The movie "Temporary Robbery " produced by Er Dongsheng and directed by Mai Qiguang is currently in theaters. As of the deadline, the film's box office has exceeded 100 million. The story of this film is very "old Hong Kong film". Aaron Kwok plays Mei Lantian, a "violent gangster" from a Southeast Asian country who was forced to make a living and came to Hong Kong to embark on the road of robbery. During the robbery and escape, he left a huge sum of money in the trunk of a taxi. To get back the money he desperately robbed, he accidentally invites taxi driver A Tang (played by Lam Jiadong) and his down-and-out brother social worker Murong Hui ( Yan Xianqi ) to join in the robbery and even stage a gangster attack. At first glance, this film looks like a familiar robbery farce, but it attempts to find a new approach outside of Hong Kong's classic police and gangster films and comedies, using black comedy techniques to show the various mid-life crises of ordinary people in Hong Kong. Whether they are foreign gangsters or local brothers in distress, the three down-and-out middle-aged men are each under heavy pressure from family and society. They are poor and have short-term ambitions. They take desperate risks, plot against their brothers to challenge fate, and finally fall into the trap of the fatalistic narrative. There is no lack of misplaced laughter. At this point, when it is faintly discovered that the emotional core of the film is actually about exploring how poor ordinary people are in desperate situations and face human choices under the pressure of life and family, after the laughter and gunfire, a bit of sadness will inevitably emerge in the heart.
"Temporary Robbery" is a black comedy wrapped in a police action movie.
In fact, director Mai Qiguang has already entered the film industry as early as the 1990s. As an assistant director, he has participated in "Dances with the Dragon", "New Crane and Needle", "New Shanghai Beach", "The Disciple", etc. In film creation, he has also served as assistant director to directors such as Wang Jing, Er Dongsheng, Chen Musheng, and Johnnie To. Mai Qiguang said that rather than dealing with heavy and serious themes, he wanted to make a movie that would make ordinary people happy. He has loved watching many absurd and humorous police movies since he was a child. When he became a director, he also hoped to try to integrate these two elements, and also mention some real social issues in the play. However, this time the introduction of the story is not about bitterness and hatred, but about allowing the audience to While I am happy, I also think about why such a story happened. In addition to talking about this breakthrough in script creation and some views on the future development of Hong Kong films, director Mak Kai-kwong and producer Er Dongsheng also talked about many behind-the-scenes filming stories, such as Aaron Kwok, in an interview with a reporter from the Beijing News How do you ask for buck teeth to "act ugly"? Why did you sing Jacky Cheung's "I Just Want to Be With You All My Life" and other interesting stories.
Aaron Kwok volunteered to contribute the image of " buck teeth"
Around 2019, Mak Qiguang started writing the script for "Temporary Robbery". The inspiration of this story is closely related to real life. At that time, people's lives encountered the epidemic period. He remembered that the environment was very bad at that time, and the whole society seemed to have stagnated. Many people were faced with the dilemma of unemployment, including him. There has been no work for years. Due to the pressure of making a living, Mai Qiguang locked himself in his room and thought about how he would live if he had no money. He thought about it, but came up with an idea. What would the robbers do if they encountered a middle-aged dilemma and needed money? "So, I started to create this story from this direction. This is not a police and gangster element in the traditional sense, but a more exaggerated situation to express the absurd humor of modern people when they are desperate in middle-aged difficulties and family crises. ."
Mai Qiguang said that when he and Er Dongsheng worked in the past, the other party would often ask him, "If you shoot, what do you want to shoot?" However, Mai Qiguang seems to be unable to answer this question. "He will also have a headache, saying that this person has nothing to shoot. It is true that it has only been in these years that I found the subject matter that I want to do. In the past, there was actually no pressure for others to find me. The scripts and subjects were all ready-made Yes, I'll just shoot it, but this script took a long time to work on, because the special period gave me a lot of time to continuously optimize it. You won't shoot it immediately after writing it, but I will continue to optimize it and make the script detailed."
has it. For a relatively complete script, Mai Qiguang got the script and asked Er Dongsheng to be the producer. Er Dongsheng agreed to this proposal as soon as Mai Qiguang asked, because Er Dongsheng said that Mai Qiguang told him that he would be there whenever he was asked. No need to refuse."He has been the assistant director of four of my plays, and he is also the only person on set who can hurt me. Let me tell you a secret, I also love to hurt him, because over the years he has made many people famous, including many new directors. I had no experience in filming, so I asked him to help with the filming. Then he became popular with two new directors (I won’t reveal the specific names). Others became popular, but he himself was not popular. I think it is time for him to show his talents.
