Two days ago, Uncle Yu recommended a Newport drama: "The Strange Case Against the Sky".
It scored 8.1 points on Douban, the highest score for Hong Kong dramas that have been broadcast this year.
The quality far exceeds that of "Guys Do Big Things" and "Top Gun Master Sister 2021" produced by TVB.
But at the same time, Uncle Yu also noticed a problem:
These dramas are all police and bandit themes.
Is today's TVB only filming police dramas?
Not really.
Recently, TVB has sought new changes and launched an alternative new drama.
It boldly took Hong Kong filmmakers to fire fire on all kinds of chaos in the entertainment industry.
Sharp, humorous, large-scale, in one fell swoop to win the Douban 8 points + ——
The Absurd Theatre Company
This drama has only more than 1,000 reviews on Douban, and its popularity is much weaker than other Hong Kong dramas.
Because it does not have a big star starring, Cass is basically a Hong Kong drama green leaf that looks familiar but cannot be named.
The male protagonist, Ao Jianian, has served as a foil in dozens of Hong Kong dramas on TVB.
The heroine Jiang Jiamin, who acted in TVB for 13 years, got the opportunity to play the main role this time.
Other actors, Wang Hao'er, Lin Wei, Huang Jiawen and Liu Zishuo, are even more "small transparent".
The only one who has some fame among the main actors is Zheng Danrui.
In the golden age of Hong Kong films, he was a desperate samurai who was also a director, producer, screenwriter and actor.
There are countless big names who have cooperated, including but not limited to Leung Ka Fai, Chow Sing Chi, Leung Chao Wai, Andy Lau and so on.
At its peak, he was nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
But with the decline of Hong Kong films, he also fell from the outlet.
In recent years, I often play soy sauce in various bad films.
Why did Zheng Danrui TVB in "Hong Kong 囧" find such a bunch of artists with no traffic and no fans?
Because this drama is exactly the story of a bunch of Hong Kong entertainment industry losers.
They are: waste wood producers who cannot attract investment.
After debuting and winning the Academy Award, the director was in a slump.
Eighteen-line female star.
Banned art director.
An assistant director who does chores every day.
A screenwriter who is squeezed by his boss.
And the martial arts instructor who once brilliantly set up a food stall.
You see, these 7 protagonists are all no-name pawns, which just reflects the embarrassing situation of the actor himself in reality.
Although they do not have the status of jianghu, they still have movie dreams.
Together, they orchestrated a series of absurd, comical, and nonsensical scams.
As the saying goes, "Filmmakers are the best old people."
The first scam is called the "Abalone Feast Overlord Meal".
One day, the waste wood producer (Zheng Danrui) had a dream, dreaming that his life would soon be over.
After waking up, he decided to make an award-winning movie in his lifetime and experience the joy of achieving fame.
Therefore, he pulled in the screenwriter (Jiang Jiamin) and wrote a script that combines elements of science fiction, martial arts, love, philosophy and so on, "Golden Dream".
What is different from the past is that this waste wood producer finally found an investor: Huang Zong, who has a background in the underworld.
When Huang Zong's 20 million yuan arrives, "Golden Dream" can start filming.
To this end, the entire crew gathered in the high-end restaurant, set an abalone feast worth 100,000 Hong Kong dollars, and prepared to invite Mr. Huang to dinner.
Unexpectedly, Huang Zong was hit by rocket debris on the way to come and died on the spot.
This is good. Not only did the investment fail, but even the abalone feast in front of me did not know how to pay.
In a hurry, the filmmakers each showed their magic and cooperated to save a scene: the producer played a foodie, pretended to be a food allergy, and intimidated the manager of the restaurant.
As a result, they didn't pay a penny and walked out the door easily.
Who would have thought that these filmmakers had worked hard in obscurity for more than ten years and still lived in embarrassment.
However, because of this unexpected abduction, he enjoyed a luxurious meal.
How ironic.
This gave the executive producer the inspiration to make mistakes.
Since the movie itself is a 90-minute hoax.
