Wong Kar-wai can be said to be the most deceptive director in history.
Whether I like Wong Kar-wai or not, I will not deny that he is a talented film director and a successful film director. However, Taoist priest believes that his success relies entirely on deception. If Without cheating, Wong Kar-wai would not have achieved what he has achieved now.
Wong Kar-wai worked as a screenwriter at Huang Baiming's New Art City Film Company and Chen Xunqi's Yongjia Film Company, but was fired both times. However, while in Yongjia, Wong Kar-wai met a person who was crucial to his life. Friend: Liu Zhenwei, the "Bodhi Patriarch" in "Journey to the West".
In 1987, Deng Guangrong invited Liu Zhenwei to join his "Darong" company. In the same year, Deng Guangrong established the "Shadow Hero" film production company. Taking this opportunity, Liu Zhenwei introduced Wong Kar-wai to Deng Guangrong and recommended him to join. The company works as a screenwriter.
Deng Guangrong was a little hesitant about whether to hire Wong Kar-wai. After all, this guy had just been fired by Xinyi City and Yongjia and had a bad reputation. However, Liu Zhenwei patted his chest and said to Deng Guangrong: "Boss , believe me, he can do it." Deng Guangrong agreed with a skeptical attitude.
The first movie produced by the "Shadow Heroes" company is called "The Fight between Dragons and Tigers". It is written by Wong Kar-wai and stars Chow Yun-fat and Deng Guangrong. It is a gangster movie that follows the trend of "A Better Tomorrow". The film earned more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars in box office revenue. Although it did not rank among the top ten at the box office, it proved that Wong Kar-wai had certain abilities and changed Deng Guangrong's impression of Wong Kar-wai.
In 1988, Deng Guangrong took a script written by Wong Kar-wai and approached the popular Andy Lau and said, "I will invest if you are willing to film it." Andy nodded and agreed. When Deng Guangrong was happy, he gave Wong Kar-wai his own directorship. The opportunity for this movie, the name of this movie is "Carmen".
"Carmen" does not have the ups and downs of life in the world, but it has the character of a hero who values ??love and justice. Wong Kar-Wai has won a lot of praise for this film. With this film, he won the Hong Kong Film Awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Wong Kar Wai was nominated for Best Director for the first time, Andy Lau was nominated for Best Actor for the first time, Maggie Cheung was nominated for Best Actress for the first time, Andy Lau was nominated for Best Cinematography for the first time, and Jacky Cheung won the Best Supporting Actor.
"Carmen" also did well at the box office, earning more than 10 million. This movie doubled Deng Guangrong's confidence in Wong Kar-wai. This movie gave Wong Kar-wai the capital to cheat.
From that day on, Wong Kar-wai never wrote a script again, because he believed that telling stories was more important than writing stories. In other words, you have to be able to deceive, not only to deceive investors. You pay, and you have to be able to trick big stars into filming for you. Wong Kar-wai's ability to deceive people is at its peak, and as an investor, Deng Guangrong must be aware of this.
In 1989, Wong Kar-wai told Deng Guangrong a wonderful gangster story, hoping that Boss Deng would invest in making this story into a movie. Wong Kar-wai told it vividly, and Deng Guangrong listened with gusto, and his mind was filled with enthusiasm. With a wave of his hand, he took out 40 million Hong Kong dollars and invited six popular idols at the time - Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Carina Lau, and Maggie Cheung, and asked Wong Kar-wai to make his story into two gangster movies.
But Deng Guangrong never expected that of these two commercial movies that were supposed to be about gangsters, one turned into the story of a footless bird, and the other...the other one was gone. , because the first part was stillborn after all the money was spent. This movie, which tells the story of a legless bird, is called Days of Being Wild.
What Deng Guangrong didn't expect was that this movie "Days of Being Wild", which was transformed from two parts into one with huge investment and a large number of stars, would not be able to compete head-on with Stephen Chow despite extensive publicity. "The Gambling Man" suffered a disastrous box office failure. It was canceled less than two weeks after it was released. He didn't even have 10 million Hong Kong dollars. The owner Deng Guangrong, who had lost all his money, was so worried that he was sent to the hospital overnight for intravenous drip. "Shadow Hero" "My vitality was greatly damaged by this. The next year, Wong Kar-wai and Liu Zhenwei left to found "Zedong" Film Company, and "Shadow Heroes" completely withdrew from the market in 1994. Of course, this is a story later.
Not long after, Tsui Hark made the film "The Swordsman", which set off a trend of period martial arts films. Wong Kar-wai successfully tricked Taiwanese film companies into investing in the filming of "Ashes of Time". According to According to the agreement, "Ashes of Time" is a New Year's film that must be shot within three months. However, Wong Kar-wai usually considers himself a director of commercial films, but at critical moments he lacked the necessary qualities of a commercial film director: on-time delivery.
When he found out that he could not deliver a finished film on time no matter what, Wong Kar-wai called Liu Zhenwei: "Man, it's over, I can't finish this movie on time..." Liu Zhenwei was really angry. Crazy, the contract period is almost over, but you come here...
My friend is in trouble, so he has to help. If he can't help Wong Kar-wai make a movie in time, Wong Kar-wai may be expelled from the Taiwanese film company Gangsters were sent to hunt him down, but they only had 27 days left for Liu Zhenwei, and without a script, the task seemed impossible to complete.
