<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="303" > behind the scenes of "Autumn Fairy Tales"</h1>
In 1988, at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards, Chow Yun-fat was nominated for "Best Actor" at the Academy Awards for three films. This is the first time since the establishment of the Academy Awards that an actor has "wrestled" with himself, and the final result is not suspenseful.
Since Zhou Runhua won the "Emperor of Shadows" with "The True Colors of Heroes" in the last session, this time he won the honor of "Emperor of Shadows" with "Dragon and Tiger Storm", becoming the first place in the Academy Awards and the only "Emperor of Shadows" in Lianzhuang so far.
That year, only Chow Yun-fat could defeat Chow Yun-fat, and in that year, Hong Kong began to circulate that "no more hair can be Chow Yun-fat".
However, Zhou Runfa was somewhat surprised or regretful about such a result, and he once said when receiving the award: "Good accident, the bow ruler can't beat Gao Qiu."
The two names he mentioned were the protagonists in the two films he had starred in the previous year. Among them, Gao Qiu refers to the award-winning "Dragon and Tiger Storm", and the bow ruler is the male protagonist of the "Fairy Tale of Autumn" that Dousha wants to talk about today.
As for why Fa Ge said accident, don't worry, listen to the bean paste to everyone slowly....
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In 1983, Ms. Shaw traveled to New York to view an exhibition of photographic equipment held there. There, she met Wanting Zhang, who was still studying in the film department at New York University.
Zhang Wanting and Luo Qirui (right)
At that time, Zhang Wanting was responsible for explaining to her, and after some contact, Fang Yihua favored the young female director and took the initiative to say that if she wanted to make a movie, she was willing to help. You know, Fang Yihua is a well-known "door-slamming", to get such a promise from her, Zhang Wanting is lucky enough, and at the same time she must be talented.
Time has proven it.
A year later, Zhang Wanting was preparing to shoot her graduation work, and in order to attract investment, she really went to Fang Yihua, and really wanted to invest 1 million Hong Kong dollars. With this investment, Zhang Wanting, together with her classmate and lover Luo Qirui, made her film debut "Illegal Immigration".
This is a film about the survival struggle of Chinese youth without "identity" in Chinatown, the whole film does not use a professional actor, but because of the unique perspective, close to the delicacy of real life and the background of the times, this small-cost immigration film finally received 5 million Hong Kong dollars after its release. At the same time, Zhang Wanting also won the Academy Award for Best Director with this debut.
Stills of illegal immigrants
That year, her opponents were Hong Jinbao (Dragon's Heart), Kwan Kam Peng (Woman's Heart), Liu Guanwei (Mr. Zombie) and Jackie Chan (Police Story). From these shortlisted directors, it can be seen that the Hong Kong Academy Awards are groping for transformation, no longer only recognizing literary and art films, but beginning to face up to commercial films. However, despite this, the judges of the Academy Awards still gave the best director to Zhang Wanting, the director of the literary film, which shows that she is indeed talented.
Because of these recognitions, Zhang Wanting and Luo Qirui were able to have the confidence and opportunity to stay in Hong Kong to continue filming, and also had their second film", "Fairy Tales of Autumn". However, compared to "Illegal Immigrants", which can successfully get the investment of Shaw Fang Yihua, "Autumn Fairy Tale" is not so lucky.
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At that time, the Hong Kong film industry was popular with action and comedy movies, and everyone was busy making these two major themes to "grab money", and there were few film companies willing to invest in literary and art films like "Autumn Fairy Tale". For this reason, Zhang Wanting can only run around, and at the same time hit a wall everywhere.
Later, it was difficult to contact Jiahe, but the other party was willing to shoot, provided that the male protagonist must be played by Xu Guanwen. But at that time, Zhang Wanting already had a candidate in her heart, and he had to. So, she had to find another investment, and in the end, she found Debao Pictures.
It's a film company founded by Hong Jinbao and Shum Jianxun, and although the two bosses often make comedies and action movies, they are willing to try different genres. Therefore, when Zhang Wanting took the script to Cen Jianxun, Boss Cen was as naughty as the role he had played, and first said without raising his eyelids: "Let it go." Then she called Zhang Wanting on the way back and said that she was willing to invest.
With his help, film investment has landed. With Debao's investment, the film is still one step away from a smooth start. What robbery? Zhou Runfa! That is, the actor who Zhang Wanting identified as "must he".
At that time, Zhou Runfa had just finished filming "The True Colors of Heroes". On the day of the midnight test screening of the film, Zhang Wanting and Luo Qirui just happened to talk about cooperation with Zhou Runfa, and after reaching a verbal agreement, the two stopped by to give Zhou Runfa's new play a scene. As a result, they witnessed the success of "Little Brother Ma" in the theater.
Since then, Zhou Runfa has changed from "poison hair" to "immortal hair", not only the drama is too much to receive, but the film remuneration has also risen. At this time and another time, Zhang Wanting was very worried that Zhou Runfa could not participate in the performance or could not participate in the performance according to the agreed low-cost film remuneration, after all, it was only a verbal agreement when the talk was discussed.
