The author of this article: Grand Duke Petropavlovsk of Habsburg
The first part:
The second part:
As mentioned last time, after the bloody storm of Hong Kong movies in the 1950s, a generation of dragon and tiger martial arts masters in Hong Kong have taken shape, and their talents are The reserve is basically complete. They lack opportunities, and what they lack more is two things, one is money, the other is culture. Let’s not talk about the issue of
opportunities, because these two groups, the film company and the martial arts masters, are actually a two-way process. Martial artists are just there for food, so why don't movie companies need martial artists to fill the movie facade? This led to the fact that before Bruce Lee, the income of martial artists was several orders of magnitude higher than that of serious contracted actors (Shaw Brothers' Ha).
But if you want better development, that is another matter.
Martial arts masters are highly paid, and to put it bluntly, they have to work hard to make money. Actors are paid low, but they still have channels for advancement. Thousands of troops walk on a single-plank bridge. After all, the bridge is ready-made.
The martial arts masters are different. Their "bridges" have to be laid by themselves. Otherwise, you will always be defeated by the powerless protagonist in the movie. It's true. If you don't believe me, go watch our protagonist "The Drunken Man" in this issue and see if the heroine Zheng Peipei is powerless.
To put it bluntly, martial arts masters at that time were high-level "walk-in" workers with high salaries. How could a single-plank bridge be so easy to build? They need "money" to invest in the initial capital for making a movie, and they also need "culture". Without culture, how can they build the initial framework of a movie?
1949, to put it nicely, was called a storm. According to , Little John Khan , a well-known up owner of Xiaopo.com, a small incident happened in China.
This small incident led to a surge in the population of Hong Kong, brought unprecedented prosperity to the labor force, and then stimulated the explosive development of various industries. In this exciting moment of great vitality and competition among all things, it also brought about a little bit of inconspicuousness. small shortcomings.
That is the demographic structure of Hong Kong, which has changed.
In this British colony, it turns out that the insects at the upper level speak ghost and animal language, and the cattle and horses at the lower level speak Cantonese. The well water does not interfere with the river water. It is a good place. People who can communicate in Mandarin.
How many people are there in this group? Historically, there are different opinions. Some say it accounts for half, and some say it accounts for two-thirds.
In short, the population base is different, and the population structure is completely different.
It turns out that the Cantonese-speaking people are generally low-class people. Movies are their entertainment. Naturally, there is no good financial support. With limited funds, the production of Seven Days Fresh can already make a lot of money in the film industry. . Just as the new wave director Tsui Hark said in his subsequent hard-hitting kung fu masterpiece "金玉满堂": You can't get on the stage if you just stir up the bullshit!
Isn’t that right? The low-class cows and horses can only afford dry-fried beef and chicken balls! The sweet and sour meat is a delicacy. Their entertainment level is here, the market audience determines the quality of supply.
As a result, the demographic structure has changed, and the taste of fried beef and chicken balls is no longer suitable for northerners.
What to do? It's done.
Cantonese film In the face of this demographic structure, it is difficult not to die. After
, Cantonese films revived again, which started with the successful remake of Chu Yuan's "72 Tenants " .
That’s something to talk about later, if we have the chance, after all, Li Xiaotian won’t let me write it. He asked him to write kung fu (This xxx is looking more and more like Shao Laoliu! I can still bear it now, but if Fang Yihua comes again, I will go crazy.)
At that time, it was all in China, no, the entire Chinese-speaking circle's film resources were in Hong Kong and Taiwan The white terror over there was no worse than what happened in mainland China. The film industry under the Information Bureau of the Executive Yuan was not even a drop of water at that time, let alone a pool of stagnant water.
But Hong Kong was just a run-down fishing village (it was really a run-down fishing village, that was in 1949). The real prosperity came later. Li Ka-shing was still tinkering with plastic tweed at that time. The market is alarmingly small, so the market for Hong Kong films is not mainly in Hong Kong.
but in the entire Chinese speaking circle. To be precise, at the time of
, mainland China and Taiwan were still playing that game that we cannot talk about.
So this market is in Nanyang.
The market determines destiny. At that time, Shaw Brothers, which distributed Nanyang Complex Films, was quite dissatisfied with the quality of the films produced by Shaw Brothers and Sons in Hong Kong, so Shaw Brothers returned to Hong Kong to seize power and officially included Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers and Sons. .
officially established Shaw Brothers (production). At the same time, a film set was built in Clear Water Bay, ready for a big start.