However, Liu Zhenwei just completed this seemingly impossible task. He roped in the original cast of "Ashes of Time" to shoot "The Legend of East and West". Not only that , he also took out 5 of these 27 days to help others write a classic script, "Fang Shiyu" starring Jet Li.
Let me tell you about the box office of these three movies. The hastily produced "Dong Cheng Xi Ji" ranked among the top ten at the annual box office. "Fang Shiyu", which was filmed for two months, ranked among the top five. As for the procrastinated film, which took nearly two months, Don't look for "Ashes of Time" in the top ten, you won't find it in the top twenty or even the top thirty.
Having said that Wong Kar Wai deceived his boss and brothers, let’s see how he deceives actors.
Gong Li said that when she was filming "2046", she cried from dusk to dawn for a scene, crying until she collapsed. When the film was cut out, this scene was not there at all, which was so depressing.
Not only Gong Li, but also the Japanese movie star Kimura Takuya who was depressed by "2046". The film started filming in 1999 and was released in 2004. It took a full five years to film Kimura Takuya from a bachelor to a couple. The father of a child, his scene was less than 7 minutes after the final release, and he had no idea what he was playing.
Wang Zuxian is even more interesting. When a reporter asked her why she took on the role of "Ashes of Time", she happily replied: "I usually don't do many group scenes, but I completely trust this one." Director, that’s why I took it.” But when the film came out, she only had a two-second profile, and in the final version, not even this profile was left.
But these are not trivial. Go and see Shuyi Guan and film with Wong Kar-Wai in Argentina for half a year. In the end, there was not even a shadow of her in "Happy Together".
"Happy Together", a film shot in Argentina, is worth talking about because it is the film in which Wong Kar-Wai tortured the cast and crew the most painfully.
How painful is it? Tony Leung Chiu-wai was trapped for too long and was very homesick, so he secretly planned how to sneak back to Hong Kong; Leslie Cheung contracted the virus and almost died, so he seriously considered how to distribute his inheritance.
In fact, when he started filming "Happy Together", Wong Kar-wai himself had no idea how to film it. He only had one idea: to capture the confusion about the future of Hong Kong people who were about to return to China. However, it’s a bit too much to drag a large group of people to the other side of the world with just such an idea, right?
Even the names of the two protagonists in the movie, Li Yaohui and He Baorong, are the names of two crew members. He took them over and used them. If you don’t believe it, look at the subtitles at the end of the movie. They are clearly written on them. It says: "Assistant Photographers: Li Yaohui, He Baorong".
Two weeks later, Wong Kar-Wai still couldn't find inspiration. The entire crew looked at the director's sunglasses eagerly and began to feel a little panicked.
Tony Leung Chiu-wai said that he had no idea what he was going to play at the time. He initially played Ho Po-wing, but later he switched roles with Leslie Cheung for no reason and became Lai Yiu-fai. What Wong Kar-Wai told him at first was that his character went to Argentina to find his father, and Shu-Yi Kwan was his girlfriend in the movie.
When things came to a close, he discovered that his father was gone and his girlfriend was gone. There was a bed scene, but it was with Leslie Cheung.
Leslie Cheung is even more depressed than Tony Leung Chiu-wai, because he has filmed "Days of Being Wild" and "Ashes of Time" with Wong Kar-wai, and has long seen Wong Kar-wai's ability to drag scenes, so this time he and Wong Kar-wai When discussing the script, he was the first to say: "This play can no longer have no time limit like "Ashes of Time" because I have concerts to do and records to record..." Wong Kar-wai vowed to him at the time: " No problem, you will feel so comfortable, as if you are on vacation..."
Leslie Cheung was deceived by Wang Da and boarded the pirate ship. When he found out, it was too late to vomit three liters of blood, because he died shortly after arriving in Argentina. He was infected with a virus called "Amoeba". Although he recovered quickly under Tony Leung's careful care, he was constantly tossed by Wong Kar-wai's ideas every day.
More importantly, Wong Kar-Wai promised that it would not affect Leslie Cheung’s concert schedule, but until Leslie Cheung’s concert was still dozens of hours away, hundreds of thousands of tickets had been sold. The filming of "Escape" was still not finished, and Wong Kar-wai was unwilling to let go. Leslie Cheung, who couldn't bear it, bought a flight ticket to return to Hong Kong early.
After the concert, Leslie Cheung returned to Argentina to reshoot scenes. News came out that the crew had to pay Leslie Cheung an extra 500,000 yuan for the reshoots. A reporter asked Leslie Cheung for confirmation. He is famous for his good character. Leslie Cheung was so angry that he accidentally spilled the coffee and asked the other party to spread out the accounts and take a look: "I don't mind too much about money, but there are a lot of things in it."
Leslie Cheung later said half-jokingly : "Wong Kar-Wai and I really don't get along."
In fact, Wong Kar-Wai is also quite dissatisfied with Leslie Cheung: You slapped your butt and ran away in style, but it almost made my movie not end. In comparison, you work hard and don't complain. The deceived Tony Leung was so cute that he became the number one leading actor in Wong Kar-Wai's movies.
After filming "Happy Together", a reporter asked Leslie Cheung if he would continue to cooperate with Wong Kar-Wai. He smiled and said: "If there is a good script, I will shoot it.
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Everyone knows that Wong Kar-wai does not have a script when filming...