Against the Current Hong Kong 1979

Not long after.

As expected, Jackie Chan led a group of members of his stunt team and hurriedly ran down the mountain.

"Brother Long," Zhang Shuai'an greeted from afar.

Jackie Chan, still in his costume, spotted Zhang Shuai'an immediately, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "We can't film the morning scenes. We'll have a meeting later, so come along."

As he spoke, he turned to someone behind him and called out, "Big Mouth, could you help look after Anzai? I'm going to take a shower and change."

"Oh, I see." A young man with a face on a big mouth ran over. "You're Zhang Shuai'an, huh? You're quite handsome. Come with me."

This person is also a familiar face in Hong Kong movies. His stage name is Mars, and his real name is Chiang Yung-fa. He was born in 1945 and studied at Tang Di’s Oriental Drama School in his early years. He was a fellow student of Ching Siu-tung.

There has always been a saying that there are four major origins of action actors and stuntmen in Hong Kong films.

One of them is Yu Zhan Yuan's China Drama School, which is the most famous because it has produced many of the Seven Little Fortunes, such as Hung King Po, Jackie Chan, and Yuen Biao. Its early students also included the brothers Yuan Heping and Yuan Xiangren.

Secondly, there is the Chunqiu Drama School of Pink Chrysanthemum, whose famous students include Lam Ching-ying, Tung Wai, Siu Fong-fong, Lo Ka-ying, Wai Tim-chi, John Lone, etc., which is also a force to be reckoned with in Hong Kong action movies.

Thirdly, there is Tang Di's Oriental Drama School, which has produced students such as Xu Zhongxin, Cheng Xiaodong, and Huoxing;

Finally, there's Ma Chengzhi's Chinese Drama School, whose famous students include Chen Huiyi, Li Qingzhu, Liu Zhihao, Zhong Fa, and Curry. These students may not be as well-known as the three drama schools mentioned above, but they are frequent winners of the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Martial Arts Choreography.

Some sources attribute Chung Fat to Fen Juhua, treating him as Lam Ching-ying's junior apprentice.

Actually, when filming "Enter the Dragon," there was a severe shortage of extras who knew martial arts.

Lam Ching-ying then called over his fellow apprentices, including Chung Fat and others. After that, Chung followed Lam Ching-ying for a while and later joined the Hung Ga Ban. Over time, many people thought he was Lam Ching-ying's junior apprentice.

"My name is Mars, but because I have a big mouth, everyone calls me Big Mouth. You can call me Big Mouth or Mars, it's fine."

Mars smiled and said to Zhang Shuai'an, "Now that you're in the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, we're all brothers from now on. Don't hesitate to ask if you need anything."

The nickname "Big Mouth" would spread after he starred in "Project A," even overshadowing his original stage name, Mars.

Looking at Mars's boastful and ambitious attitude, Zhang Shuai'an felt quite moved.

Mars is a typical example of someone with no real talent, but he got the right people to follow. Jackie Chan not only mentored him, but also later made movies specifically for him, casting him as the male lead. Unfortunately, he truly had no talent whatsoever.

Mars's income within the Jackie Chan Stunt Team was among the top tier, second only to Jackie Chan. Unfortunately, he was addicted to entertainment and gambling, so he had virtually no savings. After leaving the Stunt Team, he struggled to even afford a meal and started giving media interviews claiming that Jackie Chan had underpaid him in the past.

Mars is currently in a relatively honest phase and is still considered reliable.

Zhang Shuai'an said, "Brother Mars."

"Big Mouth Bro," He Jiatong called out as she stepped forward.

Mars led the two into the Fistway Pictures building and all the way to the offices upstairs.

"It should take Ah Long and the others about half an hour to shower and change."

Mars opened the office door and said to the two of them, "Please wait inside for a moment. Would you like something to drink?"

"Anything is fine with me," Zhang Shuai'an said.

He Jiatong asked, "Do you have any Coke?"

"Yes, but only the delicious kind." Mars went to the refrigerator, took two cans of cola, and gently tossed them over.

Zhang Shuai'an casually reached out and caught the two bottles of cola.

Mars's eyes immediately lit up: "Your reaction is pretty good! I was thinking of asking you at the nightclub last time, did you have any training before?"

"I guess you could say I've practiced," Zhang Shuai'an replied.

This isn't exactly a lie. In his previous life, he graduated from a sports university and later became a motion capture actor, which is similar to being a stuntman in some ways.

Half an hour later, Jackie Chan arrived right on time, while the others arrived a few minutes later.

However, Jackie Chan didn't mind. He waved to them, indicating that they should sit down: "Everyone, sit down. We'll have a short meeting and only talk about two or three things."

