Text | Movie mix
In September 1992, Wong Kar-wai led a luxurious star lineup of Zhang Guorong, Liang Chaowei, Lin Qingxia, Liu Jialing and other luxurious stars to start shooting "East Evil and West Poison", but several months passed, and Wong Kar-wai, who has always worn a few shots, has not yet taken a few shots. Seeing that he could not catch up with the New Year file, Taiwanese investor Tsai Songlin could not sit still, and it was rumored that Tsai Songlin rushed to the shooting site angrily and pointed a gun at Wong Kar-wai, ordering him to finish the film within a month.
Wong Kar-wai was helpless and urgently asked Liu Zhenwei for help, asking him to quickly help make a New Year movie. At that time, Liu Zhenwei did not even have a script, and the preparation period was only 8 days, but he used the original team of "East Evil and West Poison" to shoot a classic comedy in just 27 days, which is the "East into the West" that we are going to talk about today.
Liu Zhenwei said when recalling this experience: This is a very ridiculous big joke. If you ask me which movie I like the most, I can't say it, but what makes me most miserable and hated is this "East becomes West".
The root cause of all this is that Wong Kar-wai's filming is too procrastinating.
In 1992, Liu Zhenwei and Wong Kar-wai jointly established Zedong Film Company. At that time, Lin Qingxia starred in "Laughing proud of the East Undefeated" set off another round of hong Kong martial arts films, so they won the adaptation rights of "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter", found the investor Taiwan Scholar Film Company, and said that they would invite 8 top stars at that time to shoot, specifically Zhang Guorong, Liang Chaowei, Jacky Cheung, Leung Ka Fai, Lin Qingxia, Maggie Cheung, Liu Jialing and Wang Zuxian.
The film plans to shoot two films, the first "East Evil and West Poison" by Wong Kar-wai, planned to be released in the New Year slot, and the second part by Liu Zhenwei. Therefore, there was a scene at the beginning of the article where Cai Songlin Xingshi asked Liu Zhenwei to save the fire line.
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"East Evil West Poison" can not be counted on, and "East into the West" must catch up with the 93rd Lunar New Year file, in order to save money, a set of people and horses two directors two plays began at the same time, all the actors on both sides of the work at the same time, they were tortured by Wong Kar-wai in the morning depressed trance to death, and in the afternoon they had to play Liu Zhenwei's comedy like a drug, so that the actors were a little schizophrenic.
The most depressed is still Liu Zhenwei, because there is no script, first shoot Liang Chaowei's sausage mouth, because this scene is relatively simple, other scenes have not yet thought about how to set up the scene, in fact, it is not just a matter of setting up, the plot does not know how to develop it. Even if it is a simple play, it is still a lot of problems, the costume style has no time to prepare, and I casually got a set of Arab clothes to dress Liang Chaowei.
So we see that the costumes in the movie are strange, there are Hanfu, Taoist costumes, Indian costumes, Arabic costumes, and costumes similar to Cantonese opera, there is really no need to examine what is the connection between them, that is, what to wear. To say that the art of this thing is really strange, inadvertently instead of creating a classic, the patchwork of things later known as nonsense style, sausage mouth became an irreproducible funny shape.
In 2011, zhong Zhentao recalled the film and said that when he was in Southeast Asia, he saw a merchant selling sausages, and the advertising sign used was Liang Chaowei's sausage mouth stills. But such a rush of a play, filming the sausage mouth this section took three days, the rhythm is too delayed, Liu Zhenwei said: I know, I deliberately delayed, because there is no script, I have to consider what to shoot later at any time.
Halfway through the filming, Liu Zhenwei suddenly stopped the play, said he wanted to set the scene, and then hid back in the hotel. Wong Kar-wai was very angry when he knew about Liu Zhenwei, and with his knowledge of Liu Zhenwei, he knew that this must be an excuse.
Sure enough, Yuan Kui was lying in the hotel waiting for Liu Zhenwei. It turned out that Jet Li also newly established a Zhengdong Film Company, invited Yuan Kui to direct his first play "Fang Shiyu", Yuan Kui had no bottom in his heart, and came to ask his friend Liu Zhenwei to create a script. So Liu Zhenwei, who was soft-hearted, wiped Wong Kar-wai's ass while helping Wong Kar-wai wipe his ass, and at the same time gave Yuan Kui a fire captain.
