Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

Jet Li is really good at acting.

When he played the hero, he looked righteous and elegant.

When he played the killer, his face was full of hostility and murderous intent.

In the massacre on the court, he was clearly using traditional Kung Fu, but his former dignified master-like demeanor was completely gone.

When the killings are committed suddenly, it is extremely cruel and bloody, which makes people shudder, but there is also a thrilling beauty, which perfectly illustrates what "the aesthetics of violence" is.

Since it is a kung fu film, many professionals came to the scene.

The layman looks at the excitement and the insider looks at the doorway.

When Zhen Zidan and Jet Li had a street fight, the audience was stunned by their crazy fighting style.

But in the eyes of industry insiders, they saw Yang Ye’s uniqueness in martial arts design.

Before this, there were basically only two types of Hong Kong kung fu films: one was the martial arts routine of countering each move, and the other was to add comedy elements to the action.

Even though Yang Ye later incorporated "Qinggong" into action films, which were widely used in Hong Kong Kung Fu films and accepted by the world, it still could not escape these two models.

Even though Yang Ye later made a brutal and violent action film like "Ong Bak", it was essentially still a Hong Kong film of countering each opponent's moves.

After "Ong Bak", Yang Ye seemed to have given up on breakthroughs in action and instead sought to expand the boundaries of the subject matter.

He went to the Soviet Union to shoot the sniper movie "Enemy at the Gates".

He went to the mainland to shoot the red classic "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" in the 007 mode.

The Chinese adventure treasure hunting movie "Ghost Blows Out the Light: Mojin: The Lost Tomb" was filmed in the style of "Indiana Jones".

Filmed the "God of Gamblers" series, which does not rely on action.

He also acted in a comedy film "Diary of a Real Man" for fun, and even starred in a romantic movie "Lover".

Of course, two sequels, "Invincible in the East" and "Terminator 2", were also filmed, pushing martial arts movies and science fiction movies to new peaks.

However, no matter how many movies he has made, how many things he has done, how much box office revenue he has earned, and how many achievements he has made over the years, he has always stagnated in terms of innovation in action movies.

Since Yang Ye is an extremely eye-catching filmmaker in the world film scene, research on him has never stopped all over the world.

Speaking of Yang Ye's contribution to action movies, in "Shaolin Temple", he demonstrated traditional martial arts, but began to use wire work in an innovative way.

In "Fist of Fury", the problem of one against many was solved.

In "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Swordsman", the use of wirework reached its peak.

In "Kowloon Walled City" and "Ong Bak", the concept of "qinggong" was brought to perfection.

In recent years, the most common perception of Yang Ye in the industry is that he has reached a bottleneck, so he can only turn to seek breakthroughs in subject matter.

After the release of "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" and "Mojin: The Legend", many people clearly realized that Yang Ye was learning from Hollywood.

Although these two films have managed to seamlessly utilize Hollywood movie routines, they have also created their own unique characteristics.

And now, when "SPL" was released, although Yang Ye did not star in it himself, people in the industry instantly realized that Yang Ye had come up with something new.

The first is the design of the fighting scenes. In this movie, no matter it is a one-sided slaughter or a evenly matched confrontation, the scene will be confined to a narrow space to avoid one-on-many situations as much as possible. This undoubtedly provides new ideas for the design of fighting scenes.

Then in terms of fighting style, MMA mixed martial arts is incorporated. In the movie, Zhen Zidan, Hong Jingbao, and Jet Li are all all-rounders and are proficient in various fighting techniques.

Especially the final boss battle between Zhen Zidan and Hong Jingbao, which blended various martial arts from ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad, into one, which was brilliant and exciting.

In the street fight between Zhen Zidan and Jet Li, some miss actions were designed, which were naturally inspired by the game.

However, video games had not yet evolved to this point at that time, and future video games could only get inspiration from Yang Ye’s movies.

People of this era are still very fond of action movies. This kind of creative and exciting action movie made the audience applaud and cheer loudly.

Finally, when the final showdown between Ma Jun and Wang Bao ended and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Wang Bao, who had faked his death, suddenly attacked and pushed Ma Jun down the stairs, shocking many people.

It has always been a war between justice and evil, so how come the villain killed the protagonist?
The only one left was Chen Guozhong who was hung up. How could he beat Wang Bao?
However, the next second, Ma Jun fell from the building and crashed into a car, killing Wang Bao's wife and children.

The interlocking and cause-and-effect ending leaves many people feeling unsatisfied and yet full of aftertaste.

In the end, Chen Guozhong brought his goddaughter to the seaside.

He looked at his daughter playing happily on the beach, and thought of Ma Jun and his brothers.

His cancer took effect and he slowly collapsed on the beach.

