In the mid-1980s, Shaw films quickly came out of production. Er Dongsheng, who became popular on the big screen of Shao's martial arts, also fell into a "career crisis". At this time, a friend suggested that Er Dongsheng, from an actor to a director, entered a new career situation.
For the idea of "transforming the director", Er Dongsheng was a little hesitant at first. In 1986, with hesitation, Er Dongsheng tried to create the movie "The Legend of the Crazy Guy" as a director, and as a result, after the film was released, it was nominated for "Best Movie" and "Best Director".
The awards of "Epilepsy" were "favored", which strengthened Er Dongsheng's determination to transform into a director, and later works such as "People's Hero", "Goodbye Wang Laowu" and "New Love" also made Er Dongsheng win the honor of "Hong Kong Film Awards - Best Director".
The life stories of small people in the city and marginalized groups in society, which are accustomed to "humanistic feelings", have also become the extremely distinctive personal film characteristics of Director Er Dongsheng.
In 1996, director Er Dongsheng shot a comedy film. In the film, Director Er let Liu Qingyun play himself, and also borrowed Liu Qingyun's mouth to tell his mental journey when he "transformed from an actor to a director" in his early years. This work is "Pornographic Men and Women" starring Zhang Guorong, Xu Jinjiang and Shu Qi.
The 1996 "Pornographic Man and Woman" has a very special significance in the film career of director Er Dongsheng.
In the early 1990s, Hong Kong films entered the final golden period of development. The increasingly fierce competition at the box office has made a large number of Hong Kong film directors give up their literary and artistic temperament and plunge into the surging box office torrent of commercial films.
In the mid-1990s, the Hong Kong film market shrank rapidly. At this time, "box office performance" has become the only criterion for investors to measure the ability of directors. In such a market environment, Er Dongsheng also had to move closer to the "commercial box office". And this "Pornographic Man and Woman" is the foundation work on the "road to commercialization" of Erdao.
It is worth mentioning that this "Pornographic Man and Woman" is not only the foundation work on Er Dongsheng's "film commercialization road", but also an important turning point on The road of Shu Qi's acting, and it is also the fuse of the "film feud" between Er Dongsheng and Wang Jing. In this issue, we will have a good talk about this Man and Woman.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="14" > restricted comedy </h1>
In fact, in 1995, director Er Dongsheng has begun to try to move closer to "commercialization". This year, with the support of "Yongsheng Film", he filmed "Chariot of Fire". Although this work also won more than 30 million box office results, but because of the huge investment in the film itself, in contrast, this box office is not very satisfactory.
After "Chariot of Fire", Er Dao tried to use a small-cost film to launch an impact on the commercial film market. In 1996, under the investment of Jiahe, Er Dongsheng filmed this "Pornographic Man and Woman".
He likes to focus the film story on some "marginal groups", which is a major feature of Er Dongsheng's works. In the process of creating this "Pornographic Man and Woman", ErDao also adhered to his own creative characteristics and made a different story performance of the "grade III film production group" in the Hong Kong film industry.
At the beginning of the film, "A Xing", played by Zhang Guorong, is a down-and-out literary film director. Because the film works do not sell well, Ah Xingla cannot invest and has been working at home for more than a year.
By chance, his friend "Ah Worm" (played by Luo Jiaying) introduced a play to Ah Xing. The big brother of the jianghu ,Hong Ye" (played by Qin Pei), plans to turn to the right way and invest in the film industry.
Hong Ye is very fond of the Hollywood movie "Seven Deadly Sins" and intends to "plagiarize" the creativity of this work, and integrate some "violent" and "fragrant" elements to shoot a restrictive film work. At the same time, Hong Ye also hopes that his dry daughter "Mengjiao" (played by Shu Qi) will serve as the heroine of the movie.
Originally, Ah Xing did not want to take on such a film. But there is no way, he has not started work for more than a year, his life is tight, and he can only bow to reality.
