"Zombie-Master"—the first Chinese horror film to be fully released in North America.
It has always been difficult for Chinese-language films to have a significant impact in the North American market. Except for Jet Li and Cheng Long, most other films have little influence in North America.
In the previous life, "Heroes" achieved considerable box office results in North America, but that was mostly due to Harvey's operation and Quentin's name. Moreover, in this life, "Heroes" failed to borrow strength from Quentin. Box office performance was very average.
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" earned more than 100 million U.S. dollars at the box office in the North American market two years ago. However, the film's box office success was mostly due to its Oscar win in the latter half of the year. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won the first prize. Sony, as the distributor, has made full efforts to expand the scale of the release. If it were not for the blessing of the Oscar halo, the actual box office would have to be at a relatively large discount.
However, "Zombie-Master" is different from "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Although it does not have the grand scenes and exquisite visual effects of "Hero", it is not specifically designed for Westerners. It has a "martial arts style" created to taste, but it is a classic film that established a sect in Chinese films. Its director did not place any hope on it to win awards overseas, let alone get a box office award for this film. God, its director and its actors and behind-the-scenes workers, in the context of the booming development of Hong Kong movies at that time, just wanted to do something different. It has to be said that at this point, they succeeded.
"Mr. Zombie" has a complete character setting, a complete storyline, and a complete monster-fighting system. While ensuring the integrity of these aspects, the film can also maintain the main tone of wit and humor. What is even more rare is that Lin Zhengying is here. The perfect interpretation of the character in the movie, his expression, his voice, and his every move will give the audience great trust, making the audience really believe that he knows how to destroy zombies, and make the audience believe that he is really a zombie Taoist priest.
This movie created many miracles in the field of Chinese-language films and single-handedly created a new sect in the fiercely competitive Hong Kong film industry. Now, this movie is ready to become a blockbuster in the North American market!
Because it is an old movie, and it does not have actors familiar to North American audiences, "Zombie-Master" does not have a premiere. It will only have the first show in the United States at 0:00 a.m. New York time as the first premiere of the movie. screening, and North American audiences have long been looking forward to this movie, so the attendance rate at the premiere undoubtedly reached 100%.
As the film's distributor in the North American market, Lucas personally came to the premiere. He and several of his partners purchased consecutive movie tickets through the Muying Ticketing System, hoping to see how North American audiences reacted. What is the opinion of this movie? He needs to observe the audience to infer the potential of this movie.
The premieres of many movies are guaranteed to be full, but this is not a sign of box office success. Many movies have extremely poor stamina. Box office and attendance rates begin to plummet within a few days of release. Therefore, Lucas has no confidence in the movie. , although he has a certain degree of confidence, he also wants to know how much potential this movie can have.
How much potential a movie can have depends mainly on the audience's reputation. If the audience shows great love for the movie, then the movie will definitely become a hit. If the audience loves the plot of the movie and If you don’t buy many of the jokes, there is no doubt that this movie will be on the streets soon.
At midnight, the lights in the theater were turned off on time, and the entire theater audience was eagerly anticipating this old movie from Hong Kong, China, produced in 1985.
The moment the movie screen lit up, Jiahe Company's classic title appeared on the big screen. For the vast majority of North American audiences in the cinema, this was the first time they had seen the company's title.
After Jiahe is Baohe, and after Baohe are four big characters in pale green: Mr. Zombie.
Under these four Chinese characters, there is the English title written in the same pale green color: "Zombie-Master".
The pale green text created a scary and eerie atmosphere for the audience, which made all the audience nervous and quickly entered a state of watching a horror movie.
After the title and the introduction of the cast and crew, the first scene of the film opens in Yizhuang, a unique place in ancient and modern Chinese society.
In the dilapidated room in the picture, there are a large number of coffins. The apprentice played by Xu Guanying opens the door and walks into the Yi Zhuang, lights a handful of incense, and calls the ghosts in the Yi Zhuang to come and eat.
And then, he said: "I am a guest, you eat first."
As soon as he finished speaking, he reached out and opened a white gauze curtain. As he opened the white curtain, a row of zombies wearing Qing Dynasty official uniforms and with yellow talismans on their foreheads appeared on the big screen in an instant. .
If it is really the first time for the audience to see this scene, they will definitely be shocked by the rows of zombies. However, these North American audiences who are watching this movie for the first time will be shocked when they see this scene. , and immediately cheered in surprise!
"China-Zombie!" I don't know which excited audience suddenly exclaimed, and there was a burst of applause and whistles in the theater!
Everyone has long been accustomed to seeing the cartoon version of Chinese zombies in "Plants vs. Zombies Online". This time I suddenly saw the film and television image of Chinese zombies on the big screen. Instead of feeling scared, I felt particularly friendly!
In fact, apart from a very small number of Chinese-Americans who came to this cinema to review the classics, almost all other North American audiences came for this very distinctive image of Chinese zombies. They kept watching the game while playing games. I was particularly curious and interested in this special zombie image. Later, I saw screenshots taken by some netizens from the movie on the Internet, and I became even more interested in these zombie images and zombie movies, so the movie only started for more than a minute. Rows of Chinese zombies appeared, which for them couldn't be more satisfying!
Later, in the plot, Xu Guanying was grabbed by a "zombie" by the arm in a coffin, and then a "zombie" jumped out of the coffin. Xu Guanying was frightened and hurriedly picked up the demon mirror, and then counted the number of zombies. At this time, that A "zombie" suddenly came back. Xu Guanying hurriedly responded, but was accidentally forced into a corner by the zombie. At this time, the "zombie" opened his mouth and wanted to bite. Seeing that Xu Guanying was about to be bitten by the zombie, the audience became nervous.