The movie war between Shaw Brothers and MP&M is not our topic. We have talked about it many times before. Let me just mention here that in 1955, Yan Fengying starred in the Chinese Huangmei Opera movie " Tianxian Pairing " which became a hit From north to south, Li Hanxiang was inspired and prepared to do a small job. Run Run Shaw also wanted to take a share of this trend, so Huangmei Tiao movie , which will lead the trend of the film industry for 20 years in the future, was born.
Please note that the mainland movie "The Match" is an Huangmei opera movie, while Li Hanxiang's movie is an Huangmei opera movie. These two are not the same thing.
The mainland production "The Fairy's Match" was adapted from the traditional Huangmei Opera play "Dong Yong's Selling Myself" by the Huangmei Drama Troupe of Anhui Province. That was originally an old play from Huangmei Opera.
Mainland China has this cultural heritage. As long as cultural people are willing to dig deep, it is like a mineral, and there will be an endless supply.
Hong Kong, where Li Hanxiang lives, does not have this background, so he can only plagiarize crazily from other operas. Anyway, the songs of these traditional operas are not patented. Just write the words and sing them to the tune of Huangmei.
That’s why it’s called Huangmei Diao. Rather than Huangmei Opera. After all, the music includes Cantonese opera, Yue opera, and Kunqu opera, and a hundred flowers bloom. Serious Huangmei opera cannot be so devoid of martial ethics.
The play is called "Diao Chan" , starring Lin Dai.
This drama is the beginning of Huangmei Diao movies, and it can also be regarded as the beginning of another film category in Li Hanxiang's future, because in this very "conservative", "old" and "serious" Huangmei Diao movie, Li Hanxiang actually arranged for Lin Dai A scene where she wears a modern bikini and dances , showing off Lin Dai's big breasts and fat butt is so exciting!
That was 1958, a long time before Fengyue Film was born.
In short, from then on, Shaw Brothers began to get rid of the production of fashion-oriented literary films in the early stage, and fully turned to costume Huangmei movies. Its Clear Water Bay studio also began to carry out various large-scale construction projects for this purpose. Various antique pavilions began to be built in the studio. Various costumes and costumes also began to be produced, and a new climax of costume movies was born.
You may ask, aren't we talking about action movies, martial arts movies, and kung fu movies? Is this going too far?
Young people, don’t worry, you can’t avoid it.
"Diao Chan" is just a trial work. Li Hanxiang's real Huangmei Diao movie masterpiece is " Jiangshan Beauty " . Starring Lin Dai and Zhao Lei, we have talked about this film. The actor Zhao Lei is actually the actor I want to write about most. He was also the actor in the 1960 version of the original " A Chinese Ghost Story ". (Time travel: Internet celebrity Xiao Panpan performs a naughty version of " Female Consort ", who is embarrassed?)
The most evil thing about "Jiangshan Beauty" is his supporting role. This person has a standard Chinese character face and a delicate face. , handsome and dignified, with a standard Beijing movie mouth, smooth as if lubricated, and a kind of cross talk accent. On the subtitles, his name is Jin Quan .
was the one who used to go to the house of the master of martial arts in Beijing to listen to stories.
The world's top five directors in the future, the founder of the new martial arts ---Hu Jinquan.
At that time, he was promoted by Li Hanxiang, or he was tricked into joining Shaw Brothers. He was highly regarded by Li Hanxiang, and he was given such a big supporting role. In the near future, Li Hanxiang asked him to be the director and made his debut film. What we also talked about was the prototype story of "The Official I Want" --- " Yutangchun" !
Hu Jinquan himself did not acknowledge this film debut. He is from Beijing and likes Peking Opera. This yellow-mei-diao movie is not his preference. It is a proposition composition and he reluctantly put it on the shelves (just like this article in this series).
But this debut film demonstrates his excellent directing skills. The shooting is quite satisfactory, but the starting point is very high, as high as three or four stories. There is a gap with Li Hanxiang's level, but it is small visible to the naked eye.
At least that’s how Shao Liuzi sees it.
At this time, Li Hanxiang and Shao Liuzi had a little friction. Li Hanxiang himself had a bad relationship with Run Run Shaw (later, he never got over it again in his life). The boss of D&M took advantage of the situation and tempted Li Hanxiang to run away, so he They broke up.
But the boss of D&M Lu Yuntao is a literary and artistic young man who loves movies very much. He can't rub the sand into his eyes. It is said that he was interested in Li Hanxiang inserting a bikini scene into the costume drama "Diao Chan", and also asked Lin Dai to imitate Taiwan The striptease scene in the beef farm is very unpopular. Li Hanxiang dug it up, but instead of giving it to him for his own use, he sent him to Taiwan to support him in starting a new company.
