Jet Li, Emperor of Kung Fu; Xu Ke, Martial Arts Grandmaster; the most famous work they collaborated on was the "Huang Feihong" trilogy.
Xu Ke was bent on making it a "Chinese past", showing the era of great changes that had not occurred in three thousand years.
Xu Ke wanted to shoot the theme of "Huang Feihong" as early as the 80s, but he was struggling to find a suitable actor, he once thought of Dillon playing Huang Feihong, Zhou Runfa playing Liang Kuan, representing Wulin and Shijing respectively, but did not expect the "Hero's True Colors" to be a fire, afraid that the audience would stop playing.
As for Jet Li, Tsui Ke noticed the Reiki kung fu boy as early as when "Shaolin Temple" was released in Hong Kong, and it was not until 1989 that the two collaborated on "Dragon Walking the World" under the leadership of David Luo.
However, the film was not released that year, but was pressed by Jiahe to the bottom of the box, until the big sale of "Huang Feihong" later, "Dragon Walking the World" rubbed a wave of heat before it was finally released.
After David Luo became Jet Li's agent, Shunshi let him sign a contract with Jiahe, at this time, Jet Li's image and Huang Feihong in Xu Ke's mind were relatively close, and all aspects were more mature, Xu Ke finally decided to start filming "Huang Feihong", shooting three in one go, each of which is a classic.
Xu Ke's "Huang Feihong" trilogy integrates the era of corruption and incompetence, opium smearing, poverty and numbness of the people in the city, and dusk and dusk, with the background music of Huang Xia, it seems desolate and magnificent, and there is a hidden vitality of poverty and change, breaking the cocoon.
This is an important reason for the attractiveness of the "Huang Feihong" trilogy, coupled with Jet Li's handsomeness, seriousness without losing humor, domineering without losing warmth, making it a classic.
After Jet Li, the image of middle-aged Huang Feihong was basically fixed, and no one surpassed him after that. In fact, in addition to the trilogy, Xu Ke and Jet Li also collaborated on a "Huang Feihong", that is, "Huang Feihong's Western Lion".
01, Jet Li's last "Huang Feihong" movie
When filming "Huang Feihong No. 2: Boys Should Strengthen Themselves", Jet Li and Jiahe had a strike because of the "film remuneration" problem, and later resumed filming under the mediation of all parties.
After the "Huang Feihong" trilogy, Jet Li and Jia He parted ways and formed zhengdong film company to create classics such as "Fang Shiyu", "Fang Shiyu Sequel", "Taiji Zhang Sanfeng", "Jingwu Hero" and so on.
At the same time, he cooperated with Xiang Huasheng xiang Huaqiang of Yongsheng in works such as "Huang Feihong's Iron Chicken Fighting Centipede", "The Demon Sect Leader of the Dragon Slayer in Yitian", "Letter to Daddy" and so on.
Looking at Xu Ke again, although there is no Jet Li, the popular IP of "Huang Feihong" cannot be abandoned, so Zhao Wenzhuo was found to take over Huang Feihong and filmed "The Wind of the King of Huang Feihong" and "Huang Feihong's Fifth: Dragon City Fighter".
At the same time, he also planned "The Iron Horse of Young Huang Feihong" with Yuan Heping, but without Jet Li's "Huang Feihong", as if there was no soul, the film box office was all on the street.
"Young Huang Feihong's Iron Horse" is of excellent quality, although it was not born at the right time, but it was favored by Quentin and was able to be released in North America, which made some money.
In 1993, the "Huang Feihong" theme was flooded, and many follow-up works were released, which were hit at the box office, which also led to no one touching this theme again.
Until 1997, under the leadership of Yongsheng Xiang Huaqiang, directed by Hong Jinbao, supervised by Xu Ke, Jet Li and Guan Zhilin CP returned, "Huang Feihong's Western Lion" was born.
The film was released in Hong Kong on February 1, 1997, and earned HK$30.26 million, ranking Third in the annual box office list, with Jackie Chan's "A Good Man" and Stephen Chow's "97 Happy Things" that year.
"Huang Feihong's Lion in the Western Regions" is Jet Li's last "Huang Feihong" movie, and the box office of more than 30 million yuan has brought the series to a successful end.
