Chapter 426: The Idea of the Top Detective Team
The box office curve of "Infernal Affairs" is not too outstanding.
This is essentially an art film. Apart from the stars, it is not very commercial.
But the word of mouth exploded.
Douban opened with a score of 9.5 points, directly reaching the level of classic film history, and also became the highest-rated police and gangster film in China.
Countless viewers expressed their love on Weibo, Douban, Zhihu and even WeChat Moments:
[Su Zhe's acting skills are explosive! There is no exaggeration at all, he will definitely win the Golden Dragon Award! ]
[I was in tears and Su Zhe was stabbing again. ]
[My Chen Yongren, how can he die? Su Zhe is too cruel. ]
[All the actors in this movie have peak acting skills, but Su Zhe's acting skills make everyone a supporting role and foil. ]
Compared to the general fans, professional film critics may like it more. They went to the cinema to watch it again and again, and found various details to analyze:
[The daughter of Chen Yongren's ex-girlfriend May is his, so he said a fake age. May may not want her daughter to live a life of fear and trembling, so she broke up. In fact, she has always loved Chen Yongren. 】
【What Sha Qiang said before his death shows that he knew Chen Yongren was an undercover agent. He is not stupid at all. 】
There are also pictures and shots, which have been analyzed over and over again.
The most amazing one is what Xiguajiang found:
【At the beginning of the movie, Chen Yongren and Liu Jianming met in a record store, and the time of the receipt was November 28, 2002; at the end of the film, the time on Chen Yongren’s tombstone was November 27, 2002. 】
If it were any other movie, this time might be a mistake.
But in "Infernal Affairs", it instantly makes people feel the reincarnation of time.
【Su Zhe is saying that reality is a huge hell, where all living beings suffer the pain of reincarnation. 】
He found this detail, which gave the audience goose bumps.
Xiguajiang said with emotion:
【Why do we always like to find details in movies and Easter eggs in games?
This is the process of connecting with the creators' hearts. Through details, we can get closer to the creators' hearts little by little.
The film and television dramas with rich details undoubtedly show that the creators have put in a lot of effort.
From the details, we can see that Su Zhe must have spent a lot of energy.
Thank him for writing such an excellent story and portraying Chen Yongren, the distressed undercover, with wonderful acting skills. 】
Xiguajiang has always stated that he is not a fan of anyone, let alone a sugar cane.
The reason for praising Su Zhe all the time is simple, Su Zhe's work is worth it.
Who doesn't like artists who treat the audience seriously?
But soon, he was "slapped in the face".
When the reporter interviewed director Han Jiyao, he said that Su Zhe only took a few hours to write the story of "Infernal Affairs", and those details were casually said during the filming process.
When interviewing Wei Zhenhui, he also said that Su Zhe's acting has always been one-shot. He went to "Peak Battle" to sing, and then came to act, and never rehearsed.
As for experiencing life and adequate preparation?
"Infernal Affairs" was filmed in more than 20 days. Where is the time to experience life?
Xiguajiang was dumbfounded and complained in the group of big up masters:
"Are you kidding me? He rehearsed and revised the script for "Detective Chinatown 2" in New York, and it has not been finished yet; and he shot "Infernal Affairs" in one go?"
He really didn't understand, why is it so serious to shoot a commercial film? And it was done in one go to shoot a classic in film history?
It's very simple, "Infernal Affairs" is a classic and does not need to be revised; while "Detective Chinatown 2" needs constant revisions and even brainstorming with others.
Others laughed:
"Xiguajiang, we mortals should not guess the heart of genius!"
"Works that we think need to be carefully polished, others only need a flash of inspiration."
...
When the reputation of "Infernal Affairs" was fermenting, Su Zhe had already returned from New York.
Although the story of "Detective Chinatown 2" basically takes place in New York, it is well known that movies are the magic of light and shadow, and they are not necessarily shot in New York.
There is no way, it costs too much money!
After shooting the location, Su Zhe returned to China with the crew, and most of the content will be shot in China.
Including some foreign actors, they can also be found in China, especially black actors, there is no shortage of them in Guangzhou.
But during the filming, he and other screenwriters have been perfecting the script of "Detective Chinatown 2" as reported.
What bothered him most was the part about the world's top detective team.
Su Zhe's first thought was, can this part be deleted?
From "Detective Chinatown 2", these people appeared just for fun, and they can be deleted without affecting the main plot. After deletion, they can be changed into other burdens.
