Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

Chapter 662: Family Glory
There are still many good films in this year's Golden Horse Awards.

The 1990s was indeed the golden age of the global entertainment industry. All over the world, various masterpieces emerged one after another, so much so that 20 or 30 years later, we are still eating up the leftovers of that time.

Movies and TV series often reboot, remake, and adapt works from the 1990s...

What about music? The songs covered in various music variety shows in later generations mostly came from the 1990s.

Specifically for this year's Golden Horse Awards, there is the reality-exposing "Prisoners in Cages" by Cheung Chi-liang, the beautiful romance "Love Unforgettable" by Derek Yee, the hot action "Crime Squad" by Chen Long, and the hilarious comedy "The Legend of Drunken Master" by Stephen Chow.

There is also Li An's family film "The Wedding Banquet", Hou Hsiao-hsien's biographical film "A City of Sadness"...all kinds of subjects have performed well.

And "Kung Fu" brought by Yang Ye, mixed in with this pile of famous works, still shines brightly.

First of all, in terms of technical level and visual effects, these movies are completely incomparable.

Due to Yang Ye's strong box office appeal, the production cost of his films is often ten, twenty, or even a hundred times that of others.

These days, if you spend frugally, you can make a movie with a few million Hong Kong dollars, but Yang Ye would easily spend hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars.

Spending money may not necessarily produce a good movie, but at least you can hire the top talents in various fields.

Even if it was just a toilet, it would be a red-painted toilet with a glossy surface.

For example, everyone criticized Kaizi Ge’s "The Promise" as a terrible movie.

But in that era, its visual effects were undoubtedly first-class.

For example, in the scene where Xie Wuhuan rebelled, Zhang Qingcheng took off her clothes for no apparent reason, which was extremely speechless.

Xie Wuhuan even raised the golden finger in his hand and gave a thumbs up, which made him even more speechless.

But you have to say, the scene where Zhang Qingcheng takes off her clothes, with the wind blowing and her clothes fluttering, is very beautiful.

It made everyone want to know what she was wearing underneath, although later on, everyone really found out.

At this time Zhang Kunlun came to defend the king. The king was overjoyed and chased Zhang Qingcheng on the roof, but Zhang Kunlun stabbed him to death with a machete.

The shot where Zhang Qingcheng falls from the roof, the blue sky, white clouds, and the pink beauty reflected on the golden mask is truly magnificent!

Back to "Kung Fu", it's not just about the exquisite pictures and beautiful photography.

This is different from mainland directors who like to create grand narratives, but are often grand but empty in content.

Zhou Xingchi is good at starting from small things and using limited space to capture infinite possibilities.

For example, the Pig Style Village in "Kung Fu" has a very limited space, but it was filmed with a strong urban atmosphere and is vivid and lifelike.

He used only one shot to introduce a variety of different characters, each with their own personality traits.

These seemingly carelessly taken pictures will tell you later that each of them is very important.

To achieve this effect, positioning and movements are very important. The seemingly chaotic movements are all carefully rehearsed.

It not only requires the director to have super strong control, but also requires a lot of time and money.

For example, in order to restore the style of that era, a lot of effort has to be put into the clothing.

Six sets of costumes were made for each actor in "Kung Fu". Making a certain number of sets was not a problem, but the difficult part was making them look old, so that even the rips and patches on each piece of clothing had to be the same.

For example, the people in Pig Stygium Village are all simple working people at the bottom of society. It is impossible to expect them to wear all kinds of spotless new clothes.

In order to achieve the effect of aging, the costume crew of "Kung Fu" used cigarettes, hand-torn clothes, and chemical cleaning...

By exhausting every possible means, we finally restored the texture of that era and brought the audience into the plot at a glance.

With a film of this level, no one else can win technical awards other than me.

Best Costume Design, Best Art Design, Best Action Design, Best Recording, and Best Editing all won awards.

It only lost the Best Cinematography award, which was taken by Hou Hsiao-hsien's "A City of Sadness".

The Golden Horse Awards has not yet established a Best Visual Effects Award.

Yuen Wah and Yuen Qiu also won the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress awards respectively.

In their acceptance speeches, both expressed their gratitude to Yang Ye.

They have been filming with Yang Ye since 1974, which has been twenty years.

During these twenty years, Yang Ye had treated them well, and they had a deep affection for each other.

When the Best Editing Award was presented, the winner Lin An'er stood on the stage and expressed her gratitude to Yang Ye.

