The 1991 Taiwanese movie "Fire Island" is not an excellent work, but it is still talked about by many fans because of its "all-star lineup".
The star lineup of "Fire Island" is comparable to that of "Infernal Affairs 3: Ultimate Infernal Affairs" (2003). "Infernal Affairs 3: Ultimate Infernal Affairs" is known as the "Five Great Actors", and the film also has "Five Great Actors": Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Leung Ka Fai, Sammo Hung and Ke Junxiong. The weight of these "Five Great Actors" is no less than the "Five Great Actors" of "Infernal Affairs 3". In addition to the "Five Great Movie Emperors", "Fire Island" also includes Wang Yu, Tuo Zonghua, Gao Jie, Ye Quanzhen and other heavyweights in the Hong Kong and Taiwan movie circles.
However, it is also a problem that there are too many "actors", and the distribution of drama points is very important to the director. Among the "Five Great Actors", Jackie Chan's influence and appeal are the greatest in the past, but Jackie Chan's scenes are not many among the "Five Great Actors", and Liang Jiahui and Sammo Hung have more scenes than him. According to director Zhu Yanping, Jackie Chan only gave him four or five working days. To be able to shoot so many scenes in four or five working days is a lot of work for Jackie Chan and Zhu Yanping. Jackie Chan has few scenes, which is reasonable in terms of working hours, but far beyond reason in terms of workload. Zhu Yanping is a very smart and calculating director. He knows that Jackie Chan is busy and expensive, so he asked Jackie Chan to shoot the most scenes with the shortest schedule. He had used this trick in "Mini Secret Service" in 1982. Jackie Chan was not the male lead in the film, but Zhu Yanping used it as the biggest "selling point". "Island of Fire" invited Jackie Chan, but Zhu Yanping actually just followed the same method as the "method" nearly 10 years ago to maximize the benefits of the star. It can be said that there is no question of who is bigger than the other in the distribution of scenes in "Fire Island", but a question of whether several movie emperors can cooperate in time.
Zhu Yanping is the No.1 commercial director in Taiwan. Unlike Hou Hsiao-hsien, Yang Dechang and others who worked so hard to manage art films, Zhu Yanping almost didn't talk about art, and concentrated on commercial films, and was proud of it - Zhu Yanping once bombarded Hou, Yang and others, thinking that their films had dragged down. Taiwan's film industry. Zhu Yanping may be proud, because when Taiwan directors collectively ignored the Taiwan film industry, he insisted on shooting commercial films to support the Taiwan film industry. Zhu Yanping has made about 100 films, all of which are commercial, but many of them are unknown. But these unknown films are not "losing money", but because of the subject matter, distribution channels and other reasons, they have not directly entered the public's field of vision. To put it bluntly, Zhu Yanping has made a lot of low-budget B-grade films. These low-budget B-grade films have a pretty good "hidden market", but they are not widely known. Of course, Zhu Yanping also made a considerable number of general entertainment films. The more famous ones include the series "Little Boy" (1994), "Love of Grandparents" (1994), "Chinese Dragon" (1995) and so on. It should be said that Zhu Yanping is not a talented director, he is just a film craftsman. However, he is very quiet, and he strives to be a filmmaker. Therefore, to a certain extent, Zhu Yanping is a good director, worthy of the boss, worthy of the audience, and worthy of himself.
Zhu Yanping made a "pathetic work", "Exotic" (1990), about the experience of the defeated "national army" living in the "exotic". The film is not excellent in production, but it is rare to capture the "sorrowful feeling" of the "national army" in the "end of the road", which is the most attentive work in Zhu Yanping's film career. It is said that Zhu Yanping exchanged the opportunity to shoot the film by promising to make a "smashing movie" (a sequel to "Big Head Soldier"?) for "Big Brother Underworld". However, "Exotic" was a huge commercial success, more than the "blockbuster" he promised to shoot for "Big Brother Underworld". This is an "exception" in the film career of Zhu Yanping, Taiwan's number one commercial film director, but it is not an "exception" - he just made a commercial blockbuster with his feelings.
The producer of "Fire Island" is Taiwan veteran actor Ke Junxiong, and the producer is Wang Yu, who starred in "The One-Armed Swordsman" (1967). The two also worked very hard to star in the film. It seems that the two veteran movie stars intend to join forces to create a "blockbuster" with an all-star cast. The team of "Fire Island" is so "strong" that it could have "made" a classic work, but Zhu Yanping did not seize the opportunity, nor did he bother to strive for perfection, so that the film only took shape ( "blockbuster"). It can be said that the success of "Island of Fire" is also Zhu Yanping, and the defeat is also Zhu Yanping. Zhu Yanping has the ability to win over so many stars to appear in the film at the same time and arrange their schedules, but he is just an excellent "coordinator", he did not make good use of these resources and made higher pursuits in creation . Although "Island of Fire" has the best lineup, its original intention may just be to sell well. Zhu Yanping didn't pay enough attention to the script polishing and on-site shooting, and finally only came up with such a quick work.
When the theme song of "Island of Fire" sounded, I knew it was Cui Jian. Cui Jian doesn't have a lot of time to contribute to the movie. Apart from this "Island of Fire", there are only two movies I have seen: "Beijing Bastard" (1993) and "My Brothers and Sisters" (2001). Blue Bones (2013), which he directed himself, is a different story. I don't think it's surprising that Cui Jian has voiced for "My Brothers and Sisters" and "Beijing Bastards", but Cui Jian's voice for a "commercial blockbuster" is indeed beyond my expectations. The theme song sung by Cui Jianzai in the film is called "The Last Shot". Did Cui Jian sing this song first, and Zhu Yanping used it as the theme song? If so, "surprise me" to a lesser degree. However, even if "The Last Shot" was written by Cui Jian for "Island of Fire", I don't think it's a bad thing, because I think it's a good thing for "serious" singers to participate in commercial movies, and maybe it can improve commercial movies artistic quality.
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