Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

On New Year's Day in 1975, Yang Ye came out with "Shaolin Temple".

It soon swept through film markets in various countries with Hong Kong as its center. Wherever it went, it inevitably caused a stir in the local film industry and aroused strong reactions from people.

The Chinese media at the time commented that Yang Ye pioneered the real kung fu movie and was the second milestone in Chinese-language movies after Bruce Lee.

The global box office of "Shaolin Temple" exceeded 100 million US dollars, and the monk Jueyuan played by Yang Ye also became a classic image in the history of world cinema.

Eighteen years later, when Yang Ye paid tribute to "Shaolin Temple" at the end of "Kung Fu" and appeared again as Jueyuan, many people in the screening room cried.

At this moment, they recalled the carefree time when they went to the cinema with their family to watch "Shaolin Temple" when they were young.

At that time, they sat next to their parents, staring at the big screen intently, and even forgot to eat the snacks in their hands.

At that time, they were immersed in the world of movies, imagining themselves as Jueyuan, possessing magical kung fu, punishing evil and maintaining world peace.

Now, they have grown up, and most of their beautiful dreams in childhood have been shattered, and many memories can only be treasured in their hearts.

Now, Yang Ye used one shot to bring out all those memories.

Have those beautiful dreams really been shattered?

No, they were just covered in dust.

The vast majority of people in this world are ordinary people. For those legendary heroes, their lives can only be described as mediocre.

But no one is willing to be ordinary, that's just comforting yourself.

Therefore, some ordinary people will project their dreams onto another person, and this person is the so-called idol.

The general meaning is, I know that I may not be able to shine brightly in this life, so I contribute my little bit of strength to you, and you shine for me!

Yang Ye is such a brilliant idol. From the moment he debuted 20 years ago, he has been moving forward with the dreams of countless people.

Therefore, when people saw Yang Ye re-create the image of Jueyuan, like a meteor across the sky, tearing through the vast sky, they could not stop their tears from flowing.

The current Jueyuan is stronger than before, but also more compassionate.

He clasped his hands together and remained silent. When the Fire Cloud Evil God wanted to launch another sneak attack, he simply stretched out his palm lightly, and the palm wind passed by, and the house behind him was suddenly pierced through, but the Fire Cloud Evil God was unharmed.

At this moment, he finally grew into a kung fu master who punished evil and maintained world peace.

The golden needle fell to the ground with a crisp sound, and the hidden weapon of Fire Cloud Evil God bloomed like a lotus in his hand and flew towards the distant sky like a bamboo dragonfly.

"What kind of palm technique is this?"

"You want to learn? I'll teach you!"

There was no preaching like "The sea of ​​suffering is boundless, turn back and you will find the shore" or "Put down the butcher knife and become a Buddha right away". Just a simple sentence made the evil god kneel down and be convinced.

"I lost!"

At this moment, his spirit was sublimated again and became a god-like existence.

What should a person who has become a god do?

The lotus hidden weapon flew across the sky, turned into a small white flower, and landed next to the mute girl.

When the mute girl saw the flower, she thought it was beautiful. She pushed the ice cream cart and continued walking forward. She saw a child eating a lollipop and then she saw a candy store.

It turned out that after becoming a god, he opened a candy store.

He saw the mute girl, he walked out, they stood facing each other, their eyes met, and in an instant, he dreamed back to his childhood.

He took her hand and they walked into the candy store together.

God finally returned to ordinary life, completed the redemption of his soul, and found true love!
It was a perfect ending, and the audience in the cinema was infected and burst into warm applause.

However… this movie is more than just that.

People suddenly realized that the various characters coming and going in the background were all people who had appeared in the movie before.

Jiang Bao is picking up girls, Siyanzi is walking around with Ah Zhen in his arms, the Hong family's Iron Fist brushes past them, the Condor Heroes are leaning against each other and walking towards them from a distance, and the dentist in the Walled City is standing at the intersection directing traffic...

This ending is so fucking amazing, people suddenly realized that all of this was fictional?
Were all those bizarre and absurd adventures before just a martial arts dream of the boy?

Those so-called martial arts masters were actually just ordinary people that the boy saw and heard every day. Only after the boy’s imagination did they become the martial arts masters in the movie?
Or, in the boy’s fantasy world, there are many hidden dragons and crouching tigers in the martial arts world, and everyone around you who seems ordinary is actually a hidden master?
This ending gives the movie a feeling of "Zhuang Zhou dreaming of a butterfly", which is really intriguing!
……

After the movie, there was a heated discussion in the screening room.

