In the early 1990s, Jet Li ushered in the second peak of his acting career with three "Huang Feihong" films, which also established his status as the "Emperor of Kung Fu".
However, during the filming of "Huang Feihong", Jet Li and the producer Jiahe Company did not get along happily: on the one hand, Jiahe did not fulfill the promise of "making 4 films a year" to Jet Li in accordance with the contract, and also "kidnapped" him to renew his contract repeatedly; on the other hand, Luo David, who was Jet Li's agent at the time, tried his best to exploit and squeeze him, so later, it was found that Jet Li had to take the means of "Huang Feihong's Boy As Self-Reliance" to defend his interests.
Later, according to director Wang Jing's recollection in his autobiography, Jet Li asked the senior management of Jiahe Company to fulfill some promises but was rejected, and the other party even said that he would "play him to death".
Jet Li, who no longer wants to obey people's orders and be subject to people, has gradually developed the idea of creating his own film company. And this company is the "Zhengdong Pictures" that has created brilliant and brilliant in the field of Chinese kung fu action movies in the future.
"Zhengdong" was co-founded by Jet Li and Cui Baozhu, but its establishment was not optimistic about the industry at the beginning. At that time, many people thought that Jet Li was still suitable for the acting field, not suitable for his own boss. It is precisely because of this "prejudice" that "Zhengdong" began to encounter frequent obstacles, in Jet Li's own words, "Zhengdong was struggling out of a very complicated environment (the Hong Kong entertainment industry at that time), and setting up his own company was actually forced."
In order for "Zhengdong" to gain a foothold in the face of adversity, Jet Li and Cui Baozhu can only transform the huge pressure into motivation and pin all their hopes on the first film of "Zhengdong". At that time, "what exactly was the first film made" became a difficult problem in front of the two people. After thinking about it left and right, considering that Jet Li was very popular in the market with the image of Huang Feihong, coupled with the boom in costume kung fu genre films, the two finally decided to re-turn the story of Fang Shiyu, the hero of Southern Shaolin, and set up a renma to shoot "Fang Shiyu".
Although the release time of "Fang Shiyu" was 1993, in fact, as early as 1991, Jet Li and others had already begun the preliminary preparations for the film, including negotiating cooperation with the Beijing Film Studio, setting up a behind-the-scenes team, finding actors and surveying, etc. When the filming officially began, the third part of the "Huang Feihong" series, "The Lion King", had already been completed.
In order to ensure the balance of the literary and martial arts drama, the film invited Yuan Kui as the director and action director, and the planning was entrusted to Xu Anhua, and Liu Zhenwei, Cai Kangyong and Chen Jianzhong were the screenwriters. In particular, the addition of Liu Zhenwei has also greatly improved the comedic effect of "Fang Shiyu".
As the boss of "Zhengdong", Jet Li not only wants to play the male number one Fang Shiyu, but even if it is behind-the-scenes work such as script creation and editing, he must personally supervise. At that time, in Jet Li's view, "Zhengdong" was a success or failure, all counting on this "Fang Shiyu", and he certainly did not allow the movie to have half a mistake.
In March 1993, "Fang Shiyu" was officially released in Hong Kong, and a month later, its final box office was 30.66 million Hong Kong dollars, successfully entering the ranks of the "top 5 high-grossing Hong Kong films" of that year. It should be known that the Competition in the Hong Kong film market in 1993 was unprecedentedly fierce, such as "A Knife To The City", "The Iron Horse of Young Huang Feihong", "The Demon Sect Leader of the Dragon Slayer in Yitian", etc. These martial arts films that were later recognized as classics failed to break into the top ten of the box office in that year, and the "box office gold content" of "Fang Shiyu" can be seen.
The success of the film lies not only in the tense storyline, humorous and funny elements embellished, wonderful martial arts action, and Jet Li's Fang Shiyu, who also let the audience appreciate that he can not only play the young and old Huang Feihong, even if he is a funny and naughty "alternative hero", he is also familiar with it.
