Speaking of kung fu, everyone's first reaction should be " kung fu " directed and starring Stephen Chow in 2004.
By accident, this movie is approaching its 20th anniversary.
Time flies so fast.
This is a very strange movie.
If you don’t read enough films, you may find it okay after watching it. But if you are familiar enough with Stephen Chow, you can get a clue that the style of this film is very weird.
This is not the first time Stephen Chow has played kung fu. Although kung fu elements have appeared sporadically in his movies many times, he has indeed played kung fu systematically once, and that was in "Lord of Destruction" many years ago.
"Lord of Destruction" starts with a school sports club such as judo, karate, etc., and develops the plot step by step. By the time of the final competition, it has developed into an entire martial arts competition. The entire plot is relaxed and humorous, and the atmosphere is fresh and cute. It has a kind of "light novel" for later generations. "The texture.
On the contrary, "Kung Fu" is different. You can clearly feel the heaviness and depression of the movie. Stephen Chow's nonsensical style is also lost due to the rhythm of the plot, and the laughter is further enhanced.
Why?
Because the fresh atmosphere relaxes people, it is easier to be amused, and once you laugh, you will naturally vent your heart.
While the scary and heavy atmosphere depresses people, it also heightens vigilance, making it even harder to be amused. There is a huge difference in the feelings of jokes with the same lethality in two different atmospheres.
The same problem exists in "Kung Fu", and that is Kung Fu itself.
Compared with Lin Guobin, who only has a family class in "Lord of Destruction", and Zheng Zu, who came from a TVB dance training class, the team of "Kung Fu" is very scary.
You all know Yuan Hua and Yuan Qiu from "The Legend of the Condor Heroes". Everyone should be familiar with Yuan Hua. Yuan Qiu is his junior sister. Of course, she is also the junior sister of Jackie Chan . She also participated in the most popular Shaw Brothers movie. She has been filmed in the famous Hollywood spy movie 007. She is a Bond girl-level beauty. Of course, the appearance of the charter woman in the movie may be a bit scary.
You should have noticed that this is the classic origin of Hong Kong action actors we mentioned in the last issue, the theater troupe.
At the same time, there are also action actors who came from the theater troupe, including "Tian Can Di Que" who came to the Pig Cage Walled City to cause trouble. Jia Kangxi, who plays "Tian Can", comes from a Liyuan family and was born in the Shaanxi Provincial Peking Opera Company. Feng Ke'an plays the role of "The Lost Land". His father Feng Feng is a well-known Cantonese opera actor and movie star in Hong Kong. The "Silver Road" that made Bruce Lee famous was directed by his father. Don't look at Feng Ke'an himself, but his sister is famous in Hong Kong. The great beauty is Feng Baobao, the heroine of Tony Leung Ka Fai's "92 Black Rose vs. Black Rose ".
Like his younger sister Feng Baobao, he followed his father on film sets when he was a child. He was a child star. In the 1960s and 1970s, he joined Liu Jialiang's team as a dragon and tiger martial artist. In the late 1970s, he joined a family class and worked as an actor and martial arts instructor. He is familiar with that People who watch period Hong Kong films should be familiar with him.
As for the three passers-by A, B, and C in the walled city, it is not that simple.
The actor who plays Coolie Qiang is named Shi Xingyu. Did you guess anything from this surname? Who else do you know with this last name? That's right, it's Shi Xiaolong who is now 36 years old. When he was a kid, he was popular in the Chinese film industry with Hao Shaowen.
Shi Xiaolong is a native of Dengfeng, Henan. His original name is Chen Xiaolong. As soon as he learned to walk, his father Chen Tongshan sent him to the largest institution in Dengfeng City, the Shaolin Temple, to study arts. He just caught up.
In 1981, a man named Liu Yingcheng from Fuyang, Anhui Province went to Dengfeng Shaolin Temple to worship Abbot Shi Xingzheng as his teacher, and he was ordained and became a monk with the Buddhist name Shi Yongxin. In 1986, Shi Yongxin began to organize manpower and material resources to carry out the work of excavating, sorting and publishing Shaolin martial arts classics, established the "Shaolin Temple Boxing Research Association" and served as the vice president.