The attitude of the audience in this time and space towards Yang Ye's "Kung Fu" is different from the attitude of the audience in the original time and space towards Zhou Xingchi's version of "Kung Fu".

When Stephen Chow's version of "Kung Fu" came out, it received a lot of negative reviews, and even the score didn't even go over 7, only 6.8.

Because the contrast of the movie "Kung Fu" was too great for Stephen Chow, people simply couldn't adapt to it for a while.

Most of the roles played by Zhou Xingchi before were glib, lustful, and sometimes betrayal of friends. Of course, they were all kind-hearted.

The styles of those movies are mainly comedy, very funny and very down-to-earth.

But Kung Fu suddenly took on a dark style. The movie started with a bloodbath at the police station, followed by a bloodbath at the Axe Gang, and then a bloodbath at Pig Cage Village...

One scene after another, the situation escalates continuously, masters are killed one after another, it doesn't look like a Stephen Chow movie at all, but the violent aesthetics of John Woo and Quentin.

Moreover, in terms of performance, Zhou Xingchi no longer continues his previous funny and funny style, but becomes serious and solemn, returning to nature and becoming more restrained.

Therefore, many people at that time could not accept it and thought that Zhou Xingchi had run out of ideas, saying that he was not funny enough and that he had to make up for it with special effects.

Some domestic media even criticized Zhou Xingchi, saying that he won the box office but lost reputation.

Of course, this media might just be a group of water army that is trying to sew small anus.

But in fact, the image that Zhou Xingchi finally showed in "Kung Fu" is the image he most desires to be in his heart: brave, strong, upright and tolerant.

His childhood dream was to become a Kung Fu master like Bruce Lee, but he didn't have the opportunity, so he could only choose Bruce Lee's second career and become an actor.

As an actor, he did not become an action actor, but a comedian.

When he became successful, he found that many people did not respect him, but just wanted to see this jerk make a fool of himself in the movie.

He actually...can't accept himself like this.

So, he stopped acting later.

……

For Yang Ye, he is a genuine Kung Fu master. In almost all the Kung Fu movies he has made, he is the one who beats everything.

The few times he died were either because he died willingly at the hands of women, or because he was suddenly ambushed by someone. He had never been truly defeated by anyone.

Although this "Kung Fu" went through a process from weak to strong, he said in advance that this movie was autobiographical in nature and told about his life before his debut.

Although the film is ambiguous, people are still confused after watching it, and his past becomes even more mysterious. But it won't be like the Stephen Chow version of "Kung Fu", where people are not used to it and cannot accept it because of the huge contrast.

On the other hand, people have not yet experienced the baptism of Hollywood special effects blockbusters, and they feel very shocked by the special effects scenes shown in "Kung Fu".

Xu Ke sighed, "An ancient person once said that after Su Dongpo's "Water Melody" was published, all other Mid-Autumn Festival poems were abandoned. In my opinion, once Director Yang's "Kung Fu" is published, the martial arts films on the market will probably come to an end."

Xu Ke was a master of martial arts films. He sighed that "Kung Fu" would bring an end to all martial arts films, which surprised many people at the scene.

The host asked, "Why did Director Xu say that?"

Xu Ke said: “Because Director Yang has once again innovated martial arts films.

In fact, our Hong Kong martial arts films have undergone changes from generation to generation.

During the Cantonese fragment film era, everyone used very simple special effects to show martial arts, such as "Rulai Shen Zhang".

When it came to the two masters King Hu and Chang Cheh, they began to demonstrate martial arts in a realistic way, with films like "Dragon Inn" and "One-Armed Swordsman".

Until Director Yang came out of nowhere, he continued to innovate martial arts films starting with "Shaolin Temple".

In "Swordsman", he used sharp editing to make the martial arts elegant and agile, giving off a whole new glow.

Well, I also made some changes to martial arts movies in movies like Once Upon a Time in China.

However, the embodiment of martial arts has always been a forbidden zone that no one has touched.

When we read martial arts novels, we have imagined countless times what those magical martial arts would look like.

How cool are the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms, the Sorrowful Palm, and the Great Shift of the Universe?

How amazing are the Lion's Roar Kung Fu, Xiao Li's Flying Dagger, and the Six Meridians Divine Sword?

But few movies and TV shows can actually be made, and even if there are, they are just made to do with crude special effects.

Those crude special effects are simply unable to express the colorful and imaginative world of martial arts.

However, this "Kung Fu" showed the amazing martial arts with its imaginative and extreme special effects, which satisfied my imagination of those martial arts.

I never thought that martial arts could be expressed in such a wonderful way.

