In the latter part of the last century when Hong Kong films were booming, as one of the few filmmakers who had entered Hollywood to seek development, Jackie Chan not only had the box office market in other cities in Southeast Asia, but also had a considerable international vision. For fans of the world who understand Jackie Chan's movies, the quality of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong movies is much higher than his own Hollywood movies. With the early stage "Drunken Master", "Plan A", "Police" and "Flying Eagle" so many high-quality series foreshadowing, later "Rush Hour" series also seems logical. Sometimes I think, fortunately, Hollywood didn't extend an olive branch to him from the very beginning, so that he can devote himself to creating in Hong Kong. Otherwise, how many original Jackie Chan movies have to be missed by movie fans.
1. Returning from the turmoil across the ocean
[The 1985 "Vice Dragon" is another American movie starring Jackie Chan and invested by Golden Harvest after the 1980s "Killer Trench" and 1981 "Cannonball Speed" series, with the purpose of bringing Jackie Chan into Hollywood. Unfortunately, if "Killer Trench" is a mistake, then "Veteran" is a disaster. At the beginning of the filming, Andrew Morgan, head of Jiahe's US branch, together with Chen Ziqiang, after analyzing the tastes of American audiences, decided to make Jackie Chan a Clint Eastwood in "Vice Dragon". The same "New York policeman", instead of the "dexterous martial arts hero" of the past. Although Jackie Chan has concerns about this, the US branch has absolute control.
In the end, director James Glickenhaus made "Victorian Detective" a Hollywood-style action movie full of old routines. The action scenes are not only pitiful, but also very stiff and slow, completely without Jackie Chan. style of. Jackie Chan was quite dissatisfied with such action movies. During the filming process, he had disagreements with the director many times, even swearing, asking whether the other party knew how to make action movies. But Glickenhaus said that from the very beginning, he told Jackie Chan that this was his film, and he designed the entire martial arts process, and it was completely different from Jackie Chan's set. Jackie Chan was on fire, and He Guanchang was notified by phone that either Glickenhaus was leaving or he would leave the crew. Unfortunately, the answer received is not optimistic, because Glickenhaus signed a very strict contract with Jiahe, it is not easy to replace him, even if it is a mistake, the production must be completed. Although Jackie Chan was very annoyed by the action scene, which had been filmed for only four days, he was helpless, as long as he continued to work according to the director's will, sometimes he almost shed tears during the awkward shooting process. The only benefit that Jackie Chan gets from "Vice Dragon Detective" is the inspiration for filming "Police Story".
Although "Vice Dragon" has achieved some success in the European and American markets, it was rated as the only failure since Jackie Chan signed the contract with Golden Harvest. When the Asian version of "Vice Dragon" was launched, Jackie Chan proposed to modify the film according to his own methods and obtained consent. Jackie Chan recruited the screenwriter Deng Jingsheng, added a number of subsidiary plots to the film, added several new characters, and deleted the inexplicable nude scenes and fortune-telling scenes from the American version. You can see the singers Ye Qianwen and Wu Lvong. The plot of Haisheng's performance was added later in the make-up. In addition, Jackie Chan also brought back the starring Demi Ellow and boxer Bill Wallace from the United States, and re-photographed the fighting scene of the final battle, making it longer and more complicated, and the action arrangement faster and more faithful. Yu Chenglong's fighting style. For Asian audiences, this version is much better than the American version. 】
2. The era of Hong Kong movies and the era of blockbuster movies
Because Jackie Chan was dissatisfied with his performance in the film, he started filming the Hong Kong-style "Police Story" on his own. It was finally very popular and shot four episodes in a row. The first two episodes were written by Jackie Chan. The story focuses on Hong Kong. The little gang Chen Jiaju turns into a lone hero. In the unsatisfactory love and career, he strengthens his belief as a policeman and fights drug dealers and bomb terrorists. The third and fourth parts were changed to Tang Jili's swordsmanship, and he began to go internationally to the mainland, Malaysia, Ukraine and Australia. In addition to the identity of martial arts superstar, Jackie Chan's ability as a director is also obvious to all. Why did Jackie Chan rarely direct himself in the 90s movies? This involves a cost issue.
