Once Upon a Time in Shanghai

[straightblast5]

New trailer for the upcoming film, Once Upon A Time In Shanghai. Action directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping. Directed by Wong Ching-Po. Executive produced by Wong Jing. Starring Philip Ng, Andy On, and Sammo Hung.

[Shaolindynasty]

awesome!

[GeneChing]

Way to go, Phillip!

Interview: Philip Ng
Posted: 8 Jan 2014


After toiling away in martial arts cinema for a decade, Philip Ng has landed the breakout role that may well make him the heir to Hong Kong’s action star throne. Before the release of the film, Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, the nascent star talks about his journey from fanboy to leading man. By James Marsh. Photography by Calvin Sit. Art direction Jeroen Brulez

Last year saw martial arts legends Jet Li and Donnie Yen turn 50. While both continue to work, their days at the top of Hong Kong cinema’s action heap are seriously numbered. Suitable successors, however, are proving thin on the ground. Potential candidates like Wu Jing and Andy On jostle for attention, but none have yet to land a genuine breakout role to secure their status as the heir apparent to the action star throne. And, indeed, while stars are emerging elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such as Tony Jaa, Eddie Peng and Iko Uwais, Hong Kong director Wong Ching-po’s new film Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, an artistically vibrant yet action-packed retelling of Shaw Bros classic Boxer From Shantung, has thrown another relative unknown, Philip Ng, into its starring role, in an effort to keep the crown on home turf.

Born in Hong Kong but educated in Illinois, USA, Ng was raised in a martial arts-infused household brimming with old-school talent. His father established the Ng Family Chinese Martial Arts Association in Chicago and Philip is today credited as head instructor. After spending his summer vacations in Hong Kong training under the legendary Wong Shun-leung, Ng finally persuaded his parents to let him try his hand at becoming a movie star. Without any solid contacts in the industry, but schooled in a fistful of disciplines including Wing Chun, Hung Gar and Tae Kwon Do, Ng moved to Hong Kong in 2003.

In the 10 years since, Ng has clawed his way up the industry ladder, learning action choreography under the tutelage of Hong Kong’s finest, Chin Kar Lok, while snatching up supporting roles in films like New Police Story, Invisible Target and Bodyguards & Assassins along the way. Now firm friends with like-minded transatlantic kung fu stars Andy On, Nicolas Tse and Vanness Wu, Ng has signed with Wong Jing, the uber-prolific movie impresario responsible for launching almost every major star in Hong Kong cinema. Once Upon a Time in Shanghai looks to be the perfect vehicle for Wong’s new star, appearing alongside genre heavyweights Sammo Hung, Chan Koon-tai and Yuen Cheung-yan in supporting roles, and featuring fight choreography from the incomparable Yuen Woo-ping.

Ahead of the film’s release, Time Out sits down with Hong Kong’s great new hope to discuss his experiences making Once Upon a Time in Shanghai and where he sees the future of Hong Kong action cinema…

When you moved to Hong Kong, you didn’t know anyone in the industry. How did you get started?
When I was younger my father would send me to Hong Kong to train Wing Chun with Wong Chun-leung and after my si fu passed away I still came and trained with my kung fu brothers. During that time some of my college friends introduced me to people already in the industry and I thought, ‘I think I can do this’. So I cut together this little seven-minute showreel of me doing kung fu and I got one to Chin Ka-lok. He needed someone who knew Hung Kuen and Wing Chun. So I got hired to work on the film Star Runner, where I met Andy On and Vanness Wu, two of my best friends in this industry.

What was the most valuable lesson you learned working with Chin Ka-lok?
He said I know you want to be an actor but there are a lot of people like you and you don’t have any knowledge. If you work with me and learn how to film, edit and direct, then when you get a chance to go in front of the camera, you’ll be a step ahead. So I dove headfirst into that and learnt everything about camera work and editing. At the same time I was working as an assistant choreographer so I was learning as I went. Not long after that I started getting acting jobs and I got a manager.

Even after your talents had been recognised, why do you think it has taken so long for you to land a lead role?
This industry is very realistic. If they don’t perceive you have a sense of value then you are useless. It was awkward at first but I understand the way the game works. My mum said something that I always remember: every opportunity is an opportunity, it doesn’t matter how big or small the role is. So I played the game and worked my butt off every time.