It is better that they continue to play the role of Lao Qian and use the scam to raise funds for the filming of "Golden Dream".
These 7-member group is called the "Absurd Theater Troupe".
Such a setting, which seems absurd, is actually an exaggeration to metaphorically describe the current situation of the Hong Kong film industry.
With the "Abalone King Meal" and the establishment of the absurd theater troupe, it satirizes the plight of the decline of the Hong Kong film market, the lack of job opportunities for filmmakers, and the lack of place to show their talents.
Although the absurd theater troupe is engaged in illegal activities, they also have a bottom line.
The so-called theft also has a way. Their targets are unscrupulous people in society who make black money.
So there is a second scam: the "feng shui master" who debunks the money.
This swindler calls himself the "Master of the Ark" and shows people feng shui, fortune telling, and luck change.
In fact, the fundamental purpose is to fool people into buying a pile of rotten stones at a high price, claiming that they can be transported by wearing it.
Among the victims of Master Ark was the owner of a film company.
His superstition of the Ark Master was almost to the point of throwing his body to the ground.
He had just finished making a movie featuring horses, called "The Horse King."
Specially invited the Ark Master to watch the film and give some advice.
As a result, the other party opened his mouth to intimidate: there is a big disaster this year, and the horse in the movie must be changed to a deer to crack it.
But the film has been filmed, and the post-production has also been completed, is it difficult to reshoot?
The boss had a clever move and shouted, "All CG, change the horse into a deer!"
How bad do you see this Ark Master?
A word of kung fu, ruined a movie!
In order to debunk the true face of the Ark Master, the Absurd Theater Troupe wrote a new script.
Intend to use magic to defeat magic.
They collectively play a more outrageous cult and have a big fight with the Ark Master.
How does it work?
Start by finding a vacant lot and dressing it up like a cult ritual scene from a horror movie.
Then try to trick the husband of the Ark Master into coming here.
In the midst of the chaos, the Absurd Theater Troupe first tricked him into drinking the hypnotic potion.
Then use dry ice, transparent film, black curtain, special effects makeup to create a realistic illusion.
They pretended to be the young Ark masters of 10 years ago and successfully set up words.
It turned out that the couple had also been good people.
It is only because of infertility and indiscriminate medical treatment, and he was deceived by the jianghu lang all his belongings, so that he was angry and corrupt, went into a rage, and went astray.
A scene in an illusion
After the hallucination was filmed, the absurd theater troupe deceived the Ark Master.
Then, use the projector to play the sensational PPT of the mother-daughter theme, evoking her painful memories.
Then arrange a little girl to come out from behind the curtain, causing her tears to burst into tears.
At this point, the Ark Master's psychological defense line was crushed, and he finally confessed the truth of his deception.
After experiencing this experience, the Ark Master and his wife began to reflect on life, abandoning the dark and turning to the light.
They decided to donate their ill-gotten gains, which happened to be used to make the start-up funds for Golden Dream.
This scam is much more complicated than the abalone feast.
It not only criticizes the crooked way of making money from evil, but also satirizes the phenomenon of superstitious feng shui in the Hong Kong film circle.
At the same time, it also alludes to the outrageous status quo of a large number of CG head changes in the film and television industry.
But with the Ark Master's funds, the start-up of "Golden Dream" is still a little worse.
You must save up to 20 million to officially start shooting.
The absurd troupe had no choice but to continue to "rob the rich and help the poor".
This time, they turned their eyes back to the film industry.
The third scam: teasing the unscrupulous boss of a film company.
This time, the target is a film company owner who likes to pick up oil, beat people, suppress wages, and explode foul mouths.
Given that he is an old fritter. The absurd troupe planned to start with his son.
They learned through gossip that the boss's son loves to watch Japanese erotic films.
So, in the name of making erotic films, I found him.
Tricking him into only needing to invest 4 million Hong Kong dollars to make a local erotic film comparable to "The World of The Senses", "The Groan of the People's Beginning".
On the set, the screenwriter of the Absurd Theater Troupe pretended to be a Japanese actress, "Hatano".