……

"Yang Ye strongly supports his disciple, and 'SPL' sets off a new trend of action movies!"

The next day, major media outlets in Hong Kong were full of praise for "SPL", and another round of box office frenzy followed, securing the title of summer box office champion.

Although Yang Ye does not care about the box office of tens of millions, as a barometer of foreign sales, the Hong Kong box office is still more meaningful.

After finishing "SPL", "Like You" officially started filming.

The key to this movie is not only to make the love scene sweet, but also to make the food look tempting.

People of this generation don’t really know how to take pictures of delicious food that look tempting.

In 1985, the Japanese filmed a documentary about Chinese cuisine called "Chinese Food Culture".

I took photos of a lot of high-end food, such as lotus bird's nest, honey-glazed fire square, unicorn sea bass, braised bear paw...

Although the documentary received high praise for its humor, from the perspective of later generations, these delicacies all looked slimy and unappetizing.

Yang Ye once shot a chocolate advertisement for Lindt, borrowing the shooting techniques of later generations. The silky effect produced a huge increase in Lindt sales.

Before A Bite of China used high-speed cameras to shoot food, there were almost no Chinese food films that looked delicious at first glance.

Li An's "Eat Drink Man Woman" may be the only exception. The scene where Lang Xiong cooks at the beginning of the movie really makes people want to eat.

Everyone else has followed Xu Ke's evil path, which is to use the method of shooting martial arts films to shoot food, and do juggling while cooking, which is really flashy.

When cutting vegetables, his movements were as smooth as flowing water, his hands were as fast as the wind, and his knife skills were superb. However, the final step of serving the dishes was hard to describe.

In fact, if you watch the food videos of later generations, for example, when the state banquet masters such as Lao Fan Guli Daye and Er Bo were cutting vegetables, they all cut them slowly and neatly. How could it be as exaggerated as in the movies and TV dramas?
Although Yang Ye was just making a love movie to make up the numbers, he still wanted to come up with something new.

Therefore, the focus of this movie is not how the hero and heroine fall in love, but how the food in the movie should be presented.

In this regard, both director Chen Kexin and photographer Zhong Zhiwen had no experience, so Yang Ye could only teach personally.

How to add a diffuser to soften light, reduce shadows, and reduce highlights to achieve the best possible shooting results.

How to highlight food through the combination of various props and colors.

Various concepts and methods emerged one after another, which made everyone admire them very much.

Even the chef specially invited by the crew to cook felt that he benefited a lot.

The chef can make the food look good, smell good and taste good, but Yang Ye's combination of colors and tableware made his eyes light up.

In response, Yang Ye modestly explained: "When I was shooting the commercial for Lindt, I was thinking about how to make the food look more delicious and more tempting. These methods were experimented with at that time."

……

There is a scene of eating instant noodles in the police station in "Like You", which is quite popular. In order to strengthen this scene, Yang Ye asked Zhou Xingchi to come and make a cameo appearance. Zhou Xingchi and Chen Long have only made a cameo appearance with each other once in their lives, because the two crews happened to be together at the time.

But now, Yang Ye asked him to make a guest appearance, and he had no complaints. Instead, he thought carefully about these two minutes of play, hoping that he could perform perfectly.

"You can't put in the seasoning packet... Cook the noodles first, watch the time... Cover it... OK, it's done, pour out the water, add it all, stir, quickly, yes, stir... Pour hot water, fill it up 80%, it's done... Not yet..."

Yang Ye stared at the time closely, and finally put his hand down: "Okay!"

Zhou Xingchi took a bite doubtfully and was immediately stunned: "It's delicious!"

"Cut! This one's passed! Brother Xing, you've worked hard!" Chen Kexin shouted.

Yang Ye also gave a thumbs up: "Xingzai, you acted well!"

Zhou Xing shook his head and said, "I'm not acting!"

"what?"

"Using this method to make instant noodles, they are really delicious! Sir, how did you come up with this idea?"

"Is it true?" Yang Ye was stunned. He had never tried it before.

"Ah? Haven't you tried it?"

"I made that up!"

"You are so awesome. You can make something so delicious out of nothing. I will eat instant noodles like this from now on."

Yang Ye thought, who said Zhou Xingchi doesn't know how to behave? I feel so good when he flatters me.

……

The filming of "Like You" was not very fast because it involved a lot of food photography, and we had to study the angles, lighting, and so on.

It's not like a normal romance film where just the plot is the focus.

However, this is a movie with a strong female lead, and Yang Ye’s scenes were completed in less than a month.

While he was rehearsing the championship battle performance with four students, the Beijing Asian Games was about to open.

Star TV purchased the broadcasting rights for the Asian Games and sent a large number of people north.

Yang Ye will also go to Beijing at this time because he will sing the Asian Games theme song "Hand in Hand" at the opening ceremony of the Asian Games.

