Recently, there is a domestic masterpiece, the reputation is temporarily the best domestic documentary this year, but the box office is very dismal, currently released for 4 days, less than 1% of the film, the predicted box office of Maoyan is only 1 million +.
No big stars? No. There are many big names: Hong Jinbao, Yuan Heping, Cheng Xiaodong, Yuan Hua, Zhen Zidan, Qian Jiale... They are all mainstays of Hong Kong action movies. No big scenes? Nor is it. The action scenes of the film, watched now, can still make people stunned.
Today, let us once again walk into this Hong Kong movie "The Last Legend" - "Dragon and Tiger Martial Master"
The documentary tells the story of the rise and fall of the Dragon and Tiger Martial Arts for 60 years (from 1960 to the present). "Dragon and Tiger Martial Master" is derived from the title of the position in Cantonese opera, Chinese mainland is generally referred to as "Wuxing". However, in Hong Kong, not all people who shoot action scenes are recognized as "dragon and tiger martial artists", and only those who have filmed thrilling scenes and are scarred are entitled to bear this title, this glory.
For a long time, wuxing has been a group that has been ignored by the public.
Let's start with an experience of director Wei Junzi. In the interview, he once mentioned that after the millennium, Tony Jia became famous for "Boxing Bully" and "Tom Yin Gong", and he was obsessed with it and praised Tony Jia's kung fu in front of the old predecessors of wuxing.
The elders said that the really powerful people were those who were beaten. When Tony Jay strikes with elbows, feet, and knees, the person who is hit must react at the right point, and the longer the shot, the more difficult it is. These people who are beaten are martial artists. And their skills are learned from the Hong Kong martial arts team that went to Thailand to shoot a movie.
In action movies, the price paid by Wuxing is very heavy, they do stunts, doubles, running dragon sets, the most difficult and dangerous actions, they try first. For example, in "Plan A", there is a famous scene in which Jackie Chan jumps from the 15-meter bell tower and smashes heavily on the ground. The only thing that can cushion gravity is a few rain shades.
Such a scene is fatal, and Jackie Chan does not dare to shoot it. How can this be done? At that time, the common method was to go through the martial arts in the crew first and try it with the body. If you want to be accurate, you can only find a martial artist who weighs the same as Jackie Chan: Mars. He fell repeatedly, didn't die, well, Jackie Chan.
Another example is Yuanwu, a former member of the Hongjia class. Hong Jinbao once said: "He is my death squad, he does everything." "The movements that Yuanwu has to do are equally difficult. He was kicked out of the glass window, slammed heavily on the steps, and then his body bounced up, and he had to land on the ground with his neck.
To shoot this kind of scene, you must go to the hospital afterwards. At that time, martial arts were about creating wonders with the body. They are supporting roles, a group of people who hide their merits and fame behind the stars. If it is so dangerous, why are there people coming after us? Most of the people who choose this line of work are from the bottom, and the income from doing martial arts is not cheap. Fighting for their lives has become the only way for them to change their lives against the sky.
But also limited by the growth environment, most of the martial arts earn money during the day, gamble money and gamble horses at night, consume exhaustion, have no savings, no planning, so there are very few people who come out.
They start work, and they rely on the stars. In the early 1970s, Bruce Lee created his own action movie era. With "Big Brother Tangshan" and "Jingwumen", he took Hong Kong action movies to a new level and became a spokesperson for Chinese kung fu.
Bruce Lee really started the frenzy of Hong Kong action movies, and it was also because of him that the number of martial arts suddenly increased. But in 1973, Bruce Lee died unexpectedly. An era ended, action movies followed a 5-year slump, and many martial arts could not be eaten.
It wasn't until the 1980s that Hong Kong action movies ushered in a new heyday. Hong Kong Wuxing gave birth to four golden teams: Hong Jinbao's "Hong Jia Class", Jackie Chan's "Cheng Jia Class", Yuan Heping's "Yuan Jia Ban", and Liu Jialiang's "Liu Jia Ban".
The four teams have their own strengths: Hong Jiaban is good at complex tricks, sometimes with extremely dangerous actions; the Chengjia class is led by Jackie Chan, with one hand action comedy, the other hand desperately playing for his life; Yuan Jiaban has "Eight Masters" Yuan Heping sitting in town, the action design is unpredictable, and strange moves are frequent; Liu Jialiang is an authentic southern Sect Hong Fist shot, advocating the real fight of hard bridges and hard horses.
At that time, several teams were fiercely competitive. Several martial arts guilds will watch each other's films, compete darkly, and think of more difficult and dangerous actions. In their words, it's called "healthy competition," and in our words, it's also "too inward-looking."
