In Hong Kong's zombie movies, many movie stars have played the role of "Mao Shanchang", such as Zhong Fa, Chen You, Zheng Zeshi, Richard Ng, and even the famous ticket seller Ni Kuang. However, if we say that the most popular and photogenic image is Ching-Ying Lam's image of maoshan taoist, which is "a word eyebrow, cold humor, smart and agile, and even has a style of painting and chanting Buddha", it is deeply rooted in people's hearts. As a representative of Hong Kong zombie movies, Ching-Ying Lam really has a soft spot for zombie movies, which made him famous and made a lot of efforts. So when Hong Kong's traditional Maoshan zombie film was repeatedly imitated by many subsequent works, it gradually lost its audience. In order to prevent Hong Kong zombie films from dying, Ching-Ying Lam began to actively integrate western vampires and zombies into Hong Kong zombie films, and his "One Eyebrow Man" directed and performed in 1989 was his "combination of local culture and foreign culture". And boldly lead a western vampire to fight a Chinese-western war. The most vivid freshness of the film is that Mao Shanshu can't subdue western zombies. In desperation, a Taoist priest blew them up with explosives, but it still didn't work. Finally, he actually trapped the western zombies with mud, and he was finished. The whole movie "One Eyebrow Road flyover" is funny and exciting, and the novel special effects such as maoshan taoist's "talk about chickens and ducks" with Christians and Maoshan's fight with western zombies have greatly influenced the audience. After the film was released, the box office exceeded 10 million yuan. Although Ching-Ying Lam failed to make a profit because of its reckless pursuit of excellence, it opened the way for Hong Kong filmmakers to re-examine local zombie movies. After 1990, Hong Kong zombie movies, which have run out of resources, once again set off a creative upsurge, and the trend of the west wind spreading to the east has also intensified.
1990 The first scene of the zombie movie was shot by Billy Chan, both from Hong and * * *' s class. The film "Ghost Hunting" co-authored by them is called "Ghost Hunting", which is actually a collection of zombies. There is a ghost, but he is a loyal "ghost servant". The most creative part of the film is to experiment with zombies with modern scientific instruments at the beginning. It was very interesting, but unfortunately it didn't go deep, and finally it just turned into a small gimmick.
This year, Ching-Ying Lam also made a film "Exorcism Police". From the early years of the Republic of China to modern times, it followed the mode of fighting between police partner and corpse demon in Liu Zhenwei's "Devil's Bad Hall", but it still played Maoshan, which was a combination of two types of movies: Maoshan zombie film and police partner solving crimes. As for Liu Zhenwei, who is good at mixing Chinese and Western cultures, in the later Dead House, it seems that he borrowed from local traditional zombie movies on the surface and had the plot of stealing treasures, but in essence he was poking fun at politics by using zombie themes. The Millennium zombie in the film is actually Qin Shihuang, still as arrogant as before. A group of people pretended to be Jing Ke and Wang Zhaojun on the stage with the intention of approaching Qin's body and then destroying it. It is full of banter, which is the best embodiment of Liu Zhenwei's comedy style!
In fact, if the combination of folklore and western vampires in Hong Kong-made zombie films is the most absurd, The Zombie Doctor directed by Lu Jianming should be the first one. The film begins with doctor Lin Baoyi being bitten by Chen Yalun, a female vampire, during a one-night stand in England, and then returns to Hong Kong, gradually showing the symptoms of western vampires and zombies, such as being afraid of the sun, greedy for patients' blood, wearing a black cloak, sleeping at night and even hanging upside down like a bat. Fortunately, the female vampire saved him. Unexpectedly, the vampire count rushed to Hong Kong at this time, so the two men fought in the hospital. After the defeat, three male doctors were possessed by Liu, Guan, and finally defeated the western vampires and zombies! Seeing this, I have to admire the writer's super imagination, but the audience doesn't seem to buy it, because it is so ridiculous and funny. In contrast, the totally westernized vampire movie Bite OK produced by Debao Company is the most popular among 1990 zombie films. Jae-Il Lee, the vampire earl, is dressed in a black dress in a European castle, which is as elegant as an aristocratic vampire in western Gothic literature. The plot of the movie is also blood-sucking, unusual love, fighting and romance. As a western vampire movie, it is quite attractive, but less. This is quite different from the previous practice that Hong Kong zombie films only pay attention to random copying and blind grafting, but never pay attention to the essential difference between western vampires and zombies. It is a bold attempt for Hong Kong zombie films to move closer to internationalization.
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Although the creation of 1990 Hong Kong zombie movies presents a diversified pattern, and some even completely abandon the traditional routines of local Maoshan art, the overall response is not satisfactory. Too many shoddy works have made the audience tired and indifferent to such subjects. In addition, Jing Wong's gambling movies and Tsui Hark's martial arts movies later became popular, and filmmakers turned to gambling movies and martial arts movies. At that time, few people dared to involve the zombie theme that was very popular at that time.
