In the late 1990s, because the local market was too small, more and more Hong Kong artists and mainland filmmakers chose to go to Hollywood to develop. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-fat, and Zhang Yimou were all popular in North America at that time. And Wu Yusen belongs to one of them.
In 1997, Wu Yusen came to Hollywood to develop for two years. With the support of a series of movie box office sales, he obtained an investment of 80 million US dollars, and filmed this "Change Face". In the end, the film achieved a huge box office profit with its strong reputation, making Wu Yusen famous in Hollywood and ranked among the A-level film directors. Today, let’s talk about this classic film "Changing Face" with Wu’s violent aesthetics.
At the beginning of the movie, Kester wanted to kill the police officer Sean, but unexpectedly killed Sean's son by mistake. Sean and Kester had a feud. Many years later, during a mission, Kester was knocked unconscious. The mission of hunting down Kester is coming to an end. I didn't expect Kester to plant a bomb in a certain place in the city. In desperation, Sean had to use surgery to cut off his face and exchange it with Kester's face, sneak into Kester's criminal team to get information about the bomb. Unexpectedly, Kester will do it. With Sean's face, Kester completely got rid of his identity as a criminal and took the opportunity to kill everyone who knew Sean's identity. In the end, a struggle between good and evil began.
The film is very novel in creation, not only has a strong Wu style, but also incorporates many sci-fi elements. The film brought Sean's identity crisis to its extreme, and it also made Wu Yusen's violent aesthetics begin to be accepted in the United States. So many years later, the talented director Quentin said "My beloved, Wu Yusen" on the awards stage, which shows how much the director Quentin was influenced by Wu Yusen. Even the director of Infernal Affairs Zhuang Wenqiang admitted that his masterpiece "Infernal Affairs" was influenced by Wu Yusen's "Change Face"
Many of Wu Yusen’s shadows in Hong Kong movies can be found in movies, such as "Blood Two Heroes" and "The True Colors of Heroes"
This "Changing Face" made Wu Yusen a foothold in Hollywood, and his violent aesthetics exerted a great influence on future generations. After directing the movie "Face Changing", Wu Yusen filmed "Mission Impossible 2" with a global box office of 500 million U.S. dollars and North American box office of 200 million U.S. dollars. You know, this was 500 million U.S. dollars in 2000. Until the sixth part of the series, its North American box office was surpassed.
However, there are unpredictable clouds in the sky. After directing Mission Impossible, MGM, without knowing the North American market, blatantly smashed $100 million on Wu Yusen and shot the blockbuster "The Wind Whisperer." It's a pity that Wu Yusen is not an American after all. He doesn't understand the race relations in the United States, so that the movie only earned 70 million US dollars in the box office. Directly leading to the bankruptcy of MGM, the great director Wu Yusen's Hollywood road ended.
Wu Yusen used to be the best foreigner to mix in the United States. Although all this has become a thing of the past, no matter how time goes by, Wu Yusen's contribution to the film industry is understandable. Some time ago, Wu Yusen also said that he would remake "Blood Two Heroes" and "Change Face". I hope that one day Wu Yusen can use his talents to fight a perfect turnaround for himself.
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