In December 2004, Feng Xiaogang's "No Thief in the World" and Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu" were released before and after, and they were played on the same stage.
At that time, Stephen Chow was a box office myth for Hong Kong films, and his films, once every three years, were fine.
In the face of the collision block, Feng Xiaogang was under a lot of pressure.
During the publicity period, Andy Lau comforted Feng Xiaogang: "For so many years, Zhou Xingchi has never lost at all, and it is not ugly to lose to him." ”
But Feng Xiaogang said: "Before the results come out, we still have to keep the dream of winning." ”
Just like the silly root in "No Thief in the World", he has always adhered to the dream of no thief under the world.
In the end, "No Thief in the World" lost to "Kung Fu" with a box office of 120 million, but many fans said that Feng Xiaogang lost the box office and won the word of mouth, although he lost Yu Rong.
Until today, 17 years later, after three brushes, I finally know where "No Thief in the World" is worse than "Kung Fu"?
Today, Uncle Chai will talk to you about the things behind the scenes of "No Thief in the World".
In 2002, Feng Xiaogang heard a good story from Ge You.
This story is from Zhao Benfu's novel "No Thief in the World", which was recommended to Ge You by Ge You's mother Shi Wenxin.
The story is based on Huang Tingli, known as the "King of Thieves in Northeast China", who was the first person in China to be sentenced to death for theft.
Huang Tingli was initially just an ordinary pickpocket who stole near the Harbin Railway Station. Thrown off a train during a theft, he broke his leg and became a cripple.
In order to continue to mix this meal, he found a world-class master of theft in the jianghu, and sold the house in his hometown to learn from the teacher.
After the skill was perfected, he returned to his old business, became famous, and became the king of his peers.
After the fame was released, he began to lead the team, and at the peak, he had more than 100 younger brothers, all of whom were masters of theft.
They specialized in stealing on trains, spanning seven provinces and three cities, involving 36 trains from 13 railway bureaus, and the lineup was staggering.
In 1984, Luoyang held the Century Flower Market, gathered all kinds of hao brothers, the police concluded that such a good opportunity, Huang Tingli must not miss, so they laid a heavy dense net in advance, and when Huang Tingli was ready to retreat, he arrested him.
Because of his heinous crimes, Huang Tingli became the first person in China to be sentenced to death for theft.
Huang Tingli's story is quite legendary, and through the second creation of the writer Zhao Benfu, it really attracted Feng Xiaogang.
So he bought the rights to the novel and changed it to a screenplay.
However, when he confidently submitted the script for review, the reviewers poured cold water on him.
Let two thieves be the protagonists, there has never been a chinese film history, and it is logical to let the thief find out in his own conscience to protect a stupid boy, and even put his life on it.
In desperation, Feng Xiaogang invited his old partner Wang Gang and Liu Zhenyun. Several people sit together brainstorming, change and change, logically inconsistency of hard wounds, always can not get around.
As a result, the script could not be reviewed for a long time, and the shooting time was pushed back and forth. The depressed Feng Xiaogang drank for several days in a row, and someone advised him to give up, but Feng Xiaogang was silent.
At this moment, someone reminded him to go to Wang Shuo, the stubborn lord of the Beijing circle, saying that he had many ghost ideas.
Sure enough, Wang Shuo casually pulled a few glances at the script and said: "This matter is easy to handle, if you want a thief's conscience to find out, let the female thief get pregnant, she decided to wash her hands in the golden basin in order to accumulate virtue and do good to her offspring." ”
Wang Shuo said only a few words, making Feng Xiaogang feel like a Daigo empowerment. Even the most advanced thieves have a beautiful yearning for human nature, and they cannot let the evil causes of this generation bear fruit on the fruits of the next generation, so they choose to stop the horse from the cliff.
In this way, the logic is perfect, sublimating the core of the film and carrying forward the positive energy. It can be said that Wang Shuo is a noble person of "No Thief in the World", without him, there would be no "No Thief under the World".
Robert Altman said: "Filmmaking is an opportunity to experience multiple lives. ”
However, the opportunity to be a thief is not something that everyone can really experience.
In order to let the actors quickly enter the play, Director Feng specially prepared a box of audio tapes for them to copy the skills and techniques of stealing things.
Therefore, less than 7 days after the crew started up, the crew became a "thief's den".
In order to integrate with the thief and pinch the habits of thieves, Ge You specially checked many real files.
He found an interesting phenomenon: the more well-organized the thief, the stricter the internal discipline.
This made Ge You deeply inspired, so he became a serious Wang Li Uncle in the golden sentence, and the thief had to have a tone and a serious book.
"What is the most expensive in the 21st century?" talent. ”
"People's hearts are scattered, and the team is not good to take!"
"I can tell you very responsibly that Uncle Li is very angry and the consequences are very serious."
Even in the present, these classic lines are still being ridiculed everywhere in life.
And Ge You's most amazing thing is not these lines, but the scene where he and Andy Lau peel the egg fighting method.
This scene can exhaust many brain cells of the crew.
When Andy Lau peeled the egg, in order to prevent the egg from falling, the crew punched a small hole under the glass and hung the egg with a thread to shoot.
And Ge You's hand that peeled the egg was not his own at all.
In order to reflect the realism of the skills, the director specially invited a folk master in Hong Kong. The panoramic shot is Ge You spinning with a fake egg, and the close-up shot is a real shot of a master peeling an egg.
After that, the use of special effects into the digital egg simulation to switch the lens of the two people, there is a famous scene of raw egg peeling.
