to chat with friends. Friends said that during the Cultural Revolution, a cadre was overthrown and imprisoned. Everyone avoided it like a plague. The only one who saw the door was pitiful. bottom of the bowl. After the Cultural Revolution, this person was rehabilitated and promoted, and the gatekeeper was rewarded. I replied without thinking: Jie Zhitui even cut off the meat on his thighs for the master to eat, but he was burned to death.
It suddenly felt like this kind of dialogue appeared in that movie.
Then I recalled Zhou Xingchi's "The Dead Judge" effortlessly.
——Learn to do business. Husband, Zhang San from the street made a fortune at the end of last year.
——But Li Si at the end of the street hanged himself at the beginning of this year!
So I suddenly miss this movie I have seen countless times and Stephen Chow who brought a lot of laughter. After watching it from the beginning, my originally vague thoughts gradually became clear, and I decided to write something about Stephen Chow's movies, why we love him, and why I was disappointed in "Journey to the West: Conquering the Devil".
For a long time, Stephen Chow's films have been labeled "nonsensical", academically expressed as "postmodern deconstruction", and more vulgar and superficial as "feces and pee farts" (such as the "miserable life" in "Tang Bohu's Autumn Fragrance"). It is to eat Lazard after eating, but to eat Lazarus and then to eat life is to eat Lazarus miserable”). I don't deny that these labels are correct, but I think there's always something else under the labels, behind the pretense of being crazy and acting like a madman. It is these things that are ignored by us that secretly influence us and make us love Stephen Chow so unswervingly, although he is not a likable person off-screen, and is always criticized by friends, colleagues and girlfriends, Even the waiter in the restaurant complained that Mr. Zhou always tipped very little.
When we put Stephen Chow's classics side by side and search for commonalities, the answer emerges. In order to find out this answer, let us take a look at "The Gambler", "The Gambler", "The Dead Judge", "Domestic Lingling Paint", "The Great Inner Detective", "The Invincible Lucky Star", "The Invincible Lucky Star", The common points of the films such as Jiupin Sesame Official, Journey to the West, God of Cooking, Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qi'er, The King of Comedy, Tang Bohu Points to Autumn Fragrance, and Kung Fu, to find the creation of Stephen Chow-style films ideas. (Chow Xingchi-style movies are a general term, not just Chow Xingchi himself, but also the joint efforts of directors, screenwriters, supporting roles, etc.)
In this series of films, we found the following rules:
First, Chow Xingchi's characters are all different Eye-catching little people. (In "The God of Cooking", he appeared as the God of Cookery and the big boss, but unfortunately he was soon knocked to the ground, lost his career and became a gangster. For beggars, or the kind with broken meridians)
Second, little people are often insulted and hurt in life. (Remember the big slap he slapped in "The Great Inner Detective"? Then he could only be a gynecologist, and was arrested to wash the mountains of dishes)
Third, small people rarely have goals and persistence, and they are confused Kidnapping, just living by, has the unique wisdom and wilting of small people, and lives strong and optimistic. (In "Invincible Lucky Star" and "Kung Fu", he is a gangster with no guts and no taste. In "Journey to the West", he is a promising bandit leader. In "Domestic Lingling Paint", he is a pig who owes his overnight fee. Guy)
Fourth, after being involved in a storm involuntarily, use your own unique way to defeat the opponent and pierce the mask of hypocrisy of the big man. (There are various ways of defeating opponents, including wit, invention, courage, and realm, but they are not willing to let go of those big men who provide help. If the emperor who encounters prostitutes in "Nine Pins of Sesame Officials" is the last If the death of Hua Liu is to increase the laugh, the conscious and unnecessary dwarfing of the Eight Palace patrols in "The Death Judge" makes the overall criticism more obvious)
Fifth, and the most crucial point, after the little guy won the war he didn't want to fight, he didn't take advantage of the situation to become a big guy, and he still returned to the original trajectory of his life. (In "The Gambler" and "The Gambler", Zhou Xingchi was a country boy, but he only learned to press his feet when he went to the door of the god of gambling. In the end, the little gangster in "Invincible Lucky Star" did not live and merge into the formality with the help of his second uncle. Still a gangster, still a trash phoenix. Although there is a rescue in "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qi'er", he still wants to be the overlord among beggars - still a beggar. The hero who regained the dinosaur skull in "Domestic Lingling Paint" Still selling meat in the market, the kitchen knives with the words "national hero" written on the chopping board are so carelessly cut. Even the all-powerful Monkey King Monkey King in "Journey to the West" has to be added with a comment" He's like a dog.")
So we like him.
After all, Stephen Chow is also a dreamer. Many of us who are exhausted under the pressure of life, we go to the cinema, we open the VCD, we click on the hard drive, and watch a story of a daydream that Stephen Chow told us. The little guy who crushes but still makes jokes is obviously himself, and then we watch his joys, sorrows and sorrows, and we rejoice at his victory, and then he will definitely return to the ordinary market, he is us, There was only a dream in the middle, but what a wonderful dream it was.
It's not that Cinderella marrying a prince is a daydream, it's not that I'm ugly, I'm incompetent, I'm bad-tempered, I'm not good at all, but there are two or three Prince Charming around me, just blind and trying to rub my heart It's just a daydream when it's broken and shown to me. It's not that Xiaosan flew from Beijing to Seattle and finally met a pick-up man. Stephen Chow's movies are too, but he hides too many nonsense and gags, we have forgotten this for a long time, so we like him, we say we like nonsense, but we all forget the deepest emotion behind nonsense.
It is said that Stephen Chow worshipped Bruce Lee. It is said that he wants to act in an action movie. It is said that he most wanted to be a tragic actor. So when we saw Kung Fu, we knew his Bruce Lee dream and action movie dream came true, and after dozens of minutes of hippie gag, you saw his effort to be a hero, and he was like that Standing there, putting away all the exaggerated performances, his expression was calm, his posture was as dignified as a mountain, and every move and style showed the grandmaster's demeanor.
Then there is "Yangtze River No. 7". Stephen Chow played a tragic migrant worker as he wished. There are not too many deliberate expressions and accusations, but the omnipresent sadness is overwhelming. But I want to tell him that you are already a great tragic actor. Who can forget Yin Tianqiu's dazed expression when he was taken back to the script in "The King of Comedy" and his unwillingness to let go of the script. Five torn fingers? Let us laugh with tears, Yin Tianqiu who smiles with tears.
Some people say that it is cruel to limit a person with dreams to vulgar jokes like shit, but I want to tell Zhou Xingchi that we never equate your work and our story with vulgarity and shit.
So disappointed in "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons". There are still many wonderful jokes, especially the part where the article sings a nursery rhyme to the fish demon. There are still a lot of familiar Hong Kong-specific jokes, such as the blood-spraying device and the airbag-powered chariot. The most exciting scene is Huang Bo's scene with Shu Qi in the cave, which made people laugh. But it's different. After all, this is not the Stephen Chow movie we are familiar with. In the film, the article still plays a small character, but this little character is very loving, persistent and persistent. He has always been so loving and persistent, and then he became a Buddha. He did not return to the ordinary market. He left us, leaving only a tall back that needs to be looked up.
The once subversive is now on the altar.
I once maliciously hoped that "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" would fail miserably, maybe so that Stephen Chow could star in the next movie himself, and no matter what he made, I would go to the cinema. However, the box office of 1.2 billion shattered this possibility.
It's fine even if you come out and run around. Maybe you've done too many dead tricks, sorry, I shouldn't have added a dead word.
Are you going to leave after all?
Then continue your directing path, you won't see it in the film, and it's good to be a director.
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