Finally in Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, you’re in a leading role, working with Master Yuen Woo-ping. How did that collaboration work?
Master Yuen and his crew are outstanding. I can’t remember another movie where everyone knew what they were doing and communicated so well. I remember the first production meeting with Wong Jing, Wong Ching-po, Yuen Woo-ping and everyone to discuss how to approach the martial arts. I felt it should be like 80s or 90s style fighting, more about rhythm and looking real. We discussed whether to give each character a specific style, but in the end we kept it loose and natural, which gave us all more freedom. He would say to me things like ‘punch-punch-slip-block-duck’ but I would express it with whatever I knew.

The film feels like a conscious shift for Wong Ching-po into more commercial filmmaking. How was your experience working with him?
Wong is one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. I don’t say that because he made me look cool – he did and I appreciate that – but he just loves film. Once Upon a Time in Shanghai is a very cinematic approach to a commercial kung fu film. He knows what he’s doing.

In your first lead role you must have encountered plenty of new challenges.
It was hard. We shot the ending in like 12 to 14 days. Half an hour of fighting footage. Yuen Biao told me they had two months to shoot the ending of Millionaires Express. Our whole movie was shot in less than two months! But even Master Yuen Woo-ping was pleasantly surprised by the result. It was tough but it was awesome.

The film also stars Chan Koon-tai, who played your role in the original Boxer From Shantung.
It was funny because he knows my father, but I’d never really talked to him. I’m a kung fu nerd and I’ve seen all his movies, so it was kind of surreal. I would always say to him ‘You’re the original, I’m the fan ban’ – the pirated copy – just so he didn’t punch me too hard during our fight scenes.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

While your film harks back to old-school onscreen action, the rest of the world seems very reliant on CGI. How do you think this will affect action choreography?
If CGI is used to enhance the action, like sound effects, then it’s all good. But when CGI starts to replace the action then the audience is going to recognise the difference. You still need a human component for the audience to believe it. I think that’s what attracts people to kung fu movies. Although, for me, story is very important too. It doesn’t have to be complicated: I get beat up, I train, I win. But you have to care about the guy to root for him.

Do you think Hollywood has created a problem, by replacing all their action stars with invincible superheroes?
I’m a big fan of the comic book genre. It’s not a bad thing because it still involves choreography and some martial arts. But even back in the 80s, when there was a human element, you never thought those guys like Schwarzenegger were going to die. Everyone else was, but not those guys.

So who’s doing it right in Hollywood right now?
I like JJ Perry, who choreographed Undisputed 2. Of course Brad Allan’s stuff is awesome, because he trained with the best! But in terms of a whole kung fu movie, I don’t think Hollywood really has anything comparable. Every country has their export so I don’t mind so much. It’s hard to export Hong Kong comedy because it’s based on language, but you can always export action because it’s a universal language. If you want kung fu movies you have to look to Asia.

Do you think Hong Kong was only able to produce the action it did in the 80s by throwing caution to the wind?
There was a lot of trial and error, definitely. But that still exists today, which is why I enjoy working in Asia. Sometimes it can be dangerous but ingenuity and innovation comes from that. I have spoken to Master Yuen many times about shooting in America and he tells me that, there, everything is choreographed ahead of time and can’t really be changed on set.

Because most of the actors aren’t martial artists so can’t improvise in the same way?
Right. I’ll often have an idea of what’s going on and a shot list, but certain things change because of the environment or the actors aren’t comfortable or because we haven’t had months of rehearsals. Honestly, the only way we were able to shoot half an hour of footage for Once Upon a Time in Shanghai is because they would show me a sequence once and I basically just did it. After a while your brain gets re-wired, you just remember stuff, you just do it. I guess these last 10 years moving slowly up the ladder have really helped me, because without that training I could not have shot that half-hour.

As the forefathers move aside, do you feel ready to step up and become Hong Kong’s next great action star?
I just thank God for the opportunity. When I was in America watching VHS tapes of Yuen Biao, Jackie, Sammo and Donnie I never thought I would come here, I was just a fanboy. I remember thinking I would pay to get hit by Jackie Chan in a movie. And now I’m working with these guys, they’re my friends. I get goosebumps just talking about it.

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai opens on Thu Jan 16.

Phillip looks quite different in these photos.