As Jackie Chan got older, he started to become a bit fussy and nagging, and was even called "Mama Jackie" by people on set.

When I was younger, I was much more concise and efficient in my speech and actions.

Zhang Shuai'an and He Jiatong sat on the outermost edge, without deliberately moving forward to seek attention.

However, Jackie Chan then waved to him and said, "Andy, come here, come to my side."

Zhang Shuai'an had no choice but to stand up and walk to Jackie Chan's side.

"The first thing is to introduce a new brother, his name is Zhang Shuai'an."

Jackie Chan, holding Zhang Shuai'an's hand, introduced him to the members of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team present: "He's only here to help with the filming of 'The Young Master,' but please treat him like a brother, okay?"

"No problem, boss."

"Don't worry, big brother, we know what to do."

"..."

Next, Jackie Chan pointed to the people present and introduced them to Zhang Shuai'an one by one:

He pointed at Mars and said, "This guy with the big mouth, his stage name is Mars, you already know that."

Zhang Shuai'an nodded slightly.

Jackie Chan pointed to a rough-looking man in his thirties sitting next to him and introduced him: "This is screenwriter Deng Jingsheng, Mr. Deng."

He then pointed to a young man who was probably less than 1.5 meters tall and said, "This is Li Qiangquan. Don't let his short stature fool you, he has excellent legwork."

"Brother Qiang." Zhang Shuai'an had a very deep impression of him.

The mute character in "Police Story 2" almost beat Chan Ka-Kui to a pulp with his sharp leg techniques, but Chan Ka-Kui managed to turn the tables by using firecrackers.

"This is Feng Ke'an..."

"This is Chow Yun-kin..."

After introducing the members of the family troupe, he also introduced several actors from the play "Junior Brother Takes the Field".

Pointing at Yuen Biao, he said with a smile, "Yuen Biao, no introduction needed."

Yuen Biao raised an eyebrow at Zhang Shuai'an: "Your kung fu foundation is pretty good. How about we spar a bit sometime?"

"Let's talk about it later," Zhang Shuai'an casually declined.

Jackie Chan then pointed to a long-haired woman in her thirties and said, "This is Li Lili. She debuted in 1966 and is considered the female lead in our film."

Looking at this face, Zhang Shuai'an immediately recalled several classic roles, including Ning Zhongze in the Lv Songxian version of "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer" and Ye Erniang in the 1997 Huang Rihua version of "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils".

Surprisingly, she had worked with Jackie Chan when she was young.

Zhang Shuai'an had watched "Junior Brother Takes the Field" before he time-traveled, but he didn't really pay attention to the female characters because they had very few scenes. He only remembered that the female character's "skirt-covered leg" kung fu was very powerful.

Another example is the 1977 film "Hong Xiguan", in which Li Lili played Fang Yongchun. There is a famous scene on her wedding night where Hong Xiguan, played by Chen Guantai, pried open her "two-character clamp sheep horse".

(Hong Xiguan, 1977)

Zhang Shuai'an also greeted her, saying, "Hello, Sister Li. I look forward to your guidance in the future."

Li Lili, with her forthright personality, shook hands with Zhang Shuai'an directly and said with a smile, "No problem. You're such a handsome guy, it would be a pleasure to teach you. I'm just afraid you won't come to me for advice."

Finally, Jackie Chan pointed to a middle-aged man with a somewhat fierce appearance and said, "This is Hwang In-sik, a Korean. He's skilled in legwork and is the main villain in our movie."

This person is naturally familiar to me. Known as the "King of Left Leg Attacks," he was born in 1940 and practiced Aikido and Taekwondo from a young age. In 1972, director Huang Feng took Hung Ching-po, Jackie Chan, and others to South Korea to film "Aikido," where he discovered Huang Renzhi. He was later brought back to Hong Kong and made many movies with him.

After the introductions were completed, Jackie Chan continued, "The second thing. Lately, there have been some strangers on set who occasionally cause minor disruptions."

"As everyone knows, the fire that suddenly broke out in the studio just now was also caused by those people."

Jackie Chan's tone carried a hint of helplessness. He had already guessed who had sent the gangsters, but he couldn't say it outright. "Mr. Zou's idea is to strengthen security on one hand, and on the other hand, to hurry up and finish filming."

There's one more thing left unsaid: after filming, they would send Jackie Chan abroad to avoid the limelight.

Jackie Chan is now the pillar of Golden Harvest, and absolutely no problems can be allowed to occur.

"In terms of plot, there's Deng Shengduqiao, and Anzai himself is also a screenwriter."

Jackie Chan pointed to Deng Jingsheng and Zhang Shuai'an, and then said, "Does anyone have any good ideas for the subsequent action design? Let's try to reach a consensus. We have to continue filming this afternoon, so we don't have much time to waste."