Lin Aner said: "I used to follow my master Mai Zishan to edit films for Director Hong Jingbao and Director Xu Ke. "Kung Fu" is my first time working with Director Yang.

When Director Yang asked me to edit Kung Fu, I felt very flattered but also very nervous.

Because he is a super director, and I am just his assistant, and I don’t have many opportunities to edit films independently. I know this is a good opportunity, but I am afraid of messing it up.

"Kung Fu" is the most difficult film I have ever edited, because it involves a lot of special effects, which I have never experienced before.

The director said that it was for this reason that he wanted to choose a young editor, and he thought I was pretty good, so he chose me.

After receiving this award today, the person I want to thank most is Director Yang.

I am the only girl working as an editor in Hong Kong, and I was often bullied in the photo processing factory.

I also knew that the old editors were not trying to make fun of me, they just thought it was impossible for a woman to succeed.

After Director Yang appointed me as the film editor, no one dared to bully me anymore.

Director Yang taught me a lot of things, such as rhythm control and pause placement.

For example, I used to think that after one joke ended, I should jump to another one immediately, so as to tighten the rhythm.

The director said no, sometimes silence is more important, giving the audience space to think and react.

The director loves his movies very much, just like he is protecting his own children. Once he specifies something, it must meet his requirements and he does not allow any random changes.

However, if I made a good change, he would agree. Once, after he left, I secretly lengthened the picture a little. I thought he didn't know.

Later, when we were having dinner together, I told him that I had secretly changed his stuff. He said he knew it, but he did a good job with it, so he didn't tell him.

Um, it seems to have timed out..."

Due to time constraints, each person's acceptance speech is timed.

It was Lin An'er's first time to win an award. She was so excited that she couldn't stop talking. Suddenly, she was reminded that she was overtime and she stuck out her tongue in embarrassment.

She concluded: "In short, thank you Director Yang, thank you, I want to share this award with you today!"

After saying that, she raised the Golden Horse Award vigorously, and went down the stage with a feeling of being unsatisfied, as she still had a lot to say.

Amidst the warm applause, Yang Ye walked up to her, hugged her and said, "An'er, go home!" After hearing these five simple words, Lin An'er suddenly cried out "Wow", lay in Yang Ye's arms and started crying.

Yang Ye patted her shoulder gently to comfort her and motioned for the staff to bring a microphone over.

Yang Ye held the microphone and said, "An'er is a girl with a good personality and loves to laugh. She is very outstanding.

She is the only female editor in our Chinese film industry, and her understanding and ability are not inferior to any male editor.

Everyone thinks that Ah Jie's performance in "Huang Feihong" is good, right? The most classic shadowless kick was invented by An Er. Don't you think it's amazing?"

"Wow!" Everyone exclaimed at once. Jet Li's shadowless kick was so handsome. It turned out that it was edited by Lin An'er.

"Once Upon a Time in China" also won the Best Editing Award at the Academy Awards that year, but the credit was given to Lin An'er's master Mai Zishan.

Yang Ye said: "Today, the Golden Horse Award for Best Editing was given to An Er, I am very happy.

This also proves one thing, that girls are fully capable of doing the job of editing.

In fact, women may be more suitable for the job of editing than men, because girls are more delicate and will treat movies like a mother cares for her children.

There are many female editors in Hollywood. Blockbuster films like "Lawrence of Arabia" were edited by female editors.

I hope that there will be more female editors in the Chinese film industry in the future. Now let’s applaud An Er, okay?”

"Clap clap clap!"

There was a sudden burst of warm applause in the auditorium, and everyone applauded and cheered for this lovely girl.

As the first female editor in the Chinese film industry, Lin An'er had a very hard time along the way, even to the point of breaking up with her family.

Lin An'er was born into an old-fashioned family. Her parents believed that those who worked in the film industry were all bad people and that actors were heartless, so they were very opposed to her entering the industry.

In addition, as an editor she often has to go home late, and she is a girl, so her parents feel unsafe, and they think that often going home late is not a good job.

Her mother threatened her, "If you insist on being an editor, I will cut off the mother-daughter relationship with you."

Lin An'er was young and hot-tempered, and he felt that he had done nothing wrong, so he ran away from home the next day with his ID card.

In the original time and space, she really hadn't been home for ten years and didn't call home.

Lin An'er is not her real name. She dare not use her original real name for fear that her parents would think that she had tarnished the family's reputation.

She once swore that if the three words "Lin An'er" didn't ring a bell, it meant that her mother was not wrong.

