Text | Linghu Boguang
2023 Hong Kong movies are very bleak, except for the explosion of "poisonous tongue lawyer" at the beginning of the year, it has been pouncing from the middle of the year to the end of the year, almost as skeptical about life as a Korean movie. Especially at the end of the year "stealth", "burst point" and "new order" (not particularly miserable, but the box office is not high enough).
At present, audiences are not interested in Hong Kong films, one of the important reasons is that they are also Hong Kong police and gangster films. At a glance, the model is too old-fashioned, which led to the teeth of Aaron Kwok some time ago, and the black comedy "temporary robbery" was highly anticipated, but as a result, the film was not very good after its release.
After almost half a month of release, the box office has not reached 200 million. In fact, it is not a particularly failure, but it is just like Hong Kong movies now. The box office is between 200 million and 300 million, which is not consistent with the positioning of Hong Kong blockbusters full of superstars. To some extent, it is a failure.
Going back to the movie "temporary robbery" itself, I personally scored 10 points to 7 points, describing the life at the bottom, with the smell of "two big smokers", and the acting skills were all online, but the script could only last until the first 30 minutes, but the latter part was not strong enough. I didn't meet the audience's expectations, and I couldn't have that kind of aftertaste, but I wouldn't read it again.
This is also the problem with Hong Kong films in the past two years, and even the excitement has become a little less lively.
After Zhang Jiahui and Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok's new film didn't hit either?
I think "temporary robbery" is a good Hong Kong film in recent years, there are no hard wounds in the plot, unlike sneaking Hong Kong films, the narrative is grand at the beginning, the stalls are very open, and then, for the sake of happy ending, they forcibly reduce their wits and make some hard logical wounds and honey operations that people can't understand, and become a dead end.
The overall tone of the film is actually a tragedy, but it is full of humor and black humor, there is no sense of disobedience in characterization, and all behaviors are in line with the character's own situation and character.
In my opinion, the film itself is about the tragic core that life is extremely absurd and illogical, people have no way to control what happens in the future, and equality of life drives everyone crazy. Mei Lantian's life has no blue sky and is full of haze. Wrestling won the gold medal but could not change poverty, so he went to wrestling, and then the gang bullied his family and avenged himself, but he killed his son in the drought and thunder, feeling that no matter how he struggled, he could not get out.
His son was struck to death by lightning and suddenly caught off guard as if Mrs. Xianglin's child had been eaten by a wolf. Angry, but do not know who to hate, so Mei Lantian crazy. In the follow-up plot, it is found that there are almost no "normal people" in the movie. Everyone has their own demons.
Whether you are a robber, a gangster, a citizen, or a public official, everyone has their own obsessions, their own diseases. Each character in this movie has his own sadness, but also has his own paranoid pathologies, robbers gang to money, to eat, to entertainment obsession. The protagonist's despair of life, passive forward. The police are so obsessed with solving big cases that even the female driver who was caught pays so much attention to the deduction that she can ignore the danger to her life.
Everyone has his own illness, and life is sometimes absurd to grotesque, just like Mei Lantian would not have predicted that his life would begin to be distorted by an inexplicable thunderstorm of drought, and also stopped abruptly because of a thunderstorm when he thought it would change. The heavy oppression of fate is as absurd as that drought thunder, suddenly, burst, giving you an illogical fatal blow, and then you don't even know who to avenge.
Therefore, although many people think that the plot of being struck to death by lightning is illogical and bad, I personally think that this illogic is the embodiment of "ill-fated, impermanent life and death".
It is a pity that the film did not tell a story recognized by a large audience. objectively speaking, the defects are obvious, such as the plot is not smooth enough, and one of the incentives for Mei Lantian to embark on the road of fierce bandits is that his son was killed by lightning. Ordinary audiences really feel baffled and far-fetched.
If the unabridged version is shown, then an hour and a half obviously makes the plot run too fast, and the best solution is to add half an hour of transition and key node narration, two hours of film length, and smoother convergence and characterization. It will significantly improve the look and feel.
To sum up, an ordinary cook made a table of delicious food with good ingredients.
Talking about decline for 20 years? This time, Hong Kong movies are really going to "die".
This film is a normal film, the kind of normal film that you will not be disappointed and can smile when you and your friends decide to watch it on the weekend. the problem is that in recent years, many Hong Kong films have not even reached the level of "temporary robbery", so it looks good.
Hong Kong films have been in decline for 20 years, really, otherwise Infernal Affairs in 2002 would not have been praised as the market-saving work of Hong Kong films. However, it was not obvious before, and Hong Kong filmmakers are also very arrogant. In recent years, it can be seen with the naked eye that Hong Kong films are really failing.
The core is still the market, and the market is gone. Many people attribute Hong Kong films to the local market, actually since the 1970s. Hong Kong films are shown not only in Hong Kong, but also in Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia. All have strong market appeal.