In the film, there is such a scene: when Fang Shiyu and others come out of Yamen, he tells his partners that all they stay in Yamen are fake names, one writes "Yuan Kui", one writes "Liu Zhenwei", and he himself writes "Huang Jing" (the same as "Wang Jing in Cantonese"), at this time, he poses Huang Feihong's signature action, and the background music of "General's Order" also sounds "playfully", and the meaning of spoof is particularly obvious. Although this seems to be just a small joke, it is enough to see that Jet Li is desperately trying to get rid of Huang Feihong's shadow through "Fang Shiyu".
Jet Li said that when he finished acting in "Huang Feihong", as long as he walked on the street, many people called him "Master Huang", and he was afraid that he would be stereotyped, so he was determined to come out of Huang Feihong's shadow.
Interestingly, a year later, in the "New Shaolin Five Ancestors" starring Jet Li, Wang Jing's cameo role said that his name was Fang Shiyu, which was also a response made by Wang Jing to Jet Li in the form of "planting stems".
In fact, do not repeat themselves, the courage to try to open up different styles and types of roles, is also the key to "Zhengdong" can be unique in the film industry: at that time, although Jet Li with "Huang Feihong" in the Hong Kong film industry, but after the establishment of his own film company, he did not choose to continue the image of Huang Feihong to the end, but another way to create a comedy hero like Fang Shiyu, a year later, "Zhengdong" broke the shackles of costume films, transformed into "Zhongnanhai Bodyguard", "Jingwu Hero" Such fashion action films and modern kung fu films led the trend of Hong Kong martial arts films at that time to a certain extent.
It is worth mentioning that "Fang Shiyu" also "brought" out another kung fu star, he is Zhao Wenzhuo, who plays the villain Of the Nine Doors in the film. At that time, Zhao Wenzhuo was still a student of Beijing Sport University, and it was a "Fang Shiyu" that led him into the film circle, which also made him noticed by more and more directors, and laid an important foundation for him to take over Li Lian's outstanding performance of Xu Ke's version of "Huang Feihong". Therefore, on the road to Zhao Wenzhuo's fame, the first person he should thank is actually Jet Li.
After the success of the first part of "Fang Shiyu", the original team launched the sequel "Fang Shiyu 2" in the same year while the iron was hot. The contradiction and conflict point of this film shifted from the protection of the Red Flower Society roster in the previous episode to the internal struggle of the Red Flower Society, changing the plot of saving his father Fang De to rescuing his mother Miao Cuihua, with the Yu Wei of the previous film, this "Fang Shiyu 2" finally entered the top ten of the Local Box Office of Hong Kong films that year, and its box office performance was higher than the classic all-star comedy "East into West" directed by Liu Zhenwei.
The fame of "Fang Shiyu" naturally represents the entrepreneurial success of "Zhengdong", but Jet Li did not regard this box office victory as a kind of "success", but more actively worked hard to prepare for the later "Zhengdong works".
According to Hongyin, a director who has participated in the filming of "Fang Shiyu 2" and "Taiji Zhang Sanfeng", when "Fang Shiyu 2" was filmed that year, "Taiji Zhang Sanfeng" was also filmed at the same time, and Jet Li would still take time to personally supervise the editing of the two films without sleep under the premise that he had to work for fifteen or six hours a day, in order to bring the audience the best works. It can be seen that the success of "True East" is by no means out of luck.
From not being optimistic about the industry at first, to attracting the attention of the world with a series of classic martial arts movies, the success story of "Zhengdong" is an uncompromising inspirational story. As the pioneering work of "Zhengdong", the success of the "Fang Shiyu" series undoubtedly made a great contribution to "Zhengdong" laying his own piece of the Hong Kong film industry at that time, and at the same time, it also heralded the opening of a new era of kung fu films belonging to "Zhengdong".
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