If you were to ask you the director who is best at making gangster movies in Hong Kong, who would you think of first? Many people may think of To Qifeng, Liu Weiqiang or Chen Musheng, but maybe I will also think of John Woo.
To Qifeng's films focus on plot twists and the creation of atmosphere, such as "The Gunfire", "The Detective" and "Dark War"; Liu Weiqiang became famous for the "Young and Dangerous" series, and reached the peak of art in "Infernal Affairs". The film focuses on the spiritual core and cultural characteristics of the characters, as well as an in-depth analysis of human nature; Chen Musheng's films are more tender and have elements of entertainment.
And John Woo's style is completely different from them. In his gangster films, it is purely violent aesthetics. Gunfights and fights are simple and rude, gorgeous slow motion, the protagonist never runs out of bullets, blood is flying freely, cars explode... Even the music is explosive and rhythmic.
I got to know John Woo from "Face Change". This movie was the most successful movie after he went to Hollywood to develop. The people watching the whole movie were very excited. At that time, he also fell in love with Nicolas Cage because of this movie. Incredible, including the "Wind Whisperer" that they collaborated with again later, it is also highly recommended, so I won't introduce too much here.
The "Hot Detective" I recently watched was one of John Woo's early classic gangster movies, and it was also the last report card he handed over before he went to the United States for development. From "The True Colors of Heroes" and "Blood" to "Across the World", and then to "The Detective", he is directly looking for the best balance between art and business, showing the pure violence aesthetics incisively and vividly.
Watching John Woo's movies actually doesn't require too much use of your brain, because the direction of the story is very clear, and there are not too many plot twists, and that's what "The Detective" is like.
The film tells the story of police detectives and undercover agents: The police detective played by Chow Yun-fat is upright but hot-headed. Because he witnessed the death of his undercover brother in the past, he has a different feeling for the undercover police officer in his heart. The undercover agent played by Tony Leung is a horse boy in the arms gang investigated by Chow Yun-fat. They misunderstood each other at the beginning, then they met and became brothers, and finally destroyed the criminal gang headed by Huang Qiusheng together.
Does this plot look familiar? In the subsequent undercover police and gangster films, including "Infernal Affairs", there are similar plots.
In fact, since the filming of "The True Color of Heroes", John Woo has realized that the "jianghu" atmosphere in Hong Kong movies is too popular. The more movies that praise the image of gangsters, the more impetuous the entire Hong Kong society will become.
In the 1990s, crime incidents caused by gangs in Hong Kong were not uncommon. It was also that John Woo changed the style of gangsters as the protagonist in the past, created a clear image of the police, and guided the society with justice.
In "The Detective", Hao Yun played by Chow Yun-fat and A Lang played by Tony Leung, their righteous images are enough to make the viewers have positive emotions. Haoyun witnessed the death of his police brother, Ah Lang had no choice but to kill the old Uncle Dahai, who respected his father, and they all accidentally killed the police brother in the firefight.
One is living in the open, unable to bring criminals to justice and suffers endlessly; the other is in the dark, undercover life makes him despair.
And it is such a strong contrast of characters, from the misunderstanding at the beginning to the ending of heart-to-heart at the end, which makes the originally tough gunfight movie look a little tender.
If a society only has films like "Young and Dangerous", it will definitely corrupt a generation. We can't define that "The Detective" is a red film with absolutely positive energy, but it can arouse the society's desire for justice.
For this film, in fact, I have to mention the story behind its creation.
In the movie, the bullets and gunpowder cost 100,000 pounds, and the total cost is more than one million Hong Kong dollars. In the final hospital explosion scene, only a quarter of the ammunition that Woo started budgeting was used in consideration of safety issues.
In the last scene, Chow Yun-fat rushed out of the corridor with the baby in his arms. In order to pursue the reality of the scene, John Woo did not tell Chow Yun-fat that there was a blasting point in the corridor. His expression at that time was his most authentic reaction.
The shootout scene in the teahouse is said to be very famous and has a history of more than 100 years. Because it was about to be demolished, John Woo came here to shoot before finishing the script, so there were few lines in the whole scene. shootout. At that time, nearby residents complained that the filming was too noisy, but the police nearby were all John Woo movie fans, so John Woo was allowed to continue filming every night.
There is also the scene in which Tony Leung killed his old Uncle Dahai. It is said that it was not the design of the script. Killing the inner struggle of his most beloved person is difficult to set in words, so John Woo let Tony Leung play freely. I saw his most classic emotional inner play in the movie.
In the movie, we can still see many famous actors who later became famous, such as Ouyang Zhenhua, Liu Jiang, Huang Debin, Lin Qirong...
The process of watching "The Hot Detective" feels like watching a movie with a disc on it when I was a child, and I can even imagine the excitement of watching this kind of movie at that time.
Nowadays, this kind of police and bandit movies and TV series have been flooded for a long time, but in fact, there are very few movies that can really show emotion. Maybe it is to taste old movies to have nostalgic feelings.
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