Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 940 The Tailor (23)

"Jia Hui told me before that a company had approached him to direct 'Midnight Kitchen'... There are a lot of restrictions when selling adaptation rights to Japanese manga; character designs and even the izakaya (Japanese pub) are not allowed to be modified... He asked me if there was any way to make it acceptable to Chinese audiences without changing the original work..."

"Do you have any idea?"

“No…” Shen Yan shook his head: “Izakaya culture is a Japanese specialty. If I had to do it, I would choose a street food stall or a barbecue restaurant…”

As night falls and the city lights come on, China's nightlife comes alive.

In the night market, the bustling crowds jostled shoulder to shoulder, and smoke billowed from various food stalls as the vendors warmly greeted their customers.

Inside the food stalls, people were shirtless, drinking beer, eating kebabs, chatting loudly, and laughing and playing drinking games.

People enjoy delicious skewers at open-air barbecue stalls while soaking in the lively atmosphere. This vibrant nightlife is full of life and energy.

Audiences are looking forward to a work that truly reflects the late-night life of Chinese cities. It could be the laughter and joy in a bustling food stall, or the silent contemplation of a lonely night traveler in front of a snack stand.

It should showcase the loneliness, confusion, struggle, and hope of urban Chinese people in the dead of night, touching the hearts of the audience with genuine emotions and unique expressions.

Instead of simply copying and directly using existing materials!
Oh, at the premiere of "The Dressmaker," Shen Yan was chatting idly with a reporter from Hong Kong...

"Then I remembered the script I wrote before, 'The Dressmaker'... a stage play film with the unities of time, place, and action, a single setting, just a tailor's shop making suits, using a small space as the stage, with various characters appearing one after another, the plot advancing through a lot of dialogue, and finally reaching a climax with twist after twist..."

"I originally planned to use this film as my directorial debut... but I gave up on it!"

Why give up?

"American Dreams in China is more interesting..."

……

The plot of "The Dressmaker" is very simple. In short, this movie tells the story of a dressmaker and the mob.

In 1960s Shek Kip Mei, Leung Ka-fai and his female employee Chan Yiu ran a tailor shop. The shop's biggest customer was a local triad family, so triad members often frequented the tailor shop, using it as a stronghold.

—This tailor shop has another unique feature: it provides a mailbox for receiving and sending mail, and only major customers have the key to open this mailbox.

Our major client... is a local gang!
The first twenty minutes of the film lay the groundwork at a leisurely pace, creating a retro visual tone and portraying the personalities of the two important characters, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Chen Yao, allowing the audience to see their father-daughter-like relationship.

Meanwhile, gangster elements were naturally introduced, bringing out the characters of Bosco Wong, the son of the gang leader, and Wu Zhenyu, the second-in-command. A scene where Chen Yao and Bosco Wong are on a date and Wu Zhenyu overhears them lays the groundwork for the later story and also grabs the audience's attention...

With the groundwork laid, the show begins.

At night, Wu Zhenyu brings Huang Zongze, who has been shot, to the tailor shop, asking Tony Leung Ka-fai to help treat his wounds. He also brings the MacGuffin from the film—a cassette tape from the suitcase.

It turns out that there was a mole within the gang. The mole provided the police with evidence of their crimes through recordings. However, someone in the gang had obtained a copy. Wu Zhenyu and Huang Zongze were preparing to listen to the recording to determine who the mole was when they were attacked by a rival gang. The two gangs were about to go to war—the other side also wanted to hear this crucial recording.

However, Wu Zhenyu and Huang Zongze suspected each other, and under Liang Jiahui's instigation, they had a dispute. In the heat of the moment, Wu Zhenyu accidentally shot and killed Huang Zongze.

This further heightened the tension in the film. Then, gangster boss Sammo Hung appeared at the tailor shop…

His son, Bosco Wong's body, was placed in a wooden box in a conspicuous spot in the tailor shop, with blood seeping from the bottom of the box, dripping and heartbreaking.

Wu Zhenyu was nervous, Tony Leung was nervous, Chen Yao was also nervous, and the audience was even more nervous.

The ending: Everyone died!
The mole is actually Chen Yao—she wants to escape this place, but she has no money. She wants to make money, so she takes advantage of what she hears at the tailor shop and flirting with Bosco Wong to constantly pass information to the "buyer".

The buyer is the police!
The ending took a twist: the real mastermind was actually Tony Leung Ka-fai!
He wanted to take revenge on the gangsters.

The so-called police were fake—in the 1960s, the Hong Kong police didn't care about Shek Kip Mei at all…

The Shek Kip Mei fire in 1953 destroyed more than 10,000 wooden and stone houses, affecting more than 70,000 people and covering an area of ​​1.5 square miles.

The government failed to provide resettlement, and Shek Kip Mei became a haven for triads…

Limpy Ho, Ng Sik-ho made his fortune in Shek Kip Mei!

By doing this, the movie is essentially misleading the audience with a non-existent "MacGuffin," making them subconsciously believe that the "mastermind" and the "traitor" are the same person.

This "being misled" is precisely where the fun of watching suspense films lies. An excellent suspense film should not leave the audience feeling confused and unable to guess the ending, but rather allow the audience to enjoy the whole process, thinking that they have guessed the ending, but actually being led astray.

To be honest, Tony Leung Ka-fai's character of a "master who has retired from the martial arts world" is too cliché!
Moreover, the film does not delve into the characters' inner world, making it seem overly crafted and lacking in genuine emotion.

Despite its many flaws, the actors' performances made up for them.

Tony Leung Ka-fai's acting skills made up for the logical flaws!

—By escalating conflicts and understanding people's hearts, he saw through the interests of the triad boss played by Sammo Hung, the boss's son Bosco Wong, Sammo Hung's confidant Wu Zhenyu, and even another triad force. Through the eloquent arguments of the strategist and the poisonous advice of the Yin-Yang school, he sent all these characters into the trap he had created!

Overall, this is a movie that scores 7.5 or higher!

However, the film didn't do very well at the Hong Kong box office—it only grossed HK$284 million in its first three days…

It's not even as good as Black Panther, which is in its fifth week of release!
It's worth mentioning that "Black Panther" performed very well at the box office in both Hong Kong and Taiwan—grossing over HK$6000 million in Hong Kong and US$1277 million in Taiwan…

According to multiple media estimates, the Hong Kong box office for "The Dressmaker" is unlikely to reach ten million...

However, Shen Yan didn't care at all—"The Dressmaker" was released in mainland China, and its box office revenue for the first three days was conservatively 2.76 million yuan. Maoyan predicts that the final box office revenue should be around 6.5 million yuan!
A box office smash in every sense of the word!

—The total cost of this movie is less than HK$6000 million.

However, once Shen Yan arrived in Hong Kong, a bunch of veteran directors came knocking on his door…

(End of this chapter)