In the past few years, when it comes to Hong Kong movies, everyone can't help complaining: Are these actors always playing with permutations and combinations? No, the same thing happened in "Assassination Storm": Julian Cheung, Francis Ng, Louis Koo...a lot of familiar faces were put on the show, and the performance mode didn't change much. The aesthetic fatigue is really aesthetic fatigue.

But after watching the whole movie, it produced another feeling. Compared with the starvation of actors, another problem in Hong Kong movies is more serious. It seems that no one can tell a good story. Extravagant.

"Assassination Storm" poster

Let me give you the simplest example. Not long after the opening of the movie, the protagonist played by Zhang Zhilin and the big boss behind the scenes came to a parkour chase on the rooftops of the city. Don't tell me, the first-person perspective plus the sharp editing is quite impressive. At this time, the audience naturally thought that the protagonist's skills are so powerful, they must be useful in the subsequent investigation process. But guess what, the director simply forgot about it afterwards. Whether our protagonist can parkour has nothing to do with the core plot. In other words, this scene is to make everyone happy, but it has no other meaning.

This may be the most vivid portrayal of the narrative level of Hong Kong movies today-a mallet in the east and an ax in the west. The plot is like stepping on a watermelon rind, and it counts where it slides, without any rules at all. In the past, when talking about a certain Hong Kong movie, I was always used to analyzing that a certain part of the plot had problems and that the logic of a certain part did not exist, but in retrospect, such an analysis is meaningless at all. The reason is very simple. They didn't plan to shoot well from the very beginning. It was like building blocks, they pieced together the bridge sections that they thought the audience would like, and then they finished the work and called it a day.

Julian Cheung as Luo Fei

So, why did the heroine call her boyfriend instead of calling the police when she encounters something as big as a bomb at the beginning of the film? Why did our protagonist find reasons for himself when he saw his friend in distress and refused to help? Why did no one check the identity of the homeless man in such a big case when the explosion caused heavy casualties, and why did he successfully drop the bag? Why is it that the whole movie is over, and the identity of Darker, the mastermind behind the scenes, has not been told to the audience, is it still planned to make a sequel?

The most important thing is, why did Gu Tianle play the homeless man? Is there any suspense at all? Do you believe that such a big-name actor plays an inconspicuous supporting role?

Gu Tianle as Huang Shaoping

From this, it is not difficult to understand why the pace of this film is so fast - it is really fast, suddenly the protagonist is wronged, suddenly the protagonist is liberated, suddenly the protagonist guesses the truth, there is no foreshadowing at all , The audience is not a little bit defensive. In short, this is probably the "reversal" repeatedly emphasized when the film was announced and released-whether it is reasonable or not, just ask you, is it a reversal?

In fact, Qiu Litao is quite busy this summer. Some time ago, "Sweeping Drugs 3" just presented a big mess to the audience, and this time the "chaos" in "Assassination Storm" came more thoroughly. At any rate, the former has an old-fashioned but relatively clear theme-justice defeats evil, and what is the latter filming? The so-called use of the sword of justice to sanction evil assassinations has been done for a long time, and it turned out to be for the business of real estate developers. Can this kind of behavior win the support of the public? The police have been busy for a long time, but the leader turned out to be a murderer. How can there be no good guy in the whole movie? Oh, by the way, there is also our protagonist, but I can't see the meaning of his existence at all?

In retrospect, this is probably Qiu Litao's old problem. Even "Bomb Disposaler 2" and "Sweeping Drugs 2", which have been more recognized by the audience in the past two years, the closer to the end, the more he stretched his hips. In the final analysis, how to "round" the whole story seems to have never been his area of consideration.

On a bigger scale, this is not Qiu Litao's problem alone. For example, Zhang Zhilin misses his dead girlfriend and often fantasizes about her being by his side, which is easily reminiscent of the "Detective" series starring Liu Qingyun. But after the filming of that series, it became pure pretending to play ghosts, and I couldn’t see the meaning of this setting at all—this time is the same, I thought that Zhang Zhilin might cause something because of schizophrenia, and even thought that he might give birth. A different self was created to do bad things, but in the end the case was successfully solved, and Myolie Wu was "sent away" away, nothing happened.

Myolie Wu as Meng Yun, Julian Cheung as Luo Fei

It can be seen that the current Hong Kong movies often come up with a good idea and launch it immediately, without even thinking about how to tell a good story and turn a wonderful idea into a real good movie.

In this sense, Hong Kong movies, especially commercial movies produced on industrial assembly lines such as "Assassination Storm", have indeed lagged far behind the mainland. This summer file, whether it is the suspense-focused "The Missing She" or the adventure-focused "All or Nothing", although it has also received a lot of complaints and criticisms, at least in terms of completion, it is better than "Assassination Storm" and "Sweeping Drugs 3" Take it up a notch. At least the audience can understand what the whole story is all about, and can understand what the theme of the movie is to express. But Qiu Litao's messy stew can only make everyone confused, and they don't understand why.

According to the information, Qiu Litao still has a lot of projects in his hands, such as "Jedi Chase", which will be released soon, and "Moscow Operation" and "Customs Front", which have attracted more attention. It seems that he is still a leader in the Hong Kong film industry. "Sweet pastry". But on the other hand, human energy is limited after all, how can he operate so many projects at the same time in a short period of time? Can this still maintain quality and quantity? No wonder, in recent years, his films have always been exciting at the beginning and then quickly turned to decline. Probably, when he was making this movie, he had to consider the progress of other movies.

In the early years, Hong Kong movies could always capture the hearts of mainland audiences, because there are indeed many exciting and unforgettable scenes in them, which are still talked about today. But if you think about it, even many of the classics from the 1980s and 1990s are quite casual on the narrative level. For example, although the status of the "True Heroes" series is beyond doubt, the confusion in the story cannot be concealed.

But now, with the continuous improvement of the audience's aesthetic level, it is an impossible task for Hong Kong movies to easily fool the past. While Qiu Litao and others are still rushing to mass-produce mediocre films, perhaps someone should really remind them that this will only consume the little glory left by Hong Kong movies.

Stills of "Assassination Storm"