In the memory of Hong Kong film fans, "double Monday Cheng" is undoubtedly the best era, in that golden age of Hong Kong films, the Hong Kong film industry represented by "Double Monday Cheng" is the best memory of film fans. Among them, Stephen Chow's nonsense, the gangster gunfight of "Brother Fa", and Jackie Chan's kung fu comedy are all the top works of the Hong Kong film industry. Together, the three of them intertwined the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, but the brilliant moment was also an elegy for prosperity. Three months later, Hong Kong cinema also went into decline. Nowadays, Brother Fa and Jackie Chan are basically in the second line, Zhou Xingchi has transformed into a full-time director, and the era that belongs to the three of them has become a thing of the past, and in the days when the three people dominate, Zhou Xingchi and Zhou Runfa are like two extremes, one relies on the image of a small person in the city to become famous, and the other relies on the style of the hero big brother to conquer the audience.
When it comes to the time of fame, Zhou Runfa is slightly earlier than Zhou Xingchi, and the fame of both of them has a certain degree of accident. But unlike Stephen Chow, Chow Yun-fat has already won a reputation for his performance on TVB before entering the film industry, so Chow Yun-fat entered the big screen as a superstar at that time. However, because of the poor box office performance of several successive films, Zhou Runfa was not once called a box office poison. Until 1986's "The True Colors of Heroes", Zhou Runfa established his own position in the film industry with this film that was not optimistic, and in the film, Zhou Runfa almost used another way to interpret the image of Xu Wenqiang in his classic TV series "Shanghai Beach" on the big screen, but in this film, female roles and love scenes were missing.
The success of "The True Colors of Heroes" finally allowed Chow Yun Fat to gain a firm foothold in the Hong Kong film industry, as his line in the film said, he waited for many years, not to prove how great he was, but to tell others that what he lost, he must take back. The pinnacle of this Hong Kong film, so that Chow Yun Fat in the box office and word of mouth to get a double harvest, because Hong Kong movies are to emulate Hollywood's "star system", so after the success of the film, Chow Yun Fat became the top superstar of the Hong Kong film industry. And in the years that followed, he maintained a high level of influence. In 1989, the film "God of Gamblers" starring Zhou Runfa became another masterpiece of Zhou Runfa's career. If "The True Colors of Heroes" relies on the efforts and talents of the main creators, then the film "God of Gamblers" relies almost entirely on the personal style of Zhou Runfa, and the film is concerned about the director of the film, Wang Jing, who only hopes to direct a pure commercial film with box office appeal.
Just as "The True Colors of Heroes" unveiled the prelude to the gangster gunfight film in the Hong Kong film industry, the movie "God of Gamblers" set off a wave of "gambling films". In 1990, Stephen Chow broke the box office record in the history of Hong Kong cinema with his follow-up work "Gambler", which starred in "God of Gamblers", and Hong Kong films entered the era of Stephen Chow. The fame of Stephen Chow has also officially brought the Hong Kong film industry into the era of "double Monday", compared with Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat, the success of Stephen Chow is at least an era late, but with his genius-like "nonsense" acting skills, he has become an irreplaceable figure in the history of Hong Kong cinema. His seemingly simple, mechanical performance has reached a height that others can only imitate and cannot reach.
In fact, Zhou Xingchi's performance and Zhou Runfa's performance are completely two different concepts, Zhou Runfa's acting skills are more like imitating the performance method of typical Hollywood male stars, in Zhou Runfa's performance, we can more or less see the shadows of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and Zhou Runfa has localized the Hollywood performance style very well. However, Zhou Xingchi's performance is anti-heroic, which can be easily seen from the comparison between "Gamblers" and "God of Gamblers". If Zhou Runfa's performance is a model of a hero, then Zhou Xingchi's interpretation is the bitterness of the small people in the city, so Zhou Runfa's image is closer to the audience's ideal, and Zhou Xingchi's performance is more deeply rooted in the audience's reality.
After Stephen Chow became famous with "Gambling Saint", the Hong Kong film industry officially entered the era of Stephen Chow. In the years after he became famous, Stephen Chow won the annual box office title in the Hong Kong film industry. At this time, Zhou Xingchi's limelight was unique, and at this time, Zhou Runfa had just become famous with "The True Colors of Heroes" for less than 4 years. So what makes Stephen Chow's performance more popular with the audience? In fact, nothing more than Stephen Chow's films can make the audience vent their negative emotions in life.
As an important way of entertainment in people's lives, a large part of the reason why people go to see movies is that movies are regarded as "cultural fast food", just like people like to eat popcorn when watching movies, and movies are the "cultural popcorn" in people's lives. The audience hopes to be able to get light pleasure from the cultural product of the movie, and release the unhappiness of life in the heart, if from this point of view, Zhou Xingchi's film is more in line with the taste of the general audience. In Stephen Chow's films with the theme of small people in the city, he often presents the emotions that are not easy to detect in life, but penetrates into everyone's heart, and presents them on the big screen with exaggerated and self-deprecating performances for the audience to complete the dissolution of their own realistic situation in front of the screen. This viewing experience makes the audience feel relaxed and full of the joy of spiritual liberation.
Zhou Runfa's works belong to the other extreme, and his works express a moral and ethical ideal state, so that the wicked have bad retribution, and the good people become heroes. This kind of plot of countering violence with violence makes the audience directly addicted to the big screen, especially in gunfight films such as "The True Colors of Heroes", the storyline is full of life, and the gun battle surface is completed in one go. When the little ma ge played by Fa Ge shouted out the audience's voice on the screen, the audience was full of enthusiasm. But this heroism comes and goes quickly, and when people return to real life again, they find that this heroism only exists in fantasy scenes, and when people return to real life, they still have to face the real situation.
And Chow Yun Fat's films do not consider the feelings of female audiences too much, and heroism can only infect male audiences. However, relatively speaking, the funny plot in Stephen Chow's movies is suitable for all ages, and this universality that attracts the audience also makes Stephen Chow's films quickly occupy the market. Moreover, at this time, the gangster gun battle film represented by Zhou Runfa has been imitated by many peers after success, including Andy Lau, Liang Chaowei and others. After overloaded imitations, the audience quickly developed aesthetic fatigue. As the famous saying goes, the stories of happiness are the same, and there are many stories of misfortune. At this time, we can translate the image of the hero as the same, and there are thousands of ordinary images.
In terms of character style, if Zhou Runfa represents a hero, then Zhou Xingchi represents an ordinary little person. Stephen Chow's outstanding progress is that he will be the story of the little people, the performance of the drama conflict needed by the film, and let the audience read the taste of life, this progress allowed Stephen Chow to quickly occupy the Market of the Hong Kong film industry. However, his anti-hero style unexpectedly gained better results than the heroic style represented by Zhou Runfa.
In fact, what ultimately allowed the small character played by Zhou Xingchi to defeat the big hero played by Zhou Runfa at the box office was not the level of their acting skills, nor the difference in the popularity of the two audiences, but more caused by the times. Art emphasizes innovation, and the audience also hopes that the market will change its taste, which coincides with the emergence of Stephen Chow. Only with the scene of Zhou Xingchi's small person replacing Zhou Runfa's big hero, in fact, the industry background that caused this result is the biggest reason. And a few years later, Zhou Runfa successfully entered Hollywood, and Zhou Xingchi began to transform into a behind-the-scenes development, so the two had almost no chance to face each other head-on. The two extremes of the two people are the different styles of Hong Kong movies, and being able to accommodate two different styles is the greatness of Hong Kong movies.