The boss's son plays the male lead.
The plot is simple and rough, that is, the two are in a warehouse haystack, staged the passion drama of the war years.
The filming process can be called the most nonsensical paragraph of the whole play.
Originally, the passion scene should be borrowed to shoot.
However, the male protagonist pretended to be an investor, and even asked for the fake drama to be done, and offered an additional budget of 500,000 yuan.
When the crew was at a loss, Boss Su suddenly came to visit the class.
Unexpectedly, he was also attracted to "Hatano".
Immediately proposed a budget of 3 million yuan, to join the son, and the heroine came to tie up the threesome.
This farce ended with "Hatano" pretending to die violently, and the boss father and son absconded by boat.
The investment of this film has become the third starting capital of "Golden Dream".
The third scam is still full of irony: there are too many unscrupulous bosses in the film company, and they don't care about the quality of the movie at all, only whether there is a gimmick.
They have a bad attitude towards their staff, taking sexual harassment and verbal violence for granted.
In fact, regarding the role of the movie boss, the director also buried a stem.
The play implies that he was once a representative of the seven days of the peak era of Hong Kong films.
In order to shorten the revenue cycle, he once quickly finished a film within a few days.
As for whether the actors' emotions were in place during the filming process and whether the martial arts scenes were safe enough, he completely ignored them.
As a result, there have been on-set accidents in which martial arts actors have fallen into disabilities.
Unexpectedly, more than ten years later, this boss is still dead.
This is also the reason why the absurd theater troupe insists on "robbing the rich and helping the poor" from him.
It is precisely because of the existence of such bosses that the pace of the decline of Hong Kong cinema has been accelerated.
The show has a total of 8 episodes.
All the scams are satirizing the Hong Kong film industry.
The director said in an interview that many of the bridges in the play come from real events.
For example, as mentioned above, ignoring the safety of martial arts actors leads to personal injury.
For example, Hong Kong screenwriters have no status.
Take Sasha, the screenwriter of the Absurd Theatre Company, for example.
Before winning an award or writing a masterpiece, she was mostly regarded as a director's writer.
Not only is it difficult to sign the name, but it also has no right to speak, and can only acquiesce to others to change their own scripts.
She once said this: "In Hong Kong, the most important thing to be a screenwriter is courage, is the courage to seek salary and negotiate conditions, otherwise you will starve to death at any time."
If you think about it, who is Sasha talking to for a salary and a term?
Or a film company owner.
Therefore, the contradictory direction of this drama is very clear.
What it wants to blame is the helmsman who controls the direction of the Hong Kong film industry.
There is a boss in the play, on the grounds that the risk of shooting a new film is too high, turned around and remade the classic Hong Kong-made literary and art film into an idol drama.
I only want to make quick money, so I go out of my way to fry cold rice.
Isn't this the current chaos in the film and television industry?
In the play, the absurd theater troupe did its best to have the opportunity to shoot "Golden Dream".
But back to reality, the birth conditions of "Golden Dream" will only become more demanding.
A set of data is mentioned in the play: in 2016, there were 61 Hong Kong-made films released in Hong Kong cinemas;
In 2018, it was reduced to 53 units;
In 2019, there were only 46.
In another 5 years, how many films are left?
Uncle Yu did not dare to imagine.
However, in the context of the decline of Hong Kong films, it is still gratifying to have a drama like "Absurd Theater Company".
It not only uses self-blackening methods to boldly satirize industry chaos.
He also used a group of filmmakers to protect their dreams, showing their immortal feelings.
Although the absurd theater troupe is poor and white, as long as the film is mentioned, the heart is still hot.
In order to make the "Golden Dream" in their hearts, they are willing to give everything.
In fact, "Golden Dream" here, is just a reference.
It refers to those conscience Hong Kong films that have thought and expressed in the past.
Do these kinds of Hong Kong films no longer exist?
At the end of the play, the filming scene of the movie gives the opposite answer: as long as the dreamer does not give up, the dream will come true one day.