On New Year's Day in 1975, Yang Ye came out with "Shaolin Temple".
Immediately, with Hong Kong as the center, it swept the film markets of various countries. Everywhere it went, it was bound to cause shocks in the local film scene and arouse strong reactions from people.
The Chinese media at the time commented that Yang Ye pioneered real kung fu movies and was the second milestone in Chinese movies after Bruce Lee.
The global box office of "Shaolin Temple" exceeded US$100 million, and the monk Jueyuan played by Yang Ye has become a classic image in the history of world cinema.
Eighteen years later, when Yang Ye paid tribute to "Shaolin Temple" at the end of "Kung Fu" and once again appeared as Jue Yuan, many people in the screening room cried.
At this moment, they recalled the carefree time when they went to the cinema with their family to watch "Shaolin Temple" when they were young.
At that time, they were sitting next to their parents, staring at the big screen, and even forgot to eat the snacks in their hands.
At that time, they were silent in the world of movies, imagining that they, like Jue Yuan, had magical kung fu to punish rape and eradicate evil, and maintain world peace.
Now that they have grown up, most of their beautiful childhood dreams have been shattered, and many memories can only be treasured in their hearts.
Now, Yang Ye used a lens to bring out all those memories.
Are those beautiful dreams really shattered?
No, they just collected dust.
The vast majority of people in this world are ordinary people. For those legendary heroes, their lives can only be said to be mediocre.
But no one will settle for being ordinary, that is just to comfort themselves.
Therefore, some ordinary people will project their dreams to another person, who is the so-called idol.
The general meaning is that I know that I may not be able to shine brightly in this life, so I will contribute my meager strength to you, and you can shine for me!
Yang Ye is such a shining idol. From the moment he debuted twenty years ago, he has been moving forward with the dreams of countless people.
Therefore, when people see Yang Ye reappearing the image of Jue Yuan, like a meteor streaking through the sky, tears can't stop flowing out.
Jue Yuan is now stronger than before, but also more compassionate.
He clasped his hands together and remained silent. When the Fire Cloud Evil God wanted to launch another sneak attack, he just lightly used his palm. The wind passed by and the house behind him was pierced through. But nothing happened to the Fire Cloud Evil God.
At this moment, he finally grew into a Kung Fu master who punishes rape and eliminates evil and maintains world peace.
The golden needle fell to the ground and made a crisp sound. The hidden weapon of Fire Cloud Evil God bloomed like a lotus in his hand, and flew to the distant sky like a bamboo dragonfly.
"What kind of palm technique is this?"
"If you want to learn, I'll teach you!"
There were no sermons such as "The sea of suffering is boundless, but turning back is the end" or "Put down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha immediately". Just a simple sentence made the evil god kneel down and be convinced.
"I lost!"
At this moment, his spirit sublimated again and became a god-like existence.
Where should a man who has become a god go?
The lotus hidden weapon flew across the sky, turned into a small white flower, and landed next to the mute girl.
When the mute girl saw the flower, she thought it was very beautiful. She pushed the ice cream cart and continued walking forward. She saw a child eating a lollipop and a candy store.
It turned out that after becoming a god, he opened a candy store.
He saw the mute girl, and he walked out. They stood opposite each other, their eyes met, and in an instant, they dreamed back to their childhood.
He held her hand and walked into the candy store together.
God finally returned to the ordinary, completed the redemption of the soul, and found true love!
This was a perfect ending. The audience in the cinema was infected and burst into warm applause.
However...this movie is more than just that.
People suddenly discovered that the various characters coming and going in the background were all people who had appeared in the movie before.
Jiangbao is picking up girls, the four-eyed boy is strutting through the city with Azhen in his arms, the Hong family's iron fist passes them by, the Condor Heroes are walking from a distance cuddling together, the dentist in the walled city is standing at the intersection directing traffic... …
This ending is so fucking amazing. People suddenly realize that all of this is fiction?
Were all those bizarre and absurd adventures before just a boy's martial arts dream?
Those so-called martial arts masters are actually just ordinary people that the boy sees and hears every day. Through the boy's fantasy, they turned into the martial arts masters in the movie?
Or, in a boy's fantasy world, where crouching tigers, hidden dragons are in the martial arts world, every seemingly ordinary person around you is actually a hidden peerless master?
This ending gives the movie a flavor of Zhuang Zhou’s Dream of Butterflies, Ye Fei Ye, which is so thought-provoking!
……
After the movie was screened, there was a lively discussion in the screening room.
The attitude of the audience in this time and space towards Yang Ye's "Kung Fu" is different from the attitude of the audience in the original time and space towards Zhou Xingchi's version of "Kung Fu".
