Text 丨Mr. Infamous
The May 1st file that will be opened in two days will be a scuffle that exceeds the Spring Festival slot, and the most "melee" attribute in all films will be Wang Jing's "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon".
It takes the viewer back to the most legendary period in Hong Kong history, the early 1970s, the dark ages when "Lame Ho" and Inspector Xu Le were firmly in control. The four families and the four inspectors sit in town, the gang is blatant, the police play tricks for the tiger, and as prosperous as it is, it is corrupt.
At that time, no one could have imagined that this history would hold up the sky of Hong Kong movies several times.
Audiences familiar with Hong Kong films will probably not be unfamiliar with these names. Crippled Hao, or Wu Guohao in the movie of the same name, the prototype of the big name is Wu Xihao, with the wave of immigration in the early 1960s, from Shantou to Hong Kong, gradually became a big drug lord, becoming one of the so-called "four families". Xu Le, based on Lü Le, or LeiLuo and Lu Wule, smuggled into Hong Kong with his family in his early years, and then became the former chief inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police Force, and during his reign established a corruption mechanism involving the mafia, known as the "500 million inspectors", one of the "four inspectors".
These two people, one black and one white on the surface, secretly hooked up, their stories have countless artistic processing space, taken apart, each can serve as the prototype or inspiration source of various film and television works, or become a ubiquitous symbol in the background of those gangster films and police films.
Throughout Wang Jing's film career, almost every ten years, he will return to this theme, such as "O Chronicle Triad Archives" (1999), "Money Empire" (2009), "Chasing the Dragon" (2017), "Chasing the Dragon II" (2019).
Among them, "Chasing the Dragon" can be described as the most popular among Wang Jing in recent years, and this movie is about LeiLuo, played by Andy Lau, and Wu Shihao, played by Zhen Zidan, who cherished each other and parted ways in the sixties.
Chasing the Dragon
May 1 this "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon", formerly known as "Money Empire: The Battle of the Peak", goes back to history and follows the self, which means that it is needless to say.
The main actors of this film are still regulars in Hong Kong gangster films, gangster films, and police films, especially the gathering of the five major movie emperors:
"Chen Ke" Gu Tianle, "Bai Song'an" Lin Jiadong, "Xu Le" Wu Zhenyu, "Lame Hao" Leung Ka Fai, "Lard Boy" Zheng Zeshi, and "YiLao Seven" Jiang Haowen, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Coupled with the familiar faces of Huang Haoran, Liu Haolong, Cai Jie and other similar films, such a lineup is already the top match of today's Hong Kong films.
They returned to the field that Hong Kong film fans were incomparably familiar with, and the container that had let them shine through their glorious years was polished with new light.
Gu Tianle as Chen Ke
The dispute between the good and evil factions is naturally the main axis of the story. However, in the known reality that the ICAC must correct the chaos, "Chasing the Tiger and the Dragon" does not intend to let the audience see the bottom card at a glance, so it does not let the two sides swing away and blindly kill. The focus of the film is to place all kinds of people in an extremely complex historical situation, so that they can collide with different choices and changes in the downstream and countercurrent.
This historical situation is the dark situation in Hong Kong in the 70s, corruption is rampant, corruption is rampant, lame Ho openly says that every policeman has taken bribes from him, and the police will be like the, from the average people to get benefits, a small inspector, you can have 2 units of real estate, 6 shops, 4 Rolls Royces on Nathan Road. Worse still, since black and white have long colluded, the police have essentially become puppets of the gang, even if they cause an innocent child to be injured on the road, they are indifferent.
Therefore, when the former policeman "Yilao Seven" heard others questioning him, he roared angrily, hatefully and bitterly, "Did you ever become a policeman, you will always be a bad person?!"
Jiang Haowen as "Yilao Seven"
In such a situation, there are more people who see the wind and make the rudder. "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon" sets up many life problems, on the one hand, money and security, on the other hand, justice and crisis, the newly established Independent Commission Against Corruption brings together a group of people with idealism, but idealism is not an innate, natural existence, it is a passive state, need to have substantial interests, grace, or overcome their own greater difficulties, insecurity, to activate, to consolidate.
For example, the joining of "Yilao Seven" was because when colliding with the gang, he was dismissed from the police identity by his boss Xu Le, such as gan brother who was about to die, thanks to the ICAC to save a cruel life and keep him safe, he turned into a tainted witness, and for example, the ICAC erwuzi who betrayed all his colleagues when life and death were at stake, nothing more than for real money and personal safety.
The pursuit of profit and avoidance of harm in human nature is particularly prominent at these times. And this story, even if there is a clear distinction between good and evil, only when the choice is made to strip away the worldly right and wrong, does it show the real struggle of ordinary people, and the creator's deep reflection on the swing of human nature.
This is not just to blindly argue that evil does not suppress righteousness, but to savor the subtlety of the transformation between good and evil at any time, try to find the ambiguity of the boundary, and the influence of complex human nature on the overall situation and on the individual and the whole body.
