The fandom battle is not unique to a certain era. In the Hong Kong film industry of the last century, there were many incidents caused by fandom.
The original intention of the older generations to grab the position is more to rectify their own names, rather than competing with the same group of actors. The decisions made by some artists are also very hard.
In 1985, Xu Guanying was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the film "Mr. Zombie", but because he insisted that he was the leading actor, he refused to accept the nomination, thus becoming the first person to reject the Academy Award.
Coincidentally, in 1992, Tony Leung also rejected the nomination for the best actor in the Academy Awards for the same reason as Xu Guanying.
He also publicly stated that he would no longer accept awards from male players in the future, which caused an uproar in the public at the time and even promoted the reform of the selection rules for the Golden Image Awards. The film that caused Tony Leung's doubts was called "The Detective" , which was Wu Yusen's last Hong Kong film before he went to Hollywood to develop.
Looking back at the cast of actors now can be described as star-studded, and there have been many celebrity-level celebrities in the film. Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung play two heroes, while Huang Qiusheng plays the big villain boss.
Actress Mao Shunyun put away her previous comedy positioning and starred in the film as a policewoman, as well as Fa Ge's girlfriend. There are also many familiar faces in the showbiz in the film, including old drama bones like Liu Jiang, and the green faces of Ouyang Zhenhua and Lin Baoyi. The well-known Japanese actor Kunimura Hayabusa also made a cameo in the film. His role was shot in the head shortly after the start of the game. To this day, the film is regarded by countless fans as a classic of violent aesthetics. In the film, only one million Hong Kong dollars was spent on bullets and gunpowder, and gunshots continued throughout the course.
The story tells a bloody battle between the police and the bandits involved in an arms case.
The police officer Yuan Haoyun (played by Zhou Yunfa) was ordered to track down an arms group. After a teahouse fight, Haoyun's colleague (played by Lin Baoyi) unfortunately died in a gun battle. The sacrifice of his colleagues made Haoyun firm in his desire to eliminate evil. Although Haoyun was a policeman, he did not reject the use of extreme methods to punish criminals. He was stuck with Johnny. In the process of hunting, Haoyun has been obstructed by the gangster A Lang (played by Tony Leung).
A Lang is actually a policeman who is undercover by Johnny's side, and Haoyun's brutality has disrupted his work rhythm.
Although A Lang felt resentful, he was still merciful when he met Haoyun. With the keen observation ability of the police for many years, Hao Yun also found out the undercover identity of the other party.
As a result, the two police officers, both light and dark, joined forces to eradicate evil and confronted the common enemy Johnny.
After some investigation, the two found that Johnny’s arsenal was hidden in the basement of the hospital. After rushing to the scene, they fought a fierce bloody battle with each other... Director Wu Yusen went to Hollywood to develop after filming this "Hot Detective". On the occasion of "Farewell" to the Hong Kong film scene, he simply let go of himself and played with his feelings in the movie.
First, he played the violent aesthetic feelings to the extreme , and got through a gunfight addiction firmly.
There were three big gun battles in the whole film. The police and bandits held guns in the teahouse at the beginning, and the blood flew all over the place, and Fa Ge's face was not spared.
In the middle is the gang fight in the garage, which is a visual feast of sparks and lightning. The end of the film is even more "crazy". Wu Yusen arranged a 40-minute hospital shootout.
From the perspective of Fa Ge and Wei Zai, the two joined hands to hit the morgue from the basement, and then exit the corridor from the morgue, and line up with the killers along the road.
This scene is also called by many netizens: the live-action Contra.
There are many types of gunfights here, ranging from simple headshots to shots with machine guns, and even more exciting scenes of police and bandits facing off.
The visual impact is just one word: cool!
The bullets were full of corpses flying horizontally, and the plasma was spraying at every turn. The number was dazzling.
According to statistics from netizens, more than 300 people were "slapped" by guns in this movie. This line in the film may express Wu Yusen's voice:
Bullets are never wasted.
Violence is played to the extreme, and in the bloody sky, Wu Yusen has not lost his aesthetics.
Many of the action designs in the film are full of beauty. The two protagonists' movements through the rain of guns and bullets are very handsome. This scene emerging from the morgue is an example. Wu Yusen also played a wave of personal feelings in the film . The set of the teahouse gunfight scene was placed in the Yunlai Teahouse , which Wu Yusen frequented. Originally, the crew had no plans to set the scene here. After hearing that the 100-year-old Yunlai Teahouse was about to be demolished, Wu Yusen decided to change the scene here.
Under the temporary change of scenes, there was not enough time to prepare the lines, so Wu Yusen let bullets replace the characters' lines "speak". What's interesting is that during the filming of this drama, the crew of Wu Yusen was repeatedly complained about disturbing the people.
