjie, although the two brothers are fledgling newcomers, but with a funny and grounded performance style, the variety show "Double Star Annunciation" they hosted was actually a hit, not only the ratings climbed one after another, the two brothers also suddenly opened up their popularity.
Embarrassingly, the show was done by the two brothers together, but the younger brother Xu Guanjie was much more popular than the ordinary Xu Guanwen because of his handsome appearance, and it was not long before Xu Guanjie was also taken away by the big company Jiahe Xiangzhong, leaving only Xu Guanwen to continue to play ugly entertainment audiences in the same place.
At that time, some people ridiculed Xu Guanwen for this matter: it is better to have culture than to have a handsome face. But gold always shines, and a year later, Xu Guanwen met his own Bole.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > is just beginning to emerge</h1>
In 1972, the big director Li Hanxiang prepared to shoot the movie "The Great Warlord", because Xu Guanwen's hosting performance style impressed him, so Li Hanxiang made a very bold decision: to use Xu Guanwen, who had no acting experience at all, as the male protagonist.
In the face of this hard-won opportunity, Xu Guanwen cherished it very much, and in order to be closer to the role, Xu Guanwen shaved his head without saying a word.
After the release of the movie, Xu Guanwen's exaggerated and funny appearance amused countless audiences, especially the clip of the huge household asking for rain in the movie and scolding the Dragon King, which still seems to be hilarious.
Because the huge household played by Xu Guanwen has his hands crossed at his waist, his eyes are wide open, and the way he points at the sky and scolds the street is really funny. For a time, Xu Guanwen rose to fame and became the most popular comedy star at that time.
With the success of this cooperation, Li Hanxiang has invited Xu Guanwen to shoot dramas many times, such as "Scandal", "Sound and Color Dog and Horse", etc. are called excellent masterpieces, but with the growing fame, Xu Guanwen is not satisfied with being a small actor, he wants to make a movie that belongs only to himself.
At that time, he was closed for 3 months, and he painstakingly wrote a script, which he then handed over to Shaw, the largest film company at the time, and proposed the idea of dividing the profits equally.
But Shaw feels that Shaw's big director Li Hanxiang can only get a salary, and a small actor still wants to divide the profits equally? So he refused on the grounds that the script was too poor.
Xu Guanwen, who had eaten the closed door soup, did not give up, and he went to find Shao's rival Jiahe.
After understanding the situation, Jiahe boss Zou Wenhuai not only agreed to Xu Guanwen's request for dividends, but also took the initiative to help Xu Guanwen establish the Xu Brothers Film Company.
As a result, the script that was rejected by Shaw was finally released under the production of Jiahe, and the super high box office strength of 6.25 million hit Shaw in the face, and this film is also known as the pioneering work of the satirical comedy, it is called "Ghost Horse Double Star".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > civic comedy</h1>
After the establishment of the company, Xu Guanwen completely let go of his hands and feet, in the next few years, he seemed to have opened a hanging, talented he has directed and acted in many movies in succession, and his amazing box office results have hit Shaw again and again, creating a large number of classic comedy movies, of which the movies "Half a Pound eight two", "Selling Deeds" and "Modern Bodyguard" became the annual box office champions, and 3 times set a new box office record.
Different from Stephen Chow's nonsense style, Xu Guanwen's comedies are generally taken from the bottom of society, coupled with the relationship between perhaps being a teacher, Xu Guanwen's comedies not only have a very strong civic atmosphere, but also often have educational and ironic significance. So his films are not only hilarious, but also can't help but think.
For example, in "Half a Pound, Eight Twos", he plays a "Grande"-style door-picking president who has been doing his best to exploit employees, because at the time of writing this script, Hong Kong was in a period of economic take-off and serious class contradictions. So he used this to satirize the social situation at that time
In the 1980s, Hong Kong was almost the world of Hui comedy, when the Hui brothers were red and purple, and Hui Guanwen won the best actor at the first Hong Kong Film Awards, becoming the first film emperor in Hong Kong.
Since then, he has been nominated for Best Actor 4 times and Best Screenwriter twice, becoming the deserved king of comedy in the hearts of the People of Hong Kong.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="38" > the hero ends</h1>
In the 90s, I don't know if Jiang Lang was exhausted or had other ideas, in short, after filming the movie "Divine Calculation", Xu Guanwen deliberately faded out of the show business circle.
Since then, Zhou Xingchi's nonsense comedy has risen, and Xu Guanwen has completely retreated into the background.
In the 1991 movie "Night Banquet", Xu Guanwen and Zhou Xingchi had a classic chicken head-snatching scene, which was jokingly called "the handover of the godfather of new and old comedy" by netizens.
In fact, about his retirement, Xu Guanwen himself also explained, he said that in the past decade, he has also written a lot of scripts, but in the end he is not satisfied, for this reason, he would rather not make, rather than make some perfunctory money-making movies. In addition, in Xu Guanwen's heart, the death of his younger brother Xu Guanying has always been a thorn in his heart.
Xu Guanying, Xu Guanjie and Xu Guanwen are three brothers
In the early years, when the Xu brothers filmed together, Xu Guanwen was not only the eldest brother, but also the director of the crew, so he had an absolute authoritative voice on the scene.
Because Xu Guanwen has high requirements for film shooting and production, coupled with his family's better conversation, Xu Guanying has become his punching bag, sometimes a scene has been filmed more than a dozen times, Xu Guanwen still dislikes Xu Guanying's bad performance, and even often insults him in public on the spot.
This made Xu Guanying, who already had some inferiority, once depressed. Therefore, when Xu Guanying died of illness, Xu Guanwen was very remorseful and regretful.
Xu Guanying
Perhaps because of the guilt of his brother's death, Xu Guanwen is now more willing to spend time with his family.
It is worth mentioning that Xu Guanwen is a well-known good man in the Hong Kong entertainment industry, as early as the university period, Xu Guanwen met his wife Zheng Jieying, when the two were poor and white students, when there was a date, Zheng Jieying suddenly wanted to eat hairy crabs, but Xu Guanwen had no money, just when he was embarrassed and difficult to say, Zheng Jieying silently dropped his watch, in exchange for a delicious meal.
Later, after Xu Guanwen developed, he would give his wife a precious watch every year, and the sweetness of the two people's feelings could be seen.
Although Xu Guanwen has long ceased to be involved in the film industry, his film and television works are still revisited by many audiences, and many of them are still used on the Internet.
But for these glorious pasts, Xu Guanwen has long been indifferent, just like his classic line: Don't talk to me about the future, because tomorrow may be the end of the world, and don't mention the past to me, because the past is only a vague video tape left in the brain cells, remember, only the present is eternal!
Xu Guanwen once said: I never shoot tragedies when I make comedies, because the world doesn't need them.
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