02. Plagiarism of Jackie Chan's "Who Am I"?
Jackie Chan's "Who Am I" was released in Hong Kong on January 17, 1998, nearly a year later than "Huang Feihong's Lion of the Western Regions", "Who Am I" Jackie Chan fell into the African Savage tribe due to amnesia and Wong Feihong's amnesia mistakenly entered the Indian tribe, many students may think that Jackie Chan copied the idea of Jet Li's film.
In fact, this story was first mentioned by Jackie Chan, who at the beginning planned to work with "The Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola to make a Western film called "Lion of the West".
It is said that at one dinner table, he and his eldest brother Da hong Jinbao talked about this story, the story is set in the Qing Dynasty, a large internal guard on the way to the American West to rescue the princess due to amnesia was saved by the Indians, followed by the great war of western cowboys and other plots.
Jackie Chan had no intention, but Hong Jinbao put it in his heart, and when he went back, he found several screenwriters such as Situ Zhuohan, Shi Meiyi, Xu Shalang, etc., and asked them to write down the story, which was later "Huang Feihong's Lion of the Western Regions".
Hong Jinbao has been the "Terminator" of martial arts films before "Huang Feihong's Lion of the Western Regions", directing "Legend of the God of War" to make Andy Lau lose blood, and "A Knife to the City" has lost Luo Wei's coffin.
In the 1980s, Hong Jinbao was so spirited, "Ghost Fighting Ghosts" pioneered psychic action films, "Five Lucky Stars" series of hard and hard new art city's "Best Partner", most of the crew in Hong Kong stopped working to make cameos in his "Rich Train", when he was angry, it was bound to prove that he could also sell for martial arts films.
Hong Jinbao has proved that he is not a martial arts film "Dark Lantern", but the "little brother" Jackie Chan pit, but Jackie Chan does not care about these, and then derives the story of "Lion of the Western Regions" into "Who Am I" and "Shanghai Noon", which are still sold out and are not affected at all.
03, "Huang Feihong" broke into the United States
The perfect lineup of "Huang Feihong" movie: Jet Li's Huang Feihong + Guan Zhilin's thirteen aunts + Mo Shaocong's Liang Kuan + Xiong Xinxin's ghost foot seven + Jacky Cheung's tooth rub Su + Zheng Zeshi's pork Rong.
This film is also half of the collection, combining kung fu films and Westerns, allowing "Huang Feihong" to break into the United States, so that the audience can see the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures, and the idea is very good.
In terms of action, Hong Jinbao and Xu Ke are perfectly different, Xu Ke pays attention to the master's charm of Chinese feelings, and Hong Jinbao likes to give a sense of impact visually, compared with "A Knife in the City", it can be understood that the editing is more frequent and compact. In addition, a gunfight element has been added, which is also to fit the Western cowboy.
"Huang Feihong's Lion of the Western Regions" has many ups and downs in the creation of the script, and the story is also a bit patchwork, but the overall integration of kung fu martial arts western and other genres, both gag jokes, but also for the nation, history, country and individual thinking, called excellent works.
In the play, a generation of grandmaster Huang Feihong lost his memory and asked who I am? After recovering his memory, he became the hope of a Chinese worker, but everyone only wanted to see him show martial arts, but he couldn't listen to the great principle of unity and self-improvement, and even many of them fell asleep, and the film also showed the inferiority of the Chinese in that era, the courage to fight among themselves, ignorance and superstition, and timidity and fear.
In fact, the amnesia of "Wong Fei Hung" was not the identity crisis of Hong Kong people at that time, the helplessness and self-improvement of Chinese people overseas, and it was not the pressure of Hong Kong filmmakers facing Hollywood blockbusters.
Later, we all knew that Jet Li and Jackie Chan had broken into Hollywood, and Xu Ke and Hong Jinbao had also tried, but the results were not so ideal.
Hong Kong films have experienced more than 100 episodes of the "Wong Fei Hung" movie, and "Wong Fei Hung's Lion of the Western Regions" has brought this series to a successful end, and it is also the final glory of the "Wong Fei Hung" movie. (Author: Xiao Xiangzi)