Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 127 How should the dragon transform?

Jackie Chan's "New Police Story" was just released not long ago, with a box office of 4300 million in mainland China and 2100 million Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong.

This result is actually very good. Even if we include "Kung Fu" which was released at the end of the year, it can still be firmly ranked among the top five in the annual box office.

But it was useless, and the company still lost money.

This was Jackie Chan's first work after returning to Hong Kong, and also his first film in collaboration with a certain company, but it lost money.

I guess Cheng Long must be very depressed.

"Jackie Chan is the face of Hong Kong. Back then, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat and Yi Cheng were a guarantee of box office success. As long as Jackie Chan and Yi Cheng were in a movie, investors would invest in it, no matter how big the investment was.

He is also the second Hong Kong actor to successfully enter Hollywood after Bruce Lee.

Speaking of Cheng Long, Liang Wendao is proud of him.

He is a native Hong Konger and it can be said that he grew up watching Jackie Chan's movies.

Dou Wentao beside him couldn't help but sigh: "Yes, Cheng Long risked his life in those two years. All the action designs were as dangerous as possible. The accident rate of the Cheng family team was very high in those years.

Jackie Chan is truly a symbol, and his film style cannot be learned by others.

Just like Stephen Chow.

Only Stephen Chow can act out the nonsense naturally. If anyone else were to act it out, it would feel awkward and out of place.

Same with Cheng Long.

The playful and acrobatic comedy style coupled with dangerous and exciting action scenes has become Cheng Long's trademark. "

Zhang Chen agreed: "You are right. I have studied Hong Kong films for a while. Cheng Long is really an iconic figure. Kung Fu comedy was promoted because of him.

Kung Fu movies are truly a calling card for Chinese-language films. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li all made their way into the Hollywood market with Kung Fu movies.”

Hollywood is the center of the world's film and television industry. At this stage, breaking into Hollywood is the highest recognition of an actor's achievement.

Dou Wentao was full of regret: "It's a pity that kung fu movies have also fallen in love. Costume martial arts movies cannot be embedded in advertisements and require huge investment, so fewer and fewer people are making them.

I've seen enough of Cheng Long's kung fu comedies. It seems that his movies didn't do well in Hollywood, so he had to return to Hong Kong. But I didn't expect that the box office of his first movie after returning to Hong Kong was also disappointing."

In fact, the box office of "New Police Story" was pretty good, but its competition was "Hero".

You know what, the 2.5 million box office of "Hero" really scared these Hong Kong people.

I originally thought that the mainland was a barren land, but I didn’t expect that its potential was so huge. That’s why Hong Kong filmmakers collectively went north.

By the way, Bona was successful.

“In fact, the scariest thing is the green screen technology. With green screen synthesis, all dangerous actions can be completed in front of the green screen, which greatly reduces the difficulty of the action.

Cheng Long’s big scenes are no longer unique. In fact, the images synthesized with green screen can be more thrilling and exciting than Cheng Long’s real shots…”

What Zhang Chen said was true. Cheng Long himself later said that the green screen technology dimmed the halo around him.

Although the original words are not exactly like this, this is roughly the meaning.

"I can't imagine what will happen if there is no Jackie Chan in future action movies."

Jackie Chan represents an era, and the audience who likes him certainly don’t want their childhood star to gradually fade into obscurity.

"In fact, he has already realized this problem, otherwise there would not be the transformation of "Myth"."

Seeing the two looking over, Zhang Chen continued, "It is said that The Myth was a dream that director Stanley Tong had when he was visiting the Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum in Xi'an. He wanted to film this story, and originally the male lead was already chosen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, but then this story caught the eye of my eldest brother. My eldest brother liked this story very much and wanted to act in it himself. Stanley Tong certainly couldn't refuse, so Takeshi Kaneshiro lost the leading role."

Zhang Chen was talking about the gossip he knew, and Dou Wentao's eyes lit up: "How do you know so much?"

Zhang Chen shrugged. "It was Yan Yiyun, director of the Xi'an Film Studio, who told me that Myth was filmed on location at the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum. It was said that it took only 14 days to shoot, so it should have just been finished."

Liang Wendao was obviously more interested in what Zhang Chen had just said about transformation: "You just said that The Myth is Cheng Long's transformation work?"

Zhang Chen nodded: "Yes, but I don't think the response will be very good."

"why?"

"Cheng Long probably decided to make The Myth because he saw that both Hero and House of Flying Daggers were period costume dramas, and he felt that this theme had great potential.

But people have seen enough of it, and Cheng Long has never filmed a period film before, so the audience may not approve of his costume look.”

This is not nonsense. In the original time and space, Jackie Chan's "The Myth", "Little Big Soldier" and "Lion Falls from the Sky" did not perform well at the box office.

I don’t know why, but people just feel uncomfortable when seeing Cheng Long in ancient costume.

"Then what do you think Cheng Long should do?" Dou Wentao suddenly asked.

Zhang Chen didn’t think too much about it, he just felt like they were chatting.

"He is an action actor. No matter how he changes, he can't jump out of the category of action movies. This is his basic base. I think what should be changed is the style."

"Kung Fu comedy?"

"Yes, people are tired of this format. The failure of his Hollywood films in the past two years is the best proof of this."

"But if it's not a kung fu comedy, can a Jackie Chan movie still be called a Jackie Chan movie?" Liang Wendao obviously has some kind of sentiment.

Zhang Chen retorted: "Why not? As long as Cheng Long is still fighting, he is Cheng Long's movie."

Liang Wendao fell into deep thought.

"In fact, I think Cheng Long can consider changing his style and abandoning what he is good at. Maybe this way he can break through and then build again."

After hearing Zhang Chen's words, the two fell silent.

In fact, they are all laymen when it comes to movies. The reason they can say a few words is all due to their previous homework. But if they argue with Zhang Chen on professional issues, they would be showing off their knowledge in front of an expert.

Liang Wendao felt that it was not a good idea to go into this further, so he changed the subject.

"We just talked about kung fu movies. Now let's talk about police and gangster movies, especially police and gangster movies. This has a long history in Hong Kong. Almost every Hong Kong director has made police and gangster movies, including Benny Chan, Johnnie To, Stanley Kwan, Derek Yee, Ringo Lam..."

As a native Hong Konger, Leung Man-tao knows these directors very well.

Zhang Chen thought of his past experiences and suddenly laughed.

"When I was a kid, I watched DVDs and thought Hong Kong had very bad public security. There were gangs everywhere and people would rob people at random, often with guns. When I grew up, I realized that Hong Kong was actually the 'safest city in Asia'..."

"Yes, I have had similar doubts..."

Dou Wentao also echoed the conversation, adjusting his black-framed glasses:
"At that time, I was wondering why the Hong Kong gangs in the movies were different. In A Better Tomorrow, guns were like free cabbages, and anyone could have one.

But in Young and Dangerous, a bunch of hooligans were still using primitive knives to hack each other, which was so low-brow. Later, when I came to Hong Kong, I realized that everything was just artistic processing. "

"Hahahaha~"

(End of this chapter)