This is not what I said. It was said by Mr. He Guan, a well-known Hong Kong film critic, and it was published in "Xinsheng Evening News". This is his pen name, and his real name is Zhang Che!
Now, this is not his time yet. But that will be it in two years.
is right, it only takes two or three years, very fast.
Li Hanxiang ran away, but the Shaw Brothers movie will not be broken. This is different from the later Zou Wenhuai Jiahe. Shaw Brothers is full of talents and has a deep foundation. Directors have a lot of reserves. Unlike the time when Jiahe got a good card like Bruce Lee, they could only send the fat-headed Luo Wei to take over. This made Luo Wei, the fat man, famous as the " leaker king " .
For a genius like Bruce Lee who has not been born for hundreds of years, why should we send five tigers to coordinate him in the future? Even if it doesn't work, we should send a dog. What will be the result? Photographed a pig!
Alas!
But not everyone has Li Hanxiang’s level.
He is a standard cultural person, with an unfathomable foundation in Chinese studies, and very experienced directing skills. When making a film, he pays attention to four words: fast, ruthless, accurate, and good !
Most directors don't have the ability he has. If you can complete two of these four words, you will already be the best in the world.
Therefore, under the limited budget of Shaw Brothers, the limited set resources, the harsh production environment, and the extremely strict demands and demands, Li Hanxiang can still shoot the movie quickly and well, with fierce themes and tight budget. Very accurate and of very high quality.
Hu Jinquan did not have this ability. In the future, he would be one of the top five directors in the world, but he could only complete three of these four words.
He can't get up "fast".
This can be seen in his second film in Shaw Brothers, which he also wrote, directed and starred in. "Children of the Earth" . I won't talk about the quality of this film, leaving it to Li Xiaotian, the mainstay of this site. Introduced by the teacher, please stay tuned.
Speaking of achievements, the film won the 4th Golden Horse Award for Best Screenplay and the Special Award for Best Promotion of National Spirit.
Pay attention to the latter award. This is a film with an anti-Japanese theme. In Taiwan at that time, this award with strong political meaning was specially given to this patriotic film. What does it mean?
You must know that Taiwan is a Japanese colony and has been educated by the Japanese imperial people for 50 years. Until the new millennium, Taiwanese director Wei Desheng can still shoot the anti-Japanese masterpiece "Sediq Bale" with his left hand, and the heavily pro-Japanese film "Sediq Bale" with his right hand. Cape No. 7 " and "kano", it was only a few years after the Kuomintang retreated from Taiwan. At that time, Taiwanese movies were not without anti-Japanese elements, but most of them were spy movies and 007-style sensational movies. Anti-Japanese was just a background, or It's just a gimmick.
"Children of the Earth" directly dealt with anti-Japanese issues at the time, depicting the lives and feelings of ordinary people who were oppressed after the Japanese army occupied local counties, and organizing guerrillas to fight bravely. It was seen on the movie screens of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1960s. Innovation. This is also in line with the white terror atmosphere at that time. Those who are interested can check it out. At that time, the New Life Movement was no worse than that in mainland China. Taiwanese people did not even dare to speak Xiayu (Minnan dialect). For many years Later, Taiwanese director Zhu Yanping let Hao Shaowen recreate that tragic history in "The Dog Dan Soldier".
So, this was an out-and-out patriotic movie at the time.
However, this kind of politicization is not necessarily a good thing sometimes.
Especially for the boss Run Run Shaw.
According to the book "The Movie World of King Hu": The film was originally expected to be three hours, but "the implementation of anti-racial laws in Singapore and Malaysia forced Shaw Brothers to cut a large number of scenes of Japanese atrocities and Sino-Japanese confrontation scenes, especially the national flags." All scenes were cut, leaving only two hours and twenty minutes." The length of the DVD film released by Celestial Film Company that can be found now is 107 minutes. The second half of the film mainly focuses on the gun battle scenes between the guerrillas and the Japanese army. The scenes of Japan and the blue sky and white sun flag are also there, so it is obviously not the original one. A three-hour or two-hour-and-20-minute version. It still needs to be verified which version of the film was released in Hong Kong at that time, but what is certain is that the film involves the theme of racial confrontation, and the content was greatly cut out by the censorship system of Singapore and Malaysia, which greatly affected its sales.
For Run Run Shaw, winning awards is meaningless. Whether he sells for money or not is the fundamental issue.
Because this movie is a movie with an anti-Japanese theme, the scenery, costumes, and props all cost a lot of money to replace. They couldn't be sold for money in Nanyang, Shao Laoliu's base camp, but they were used as a ball in Taiwan for winning prizes.
Besides, the box office of this film in Hong Kong is average!