When Stephen Chow's version of "Kung Fu" came out, there were many negative reviews. Even Doubi didn't get a score of 7, only 6.8.
Because the movie "Kung Fu" was such a contrast to Zhou Xingchi that people couldn't adapt to it for a while.
Most of Zhou Xingchi's previous roles were glib, lustful, and occasionally funny people who betrayed their friends. Of course, they are kind at heart.
The style of those movies is mainly comedy, very funny and very down-to-earth.
But "Kung Fu" suddenly took on a dark style. At the beginning of the movie, the police station was massacred with blood, then the Ax Gang was massacred, and then the Pig Cage Walled City was massacred...
One after another, the scenes continued to escalate, and masters were killed one after another. It was not a movie from Zhou Xingchi at all, but the violent aesthetics of John Woo and Quentin.
Moreover, in terms of performance, Zhou Xingchi no longer continued his previous funny style, but became serious, returned to his original nature, and tended to be restrained.
Therefore, many people at the time couldn't accept it. They thought that Zhou Xingchi had exhausted his talents and said that he was not funny enough and had to use special effects to make up for it.
Some domestic media even criticized Zhou Xingchi, saying that he won at the box office but lost in word of mouth and so on.
Of course, this media might be a troll trying to sew anus.
But in fact, the image Zhou Xingchi finally showed in "Kung Fu" is the image he most longs to be in his heart, brave, strong, upright, and tolerant.
His childhood dream was to become a kung fu master like Bruce Lee, but without the opportunity, he could only choose Bruce Lee's second career and become an actor.
When he was an actor, he did not become an action actor, but became a comedian.
When he became famous, he found that many people did not respect him, but just wanted to see this dick make a fool of himself in the movie.
He actually...can't accept himself like this.
So, he stopped acting later.
……
For Yang Ye, he is a genuine kung fu master. In almost all the kung fu movies he has made, he is the one who dominates everything.
The limited number of deaths were either willing to die at the hands of women, or suddenly being plotted against, and he was never truly defeated.
Although "Kung Fu" has gone through a process from weak to strong, he said in advance that this movie is autobiographical and tells what happened before his debut.
Although the movie was shot rightly and wrongly, people were still confused after watching it, and his past became even more mysterious. But there won't be a situation like Zhou Xingchi's version of "Kung Fu" where he won't adapt or accept it because the contrast is too great.
On the other hand, people have not yet experienced the baptism of Hollywood special effects blockbusters, and the special effects scenes shown in "Kung Fu" are very shocking.
Xu Ke sighed: "An ancient person said that as soon as Dongpo's "Shui Tiao Ge Tou" came out, the rest of the Mid-Autumn Festival lyrics became useless. In my opinion, as soon as Director Yang's "Kung Fu" came out, all the martial arts films on the market , I’m afraid it will all be ended.”
Xu Ke is a master of martial arts films. He lamented that "Kung Fu" will end all martial arts films, which surprised many people at the scene.
The host asked: "Why did Director Xu say this?"
Xu Ke said: "Because Director Yang once again innovated the martial arts film.
In fact, our Hong Kong martial arts films have experienced changes from generation to generation.
In the Cantonese film era, everyone used very crude special effects to show martial arts, such as "Tathagata Palm".
When it came to the two masters Hu Jinquan and Zhang Che, they began to demonstrate martial arts in a real way, one by one, and produced "Dragon Gate Inn" and "One-Armed Sword".
Until Director Yang came out, he continued to innovate martial arts movies starting with "Shaolin Temple".
In "The Swordsman", he used sharp editing to make the martial arts elegant and agile, giving it a new brilliance.
Well, I also made some changes to martial arts movies in movies such as "Once Upon a Time".
However, in terms of the embodiment of martial arts, it has always been a forbidden area that no one has touched.
When we read martial arts novels, we have imagined countless times what those magical martial arts would look like.
How cool are the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms, the Ecstasy Palm, and the Great Shift of the Universe?
How amazing are the Lion's Roar Kung Fu, Xiao Li's Flying Knife, and the Six Meridians Divine Sword?
However, few movies and TV series can be truly shot, and even if they are, they are only made with poor special effects.
Those poor special effects simply cannot express the colorful and unconstrained martial arts world.
But this "Kung Fu" shows the amazing martial arts with unconstrained special effects and all-out special effects, which satisfied my imagination of those martial arts.
I never thought that martial arts could have such wonderful forms of expression.
At the beginning, he was playing one move at a time, seriously, but later on, he became more and more powerful.