But from the "Detective Chinatown" series, this is to introduce the setting of the world detective ranking, expand the world view, and form a big IP.
Even if the combination of Tang Ren and Qin Feng is not filmed in the future, and the story is exhausted, other detective stories can be filmed.
For example, in the TV series "Detective Chinatown", Qin Feng was not allowed to appear, and Tang Ren was just a small role, telling the story of his "apprentice" Lin Mo solving the case.
The results are very good and the reputation is very high, which shows that the idea of expanding IP is very successful.
So Su Zhe didn't want to delete it, he wanted to make the other detectives look better, rather than a bunch of monsters.
After thinking for a moment, Su Zhe immediately came up with a solution.
The advantage he has over the original film is that the detectives in the original film can only be original, and it is an impossible task to portray a group of outstanding detectives in a hurry.
You know, in 3 Tang Detectives plus a TV series, only two detectives, Qin Feng and Lin Mo, were created.
Most of the other detectives are just background boards close to the supporting roles. You can't expect them to have top IQs and be comparable to the protagonists.
But Su Zhe is different. He can "learn from" the classic detectives of his previous life!
Directly borrowing, Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Marple, Conan, Yutemachi, etc.
After Su Zhe wrote out this series of names, he couldn't help but be overjoyed:
"This is what we call the world's top detective team! Aren't these people better than Chaoying?"
But he thought about it again and felt a little guilty:
"Compared with them, why is Qin Feng ranked so high?"
What's more terrifying is:
"Q, the big villain behind the scenes, ranks first. How awesome must he be to crush these detectives? Moriarty plus the brewery won't work! You have to add Hydra."
Su Zhe scratched his head, feeling that he designed the detective team too awesome and a little unbalanced.
If this group of people really solved the case together, how could the murderer in "Detective Chinatown 2" be able to kill people serially?
It's as ridiculous as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash gathering together to fight Kingpin (gangster boss).
He doesn't deserve it!
But think about it, if he continues to expand the IP, he might as well film the stories of these detectives——
"Sherlock Holmes" ("Sherlock"), "Murder on the Orient Express", "Detective Conan" complete works...
These all become derivative dramas of "Tang Detective", how powerful will this series and this IP be!
These detectives will also become the most luxurious detective team in the world!
Su Zhe was extremely excited about this idea, and he couldn't give it up after thinking about it.
He thought for a long time and could only think of one way:
Although other detectives attended the party, they had other cases to deal with.
So in the end, the main force in solving the Five Elements Murder Case was still Qin Feng and Tang Ren.
The other detectives just showed up and pretended to be cool, but did not participate deeply in the case.
Such a plot makes Qin Feng less unique, but it makes the detective ranking more valuable.
Otherwise, Qin Feng ranked second among the original group of idiots, and it always felt like he got it by bullying kindergarteners and idiots.
From this point of view, Director Chen is far less pretentious than Gu Long. How can he set off the protagonist with a bunch of ugly characters?
Gu Long always describes a person as awesome, and then another person kills him in seconds to set off the latter's awesomeness.
In the end, this person was killed by Xiao Li Feidao, and immediately achieved the reputation of "Xiao Li Feidao never misses a target".
"Being second to Sherlock Holmes, Conan and others, this is awesome!"
After thinking it through, Su Zhe quickly revised the script with the help of professional screenwriters and comedians, and filmed this part.
"I declare that "Detective Chinatown 2" is officially finished! Some small gifts for everyone."
Last time he visited the three martial arts dramas and gave a lot of luxury gifts.
Now he is even richer and more famous, and the "Detective Chinatown" series is so profitable that he is embarrassed to eat alone.
In fact, Hollywood actors usually ask for more pay when negotiating the sequels of popular works.
For example, in the tenth season of "Friends", each of the six main actors received $1 million per episode, which was a figure they could not get in other TV series.
But in China, if actors dare to ask for too much, they seem to be ungrateful - I made you famous, and you raise the price for the sequel?
Each of them has their own reasons, but Su Zhe feels that if he does not consider other people's ideas at all, he will be hated.
He is not short of money, and he does not have the childhood shadow of Stephen Chow, so there is no need to be so stingy.
So the salary is not much increased, but other aspects can be more generous.
For example, Li Daoqiang was extremely unlucky. The nanny car had a car accident. Su Zhe simply gave him a new car as a gift for the completion of the filming. The active and passive safety were all full. Compared with the salary, it was nothing, but it was a token of his heart.