In the beginning, he also fought seriously, but later on, he became more and more powerful.

When killing Kuliqiang, the sound of the piano cut off branches, buckets, cats, street lamps, and finally cut off Kuliqiang's head.

This is the power of Kung Fu that is higher than Kung Fu, which elevates the realm.

From here on, Director Yang's imagination of martial arts began to pour out.

We can see with our own eyes the power of the sound of the piano; it can transform into fists, swords, and even hideous monsters.

It looks virtual, but it is more real and powerful than any weapon.

Such a fantastic scene is already exciting enough, and then the landlord's Tai Chi is agile and elegant, and the landlady's lion roar is earth-shaking. Wherever they go, it is like a typhoon passing through, sweeping away everything.

The Toad Kung Fu of Fire Cloud Evil God was extremely realistic. After watching it, I was convinced that this was what Toad Kung Fu was like, and it satisfied my imagination of this magical skill.

And finally, the Tathagata Palm that came down from the sky actually left a large handprint on the ground. The bricks and tiles in the sky demonstrated the earth-shaking power of the Tathagata Palm.

That would have been fine, but another of his Tathagata Palm strikes caused the sky to collapse and the earth to split, and pierced through a building.

The sunlight shines in from the handprints of the building, like Buddha's light, solemn and holy.

The Fire Cloud Evil God was convinced, and I, Xu Ke, was also convinced."

When Xu Ke said this, he actually raised his hands and bowed to Yang Ye several times.

If it were Xu Ke ten years later, after seeing all kinds of miraculous special effects, he would not do this.

But now, he was really convinced.

Xu Ke was a very proud and stubborn person. When he was producing John Woo's "Hard Boiled", John Woo did not listen to him and the two had a falling out.

He just said directly that John Woo couldn't live without him. Even though "Hard Boiled" became a classic and slapped him in the face, he never gave in.

In fact, Xu Ke has produced and filmed many classic movies in recent years.

The "Huang Feihong" series, "A Chinese Ghost Story" series, and "New Dragon Inn" were all critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

But now, as soon as "Kung Fu" was released, Xu Ke immediately understood that after seeing the miraculous fighting skills in "Kung Fu", people would no longer be satisfied with the martial arts designs he had filmed before.

Xu Ke was confused. He didn't know which way to go ahead.

In fact, Xu Ke in the original time and space also quickly became confused.

After watching "Jurassic Park", he realized that the previous martial arts special effects were simply not up to standard.

In order to seek a breakthrough, Xu Ke decided to return to basics, abandon fancy special effects, and go for a real-flesh approach.

So he made the classic masterpiece "The Broken Blade".

However, the audience did not buy it and the box office was only 330 million, a huge loss!
After the disastrous failure of "The Blade", Xu Ke applied the tactics of martial arts films to fashion films and made "A House Full of Gold and Jade", which made huge profits at the box office.

Then he made the comedy film "The Big Three", which was also a big hit.

Then he started to venture into Hollywood. The two action films he collaborated with Jean-Claude Van Damme both grossed less than 500 million and were complete flops.

Go back to Hong Kong, the movie "With the Current and Against the Current" only made 446 million at the box office, a huge flop.

He took a gamble and filmed "The Legend of Zu" again, which attracted many superstars and was a huge hit.

There was no other choice but to rehash the old film and shoot "Black Mask 2". Unfortunately, without Jet Li's Black Mask, it was nothing. The box office was only 392 million, a huge loss.

Xu Ke once again raised the banner of martial arts and filmed "Seven Swords", the story structure of which is similar to Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai".

Xu Ke publicly stated that he wanted to retrace Kurosawa's creative path.

Although this time there were many superstars and the momentum was huge, the audience still didn't buy it and the box office plummeted again.

For nearly a decade, Xu Ke's film career hit its lowest point, and he had planned to retire three times.

Because of my passion, I am unwilling to give up, yet I am unwilling to accept failure, so I fight again and again, but I keep fighting despite repeated failures.

Finally, in 2010, with the help of Liu Hua's popularity, he made "Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame", which grossed 2.86 million yuan in the mainland, successfully turning things around.

The subsequent "Dragon King", "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy", "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 2", "Four Heavenly Kings", "Changjin Lake" and "Watergate Bridge" all sold out at the box office, and he regained the box office championship with "Watergate Bridge".

But for Yang Ye, Xu Ke is a talented person. He will not let Xu Ke be confused. He will guide Xu Ke and put him on the right path.

Because... the end of the martial arts era means the beginning of the immortal era. (End of this chapter)