Coupled with gender discrimination, she wants to prove to everyone that being an editor requires the use of brains but not physical strength, so why can't women do it?

Later, Lin An'er's name gradually appeared in movies, such as "Once Upon a Time in China II", "Once Upon a Time in China III", "Tai Chi Master", "Hero", "Kung Fu"...

He won many awards, became more and more famous, and was dubbed "Asia's No. 1 Hairstylist".

She called her brother to find out how things were at home.

The two cried on the phone, and then she went home for dinner.

Her parents happily accepted her and she became the pride of the family!

……

Next are the four most important awards: Best Actor, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Film.

The nominees for Best Actress are quite bizarre, namely Wu Jiali, Lu Xiaofen, Anita Yuen, and Yuqing Yip.

Yuan Yongyi is a newbie, and the other three women are all making third-level films.

In the end, the trophy was won by Wu Jiali. The movie she won the award for was "A Heart as Hard as Iron", which was a Category III film.

Yang Ye disagreed with this, because Wu Jiali, this woman, was known as a "striptease star", but she had never taken off her clothes.

She never exposes herself when shooting Category III films. She has no professional ethics at all. Just look at Amy Yip next door!
As for the Best Actor, the nominees were Chen Long, Zheng Zeshi, Wu Xingguo and Liang Jiahui, and Yang Ye was not nominated at all.

When the nomination list was first announced, it caused an uproar in the media.

Why is the Best Actor at the Shanghai International Film Festival not worthy of a nomination at the Golden Horse Awards?
Some people even secretly pointed out that it might be because Yang Ye won an award in the mainland that he was not nominated for the Golden Horse Awards.

However, Yang Ye didn't care much about this. He came to participate in the Golden Horse Awards just to give the Golden Horse Awards face.

His achievements today no longer need to be proven by awards.

Besides, Zhou Xingchi from the original time and space was not nominated for the Golden Horse Awards, so Yang Ye didn’t think that his acting was better than Zhou Xingchi’s.

During the interview, Yang Ye bluntly stated that the accusation was groundless and hoped that certain people would not sow discord.

At the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Taiwanese film "Hills Without a Word" won the grand prize.

This year's Golden Horse Film Festival also saw a group of mainland filmmakers led by director Xie Jin.

In the end, Chen Long defeated Zheng Zeshi, Wu Xingguo and Liang Jiahui to win the Golden Horse Best Actor Award for the second time in a row.

Coupled with the effect brought by Yang Ye last year, Chen Long won a Golden Statue Award.

Chen Long won three Best Actor awards in two years, and he was truly the talk of the town.

In particular, he won the awards twice by defeating Liang Jiahui, who was famous for his acting skills. This was enough for him to brag about.

For the Best Director award, Yang Ye was competing against Li An, Derek Yee and Rosamund Kwan. Yang Ye easily defeated the three and took home the trophy.

There are six films nominated for Best Film: "Kung Fu," "The Wedding Banquet," "Prince Edwards," and "A Prank."

All four films are good. The Wedding Banquet is Li An’s second film, the second in his “Father Trilogy”. With this film, he won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and became internationally famous.

"Prisoners in Cages" is a masterpiece of realism in Hong Kong films. "A City of Sadness" won the second Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, losing to "Farewell My Concubine".

As for "Kung Fu", it was Zhou Xingchi's way of getting rid of nonsensical comedy in the original time and space.

However, because many people were not used to it and could not adapt to it, it received a lot of bad reviews, making that transformation seem somewhat tragic!
But the success of "Kung Fu" was also unprecedented. Not only was it a box office hit, but its reputation also quickly reversed within a few years, making it his masterpiece.

Yang Ye's filming of "Kung Fu" is not necessarily better than that of Stephen Chow.

But what makes him better than Stephen Chow is that he is truly a kung fu master and he does not need to transform like Stephen Chow.

He also cleverly packaged "Kung Fu" as a film with his own autobiographical nature, which aroused the curiosity of many people.

In the last move of the palm technique that fell from the sky, he performed a trick of rebirth from the ashes and became bald, which reminded people of his first movie "Shaolin Temple", triggering nostalgia and touching countless people.

Coupled with the world's top visual effects and his super popularity, the box office was a huge success, much higher than the original Zhou Xingchi version.

It was reasonable for any of the four films to win an award, and amidst everyone's anticipation, King Hu, who had not been seen for a long time, announced the list on the stage.

"The winner of Best Film is... Kung Fu!"

(End of this chapter)