On the screen of action Hong Kong films in the 90s, the encounter between Yuan Kui and Jet Li led to the birth of works such as "Fang Shiyu", "Zhongnanhai Bodyguard" and "Letter to Daddy".
The high acclaim of these works has also made the film combination of Jet Li and Yuan Kui loved by many audiences.
However, Jet Li in 1997 chose to go far away from Hollywood. Without Jet Li, Yuan Kui also began to look for a new action partner. This year, Yuan Kui has cooperated with Zhao Wenzhuo and Yuan Biao to create two parts: "Sparrow Flying Dragon" and "Ma Yongzhen".
These two films are well-made, but they have suffered setbacks in the action Hong Kong film market this year. Today we will talk about the two action classics filmed by Yuan Kui for Zhao Wenzhuo and Yuan Biao, and the reasons for the box office setbacks of these two works.
<h3 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > film curated for Jet Li, it has become Zhao Wenzhuo's action classic</h3>
In 1995, after Yuan Kui and Jet Li collaborated on "Letter to Daddy", they had an idea: to gather the original team of "Fang Shiyu" to shoot an action comedy for Jet Li.
So Yuan Kui found his old friend Liu Zhenwei and created the script of "Sparrow Flying Dragon".
And "the original team of "Fang Shiyu" was created", which also became a publicity gimmick for this "Sparrow Flying Dragon".
The reason why Yuan Kui had the idea of shooting "Sparrow Flying Dragon" is closely related to the market situation of "Zhengdong Film".
In 1993, Jet Li and Yuan Kui cooperated in "Fang Shiyu", which officially opened the prelude to the era of "Zhengdong Film". After the film was released, it also won more than 30 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office in Hong Kong.
However, since "Fang Shiyu", the box office performance of the works created by "Zhengdong Film" has declined year by year. In 1995, Yuan Kui's "Letter to Dad" cooperated with Jet Li only received more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars.
In order to turn the tide of adversity above the box office market, Yuan Kui decided to gather the producers of "Fang Shiyu" to shoot this "Sparrow Flying Dragon".
However, at the beginning of filming, Jet Li, who starred in the film, quit the production of the film.
Jet Li chose to go to Hollywood to shoot "Deadly Weapon 4" after filming "Black Man" and "Huang Feihong's Lion of the Western Regions" in 1996. With Jet Li's visit to the United States, Yuan Kui also let Zhao Wenzhuo take over the male protagonist of this "Sparrow Flying Dragon".
It is worth mentioning that after Jet Li went to the United States and Cui Baozhu took charge of the "Zhengdong Film", Zhao Wenzhuo became the object of "Zhengdong Film". After "Sparrow Flying Dragon", "Zhengdong Film" also planned and filmed "Blue Blood and Blue Sky" for Zhao Wenzhuo.
Of course, these are all afterwords.
This "Sparrow Flying Dragon" tells the story of "Hong Kong policewoman" Xiu Dian, who met the ghost head of the "gambler" when she went to her hometown in Dongguan for a blind date. Ghost Shou has been pestered by his fellow disciple brother Tianlong, and in order to get rid of Tianlong, Ghost Shou and Xiu Dian decided to fake marriage.
In this way, Xiudian can get rid of the family's urging for marriage, and the ghost head can follow Xiudian to Hong Kong to get rid of tianlong's entanglement. However, during his cohabitation with Xiudian, the ghost head fell in love with the "little sister next door" Ah Qun, and Tianlong also came to Xiudian's residence to find trouble at this time.
As an action comedy, "Sparrow Flying Dragon" has two powerful factions in terms of playing, Lu Huiguang and Zhao Wenzhuo. In terms of funny, there are both Liu Zhenwei's bridge design and Xiao Fangfang's witty performance.
The wonderful performance of the actors and the excellent design of the bridge section have added many highlights to the film, but in the 1997 Hong Kong film market, this "Sparrow Flying Dragon" was released for 25 days, but only achieved a box office performance of more than 6.8 million Hong Kong dollars.
The box office setback of "Sparrow Flying Dragon" can be said to have a close relationship with the bold attempts of Liu Zhenwei and Yuan Kui.
<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > behind the box office setback of "Sparrow Flying Dragon", the attempts and innovations of Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei</h3>
The box office setback of "Sparrow Flying Dragon" has a certain relationship with the film's camera performance method.
In the early 90s, with the rise of Wong Kar Wai. Directors in the Hong Kong film industry have also begun to place high demands on the artistic sense of their own works.
Chen Jiashang and Lin Chaoxian integrated "literary and art film elements" into police films and filmed "Beast Criminal Police". Xu Ke also combined the realistic style with martial arts films to shoot "Knife".
In this "Sparrow Flying Dragon", Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei also made a bold attempt at action comedy, combining "literary and art film elements" with "action comedy elements".
In the film shots of "Sparrow Flying Dragon", the light blue filter, the dim lighting effect, and the lazy story atmosphere have all added a rich literary atmosphere to the film.
