In Hong Kong's zombie movies, many movie stars have played the role of "Master Mao Shan", such as Zhong Fa, Chen You, Zheng Zeshi, Richard Ng, and even Ni Kuang, a famous writer who plays with tickets. However, if it is the most popular and photographed, it is Ching-Ying Lam's image of Maoshan Taoist, who is "a word eyebrow, cold and humorous, agile, and even has a style of painting and chanting", which is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. As a representative of Hong Kong zombie movies, Ching-Ying Lam really has a soft spot for zombie movies, which has made him famous, and has made a lot of efforts for it. Therefore, when Hong Kong's traditional Maoshan zombie films were repeatedly imitated by many follow-up works without innovation, they gradually lost their audience. In order to avoid Hong Kong zombie films being at their wits' end and cutting their own path, Ching-Ying Lam made such films while trying to keep the local folk interest, and began to actively integrate western vampires and zombies into Hong Kong zombie films. In 1989, he directed and performed "One Eyebrow Road flyover" as the best example of his "combination of soil and foreign culture". Moreover, it boldly leads to a Western vampire to fight a Chinese-Western war. The most lively novelty of the film is that Mao Shanshu can't subdue Western zombies. In desperation, a Taoist priest uses explosives to blast them, but it still doesn't work. In the end, he actually trapped Western zombies with mud, and he was done. The whole movie "One Eyebrow Road flyover" is funny and exciting, and the novel effects of Taoist Maoshan and Christians' "Chicken and Duck Talk" and Maoshan's fighting with western zombies have greatly affected the audience. After the film was released, the box office exceeded 1 million yuan. Although Ching-Ying Lam failed to make a profit because of its disregard for cost and Excellence, it opened the way for Hong Kong filmmakers to re-examine local zombie movies. Then, in 199, Hong Kong zombie movies, which were already at the end of their tether, once again set off a creative upsurge, and the trend of westward spread became more and more fierce.
It was Yuet Sang Chin and Billy Chan who started the first zombie movie in 199. The movie Ghost Hunting, co-produced by them, was called "Ghost Hunting", which was actually a collection of zombies. There was a ghost, but he was 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 originally very interesting, but unfortunately it didn't go deep, and eventually it just became a small gimmick.
In this year, Ching-Ying Lam also made a movie "Exorcism Police", which went from the early Republic of China to the modern era. It followed the mode of fighting between the police partner and the corpse demon in Liu Zhenwei's "The Devil's House", but it still played Maoshan, which was a combination of two types of movies: Maoshan zombie movies and police partner solving crimes. As for Liu Zhenwei, who is good at mixing Chinese and Western cultures, in the later "Dead Home", on the surface, he seems to learn from the local traditional zombie films, with the plot of stealing treasures, but in essence, he is poking fun at politics by using zombie themes. The Millennium zombie in the film is actually Qin Shihuang, and he is still as arrogant as before. A group of people pretend to be Jing Ke and Wang Zhaojun on the stage, and their intention is to get close to Qin's corpse and then destroy it. It is full of banter, which is the best embodiment of Liu Zhenwei's comedy style!
In fact, if the combination of folk customs and western vampire movies is the most absurd, Lu Jianming's Zombie Doctor should be the first one. The film begins with the doctor Lin Baoyi being bitten by a female vampire Chen Yalun during a one-night fling in England, and then returning to Hong Kong, gradually showing the symptoms of western vampire zombies: such as being afraid of sunshine, gluttonous for patients' blood, enjoying a black cloak, sleeping at night and even hanging upside down like a bat on a beam, etc. Fortunately, the female vampire has saved him. Unexpectedly, the vampire count rushed to Hong Kong at this time, so they fought a bloody battle in the hospital. When they were defeated, three male doctors, including Lin Baoyi, were possessed by Liu, Guan and Zhang Shuhan, and finally defeated the western vampire 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 made by Debao Company was the most popular among several zombie films in 199. The vampire Count Li, played by George Lam, was in a European castle and dressed in a black dress, which was as elegant as an aristocratic vampire in western Gothic literature. The plot of the film was also vampire-sucking, unusual love-fighting and romantic, which was quite the charm of western vampire films, but there was only a little less shocking atmosphere. This is quite different from the previous practice that Hong Kong zombie films only paid attention to random copying and blind grafting, but never paid attention to the essential differences between western vampires and zombies. It can be called a bold attempt for Hong Kong zombie films to move closer to internationalization.
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Although the creation of zombie movies in Hong Kong in 199 showed a diversified pattern, some even completely abandoned the traditional routines of local Maoshan art, on the whole, the response was not satisfactory. Too much shoddy work has made the audience tired and indifferent to this kind of subject matter. In addition, Jing Wong's gambling films and Tsui Hark's martial arts films began to become popular later, and film makers moved to gambling films and martial arts films instead. At that time, few people dared to involve zombie themes that were very popular in those years.