To say that the skills of the older generation of Hong Kong filmmakers are really quite domineering, Liu Zhenwei in addition to eating and sleeping is in the code word, to the fifth day, he patted Yuan Kui, who was sleeping next to him, and said, Finished writing! Then he "slammed" into the bed and slept in the hotel for a full 48 hours, or 48 hours to be exact. In this way, Liu Zhenwei completed the two fastest scripts in his life in 27 days, and also shot a classic comedy.
02
Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, not to mention the female stars in the crew, and their open struggle is Liu Zhenwei's biggest pain. For example, an actress who sees someone else paint green eyeshadow, runs to find a costume and says: I don't want to wear green clothing to match her eyeshadow, I want to change the costume. There are also more excessive actresses who provoke actresses who are acting with their eyes off the field, which directly affects the progress of filming.
The star schedule is also one of the troubles, the Zhou Botong played by Liu Jialing in the play is quite brilliant, everyone expects her and Wang Chongyang to have a wonderful opponent play, did not expect that Wang Chongyang just came out of the pass, was plugged by Liang Chaowei's boots, and Wang Chongyang who met Zhou Botong has become a corpse, this plot is very regrettable and puzzling.
In fact, this is a helpless move, because Zhong Zhentao is busy with many plays, and the schedule for "East into West" is only one day, even if he does not stop shooting from morning to night, he cannot escape the fate of leaving the customs and leaving the funeral.
Since there is no specific script, many plot details need to be brainstormed. At this time, the stars who were suppressed by Wong Kar-wai to the point of autism began to retaliate against themselves, contributing many wonderful bridges and making the film into a completely absurd nonsense comedy.
Wonderful shapes and bridge sections abound. Liang Chaowei's Arabic sausage mouth, Liang Jiahui's Indian dress and master Wang's hot pheasant head, Liu Jialing's female version of Zhou Botong with a little green beard scum is quite sexy.
Zhang Guorong and Wang Zuxian practiced eyebrows and eyes to go to the sword, affectionate knife, dry firewood and fire palms, wearing costumes to perform pompous performances, and the husband and wife who resembled Huangmei opera both returned home.
Jacky Cheung's Shandong dialect and divine comedy "i love you" make people laugh, more classic is the song and dance double flying swallow, because Lin Qingxia failed to arrive in time, Liang Jiahui made a turkey shape to do the reverse string, Zhang Guorong arranged the lyrics on the spot, the two immediately danced, a classic bridge section was born.
Some critics are exploring the significance of the film, saying that these absurd plots are a mockery of the new martial arts films, which subvert the concept of new martial arts films.
In my opinion, this is all too much to think about. This film is essentially a large-scale song and dance sketch reality show that in the New Year, the first-line big stars gather to subvert the image and try to be funny, entertain themselves, and also entertain the public, and can also be said to be a Spring Festival Gala in the Hong Kong film industry. The story of the so-called adaptation of the legend of the archery hero is just a tool for arranging costume props and stringing words. If you put up a shelf and analyze it carefully, you are going astray.
03
Sure enough, after the release of the film, the reputation of "East becomes West" is polarized, and people who hate it think that its story logic is absurd, and the lines are made up, if you still want to delve into its ideological and artistic nature, oh! my god！
On the contrary, people who love it can laugh wildly without heart and lungs, and want to brush it again whenever they are in a bad mood.
In any case, "East becomes West" was released in the Lunar New Year file and achieved a box office of 22 million, making it one of the top ten best-grossing Hong Kong films in 1993. Moreover, because of its super luxury lineup, it was later regarded by many as the unique classic of Hong Kong nonsense comedy.
There is no doubt that although it only took 27 days, Liu Zhenwei still dedicated a successful work. Many years later, when we watch this movie happily again, recalling the pain that Liu Zhenwei suffered in those years, we can easily smile and say to him: Nice, you have worked hard!