However, both of them handled such trivial matters in a low-key manner. There was no need to spread it all over the Internet and hype up the "brotherhood".
Generally speaking, those who hype this thing usually have no friendship, and are just plastic brothers and sisters.
But the news of the completion of "Tang Detective 2" still made it to the hot search and attracted a lot of attention.
However, even if it is a hot sequel, its popularity cannot exceed that of the movie currently being released.
As word of mouth took off, the box office of "Infernal Affairs" took an extremely stable curve.
Although this is essentially an art film and a drama film, there is no funny burden, no hot scenes, and no sexy body-regardless of men and women.
This makes "Infernal Affairs" less attractive to the general public, but after all, it is Su Zhe's work.
Su Zhe's appeal may be 500 million box office, but his appeal plus the explosive word of mouth far exceeds 500 million!
His fame has spread the word of mouth of "Infernal Affairs" more widely. Even if you don't want to watch art films, you can't help but go to the cinema to see it after hearing that Su Zhe contributed explosive acting skills.
Slowly, the box office of "Infernal Affairs" exceeded 1.5 billion, setting a new box office record for Hong Kong films in the mainland.
In Hong Kong Island, the box office of "Infernal Affairs" also exceeded 80 million, also getting a new box office record!
Although the former has more numbers, Su Zhe is actually more interested in the latter.
Because he has become the number one box office in the mainland, but the box office in Hong Kong Island is very dismal.
For example, "Tang Detective 1" only had a box office of a few million in Hong Kong Island, and it was simply cannon fodder at the same time.
It's not even as good as his performance in baseball country ("Secret").
It would be a beautiful thing if "Infernal Affairs" could top the box office in Hong Kong.
Unfortunately, Su Zhe checked the Hong Kong box office list and found that the first place was Avengers, with more than 200 million.
Not much, but "Infernal Affairs" has almost no chance of surpassing it.
He even looked at the rankings for a long time and found that the top few were all Hollywood movies, and he couldn't even find the name of a Hong Kong movie.
Even if the reputation of "Infernal Affairs" explodes, I'm afraid it will be difficult to even crack the top five.
Su Zhe was very disappointed when he saw this.
After all, he is at the top of the domestic box office, and the threshold is too high. In the Hong Kong film market, which has an upper limit of 200 million, it would be meaningless if he could not be number one.
80 million or 100 million, does it make any difference to him?
The share of the box office in other places was not high, so that little money couldn't move him at all.
"Hey, there's no hope of winning first place unless I make a Hollywood movie." Su Zhe sighed.
He didn't take it to heart, but he didn't know that public opinion in Hong Kong Island had exploded.
In recent years, Hong Kong movies have declined, and the monster "Infernal Affairs" suddenly appeared. Although it cannot be compared with Hollywood movies, it is exciting enough.
The media did not report at length, but the major stars who participated in the show praised Su Zhe in front of the media:
"Su Sheng is so talented. When I saw the script, I knew it was a pure Hong Kong film!"
"I have never seen a filmmaker as talented as Su Sheng. You ask Mr. X? They are not from the same generation."
"Haha, I only know that Su Sheng makes a lot more money than them."
Although the box office of "Infernal Affairs" is not as good as some Hollywood movies, it is the number one Hong Kong film after all, surpassing many seniors, and it immediately sparked discussion.
Celebrities are so diverse that it is impossible to say any comparison.
But the debate on the Internet is more intense:
[Su Zhe is the most talented filmmaker in Chinese films! His talents and abilities surpass those of Master X! 】
【Nonsense! Didn’t Master X beat him up? He just picks up people's wits and steals many scenes from Master X! 】
[Haha, didn’t Mr. X study foreign films? 】
[Don’t talk about useless things, just look at the box office and net worth. 】
[Don’t you consider the times? Is the money now comparable to before? Can the market in the past be compared with the market now? 】
[I believe in the dispensation theory of other movies, but "Infernal Affairs" is still the most classic movie even in the peak era of Hong Kong films. Do you agree? 】
There was a lot of quarrel between the two sides.
After "The Fight", no one compares Su Zhe with his contemporaries' stars and idols;
After "Infernal Affairs", no one compares him with the Hong Kong stars who were at the peak of the previous generation;
Now, everyone only puts him together with the shining names in film history.
Although it is full of gunpowder, no matter what the point of view is, at least I think Su Zhe is also in this category——
He only made one Hong Kong film, but he became a legend in Hong Kong films.