As a matter of fact, at this time, zombie movies are really hard to return, leaving Ching-Ying Lam alone to support the overall situation. Although he made many wonderful creative works, such as The African Monk, which combines Maoshan magic, exotic customs, comedy card The Gods Must Be Crazy, and good zombie ancestors fighting African giants, he was unable to return to heaven in the end. Therefore, the works after that, whether it is Zombie Supreme, Mr. New Zombie, Musical Zombie, Xiangxi Corpse King, which returned to the local Maoshan zombie films, or A Room with Whispering Tooth Ghosts, which completely imitated the western vampire movies like Bite OK, inevitably failed at the box office one after another-until 1993, when the craze for martial arts films followed the trend in Hong Kong and Taiwan surged.
However, as the saying goes, a hundred-footed worm dies without being stiff. In the mid-199s, although the zombie theme almost disappeared on the big screen in Hong Kong, it continued to linger on the TV screen, which is still due to the persistence of Ching-Ying Lam, the "zombie master". From 1995 to 1997, he cooperated with ATV to shoot the series of Zombie Master, and the ratings were very ideal, which made him see that Maoshan zombie films, which reflected the local folk interest, still had a great market. Who knows that Ching-Ying Lam died of liver cancer in 1997 when he tried to make persistent efforts and was ready to take the third film of Zombie Master. As soon as the death of this usually low-key "honest man" (Cai Lanyu) was announced, the Hong Kong film industry was shocked and lamented, and it was unavoidable to lament that the Maoshan zombie film, which was created in Hong Kong since Mr. Zombie and can create amazing visual effects with only local stunts and kung fu acrobatics, and has a black comedy style, will really be lost after Ching-Ying Lam's death.
It seems that this is exactly the case. From the end of 199s to the beginning of the new century, there have been films similar to zombie movies, such as Biochemical Shoucorpse (directed by Ye Weixin) and Biochemical Special Police's Zombie Mission (directed by Wai-Man Cheng). However, their main plots are all imitations of the western video game Resident Evil. As for biochemical Shoucorpse and zombies, they are also imported, mainly infected by viruses, and their faces are ferocious. On the TV screen, after Ching-Ying Lam's death, ATV gave up making the traditional folk custom "The 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 was a combination of Chinese and western, and the theme was more profound than the previous zombie films, which were completely entertaining, talking about love and salvation. In addition, it was well-made and performed, and the result was very popular. Even Shao Yi, ATV's sworn enemy and the owner of wireless TV station, was very popular. But despite this, the drama began to decline in ratings after filming the second film, and the zombie theme of "the 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 have been two films, one is Mr. Corpse-Drinker directed by Hung Wah Leung in 21, and the other is The Age of Zombies directed by Qian Shengwei and supervised by Tsui Hark. These two films can all be called Maoshan zombie films that return to the tradition. Mr. Corpse Catcher is even based entirely on the legend of Corpse Catcher in Xiangxi, which combines witchcraft, Maoshan, Xiafa and other folk customs. Even the costumes of male and female characters are taken from ethnic minorities in Xiangxi. Tracing back to this situation, it is rare in Hong Kong films, but it is not very fresh for the audience. As for Tsui Hark's "The Age of Zombies", on the surface, the background of the late Qing Dynasty, the fighting between master and apprentice, the fighting between deep houses and corpses, and the fighting between master and apprentice are all set from local traditional zombie films, but in fact, it still reflects Tsui Hark's consistent cold-hearted style. People are intrigued by each other, trying to carry on the family line in order to save face and kill people for profit! Dark and cold colors, frightened nights, children's feelings are so pale and powerless, and there are only fears of zombies and indifference to this world.
After The Legend of Shu Shan, Tsui Hark didn't play computer stunts, but paid attention to realistic action fighting, but the editing was still fierce 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 still inevitably degenerates into a technical film. In the end, the film has not been released to the public yet, and it only flows into the market in the form of audio-visual products.
At present, it seems that the Maoshan zombie film, which embodies the folk tradition, has come to an end, and few viewers support it. Whether or not we can take the international road of completely learning from western vampire and zombie movies and engaging in computer stunts and kung fu fighting, not only the vampire is a western variety, but also the human identity and methods of treating zombies are completely westernized depends on the results of "Thousand Machine Changes" this summer.
In addition, Chi-Leung Law, a Hong Kong director who recently threatened to start shooting a new zombie film, said that they wanted to give zombies a brand-new image, which is different from China native zombies and western vampires and zombies. They don't need to breathe and suck blood, and they are thoughtful and expressive. And the plot content of the film will have a brand-new change compared with the previous Hong Kong zombie films-imagine that if Chi-Leung Law is really successful, the Hong Kong zombie theme that has dried up in season may come to life again.
I hope to adopt it! ! !