Su Ze benefited a lot from this first collaboration on the real Hong Kong police and gangster theme. It was amazing to experience the scene of his son's longing for himself.
What is a genre film?
According to Su Ze, in a certain type of film, film workers have accumulated a lot of experience through repeated trials, and applied these experiences in actual shooting, reducing the cost of trial and error, and forming an assembly line product that can be produced repeatedly.
Practice makes perfect!
For example, in road movies, after a lot of experiments, the screenwriter found that the most effective character relationship setting is two people, one is brainless and the other is unhappy.
Put two people into a car, and it will look good without any plot design. Look at "囧," "Tang," and even the Oscar-winning "Green Book," it's basically the same routine.
This is the genre film experience accumulated by the predecessors, and future generations can just imitate it directly, saving time and effort, and leaving no one to deceive others.
Why Hong Kong cops and gangsters are so good at filming? To put it bluntly, we filmed a lot in the early years. How to move the camera, how to move the actors, how to set up the explosions, how to coordinate the environment...
There is a very mature plan, which is based on experience. If you shoot in this way, the audience will be happy, but if you shoot in that way, the audience will not be stimulated. Over time, these directors who make police and gangster movies know how to shoot to keep the audience happy, which is commonly known as No peeing spots throughout the process.
It also explains Su Ze’s confusion for a long time: Why can’t it be done well in mainland China, where money and people are needed?
These so-called experiences can all be solved with money. Moving this team over will solve part of the problem, but the hardest problem to solve is actually another problem: the aesthetic system.
Mong Kok, Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon Walled City, colorful light signs, minibuses, ferries...
Food stalls where bewildered boys gather, undercover rooftops, long stairs, cramped buildings, dim green corridor lights, old-fashioned elevators that require sliding doors, dirty back alleys...
This is a very important visual element of Hong Kong police and gangster films.
It makes people feel that crime can breed in these places. You feel it is very right, not only because the director is very good at filming, but also because your brain has formed a mindset. As long as you see these elements, it feels right.
The terrain difference is very important!
This is what Lin Chaoxian summed up.
Because an important method in police movies is the chase scene, and if the chase scene is to be shot well, it needs to take advantage of the terrain difference to make the protagonist jump up and down.
Why was it that South Korea was able to directly copy the Hong Kong Island model, and even some of its later films were better than its predecessor?
The key reason is that Seoul is also a naturally uneven metropolis. Many caves are built on hillsides. Coupled with the extremely irregular residential buildings of different heights, the director has great potential for filming chase scenes.
On the contrary, in first-tier cities in the Mainland, except for subways and commercial buildings, where you can do tricks, other than running in a straight line, it is boring.
So look at Chongqing.
Su Ze feels that it’s not that mainland directors won’t make police and gangster films, but that mainland directors haven’t developed a sufficiently large scale in this genre yet.
It's hard not to name a few directors who are good at making cops and gangsters. If you say 500, there's only one "White Night" movie so far.
Xing Yukun? Strictly speaking, it is a crime theme. There are basically no hot scenes. It reflects social issues, so it is easy to win awards, but the box office is never very high.
Of course, this kind of subject matter is too risky in the Mainland. Many experiences in Hong Kong and Island cannot be copied directly, and the aesthetic styles of both sides are not completely compatible.
For example, if you film a group of gangsters robbing a bank during a shootout in Lujiazui, will the audience believe it?
It’s funny!
After all, there is no support from realistic logic. In fact, there are no so-called gangsters robbing banks in Hong Kong Island, but long-term indoctrination has caused the audience to habitually believe it?
After this cooperation, Su Ze is sure that simply imitating is a dead end!
The police film is a genre that requires both cultural background and realistic logic. In recent years, many new directors have made police films, and nine out of ten films imitate Memories of Murder.
The result is often a mischievous smile, because many local elements cannot be directly applied to our context, and the final shot looks very fake.
Su Ze believes that the ideal mainland police and gangster film in the future should be one in which the director deeply explores various elements in his hometown and integrates them into his own film.
In recent years, in addition to Chongqing, Northeast China has also become an important filming location for crime suspense. Su Ze liked "Undocumented Crime" very much, and it can be regarded as one of the best that takes regional elements to the extreme.
Especially the use of ice and snow, the grasp of the character's state, and the artistic setting of the scene make the audience feel particularly textured and real.
The director is a native of Northeast China.
There are also life events, although they are not about police and criminals, but the principle is the same. If Liu Jiangjiang was not a local, and if he did not have more than ten years of experience in interviewing in the funeral industry, Mo Sanmei would not be able to stand up.
There is also Manslaughter, the highest-grossing film of its kind, directed by a Malay. Although it was filmed in Thailand, the culture is basically the same, because the director's growth and environment gave him a natural feel for these elements, which is very important.
The two collaborations gave Su Ze a deep understanding of Hong Kong movies. Many things cannot be described in words. It is a subtle connection between people.
From the beginning of the bloody duo and the true nature of the hero, this kind of confrontation between the police and gangsters' identities, but also giving them some kind of emotional connection, highlights the conflicting plot in a very advanced way.
The so-called police and gangsters are just a kind of shell. As long as they are opposites, it can be police and gangsters, teachers and students, parents and children, bosses and subordinates...
They are all opposing identities, but the police and gangsters are one of the strongest, and the conflicts cannot be reconciled. In addition, various hot scenes are integrated into it, so the audience will never tire of it.
This strong identity opposition is coupled with an interconnected emotion, and dramatic contradictions emerge.
If it were a game between great powers or an international situation, the director from Hong Kong would not be able to film it!
On the contrary, it is this kind of delicate and soft emotions between people that is best at it. After all, Hong Kong Island is too small, and everyone is crowded together. In those days, there was no money, no one, no venue.
We can only try our best to utilize resources, so the films made by local directors often focus on one person or a small group, and the ones that pass are so-called genre films.
The great thing is that you can see the world within a small area.
So far, what Su Ze appreciates most is their sensitivity, which is a kind of unique history and status they are born with. As they grow up, they will naturally pay attention to the people in the city and pay attention to their emotions.
The little people at the bottom of the photo are the best! This chapter has been completed!