Some time ago, I watched Zhen Zidan's "Fat Dragon Crossing the River", which was quite disgusting. Although before watching it, I knew that the "Zhen Zidan + Wang Jing" model would not have too many surprises, but I did not expect that it would be a shock.
But there are still many people who say that the literary drama is indeed bad, but the play is not bad, after all, there is a cosmic Dan, and it is good to play happily!
Hearing these words, I deeply felt that this pursuit was a bit low. This time, I will sacrifice another film of Zhen Zidan 15 years ago, "Kill the Wolf". This film has a score of 7.4 on Douban, which is not eye-catching on the surface. But you know, a pure action movie, can get this score, absolutely very few, Du Qifeng's police film can get high scores, not because of action, but because he said the whisper of the police bandit.
However, "Kill the Wolf" can enjoy the prestige of "the peak of Chinese action films in the past 20 years", and even in the eyes of many fans, it has not exceeded so far, on the one hand, due to the charm of several major actors in the film, on the other hand, the fight scene has become a model for future action movies.
First, three major action stars gathered in the head? All the way to the past
Speaking of "Kill the Wolf", we have to mention the three major action stars in the film: Hong Jinbao, Zhen Zidan and Wu Jing.
Although Hong Jinbao and Zhen Zidan have long been active in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1980s and 1990s, and they are both in the field of action movies, and Hong Jinbao is very willing to promote his descendants, it is said that there should have been an intersection long ago. In 1989's "Streets of Fire", Hong Jinbao served as a producer, and originally planned to invite Zhen Zidan to be the protagonist, but due to the wrong schedule, the cooperation between the two kung fu masters was delayed for 16 years.
Before the release of this film. The 53-year-old Hong Jinbao, who has long been the Taishan Beidou of Hong Kong kung fu films, although the international fame is slightly inferior to that of his disciple Jackie Chan, but when it comes to promoting his juniors and all-round development, Hong Jinbao is even more admirable.
Unlike Zhen Zidan, although he has been in the film industry since the 1980s and was promoted by The Eighth Master Yuan Heping all the way, he did not create his own unique personality. Either in traditional kung fu movies or in some fashion action films, there is no character that can be remembered. At this time, 42-year-old Zhen Zidan, can no longer find his own character, he may have to retire like Qian Xiaohao and Qian Jiale to do martial arts.
Wu Jing has been switching back and forth between mainland costume dramas and Hong Kong action movies. Although "Tai Chi Grandmaster" and "Little Li Flying Knife" made him a new generation of kung fu boys, he still lacked some characteristics if he wanted to get a chance to emerge in the Hong Kong kung fu film industry.
Thus, "Kill the Wolf" made all three of them. Hong Jinbao, with his aura of not being angry and arrogant, let the audience not only remember "the most flexible fat man in the world", but also remember that other fat people are older and kinder, and this fat man is older and more domineering.
With the role of "Ma Jun" in the film, Zhen Zidan continued to continue the character of "not many people talking harshly" in "Fuse", thus opening a 15-year-long cooperative relationship with Ye Weixin, and then opening the "Ip Man" series.
Although Wu Jing does not show much in the film, "less is more" has been fulfilled in the "Ajie" he played. White jacket tights, yellow hair a tuft of death came. The freshness brought by this supporting role killer undoubtedly surprises fans who are accustomed to watching chivalrous police.
Second, large-scale stories, box office hit the street
Unfortunately, having Hong Jinbao, Zhen Zidan and Wu Jing in martial arts, and having super luxurious collocations such as Ren Dahua and Liao Qizhi in literary dramas still made this film splash the street at the box office.
The root cause is that the film's story scale is too large. It was even rated as a tertiary film and was not allowed to be released in the mainland.
Although this "tertiary film" does have two seconds of adult footage. But the reason for the restriction is the story itself.
In the film, the policeman Zhongge, played by Ren Dahua, has been trying to bring down Wang Bao, the underworld boss played by Hong Jinbao, for many years. However, Wang Baoxin was fierce, and every time the police held his handle, he would send people to destroy the evidence by any means.
Brother Zhong was forced to be helpless, and when he learned that the undercover agent he had installed under Wang Bao was brutally killed by him, he and his men together fabricated false evidence and arrested Wang Bao. The reason for fabricating false evidence, there are two reasonable explanations in the film, one is because Brother Zhongge is about to retire and has cancer, and he does not seize the opportunity again, and Wang Bao will always be at large.
Second, although Wang Bao did not shoot and kill the undercover, it is obvious that he ordered the shooting, and even if he was wronged, there would be no conscience condemnation.
Even in order to put the evidence into practice, Brother Zhong led his men to beat the undercover minions who shot and killed them to death, so that Wang Bao could not find a substitute ghost.
