Tsui Hark has made many classic movies, especially his martial arts movies, which represent the highest level of Hong Kong movies. But even such a master of the film, there are times when the horse strays.
In 1983, the energetic Tsui Hark began filming "The New Shushan Swordsman". At that time, Tsui Hark had no dazzling achievements, and had been making some comedies. But his film ambition is not a slapstick soap movie, but a strange power movie that embodies the visual wonders like "Star Wars".
Tsui Hark invested a lot of effort in "Swordsman of the New Shu Mountain", invested more than 20 million Hong Kong dollars, and invited the special effects team of "Star Wars" to produce visual effects, and Hong Jiaban designed martial arts movements. The cast is also very luxurious. Brigitte Lin, Yuen Biao, Zheng Shaoqiu, Sammo Hung, Liu Songren and others are invited, star-studded.
is a very attractive movie that makes investors confident, but the truth is cruel. "New Shushan Swordsman" was scheduled to be released on the Spring Festival in Hong Kong in 1983. In the end, although it achieved a good score of 15.87 million in Hong Kong, it ended up at a loss compared to the extremely high investment and bleak overseas market.
If the box office loss this time is said to be acceptable to investors, then Tsui Hark’s second flop would have left the investors lost money and lost even their pants.
18 years later, in 2001, Tsui Hark, who is still obsessed with this subject, restarted the filming of "The Legend of Shu Mountain". This restarted work copied the original version almost as it was, and the capital investment rose to nearly 100 million. The celebrity cast is more powerful, bringing together Ekin Cheng, Cecilia Cheung, Cecilia Cheung, Lin Xilei, Tan Yaowen, Wu Jing, Sammo Hung and other stars, and the special effects are more dazzling.
However, this movie also copied the fiasco of the previous box office. The investment of nearly 100 million Hong Kong dollars only returned less than half of the investment, and the box office was only more than 30 million. The investor once again lost his blood.
The shadow of the fiasco of "The Legend of Shu Mountain" made Xu Har dare not touch the theme of ancient costumes for four years, until the birth of "Seven Swords". Although Tsui Hark failed twice, his dedication to film innovation is worthy of our admiration.