In fact, the most difficult thing about this shot is not the special effects, but the simulation of the sound.
Feng Dao's biggest concern was that the sound of peeling eggs could not be simulated. Therefore, he specially invited the famous domestic foley master Wei Junhua, and did not expect that Teacher Wei would use only a feather fan to get it done.
Speaking of special effects, Feng Dao used his heart and also made a cost.
It cost 1 million to build a 40-meter train. The three-dimensional construction of the car window and the sampling of the real scene killed 3 million.
In order to shoot the interior of the train, the 8,000-square-meter studio in Xiaotangshan, Beijing, was rented and another 1 million yuan was lost.
Throughout the film, there are more than 600 special effects shots.
In the words of Director Feng, special effects are for actors, and the special effects background that can support the actors' performances is more silent than sound.
Someone once summed up Feng Xiaogang's New Year file: "Ge You, the iron hit, the beauty of the flowing water." ”
Director Feng's play, without Ge You, can not be seated. In addition to Uncle Ge, "No Thief in the World" spent tens of millions of dollars to bring Together Andy Lau, Li Bingbing, Liu Ruoying and other empresses, and even Fan Wei and Feng Yuanzheng, who were first-class drama bones, were squeezed into green leaves.
Even if it is a green leaf, Fan Wei and Feng Yuanzheng do not let go of shaping the classic.
The two were originally just passers-by who cameoed as robbers. But in the process of filming, Fan Wei added scenes on the spot, became a stutter, and suddenly ignited the laughter of the crew, and Fan Wei stuttered even more vigorously when he saw that the atmosphere was alive.
And Feng Yuanzheng saw such an improper robber partner, and with a clever move, he cocked his orchid finger and washed the frightening AnJiahe in "Don't Talk to Strangers".
In the end, the two robbers interpreted this originally no dramatic drama into the most comical classic in the play.
However, in this play, the real winner is not the thief with excellent martial arts, but the stupid root Wang Baoqiang.
In the play, he let Bai Dao escort him, and the underworld gave up his life to escort him; outside the play, Feng Xiaogang invited 3 film emperors to match him, and finally this movie also became his famous work.
In fact, Bao Qiang can play a silly root, and it is also a good luck to bump into the door to pick up the wallet.
At the beginning, Feng Dao was also painstaking in the casting of silly roots, he searched for a circle, stupid is not honest enough, honest is not thick enough.
Until he saw Yuan Fengming, played by Bao Qiang, he was suddenly overjoyed, isn't this the iron and stupid root? So, on a phone call, he found Bao Qiang.
When he heard that the idols Andy Lau and Ge You wanted to play for themselves as thieves, Bao Qiang was blindfolded on the spot, surprised with joy, happy and worried, happy that he could shoot with idols, worried that he was afraid of dragging his feet to the idols.
It is said that when Bao Qiang first saw Andy Lau, he excitedly knelt down to Andy Lau, which made the overwhelmed Heavenly King quickly return to his knees to return the salute.
In the process of shooting, everyone also took good care of Bao Qiang. Even Feng Dao, who had always been strict, had always encouraged him.
And Bao Qiang starred in full character, performing the purity and purity of silly roots.
In the play, one of his lines almost got into a lawsuit. He said: "Send 60,000 yuan, postage is 600, you can buy a donkey in your hometown." ”
Although such a simple line is deliberately exaggerated for the effect of the film, it constitutes a slander and slander against the postal department to a certain extent, and the department said that it will file a lawsuit if necessary.
Fortunately, there is no danger in the end.
Bao Qiang's role does not seem to need too many performance components, but in fact, the more silly the role, the more difficult it is to control, one more point is false, one less point is not pure enough.
Therefore, the opportunity and glory of Baoqiang are not entirely dependent on luck.
With "No Thief in the World", Bao Qiang's acting career has been green. As a result, Director Feng has also successfully transformed, bringing comedy with a strong sketch style closer to emotion, excavating human nature, and taking the depth of the film to a new level.
In this film, Feng Xiaogang weaves an ideal human train with feelings. Human nature is full of dross, but good and evil are often separated by only one thought.
Although Wang Li is a thief, as a mother, she has a clean heart, and mothers in the world have a mind, which is nothing more than to make their children live better than themselves.
Therefore, the heartache when Wang Li stuffed the roast duck in her mouth, every mother understood.
Emotionally, "No Thief in the World" reached empathy with the audience and earned enough tears.
But in terms of plot, compared with "Kung Fu", the fairy tale woven by "No Thief in the World" is too Hans Christian Andersen.
The sleeping fool would not know that someone had lost his life just to protect him from a simple dream.
In a sense, How silly root is like a giant baby, in the dream of the world without thieves created for him by the director, he does not understand and know nothing.
This seems to be protection, but it is actually the deepest harm, just like some children who are overprotected by parents today will eventually accept the more cruel beatings of reality after entering society.
Ah Xing in "Kung Fu" is just the opposite, he has looked at and obeyed in the quagmire of all evils. He also knew early on that society was full of malice. But even so, Ah Xing still looks for a kind of heroism in the mire of evil.
One day, Silly Root will also know as clearly as Ah Xing that thieves are everywhere, and dreams will be shattered as soon as they are rubbed.
I hope that at that time, he does not have to be under the protection of others, he can also realize his dream, like A Xing, in the turmoil of the years, still be his own hero.
. END .
【Text| Xiabei North】
Edit | Little Dragon】
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