Chapter 36 Chapter Thirty-Six Narrowing Types Based on Professional Myths

For some reason, I feel that Hong Kong-produced films in recent years have more or less fallen into a professional myth.The pursuit of professionalism is a good thing in a year, especially Hong Kong films have been criticized for being sloppy in production, especially in the post of screenwriter, who often play tricks or go too far, insulting the wisdom of the audience and so on.That is of course a positive trend, but unfortunately, I do feel that sometimes the cart is turned upside down—that is, in order to highlight the efforts in data collection and the intentions in conceiving the script, there are often problems of being professional and professional. Instead, it ignores the characters' personalities and even the overall layout.

"The Disciple" in 2007 is already one of the obvious examples.Er Dongsheng made it clear that all chariots and horses are professional first. Through the mouth of Kun Ge (played by Andy Lau), we seem to have assumed the role of Ali (played by Daniel Wu), and we have been learning and understanding the mysterious and attractive drug world in front of us—— Among them, the drug production process (just like a chemistry class in middle school), drug trafficking marketing system, international drug trafficking situation and even proper nouns (the police are called Sizai, and the drug dealers are called U.S. dollars—referring to heroin bricks), etc., all explain the audience’s doubts one by one. .The previously well-received "Eavesdropping" (2009) is also professionally presented in detail, so the audience is enough to sneak into the target's office to install eavesdropping devices, and even intercept the private content of compatriots' phone calls. I watched with gusto.Originally professional production does not conflict with the basic drama requirements of the film, but things are often impossible to be so clear-cut.

Therefore, seeing the appearance of "Accident" (2009), the feeling of sitting on pins and needles became more and more intense.You can see how the director took great pains to conceive Gu Tianle's magical photos and the layout of the murder scene, but this type of "high-intelligence film" further involved in the professional myth, sincerely speaking, it is indeed not Zheng Poorui strengths.In fact, is it true that Hong Kong films can only prove their "professional" level by combining Mak Siu-fai and Chong Man-keung?Cheng Po-sui has always been interested in the dark side and uniqueness of characters, and he is good at portraying ordinary characters, but the disadvantage is that he usually cannot reflect the commonness of life from the uniqueness, so the positive evaluation of the work is that it is full of cult flavor, and the negative is just a dead end , It is difficult to trigger the resonance of the general audience.Going back to the example of "Accident", the original allure of Gu Tianle's character is that he should be portrayed as an ordinary person. In this way, his unpredictable image as the "accident" manipulator is chilling.Now Cheng Po-sui reverses his usual extreme treatment, so the audience will only look further and further away from the text world.As for the so-called "intelligent" professional murder design in the movie, probably the audience will only smile at each other.

I speculate that the myth of professionalism, or the packaging that has evolved into "smart films", is probably a last resort after considering the balance between the two markets.When elements of Hong Kong's horror, pornography and violence cannot enter the mainland market, what else can purely Hong Kong-produced films bring?In fact, a director such as Cheng Po-sui is actually very suitable to present his own world on the basis of genre films. In the past, his excellent performances in "Horror Hotline: Big Head Monster Baby" (2001) and "Hot-Blooded Youth" (2002) have long been It is obvious to all.Because the rules and regulations of genre films are actually an effective reminder to prohibit creators from going too far and talking to themselves.And the rules in it can also construct the illusion of commonality for the film, preventing the director from stepping into a dead end of fantasy due to lack of control.But in the current Hong Kong film market, because ghost films and pornographic films have long gone north, and genres such as martial arts and literature are not suitable for everyone, so in order to continue to make films, there is a mismatch between the director and the genre in my opinion. situation.

Recently, Kan Jiaming edited the new book "Slipping Passion - Hong Kong Movies in the 1980s". Interestingly, I found that many commentators believed that the genres constructed by Hong Kong films in the golden years of the past have gradually disappeared. Or a tendency to dilute.Chen Jiaming bluntly stated that "urban love" has deteriorated into a genre that has lost its locality, while "common folk comedy" simply does not exist; while Pu Feng even believes that costume martial arts films have begun to decline as early as the late 1980s.In fact, behind the scenes, there is an emotional sigh that cannot be concealed: today's Hong Kong films are no longer colorful.But in a situation where there is no clue, there is a tendency to divide into two poles: one is to keep appropriating the myth of the golden years of the past. January's "Happy Family 2009" is an obvious example of resurrecting the dead (note that it is "appropriation" rather than " "Copy", because the content structure has long been unprepared); the second is to reconstruct immediately as soon as the word-of-mouth appears, and "Accident"'s efforts to pursue "high intelligence" are also clearly visible.But both of them have not completed their efforts, and they can't kill a new blood path. Everyone still has to wait.