Fung Hak-On and Mars, along with Jackie Chan, were the action directors for this film.

They were truly out of ideas; due to the limitations of the era, they had racked their brains.

Therefore, their speeches were still the same old thing, brilliant but not original.

Jackie Chan turned to Zhang Shuai'an: "Anzai, do you have any good ideas?"

"I don't know what stage the filming is at yet." Zhang Shuai'an didn't speak rashly, but planned to observe for a while before making a decision: "Let's observe first and figure out the plot. I wonder if I could take a look at the script?"

"Script?" Jackie Chan paused for a moment, then snapped his fingers: "Hey, you there, bring us our script."

Shortly after, a member of Jackie Chan's stunt team brought over a stack of messy slips of paper.

"This is a script?" Zhang Shuai'an was completely dumbfounded.

Jackie Chan gave an awkward smile and then explained, "Yes, this is our script. It started as an idea of ​​mine, and then I had Mr. Deng write an outline, set the information for a few main characters, and then we started filming."

As filming began, everyone brainstormed plot ideas, writing them down on slips of paper. In their spare time, they worked together to connect these plot points…

Is this the legendary "flying paper"?

No wonder when Zhang Shuai'an watched the movie "Junior Brother Takes Action" before his time travel, he always felt that the first half and the second half were completely different movies. Not only had the main theme of the plot changed, but even the character of the protagonist had changed.

The story begins with a battle between two martial arts schools. The eldest brother secretly joins the rival school to make money, and Jackie Chan, the junior brother, has no choice but to step in. Then, the eldest brother's secret is exposed, and he is expelled from the school by his master.

Following the usual pacing, the next part should be Jackie Chan's junior brother going to find his senior brother, encountering some dangers in the process, fighting alongside his senior brother, and together defeating the rival martial arts school owner who is the big boss.

In fact, after Jackie Chan's junior apprentice left, a wanted criminal named Golden Foot Belt inexplicably appeared. Then, Jackie Chan inexplicably started joking around with the father-son constables played by Yuen Biao and Shek Kin. In the end, the big boss Golden Foot Belt inexplicably killed his own people, and then fought Jackie Chan one-on-one. Jackie Chan relied on his invincibility and relentless fighting to finally win.

The first half is quite well-structured and the plot flows smoothly, but the second half is far-fetched and many characters disappear inexplicably, such as the constable father and son, and the senior brother, which makes the final battle scene quite shabby.

Because the plot was insufficient, Jackie Chan and Huang Renzhi fought for more than 20 minutes at the end of the film, which is a record in action film history.

It's safe to say that if Jackie Chan hadn't starred in it, this film would most likely have flopped completely.

At that time, Jackie Chan had just become incredibly popular throughout Asia with "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master," and he single-handedly carried this terrible movie.

Zhang Shuai'an now understands why the situation in "Young Master" occurred. It was all thanks to Lo Wei, who kept sending gangsters to harass the Golden Harvest film set. In order to finish filming the movie as soon as possible, Jackie Chan naturally abandoned a lot of the plot.

Later on, actors like Yuen Biao and Shek Kin were unable to continue filming because they had taken on other projects, which resulted in only three people appearing in the final battle scene.

"Brother Long, without a complete storyline, it will be difficult to film at a fast pace later on. If we do speed things up, it's easy to become top-heavy."

After looking at the flying papers, Zhang Shuai'an quickly came up with some ideas: "Give me an hour or two, and I'll figure out how to continue the storyline, and then reserve time for a few action scenes so we can focus on filming them!"

"Really?" Jackie Chan immediately slapped his thigh: "Hiring you was the right decision. Here's what we'll do, you and Mr. Deng work on the script first, we still need to finish filming the small fight scene earlier."

Just as the meeting was in progress, the office door was pushed open, and a short man walked in and shouted to Jackie Chan, "Brother Chan, there's a car parked down the mountain with a girl inside. She says she's here to interview you."

"Interview me?" Jackie Chan paused for a moment, then asked, "Did she say who she is?"

The shorter woman replied, "She said her name is Shao Yinyin, and she's here to interview you on behalf of RTV (Rediffusion Television). She had made an appointment with you beforehand."

"It seems so. Let her go up the mountain and wait for me."

Jackie Chan thought for a moment, then waved his hand and said, "The meeting is almost over, everyone get back to work."

He then turned to Zhang Shuai'an and said, "Anzai, didn't you want to see the filming location? Come up with us. There are offices over there; you can write down any good scenes you think of right there."

(In 1979, at the Golden Harvest film set, Shao Yinyin interviews Jackie Chan who is filming "The Young Master")