Although his films do not use special effects, it does not mean that the cost is low. All the hardware facilities in Jackie Chan's crew are the best, and the treatment given to the staff is the highest in the industry. He fully covers the daily necessities of the married class, and pays the red envelopes directly to his wife to support the family. At the same time, Jackie Chan, who grew up in a theater troupe, particularly likes a crowd of people to live together for dinner. A celebrity entrepreneur occasionally invites him to visit, but the result is a few big tables, and people later complained about him as a big deal. He once said that he spends millions of meals every year for the family management team. Later, he changed the contracting method to contract workers. Most of the members only got together during the start of work, and instead saved a lot of money.
During the start of work, the crew of hundreds of people, everybody eats, drinks, and sleeps regardless of each other, which is a huge expense. What's more, the crew sometimes moves to a foreign country for filming. In addition to the cost of selecting scenes, they also have to block road traffic and deal with the local government, which adds to the cost. After all, Jackie Chan is known as the big brother. Within the crew, the total budget of the film crew, the preparation of the specific shooting schedule of the film, the artistic creation and expenditures, etc., he also has to intervene, and the supervisor who should be responsible for these tasks basically has no final decision. s right. Outside of the crew, the boss of Jiahe Company, He Guanchang, is Jackie Chan’s godfather, and he loves him a lot. Because of his superstition, he not only gave him the death order not to cut his hair, not play the villain, and not be allowed to lie down, but he has also been creating films for him. The process does not intervene or intervene, and sometimes even serves as the producer himself, which is actually letting go. Guarantee its maximum creative freedom. In order to commemorate the deep affection of the father and son, Jackie Chan made a shocking jump in the movie "Who Am I" after He Guanchang passed away in 1997. In the action drama "Zodiac" he last directed in 2012, he also left words to commemorate his parents and godfather at the end of the movie.
In line with the creative principle of allowing his films to be put into museums, Jackie Chan has always strived for excellence. In 2004 "New Police Story", in order to increase the investment of 20 million yuan in the blast scene, he had a stalemate with his old agent and friend Chen Ziqiang, who was the producer of the film, and the two broke up a few years later. In 1989, the investment record for Hong Kong films was broken. During the filming of the literary film "Miracle", which cost 68 million Hong Kong dollars, Jackie Chan had to increase the action scenes in order to ensure the sales of the company in order to increase the investment of the company.
The board of directors of Jiahe Company is really a headache because of being too capable. Although your movie can sell well, the profit is always the income minus the expenses. As a literary film, "Miracle" is really not as profitable as Jackie Chan's action film. In 1990, in order to be safe and ensure to make money for the company, Jackie Chan filmed the sequel of his big-selling work "Dragon Brothers and Tigers", "The Flying Eagle Project", once again targeting the box office market to the world, and the world took out 39.05 million U.S. dollars.
Golden Harvest asked Jackie Chan to reduce his expenses, but the "Flying Eagle Project" in the end greatly exceeded the budget. A total of 115 million Hong Kong dollars, or about 15 million US dollars, refreshed the production cost of "Miracle" last year. It became a new Guigang movie at the time. . And five years later, director Tang Jili, the world's largest sales of 82.3 million US dollars "Red Zone", the cost is only 7.5 million US dollars, even the price of the Elizabeth II hovercraft in the film is not enough. In order to control costs, at Jiahe's insistence, Jackie Chan never regained his grip on the guide tube after the "Flying Eagle Project."
After leaving the directorship, Jackie Chan has more energy to focus on roles and actions, thus opening his own high-yield era. With the cooperation of directors such as Tsui Hark, Wang Jing, Tang Jili, Chen Musheng, Chen Jiashang, Chen Desen, the works are no longer authentic Jackie Chan movies, but they can still guarantee the frequency of excellent works.
3. Difficulties and hardships Yuru Yucheng
In "The Flying Eagle Project", the desert land of North Africa and Morocco is an important part of the filming. Flying eagles soar and the clouds are light and the sky is high. The camel did not listen. Due to the hot weather, more than 90% of the crew members were sick and bedridden due to unacceptable water and soil, and one was stung by a scorpion. The filming had to be postponed for two months. Days are getting harder and harder, and one day the heroine Zheng Yuling cried on the spot when she finished filming, thinking of when such a hard life would end. In the evening, the three heroines who soon became friends hugged each other for fun and sang songs to the wine. When the love reaches the depths, they cry together, and then go to sleep in the tent after crying. The crew woke up at 4 a.m. every morning to put on makeup and had to stop work before noon. Not only could people not stand the high temperature in the desert, but the machines could not stand it. Afterwards, Cheng Yuling never made Jackie Chan's movie again.