In particular, Xu Le, who "slays the dragon teenager and eventually becomes a dragon", can be called the most eye-catching supporting role.
He was born poor, humiliated, had long been accustomed to the cold world, and knew early on that if he wanted to live in a chaotic world, or even live a glorious life, he would climb to the top of the pyramid, regardless of whether the person who would eventually incarnate would be spurned by his former self.
Wu Zhenyu as Xu Le
In the movie, Xu Le, who seems to be on an equal footing with lame Hao, more often seems to be hypnotizing himself with the so-called law of survival, and on the night of his arrest, he was in the bow of the ship, facing the lights on the other side of Victoria Harbour, and lamented that there was only black lights and blind fires, and the broken mouth ghost head (foreigner chief) is now digging sand and reclaiming the sea, making the port narrower, and in the future, the undersea tunnel will be opened, and no one will cross the sea by boat, "Many things will be eliminated, and I will also eliminate the finishing work."
It seems that this person from beginning to end here is still a projection board of the meaning and meaning of xu le's life. It seems that his rivers are falling day by day, and they also carry a symbol of the decline of the times. For such a villain, it may be difficult to produce a single disdain and hatred alone.
In movies like "Chasing the Tiger and catching the Dragon", the villain can often portray the color anomaly. What can be compared to Xu Le is naturally lame Hao. When he first appeared in the movie, he was already a gangster boss with one hand covering the sky, even if he was nominally juxtaposed with the other three major families, in essence, he was the only one.
Such a figure, as a rule-maker and vested interest, is calm and idle, not angry with himself, and retains the temperament of a grassroots tyrant, but also highlights the temperament and dignity of the old nobility under the general trend. This is especially reflected in the night of the arrest, others have fled for their lives, only he proudly decided, since it is in his own home, there is no need to escape from the battle.
Leung Ka Fai as Lame Ho
These tyrants impress the audience's general nature, and they also have a stronger sense of ceremony than the average brotherhood. The lard boy who retrieved a life calculated the fate of the tree falling down and scattering, and Xu Le, who had already sentenced the change of events by three steps, of course knew that this right and left arm could only save himself by confessing him, so he took the exemption from lard boy as a waiver for his former self. At the fork, he just laughed and talked about the bright lights of Huaxi Street, Wangsheng Hong Kong, if you have the opportunity, you can go there to eat bowls of danzai noodles together, as if everyone still meets each other, a bowl of noodles, or just a bowl of noodles.
Lame Hao is also flesh and blood. The only time he was angry in the movie was when he learned of the betrayal of his brother Xu Le, and he was angry, not only the changeable friendship in this era of interests, but also his stubbornness that he knew that flowers fell sometimes but still cherished flowers. When the great disaster came, he let the other three major families escape first, and seeing that his subordinates were still desperately protecting him, he called him into the last glass of wine, a farewell, as if he were alone.
These are all scenes that allow people to be touched in a short period of time without pursuing the attributes of good and evil. Therefore, this kind of movie, somewhat of a martial arts film atmosphere, even if it is used in the shaping of the villain, and once the attributes of Yi Bo Yuntian are locked, it can highlight the charm of the character, not to mention, such a character is interpreted by Wu Zhenyu and Liang Jiahui.
An interesting coincidence is that they played Xu Le in youth and middle age in "O Chronicle Triad Archives" and "Money Empire" respectively.
O-Triad Archives
We can see that not only the main creator, but also the genre of "Chasing the Tiger and catching the dragon" can explore the root of the wave of Hong Kong films in the 90s. One of the most outstanding masterpieces is the best film of the 11th Academy Awards directed by Ma Dangxiong, "Lame Hao", Lu Liangwei interprets the heroism, hardness and domineering spirit of the crippled Hao to the fullest, and the prosperity and decline of the crippled Hao have set off the big times and the hourly bureau.
"Lame Howe"
Since then, Liu Guochang's "Five Hundred Million Inspector Leiluo Biography" series, Lin Delu's "Four Inspectors" and so on are all looking back at that crazy and fascinating chaotic world. Further afield, about the Macau gangster boss Yin Guoju's "Haojiang Storm", about the Shanghai Three Giants of Shanghai, "The Shanghai Emperor of the Years", "The Emperor of Shanghai Dominates the World", and the stories related to various big guys, characters, and ancient puzzles in the future, these histories have been repeatedly sewn into the banner of Hong Kong films that are always crazy and always worried.
"The Legend of Inspector Leiluo 1: Thunder Tiger"
In the past thirty years, many stories have long flowed through the light and shadow until they have dried up, "Chasing the Dragon" has been revived, and today's "Chasing the Tiger and the Dragon" is much more complicated, it is more like a new variation and upgrade of the former gangster films, the previous elements should have been there, but it is still essentially a new work belonging to the 20s of this century.
We are accustomed to looking at the environment from the perspective of the villain, lamenting the helpless struggle of people in the dirty generation, and the difference between good and evil, that is, for the evil people, but also for the era of mixed fish and dragons, for you and me, the floating legend.
