In 2014, directed by Chen Desen and starring Zhen Zidan, Wang Baoqiang and Yang Caini, "One Man's Martial Arts" only achieved 118 million at the box office after its release.
Such a result seems to once again verify such a sentence: action movies have declined, and it is difficult to have the previous glory.
Therefore, some people commented on this movie and said that this movie is the best kung fu movie in the past two decades, and it is also the last stubbornness of director Chen Desen!
But no one thought that Hong Kong action movies "have no successors" and ultimately rely on a "comedian" to save.
In addition, many people blame the decline of Hong Kong action movies as follows: the more they are filmed, the worse they are, and the taste of the past is less and less.
But Chen Desen, a director who loves action movies, believes that it is not that kung fu movies have declined, but that the people who make kung fu movies are gone. This is not only about the actors, but also about the director, the martial arts, the screenwriter, the story theme, and so on.
With Jackie Chan, Jet Li and others gradually withdrawing from the screen, the stories of Huo Yuanjia, Chen Zhen, and Huang Feihong have long been shaped into classics that cannot be surpassed, and the only remaining Ip Man has also been taken over by Zhen Zidan.
For this phenomenon of "no successor", Chen Desen is also powerless, the only thing he can do is to let the audience know: behind the gradual drifting of kung fu films, it has been accompanied by the bitterness and glory of five generations of filmmakers.
So, how does director Chen Desen do it? Next, let's talk about the behind-the-scenes story of this movie.
In 2009, when Chen Desen was filming "October Siege", in order to create a sense of real age in the film, he spent more than 40 million yuan to rebuild Hong Kong Central City in a 1:1 ratio.
After the film was completed, Chen Desen looked at the scene that cost tens of millions of dollars to build, and he was very reluctant in his heart, thinking that it was a pity to make only one movie for such a good scene, so he had the idea of making another kung fu film.
In the beginning, Chen Desen planned to make a film set in the 1950s and 1960s, telling the story of a martial arts master who founded a sect. But two years later, he found that there were already many kung fu films of the same type on the market, and the audience had already been aesthetically tired.
Therefore, Chen Desen thought of the story of "Perverted Killer in Hong Kong" that had not been made before, he combined this story with kung fu, and added elements such as suspense, reasoning, and police bandits to create the script of "One Man's Martial Arts".
With the script in place, the next step is to determine the casting of the actors.
The male protagonist is naturally Zhen Zidan, who has just finished cooperating in "October Siege", and he serves as a martial arts instructor with Yuanbin and Yuanhua.
After the protagonist was determined, the choice of villain made Chen Desen difficult: who can fight against Zhen Zidan, the strongest person in the universe?
Chan Tak-sen picked out the Hong Kong action actors at the time, but still couldn't find the right person to play the villain Feng Yuxiu.
At this time, Zhen Zidan recommended Wang Baoqiang, who had just finished working with him on "Frozen Man".
In fact, as early as 2004, Wang Baoqiang and Chen Desen had already met.
At that time, "No Thief in the World" was released in Hong Kong, and Feng Xiaogang took Wang Baoqiang to Hong Kong to promote the film, during which Wang Baoqiang and Chen Desen met at a dinner party.
Wang Baoqiang, who had a dream of kung fu, naturally refused to let go of this opportunity and took the initiative to sell himself to Chen Desen: My kung fu is very powerful, and I have studied martial arts at the Shaolin Temple. Moreover, he also performed a one-word horse in the air on the spot.
Listening to Zhen Zidan mention Wang Baoqiang, Chen Desen also remembered the one-word horse teenager in that year, but Chen Desen still had a little worry in his heart.
Although Wang Baoqiang at this time has long been different from the past, with a certain status and fame, the audience's impression of him is always a stupid boy who pretends to be honest and stunned. Moreover, Wang Baoqiang's thin figure is also difficult to think of him as a "crazy demon" martial arts master.
Therefore, Chen Desen re-watched "No Thief in the World" and "Blind Well" again, and he felt that Wang Baoqiang's acting skills were very explosive, so he called Wang Baoqiang to invite him to star.
After Wang Baoqiang received chen Desen's invitation, he heard that he was acting with Zhen Zidan, and the two had a lot of action scenes, and he dreamed of becoming a kung fu star and agreed without thinking about it.
In order to make his image more in line with the role, Wang Baoqiang specially found 4 fitness instructors and asked them to change the method to help them train their muscles.
In the end, Wang Baoqiang only took a month to train a muscle.
After the film officially began filming, Wang Baoqiang wore shoes of different heights and completed one difficult action after another, and his kung fu "mad demon" completely conquered everyone in the crew, and even played the villain as the protagonist, and the limelight once overshadowed Zhen Zidan.
As the protagonist and martial artist of this film, Zhen Zidan also gave a wonderful performance to everyone in the film.
Especially at the beginning of the film, Xiahou Wu, played by Zhen Zidan, is in prison with a scene of 1vs17, which recreates the glory of Ip Man.
However, you may not know that this melee was Zhen Zidan's own action director, and at that time, he still had old injuries on his body, because the range of action during filming was too large, which directly led to the recurrence of Zhen Zidan's old injuries.
In addition, there is a scene at the end of the film where Zhen Zidan and Wang Baoqiang are in the road battle, which is a ten-minute scene, and the crew filmed for 6 weeks.
At that time, the entire road was sealed to cooperate with the shooting, there were five or six machines on the shelf, plus car scheduling, almost costing more than 100,000 yuan a day, and finally this scene alone cost more than five million.
It is worth mentioning that director Chen Desen also specially designed a nostalgic passage of a Hong Kong martial arts film to pay tribute to the martial arts director Yuan Xiangren of "Kung Fu", the martial arts director Lin Di'an of "Infernal Affairs", the martial arts star Jiang David and the director Liu Weiqiang.
Seeing that these martial arts fingers are no longer young, we understand that perhaps this is the reason why Director Chen said that it is not that kung fu films have declined, but that the people who make kung fu films are gone!
The reason why he did this is that there is a very sad story hidden in it.
In 1997, when Chen Desen was filming "The Thief Spy Movie", because of an accident on the set, one of the scenes was killed at that time. The incident also appeared on the front page of the newspaper, and Chen Desen was also accused of manslaughter.
It is said that at that time, Chen Desen could not bear the blow, but also had the intention of withdrawing from the circle, fortunately, Yang Caini enlightened him: after filming this movie, it is the greatest respect for the deceased.
After that, Chen Desen always wanted to find an opportunity to pay tribute to these behind-the-scenes personnel, so he had a 3-minute long "highlight" time in the film.
In addition to the tribute, Chen Desen also suggested to investors that the first day of the box office of "One Man's Martial Arts" be used to set up a welfare fund to improve the treatment of the staff behind the scenes. Unfortunately, the film did not achieve the results he expected.
On October 31, 2014, Chen Desen's five-year, HK$190 million filming of "One Man's Martial Arts" was officially released in the mainland.
I didn't think that the box office and word of mouth of the film were all on the street, and finally only received 118 million box office, and the Douban score was only 6.5 points.
For such results, Chen Desen is difficult to accept, so he complained that Zhen Zidan did not cooperate with the propaganda: "Call Zhen Zidan, and as a result, people say that it is not very convenient recently."
Although these words have no deeper meaning, I don't know what Zhen Zidan will think after knowing these words?
In short, whether it is a kung fu movie that has fallen or an action movie that has "no successor", we all hope that "One Man's Martial Forest" will not be the last "Martial Forest".
I look forward to those who come later and can make more wonderful action movies!