Wang Jing initially asked Zhang Jiahui and others to appear in "Chasing the Dragon", but was repeatedly rejected due to the rough plot. He was forced to polish the script repeatedly, and only then did we see this full story. The underworld characters who are engaged in pornography, gambling and drugs must be beautified to some extent as the protagonists. Therefore, the film regards brotherhood as the main line, and at the same time sets the British as the biggest villain, making use of national feelings. The rhythm of the whole film is quite good, and the plot progresses in a relaxed manner. Halfway through the progress, Lai Luo and Lai Hao divided the world equally. After that, Lai Hao became bigger and bigger, and the brothers became increasingly feuding. Three-quarters of the time, the ICAC appeared, and the situation took a turn for the worse. choice.
For Lai Luo and Lai Hao's respective experiences of making a fortune, the film jumps to explain through several aspects, and also shows the origin of their friendship and the characteristics of the times. The thrilling life of the city is interspersed with small humor from time to time, which can cause people to laugh and neutralize the heavy and cruel theme. Donnie Yen is still able to fight, but it is not one fight ten times, but more of a grassroots fight on the street, a struggle at the end. Andy Lau is still handsome enough, but the handsome king of 30 years has restrained his star temperament and focused on showing the scheming city. One knife head licks blood, and the other is smashed into the bottle. Each has its own interests, but still attaches great importance to friendship. This is Donnie Yen's biggest breakthrough in acting. As an actor, he has a kind of violent temperament that is both righteous and evil under the gentle appearance, but it was shown through fists and feet before, and this time he can finally be released from the explosive performance. Compared with Lu Liangwei's version, his lame man is not so rough, but more decisive and ruthless. After Xiaowei's death, unlike other people's crying and robbing the ground, he had white clouds and blue sky above his head, and he said the mantra "Life and death depend on fate, wealth is in the sky" to the enemy's family, and then he directly sealed the coffin to his brother for burial. , the character of pleasure and hatred is fully revealed. At Lai Luo's house, he forced the fat boy to jump off the building at the end, and he insisted on revenge for his younger brother in the face of the gun, which made people deeply impressed by this hero. Maybe kung fu superstars need a literary drama to justify their acting skills, such as Jackie Chan's "Shinjuku Incident" and Jet Li's "Famous Name". Except for the actress who became a vase, all the supporting roles are familiar faces, Zheng Zeshi, Tang Zhenye, Jiang Haowen, Liu Haolong, all of them are quite satisfactory, but they are not lost. Huang Rihua's honesty and old-fashioned, Wu Yi's tyranny and brutality, Zeng Jiang's aura, Chen Huimin's fame, no matter how many scenes, they are all overpowering, adding a bit of the intimacy of old Hong Kong films to the film.
The end of the film is evocative. Lai Luo, who went to the country to escape, lived a worry-free life, but felt lonely. Lai Hao, who was in prison, regained his freedom, but there was not much time left. The surging river water, the dead cannot be chased, but if there is a chance to choose again from the beginning, most of them will repeat the same path. Character decides their fate, Lai Hao's righteousness and ambition, Lai Luo's benevolence and manipulative, make them inevitable, and they are bound to dominate Hong Kong, and when the era ends, they have to stagger out.
I haven't seen such a well-made pure Hong Kong-style movie in a long time. The highly reductive set, with the grainy picture, the long shot with yellow tones, the retro music melody, and the dialogue in Chaozhou dialect, fully reproduce the style of old Hong Kong. Donnie Yen and Andy Lau have designated image designs respectively, and the costumes fit the characters' identities and personalities. Some slightly bloody scenes show the thrilling experience of the chaotic hero in the form of violent aesthetics.
Whether a movie is bad or not, and whether the director is attentive, can be easily seen from many places. There are planes taking off and landing at Kai Tak Airport near the Kowloon Walled City every day, with a huge roar across the sky above. While providing a footnote to the iconic era, it also metaphors the protagonist's ambition to climb to the sky at the bottom. In the city wall, fireworks burst into flames at the moment of life and death, reflecting a beautiful vision in the eyes of every desperado, and also illuminating the cruel blood in the poor streets in the night. The family members smuggled in and drowned, and the adopted daughter fell under the guns. These scenes were deliberately used slow motion, flashback, interweaving and other techniques, which made the scenes of the ups and downs of the world reveal a strong compassion, and also sublimated the theme of this entertainment film. A bit epic.
Even the most die-hard Hong Kong movie fans can't have the same feelings for Wang Jing as Zhou Xingchi, not to mention that even Xing Ye has sold out his feelings in this age of consumerism, forcing fans to say "I owe it to me. You've run out of movie tickets." Wang Jing is like an ineffective friend who has not been afraid to roll in shit and fart for many years. In the late 1990s, he began to degenerate. He ran wildly on the road of vulgar and uninteresting bad films, until he reached the pinnacle of the Macau Fengyun series, which made Hong Kong film industry one of the best. All the big names have cashed out the word-of-mouth accumulated over the past 30 years, completely harvesting the remaining Hong Kong film complex of movie fans. However, from the positive side, it is precisely because he has always been at the forefront of the business of entertainment to the death. Every film has a certain amount of profit. Many Hong Kong film practitioners have jobs to start, and they will not be in a strong position. Hollywood blockbusters and rampant pirated CD-ROMs have no way out. So Wu Siyuan said, you only know that Infernal Affairs saved the market. It was Wang Jing who really saved the market. It wasn't that he kept some sparks. Hong Kong movies were already over.
Wang Jing herself has also made literary films that were well-received and unpopular, and invested more, the most famous being "Days and Nights in Tianshui Wai". He didn't care about losing money, saying, "You can't make only one type of film. You must have this kind of film made by me, and those made by directors like Xu Anhua, to be considered a complete, complete and responsible Hong Kong film company." There is a bit of calmness in the words, "I will take the blame and send you to death". He made a mockery of Wong Kar-wai in "Hardcover Brothers and Sisters", showing that his heart is like a mirror. So why does his works rot out of the sky again and again, but his new films always have a star cast. Those old friends, as Andy Lau said, always have "the kindness of women" towards him.
In the face of China's unprecedentedly huge film market, there are not one or two lost directors. It seems unfair to be extra demanding of Wang Jing, perhaps because he has indeed brought us a lot of joy. As the director with the highest total box office income in Hong Kong in the past 30 years, he has skills, accumulation, feelings, no burden, and insight into human desires, so it is not surprising that he can make such a sincere film. However, don't shout "Wang Jing is back", otherwise he will smear your face with shit, urine and farts without any shame, and then sing to you with a smile like Zheng Zhongji:
Why do you still like me, a scoundrel like me, are you stupid or great, everyone in this room has trampled me on how bad the word of mouth is, but you will never be surprised
Even while filming "Chasing the Dragon", he was concocting another "Conquering the Devil", which has not yet been released, but has the characteristics of a typical Wang Jing-style bad movie from the lineup to the poster, and has not seen any painful changes. Signs of the past. For such a director who doesn't care about word of mouth at all, it is not objective to tout the heavens or to degrade it as garbage. It can only lower expectations or have unexpected joy. Only when he realizes that he is about to be abandoned by the market and is in danger of being a box-office failure will he take his serious attitude. "You can see the sunset in the sky, and the fame and interest seem to be fogged." The lyrics of the theme song are also very suitable for him.
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