Fortunately, Zhou Runfa is very moralistic like "Little Brother Ma", not only did not sit on the ground, but also promised to shoot. Zhang Wanting was relieved to go to New York to prepare for the shooting. When the preparation was almost complete, Zhou Runfa also fulfilled his promise and flew over, and the film was able to start shooting smoothly.
After the film started shooting, for various reasons, the shooting period was also continuous. First of all, Zhou Runfa's schedule was tense, at that time, he was a bit of a magic stone into gold at the box office, and many film companies with a background in Hong Kong wanted to grab his schedule to shoot, so Zhou Runfa came to New York to shoot a scene this time, and there was often "Gu Qiuzi" on the shooting scene to supervise the progress, in order to let his money-making machine quickly finish filming and return to Hong Kong.
Because of the existence of these people, whenever Zhang Wanting shouted NG at the scene, there were boos around her: "The shooting is very good", "You are not running for the Oscar!" ”。 Such a supervisor, Zhang Wanting's courage to shoot was frightened, fortunately, the "Ancient Puzzle Boys" gave the "Little Brother" face, and there was no major conflict at the scene.
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Another situation is budget overrun, originally Zhou Runfa's low-cost franchise has saved costs, but this is zhang Wanting's second film after all, and she has some inexperience in controlling the budget.
In addition, in order to shoot the autumn atmosphere, the crew once sprayed the trees in New York's Central Park, where the filming site, was colored, and as a result, the defendant went to court to claim compensation, and additional expenses were added. As a result, the film was overspended less than halfway through.
To this end, Zhang Wanting can only be careful and save everywhere. She first switched to compression quality, relatively cheap film shooting, and then reduced artificial setting and lighting modification, the whole shooting from Jane, the result, due to the blessing of misfortune, the film has a faint yellowing feeling after the film, which is very in line with the mood of autumn.
Then, Zhang Wanting changed the interior shooting to Hong Kong set up shooting, like Zhong Chuhong's "Earthquake House" in the movie, which was filmed in Hong Kong, in order to save the crew's huge expenses in a foreign country.
With such careful calculation, the film was finally successfully filmed. After the film was filmed, because of the various conditions during the shooting, Zhang Wanting did not shoot calmly, coupled with the popular action movies and comedies at that time, Zhang Wanting was not confident in how much box office she could get, and once thought that after filming this movie, she had to pack up and return to New York.
She clearly underestimated herself and Chow Yun-fat's box office appeal.
On July 16, 1987, "Autumn Fairy Tale" was released in Hong Kong, and although it was not the best time for theaters, the film still earned 25 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office, setting a record for the history of Hong Kong literary and art films. At the same time, at the Academy Awards the following year, "Autumn Fairy Tale" also won the best movie award. Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Luo once again proved themselves and have since grown into the backbone of the Branch of Hong Kong literary and art films.
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After talking about the director couple, let's talk about several characters in the movie.
The first is the heroine Zhong Chuhong, an actress from Hong Kong, although she entered the industry with the title of "the most beautiful Hong Kong sister", she really could not act at that time. The first audition in wireless ended in failure, and the road to filming a TV series was blocked. Later, thanks to the appreciation of such a big name as Liu Songren, he had the opportunity to enter the film circle, and his first work was to participate in Du Qifeng's debut work "Clear Water and a Thousand Mountains and Deadly Gold".
However, because Zhong Chuhong's acting skills were too immature at that time, she was called a "vase" by the audience. Then there was the cooperation with Zhou Runfa, participating in Xu Anhua's "The Story of Hu Yue", before filming began, Xu Anhua questioned her: "Such a beautiful girl is too inconsistent with the bumpy fate of Vietnamese boat people." Fortunately, Xu Anhua is still patient, and Zhong Chuhong is also hard enough, because of this movie, Zhong Chuhong has made a breakthrough in acting skills and has a reputation in the industry.
Stills from "Woman's Heart"
More importantly, her image of a "screen couple" with Zhou Runfa is deeply rooted in people's hearts. Thanks to this, Zhong Chuhong later received an invitation from Guan Jinpeng and cooperated with Zhou Runfa again to shoot "Woman's Heart", and his acting skills once again had a breakthrough. And because of the cooperation with literary and art film directors such as Xu Anhua and Guan Jinpeng, Zhong Chuhong's screen image is no longer the "beauty" of Hong Kong sisters, but the healthy "charming".
Perhaps Zhang Wanting, who is also filming literary and art films, also saw this, so she invited her to star in "Autumn Fairy Tale". And because of Zhong Chuhong's feminine and cute temperament, she wanders between her ex-boyfriend and Zhou Runfa, and even if she says such a thing in the film, a straight man like Dousha does not feel "green tea."
Honggu's unique temperament, coupled with excellent acting skills, the choice of tea pot is easy for the audience to understand and care about her fate. And because of the perfect integration of temperament and acting skills, Zhong Chuhong was also nominated for the Academy Awards and the Golden Horse Award for "Queen of Film" at the same time, which is her first double nomination in the film industry, and Zhong Chuhong no longer needs to prove anything in her acting skills.