In fact, the original concept of "Temporary Robbery" only had two characters, Ren Xianqi and Lam Jiadong. Before writing the script, Mak Qiguang greeted the two actors. Due to his trust in the director, Ren Xianqi and Lam Jiadong I accepted the invitation without hesitation. A few months before the filming started, in order to make the story more dramatic and complete, the investors brought Aaron Kwok into the game, thus creating the current "Iron Triangle" lineup of ruthless gangsters. Aaron Kwok's contribution to this drama was also very great. He not only tried comedy for the first time, but also proposed to use "buck teeth" to make the character's image more three-dimensional in the process of studying the script. His "acting ugly" suggestions made Er Dong Both Sheng and Mai Qiguang were very "surprised".
Aaron Kwok plays the buck-toothed "gangster" Mei Lantian in "The Temporary Robbery".
In Ye Dongsheng’s view, there are many actors in Hong Kong who do not care about their personal image. “They can accept vilifying themselves and do not have any baggage in front of the characters. So from this logic, comedies do not need to have too realistic lines or It’s a script. After the actors understand the characters, they will inject a lot of things into the play. They will get a lot of inspiration when they invest in it. The producer and director should give them more space and material. Comedy cannot be written to death, otherwise there will be no aura and no spirit. Motivation. Therefore, the producer cannot completely control everything. He has to delegate power to the creators. The audience will be very accepting of the situation after they make changes. This is actually because as a producer, I give myself more space."
[Exclusive Interview]
David Jiang Asked to be thrown into the water, but Er Dongsheng did not stop because he was not there
Beijing News: I heard that director Mai Qiguang was inspired to make this movie because of his experience of being unemployed and having nothing to do during the epidemic. Director Er Dongsheng When filming "The End of the Sea Is the Grassland", why didn't you think of asking Mak Qiguang to cooperate?
Mai Qiguang: Yes, I really had nothing to do at that time. Even he (Er Dongsheng) didn’t ask me to do anything (laughing).
Er Dongsheng: I thought that his Mandarin was not good at the time, so I didn’t ask him to film "The End of the Sea is the Grassland". But later I found that it didn’t matter if he didn’t speak Mandarin well, because they didn’t speak Mandarin there, they all spoke Mongolian. (laughing out loud).
Beijing News: Aaron Kwok, Lam Jiadong, and Simon Yam have all won various Best Actor awards. They don’t have to worry too much about their performances. How did you tap into their tacit understanding and humorous potential on set?
Mai Qiguang: They are very professional, because I spent three years writing the script, and they know the relationship between the characters very well. During the filming, they went to the scene to talk about the scene and studied how to say the lines better. They would rehearse with their own ideas and start filming once everything was fine. Every filming went smoothly, and a lot of natural "characters" were formed. Comedy effect”. For example, if you observe carefully, you will find that every time Ren Xianqi makes a reaction, he will look at Jiadong. Maybe he may not have a deep understanding of the brothers and sisters at first. He wants to know Jiadong's reaction before he cooperates. After doing this many times, he will Put this habit into the character's personality to make him and the character deeply integrated.
Beijing News: The three of them have made innovations or breakthroughs in their screen images, but they are not regular actors in comedies. How did you spot their funny potential?
Er Dongsheng: We hope that they will be different in this film. For example, the theme style of Lam Jiadong's previous dramas was more serious. This time, they will be more relaxed. Will Ren Xianqi remind people of his past "Summer"? "Mommy Tea"? In fact, the audience has been quite heavy-hearted when watching their dramas before. It has probably been a long time since they have seen them be human again.In fact, you can pay attention to the fact that characters like this in the film exist around us. I always believe that many behaviors and expressions of people in real life are exaggerated in movies, and real life is always greater than movies.
