1993 was the year of Hong Kong's costume martial arts films, and 6 of the top ten films in the box office in the same year were costume films. 1993 was also the era of popular shooting of "spoof costume films", among which "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang" and "East into West", which have become classic masterpieces, are full of subversion and ridicule of folk tales and martial arts novels.
At that time, Wang Jing, who was not willing to live behind the people, also devoted himself to this camp, and in this year alone, he personally directed four comedy martial arts films, namely "Yitian Slaughtering Dragon", "Laughing Man Chu Liuxiang", "Huang Feihong's Iron Chicken Fighting Centipede" and "The Heavenly Sword of the Seven Princesses of Wuxia", plus a "Nerve Knife and Flying Sky Cat" directed by Zhu Yanping, which he was the producer, making this year's Hong Kong films appear very lively.
Wang Jing's four martial arts films, in fact, the author most favors "Seven Princesses of Wuxia", I think this film is the most representative of Wang Jing's style and personality of a martial arts film in the entire 1990s, and it can also be regarded as the author's "lily enlightenment".
Perhaps "East becomes West" completely stimulated Wang Jing's playfulness and exuberant creative state, in this movie, the "tricks" he made can be described as more than Liu Zhenwei - which not only contains martial arts, zombies, fantasy, fantasy and nonsense types, but also Wang Jing once again tried his best to spoof things, placing his own favorite comic elements into it, using one paragraph after another to form the entire big story, plus several high-level fight scenes designed by Cheng Xiaodong for this film. It is probably not too much to call it the pinnacle of Hong Kong-made commercial entertainment films, not only is the audience stimulated to watch, but Wang Jing must have shot quite happily on the set.
In 1993, Wang Jing had a lot of films on her body, so presumably this "Seven Princesses of Wuxia" is also a rush work, but Wang Jing has the ability to "stew miracles in a chaotic pot". The film was inspired by the "Seven Princesses of Shao", which was popular all over the Xiangjiang River that year, and after Wang Jing's packaging, a new lineup of seven princesses was created with Yang Ziqiong, Zheng Yuling, Wu Junru, Zhang Min, Chen Jialing, Guan Yonghe and Maggie Cheung.
Come, put a few beautiful photos of the goddess first!
Chen Jialing
Wu Junru, Maggie Cheung, Kwan Wing Ho, Zheng Yuling
The Seven Princesses of the Shaw Clan at that time
In terms of narrative background, Wang Jing imitates "The Undefeated East of the Smiling Pride of the Rivers and Lakes", which tells the story of a group of martial artists who swore to die to resist the invasion and occupation of the Central Plains by the Eastern Ying warriors during the Ming Dynasty's Wanli Dynasty, when the Wukou were plagued. In the film, Ren Dahua plays the evil and compelling Dongying hegemonic sword Liu Sheng killing god, also like the oriental undefeated, Hattori Senjun and ape flying sun and moon mixture, especially he turned himself into a large blade design, well, very curious.
Although the title of the film is written "Seven Princesses of Wuxia", the film almost does not distinguish between the protagonists and supporting roles, except for Kwan Wing Ho, especially the big stars involved in this film, everyone's role and importance are equal, and a number of male actors are equally impressive. For example, Shangguan Wuji, the first master of the Central Plains played by Liu Songren, did not hesitate to drill his heart in order to defeat Liu Sheng's killing god, and went into the fire, from the beginning of the awe-inspiring justice to the later change of the acting skills of the evil charm and madness, which was extremely dramatic.
When Wang Jing filmed this type of film, if Xingye did not get it, it was generally indispensable to Zhang Weijian. He played Wu Mengda's apprentice in the film, and his performance method naturally needless to say, still continuing his consistent image of being mean in Wang Jing's movies; and the ghost doctor played by Wu Mengda, the leader of the Huatuo Sect, is also somewhat similar to Hai Dafu, who has become a crazy state in "Deer Ding", but in the end it has a tragic ending, which is unimaginable. As mentioned earlier, because this film is a rush to shoot, Wang Jing is a bit "lazy" in terms of role setting, which is also reasonable.
