"From now on, it's up to you young people!" - This is a line spoken by Ren Xianqi in the movie " Kowloon Walled City: The Siege ".
Recently, two major events have occurred in the mainland film industry.
One thing is that the Beijing Film Festival, a major event in the film industry, has concluded.
Fan Wei won the Tiantan Award for Best Actor for " Chao Yun Mu Yu ". This was Fan Wei's second time winning the Best Actor Award.
Hu Ge and Gao Yuanyuan's light comedy " stop and go " won the best picture. At the same time, the film will be released on June 8, mainly during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Another thing is that the May Day stalls are about to start, and "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" is the first to detonate the market.
For Brother Fei, who is obsessed with Hong Kong movies, this is a must-see film. I watched it with great interest immediately. Overall, it is not bad. I personally give it 6.8 points. It is still far from a classic.
It is too difficult to hit the box office. If it can hit 500 million, the film studio can make a fortune.
1. Box office: " Kowloon Walled City " won the first place in screenings.
The single-day box office rankings for Saturday, April 27, were released. The market grossed a total of 65.79 million, twice the box office on Friday. Two on-demand movies detonated the market.
The first one is " Nothing Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot " starring Yang Mi and Yu Qian. It received 3.99 million views, ranking fifth.
Another one is "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City".
The film has been screened in two stages so far. The first stage is from the 23rd to the 26th, the key time is from 18:00 to 21:00, and it is limited to 150 cities across the country.
can be regarded as a small-scale screening, with the proportion of film schedules remaining between 4% and 5%. The daily box office output is 3 million to 5 million, showing a continuous downward trend, and its reputation is also fermenting.
The second stage is from the 27th to the 30th. The opening hours of the key on the 27th are from 14:00 to 22:00, and the opening hours of the key on the 28th to the 30th are from 18:00 to 22:00. There are no city restrictions. It is basically a large-scale Clicked.
On Saturday, "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" ranked 16.2% nationwide, with a daily box office of 20.45 million, and won the first place in direct-viewing.
So, why should "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" be screened?
This year’s May Day schedule is different from previous years. Nine new films rushed into such a small schedule, forcing the Hollywood blockbuster "Stuntman" to be moved to May 17th, and scaring away the light animation movie " Xiaoqian" 》.
In the words of Wang Changtian of Enlight Media, this is not a big schedule. There are more than ten movies released, which shows an overcrowding situation, resulting in a low proportion of many movies.
While increasing marketing costs, the box office of "Xiao Qian" may not be as good as expected. Rather than doing this, it is better to release it at a later date.
Yes, after the six movies were released during the Spring Festival this year, Han Yan's "Let's Shake the Sun Together" and Ning Hao's " Mr. Red Carpet " were quickly eliminated. Such a blockbuster schedule finally only accommodated four new films.
Now there are nine movies released at the same time on May 1st. Many new movies will be directly reduced to "cannon fodder" because they cannot be scheduled. These include "Nothing Can't Be Solved by a Hotpot" and "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City". The two films
have been at the bottom since they started pre-sale. On May Day, the share of the films they received was about 8%.
If there is no other way to go about it, the day of the large-scale opening will be the time when the box office will be flooded. As a last resort, the film studio can only use this trick to see if it can revive the film.
Screening is a way of publicity. The producer has to come up with a lot of tickets to attract potential moviegoers to come and watch the movie. In addition, if you want to rely on word of mouth to ignite the market, the best examples are Dumpling's "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes to the World" and Wang Baoqiang's "The Octagonal Cage".
But having said that, if the quality of the movie is not good, opening a screening is equivalent to exposing the reputation in advance, and it is very likely that the screening will lose one's reputation, such as Deng Chao's "Galaxy Tutorial".
The reason why "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" dares to be screened is that the film producers are very confident in the quality of their film.
has now won the first place in the screenings, and the reputation is quite good, which shows that the producer did a very good job and saved a film that was on the verge of extinction.
But it is unlikely that this film will become a dark horse.
