Those are childhood memories that we will never go back to when we grow up.
During the long, sweaty summer vacation, I routinely went to my grandmother's house to stay for a week or two. In the long nights after dinner and nibbling on watermelons, a group of children sat in rows and stared at the TV screen, shivering and unable to stop waiting for the zombies to wake up suddenly, the female ghosts entangled the little students, the master rescued the little apprentices...
At that time, the home had already started to have a DVD player, and you could go to the roadside shop to rent discs and watch them back. The only basis for children to choose discs is the fancy photos and plot synopsis on the disc.
Zombie movies, kung fu movies, and young and dangerous children seem to be the most easily selected types by children in those years - lively and exciting, fully satisfying the heroic dream of the young people in the town.
And the zombie film with Lin Zhengying as the core is a unique type that condenses laughter and fear, morality and human affection in that age, which defines our cognition of "zombie".
1. Open the era of zombie movies
The rise of the "zombie movie" era in the 1980s was almost accompanied by the rise of Golden Harvest Movies and the silence of Shaw Brothers.
What really made the "zombie film" a classic type of film was "Mr. Zombie" directed by Liu Guanwei and starring Lin Zhengying in 1985.
Before that, in 1980, led by Hong Jiaban and produced by Baohe Films (a subsidiary of Jiahe), "Ghost Fighting Ghosts" pioneered the fusion of two elements of zombie and kung fu, becoming one of the top ten best-selling movies in Hong Kong that year. one.
In "Ghost Fighting Ghosts", the zombie element is actually just a supporting role "tool zombie" in the battle between good and evil, and has not been placed in the position of the main element. However, the plot design of the kung fu competition between humans and zombies in the film was very popular, which directly contributed to the birth of "Mr. Zombie" in 1985.
"Mr. Zombie" tells the story of the early years of the Republic of China, the wealthy squire Ren (played by Huang Shrimp) found the ninth uncle of the Taoist priest in order to move the grave for his late father. As a result, on the day the coffin was lifted, Uncle Ninth found that the coffin was different and decided to transport it back to Yizhuang for settlement. As a result, the old man accidentally turned into a zombie (played by Yuan Hua), and also killed Master Ren, endangering the daughter of the Ren family, Tingting (played by Li Saifeng).
Not only have to deal with zombies, protect Ren's daughter Tingting, but also rescue apprentice Wen Cai (played by Xu Guanying) who is about to become a zombie due to corpse poison, and rescue apprentice Qiu Sheng (played by Qian Xiaohao) who is fascinated by female ghosts. Uncle Ninth put out fires everywhere. , and finally after a fierce fight the war was finally put to rest.
The team of "Mr. Zombie" in 1985 is almost in the same line as "Ghost Fighting" in 1980 - director Liu Guanwei was the photographer of Sammo Hung's team, the producer of "Mr. Zombie" was Sammo Hung, and the martial arts instructors were Lin Zhengying and Yuan Hua. Actor Qian Xiaohao and others are also from "Hongjiaban".
Therefore, "Mr. Zombie" and a series of later classic zombie films have a very obvious inheritance relationship in terms of martial arts style, actor composition, plot elements and many other aspects.
2. Chinese background color, mix of Chinese and Western
During the initial production period, the management of Golden Harvest was not optimistic about the market of "Mr. Zombie".
The cost of filming "Mr. Zombie" was 8.5 million yuan, and Golden Harvest bosses He Guanchang and Sammo Hung estimated that the film could sell for a maximum of 6 million yuan.
As a result, this "Mr. Zombie", which was predicted to lose money, surpassed 20 million at the box office in Hong Kong alone. It was one of the top ten Chinese-language films of the year by the judges of the Hong Kong Film Awards. Since then, "Zombie Film" has been opened as an independent film. The prologue of a movie genre film.
At that time, Liu Guanwei, a new director, was determined to explore new themes, and his uncle was a master from Maoshan.
Referring to the previously successful "Ghost Fighting Ghost", Liu Guanwei felt that the theme of "zombie" may be promising.
Therefore, from "Mr. Zombie" to "Mr. Linghuan" and later "Mr. New Zombie", etc., in Liu Guanwei's films, zombies always have very traditional Chinese elements: wearing flowers and feathers on their heads, wearing Qing Dynasty officials Clothes, jumping and walking...
And the protagonist Jiu Shu played by Lin Zhengying is a Taoist priest in Maoshan, and the method of subduing zombies also continues the strong traditional Chinese folk characteristics: painting talismans and chanting spells, gossip mirrors, copper money swords, ink buckets, glutinous rice, peach wood swords, burning zombies...
At the same time, "Mr. Zombie" also incorporates the traditional customs of expelling corpses in western Hunan, and integrates traditional elements such as feng shui funerals and female ghosts to confuse strangers, making the film full of a strong sense of folk culture.
These elements have almost become an essential routine for zombie films in the 1980s and 1990s, and they have also provided the audience with a basic definition of the word "zombie".
In Hong Kong, where Chinese and Western cultures are mixed, it is obviously out of place to simply inherit traditional folk customs. As a result, in the later stages, the Hong Kong zombie movies have become more and more deeply used for the legend of Western vampires.
In the original zombie film, the settings such as zombies sucking human blood and biting people will also become zombies, obviously derived from Western vampire movies.
In the later films such as "Ghost Officials" and "One Eyebrow Taoist Man", they even boldly mixed Chinese zombies and Western vampire elements directly - Taoism meets Christianity, Taoist priest meets nun, and traditional yellow women and ink fight money swords must be The new type of zombie can be dealt with with the garlic holy water cross.
In the cultural atmosphere where the old and the new alternate and the East and the West blend, the exploration and change of the content elements of zombie films also witnessed the evolution of the social, political and cultural background of Hong Kong in that era.
3. The warmth and love in zombie films
Recently, I committed crimes against the wind, and revisited many classic Hong Kong-made zombie films.
Now that you have read countless films, and many scary horror films are daring to fight, you will find that the most interesting thing is actually the love between master and apprentice, the love between people and ghosts, and many other zombie movies made in Hong Kong. A hilarious black comedy joke.
In Lin Zhengying's series of zombie films, the master-disciple relationship between Uncle Jiu (the one-brow priest) and his apprentices, as well as the friendship and love between people and ghosts, have changed from the serious and rigid relationship in traditional kung fu films to become More flexible and full of distinctive comedic aesthetics.
The inflexible protagonist Jiu Shu and the two apprentices get along harmoniously and harmoniously, continuing the image of the master and apprentice in the kung fu comedy film in the early 1980s, making the film full of various comedy scenes, and the plot is compact and full of jokes.
The apprentice is mischievous and loves to play tricks, while the master is unsmiling but full of concern and humanity for the apprentice. The witty and humorous way of narration, and the characters of both good and evil, make the zombie story more three-dimensional and diverse, and also dilute the horror color of the zombie film itself, making the film more "appropriate for all ages".
And the elements of "human ghosts" that are often interspersed in movies are even more classic.
Beginning with the classic "her vision, her vision, as if shining like a star" in the episode "Ghost Bride", the "human-ghost relationship" between the glamorous female ghost in the ghost film and the Taoist master and apprentice has almost become a kind of The necessary elements have also created many classic female ghost images.
As a result, we finally realized that the so-called "ghost movies" that we felt afraid of in childhood are actually a combination of multiple movie elements such as supernatural, comedy, and kung fu, and the core is full of human warmth and love.
Perhaps, it is precisely because of this positive human touch that we have more peace of mind and aftertaste after watching a movie.
- THE END -
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