In 1987, Shi Yongxin launched the "Shaolin Temple Martial Arts Team", which later developed into the "Shaolin Temple Martial Arts Team" and served as its leader. Shi Xiaolong was born in 1988. He was suggested by his father to join the martial arts team around 1989, when the organization had just been established for a year or two.Therefore, Shi Xiaolong is a disciple of Shi Yongxin who is the founder of Zhenger Ba Jing. So does Wang Baoqiang. Bao Qiang and Shi Xiaolong are brothers and both are direct disciples of Shi Yongxin.
I don’t need to tell you what status Shi Yongxin is now.
Shi Xingyu is a serious Shaolin monk and the 32nd generation direct disciple of Songshan Shaolin Temple. Nowadays, he is more commonly known as Shi Yanneng, and Xingyu is his official name.
Of course, it is not clear whether he is a direct descendant of Shi Yongxin like Shi Xiaolong. How valuable is the organization
? Let us still look at Shi Xiaolong. In June 1991, he visited Taiwan with the Buddhist and cultural delegation from the Songshan Shaolin Temple and was received by Yu Dawei, Hao Baicun, Jiang Weiguo and others. In 1992, he won two excellence awards in Shaolin Tong-Arm Boxing and Arhat Stick during a performance at the Zhengzhou International Shaolin Martial Arts Festival in China.
made his debut in 1993. The level of martial arts can be seen in his and Hao Shaowen's works. Evaluate the gold content yourself.
Then think about it and compare the timeline, he has only been practicing for two or three years.
The glass tailor is played by Zhao Zhiling, the disciple of "Pork King" Lin Shirong. He should be of the same generation as Liu Jialiang. He is also a familiar face in Hong Kong movies and his acting skills are also very good. He left the classic line "How many floors above" That high." As for his skills? You can go see Jackie Chan's famous work "Snake".
The actor who plays the last fried ghost, Dong Zhihua, graduated from the Chinese Academy of Drama. He has collaborated with Chang Cheh in many movies during the Shaw Brothers era. He has starred in "Big Shanghai 1937", " Guojianglong ", "Supernatural Power", etc. His wife is an actress Wang Jinghua, who has great supernatural powers, has a son named Dong Zijian. Dong Zhihua mainly plays sticks in Kung Fu. People who are familiar with Peking Opera should know the importance of sticks in Peking Opera, but why is it that Liuxiaolingtong, a famous Peking Opera master, a famous monkey opera performer, and a skilled stick player, his sticks are really fancy? But compared with Hong Kong's gameplay, it seems to lack a bit of offensiveness. By the way, speaking of Liu Xiao Ling Tong, Dong Zhihua was originally the first choice to play the role of Sun Wukong in "Journey to the West". However, Liu Ling Tong, who was responsible for communicating with the director, strongly recommended his son, which ultimately made Dong Zhihua miss Sun Wukong. Of course, Liu Xiaolingtong did a good job.
Then why is there such a gap between people with the same background in opera?
There may be a movie that answers this question.
That is " Wulang Bagua Stick " produced by Shaw Brothers in 1984 and directed by Liu Jialiang. There is an alcoholic among the screenwriters named Ni Kuang.
The movie tells the story of Wulang Yangmen’s creation of the Wulang Bagua Stick, which can be regarded as the origin, but pay attention to the display of this stick technique in the movie. The book says that the stick technique of Wulang Bagua Stick is derived from two instruments and four images. Bagua evolved into the sixty-four-point stick method, which conforms to the number of eighty-eight and sixty-four of the internal and external Bagua, hence the name "Wulang Bagua".
This is written in the book, so how did it come to fruition? Legend has it that Yang Wulang shaved his hair and became a monk and created this stick technique. Huang Feihong, a well-known martial arts master in Guangdong, learned it from his father Huang Qiying and passed it on to his apprentice "Pork Wing" Lin Shirong. Liu Jialiang followed this line and learned this stick technique. And bring it into the film industry.