Last year, when the Asian Games Committee invited Yang Ye to sing the theme song at the Asian Games, Yang Ye considered that the song would not be powerful if sung alone, so he proposed that Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau each send a singer to sing together.

This idea of ​​showing that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and the four places are one family is so creative for the mainland that after a meeting to study it, it was quickly agreed to.

The four singers who were finally confirmed were Cai Guoqing from mainland China, Yang Ye from Hong Kong, Teresa Tang from Taiwan, and Jenny Tseng from Macau.

……

September, opening ceremony of the Asian Games.

Cai Guoqing, Yang Ye, Deng Lijun and Jenny Tseng went on stage together and sang the Asian Games theme song "Hand in Hand" in both Chinese and English.

"Hand in hand, we will travel around the world and create a beautiful home together!"

The warm and loving lyrics reflect the common desire of mankind for peace.

At this time, mankind was still shrouded in the shadow of the Cold War, not knowing where the world would go.

Countless audiences were moved by the song, their eyes welled up with tears, and they sang along loudly.

There were many classic scenes at the 90 Asian Games, such as Yang Liping's peacock dance and the chorus of "Asian Pride" by thousands of people.

The song "Hand in Hand" sung by singers from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan has added another classic to this Asian Games.

After the Asian Games was a complete success, "Hand in Hand" was spread to all parts of Asia, and then from Asia to all parts of the world.

Due to its huge dissemination effect, the Asian Games Committee finally decided to make "Hand in Hand" the permanent anthem of the Asian Games.

Since then, Yang Ye has left his name forever in the Asian Games.

From now on, his name will be mentioned every four years at the Asian Games, and it will be impossible for the people of Asia to forget him.

……

After returning from the opening ceremony of the Asian Games, Yang Ye team's championship battle officially began.

This version of "The Voice of China" does not use the original competition system where mentors and media jointly score.

That kind of competition system is very stupid. For example, when the instructor is grading, he will divide the 100 points between two students according to his own wishes.

It is certain that the instructor has a preference for the students, but you cannot show it blatantly on the show. Wouldn't that cause the instructor to be criticized?

Then they invited a bunch of media to hold up signs and give scores. Yang Ye felt that this was not very reliable, as these guys were very difficult to please.

Combining some of the routines of later generations, Yang Ye chose the scoring mechanism of "five hundred public judges" in "I Am a Singer".

In the championship battle, the mentors can only give suggestions and leave the choice to the public judges.

Of course, these public judges are not just random people picked up from the streets.

They are all people who have been screened, assessed, and have a certain level of musical aesthetic ability.

In order to neutralize the regional preferences of Hong Kong audiences, a group of spectators were specially invited from Taipei to charter flights to Hong Kong to watch the games live for the four championship matches.

However, there is still a loophole, that is, students from mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia will suffer a little, but this is already the best method.

Before this, the champions of the other three teams had already been decided.

In the championship battle of Teresa Teresa's team, Tai Chengxiao and Kit Chan were defeated one after another, and Richie Jen also lost to Ren Xianqi in the end.

In fact, judging from singing skills alone, Lin Zhixuan is better, but his popularity with the audience is not as good as Ren Xianqi, and he was eventually eliminated by the audience.

For Zhang Guorong's team, it was a miracle that Zhang Weijian could make it to the top four. Chen Xiaocun's rap style was not popular enough, so he was eliminated.

Finally, it was time for the showdown between these two heavenly voices, Stefanie Sun and Wang Fei.

Faye Wong is older than Stefanie Sun, and was sent to the United States by Yang Ye to study, which broadened her horizons.

Her understanding of music is not comparable to that of Stefanie Sun today.

In the end, Wang Fei won a great victory and became the biggest dark horse of this year's Voice of China.

In George Lam's team, Gu Juji has both good looks and singing skills, and he is a local player. The other three are no match for him, allowing him to take the lead and become the champion of George Lam's team.

Now it is the Yang Ye team's turn, which is also attracting a lot of attention. The media has already started a wave of predictions.

Among the four students, Lao Lang, Yang Yuying, Su Huilun and Liu Xiaohui, Lao Lang is the least good-looking. Although he sings well, his appearance is average and no one thinks he can win.

Even though Lao Lang was one of the six singers who sang four turns, four turns does not necessarily mean he will have the last laugh. Wang Fei from Zhang Guorong's team only sang two turns, but still won the championship.

The three beauties, Yang Yuying, Liu Xiaohui and Su Huilun, are all sweet girls with both good looks and talent, and are very likable. I think the champion will be born among them.

Since Yang Yuying does not have a home-court advantage, the champion of the Yangye team is either Liu Xiaohui or Su Huilun. (End of this chapter)