[GeneChing]

Haven't heard anything about the U.S. distribution of this film yet.

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai (E Zhan): Film Review
2:57 AM PST 1/16/2014 by Clarence Tsui

See Movies, Mega-Vision Pictures, Henan Film & TV Group, Henan Film Studio
"Once Upon a Time in Shanghai"

The Bottom Line
White-knuckle action scenes belie a dearth of flesh-and-blood drama.

Venue
Public screening, Hong Kong, Jan. 16, 2014

Director
Wong Ching-po

Cast
Philip Ng, Andy On, Sammo Hung, Hu Ran, Chen Kuan-tai, Yuen Cheung-yan, Fung Hak-on
Newcomer Philip Ng and a cast of mostly martial-arts veterans star in producer Wong Jing’s second Shanghai-set, 1930s gangland actioner in as many years.

Throughout his career, Hong Kong screenwriter-director Wong Jing has been known for making tills ring by milking fads dry – and true to form, his latest film is a prime exemplar of that modus operandi. Wasting no time to follow his bigger-budget, Bona-backed 1930s gangland drama The Last Tycoon – which took $24.5 million during its month-long run in China just a year ago – he has now returned with a similarly-themed but modest-sized production shaped to capitalize on the recent demand for action-filled bromances, demonstrated by the critical and commercial success of films like Dante Lam’s Unbeatable.

It’s no surprise, therefore, to see scant originality in Once Upon A Time in Shanghai, whether in its title (the Sergio Leone/Tsui Hark-aping English handle is accompanied by an original Chinese version – E Zhan – taking its cue from that of Unbeatable and Johnnie To’s Drug War), premise (it’s a reworking of a story twice adapted on film and thrice as a TV series) and patriotic leanings (with typical caricatures of Japanese villains probably designed to exploit the nationalist sentiments invoked by the current Sino-Japanese political standoff over the Diaoyu Islands).

For all its flaws -- ranging from thin characterization in Wong’s screenplay to director Wong Ching-po’s heavy-handed deployment of slow-motion trickery and stirring muzak -- Shanghai flickers only through Yuen Cheung-yan’s action choreography, ably brought alive by a cast featuring the martial-arts genre’s prime upstarts or elder statesmen. With their fights basically burning expressways to each other’s (and the viewers’) skulls, Shanghai should play well to hardcore kung-fu aficionados as an exotic artifact, what with its “pedigree” of revisiting a Shaw Brothers classic (namely Chang Cheh’s The Boxer from Shantung, from 1972). It’s perhaps a raison d’etre that explains its surprising presence at International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it will make its international premiere in the Spectrum section entry next week.

Just like The Boxer from Shantung (and the 1997 film Hero, also a Shaw Brothers production), Shanghai refashions the real-life 19thcentury martial arts expert Ma Yongzhen into a fighter caught in the crossfire of the titular city’s chaotic mob wars in the 1930s. Unlike in these previous incarnations -- where the character succumbs to the temptations of power and money as the modern-day metropolis eats into him -- Shanghai’s Ma is purity personified a la Bruce Lee in Fists of Fury. Rather than going through some kind of rite of passage, the penniless country boy (played by Philip Ng, a Chicago-educated martial arts actor getting top-billing for the first time) here remains steadfastly principled, a perennial beacon of moral light burning undimmed even as he befriends the ambitious wannabe Godfather Long Qi (Andy On, Cold War). Instead of revealing some kind of evil id under his new best friend’s corrosive influence, Ma -- who continues to live in a back-alley ghetto presided over by the righteous master Tie (Sammo Hung) -- actually converts Long, with the latter slowly growing into a good gangster as they go to war against a triumvirate of old-school, opium-hawking mobsters (played by Yuen Chuen-yan himself, Fung Hak-on and Chen Kuan-tai, the original Ma Yongzhen in Boxer from Shantung) and their Japanese backers.

It’s a simplistic, wafer-thin narrative that belies an early pretense of an epic about a tumultuous episode in Chinese history (the film begins with a heavily-stylized opening sequence in which images of a ship’s hold packed with ailing and worse-for-wear émigrés play backdrop to on-screen texts speaking of people rushing to “a city of dreams” where “only the strong survive”). It’s telling that the first impression of Shanghai that wows Ma isn’t the vistas of the famous Bund; instead, he (and the viewer) is made to marvel at the city’s splendor through the very limited image of a well-attired couple kissing in a back alley as a single limousine passes by behind them. Rather than an intentional avoidance of visual bombast, this scene only serves as a template of the thinly-layered proceedings to follow. For all its bone-cracking action sequences, Shanghai is in general as undercooked as its special effects.