Therefore, Hu Jinquan did not dare to spend money lavishly, so he would be more economical and use Shaw Brothers' ready-made costume sets, ready-made costumes, and ready-made costume props. Let’s make another period film.
The good news is that there is no need to make a Huangmei Diao movie.
The world has changed.
Just like 10 years ago, the mainland film "The Match" swept the market and launched Hong Kong movies into Huangmei tune costume movies, another movie shot in the north, Hong Kong's left-wing film company Phoenix Pictures shot on location in Inner Mongolia "Golden Eagle" 》, a big hit in Hong Kong. How popular is
? Just like this year's " poisonous lawyer " is so popular!
"The Vengeful Lawyer" is the first movie in Hong Kong history to have a box office of over 100 million.
"Golden Eagle" is the first movie in Hong Kong history to have a box office of over one million. You know, that was 1964.
"Children of the Earth" was released in 1965, and it didn't sell for money. How could Shao Laoliu not be jealous when he saw "Golden Eagle", which sold a million dollars?
Besides, in ancient martial arts movies, the props and scenery are ready-made, so it saves money!
So King Hu took action!
Hong Kong movies have just entered the new martial arts era.
movie is. . . . . . .
Don’t worry, I’ll talk about it in the next issue. I think the word count is about the same.
But
is not finished yet. At the same time as
, the film critic mentioned above, He Guan, was , Chang Cheh, and .
also got a job.
It was because of Phoenix's "Golden Eagle" in 1964 that it became a hit, which made Shao Laoliu jealous to death, so he approached Zhang Che to try out the martial arts film.
Phoenix's "Golden Eagle" cannot be copied by Shaw Brothers. It is a left-wing film company that can go north to film. The real scenery outside the Great Wall of Inner Mongolia is not available in Hong Kong, nor is the real Mongolian strongman wrestler in Hong Kong. But "Tathagata Palm" from the old Cantonese film era is no longer fun.
So Zhang Che was ordered to test whether he could take advantage of the martial arts hot spot set off by "Golden Eagle".
is really just an experiment. You must know that Li Hanxiang's "The Beauty of the Country" was already a color widescreen movie a few years ago.
But Zhang Che only received a bunch of old black and white photography equipment, and he was not allowed to enter the studio to shoot. The expensive studio also had to shoot other movies to make money. So Zhang Che had no choice but to lead a group of energetic young people up the mountain. Because they were testing new martial arts skills, they didn't need any martial arts instructors who were from theater troupes. Old school martial arts were just somersaults, twists and turns with agility. , if we want to play, we will play for real. There are no props for weapons, only real knives and guns. But what if real knives and guns are dangerous? Then grind the blade flat and not sharpen it.
But these people are strong young men, not dragon and tiger martial arts masters. Do you think there is no need for skill when playing with real swords? How much does a real steel knife weigh? Let alone swinging for a day, if you haven't practiced, your cruciate ligament can be injured even if you swing it dozens of times.
Do you think a knife without an edge can cut without hurting someone? The stick doesn't have an edge either. Why don't you ask him to hit it with a stick?
This is the first modernization attempt of Hong Kong film action films. It is the first time that it hopes to abandon the system of traditional theater troupes and southern martial arts people, and it is the first time to start systematic experiments with modern action films. What is the effect of
?
Here is an excerpt:
So, every day, someone gets bruised and swollen, and it is said that seven or eight people are injured a day.
When I saw the copy later, everyone was dumbfounded. All the shots were of a long snake formation, with geese flying in a row and beating a pot of porridge. They were either medium shots or long shots. The stupid boy sleeps on the cool bed, relying solely on his firepower, but it still doesn't work.
So after making a fuss for a while, it was settled.
The above remarks are not made by me, but are Li Hanxiang's original words in "Thirty Years of Drama from the Beginning". If you don't believe me, go check it out.
It is said that when Zhang Che was frustrated in his early days, he incarnated as He Guan and criticized Li Hanxiang frequently.
Li Hanxiang had already gone to Taiwan at that time, and he was not polite to Zhang Che and his Shaw Brothers.
is scolded by this.
This black and white experimental film is called "Tiger Man Annihilates Revenge" . Not to mention how unpopular it is, there isn’t even a single long comment on Douban. There are only 2 short comments.
But it is said that the box office is not bad.
But Li Hanxiang must have hit the point.
The movies at that time were too old-fashioned and their techniques were outdated.
But he didn't expect that Hu Jinquan made that movie to save money. This is the problem that
wants to solve.
Since then, new martial arts movies were born. At this time, Chang Cheh's "Tiger Warrior Annihilation" had only been released for less than two months.
This movie is
"The Drunken Man"!
