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In the TVB period, Stephen Chow was always called Xingzai, until he turned to the screen and filmed movies such as "Wind Catcher", "Thunderbolt Pioneer", "Dragon in the End of the World" and so on.
Some people say that the nickname "Xingye" was called by Hong Jinbao, and the reason why he was honored as "Xingye" was because he broke the Box Office record of Hong Kong movies in 1990.
This record-breaking film is "Gamble Saint", written by Liu Zhenwei and co-directed by Yuan Kui and Liu Zhenwei, which won a box office performance of 41.33 million Hong Kong dollars that year.
In fact, this is a follow-up work that makes money for the sake of making money, because the previous year, Wang Jing's "God of Gamblers" just won 36.29 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office, becoming the box office champion of that year, Liu Zhenwei simply followed the law, and even the poster of "Gamblers" was imitating "God of Gamblers".
However, the style of "Gambler Saint" is very different from "God of Gamblers", "God of Gamblers" is a pure action film, there are deceitful, there are jianghu grudges, there are gunfights, there are vendettas; "Gamble Saint" is a pure comedy movie, from the character image to the display of gambling, all aspects are full of nonsense and impropriety.
The film tells the story of Zuo Songxing, played by Stephen Chow, who went to Hong Kong to join his third uncle, Hei Zaida.
Although Zuo Songxing is honest, he has special functions, and his eyes have the ability to see through.
Black Boy Da is a gambler, when he learned that Black Boy Da Zuo Song Xing has this ability, he took him to gamble, because Zuo Song Xing can see through the points of the dice and win a lot of money for Black Boy Da, which attracts the attention of people in the jianghu.
Due to too much money, the uncle and nephew were chased and killed by the casino people, and in desperation, Zuo Songxing jumped into a beautiful woman's car.
It turned out that this beautiful woman was called Qi Meng, who was a subordinate of Taiwan's gambling king Chen Song, but turned to the Hong Kong gambling king Hong Guang as an undercover agent.
Zuo Songxing fell in love with her at first sight and could not extricate himself from it.
Hong Guang learned that Zuo Songxing, a person, wanted to try his gambling skills, so he asked him to meet, but he found two foreign beauties with a lot of gambling skills to bet with him.
Zuo Songxing temporarily lost his special function due to excessive efforts before, and at the beginning he repeatedly lost battles on the gambling table and lost a lot of money.
Later, Hong Guang asked Qi Meng to send him a gambling book, and Zuo Songxing saw the lover in his dream, and he actually recovered his strength and turned defeat into victory.
This let Hong Guang know that Qi Meng is the one who can contain Zuo Songxing.
It turned out that Hong Guang and Chen Song had always been sworn enemies, and the two met in the "World Gambling King" competition to compete male and female.
Chen Song knew that he was not Hong Guang's opponent, and wanted to find a person with high gambling skills who could represent him.
Therefore, Chen Song directly approached Hei Zaida and lured him to sign an agreement to ask Zuo Songxing to represent Taiwan in the "World Gambling King" competition.
Qi Meng's undercover identity was soon revealed by Hong Guang, so she returned to Chen Song's side and confronted Zuo Songxing.
During this time, Zuo Songxing was proud of the scene, and the gambling table was full of wind and water, playing many games until he advanced to the final and faced Hong Kong gambling king Hong Guang.
Hong Guang knew Zuo Songxing's weakness and sent his men to capture Qi Meng before the game, causing Zuo Songxing to lose his special function.
On the day of the game, Zuo Songxing was indeed in a state of nothing, without the special function of this bug-level ability blessing, Hong Guang was in control of winning the game.
Zuo Songxing wanted to quit the game, but was opposed, so he had to harden his scalp.
At this time, he came up with a cruel move, that is, every hand, no matter what card he got, he dared to "dry cold".
"Sun cold" means that all the chips in the hand are bet as a bet, and the game is set to life and death.
Hong Guang, an old gambler with superb gambling skills, naturally does not take risks easily, so he has not dared to follow, so he has been playing for more than half an hour.
At this time, Hei Zaida's neighbors Selling Fish Sheng and Ah Ping discovered the place where Qi Meng was under house arrest and went to rescue Qi Meng.
Hong Guang was played by Zuo Songxing for more than half an hour, and he had already lost patience, and when he saw that he had a good hand of cards, he finally decided to "dry cold" with him.
At a critical moment, Qi Meng came to the scene of the game, and after Zuo Songxing saw Qi Meng, he finally recovered his strength and used the special function to replace Hong Guang's bottom card and win the game.
In the movie, there are many homages and deliberate imitations of "God of Gamblers", but such imitations are completely ridiculous:
For example, the "Gambling Holy War Suit" that Hei Zaida let Zuo Songxing wear was generally the same as the clothing of the God of Gamblers Gao Jin; he also let him watch the video tape of "God of Gamblers" to learn the way Gao Jin walked.
Liu Zhenwei's creativity of combining special functions and gambling skills, combined with Zhou Xingchi's unique performance style, completely subverted the serious book of "God of Gamblers", which is both bizarre and imaginative.
This bug-level setting of special functions, seemingly invincible on the surface, but has many limitations, and will be temporarily lost due to many external factors, which adds variables to the fate of the protagonist, makes the plot peak loop, fascinating, these are the reasons why "Gamble Saint" can achieve great success.
1990 was the most popular year for Stephen Chow, who had always been prolific and took over 11 films in one go.
After the success of "Gamble Saint", for more market interests, Wang Jing used a trick, simply dug him up with heavy money, and launched the "Gambler" cooperated with Andy Lau at the end of the year, and the next year launched "Gamble Man 2: Gambling on the Beach".
Interestingly, although there are Zhou Xingchi and Wu Mengda in these two works, the setting of the special function is also the same as that of "Gamble Saint", and the character played by Zhou Xingchi is called Zhou Axing instead of Zuo Songxing, which is because of copyright issues.
The protagonist of his own movie was dug up, which also made Liu Zhenwei, who originally followed the trend, but owned the copyright of "Gambling Saint", suffer a dumb loss
Ignoring the personal grudges of these directors, these films begin with the word "gamble", in which the characters are connected and the story is continuous, which together constitute a "gamble" universe.
Pigo felt that these films represented the highest level of commercial films in the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, under the leadership of box office supremacy consciousness.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Bloody Dan Heart
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