After the police came out of the police, it was discovered that Wu Yusen was making a movie. At this time, some police officers even helped Wu Yusen to coordinate with the residents to "intercede", which enabled the scene to be completed smoothly.
Wu Yusen's willfulness does not stop there. He himself also appeared in the film as a retired policeman who instilled spiritual chicken soup on Chow Yun-fat. In 1992, when Wu Yusen bid farewell to the Hong Kong film scene, he used his feelings to brew a pot of "violent aesthetics" to entertain every Hong Kong film fan.
The director's emotional operation is quite a plus, and the actors' performance is equally commendable. The image of Fa Ge's hot-handed detective has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Yuan Haoyun, played by him, was even included in the "Top 100 Greatest Movie Roles in Film History" by "Entertainment Weekly", and finally ranked 33rd. Yuan Haoyun is an anti-traditional hero. He does not have the white and flawless majesty of a regular male protagonist. On the contrary, he has become full of true temperament because of his various "shortcomings".
After the tragic death of his colleague, he would seek all kinds of means for revenge, and would rather be stupid to do it alone, or bite his opponent.
He was not a law-abiding person during the handling of the case, so he pointed a gun at the villain BOSS and yelled at him without clear evidence.
In the dialogue with his boss, the young and energetic also dared to face him directly. Even Haoyun has "stains" that the regular protagonist doesn't have. For example, the accidental killing of a police colleague during duty, and the killing of a police officer by a red police officer are extremely rare in conventional police and criminal films.
And when Tony Leung's role at the end of the movie also blamed himself for manslaughtering the policeman, Haoyun also helped him cover up. Yuan Haoyun’s image of fierce nature but hateful of hatred is already full of charm, coupled with Fa Ge’s own tall and handsome image, the character's demeanor is indeed unforgettable. The most classic scene of the character is undoubtedly the scene of holding a baby bravely through the bullets.
Yuan Haoyun, who was holding the child, shot and killed the enemy with a single shot. Even if he was shot in the waist, he did not change his eyes. These scenes and scenes seemed to make people see the modern version of Zhao Zilong. At the end of the film, Fa Ge rushes out of the explosion with a baby symbolizing hope, behind which is a raging sea of flames symbolizing death.
Fa Ge acts as the "handover rod" between the new life and the passing away. This contrast between life and death is quite meaningful. After talking about Fa Ge, let’s talk about what Tony Leung did that made the Hong Kong Academy Awards “shame”, that is, the rejection of the Academy Awards nomination.
At the time of the filming, Tony Leung was only 30 years old. At this time in his career, he has won two golden male matches, but there is no best male lead for the time being.
For most people, Li Zhi Nian is expected to win the best supporting actor three times, which is a very high achievement.
However, Tony Leung made the decision to reject the nomination. Behind this seemingly "insolent" behavior, Wei Tsai is actually full of confidence. A Lang, played by Tony Leung, is very high in terms of length of appearance and role ratio, and his role halo is actually not weaker than Fa Ge. From this perspective, Tony Leung believes that he is also a male protagonist. But this does not mean that Tony Leung is tearing his fan position with Fa Ge, he just wants to get the affirmation he deserves. In fact, Wu Yusen and Fa Ge also spoke out righteously and publicly supported Wei Zai's decision.
And Tony Leung dared to reject the nomination of the Golden Statue at the age of 30. Another confidence is that he did perform well.
In this film, he plays the image of A Lang, an undercover police officer, which is extremely brilliant. A Lang is a character with tragic colors. His undercover status allows him nowhere to confide in loneliness and sadness. He can only perform tasks coldly.
Years of undercover career has cultivated his ruthless behavior, such as docking with gang traitors in the library, and he gave him a shot when he met. But inside him was very painful and entangled. Every time he killed a person, A Lang would fold a thousand paper cranes, and the thousand paper cranes full of paper cranes told the characters' grief.
The scene in the film that best reflects the two-faced character of the characters, and also best reflects Tony Leung's acting skills, is the scene in which A Lang kills the former uncle Dahai.
In order to investigate the arms case, A Lang defected to Johnny, played by Huang Qiusheng, and the cruel Johnny determined to kill Hai Uncle after his power began to rise.
Although Uncle Hai is a member of the underworld, he usually takes care of A Lang. Even though A Lang feels unbearable, he has to draw his gun and kill him. The changes in the facial expressions of Tony Leung turning around make people see the layers of the characters.
After shooting and killing Uncle Hai, A Lang first turned and walked away, passing by Johnny's side, he squeezed out a smile with heartache.
