Have you watched the recent popular Hong Kong movies?
The punchy "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" is a thrilling Hong Kong-style movie that is close to everyone's memory. The director is none other than Cheng Po-sui, who just won the best director at the Academy Awards for "Homicide";
"白白" "Under the Sun " and " Youth Diary " are reality-themed Hong Kong films that also have great reputations, with Douban scores of 8 and 8.4 respectively.
"Under the Day" talks about the abuse in social welfare institutions, and "Diary of a Youth" talks about the phenomenon of suicide among teenagers. This makes people suddenly realize that the world of Hong Kong movies has changed?
What lies behind this judgment is actually a misunderstanding of Hong Kong films.
Yes, on the surface, Hong Kong movies are just swords, guns and sticks + handsome men and beautiful women, and it is a lively scene of singing and dancing.
But in fact, those are just a disguise of Hong Kong movies.
Realistic films have always been the favorites of the Academy Awards.
At the Academy Awards some time ago, there was a scene that was difficult for many people to accept: "The Vengeful Lawyer" defeated "Under the Day" and won the best film. .
In addition, Lin Baoyi lost the Academy Award for Best Actor to Tony Leung Chiu-wai's " Golden Finger ", so many people are saying that the Academy Awards are still too old-fashioned, and small-cost reality-themed movies are becoming more and more popular in this industrial system. The harder it is to gain recognition.
There is some truth to such comments.
After all, a big reason why "The Vengeful Lawyer" gained such great recognition is because it broke the box office record of Hong Kong movies. For a sluggish market, more such films are needed to boost morale.
is right to say this, but it is also a bit one-sided. "Vicious Lawyer" itself also uses the packaging of a cool film to reflect the real problems of Hong Kong society.
Speaking of the Academy Awards itself, its recognition of reality-themed films exceeds many people's imagination.
In the years when the Academy Awards were first presented, most of the best films were awarded to low-budget films.
They are also all realistic themes.
For example, the best film in the first session was given to Fang Yuping's "Father and Son". It is a "short" about the Chinese-style father-son relationship. It focuses on Hong Kong's civilian society and is a representative work of Hong Kong's realistic films.
Its box office was only over one million. Not only did it not cause any movie-watching craze, it even caused little discussion. It was much less popular than "Under the Sun".
and most of the subsequent sessions were like this.
For example, the best picture at the second session was given to Xu Anhua's "The Raging Sea", the best picture at the third session was given to Fang Yuping's "Half the Man", and the best picture at the fourth session was given to Yan Hao's "Homecoming". "...Following on, Zhang Wanting's "Illegal Immigration" and Fang Yuping's "American Heart", these low-cost, realistic-themed works have all won the recognition of the best director.
Perhaps we can say this: The Academy Awards were established to recognize these reality-themed films that are of excellent quality but have little impact on the market.
This is inseparable from the rise of the new wave.
In the late 1970s, a group of filmmakers who studied abroad returned to Hong Kong, such as Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, and Tam Jiaming. They first worked on television for a few years, and once they turned to the big screen, they started what we call the new wave of Hong Kong directors.
These movies were different from the popular fist (kung fu movies) and pillow (love movies) movies at the time.
Although they still follow the framework of genre films, such as action films and horror films, they actually talk about real social problems in Hong Kong.
For example, Tsui Hark's "The First Type of Danger", like "Diary of a Youth", talks about the student problems in Hong Kong.
The movie comes from a piece of social news, and this news was told in full at the beginning. On the radio, a voice read: "This afternoon, the bodies of two 13-year-old students were found in Aberdeen Primary School. It is said that these two students may have died in a while. Fun..."
Under the influence of these movies, Hong Kong movies have gradually formed a line of realistic themes.
There is a continuation of the new wave of directors here.
For example, Xu Anhua, I still remember how moved I was when I saw the movie " woman, forty " many years later.
's plain lens language honestly tells the story of a middle-aged woman's internal and external difficulties, as well as her complicated heart.
Especially the shrewdness in bargaining when buying fish at the beginning. This kind of shrewdness and wisdom of civilian housewives is something we rarely see in other movies.
In addition to New Wave directors, there are more who follow closely behind.
For example, Er Dongsheng's "The True Story of a Mad Man", Jiang David's "Invisible Speech", Zhang Zhiliang's " Cage ", etc., they are the same as films such as "Under the Day", they care about The stories around you and the most real life at the bottom.
Unfortunately, such plain reality-themed films were gradually forgotten due to lack of commerciality.
To this day, when we talk about Hong Kong movies, we often talk about Wang Jing and John Woo, not Fang Yuping and Yan Hao.
But, has this tradition really disappeared?
Realistic issues are the root of Hong Kong movies
Tsui Hark and Hui Anhua have caused a certain degree of influence, but at the same time they are unable to generate sufficient box office returns. The reason is actually the same: In their movies, the sense of reality is stronger than the entertainment attributes .
This has led to the gradual tilt of the balance in an era where box office is king.
Movies are art for the public after all, and in a normal market environment, filmmakers should make films based on what the public cares about.
But do people only care about entertainment? In fact, what they care about, besides the senses, is the reflection of reality.
Let alone daily necessities, who would not pay attention to the unreasonable things happening around us?
Under such circumstances, 's focus on practical issues has already been injected into the bones of these filmmakers.
Take comedy movies as an example.
Xu Guanwen, the first-generation comedy king, mostly photographed various problems in society.
For example, " sells herself to ".
It refers to the "Annual Meeting Cannot Stop!" ", workers work tirelessly to work for the capitalists. If you can't create profits for them, you can only be abandoned by the system and jump from the tall building.