2. Movie review: The plot is terrible, but the fighting scenes are exciting.
The creative lineup of "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" is still very reliable. Director Cheng Baorui just won the Hong Kong Film Awards Best Director Award for "Homicide". The poster of
shows that the starring cast is Louis Koo, Sammo Hung, Simon Yam, and Raymond Lam, as well as actors Liu Junqian, Huang Debin, Wu Yunlong, Hu Tong, Zhang Wenjie and other actors.
is adapted from Yu Er's original novel "Kowloon Walled City", which tells the story of a young man in trouble who breaks the pattern of the walled city.
Twelve years ago, in order to compete for the territory of the Walled City, Lei Zhendong gained the upper hand and ordered Chen Zhan (played by Aaron Kwok) to kill Di Qiu (played by Ren Xianqi)'s wife and children.
At the critical moment, Tornado (played by Louis Koo) took action and fought with Chen Zhan for seven days and seven nights, finally stabilizing the situation.
Twelve years later, Di Qiu became one of the four major real estate owners in the city. Tornado opened a barber shop while maintaining order. Although the city had been peaceful for more than ten years, it was still a "three no matter" zone.
The good times did not last long, and the stable situation was broken by Chen Luojun (played by Lin Feng).
In the 1980s, Chen Luojun, who first arrived in Hong Kong, made a living by boxing in an underground boxing ring. He wanted to get an ID card through boxing. Unexpectedly, he offended the big boss (played by Sammo Hung). In desperation, he took a bag of "flour" and fled to Kowloon Walled City.
was taken in by Chengzhai's "land security guard" Tornado, who told him that as long as he was willing to do it, he would definitely make money.
Chen Luojun works several jobs a day. He is a hateful person at heart. He often helps the disadvantaged groups. He also gets acquainted with the "Three Young Masters" of the city. After work, they often get together to have fun.
The "Three Young Masters" are Tornado's subordinate Xin Yi (played by Liu Junqian), doctor Si Chai (played by Zhang Wenjie), Brother Tiger (played by Huang Debin) and apprentice Twelve Young Master (played by Hu Tong).
Gradually, he developed feelings for Chengzhai.
When Tornado shaved Chen Luojun's beard, he discovered that he was Azhan's son. At the same time, Di Qiu's men learned through inquiries that Chen Luojun was the son of his enemy Chen Zhan.
In order to take revenge, the storm in the city broke out again. Di Qiu started to fight, but he was not strong enough. He ran outside the city and extended an olive branch to the big boss. If Chen Luojun was eliminated, everything would be easier to discuss during the demolition.
The big boss led his subordinate Wang Jiu (played by Wu Yunlong) into the walled city, and the war was about to break out...
The overall style of "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" is similar to "龙虎门", with the theme of revenge and elimination of evil. On the surface it is a noir gangster movie, but at its core it is a martial arts film, which is mainly reflected in the chivalrous spirit. The advantages and disadvantages of
movies are very obvious. The advantage of
is naturally playing games.
's original novel "Kowloon Walled City" was later adapted into a comic book. This is also the most outstanding comic book movie after "The Wind and Cloud".
The fighting scenes are quite complete, with a strong atmosphere of rivers and lakes. In the first half, there is a chivalrous fight between brothers, in the second half, there is a passionate killing of harm for the people, and at the end, there is a "crossing the world"-like ambition. The whole movie There is even a sense of destiny like "destined".
In the end, the "Four Young Masters" of the Walled City battled against the hard qigong, which was full of excitement. The metaphors of "tornado" and "kite" were brought into play. The scene scheduling and martial arts design were so good that it was so enjoyable.
The shortcomings are also obvious, mainly the unreasonable plot.
He was able to dominate the whole city, but he didn't have many subordinates. There were only a lot of group performances in the first fight scene, but later on it was all about the person doing the fighting himself.
Ren Xianqi's role is too ordinary and he is also very brainless. It is incredible that such a person with such a thinking can sit in the boss position.
He basically has no subordinates, and the stability of the territory depends entirely on Tornado. In order to take revenge, he ignored the friendship of twenty years and broke up with Tornado.