Then A Lang turned around again, took the machine gun next to him, and shot his old brother with a vent, his eyes filled with the ferocity of the decision-making mentality. In this one and two turns, Tony Leung's acting skills are amazing. The plot did not come from the crew itself, but an improvisational design by Tony Leung. After showing a very high performance effect, Wu Yusen decided to adopt this version.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the image of A Lang in "Hot Detective" is actually the source of inspiration for Chen Yongren in "Infernal Affairs", and "Hot Detective" has achieved Chen Yongren's classic in film history. In the film, A Lang meets with his boss on the rooftop. A Lang's phrase "Only you in Hong Kong know my identity" and the birthday present given by his boss to A Lang were reproduced in Infernal Affairs more than a decade later. The brilliant Alang made Tony Leung widely praised by the outside world, and also made Tony Leung full of confidence when he rejected the nomination for the Academy Awards. This event finally made the Hong Kong Film Awards amend the nomination system, allowing two protagonists in a movie to be nominated at the same time. A few years after the incident, Wei Tsai's confidence was officially recognized. In 1995, he won the Best Actor Award for "Chongqing Forest".
Since his career, he has won the Golden Image Award five times, and he has been reaping the actor awards in the entertainment industry wildly.
Along the way, we saw Tony Leung's courage to say no to the Academy Awards.
In addition to the actors, the core of the film also allows us to read the "flavor of rivers and lakes" in Hong Kong films.
Vicious incidents in Hong Kong occurred repeatedly in 1992. During the same period, huge bandits such as Ye Jihuan and Zhang Ziqiang committed evil. For a time, Hong Kong's law and order aroused concern from the outside world.
In view of this situation, Wu Yusen, who has made many gangster movies, has finalized the theme of the last movie before he leaves Hong Kong, and "Hot Detective", which positively promotes the image of the police, came into being.
Although no longer portraying the morality and grievances of the gangs and brothers in the gang, there are still many flavors of the gang in "Hot Detective". The rivers and lakes here are happy and enmity. After the tragic death of his colleague, Yuan Haoyun smashed his eyes to seek revenge from the other party, fighting for his life only to comfort the undead friends.
The rivers and lakes here have a lot of love and money. Although the old Uncle Dahai was a gangster, he was extremely righteous, and his subordinates also raised a group of loyal subordinates. After being betrayed by Johnny, the affectionate Uncle Hai knew that A Lang couldn't help himself, so he chose to take the initiative to seek death, asking A Lang to help save the other brothers. There are also moral principles in the arena here, as illustrated by the cold one-eyed killer under Huang Qiusheng's command. He despised A Lang who killed the former boss very much, so he was particularly vicious when he started his attack on A Lang. But when he fought A Lang in the ward, the one-eyed killer was unwilling to hurt the innocent. He and A Lang waited for the hospital nurse to retreat before they started fighting. In the end, this assassin was also to prevent Johnny from killing innocents, and was tragically killed by the opponent's gun.
Even if you stay away from the gangs, Wu Yusen's "Hot Detective" still has the shadow of the rivers and lakes.
In summary, there are indeed many highlights of the film, and Wu Yusen's departure from Hong Kong is full of sincerity.
But when it was released in the same year, it eventually suffered a box office decline, ranking 17th on the annual list with just over 19 million. The reason for the theater’s failure is also very simple. That year was called "The Year of Zhou Xingchi". In 1992, the top five movies on the box office chart had star masters, and one person included TOP5. The Hong Kong film industry has entered an era of nonsense at this time. . Coupled with the fact that there were too many gunfight genres during that period, "Hot Detective" was far less lovable in terms of subject matter, and it was not difficult to understand the dismal end of the box office. However, the factors of the times have not prevented the greatness of this movie. Today, this "Hot Detective" is regarded as a classic in movie history by countless media and fans. In 1994, the American "Entertainment Weekly" listed "Hot Detective" as the 18th in the history of Cult movies.
In 2008, the US media "MR. SHOWBIZ" ranked "Hot Detective" as the 2nd place in the history of Hong Kong action movies.
In 2010, "The Hundred Greatest Non-English Films" by the British film magazine "Empire" ranked 70th in "Hot Detective".
Become a frequent visitor in the film history inventory of various media, and the reputation of "Hot Detective" is really strong.
Its influence even spread to other areas.
In 2007, the American game company developed a game called "Gun God", which was completely adapted from "Hot Detective", the protagonist is all imitating Fa Ge's style. Looking back at this movie now 29 years later, we can still appreciate Wu Yusen's persistence in violent aesthetics, feel the style during the peak of Fa Ge, and understand Tony Leung's confidence in rejecting the Golden Image Award.
More importantly, through such a movie, we can look back in time and re-taste the taste of the golden age of Hong Kong films.
Even though time goes by, the taste of Hong Kong movies has always been so positive. Bluestone Movie | Le Lede
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