After Ah Xing agreed to shoot, he began to write the script. And the supervising producer Ah Worm also found a popular actor "Uncle Hua" (played by Xu Jinjiang) and a small photographer "Ding Ye" (played by Ao Zhijun) to form a small film crew.
However, as soon as the film began, there was a problem. The heroine Mengjiao is an investor in her "dry daddy" and constantly changes her own drama. In order to pursue the artistry of the work, Ah Xing made the camera dangle around, which also caused the dissatisfaction of the photographer "Ding Ye" (played by Ao Zhijun).
Ah Worm believes that Ah Xing shoots like this, and in the end the movie must lose. So he suggested to Ah Xing to go to the cinema to see Wang Jing's film works.
In the movie theater, Ah Xing and Ah Worm watched Wang Jing's "Ten Tortures of the Manchu Qing Dynasty" together. Ah Xing thinks that the movie is too vulgar, but Ah Mo said that it doesn't matter if it is customary, as long as it can make money.
After the end of the movie, Ah Mo and Ah Xing left the theater together. At this time, the opposite theater also dispersed, and the audience walked out of the theater with a scolding grin. It turned out that "Er Dongsheng" (played by Liu Qingyun) directed "Chariot without Tires" premiered in the opposite theater.
A reporter interviewed the audience at random. The audience said that this "Chariot without Tires" was filmed badly and could not be understood at all.
At this time, director Er Dongsheng also walked out of the theater. The reporter asked Erdao how to look at the audience's bad reviews, and Erdao looked embarrassed, saying that the audience has their own choices for film works.
The next day, Ah Xing saw a piece of news while chatting with friends at the bar. Director Er Dongsheng committed suicide by jumping into the sea because of "Chariot Without Tires".
And Ah Worm also told Ah Xing an exclusive news, after the death of Er Dongsheng, this "Chariot without Tires" came back to life at the box office, and won more than 300,000 yuan in 4 hours.
The market for "Chariot Without Tires" counterattacked, which made Ah Worm realize that "marketing gimmicks are more important than the quality of the film itself." In order to create a gimmick, Ah Worm suggested that Ah Xing take the crew to the street to shoot, using public opinion to warm up for the release of the movie. During the filming of the movie, Ah Yu also hoped that Ah Xing would let go of the scale.
Ah Xing believes that even if shooting "restricted works", film creators should have their own bottom line. For this, he quarreled with Ah Worm. The crew was already full of contradictions, and the quarrel between the producer and the director completely intensified the internal contradictions, and the crew also stopped working.
Ah Xing is worried that the sudden suspension of the crew will make the investor Hong Ye unhappy. If Hong Ye withdraws his investment in a huff, the entire crew will be unemployed.
In order to stabilize the funds, Ah Xing came to Hong Ye to explain the situation. Unexpectedly, the supervising producer Ah Worm had already taken care of everything, and under the persuasion of Ah Worm, Hong Ye gave the crew 3 days to rest.
During these 3 days, several members of the crew revealed their hearts to each other. Ah Worm, who has no bottom line and only wants to make money, actually has his own movie dream in his heart. The photographer Ding Ye is actually a literary and artistic youth, but it is a pity that he offended the big director and was rejected by the major crews. The heroine Mengjiao and the male protagonist Uncle Hua are all embarking on this special acting path because of financial burdens.
In fact, everyone in the crew has a heart to pursue art films, but the cruelty of reality has made them embark on another path.
With the revelation of their hearts, the crew eliminated their contradictions and reached an emotional reconciliation. Three days later, the film was filmed in unison.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" > a turning point in Shu Qi's career</h1>
In this Man and Woman, director Er Dongsheng outlined the inner world of these III-level film creators through delicate emotional brushstrokes. At the same time, the witty story section also carries out a lot of irony on the chaos of the Hong Kong film market in the 90s.
"Piracy" has always been a headache for Hong Kong film creators in the 90s.
In this "Pornographic Men and Women", director Er Dongsheng also made a joke about "piracy". At the beginning of the film, Hong Ye sent his subordinates to "teach" several "pirate disc dealers", and said that a play he invested in had not yet premiered, and some disc dealers had already begun to buy pirated copies.