Even the action fight in the film shows a special temperament under the background of filters and lighting.
From today's point of view, action comedies such as "Sparrow Flying Dragon" really have a different flavor. But in the mid-to-late 1990s, when there was a strong sense of commercialization, it is not surprising that action comedies such as "Sparrow Flying Dragon" suffered box office setbacks.
In fact, in terms of the design of the fight scene and the comedy bridge section, "Sparrow Flying Dragon" has done a very good job. Zhao Wenzhuo and Lu Huiguang's fierce fist-and-foot duel, Xiao Fangfang's comedic performance, and Wu Junru's "uniform cameo" have added a lot of highlights to the film.
However, the overly stylized lens expression has caused "Sparrow Flying Dragon" to suffer a heavy setback in the box office market.
In 1997, Yuan Kui and Zhao Wenzhuo cooperated in this "Sparrow Flying Dragon", and the market was cold. And his "Ma Yongzhen", which he cooperated with his younger brother Yuan Biao, did not survive the box office smoke.
<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the action classics of YuanKui and Yuanbiao, but suffered box office setbacks</h3>
In the 1997 Hong Kong film market, Yuan Kui not only cooperated with Zhao Wenzhuo on "Sparrow Flying Dragon", but also remade Shaw's classic "Ma Yongzhen" with his younger disciple Yuan Biao.
Liu Zhenwei, who wrote the story script for "Sparrow Flying Dragon", also took the role of screenwriter in this "Ma Yongzhen".
The 97 version of "Ma Yongzhen" cooperated by Yuan Kui and Yuan Biao is remade from the 1972 film of the same name by Zhang Che and Bao Xueli.
The film works directed by Zhang Che have always only talked about brotherhood and not about the love between men and women. In this 97 version of "Ma Yongzhen", screenwriter Liu Zhenwei did the opposite, taking love as the focus of the story.
The love between Ma Yongzhen and Jin Lingzi, and the love between Tan Si and Yan Yangtian, have become the key to the contradictions in the film, and have promoted the development of the story step by step.
In the film directed by Zhang Che, the male protagonist can abandon his lover for the sake of brotherhood. In this 97 version of "Ma Yongzhen", Ma Yongzhen quarreled with Tan Si and pushed Ma Daxiang down because of the sunny day.
In the design of the story, Liu Zhenwei adopted the means of "anti-Zhang Chehua". In the display of the play, Yuan Kui paid tribute to Zhang Che's "violent aesthetic film" style.
In this 97 version of "Ma Yongzhen", Yuan Kui imitated Zhang Che's action scene presentation of "breaking hands, squirting plasma, and slow motion" to the extreme.
In the film, in the fight when Jin Chengwu grabbed the territory for the first time, the axe helped the tea house to besiege Tan Si, the attack on Ma Yongzhen's bridgehead, the venue duel and other action sections, the violent fight design of the blood plasma was filled with a strong "Zhang Che style".
Jin Chengwu, who plays the male lead, although he is not a professional action actor, the joining of Yuan Biao and Yuan De has added a lot of highlights to the play part of "Ma Yongzhen".
In this "Ma Yongzhen", Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei did not play with innovation and experiment like "Sparrow Flying Dragon". The commercial story design, rough mines, violent fight scenes, and the market traffic blessing of the protagonist Jin Chengwu should have made the film a good box office result.
However, in the 1997 Hong Kong box office market, this "Ma Yongzhen" was only released for 11 days, and the box office was only more than 3 million.
"Ma Yongzhen" failed at the box office in 1997, not because of the production problems of the work itself, but because of the publisher's decision-making mistakes.
In the Hong Kong film market in 1997, the performance of imported films was very dazzling. This year, when Leung Ka Fai's "Black Gold" was released, it collided with "Titanic" and the result was dismal at the box office. The 97 version of "Ma Yongzhen" cooperated by Yuan Kui and Yuan Biao also encountered two tough foreign opponents when it was released.
The 97th edition of "Ma Yongzhen" was released on June 17, 1997. On June 26 of that year, Spielberg's "Jurassic Park 2" landed in Hong Kong theaters, and on June 5 of this year, Simon West's "Prison in the Air" also entered the Hong Kong market.
In the face of such two action films, the 97 version of "Ma Yongzhen" was flooded by the box office torrent and became a matter of course.
After the 1997 "Ma Yongzhen" and "Sparrow Flying Dragon" were successively frustrated, Yuan Kui filmed "Full of Guts" in 1998. This work is also of great standard, but the box office results after its release are not optimistic.
At the end of the 1990s, the Hong Kong film market declined rapidly. Yuan Kui, who has suffered several setbacks in the Hong Kong film market, also chose to go to Hollywood in 1999.
Works such as "Ma Yongzhen" and "Sparrow Flying Dragon" have also become the memories of action movie fans for a Hong Kong film era.