This actually explains the problem we left earlier.
Why did the early Chinese action films absorb action talents from the drama Liyuanxing? Why didn't martial arts people with real kung fu have a chance to perform?
That's because real kung fu emphasizes practicality and down-to-earthness. It aims at knocking down the opponent and does not care about appearance. After all, defeating the enemy with one move can save a lot of physical energy, so there is no need to waste energy in actual combat. Kung Fu may be good for fighting, but it really doesn’t look good. Moreover, there are many dirty tricks, and many of the core tricks focus on key parts, which are parts that are strictly forbidden to hit in modern sports. The egg-catching skill in "Eagle Claw Iron Shirt" is a typical example. Therefore, there is no way to play kung fu now, and all the moves that can be used are banned.
On the contrary, it does not mean that the martial arts students in Liyuanxing do not know real kung fu. They can do more than ten or twenty somersaults in one breath, and their stick techniques are flowing and flowing. They are all unique skills.
They may all be frivolous, and the effect of hitting people is not very good, but they are really good-looking.
and they are designed to look good. After all, a theater is so big and the stage is so small. If you want to focus the attention of the whole courtyard on the stage, you must keep the stage lively. Either it’s a loud and high-pitched singing voice, or it’s a beautiful and dazzling outfit, or it’s a lively performance. Hua Quan Embroidery Legs has this effect, and it is effective.
What’s even more frightening is that they still have some background, because Peking Opera has been around for decades or hundreds of years, and the martial arts performance skills on this stage have also been iterated for decades or hundreds of years. How to perform well and get applause from the audience is mature. No, no, no.
How can you let people in the martial arts world who are still new to the industry compete?
Therefore, the so-called martial arts people could not enter the circle during the Shanghai film period. Even if they could enter, they would be beaten for their performance. The problem of
seems to have not been improved in "Kung Fu".
Kung Fu’s martial arts design is very fragmented, have you noticed?
When the three masters were about to leave the walled city, they had a sparring match. At that time, the three of them punched hard and fought hard, and the fight was very enjoyable. But after the competition ended, "Heaven and Earth" appeared, and everything suddenly became strange and strange. The difference between the two styles of
is very big.
Why?
changed because of martial arts instruction.
The hard bridge and hard horse scenes were directed by Sammo Hung. The bizarre scenes come from Yuen Woo-Ping.
You can ask Li Laoshi for the specific gossip. In short, you know Stephen Chow’s character.
We are only talking about action effects here.
It can be seen that although the scenes are extremely gorgeous and the actions are tough and solid, the final presentation always feels wrong compared to the "Lord of Destruction" ten years ago. Including the "Fire Cloud Evil God" Liang Xiaolong, he was also a representative figure of hard bridge and hard horse in the " Fearless" and "Chen Zhen" era, and was once as famous as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
However, no matter how tough the characters are, their movements are erratic and inconsistent. Feel it for yourself and see if you feel the same sense of loss as me.
This should be the most complete gathering of real martial arts masters in a Hong Kong movie. From Dong Zhihua and Feng Ke'an in the Chang Cheh era, to Liang Xiaolong and Yuan Renxiang in the post-Bruce Lee era, to Yuan Hua and Yuan Qiu in the Jackie Chan era, and even the new generation of Shi Yanneng and Chen Guokun, "Kung Fu" has gathered action masters from four eras. .
can be regarded as the final swan song. The effect of
is not satisfactory.
Maybe, this is just like what was said in Johnnie To's "Big Brother", it's cause and effect.
So the "effect" is there, where is the "cause"?
Unexpected! The above is such a long paragraph, but it is just the beginning. Ha ha ha ha.
mentioned last time that after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Shanghai could no longer stay. Shanghai filmmakers represented by Tianyi Company fled south to Hong Kong. Tianyi’s company in Hong Kong was called Nanyang Film Company. You can tell by the name that it was mainly for Shao Family provides movie sources in theaters in Nanyang, Singapore and other places. At this time, Run Run Shaw was still in charge of distribution in Nanyang. Many future bosses made their debut at this time.