Due to the large capital inflows in the market, Hong Kong can screen actors and actresses in East Asia and even around the world for gold. It is also in Hong Kong films in the 1980s that we can see stars such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and Europe appear in Hong Kong films. After entering the 1990s, the Jurassic came, and the eight major Taiwanese merchants reduced their prices. Taiwan's local films, Southeast Asian films have improved slightly, South Korean films, Japan's economic bubble. In addition, the most iconic kung fu films and the best police and bandit filmmakers of Hong Kong movies have all gone to Hollywood in the United States.
Don't talk about movies around the economy, Japan in the 1970s, the four Little Dragons in Asia in the 1980s, and the Japanese economic bubble in the 1990s. Thailand's financial crisis. Film culture is to rely on money to pile up, there is no money to talk about movies. After entering the 1970s, Hong Kong has been the secondary processing site of global culture. Localize Japanese comics, Japanese movies, American films and European films for secondary processing in output.
Of course, what is most famous and proud of Hong Kong films is the unique situation of kung fu films. It is precisely the cooperation between China and Hong Kong that has introduced Hong Kong practitioners who have lost overseas markets into the Chinese film market. How many Hong Kong filmmakers have been there since the 1990s to 2000?
Why does Hong Kong film decline? Some people scold the mainland, but there is no such reason.
The decade from 2000 to 2010 was supposed to be a good time for Hong Kong films. At that time, the domestic film and television market began to open up gradually, and Hong Kong film and television talents gradually moved northward, relying on the fame brought by the previous era of piracy to play a leading role in major film and television works in China.
In fact, Hong Kong films also save themselves. Wesley is the only sci-fi IP in Hong Kong that can handle it. During Xu Guanjie's time, Wesley was also a combination of action movies and adventure films (similar to Jackie Chan's "Flying Eagle Project", but with some metaphysical content). Wesley's real high-investment fantasy was Wang Jing and Andy Lau starred in the Blue Blood Man, but the market was not successful either.
Hong Kong filmmakers are aware of the impact of Hollywood digital special effects. After the success of "Wind and Cloud" in the late 1990s, Liu Weiqiang made special effects films such as "Chinese Hero" and "the Top of the Purple Ban", and ushered in Tsui Hark's largest "Legend of Shushan". It was also the peak of Asian special effects at that time.
However, at that time, the Hong Kong market was small, the markets in Southeast Asia and Taiwan were almost reduced, and the mainland market was not yet completely up. Moreover, the films just accepted by the audience are costume blockbusters such as Heroes and action films such as Kung Fu, just as the Hong Kong market accepts Infernal Affairs, gangster films with the image of the Galaxy, and police and gangster films.
Science fiction, special effects blockbusters have pounced on one after another, and Hong Kong films have completely failed through local attempts to break through. the next time is the story of rebirth in the mainland market through "painted skin" and "Di Renjie" after 2010. however, some of these people who go northward have not changed their mindset and feel that the mainland is relatively backward and just deal with it casually. So during this decade, there are countless bad films made under the banner of stars and blockbusters.
Some directors who are more serious and responsible will settle down, integrate into the environment of the mainland, and gradually assimilate. These people have also become leading directors of domestic films, such as Tsui Hark and Lin Chaoxian, whose films have done well at the box office in the mainland. Some feel uncomfortable and go back to Hong Kong to shoot the works they are used to all the time.
In 2010, a new batch of film and television personnel in the Mainland gradually found ways to suit the Mainland audience, and gradually became new commercial film directors and actors. Mainland audiences gradually stopped believing in Hong Kong stars, but preferred Mainland actors. After another 10 years, not only Hong Kong films, Hollywood films are gradually losing popularity in the mainland market, because we want to see works that are closer to our own lives.
This time, Hong Kong movies really don't have a chance.
Finally, it is not Hong Kong movies that fail. They are always like that. In the past, we worshipped them and felt that their things were what we longed to pursue, their clothes, their lives, and their love. Most of the works are mainly the role of childhood filters, in fact, many childhood favorite movies and TV dramas can not be seen in retrospect, unless you stand still.
As a matter of fact, Hong Kong films in the past may not be good either. Many of them were shot in less than a month, but our requirements were low at that time.
Now that we have been promoted, it is not easy to fool, but Hong Kong film is the envy of many netizens, Korean film is the same, and so is Hong Kong film industry. The rate of return of martial arts films is particularly outstanding all over the world. Naturally, we will firmly grasp this "advanced" experience mixed with any film. After all, no one wants to hit the street in commercial films.
Internal entertainment has only been raised in the film market in the past decade. Before it was raised, it was not hard to promote Hong Kong men as leading actors in the hope that they would carry the box office to attract audiences to buy tickets. Now that the years are good, the giants raised are big enough for all types of people to get a piece of the pie. No matter what type of passing score, there will be a guaranteed box office, making a boutique plus a good time and a chance to make a ticket list, so that each director system has the opportunity to make their favorite genre films.
When mainland directors make Wolf Warriors 2, Hong Kong directors still have a chance. after all, you see that "outwitting Tiger Mountain" and "Operation Red Sea" are better to some extent, but when mainland directors make "wandering the Earth". Hong Kong films have no chance at all.
This time, Hong Kong movies are really going to fail.