In order to ensure the completion of the filming task as soon as possible, Jackie Chan did a lot of logistical support at all costs. The most frightening thing is that the banknotes of the crew's props were somehow regarded as real banknotes and circulated locally. The Moroccan authorities contacted Jackie Chan and confiscated all the films. The situation was urgent. The crew hurriedly contacted a lawyer to deal with the matter, identify themselves and make a guarantee. After many days of hard work, the police finally returned the film to them. But at the same time, the police arrested the production manager on charges of issuing fake banknotes, causing the production manager to go to jail for three months. After completing the necessary shots taken locally, Jackie Chan took the sick number of the wounded, the machinery and equipment that entered the sand, and 10 tons of the original Moroccan desert, embarrassed and returned to Hong Kong to continue the final work.
Compared with the same type of American Hollywood movies, the "Jackie Chan blockbuster" of the 1990s was much lower than the standards of similar American Hollywood movies in terms of manpower, material resources, financial resources, planning cycle, and production cycle, and the output was very high. Under this kind of short frequency and fast frequency, it is quite difficult for works to reach this level. At the same time, under the exotic atmosphere, the themes to be expressed in the film are also rare in Jackie Chan's new century works, who are used to speaking to the camera.
Fourth, war, human nature and life
The story at the beginning of the movie is a classic joke. Jackie, a flying eagle who went to the Amazon River for vacation, was asked to be a savage hunted down by the tribe because he drank a few sips of holy water in the savage cave. The act of stealing valuable gems by oneself turned out to be a dispensable sin. The gem was accidentally lost while avoiding the savage's attack. After he stepped on a balloon and swung down from the ten thousand-foot cliff, he sighed and found that a piece could not be left. In the film, the poor, skinny old man controlled by the savages is Chen Zhihua, the production manager of the crew who was taken to prison by the Moroccan police.
Soon, Jackie on Mitsubishi Pajero, which was wandering in the Amazon River, received a letter from the Earl of Spain in the last "Dragon Brother and Tiger Brother", asking him to lead a geography expert and a certain German on behalf of the United Nations. The adjutant’s granddaughter went to the Sahara Desert to find 240 tons of gold buried in a secret Nazi base. When the old friends met, in the long shot of the conversation between the two crossing the hall, the flying eagle understated the sentence "(World War) I only know that there can be a third time", which directly expresses the cruelty of war and is also where the gold is buried. Covered with a layer of mystery.
The environment is difficult, the yellow sand is long, and there are lone Japanese girls on the road looking for the meaning of life in the Jedi. In order to grab the key and obtain the gold, various factions appeared on the stage, shooting indoor guns, chasing in the urban area, and fighting in the hotel, and there were frequent good shows.
The jihadist Muslim duo who committed suicide by swallowing medicine at every turn were firm in their justice and faith. A terrorist who keeps pace with the times, resolutely opposes violence, and fears that he will become a genuine terrorist. The other has spared no effort to follow the teachings of Allah, hoping to use violent means to make the international community hear the plight of Islam. Considering that in the previous five Middle East wars, Israel's power was broken, the Arab countries were vulnerable to a blow, and the increasingly severe global anti-terrorism situation after the new century. The existence of these two insignificant little characters, in addition to providing jokes, also shows the thinking of the film's creators.
Have moderate Muslims ever existed? Whether because of the consistent suppression of wars in Western society, they eventually led them to the opposite of civilized society, constantly resorting to terrorist attacks, as well as refugees, seeking blood debts from the European and American powers that had committed crimes. It was they who sent troops to overthrow the "dictatorship" and search for "nuclear weapons" with all kinds of magnificent reasons. They are the culprits who have destroyed the entire Islamic social order.
