Today, let's do ghost hunting training together, no, no, let's talk about Zhou Xingchi's rare horror comedy "Night of the Soul". In 1995, probably the year that Zhou Xingchi was most reluctant to look back on, the "Journey to the West" that devoted his efforts to "Journey to the West" was flat at the box office, and the company established was therefore closed, and for a time Zhou Xingchi fell into a downturn, and Liu Zhenwei, the director of "Journey to the West", also blamed himself, and wanted to cooperate with Zhou Xingchi again to make a film that could be loved by the public and let Zhou Xingchi's style reappear, and the box office was not as good as "Journey to the West", and the box office of "Night of the Soul" was pitiful to only 16 million. Whoever listens to it doesn't say a word, it's too miserable and really too miserable! But who would have thought? After 25 years, "Night of the Returning Soul" was named a divine work~
"Night of the Returning Soul" is an upgrade of Zhou Xingchi's style in the eyes of the beast, and in today's terms, it is Zhou Xingchi's comedic style, but not exactly. There are not many horror comedy types of films, Zhou Xingchi's horror comedy is even more rare, in his acting career, comedy works account for the vast majority, horror movies are only two, one is "Night of the Soul", one is "Brother Hits the Ghost", and the horror of this "Night of the Soul" is known as the "Shadow Ceiling of Childhood". As we all know, the horror of horror films is nothing more than sound effects and makeup, only Chinese horror, which is the creepiest thing that makes the beast, and the beginning of "Night of the Soul" is a very typical Chinese spirit hall. Good fellow, the two paper men went to that pestle, and suddenly felt a chill in their backs, coupled with classical music, which was an elusive sense of weirdness. Deep into the bone marrow, inexplicably scared, when intimidated by the horror atmosphere of the beginning, a burst of disco music led us to withdraw from the horror atmosphere, and the scene changed to a modern high-rise building, which is very nonsensical, just this moment of strong Zhou Xingchi style came to the fore.
Zhou Xingchi's style in this movie is not very familiar? Is there a taste of "This Killer Is Not Too Cold"? There are many tributes or references to other movie parts in the middle, although the elements are many mixed together, but the beast still feels that the integration is quite good, the small-cost production of the film, there is no special editing skills, that is where he is good, the beast thinks, good in the plot setting, good in the actor's acting skills. Lyon, played by Star Master, thinks that the beast thinks that this is the most difficult role, and after watching the whole film, it is still difficult to understand what kind of person he is, everything is possible, everything is impossible. No matter what kind of behavior he does, it will not be surprising, in many passages of the film, it is said that Lyon is a schizophrenic, Lyon walks between true and false, genius and mental illness, when the audience fully believes that he is a mental patient, at the end of the film everyone believes in Lyon, and for a moment it feels confused. Just like the beast said before, Zhou Xingchi broke through the familiar "Zhou's comedy" style in "Night of the Returning Soul". Instead of playing a seemingly crazy but normal person, he played a self-proclaimed genius but was really a psychopath, which rarely appeared in his works.
Speaking of "Night of the Returning Souls", I don't know if you have found that Star Master's old partner is also in it? That is the director Li Lizhi. In the field of nonsense comedy, the cooperation of Stephen Chow Anderson Li Lizhi can be said to complement each other seamlessly, and in "Night of the Soul", Li Lizhi is no longer a director, but transformed into an actor. Li Lizhi believes that he wants to thank Liu Zhenwei for letting him experience the thrill of being an actor. Here's a little bit of knowledge, in the part of the ghost hunting practice, there is a character with a head, do you know who it is? Well? If you say that li li holds, it would be a big mistake. The beast also thought so when he first watched it, and then Li Lizhi said in an interview that it was his stand-in, and the role of the stand-in, he could not get the film remuneration, the film remuneration was not much, and he was slapped by the star on the set, Li Li was wronged! This scene originally had little to do with Li Lizhi, but Huang Yifei and Lu Xiong did not act, and jokingly said that it was cheap for him, so there was this classic scene.
Speaking of this called beast discovery, Liu Zhenwei this director really did quite casually, before filming "East into West" when there was no script, at that time called the beast to understand, in danger of being ordered, it is inevitable that there is no preparation for the place, how to "Night of the Soul" or not, called the beast summed up, saying that no script is a fart, this is a more exaggerated statement, the actors may not get a very complete script, this can not be regarded as no script but the actors at that time were very dedicated, very powerful! After getting a rough study of the script, I began to think about how to interpret it, and the effect was really good
"Others laugh at me too crazy, I laugh at others can't see through", no matter how much insults and ridicule Zhou Xingchi encounters, he can still insist on shooting what he likes. Even if his style and his work are not understood, he can still maintain his original intention and not change because of others. Liu Zhenwei may be unwilling, or perhaps because of appreciation of Zhou Xingchi, want to use this film, to criticize the people who once accused "Journey to the West", Liu Zhenwei used the cloak of horror films to render the horror atmosphere of the film, and even used comedy to show the absurd image with symbolism in front of the public, some nonsensical, embarrassing behaviors and plots, which seemed to increase laughter, but actually expressed the director's heart. "Night of the Soul" is an underrated horror film, not only underestimating the movie, but also underestimating Liu Zhenwei and Stephen Chow. For more behind-the-scenes stories, please follow our video on Wednesday and Saturday