Beijing News: This time the pace of script writing is very relaxed. How does it help to spend so much time writing scripts?
Mak Qi-Kuang: When talks about the script, we don’t talk about the main plot, but talk about the things on the side. We first design the scenarios, such as bridge sections, and then add story lines to these bridge sections. This is a bit like the way of filming old Hong Kong movies. .
Er Dongsheng: In fact, not all directors take the initiative and have something to talk about. Most directors do not write scripts, and many of them do it after the scripts are written. Most of Hong Kong's filmmakers come from the grassroots, and it is only now that there is an academic school. However, the academic party scene experience is relatively shallow, and it is more difficult to deal with. Shooting literary dramas is okay, because the photographer you use has the basics, but shooting action and dangerous scenes is very dangerous if you don’t have on-site experience, such as flying cars, hanging coercion, etc. If you use a new person to do it, it will be very dangerous. It is very dangerous. In terms of context, I think Hong Kong screenwriters are the most difficult to train, because there is no training. It depends on whether the screenwriter can write it, which is the most difficult.
The upper and lower pictures are "Temporary Robbery" producer Er Dongsheng and director Mak Qiguang respectively.
Beijing News: So you think one of the reasons why the current situation of Hong Kong films is relatively sluggish lies in the script?
Er Dongsheng: On the one hand, is, but more importantly, it is about exploring new possibilities. I hope that "Temporary Heist" will allow more Hong Kong investors to see many new possibilities. These bosses have been doing this for many years. I hope everyone can think about it and see that many things are achievable. For example, "Diary of a Young Man" and "Under the Sun", which I produced, won many awards before. Now these two dramas have passed the review and should be released in the mainland this year. Both dramas can be seen by the mainland. If you try and think about it, it's not impossible. These themes are relatively rare, but they will make the public care about social issues. Our starting point must be positive. It does not mean that we have to criticize anything. We can raise questions for everyone to discuss, and such works can also be seen by everyone, so don’t solidify them. own thinking.
Beijing News: Do you think using more works to make new attempts can break the recent downturn in Hong Kong films?
Er Dongsheng: Because the mainland market is huge, it is relatively strict. As a result, everyone’s creations may not be as diverse as in the past to cater to the market, so we need to develop more new possibilities. Hong Kong movies are just a brand, and not all movies from any region are good. I think there have been great changes among the new batch of directors. They should not always blame others and blame others for the bad market, but should constantly explore and try new possibilities.
Stills from "Temporary Heist". The tough gangsters "Iron Triangle" sang Jacky Cheung's "I Just Want to Be With You All My Life" while pushing the cart.
Beijing News: The song the three of them sang during the cart scene was Jacky Cheung's "I Just Want to Be With You All My Life". Why didn't they choose to sing the masterpiece songs by Aaron Kwok or Ren Xianqi?
Mai Qiguang: I think it would be no surprise to let Aaron Kwok and others sing their own songs, so I found a familiar song "I Just Want to Be With You All My Life" that is known to almost the whole world, and once I sang it, everyone knew what it was. It also fits the scene at that time, and when Aaron Kwok sings this song in Annan dialect, many memories will come flooding back.
David Chiang guest-starred as a gangster in "Prompt Heist".
Beijing News: David Jiang also played an important role. Did director Er Dongsheng help you recruit his eldest brother to star?
Mai Qiguang: was not found by Director Er Dongsheng. I first found Jiang Zhuowen, the son of teacher Jiang Dawei. After inviting him, Jiang Dawei was very interested in the script, and then he agreed. Father and son went into battle, "Buy one." "Gift one" (laughing). In fact, he was originally playing the role of a nursing home, and later he became the role of picking up stolen goods. However, Teacher Jiang was so dedicated that he took the initiative to dive into the pool of water underground if he was shot. Fall to the ground.
Er Dongsheng: I want to complain! My brother is ten years older than me. If you play with him like this and make him fall into the water, he is already 76 years old! How can I bear this!
Mai Qiguang: He asked for it, and you came that night?
Er Dongsheng: Why am I here? If I were there, I would definitely stop you.
Beijing News reporter Zhou Huixiaowan
editor Huang Jialing
proofreader Wu Xingfa