What's even more amazing is that he went outside the city to find help. He escaped from the tornado and the balanced relationship was broken. Who else can you suppress?
3. Inheritance: Louis Koo tests his skills, and Raymond Lam returns as the king.
At the beginning of this article, Ren Xianqi said "It depends on you young people from now on." I think it was meant for the Hong Kong film industry. Young Hong Kong actors have no chance to get ahead at all. They are all shouldered by a few old movie stars. Big flag.
Looking at it, there are only a few Hong Kong filmmakers who can carry the box office and continue to shine in the film industry, such as Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen, Louis Koo, Aaron Kwok, Nick Cheung, Lau Ching Wan, and Ng Chun-yu , Simon Yam...
Twenty years ago, we watched them act. Twenty years later, we are still watching them act. Where have the young people gone?
Paul Cheng is very bold this time. Louis Koo, Sammo Hung and Simon Yam in the promotion are all minor supporting roles. Raymond Lam is cast as the first male lead, and the other three sons of Cheng Zhai are the major supporting roles.
This movie can be regarded as a good beginning for the inheritance of Hong Kong action movies. Finally, someone is willing to praise young people. We must release this point of view: does not have Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen action movies, but it is actually not bad.
In terms of inheritance, Louis Koo has made the greatest contribution, so it can be considered a small test.
His Tianyi Pictures is one of the investors in the production of "Kowloon Walled City". In the movie, his role is very small, which mainly reflects his status. There are only a few scenes. Before the decisive battle, he has Received a lunch box.
He used this method to test whether the audience would buy it by using young people. If it was successful at the box office, he would continue filming according to this routine. The old movie king would lead new actors and increase the popularity of young actors.
We won’t be in the awkward position of having no actors available in Hong Kong in another ten years.
Also, this film is to praise Raymond Lam.
Speaking of which, Lin Feng is not young anymore. He was born in 1981 and is 43 years old this year. He is one year younger than Nicholas Tse, but he is not as famous as Nicholas Tse.
did not break into the mainland in his early years and has been starring in various roles in TVB. Those who do not watch Hong Kong dramas often may not even know him.
Nicholas Tse is different. He was hailed as the successor of the Four Heavenly Kings at that time. His songs "Love Because of Love" and "Thank You for Your Love 1999" were very popular in the mainland. Later, he did a variety show in the mainland and had an emotional entanglement with Faye Wong. It has always been talked about.
Raymond Lam has almost no scandals, so there will be much less entertainment reports, and Hong Kong dramas are very limited. Bosco Bosco and Kevin Cheng are examples.
Raymond Lam is probably best known in the Mainland for " Searching for Qin" starring Louis Koo, and his big-screen masterpieces are even fewer.
In 2022, Lin Feng was led by Liu Qingyun to star in " Detective vs. ". In the past few years, film resources have begun to take off.
If the box office of "Kowloon Walled City" continues to soar, the probability that Raymond Lam will be favored by mainland capital will be much higher, and he will be able to return as the king.
In addition, the three new generation actors are also very malleable. I hope Zheng Baorui can continue filming this series.
4. Ending.
Cheng Po-sui studied under Johnnie To and has been working in Hong Kong films for a long time. He is also very different from Wilson Yip and Yau Li-tao. In time, he will definitely be able to break new ground. Like Lin Chaoxian, he will embrace mainland capital and carry forward Hong Kong-style action films.
Brother Fei especially likes the ending, where four young people are sitting in the sky in a cyberpunk city, with planes passing above their heads, looking into the distance, and the reluctant friendship overflows the screen.
has Johnnie To's fate and Tsui Hark's chivalry!
has a vague feeling that Hong Kong movies have not reached the point where the sun sets over the mountains!
This is where Phi Ge’s May 1st movie viewing - "Kowloon Walled City" is introduced to you.
I will also write about the box office losses of this movie in the future. Although the film won the first place in the screening, it does not mean that it will eventually stand out in the May 1st slot. Its future is still very difficult.
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