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Hong Kong "god of food" Dai Long, because of its exquisite choice of raw materials, mastery and application are just right, the original dishes are countless, superb cooking skills are well-known at home and abroad, and Xu Peidong, Yang Guanyi, Chen Dong three people and known as Hong Kong's four famous chefs.
In the 1990s, when he was the head chef of Chinese food at Conrad Hotel, Dai Long received countless dignitaries and celebrities, including many celebrities in the entertainment industry such as Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Xie Xian and Zhang Guorong.
He once fried a plate of SKY$5,000 fried rice for gambling king Ho Hung-sin and caused a sensation in Hong Kong, and then Stephen Chow was inspired by this and used it as a prototype to create the 1996 comedy film "God Eater".
Dai Long also made a cameo role in the film, that is, the chef who fried the emperor's fried rice at the beginning of the film but was scored 0 points by the god of food.
After the release of the film, it achieved the second place in the annual box office list, and also had a high score of 7.9 on the Douban, which was harshly rated for comedies, and is still regarded as the most precious treasure by countless audiences today, and will be re-brushed every once in a while.
In this movie 24 years ago, Zhou Xingchi actually used only 3 moves of "anti-routine" to create a comedy classic.
First, the story is anti-routine
Stephen Chow and Yang Guohui founded Xinghui Company in 1996, and "God Eater" was Xinghui's first film.
As a pioneering work, Zhou Xingchi invested a lot of hearts and took the initiative to seek change, and joined hands with two screenwriters, Lao Wensheng and Zeng Jinchang, to write an anti-routine comedy story.
In the past, the classic mode of Stephen Chow's films was to tell the story of the struggle of small people.
"God Eater" does the opposite, the male protagonist Stephen Zhou appeared as the CEO of the Tang Dynasty Food Group, and was later betrayed by his partner and Shaolin chef Tang Niu and was discredited, and with the help of the ancient female turkey of Temple Street, he made a comeback and finally regained the position of God of Food.
This kind of story development model of rising and falling, then experiencing setbacks, and not being extremely tailai, has certain risks, which is not common in commercial films, but there is no shortage of classic cases. For example, Wang Jing's classic movie "God of Gamblers" and Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky 3" are outstanding works in this model.
Stephen Zhou Gong's arrogance under the fame of the subordinates, Zhou Xingchi is very good at pinching, and the character is very annoying.
Later, when he fell, he experienced the cold and warm of the world, learned to be tolerant of others, and the image gradually became kind, and this change in character personality was rare in Stephen Chow's films.
Second, the actors have changed greatly
The most anti-routine in the movie is that the image of a number of actors, including Wu Mengda, Karen Mok, Gu Dezhao, and Lee Shau Kee, has changed dramatically.
The golden supporting actor Wu Mengda starred as Stephen Chow's opponent for the first time, and the image change from supporting role to villain was unprecedented.
Wu Mengda put away those funny means since the film, fully devoted himself to shaping this role, and from time to time there was a killing machine between the eyebrows, which made people shudder, and the acting skills of the old drama bones were all displayed here.
Stephen Chow likes to make the heroine of his movie ugly, and Karen Mok "bears the brunt of it".
Not only did he play the role of a humble woman turkey in the film, but also to print a knife scar on his face, and then show his mouth full of teeth, completely abandoning the image of a beautiful woman. Until many years later, the audience mentioned that Karen Mok would still think of this image in the movie, which once made Karen Mok feel ridiculous.
Playing the sinister little fat man Tang Niu is Gu Dezhao, a screenwriter who has cooperated with Stephen Chow many times.
Although he did not focus on the actor route, many of the roles he created were very impressive, such as the pair of pairs to the master who vomited blood in "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang", and the Tang Niu scene in "God Eater" was also very much, and Gu Dezhao also successfully created a classic villain image.
Lee Shau Kee, one of the four evil men, played a stupid and cute uncle in the film.
The shot of eating explosive pulp and peeing cow pills to eat dancing is said to have been tricked by Zhou Xingchi to shoot, when there were many onlookers, everyone laughed and laughed, he was also open-minded, but it became his most classic performance.
Getting these actors to experiment with roles they haven't played before is one of the film's boldest challenges and adventures.
But in the end, they can all have a perfect performance, and it can be seen that the eyes of the main creators Li Lizhi and Zhou Xingchi are very sharp.
Third, the fusion of cooking and Shaolin Kung Fu into this, absolutely!
In fact, Stephen Chow knows that the theme of food is his weakness, so this film does not perfectly present the elements of food and cooking to the audience like Xu Ke's "Jin Yu Man Tang" or Ang Lee's "Diet Man and Woman".
He gave full play to his unique style of no mile head, and added a set of funny showmanship to the cooking performance.
Tang Niu is set up as a hidden master who has returned from ten years of studying art in the kitchen of the Shaolin Temple, and the set of cooking skills presented in front of Stephen Zhou is amazing. This added the cg special effects that were just starting out at the time, and the shots were very fake, but they were also novel at the time.
Stephen Zhou later joined the Shaolin Temple, and after completing his studies, he appeared as a high-profile hero. This is not a joke of Pigo, the setting of a night white head is exactly from the Hua hero.
In the God Eater Contest at the climax of the film, the cooking contest between Steve Zhou and Tang Niu does not actually show the details of the food, but adds the mysterious martial arts that are only found in martial arts novels, becoming an action scene in disguise.
The "upgrade" of the eclipsed soul palm into the eclipsed soul rice echoes the bowl of char siu rice that the turkey gave To Stephen Zhou in the front, and the use of the "fire cloud palm" to scramble eggs is simply a stroke of God.
In fact, this bowl of char siu rice, Master Dai Long's "God Eater Char Siu" shop is really selling, the price is 80 Hong Kong dollars a bowl.
Although it was questioned that the sale was a little more expensive, Master Dai Long personally replied, explaining that because the selection of ingredients was very careful, even the rice was used with the best, and it was very conscientious to sell at this price, and it was impossible to eat anywhere else.
The most interesting thing is the one that sells all over Hong Kong, delicious novelty and fun of the popcorn cow ball, although it is a fiction of the movie, the god of food Dai Long got inspiration from this, and really created a dish called foie gras soup shrimp balls.
After the release of the film, the four seats also achieved excellent box office results.
In 1996, before the handover, Hong Kong film production and level reached their peak, "God Eater" became the second place in the local box office with a box office of 40.86 million Hong Kong dollars, the third place was also taken away by Stephen Chow's "Great Inner Secret Agent Zero Hair" (36.05 million Hong Kong dollars), and Jackie Chan's "Police Story 4 Simple Mission" reached the top, setting a new record of 57.52 million Hong Kong dollars.
The box office of Zhou Xingchi's two films combined is actually more than Jackie Chan's, and this pair of good opponents has also fought for the entire 90s.
The success of "God Eater" has laid a solid foundation for the future glory of Xinghui Company, and it is also a classic film that is still difficult to surpass.
Later, the "King of Comedy", "Shaolin Football", "Kung Fu", "Yangtze River No. 7", and "Journey to the West and Descending Demons" have all played steadily. And since "Kung Fu", Xinghui's films have begun to enter the mainland market, and have also achieved remarkable results.
And Zhou Xingchi himself has also gained countless iron fans in the mainland, although Xingye has not played a leading role for 12 years, but the audience is still looking forward to perhaps one day Xingye will still personally go to the screen, perhaps out of reach, but fans like Pi Ge will continue to wait.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Bloody Dan Heart
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