To what extent is it rolled up? Look at Hong Jia Ban. In "Provincial Flag Soldier", Yuan Wu falls from a tall building, and the ice rink below it is splashed with blood.
In "Oriental Condor", Qian Jiale, known as the "King of Stand-ins", was burned into a burning man by 6 petrol bombs in an explosion scene and almost died on the spot.
During his recuperation, he went to the set again and helped complete the cliff jumping shot that Hong Jinbao could not take.
Let's look at the family class. In "Police Story", Jackie Chan slid down the fifth floor of the mall down the steel pipe covered with colored lights.
When he landed, Maggie Cheung and Lin Qingxia cried in fright and advised him not to shoot such a dangerous scene again. However, this movie is the starting point of Jackie Chan's fight for the film.
Because of them, Hong Kong movies have entered the "era of fighting"; because of them, Hong Kong's action design can constantly innovate and play the world.
By the 1990s, Hollywood blockbusters (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park) were coming under pressure, putting enormous pressure on Hong Kong films.
The phrase "You have science, I have divine skills" in "Oriental Undefeated" is enjoyable, but in reality, to resist those blockbusters, you can only rely on Hong Kong action movies, and you can only rely on the flesh and blood of action stars and martial artists.
Fist-to-flesh action fights are less and less attractive to brilliant technology and special effects, and since the 1990s, Hong Kong action movies have turned from boom to bust. But the desperate spirit of those martial arts, the creative spirit of those martial fingers, is still nourishing generations of filmmakers.
Yuan Heping once said: "You don't have to be desperate to make a movie, and it is only powerful to make a fake one like the real one." "But the truth is that he once had to fight with the team." Of course, the safety shooting method is advanced, but it is tried out by martial artists in the process of crawling and fighting.
The day before the ladder battle of "Huang Feihong", Jet Li injured his leg, and this wonderful duel was all completed by Xiong Xinxin and Gu Xuanzhao, and Jet Li only filmed a few appearances. It is possible not to show flaws, thanks to the cooperation of director Xu Ke, Wu Zhi Yuan Heping and splicer Mai Zishan.
It should be noted that "Huang Feihong" not only won the Academy Award for Best Action Design, but also took the Best Editing.
Another example is Jackie Chan. He shows the artistic sense of action in the documentary "Jackie Chan's Stunts". And how to use scene processing and action design to make more than a dozen scenes more reasonable. This documentary is more dry and is an excellent supplement to "Dragon and Tiger Martial Master".
However, time has changed, and now the action scenes rely heavily on special effects, and Wia is popular. The practices of those martial arts elders are "outdated", because of their age, they can no longer come out to shoot dramas and then wrestle. And because of their past life-fighting experiences, most of them fell ill and the evening scene was desolate.
There are roughly two directions of effort for martial arts with spare strength - one is Qian Jiale, who serves as the president of the Hong Kong Action Stunt Performers Guild, organizes training, and exports new strength to the industry. Another, such as Gu Xuanzhao and Dong Wei, participated in the production of mainland film and television. Hong Kong martial arts have not disappeared, they have just integrated into the larger world and shared their experiences with more latecomers.
But what is the current film and television ecology like? Don't say desperate, the most basic punctuality has become a model, and filming has become a dedication. The drama has not yet been completed, and the hot search has long been arranged, so the action scene is becoming more and more unbearable to see.
It is undeniable that Hong Kong action movies have long since ceased to be their former glory, and the stars are not picked up. As a result, whenever we have a Hong Kong dominated by movement, there will always be a sense of fatalism and pathos that the curtain of Hong Kong action movies will fall. This is true of Ip Man 4, and it is also true of Fury Case.
"Dragon tiger martial artist" was released in such a context, which makes people feel that this is a tribute to Hong Kong action movies and dragon and tiger martial artists, which is stained with blood and tears. We miss those martial arts not only because of the image memories in our minds; but also because at that time, there were really people who were willing to fight for the drama.
In this documentary, when asked about the most difficult scene in the interview, almost all of them said "Dragon's Heart". This film is Hong Jinbao's transformation work, want to take the route of literary and art films, he plays a silly brother in the film, and Jackie Chan plays his younger brother. But for the sake of the market, he had to add action scenes, and Hong Jinbao was very ambitious, he wanted eight people to jump through the window together. At the same time, there were explosions, only cardboard boxes were laid on the floor, and it was difficult to avoid the occurrence of stacks of people.
When Wei Junzi handled this scene, he overlapped the images of the eight martial artists falling from the building with the reactions of the interviewees, and the cameras switched back and forth, upgraded, and the emotions were repeatedly delayed, such as poetry, such as elegy. In that moment, fear and obsession intertwine. At that moment, they dreamed back to the golden age.