For example, Zhang Daofan, the famous literary theorist from the other side of the Taiwan Strait who served as the president of the "Legislative Yuan" and the chairman of the "China Broadcasting Corporation", was the leader of the CC department of the Kuomintang. At that time, he took a fancy to a young man and asked him to work for the Shanghai Film Culture Hall. With all the experience, he is Zhang Che. This is how Zhang Che entered the film circle and met many filmmakers. Among them, Fei Mu had the greatest influence on him, especially in Peking Opera.
During the Anti-Japanese War, Huanzhu Louzhu, the well-known martial arts novelist of the Republic of China mentioned in the previous issue, settled in Beijing. Not far from his house, a wealthy family named Hu had a little boy who was his little fan. He often brought opium to his door to bribe him in exchange for stories. Listen, many years later, Li Hanxiang played the role of a boy in Shaw Brothers' masterpiece "江山美人". The subtitles at that time read: Jin Quan! Well, he was Hu Jinquan later.
After the Anti-Japanese War, everything was in ruins. The first thing to recover was not the high-cost movies. Yes, even Seven Days Fresh, which now seems to be low-cost and scary movies, were expensive luxuries in that miserable era. The earliest revival of various newspaper and periodical publications, especially in Hong Kong, supplements were the incubation ground for various literatures. There is even a saying that “supplements are the soul of the Hong Kong newspaper industry”.
Many martial arts novels that became famous in the future were born in supplements. For example, Jin Yong's "Books and Swords" was incubated in the supplements of "New Evening News". The time is 1950. This can also be regarded as the beginning of the "new martial arts" era in the future. (Liang Yusheng's "Dragon and Tiger Fighting Beijing" was earlier and was the real first one.)
So before this, who was the main popular one in the supplement?
is Once Upon a Time.
Hong Kong is still a Cantonese cultural circle, and the legends of various southern martial arts figures are very popular, so writers from all walks of life have seized on it and created a large number of Huang Feihong's special biography, Huang Feihong's new biography and the like, which greatly influenced the Republic of China. During this period, the northern literary circles advocated the ideas of Huo Yuanjia and Big Sword King Wu.
html Starting in 2049, Hong Kong has officially become the center of Chinese-language films. Film director Hu Peng, who has been in Hong Kong for many years, noticed this trend and was ready to take advantage of it. Pavilion", which solves all problems except money. There are many talents in. Among the direct descendants of Huang Feihong, the most famous ones are Liang Kuan and Lin Shirong. It is a pity that Liang Kuan died early, and only Lin Shirong inherited the mantle of Huang Feihong. His nickname was "Pork Wing" because he worked as a waiter in a pork shop when he was young. "Pork Wing" was owned by the warlord Li Fulin. He served as the head martial arts coach in "Fu Jun" and was very famous. He had many apprentices, most of whom were in Hong Kong, such as Liu Jialiang's father Liu Zhan. Major martial arts schools also hope to film this movie about the great master to promote martial arts and also do advertisements to expand their influence.
The problem is that there is no money.
There are only 7 million people in Hong Kong now, let alone 1949. The local market is small and pathetic, and newspapers can barely survive. The real market for movies at that time was in Southeast Asia. That is also the fundamental reason why Shanghai Tianyi Company moved to Hong Kong and became Nanyang Film. .
Although Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong newspaper supplements became extremely popular, the bosses in Southeast Asia did not know it and were unwilling to invest money. There are people in major martial arts schools in Hong Kong who have time but not enough money, so that's all they can do.
still needs to be a star!
There was no other way, so Hu Peng could only find Guan Dexing, a veteran Cantonese opera actor at that time.
Since then, the film journey of folk martial arts groups, that is, martial arts people, has begun.
After that, Guan Dexing starred in a total of 77 Huang Feihong movies, and Hu Peng directed 59 of them. Why is
like this?