But things were finally found by Wang Bao. As a result, a group of Zhongge's men were defeated and killed, and only Zhongge was able to survive.
From this story, it is not difficult to see that the police have been portrayed as gray characters, who not only fabricate false evidence, but even hide the stolen money for parentage in order to raise orphans whose parents were shot and killed by Wang Bao.
These policemen have no stains on the face of great right and wrong, but in the process of enforcing justice, they follow the intuition of morality, not the scale of the law. It is this that makes the high-quality action film "Kill the Wolf" not pass the censorship.
However, this kind of story that shows true human nature is precisely the conscience of Hong Kong police films - the must-kill skill of "Galaxy Image", and the screenwriter of this film, Situ Jinyuan, is one of the core members of "Galaxy Image". Situ Jinyuan, who studied under Wei Jiahui, created "The Birth of a Word", "Dark Flower", and "Very Sudden" in the early years, which are now enshrined in the gods.
Especially in "Dark Flower", the policeman played by Liang Chaowei in the film is a policeman who colludes with the gang. Therefore, it is normal to see the police in "Kill the Wolf" do some "unruly" things.
In addition, this film also has a strong fatalism. That is, the plot setting of "good has good retribution, and evil has evil retribution". A group of zhongge's men disrupted the order of the police and eventually all were killed; although Ma Jun killed Ajie, he was secretly attacked by Wang Bao and fell to his death; although Wang Bao won, his wife and children died because of Ma Jun's fall.
Brother Zhong seems to have left a life, but after the painful loss of his brother, he can't do anything except use the wind candle in the late stage of cancer to protect his daughter for a period of time.
This fatalistic tragedy makes "Kill the Wolf" in addition to being in the action scene for a while, but also makes us deeply feel that the misfortunes of life are interdependent and the impermanence of time.
Three, three plays that have always been imitated and have never been surpassed
In the second half of "Kill the Wolf", there are three action scenes that have to be discussed. The first section comes from Wu Jing's soccer field under the viaduct, torturing and killing the loyal brothers.
Many people actually ignore this scene. After all, this section called the fight scene is actually just Wu Jing unilaterally exporting skills, and the other party has no power to fight back. However, it has to be said that director Ye Weixin, when showing Wu Jing fighting, never casually deals with it because the opponent is too dishy. On the contrary, the processing is very clever.
At the beginning of the fight, the little on the court suddenly ran away, and when the loyal brothers chased them, they found that the iron door was locked, and the camera turned, and the whole stadium was empty, only some dim top light.
Then, Wu Jing wore glasses and held a short dagger, never hurriedly paced, suddenly accelerated the sprint, in the process of running, threw out the dagger, right in the other party's upper arm.
In these ten short seconds, Wu Jing's unknown, cold, swift, and ferocious were fully revealed. One is the sudden acceleration that brings about a surprise in action, and the other is the difficulty of dodging the damage caused by the dagger inserted into the arm.
What was even more frightening was that the dagger was not only used by Wu Jing as a tool for torture and killing, but also inserted into the limbs of The Loyal Brother several times to restrain his attack and make him fall into the predicament of being beaten in an all-round way.
This wonderful torture scene was once rated by the well-known film critic Kai Yin as "the best single-game fight design ever in action movies".
The second paragraph is the famous street battle between Zhen Zidan and Wu Jing. The reason why this fight is unique is two points: street fighting and weapons.
Many of the fight scenes in previous Hong Kong films were generally tricks in a wide scene. Because of the large space, they all use bullet beds and coercion to create the meaning of the martial arts world. Or Jackie Chan's "weapon master" style fighting, using various props to make comedic moves.
However, in this fight, there is only a narrow and straight alley, and the two must be carried out in a limited space, using street fighting, which is extremely realistic. The key lies in their weapons, one is a throwing stick, the other is a dagger, both are close-range fast attack weapons, pay attention to short soldiers, which will inevitably make the two sides very close, and each output damage, is bound to have a great threat.
The third fight is the duel between Zhen Zidan and Hong Jinbao in the climactic scene. In this fight, the focus is not on the action scene, but on the innovation of moves. MMA, mixed martial arts, was brought to the big screen by Zhen Zidan from the boxing ring.
If it is said that the first two fights belong to the sword to the side and can not be sought, then this third paragraph directly opens the action moves of films such as "Fuse" and "Kill the Wolf 2", which has a far-reaching impact.
Therefore, for fans of action movies, this "Kill the Wolf" can be encountered and not sought. Although 15 years ago, it did not even make money at the box office, it will always be an object of imitation for future Chinese action films.
You know, a movie that loses money can also make several sequels, and its classic status is self-evident.