Today, with the rise of zombie films, various countries have begun to develop their own zombie universes.
But for the post-90s generation, Lin Zhengying's "zombie series" is the classic among the classics in zombie movies in our hearts.
In 1985, "Mr. Zombie" starring Lin Zhengying and Qian Xiaohao was born, and it was also the first film that truly integrated zombies into modern society.
In the absence of superstars, "Mr. Zombie" swept the box office of 20 million (the seventh year in Hong Kong), and also won many awards in the 5th Hong Kong Film Awards that year, which can be described as a double harvest of word-of-mouth box office!
More importantly, "Mr. Zombie" started a boom in Hong Kong's zombie films, and not only defined a worldview of zombies that was later recognized and followed.
Such as Maoshan magic, glutinous rice to treat zombies, and hold your breath to hide zombies, etc.
After it, the era of Hong Kong zombie movies was opened directly. In just 6 years, more than 100 zombie films have been produced, none of which surpassed "Mr. Zombie".
Unfortunately, "Ninth Uncle" Lin Zhengying died of liver cancer in 1997.
Since then, the "Nine Uncle" with one-word eyebrows, mustache, and Taoist robes is no longer, and "Mr. Zombie" has also become the insurmountable peak of the zombie era.
But the film and television works on the "zombie" theme in the film circle have not been reduced at all.
However, these follow-up works are basically all kinds of shoddy productions, and the scripts, actors, and shooting are all unqualified.
After that, zombie films were over-consumed due to serious homogenization, and then fell into the predicament of no connection.
Just on May 19, another online movie with the theme of "zombie" was launched - "The Return of the Nine Uncles".
Just by looking at the name, you can tell that this is a movie that has nothing to do with Lin Zhengying's "Ninth Uncle".
In fact, "The Return of Ninth Uncle" is a fan-oriented online movie, and the main creators are all die-hard fans of Lin Zhengying.
In their words, this is a work that pays homage to an idol.
Although it basically copied the routine of the "Zombie" series from modeling to story structure, there is still a lot of room for improvement in both acting and script.
After all, Ninth Uncle's temperament can't be obtained just by describing his appearance, and the seemingly COS Zhou Xingchi in the film is actually the apprentice of "Qian Xiaohao", which is still difficult for some fans to understand.
It is not so much a movie that "pays tribute to the ninth uncle", it is better to say that it is just a carnival for fans.
It is precisely because of this movie that we miss this insurmountable classic, and let us once again understand how good "Mr. Zombie" was 35 years ago!
At the beginning of the story, it was a prank among the apprentices of Ninth Uncle.
When Wen Cai was putting incense on the corpse in Yizhuang, he was teased by Qiu Sheng, another apprentice of Jiu Shu.
During the fight, the rune papers from the foreheads of the other zombies in Yizhuang fell, and the zombies moved.
Fortunately, Ninth Uncle and his junior brother arrived in time, and this "zombie war" finally subsided.
The next day, Uncle Ninth received a new job.
The wealthy businessman in the town, Mr. Ren, wants to bury his dead father and find the ninth uncle to help him check the time.
But on the day of the relocation, it was discovered that the tomb had another mystery.
Although this is a good place for feng shui, the tomb is also an excellent "water hole".
But because this piece of good feng shui was snatched by Mr. Ren's father from the feng shui master, the feng shui master held a grudge and deliberately made a bad feng shui, destroying the good feng shui.
As a result, the good acupuncture point that was originally thought to bless the offspring not only did not work, but the business of the Ren family has been getting worse and worse over the past 20 years, and even the body of the master's father has remained uncorrupted for 20 years.
Obviously, this is a precursor to corpse transformation.
The safest solution is to cremate in situ.
But Master Ren was a dutiful son again, and did not agree to cremate the body on the spot.
In order to prevent Mr. Ren from corpse, Uncle Ninth decided to bring the corpse and coffin back to Yizhuang.
That night, Mrs. Ren's corpse changed, his face changed greatly, and long nails grew. It seemed that the corpse changed faster than expected.
Jiu Shu mixed black ink with chicken blood, glutinous rice, and a spell to make a water that can temporarily trap zombies.
As long as you use the ink bucket to bounce the entire coffin on the line, you can temporarily trap the zombies in the coffin.
Unexpectedly, the bottom of the coffin was missed.
Here, we are still looking for a new tomb for Mr. Ren's body, but Mr. Ren has already made a breakthrough from the bottom of the coffin and escaped from the shackles of the coffin.
And on the night he escaped, he came to Mr. Ren's house and killed Mr. Ren.
And Awei, who is responsible for investigating criminal cases in the police station, is the cousin of Mr. Ren, who is incompetent but likes to bully others.
Because he likes Mr. Ren's daughter, that is, his cousin, so he wants to use Mr. Ren to gain goodwill.
Without asking anything, he directly arrested Jiu Shu to be punished.
At night, Master Ren's corpse also turned into a zombie because of the corpse poison.
Although he was a businessman during his lifetime, his lethality was not as good as that of Mr. Ren, but Mr. Ren's fighting power was beyond ordinary people's ability to resist.
In the end, with the cooperation of Jiu Shu and Wen Cai, Master Ren was finally subdued.
But here's the thing, there is still something to do with Mr. Ren's daughter Tingting.
Grandpa Ren found Tingting, and Wencai, who was responsible for protecting Tingting, lost to Grandpa Ren, and Wencai was poisoned by corpse poison because he was scratched by Grandpa Ren.
