Wen WeihongOriginal title: After “Apostle Walker” and “Heroes of the Walled City”, the explosive “Super Energizer” will be made. Wen Weihong: Compared with exporting overseas, I hope to gain resonance in the country
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Hu Guangxin
What will happen if the little people who are struggling in life suddenly acquire superpowers? The recent broadcast of “Super Messenger” on TVB and Buriedui told such a story.The play is directed by Chen Zhanpeng and Tang Shiyong[微博]Chen Shancong, Liu Yingrong, Wang Junxin[微博]Lin Zishan[微博]Waiting for others to star in, a group of ordinary people who did not know each other, because of an accident, inspired superpowers, they formed a justice alliance and became “superpowers”.
Can TVB make good superhero dramas? Many viewers have this question. Judging from the ratings of the two-week broadcast, the response of “Super Messenger” has been good, and the current Douban score has reached 8.1 points. In this play, the earth is not on the verge of destruction, and the opponent of the power user is not an invader from the universe, but an overbearing evil force. By placing the story in the city life of Hong Kong to narrow the distance between the super power theme and the audience, “Super Power” has become a unique Hong Kong-style “super hero drama”.
The theme of such a slanted sword is really from the hands of producer Wen Weihong. Wen Weihong can be said to be the “explosive machine” of Hong Kong dramas in the past ten years: the 2014 TV series “Apostle Walker” created the enduring “undercover” mode, and made “Apostle Walker” the most popular in the past 10 years. A Hong Kong film and television IP with output power; Wen Weihong himself crossed the film industry and directed two “Apostles” films, which earned more than 1.3 billion box office in the mainland, becoming one of the few “drama-film linkage” successes Model; the 2016 TV series “Heroes of the Walled City” brought the martial arts scenes of hard bridges and horses back to the small screen. The hearty fights and high-energy stories set off a frenzy among the audience; his latest work “Super Energizer” “Since its launch, it has also won many praises from the audience. Recently, Wen Weihong accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News, and talked about how he made a Hong Kong drama that is creative and appealing to the audience.
The new drama creates “civilian heroes”, and superpowers are not omnipotent
Yangcheng Evening News: After the broadcast of “Superpower”, the combination of “superpower + market story” has received a very good response. How did you come up with the idea of combining two elements with very different styles?
Wen Weihong: Sometimes I fantasize like a child. If I have superpowers, it should be very cool and can change a lot of things. So one day I had an idea to do a show about superpowers. But I don’t want to be in the Marvel style – the graphics are great, but the “human” isn’t enough. During the preparation stage of the drama, we collected many good people and good deeds from Hong Kong civilians. There are many stories that moved me, and finally set the direction of this drama – “superpower + market + comedy”.
Yangcheng Evening News: How difficult is it to do such a mix and match?
Wen Weihong: First of all, prejudice must be broken. Many people think that the superpower works made by foreigners have the right taste, but we do it as if the taste is not right. When I made “Super Power”, I expected that some people would compare it with Marvel, so I wanted to bring the whole story closer to the audience, use ordinary civilians as the protagonists of the story, and put “superpowers” in the In a life situation that everyone resonates with. The superpowers we show the audience usually worry about the economy and life. And what they have to deal with is not monsters, nor is it the whole world that they are saving, but people with flesh and blood. I found that this kind of story setting is easier for the audience to accept.
Yangcheng Evening News: Several protagonists gained superpowers because of a car accident. What do you think it means to an ordinary person to have superpowers?
Wen Weihong: After they have superpowers, the first thing they must think about is how to get rich (laughs). I wrote a plot saying that Chen Zhanpeng’s character once fantasized about using his superpowers to do bad things to gain wealth, but in the end he didn’t do anything illegal because of his conscience. Just because an ordinary person has superpowers doesn’t mean he becomes omnipotent. This is what I want to express.
Yangcheng Evening News: It is said that “the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility”, the sudden arrival of superpowers should be a lot of pressure for these ordinary people.
Wen Weihong: This is a relatively old way of speaking, and many superhero films have this theme. “Superheroes” is a little different. What this show wants to tell the audience is that no matter what you do, there is a price to pay. The protagonist in the play has done a lot of things for justice and offended the evil forces. He needs to consider whether his actions will involve his beloved and other innocent people. Our characters are often in the throes of deciding what to do with themselves. Everyone will know after seeing it, in the setting of this drama, the use of superpowers is conditional, and there is a corresponding price to be paid when it is used up.
Yangcheng Evening News: The protagonists in “Super Messenger” are all small people with great survival wisdom. They may be poor and philistine, but their background is kind. In your previous works, Seed and Sister Ning of “The Apostles” are also similar characters. Why do you like to use this type of character as the protagonist?