In the civilized city, the men of Adolf, the remnant of the Nazis, came to seize the key to the vault of the secret base. The birth of "World War II" was not caused by the head of state alone. The root cause behind the war is also an important subject that countries around the world have been studying. Adolf's legs are about to die, but he still does not hesitate to burn his last life, and with perseverance sneaks into the desert to find gold. Whether the German “neo-Nazi” career has a successor, and whether the ultimate use of gold is to continue the unfinished business of the war madman Hitler. These secrets were finally buried in the desert where he had dedicated everything because of the betrayal of his leaders and the explosion of the base.
The vast desert also has its own primitive and wild social norms. Arab society has materialized and despised women. In the movie, desert bandits indiscriminately kill innocent travelers and tourists, plunder women and property. The chiefs scattered everywhere are rushing to the market at a specific time to conduct slave auctions of golden cats and Asian beauties with camels as the denominated unit.
In real life, there are not every day Asian flying eagle heroes save the United States. The oil tycoons everywhere in the Middle East, how licentious and extravagant life should be in secret, can make the Chinese who stand up today living in a civilized society actually hear the rumors and go begging in that classy society, kneeling and doing monthly income. What about the dream of 470,000?
Right above the Nazi base, stands a castle of unknown civilization. A group of natives from other religions lingered in the desert ruins surrounded by Islamic civilization. The believers of the mysterious civilization conceived behind the strange puppet statues reveled in terrifying rituals, watching the protagonist and his party buried in the mouth of endless quicksand. And they, holding primitive spears, wanted to come to sink under the muzzle of the former mercenary's spear and short cannon.
The ultimate proposition of this era is the death of humans and the death of birds for food. This is the case with the Asian Flying Eagles, the mercenary who betrayed Adolf, the innkeeper who must talk about money, and the United Nations authorities who initiated the gold hunt. The world is impermanent and fate is unpredictable. The more you want, the less you get. As the base exploded, blood-stained people of all colors accompanied their favorite gold and were buried in the depths of the desert. Only two Muslims who were clamoring for the restoration of the Holy War and the four protagonists were left struggling to find water to survive. Journey. A piece of consolation prize gold is no longer important. It is no longer important that the bamboo basket is empty. They looked at each other helplessly. It turned out that humans didn't know what they wanted until the last moment of their lives.
The camera zooms out, and the six figures looking for water are gradually invisible in the wind and sand of the heat wave. In the distance, there should be an African eagle with nothing, freely embracing the blue sky and loess above its wings.
The war of hostile religion and evil, the greedy human nature and undesirable money, the fragile life and the great and mysterious nature.
Finally, let’s end with the Cantonese theme song of the film.
Good people are hard to do
See the world's hunger, poverty and poverty
Strong
Windy and sandy sky
Lost City Robber
Where to find the justice giant
Fight against violence
There are countless rugged roads in your hand
Hold you high above the clouds and mist (ha! ha! ha! ha!)
Do not believe in power
Fury for indulging in that merciless killing (Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
All roads of love
Time staggered loop
Who will do it
Fierce mountains and rivers
Ordinary people
Where to find the real paradise
Excessive for the rest of your life
Never think of love getting old after days
Cherish Longyue Morning Mist with you (ha! ha! ha! ha!)
Never need an oath anymore
In order to have been promised each paragraph (Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Conquer the road full of suffering
Stain the loess with blood for the famous Heli
Fighting and fighting is full of confusion in the world
Human and beast but same way
The air drops on the earthly road
No peace, no peace everywhere
Search in my heart and discover the pride of the world
Tongchuang Datong Road
Conquer the road full of suffering
Stain the loess with blood for the famous Heli
Fighting and fighting is full of confusion in the world
Human and beast but same way
The air drops on the earthly road
No peace, no peace everywhere
Search in my heart and discover the pride of the world
Tongchuang Datong Road
In the last decade of the 20th century, Jackie Chan often said that he hoped for world peace. After the new century, the frequency of this sentence in his mouth seems to be getting lower and lower.
The new century has hurriedly passed. 27 years after the birth of the movie, the devastated Middle East is still bloodied on loess, and the world is full of fame and fortune.
"The journey of conquering the world full of suffering
Stain the loess with blood for the famous Heli
Fighting and fighting is full of confusion in the world
Humans and beasts are in the same way"
Everything goes around, under the sun, maybe there is really nothing new.
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