In fact, at this time, zombie movies are really hard to return, leaving only Ching-Ying Lam to support the overall situation. Although he has made many wonderful creative works such as African Monks, such as Magic of Maoshan Mountain, Exotic Customs, Comic Card God Must be Crazy, Good Zombie Ancestors Fighting African Giants, etc., he could not return to heaven in the end. Therefore, all the works such as Zombie Supreme, Mr. New Zombie, Musical Zombie, Xiangxi Corpse King, etc., which later returned to the local Maoshan zombie movies, or "One Room with a Whispering Tooth Ghost" which completely imitated western vampire movies such as Bite OK, inevitably failed at the box office one after another-until 1993, Hong Kong and Taiwan set off a craze for following the trend of martial arts movies.
However, as the saying goes, the millipede is dead but not stiff. In the mid-1990s, although the theme of zombies almost disappeared on the big screen in Hong Kong, it continued to linger on the TV screen, thanks to the persistence of "zombie master" Ching-Ying Lam. From 1995 to 1997, the series "Zombie Master" co-produced by him and ATV has very good ratings, which shows him that Maoshan zombie films reflecting local folk customs are still very marketable. Who knows, just as Ching-Ying Lam tried to make persistent efforts and prepare to take the third film of Zombie Master, he died of liver cancer on 1997. As soon as the death of this usually low-key "honest man" (Cai) was announced, the Hong Kong film industry was shocked and lamented, and it was inevitable that Maoshan zombie film, which has been unique in Hong Kong since Mr. Zombie and can create amazing visual effects with only local stunts and kung fu acrobatics, will be truly lost after death.
It seems so. From the end of 1990s to the beginning of the new century, there have been movies similar to zombie movies, such as Biochemical Keepers (directed by Ye Weixin) and Biochemical Special Police's Zombie Mission (directed by Wai-Man Cheng). However, their main plot is to imitate the western video game Resident Evil. As for biochemical corpse keepers and zombies, they are also imported, mainly infected by viruses, which are fierce and scary or can be compared with China. On the TV screen, after Ching-Ying Lam's death, ATV gave up making the traditional folk-custom Zombie Master, and instead filmed the modern supernatural drama I have a date with a zombie, which completely borrowed from the western vampire family system. The plot combines Chinese and western, and the theme is more profound and completely entertaining than the previous zombie movies, and it is about love and redemption. In addition, the production was excellent and the performance was excellent, and the result was very popular. Even Shao Yi, the sworn enemy of ATV and the owner of the wireless TV station, is very popular. But despite this, the ratings of the drama began to decline after the filming of the second part, and the zombie theme of "West Wind Spreading to the East" did not extend to the big screen. (6)
Speaking of Hong Kong zombie movies in the past two years, there are two films, one is Mr. Drinking Corpse directed by Hong Hualiang at 200 1, and the other is Zombie Age directed by Qian Shengwei and supervised by Tsui Hark. Both of these films can be called back to the traditional Maoshan zombie films. "Mr. Corpse Runner" is even completely based on the legend of Corpse Runner in Xiangxi, and it is a blend of witchcraft, Maoshan and Xiafa. Even the costumes of male and female characters are taken from ethnic minorities in western Hunan. Tracing back to the source, this situation is rare in Hong Kong films, but it is not very new to the audience. As for Tsui Hark's Zombie Age, on the surface, the background of the late Qing Dynasty, the struggle between master and apprentice, the fight between deep house and corpse, and the struggle between master and apprentice are all set from local traditional zombie films, but in fact they still reflect Tsui Hark's consistent cold style. People intrigue with each other, for the sake of face, for the sake of interests, want to carry on the family line and kill people! Dark and cold colors, frightened nights, children's feelings are so pale and powerless, only fear of zombies and indifference to the world.
After The Legend of Shushan, Tsui Hark paid attention to realistic action fighting instead of computer stunts, but the editing was still sharp and the visual effect was still amazing. It's a pity that Zombie Age is empty of Tsui Hark's ideas, but it doesn't have a good foundation of content and details. Everything is wrong, which makes the audience puzzled. It is still inevitably reduced to a technical film. In the end, the film has not been released to the public, but has just entered the market in the form of audio-visual products.
Nowadays, the Maoshan zombie film, which embodies the folk tradition, seems to have come to an end, and few viewers have joined in. Whether we can take the international road of computer stunts and kung fu fighting by completely drawing lessons from western vampire and zombie movies, not only vampires are western varieties, but also the identity of human beings and the way to treat zombies are completely westernized depends on the results of this summer's "Thousand Machines Change".
In addition, Chi-Leung Law, a Hong Kong director who recently threatened to start shooting new zombie movies, said that they wanted to give zombies a brand-new image, which was different from the zombies in China and the vampires and zombies in the West. They don't need to breathe and suck blood, and they are very thoughtful and expressive. Moreover, the plot content of the film will have a brand-new change compared with the previous Hong Kong zombie films-just imagine that if Chi-Leung Law really succeeds, the Hong Kong zombie theme that dried up this season may be revived.
Hope to adopt! ! !