Wen Weihong: Among the foreign superheroes, I have the least feeling for Batman. His superpower is money. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that the story I want to tell is more flesh and blood. The reason why I chose civilians as the protagonists of the story is because I think it is very valuable for them to be willing to help others while living hard on their own.
Discovering the characteristics of actors, the new drama makes Chen Zhanpeng a “coward”
Yangcheng Evening News: When setting the superpowers of several protagonists, how did you think about it? Will there be superpowers based on actors?
Wen Weihong: Exactly. For example, Chen Zhanpeng, he used to play mostly gentle and stylish leading roles, but according to my long-term observation, I found that he actually has a very funny side. Therefore, the character Zhong Xiaonian designed for him this time is a person who is “greedy for life and afraid of death”. He will hide first if there is something, and use Tang Shiyong to block the sword when fighting. But in the face of big right and wrong, this “coward” can stand up bravely, and this contrast will be very touching. This time I designed a super power for him to pause time. Although he can’t beat others, he can rely on super power to play a great role at critical moments.
As for Chen Shancong, he has the same problem as Chen Zhanpeng – they are too handsome in many dramas, this time I want to pull them into the world of ordinary people. So I set the character of Shan Cong, Gao Yong, to be a person with a strong sense of justice, but a very honest person, whose super power is invulnerable. Tang Shiyong is very small in appearance, but her heart is very strong, so I designed a super power for her that can heal her injuries.
Yangcheng Evening News: What superpower would you most like to have?
Wen Weihong: It’s hard to choose. I want several superpowers in the play. But what I want most is the super power to stop disputes, hoping to make this world less strife.
Yangcheng Evening News: You can see many familiar faces in “Super Messenger”. Chen Zhanpeng, Tang Shiyong, Chen Shancong, Wang Junxin, etc. have all acted in more than two of your works. Using the same cast seems to be one of your specialties.
Wen Weihong: I know that actors want to try different types of roles, but actors are also very passive. Sometimes after playing a certain role, they all receive the same type of role. I want to help them to try more possibilities, to sculpt them and make them shine. Therefore, I usually have long-term cooperation with some actors, hoping to use different roles to help them show different faces. For example, Chen Zhanpeng’s upright and awe-inspiring image in “Heroes in the Walled City” is completely different from the hero in the market in “The Powerhouse”.
Yangcheng Evening News: Many Luye actors have also gained popularity because of their performance in your works. How did you discover them?
Wen Weihong: For example, Ou Ruiwei, who also acted in “Super Enchanter”, we have known each other for a long time. The first time we worked with him dates back to “Looking for Qin Ji”. He gives a very serious impression. I hope to break this aspect, on the one hand, let him play more, on the other hand, it will also surprise the audience. So in “Heroes of the Walled City”, he played the ultimate villain, and the audience would feel very good. And Zhang Guoqiang himself has a very wide range of dramas, but he is very handsome, so I have to do everything possible to make him a little more ordinary when setting the character. I have always believed that a work cannot have only the protagonist. Every character, regardless of size, plays a very important role. The supporting characters are well written, and the story can be full.
Do not want to repeat yourself, overcome difficulties and challenge new themes
Yangcheng Evening News: Superheroes are a very popular theme in Europe and the United States in recent years, and it is also a field rarely covered by Hong Kong dramas. How difficult was it to shoot?
Wen Weihong: First of all, we put the background of the story in the life of the Hong Kong market. The shooting location is relatively controllable, which solves the difficulty of setting the scene, but the difficulty of shooting is indeed much greater than that of ordinary dramas. In the first episode, there is a scene where a little girl falls from a building and Chen Zhanpeng uses the ability to stop time. It is estimated that it is difficult for the audience to imagine the difficulty of the shooting process. I insisted on making the photo realistic, so I rejected the plan of using computer animation. In the end, we spent nearly a day on the rooftop setting, and used Weiya to hoist different sundries. It took most of the day just for the set. , only 3 shots were taken that day.
It was also very difficult for the actors to make “Superman”. For example, in the second episode, there is a scene in which Chen Zhanpeng dragged Tang Shiyong into the mortuary. We filmed it with a high-speed camera, showing a state where time stopped. To match the high-speed cameras, the actors’ movements and dialogue are two or three times faster than normal.
There is also the scene of Chen Shancong crashing a moving car, which I did not use full CG. I found a real car, removed the engine from the front, and made a lot of adjustments to get the real feel of the front of the car being knocked flat. The show took more money, time, and more work, but the results were more realistic.