"Plagiarism" was also a stubborn disease in the Hong Kong film market in the 90s.
In this "Pornographic Men and Women", Erdao also made a lot of irony about plagiarism between peers. At the beginning of the movie, Hong Ye pointed out that he wanted to copy "Seven Deadly Sins", and in the middle of the movie, after Ah Worm and Ah Xing came out of the movie theater, the first problem discussed was how to "steal the bridge section".
In 1996, the film was released on the Hong Kong film market. At midnight alone, the film grossed more than HK$11 million, ranking 21st in the annual Hong Kong film box office list.
In the face of small cost investment, the box office of more than 11 million yuan is also very impressive. The road of commercial film shooting directed by Er Dongsheng also entered a new stage after the film.
In this "Pornographic Man and Woman", Shu Qi was invited by director Er Dongsheng to play the role of "Mengjiao" in the film. At that time, Shu Qi was still wearing the label of star and mixed in various restricted film works.
However, the outstanding performance in Men and Women has allowed this actress who is on the edge of the film world to be recognized by mainstream filmmakers and win two trophies: Best Supporting Actress and Best Newcomer.
After winning the award in the film industry, Shu Qi's film road ushered in a huge turning point, she began to get rid of the shackles of "three-level film actress", and with "Flying General Romance Novel", "City of Glass", "Millennium Mambo", "The Best Time" and other works, launched another impact on the title of "Chinese Film Queen".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="62" > the film feud between Er Dongsheng and Wang Jing </h1>
Although this "Pornographic Man and Woman" brought a career turning point to Er Dongsheng and Shu Qi, it triggered a period of film feud between Er Dongsheng and Wang Jing.
Ridiculing and spoofing each other is a very common means in Hong Kong film works in the 90s. Director Er Dongsheng also made a joke about Wang Jing and Wong Kar-wai in this "Pornographic Men and Women".
In the movie, the director Ah Xing wants to engage in art, and the supervising producer Ah Worm advises him: "No one told you to be Wong Kar Wai, can you do Wang Jing?" ”
But Ah Xing said, "You didn't have Qiu Shuzhen to shoot me."
Originally, director Er Dongsheng just wanted to increase the fun of the story through this dialogue. Unexpectedly, it directly caused Wang Jing's dissatisfaction.
In the early 1990s, the scandal between Wang Jing and Qiu Shuzhen was raging in the Hong Kong entertainment industry. At this time, Wang Jing was already married and had two daughters. Therefore, he has been strenuously denying these scandals.
Er Dongsheng's ridicule in the movie made Wang Jing very unhappy. In 1998, in the movie "The Day of Love in the Entertainment Circle", Wang Jing also made a prank on the emotional past between Er Dongsheng and Maggie Cheung as a tribute.
After the release of "Love in the Entertainment Industry Days", the weekly magazine reporter also seemed to smell the gunpowder between the two directors and specifically asked Er Dongsheng's views on the film. Er Dongsheng said: "Wang Jing just shot me, I don't look at it, I'm angry with him!" ”
In 2000, the enmity between Wang and Er ushered in a major outbreak. This year, Wang Jing questioned the selection process of the "Hong Kong Film Awards", and Er Dongsheng, as a member of the "Academy Awards Organizing Committee", also quarreled with Wang Jing. The two originally had an old grudge, and the dispute immediately evolved into a "scolding war".
After the "Academy Awards Incident" in 2000, Er Dongsheng and Wang Jing did not give in to each other, and the "scolding war" also lasted for 14 years. In 2014, the Hong Kong Film Directors Association held its 25th anniversary celebration, at which Er Dongsheng and Wang Jing shook hands and made peace.
In 2015, Er Dongsheng's "I Am a Passerby" was released, and Wang Jing helped it. In order to explain the situation to the fans, the two directors also chatted about each other's previous suspicions on their respective social platforms.
The grudge caused by "Pornographic Men and Women" eventually disappeared with the release of "I Am a Passerby".