Perhaps because the box office of "Nerve Knife and Flying Cat", which was released earlier than this film, is not ideal, Wang Jing has no choice but to show her housekeeping skills to process the content of the film more abundantly and open people's eyes. In order to enhance its fun, the appearance of some props in the movie is very curious, such as the "slow mud" that will slow people's actions and speech, the "white bone yin and yang rice" that makes people suddenly turn into skeletons, the "black heart cream" that makes people become ungrateful, and so on. Zhang Weijian in the movie originally wanted to use these props to poison his wife Zheng Yuling, but he did not expect to suffer the consequences in the end. In addition, there are also "peacock open screen swords" and "idiot mood long paste" in order to enhance the comedic effect, etc., which also triggered a lot of meat jokes, especially Zheng Yuling originally wanted to use "crazy mood long paste" to save Zhang Weijian, but the result was cheap to become a zombie green-clad evil god. Although these bridges are only to enhance the fun embellishment of the whole film and have no substantial impact on the development of the plot, there are certainly many viewers who will eat this set.
Regarding the martial arts design, this film is not bad because it is escorted by Cheng Xiaodong. Although he is famous in the film industry with many martial arts films he has cooperated with Xu Ke, after all, he is subject to people, and many martial arts scenes created by Cheng Xiaodong may not be able to fully represent his ideas, but working with Wang Jing is different. Wang Jing's filming has always been less restrictive to stunt staff, which also gives Cheng Xiaodong more freedom in martial arts design, so his imagination is as uncontrollable as the flood that opens the floodgates.
There are three action scenes that the author remembers deeply in this film, the first is the fight scene where the heavens and the earth explode, flying sand and stones, especially the "Xuantian Jade Female Sword Array" used by everyone at the end of the film, six swords are fired in unison, and the six gods are combined and then split, which is breathtaking. The second scene is the scene of the winged Dongying warriors colliding and dying, the blood spraying out, and the scene where Ren Dahua is finally split by multiple swords, which is rare in the films of Cheng Xiaodong and Wang Jing.
Third, I don't know if Liu Zhenwei referred to this movie when filming "Journey to the West", Lan Jieying in "Journey to the West" is the same as the shape of Zhang Min becoming a spider essence in this film, but the cult flavor here is undoubtedly stronger.
At the same time, Wang Jing did not give up his "spoof nature", first through Wu Junru teased the Cantonese opera master Ren Jianhui, and then let her imitate Bruce Lee's signature style. And Yang Ziqiong, who fought against it, also used a leg method that was quite similar to Huang Feihong's Foshan shadowless foot. In addition, the film is also like "East becomes West", making jokes about well-known people and things that belong to modern times, such as Wu Junru asking Zhang Weijian "Where is Ni Zhen", and his answer is "Won't you ask Zhou Huimin?" And Zhang Weijian even called himself a young warrior who was "a unique double pride, relying on the sky to slaughter dragons, divine carving books and swords, snow mountain flying foxes, invincible silkworm changes", as well as Li Dachao's "Flowers and Flowers Too Old Peng Dingkuang", the innuendo is also very obvious.
Because of the fierce films in 1993, coupled with the endless emergence of works of the same type, the audience has felt aesthetic fatigue, and if there is no too bright selling point, it is difficult to stand out. Because of "East into West" first, Wang Jing's follow-up work will naturally not arouse too much interest, so the box office is also quite bleak, only more than 9.8 million Hong Kong dollars, coincidentally, it also and their own supervision of the "Nerve Knife and Flying Cat" to become a "difficult brother" (this film ranked 37th in the box office list that year, and "Nerve Knife" ranked 38th). It is such a film with a dismal box office, but now it looks so "precious", it gathers the golden lineup that is impossible to put together no matter how high the price is today, and to some extent, it also shows that the Hong Kong films of that year are indeed incomparably brilliant.