Fortunately, Jiu Shu and Qiu Sheng arrived in time, and finally the old man was entangled in the ink bucket line and fled.
Although Grandpa Ren's problem was temporarily resolved, Ninth Uncle's two apprentices, Wen Cai and Qiu Sheng, were in trouble.
Wen Cai could turn into a zombie at any time because he was scratched by Mrs. Ren.
Qiusheng was entangled because of his affection for Xiaoyu at the beginning.
As for Mrs. Ren, she hid in a cold cave to "recuperate" and wait for the next battle.
Here, the film will usher in the climax.
Wen Cai cleared the corpse and poison, Qiu Sheng got rid of Xiao Yu with the help of Jiu Shu, and finally came the final battle with Mr. Ren.
After watching the entire film, you can clearly feel that this is a film that combines horror, comedy, and action.
I didn't find it, although the duration is only 96 minutes, but the whole movie is full of plot, no waste, relaxed and unfinished.
And although it seems that there are many elements, because of the director's control ability, the film can achieve a very delicate balance among various elements such as horror, comedy, and action.
That is to say, in addition to the impeccable acting skills of the protagonists, the unprecedentedly successful creative team of "Mr. Zombie" also contributed a lot.
Here are a few words about the director and screenwriter of the film.
Liu Guanwei, he is a veritable ghost film director, in addition to this excellent zombie film, the subsequent "Zombie Family" and "Mr. New Zombie" are also from his hands.
One of the screenwriters of the film, Huang Ying, is a well-known supernatural reasoning writer in Hong Kong. His martial arts novels "The Change of the Silkworm" and "Shen Shengyi" have been put on the screen many times. Later, he and Yu Wuyu were called the ghost king because of the zombie series novels.
Another screenwriter, Huang Bingyao, is familiar to everyone. He, Huang Baiming, Wang Jing and Zhang Jianting are the four major screenwriters in Hong Kong. Many well-known Hong Kong films are written by him, such as the "Five Lucky Stars" series, "Fighting Dragon", "Dragon's Heart", "Oriental Condor", "Hot Detective" and so on.
Liu Zhenwei once commented that Huang Bingyao was a genius, and also said that if there were 180 films in a year, and 90 of them belonged to him, he definitely had the status of influencing the entire Hong Kong film industry.
There is also a screenwriter who is not so famous, but has a lot of work. "The First Type of Danger", "New Shushan Swordsman", "Dragon and Treasure" and "Legend of the White Snake" are all from his hands.
Therefore, it is precisely because of the excellent performance of the director and screenwriter that the film "Mr. Zombie" is so classic.
First of all, in terms of the plot, the plot is full, the development is gradual, and the foreshadowing is quite clever.
The story is led by the grandfather Ren moving his grave, and there are 3 zombie battles and a human-ghost duel.
Therefore, in "Mr. Zombie", there are old zombies, new ones who have just turned into zombies, and female ghosts other than zombies.
It seems that there are too many elements, but they are all related to the main story, and they are all perfectly interspersed into the main story.
In particular, the story of Qiusheng and Xiaoyu has been foreshadowed from the very beginning when the tomb was moved to Mrs. Ren.
Because Qiusheng felt sorry for Xiaoyu who died at the age of 20, in exchange for Xiaoyu's favor.
Only after that, Xiaoyu appeared in a sedan chair, rides a bicycle in Qiusheng, and designed a heroine in Qiusheng to save the beauty, and finally developed a bridge of love between people and ghosts.
Among them, the part where Xiaoyu bid farewell to the little ghost who carried the sedan chair and sat on the back seat of Qiusheng's bicycle was the most beautiful in the whole play.
Beautiful people, great songs, great pictures!
And the ghost love between these two people, to be honest, is quite touching.
In terms of character creation, "Mr. Zombie" can be regarded as a model of a group play script, which can create multiple characters in just 5 minutes.
In the little farce at the beginning of the film, 4 characters were portrayed at once, 3 of which are the protagonists.
Only from Qiusheng teasing Wencai, we can see the character attributes of Jiushu's two apprentices. Wencai is timid, Qiusheng is bold, and Jiushu really loves his apprentice, and he also buried the foreshadowing of Jiushu's apprentice. .
Finally, I want to say that the director's skills are very deep, the rhythm is well controlled, and the relaxation is moderate.
Although "Mr. Zombie" is mainly based on horror elements, because of the interspersed funny elements, the movie can always maintain a relaxed atmosphere that is tense but not fearful. It is a movie that does not pick the audience very much.
When watching a movie, you will be frightened by the powerful zombies, and you will also laugh out loud because of the laughter in the fight.
Awei deliberately locked the door because he wanted to show his prestige, but let the master Ren, who had finally put on the spell, move again, and finally branded himself a "rapist" during the fight.
All developments are well-founded, and laughter comes naturally, not embarrassing at all.
There is also the part of Grandpa Ren chasing and killing Tingting, just because a bamboo tube spread the air, the whole atmosphere of terror to the extreme was instantly broken.
In addition, "Mr. Zombie", from photography to editing, to the soundtrack, is perfectly coordinated in every aspect, coupled with smooth and hearty action scenes, and even a bit like watching a martial arts movie.
In general, the classic of "Mr. Zombie" is a collection of the right time and place, and its "good-looking" is difficult to replicate, thus achieving a monumental image that it cannot surpass.
Nowadays, most of the main creators of the film have passed away. Instead of using clumsy methods to "re-enact" the classics, it is better to watch the classics several times.
Bluestone Film Editorial Department | Lao Meng
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