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Another main role is played by Chen Baiqiang, the rich second generation + negative hearted man "Vincent", during the preparation of the film in the United States, because of the shortage of funds, Zhang Wanting did not want to invite Hong Kong local stars to Go to New York for this role, which is tantamount to additional expenses.
When they were embarrassed by this, the crew learned that Chen Baiqiang happened to be in New York, and contacted him through a relationship. Chen Baiqiang, as a singer, may not be in the film industry, although he has acted in several movies before, but most of them are cameo roles. Therefore, "Autumn Fairy Tale" invited him to participate, he did not care about the size of the role, and happily agreed to participate.
Because of Chen Baiqiang's participation, his "noble prince" temperament is very consistent with the role, although Chen Baiqiang does not have eye-catching acting skills, but it is not contrary to the film has been considered to add points to the movie. In addition to not dragging his feet, Chen Baiqiang also created a theme song for the film "Dream". However, directors Zhang Wanting and Luo Qirui used a less sad ending instead, and "Dream" was abandoned at the last moment and replaced by "Farewell to Autumn" sung by Lu Fang.
Although there are some regrets, Chen Baiqiang has gained another more precious thing because of this movie, that is, his friendship with Zhou Runfa and Zhong Chuhong. In addition to filming in New York, because they are in a foreign country, 3 people can easily get together, and when there is nothing to do, they often chat together in the room, cook hairy crabs, and have a lot of fun!
However, this friendship did not continue to write too many stories, and a few years later, Chen Baiqiang passed away, and Zhou Runfa personally helped the spirit and bid farewell to his friends.
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Finally, let's talk about zhou Runfa, the actor of the protagonist's bow ruler, the article mentioned at the beginning of the article, he was a bit surprised that "the bow ruler can't win the high autumn", why the accident?
Because the bow ruler is a role he likes very much, and whether in life or emotionally, this role is close to Zhou Runfa's experience. In terms of life experience, Zhou Runfa's father is a crew member, and he is also a good bet, so when he interprets the "bow ruler", he unconsciously thinks of his father, and therefore plays natural and real.
In terms of emotional experience, Zhou Runfa has a crush on "tea pot" Zhong Chuhong in the play, but the two have huge differences in family background, cultural literacy and personal interests, which is very similar to Zhou Runfa's love experience in reality.
When he and Miao Qianren fell in love, the two sides also had a big gap in cultural literacy and interest, when Miao Qianren talked to him about the subset of history, he did not know what "Zhuangzi" and "Shi Ji" were; when Miao Qianren talked to him about the paintings of Qi Baishi and Xu Beihong, the only thing he thought of was the old master.
In order to improve the life of his family, the poor boy has money in his eyes and mouths, and naturally cannot agree with Miss Qianjin's sad spring and autumn, and in the same way, Miss Qianjin also feels that the poor boy is impatient. So, the relationship ended up breaking up because the two "couldn't communicate".
Such an experience made Zhou Runfa very aware of the inferiority of the "bow ruler" in front of the "tea pot" in the movie, so he has not expressed his heart.
Moreover, between the "bow ruler" and the "tea pot" in the movie, there is also a rich second generation played by Chen Baiqiang, and Zhou Runfa's second love affair, that is, his love affair with the "little dragon girl" Chen Yulian, before breaking the window, there was also a rich second generation. It is precisely because of the fierce pursuit of this rich second generation that Zhou Runfa plucked up the courage to confess Chen Yulian.
These real-life emotional experiences have invisibly helped Zhou Runfa to use his heart and soul to shape the role of the bow ruler. Therefore, it was a bit of a surprise that zhou Runfa did not win the award with it.
However, there must be gains, the past Zhou Runfa treats emotional passion, enthusiasm, irresponsibility, so he will commit suicide for love, flash marriage and divorce, and in the movie, the bow ruler treats feelings sincerely and implicitly, and when he loses, he is to improve himself and wait calmly. To some extent, this helped Zhou Runfa reflect on his past emotional experiences
Because of these reflections, during his filming in the United States, after an all-night film, Zhou Runfa suddenly proposed to his girlfriend Chen Huilian who accompanied him to the United States: "Why don't we get married." Subsequently, the two registered their marriage in the United States and have lived together for the rest of their lives ever since.
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In life, Zhou Runfa waited for Chen Huilian after experiencing many emotional storms such as Miao Qianren, Chen Yulian, Yu An'an, etc., and Chen Huilian soothed the broken heart of the prodigal son with his tolerant mind, patiently accompanied Zhou Runfa through the most difficult days, and finally waited for Yun Kaiyueming.
In the movie, after the bow ruler and the tea pot are separated, he is not depressed, but runs a restaurant and waits alone. Finally, he waited for her. Their love was forever frozen in New York in 1987.
You see, both the movie and the life are like the last sentence of the whole book "The Count of Monte Cristo":
All human wisdom is hidden in hope and waiting.
May you and I find the wisdom of life in hope and waiting. I'm Dousha, follow me, and take you to learn more about the behind-the-scenes stories of classic Hong Kong films.