Apple's old work repost series: Xu Guanwen, a generation of comedians

Foreword: In Hong Kong, there are too many digital codes, 8964, 71, 689, 831, 612, 101 (read: 11), 721, and even 2 million + 1. The real Hong Kong people must know the story behind them. Of course, the numbers are getting more and more Many, sometimes need to be reminded. What day is 624? It's the day the last Apple Daily was published, and it's been a year! I was fortunate enough to have contributed to the Apple website, but once Apple was destroyed, all the text, pictures and videos came to nothing. Some people have already put old articles back on the Internet, but there are too many. At this moment, I specially selected ten of my old articles to repost here, to commemorate and refuse to forget.

The original title on the webpage: Xu Guanwen Film Festival | The works of a generation of cold-faced comedians spanned half a century. Everyone's favorite is still "Half a catty and eight li"

I probably remember that when Xu Guanjie announced his retirement from the music world, it should have been in 1992. At some public occasions, Xu Guanwen would also attend. At that time, he would laugh and say that I told reporter friends in the afternoon that I had not yet photographed myself. If you feel satisfied with the work, you must continue to work hard, but in the evening, you will come to the honor party of your slender. Since then, he has mentioned this unfulfilled wish many times, and he will talk about it for nearly 30 years.

The International Summer Film Festival this year (2020) encountered the peak of the epidemic, and the theaters were closed for nearly two months. Just in July and August, when the theaters reopened, the film festival decided to postpone it to the fall. This year's focus director is Xu Guanwen, who has selected ten of his films, from the original "The Great Warlord" to the most recent "Smooth Road", including the ones he wrote, directed and acted, and those that were purely actors. In addition, there are some community screenings this year. In addition to free admission, there are also speakers sharing post-screening talks. "Ban Jin Ba Li" and "Chicken and Duck Talk" are included in the same community screenings, and "Ban Jin Ba Li" himself went into the battle for a post-screening talk, and the tickets were sold out early in the morning.

This play was drawn in 1976, 44 years ago. Time is indeed the most honest thing. People who watched in the theater back then were probably over half a century old today, and Xu Guanwen just celebrated his 78th birthday in September, almost 80 years old. But when I attended the post-screening talk today, I couldn't tell from the appearance at all. The audience is also quite enthusiastic, but everyone seems to be used to expecting him to say something funny when they see him, but jokes always have a rhythm of coincidence of time, and sometimes they may not happen by chance. He also prepared some debut stories that are well known to many people. In his mouth, they are still full of entertainment and the audience responded well. However, in the audience's question-and-answer session, there was another interaction between lightning and flint.

An audience member asked a question, but his premise and question were quite long and out of focus. After Xu Guanwen said a few words, he asked back: What do you actually want to ask? The audience repeated the rather long question, and Xu Guanwen interrupted him. Could you sum up your question in two sentences? It can be seen that he is still a little angry! When it came to the last question, the audience talked a lot about what happened to each movie he watched in the theater back then. The host urged him to ask questions. There was not much time, but he continued to talk in a long and insignificant manner. The host interrupted him many times. Finally, he asked Xu Guanwen how he came up with these jokes. Xu Guanwen also took advantage of the situation, inspired by observation, real life, just like now, you ask questions very long, as if you don't answer me, it's funny. If it were to be made into a movie, then I would want to be your character. All of a sudden, there was a lot of laughter, and this should not be expected by everyone in advance!

Comedy may have this limitation, it has its own rhythm, and sometimes it can't be controlled in advance. Xu Guanwen has not yet filmed a comedy that he is satisfied with and cited as a classic, but what about the audience? Everyone agrees that he is a generation of comedians, from TV, movies, to the stage, everyone has their own favorites. And looking at the ten films selected for this film festival, you can also see the clues. The first four films of their brothers' collaboration were all screened. In fact, among the first six films, only "The Deed" was not included, and "The Great Warlord", which was filmed with Shaw Brothers, occupied six seats in total. Last 2016's "Smooth the Road", that is to say, in the 1980s, 1990s and nearly 30 years after the millennium, only three films were selected. It is not clear that the classics are all in the 1970s.

This time, because it is a free show, and since it is a weekend, and Xu Guanwen is on stage with the film, it will naturally become the show with the largest number of people. But looking at the reaction, everyone was deeply impressed by several main scenes in the movie. Gymnastics with chickens, kitchen fights and theater robbery are all classics that have never been seen before, and I can still laugh out loud when I watch them today. And many comedies are like this, one gag after another, probably without context. For example, taking a piece of chicken gymnastics into another movie would probably be just as funny and wouldn't break the structure of the movie.

The last collaboration of the three Xu brothers was "New Banjin Ba Li" (1990), because the title of the film is similar and the plots are similar, so it can be compared. , one side is the detective agency, the other side is the magazine agency, and then there are gag after gag, and even the buffet-style robbery at the end is obviously a variation of the theater robbery. After that, he tried to act only without directing, and it was not ideal to just write and not act. Instead, he was more popular as a dongduxiao. In 2016, he was invited to Taiwan to film a "Smooth Journey", no longer laughing, and was nominated for the Golden Horse Award. This time in the arena, he directly asked the audience whether he liked him to laugh or be serious, and it was the latter who accounted for the majority. It's really hard to think about where to go next.

The difficulty of creation is that sometimes it cannot be deliberate. It is not that you want to make a movie that will last forever, and you can shoot it casually. You can only do your best to do everything well, and then let the finished product be made public, fermented over time, sublimated in time, and slowly recognized as a classic. Or, Xu Guanwen refused to agree, but today's audience told him that "Ban Jin Ba Li" is his masterpiece. If he insists on reaching another peak, he may have to go out of the box completely, the audience has absolutely no expected field, a blue ocean, such as tragedy.

I suddenly remembered an old song,

I started a joke which started the whole world crying
But I didn't see that the joke was on me oh no
I started to cry which started the whole world laughing
Oh If I'd only seen that the joke was on me

Barry Gibb / Maurice Ernest Gibb / Robin Hugh Gibb (Bee Gees)