At this time, a pair of dentures suddenly spit out from the "zombie"'s mouth. It turns out that the "zombie" is not a real zombie, but a junior brother played by Qian Xiaohao.
Although it was a false alarm, some of the eight zombies behind them had their talismans accidentally removed from their foreheads. Then these zombies immediately regained their freedom and began to attack the two of them.
Immediately afterwards, the master of the two, Lin Zhengying, appeared and easily solved the problem of zombies. This section had quite a comedic effect, and the audience also bought into this comedy treatment. In the end, all the zombies were solved and were enchanted again. After stopping, Lin Zhengying's junior brother got up and hurried away with the eight zombies. When the eight zombies jumped and followed Junior Brother Lin Zhengying out, a burst of laughter broke out in the screening hall again.
What's even more interesting is that there was a zombie that couldn't jump over the threshold no matter what, so Xu Guanying hurriedly came out to help. While saying, "I'm here to help you, old man," I hugged the zombie and sent him out the door.
At the end of the first unit plot, the audience has a very intuitive understanding of this kind of zombie. In the subsequent plot, Lin Zhengying was invited to help the businessman Mr. Ren move his grave. During this period, Lin Zhengying mentioned China's unique Feng Shui in front of the camera. What's interesting is that the word "Feng Shui" also has a certain influence in North America. Everyone in North America knows about "Yin and Yang" and "Feng Shui" in Chinese culture, but most people don't understand the details. Lin Zhengying said in The plot briefly introduces some Feng Shui. This plot also makes North American audiences enjoy watching it. Although they can't understand it, they can know that Chinese tombs also pay great attention to Feng Shui. Good Feng Shui can bless the prosperity of future generations, but bad Feng Shui may. It will bring disaster to future generations and even mutate the corpse.
This unique Chinese culture, after being processed in film and television, can easily allow Western audiences to see the characteristics and depth of Chinese culture. Westerners do not have the so-called Feng Shui. In their culture, one of the most metaphysical aspects is This legend is about the night of the full moon. Werewolves mutate on the night of the full moon, and vampires mutate on the night of the full moon. Apart from this, there are basically no other metaphysical legends.
The subsequent plot of "Mr. Zombie" uses the corpse of Mr. Ren's father and combines the plot with a very detailed description of the reasons for the formation of zombies and how to deal with zombies. Lin Zhengying said that corpses are divided into zombies and dead corpses, and people are divided into good people and bad people. People become The bad guys are because they fail to live up to expectations, and the reason why corpses become zombies is because they have an extra breath. People are angry, suffocated, and sulky before death. This breath will make people continue to accumulate resentment after death and eventually become zombies.
The concepts of good guys and bad guys, dead bodies and zombies are very consistent with the philosophical principles of Chinese national culture. These principles are expressed through Lin Zhengying's language, but Western audiences also recognize and secretly praise them in their hearts.
As for Lin Zhengying's method of asking his apprentice to use an ink fountain to pop up a grid on the coffin, it also opened the eyes of many viewers. In their eyes, this ink fountain should have certain metaphysical factors. This is the spear and shield of Chinese legends.
There are also spears and shields in Western legends, but the overall level is relatively low. For example, vampires want to behead, devils are afraid of holy water, and werewolves are afraid of silver weapons. The overall level is very simple;
The spears and shields in the Chinese Zombie Legend are very complicated. Not only do there exist professions such as Zombie Taoist priests, but there are also complicated methods such as arranging arrays. Even just making an ink fountain requires chicken blood pen and ink, and then practice on these materials, and then Only when it is poured into the ink fountain can it be effective.
Although it seems tedious, when Lin Zhengying does these things, there is a kind of magic that makes the audience feel that everything he does is very convincing.
A very interesting thing about this movie is that the comedy effect is particularly good. After the brothers finished handling the coffin of Mr. Ren’s father, Qian Xiaohao met the ghost bride who admired him on his way home. As a result, the ghost bride sat in his The back seat of the bicycle was knocked off by a branch. When the ghost bride sat on the ground feeling aggrieved, a burst of laughter rang out in the cinema.
The structure of the film has always been a comedy-drama-comedy-drama interspersed with each other. As soon as the funny plot of the Ghost Bride is over, Master Ren's father begins to transform into a corpse, and Lin Zhengying's ink painting also has a magical effect, making the zombies temporarily incapacitated. Escape everywhere.
Later, the two brothers arrived at Mr. Ren's house, only to find that Mr. Ren's daughter's cousin had been coveting his daughter Ren Tingting for a long time. The brothers teamed up and used a small magic to pull out a hair from the head of the daughter's cousin. With the addition of a talisman, the daughter's cousin and Xu Guanying turned into a pair of "dolls" who acted in unison. Afterwards, the two sides went back and forth with each other, and there were frequent laughs.
This comedy plot is particularly exciting, and the whole cinema has burst into laughter. This kind of plot that "A" does whatever "B" does, has been done to death in Hong Kong movies, but for North American audiences, This was the first time I saw it, so the audience was particularly convinced.
Seeing the audience around him staring and laughing, Lucas excitedly said to a partner next to him: "Oh God, look at the performance of these audiences so far, I believe this movie will be a hit!" "
(End of chapter)