Because compared to the north, where Peking Opera dominates the world, the southern region is more tolerant of local operas, and the Nanyang region is more tolerant, because the Chinese in Nanyang, whether they go out to make a living on their own, or are forced to be sold as piglets In the past, there were especially many people from the Guangdong and Guangxi regions in the south. They were not familiar with the northern culture, and they brought the local culture of their hometowns to Nanyang. Therefore, various opera films in the future were produced to cater to the tastes of these audiences, such as the early Cantonese opera movies, and later Huangmei Diao movies created by Li Hanxiang, etc.
After all, the production level of movies has not yet improved since the beginning, so stealing from existing dramas is the easiest way. Besides, the origin of Chinese movies, the first film " Dingjunshan ", was originally filmed during Tan Xinpei's performance. Later, drama movies became a reserved genre in Chinese movies.
The original Once Upon a Time was so popular, and it stayed popular for decades, becoming the representative of the "realistic martial arts movies" of that era. Of course, there was basically no action design at that time. Anyway, the director had a lot of talents. Hongmen martial arts masters like Liu Zhan were on the set. They often waited for the actors to arrive and then performed tricks on the spot. The preparation time was short and hasty.The disadvantages of this are obvious. If it is between experts like Liu Zhan, who knows all kinds of skills and can use tricks smoothly, it will look good. But once you get involved with someone like Cao Dahua who is not very knowledgeable, the cooperation between the two parties will change. Like gangsters fighting, messy and ugly.
This is also the reason why Peking Opera Liyuan Wusheng was more popular at the time. People have action designs, and they have been iterating on action designs for decades. Naturally more pleasing to the eye.
But the problem is that at that time, Liyuan only had action design.
After all, Peking Opera sings in Hui tune, which can be understood by educated people like Zhang Che, but during the Republic of China, there were not many educated people.
Hong Kong is a Cantonese-speaking place after all, and not many people listen to Peking Opera.
There is a huge surplus of talent. Martial arts students such as Fen Juhua, Yu Zhanyuan, Tang Di, and Ma Chengzhi have all come to Hong Kong. There are not enough theaters and not enough audiences, so they chose to open classes and recruit apprentices.
The chrysanthemum blooming school is called the Spring and Autumn Drama School. Its students include the beauties Chen Baozhu and Xiao Fangfang who will become popular in Hong Kong in the future, the above-mentioned Feng Baobao, and Lin Zhengying, Dong Wei, who just won the Academy Award for Best Action Designer, and so on.
The China Drama Academy founded by Yu Zhanyuan has students including Sammo Hung, Yuen Long (later renamed Jackie Chan), Yuan Biao, Yuan Hua, Yuan Qiu and many other Yuan generation people.
Tang Di opened a school called Oriental Drama. Among the more famous disciples is Chen Huiyi. He won the 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Martial Arts Director.
The school run by Ma Chengzhi is called the Chinese Drama School. This is the opening of the class to recruit apprentices. There is also a master who has not started the class, who came earlier than these big names in the theater. In 1937, the famous Cantonese opera star Xue Juexian saw the backwardness of Cantonese opera compared with Peking opera, so he sincerely invited a Peking opera martial arts student to come to Hong Kong. He was responsible for the Northern martial arts scenes in Cantonese operas, and later on, he gradually extended his skills to movies. This martial artist is called Yuan Xiaotian, the father of Yuan Heping, the martial arts instructor of "Kung Fu".
It should be said that after a few years of apprenticeship, the big bosses of Peking Opera have completely realized the reality. In a place where Cantonese is spoken everywhere, Peking Opera has no future, so children of the generation of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan have crowded into the film industry. A new era was born.
?
is actually still early.
Speaking of which, people with a background in opera and martial arts in the film industry have gathered together. They have skills and the drive to refuse to admit defeat, but they are still far from success.
What are they missing?
two most important things.
One is money. Any industry requires investment, and sometimes fashion is led by investment. Capital will inject primitive accumulation into a popular element when it is still in its infancy, expand the area of influence, and ultimately make it popular.
On the contrary, without the help of capital, it is not impossible to grow wildly. Even weeds cannot grow as fertilized crops.
Another one is culture. The question now for
is which of them will get there first.
we will talk about in the next issue.