Also in lichuan's "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon", the main perspective is reversed, and it shows the ICAC's from scratch, from weak to strong. Among them, three soul figures, Bai Song'an, who recruited soldiers and bought horses, Chen Ke, who acted alone, and "Yilao Seven", who changed from evil to righteousness, naturally all had highlight moments, but what was more interesting was that they had all made no small mistake.
For example, "Yilao Seven" guards witnesses, but can't stand being hooked up with gambling addiction, indirectly causing the other party to die. Chen Ke saw that his opponent was fighting back too fiercely, and he wanted to cross the poison line of his own post, which was the sacrifice of Tai Po Farm. The mistake that Bai Song'an made as a leader was that he knew that the action was inappropriate, and instead of having the courage to stop it, he was not prepared for a thorough plan.
Everyone is defeated in nature. But this is where the curve of their growth or metamorphosis lies. The introspection of "Elaus Vii" because of self-blame makes him a surprise soldier to rescue the dilemma in the farm war. Bai Song'an's success with his deputy Chen Ke, and the stimulation of Chen Ke's witness to the defeat of the army, actually completed the great cause of the ICAC in the end.
These imperfect decent things all follow the trajectory of the bottom rebound, and there is a more infectious flesh and blood in the movie, and there is also the possibility of being equal to the "classic" villain.
The historical transformation of different perspectives in the same situation, of course, there is the necessary thinking of the main creator in narrative innovation, if you can only continue to follow the same theme and angle, it is just to change the soup without changing the medicine to eat the old book, which will only accelerate the decline of the theme and even the genre film, after all, it is dry and fished.
Therefore, the shrewd place of Wang Jing lies in the vision of a large market and the consideration of co-productions, that is, realizing that the mainland market and the audience prefer or even rely on stories with soothing attributes such as blood, light, desperate life, and evil not oppressing the right at the moment.
"Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon" can intervene in the chaos of the times with the Zhengda Independent Commission Against Corruption, which just allows the narrative to find more positive directions to take, and the brilliance of the positive characters can restore the charm of the villain role in a very balanced way, the ecology composed of heroes and heroes has a mutually giving situation in the story, and the old Hong Kong filmmakers' dedication to self-expression has also found a symbiotic foothold.
So this film is like a historical echo and echo of the traditional gangster film, which makes the tradition of Hong Kong films a valuable continuation in the era of large co-productions.
This kind of treatment is very "Wang Jing". As a director with an unusually keen sense of smell for commercial and commercial genre films, he knows a genre that is well filmed and what other people are not able to reach, and it is with these new ideas that he can try to pry a story that is stuck in the foot.
Many people are saying that the feelings of Hong Kong films are the end of the crossbow, and in a depressed creative environment, it is difficult to see several powerful image expressions in a year. For Wang Jing, no matter how difficult it is, there is also room for force. What makes people curious is that he can often grasp the aesthetic habits of mainland audiences with a sense of distance, erase the generation gap brought about by region, era, language and even emotion, so as to consciously enlarge the elements that resonate with old Hong Kong films, such as police pride and entertainment supremacy, city atmosphere and life texture, urban emotions and human struggles, etc., so as to repackage their film forms and output views to achieve the widest or even best "communication".
For example, Hong Kong's popular gambling films constituted a powerful brand of internal and external exports in the golden age. These movies are about gambling, but in addition to the dazzling funny dramas, there are also splendid metropolitan fantasies and glamorous big star fashion, which are all under the gap, which has once brought temptations to mainland audiences. Therefore, in the new century, it is not surprising that this kind of cliff-like decline, even during the New Year's Festival, television stations will rotate these entertainment stories, but at this time, few people are sitting precariously waiting for it to take over.
In the "empty window period" between 2014 and 2016, Wang Jing chose to concoct the "Macau Storm" trilogy to revive the old trick with a noisy posture and carnival fun, and the result was in line with the relaxed needs of the Spring Festival family celebration, and the box office totaled 2.618 billion yuan, which is an example of accurate grasp of the market.
Macau Adventure
Of course, we must also see that Wang Jing, who casts a wide net, has his own considerations in the allocation of energy, he pans for gold in the big wave, and we also have to pan for gold in the big wave of his movie. For example, the new article of this series, "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon", is his most recent golden work.
It can be said that this film is also an intertextual and dialogue between Wang Jing and the history of Hong Kong films and her former self. On the surface, this is a Hong Kong-style crime genre film that we are familiar with and even love, but its core has a strong historical tension, connecting at least thirty years of gangster films, and even longer the mode of good and evil battles and entertainment nature, which makes it essentially larger than the commercial narrative of the superficial prosperity we see, larger than the decline of the film itself, and also greater than the Wang Jing of the past.
In the end, it transcends the simple nostalgia and becomes a meaningful combination of history and reality in the present, and also allows us to see the powerful vitality of Hong Kong films that never die, and always come back to life in the bends.