When the coolie is killed, the sound of the piano cuts off tree branches, buckets, cats, street lamps, and even the head of the coolie.
This is the power of Kung Fu, which is higher than Kung Fu, and it raises the realm.
From this point on, Director Yang's imagination for martial arts began to pour out.
We can see with our own eyes the power of the sound of the piano, which can transform into fists, swords, and even hideous-looking ghosts.
It seems imaginary, but it is more real and more powerful than any weapon.
Such an unconstrained scene is already exciting enough, and then the charterer's Tai Chi is agile and elegant, and the charterer's lion's roar is earth-shattering. Wherever it goes, it is like a typhoon passing through, sweeping everything.
Fire Cloud Evil God's toad skill is extremely realistic. After watching it, I decided that this is what toad skill is like, which satisfied my imagination of this magical skill.
And in the end, the palm of the Tathagata that descended from the sky actually hit the ground with a large hand seal. The bricks and tiles in the sky showed the earth-shattering power of the palm of the Tathagata.
That's all. Another Tathagata palm of his caused the earth to shatter and penetrate a building.
The sunlight shines in from the handprints of that building, like the light of Buddha, the majestic Holy Spirit.
Fire Cloud Evil God is convinced, and I, Xu Ke, am also convinced. ”
When Xu Ke said this, he actually raised his hands and bowed to Yang Ye several times.
If it were Xu Ke ten years later, after seeing all kinds of magical special effects, he would not be like this.
But now, he is really convinced.
Xu Ke is a very proud and stubborn person. When he was supervising the production of John Woo's "Bleeding Heroes", John Woo didn't listen to him, and the two had a falling out.
He just said directly that John Woo would not be able to leave him. Even though "The Heroes" became a classic and his face was swollen, he was never convinced.
In fact, Xu Ke has supervised the production and filming of many classic movies in recent years.
The "Once Upon a Time" series, the "A Chinese Ghost Story" series, and "New Dragon Gate Inn" are all well-received and box office hits.
But now, as soon as "Kung Fu" comes out, Xu Ke immediately understands that after people see the amazing fighting skills in "Kung Fu", they will no longer be satisfied with the martial arts designs he shot before.
Xu Ke was confused. He didn't know how to take the road ahead.
In fact, Xu Ke, who was in the original time and space, soon became confused.
After he watched "Jurassic Park", he realized that the previous martial arts special effects were not top-notch at all.
In order to seek a breakthrough, Xu Ke decided to return to his original roots, abandoning fancy special effects and taking a more physical approach.
As a result, he made the classic masterpiece "The Broken Knife Man".
However, the audience did not buy it, and the box office was only 3.3 million, a huge loss!
After the disastrous failure of "The Knife", Xu Ke applied the routines of martial arts films to fashion films and made "The House of Gold and Jade", which made a huge profit at the box office.
Then he made the comedy "Big Three Dollars", which became a hit again.
Then he started to break into Hollywood, and the two action movies he co-produced with Jean-Claude Van Damme both grossed less than 5 million at the box office, so he was thrown into the street.
Go back to Hong Kong. The box office of "With the Current and Against the Current" was only 4.46 million, which was a huge loss.
I made a desperate move and filmed "The Legend of Shushan" again. Super stars gathered and made a shocking splash.
There is no other choice but to make "The Dark Knight 2" on a frivolous basis. Unfortunately, "The Dark Knight" is nothing without Jet Li, with a box office of 3.92 million, a bloody fight.
Xu Ke once again took up the banner of martial arts and filmed "Seven Swords". The story structure is similar to Kurosawa Akira's "Seven Samurai".
Xu Ke publicly stated that he wanted to return to Akira Kurosawa's creative path.
Although this time there were many superstars gathered together and the momentum was huge, the audience still didn't buy it, and the box office was once again a bloodbath.
For almost ten years, Xu Ke's film career reached its lowest ebb, and he had plans to retire three times.
Because of love, I am not willing to give up, and I am not willing to fail. I fight and fail again and again.
Finally, in 2010, he took advantage of Liu Hua's popularity and produced "Detective Dee: The Empire of Heaven", which grossed 286 million at the mainland box office and successfully turned around.
The subsequent "Dragon King of the Divine City", "Taking Tiger Mountain by Wisdom", "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", "Four Heavenly Kings", "Changjin Lake" and "Water Gate Bridge" were all box office hits, and with "Water Gate Bridge" To regain the box office title.
But for Yang Ye, Xu Ke is a talent. He will not let Xu Ke be confused. He will guide Xu Ke to the right path.
Because... the end of the martial arts era means the coming of the immortal warrior era. (End of chapter)