Yangcheng Evening News: How to overcome the difficulties caused by shooting cost and time constraints?
Wen Weihong: This drama took three and a half months to shoot, with 15 months of post-production and more than 1,800 CG shots. I insist on investing where it is worth investing and saving time and money elsewhere. Fortunately, the cast and production team are very professional, and even if there are difficulties, they are quickly resolved.
Yangcheng Evening News: From “The Apostles” and “Heroes in the Walled City” to “Super Messenger”, you have been making innovations in themes in recent years. Why do you have a soft spot for these unconventional themes?
Wen Weihong: I don’t think anyone likes repetition, and neither do I. I hope that when I look back at my own works in the next 20 or 30 years, I can find that there are many elements in my works, and I do not repeat what I have done.
Yangcheng Evening News: When innovating, did you consider the audience’s acceptance?
Wen Weihong: Of course, the audience’s acceptance is my first consideration. As I said before, I was worried that the audience might have some resistance to our own superhero theme, so I needed a way to shorten the distance between this theme and the audience, so I used the concept of “market hero” to package . As for how to balance innovation and audience taste, I think one depends on experience and the other depends on intuition. Of course, not every intuition will be so accurate, but if you don’t take the first step bravely, you can only go back to the old theme forever.
Yangcheng Evening News: “The Apostle” asks the audience to guess who is the undercover, “Heroes of the Walled City” lets the audience guess who the villain is, does “Super Messenger” ask the audience to guess who has superpowers?
Wen Weihong: At present, there are only three superpowers: time suspension, invulnerability, and treatment of wounded. After that, other characters will show other superpowers one after another. And the superpowers are constantly changing, and what audiences are seeing right now is only the early stages. You can keep looking forward to it.
Impressed by “Blood Two Heroes”, he used his works to convey a sense of justice
Yangcheng Evening News: Many people commented that your works have the feeling of Hong Kong comics. Are you a loyal reader of Hong Kong comics?
Wen Weihong: I read comics, but I am not an avid fan. Instead, some movies have had a bigger influence on me, such as John Woo’s “Blood and Blood”. I hadn’t even entered the industry at the time, but this movie shocked me a lot: why did my emotions seem to be under control during the two hours of watching the movie, and it kept going up and down with the plot? Since then, I have realized that there are two very important people behind a work, one is the screenwriter and the other is the director. “Blood on Two Heroes” gave me the idea of getting into this line of work.
I joined TVB in 1993 and started working behind the scenes in the film and television industry. Some sources say that I have done on-screen work at Li’s TV and ATV, and this information is wrong. When I first entered the industry, I sometimes encountered some actors in the crew who were temporarily ill and couldn’t come, and my colleagues needed to find someone to save the scene, so I went over to help with a few lines. It may be misunderstood that I was an actor in front of the screen.
Yangcheng Evening News: Where do you think the film and television industry attracts you most?
Wen Weihong: You can use different themes to convey the stories you want to tell and the information you want to express to the audience. I want to convey a sense of justice to the audience through TV series and movies. The audience can find that my works have a typical feature, that is, the confrontation between good and evil. I want to tell everyone that doing bad things doesn’t have good results.
Yangcheng Evening News: In your works, action scenes are very important. Would you position yourself as an action film director?
Wen Weihong: I like to watch action dramas. This is my hobby, but it’s not that I dislike filming literary dramas. I just use action dramas to package literary dramas. Action movies are an important part of my work, but it doesn’t mean that my future works will have this element. I think the audience has been able to remember my current style, and I want to try other styles in the future and establish other labels.
Yangcheng Evening News: The IP of Hong Kong’s film and television works was once strong, and it could even be exported to Hollywood. But it is undeniable that the influence of Hong Kong dramas has dropped significantly. As a creator, how would you position yourself and find breakthroughs?
Wen Weihong: Rather than exporting overseas, I hope to make works that can resonate with more Chinese audiences. As a creator in Hong Kong, China, there are actually many directions for us to choose from. Some people choose to do some stories with a strong Hong Kong flavor, some choose to do the theme of the Greater Bay Area, and some choose to do some works that are in line with the entire mainland market. I don’t think you should set limits on yourself, you have to be brave to try. You don’t move forward when you see success, but you see success because you move forward.
Yangcheng Evening News: What plans and goals do you have in the future?
Wen Weihong: The short-term goal is to do a good job in the later stage of “Invisible Team”. This drama is very different from the police and bandit themes that you have seen in the past. It has both professional agent elements and scenes of military situations, which are rare in Hong Kong dramas. I personally look forward to this drama very much and hope it will meet the audience soon.
(Editor in charge: vhaha)