And what about the second generation comedy king Stephen Chow?
On the surface, his movies are nonsensical, funny, and unreasonable.
But if you look at the characters and behaviors in his movies, gangsters, capitalists, real estate developers, etc., they are actually derived from his life experience in Hong Kong society.
Take his latest movie " New Comedy King " as an example.
The story is about chasing dreams, but under the cloak of chasing dreams, what we can see is the difficulties of a large number of low-level extras and the slim future.
To put it bluntly, he stands on the ground of the people at the bottom, speaking out for them and cheering them up.
And what about those movies about singing, singing, dancing, and shouting about fighting and killing? The same goes for
.
Jackie Chan's " Police Story ", in which police officer Chen Jiaju risks his life to capture a drug lord, it is a standard police action movie.
The scene in the movie of driving through the village and heading straight down the mountain is indeed visually stunning and exciting, but have you noticed the house halfway up the mountain?
During this process, we saw the problems of shantytowns, which are old, crude, messy, with a wooden board separating several generations and chickens, geese and ducks flying around... which is in sharp contrast to the residential areas of the rich.
The shanty towns were taken based on the reality of that era.
So, realistic issues are the root of Hong Kong movies. Although
is grotesque on the surface and contains many strange case themes, it goes to the extreme of sensuality as the film is being filmed, making people ignore what it should be like.
But after all, this is the starting point of Hong Kong movies.
After all the glitz and glamour, this is the true face of Hong Kong films
Back to the current topic of Hong Kong films.
Rather than saying that these Hong Kong films are "new", it is better to say that they are a return to explore the most essential issues of Hong Kong films.
For example, has anyone filmed the issue of people with dementia in "Under the Sun" before?
There are some, not too many movies such as "Why Do You Have Me" and "The Story of a Madman", and they all caused a certain response back then.
The student question of "Diary of a Youth", has anyone filmed it?
In his early years, "Pretty Girl" and "The Owl and the Dumbo" were all movies that focused on student issues.
is not saying that these current films are all about playing the leftovers of their predecessors, but I am saying that the realistic themes of Hong Kong movies have actually been continued and they have never been interrupted.
It is a pity that these Hong Kong films not only did not do well at the box office in the mainland, but also in Hong Kong.
"Under the Day" and "Diary of a Youth" will have a box office of over 10 million in the mainland, but in Hong Kong, it only exceeds 20 million, and this is almost the highest level of this type of film.
There is a view in the Hong Kong film circle that directors who shoot Hong Kong reality-themed movies often have no business thinking, which leads to the film not being a hit, and then there will be no more movies to make. Of course there is some truth to
's view, but in the final analysis, most people think that such stories have nothing to do with "me".
These are just distant cries.
What they need are emotional stories that can arouse physical empathy, and they need movies that fit their imaginations.
Just like "The Vanishing Her" or "All or Nothing", just looking at the introduction, we would think that these are reality-themed movies, but the question is, do they really discuss real-life issues?
Realistic themes are just a coat, and what is hidden inside is nothing more than the logic of a cool film and the incitement of emotions.
On this basis, we can say that it is not that Hong Kong films cannot go global, but that films that do not satisfy the audience cannot go global.
This is not only a Hong Kong film, but also a very real problem faced by Chinese films.
But even so, we are still happy to see Hong Kong films become what they are now, or in other words, if the glitz and glamor is taken off, we will find that this is the true face of Hong Kong films.
In the past, we often said that Hong Kong movies are all excessive and all crazy. The result is that we think that Hong Kong movies are only excessive and crazy.
In fact, ’s so-called excess and madness are just temperament rather than essence.
The background of Hong Kong movies has always been from the bottom. It does not engage in serious discussions from above, nor does it make art experiments that are pretentious. It always stands with the people.
does not have a bottom-level perspective, so it does not have the glory of Hong Kong films. Now that
has given up the guise of entertainment, it is difficult for such low-level care to cause any kind of sensation, but we still hope that it can last longer when traffic is king.
After all, that’s how movies should be.
Conclusion:
As someone who grew up watching Hong Kong movies, I still want to say a few more words. Hong Kong movies are not just "A Better Tomorrow" and "A Chinese Ghost Story", they also have other aspects.
The term "Hong Kong film" has now been seriously stereotyped.
What is gratifying is that today, when the term Hong Kong movies is widely misunderstood, there are still people who will make their own efforts to popularize Hong Kong movies.
For example, Tencent Video Hong Kong Film Season, is a platform with rich high-quality popular content and professional media operation capabilities. When opening this film list, I was delighted to find that the Hong Kong films here are diverse.
Of course there are famous Hong Kong films like "Infernal Affairs" and "Stealth", but small-scale Hong Kong films such as "Father and Son", "Ah Jin" and "Woman, Forty" are also included. What's more important about
is that a large number of movies among them have been restored. This is a very good channel for re-understanding Hong Kong movies. This also shows the platform's support for Hong Kong movies.
Seeing something is better than hearing it a hundred times. No matter how much you hear it, it is better to see it for yourself.
I believe that you can all find your own definition of Hong Kong movies and discover the different beauty of Hong Kong movies.
e Beizi Welfare Club
This time, sister
e will join us to support Hong Kong movies!
We will select five attentive readers in tonight's headline message.
will each give away a Tencent Video monthly card.
members can watch all movies including "Hong Kong Film Season" for free within the validity period.
No additional purchase required.
So, let’s talk:
What is your favorite Hong Kong movie? Tell us in the
comment section!