Just as the ample flying axes and machetes -- inexplicably, no one uses a gun in this film -- suggests a 3-D project unrealized, the half-baked story struggles to generate a complete engagement with the characters’ trials and tribulations in a merciless, fatalistic haven of criminality, and (as we now know) eventual occupation by a brutal invading power. Once upon a time, Ma Yongzhen’s story was deployed as an effective morality tale and kickstarted the golden age of the gangster genre in Hong Kong filmmaking; here, it’s turned into a spectacle and not much else.

Venue: Public screening, Hong Kong, Jan. 16, 2014
Production Companies: See Movies, Mega-Vision Pictures, Henan Film & TV Group, Henan Film Studio
Director: Wong Ching-po
Cast: Philip Ng, Andy On, Sammo Hung, Hu Ran, Chen Kuan-tai, Yuen Cheung-yan, Fung Hak-on
Producers: Wong Jing, Connie Wong
Executive Producers: Wong Jing, Wong Ai-ling, Zong Xuejie, Li Yan
Screenwriter: Wong Jing
Director of Photography: Jimmy Wong
Action Director: Yuen Cheung-yan
Art Director: Andrew Cheuk
Costume Designer: Connie Au Yeung
Editor: Wenders Li, Wong Mo-heng
Music: Anthony Cheng, Hubert Ho, So Wang-ngai
International Sales: Mega-Vision Pictures
In Cantonese
No rating, 97 minutes

[straightblast5]

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰
Friday, Jan 10, 2014 3:06PM / Press Release
https://www.alivenotdead.com/seantie...e-3465639.html



I’m not really a fan of Wong Ching Po; I enjoyed Jiang Hu/江湖, but after Ah Sou/阿嫂 I skipped his next few films. So I’m not familiar with his recent work.

But I am very impressed by his directing here. He makes a new movie that is suffused with antiquity but not suffocated by it. It is a celebration of older films but not a slavish reproduction.

I think Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰 really is what Quentin Tarantino thinks Kill Bill is.

The story of a country boy who comes to the big city, it’s an updated version of… well, a lot of movies.

The film is profoundly evocative of several eras and genres of film, and you can see the spirits of the Shaw Brothers, Bruce Lee, and old Hollywood.

I remember wishing my grandmother could see this film, because it seemed like something she would have enjoyed.

My grandmother wasn’t Chinese (not even by marriage), and wasn’t a martial arts fan, but I know she loved old movies, and Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰 feels like one in all the best ways.

If I say it is soundly generic, I mean it in the most flattering way. There are no surprises in this story, and it is in its own way completely predictable.

But hey, so is sex, and that seems pretty popular.

I found myself smiling at the way the film unfolded, because the story went exactly where I knew it had to go.

Early in the film, Andy On’s character violently consolidates his ownership of a nightclub. Having seemingly been snubbed when he flippantly instructs the singer to sing him a song, he turns to leave.

On generic cue, she begins singing… and the world stops.

I’ve seen that done before an awful lot of times, but when I watch this movie again it will still be one of my favorite moments.

What is new about Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰 is the look and feel. The cinematography is sleek and rich, as is the knowing, self-conscious air the film projects.

I really liked the way the film winked at itself (and at us) so often. It presented characters so classically stereotypical that it felt more like an homage.

But I think that was the intention.

By the time the film reverts to the seemingly obligatory anti-Japanese plot line, it has developed such a nostalgic air that it seems much more organic to the plot than most other recent films.

It also helps that the scrīpt manages to demonize Japan politically without falling into racism or essentialism.

Certainly, the depictions of the Japanese as villains are overstated and simplistic, but that can be said for all of the characters; it’s an intrinsic part of the production.

Philip Ng is not an actor from the 50s, 60s, or 70s.

But he managed to convincingly capture the classic depiction of the smiling, naive rural bumpkin of the films of yesteryear. His character is so earnest it’s unbelievable. Except that we’ve seen it so many times before.

Philip plays Ma Yongzhen, the archetypal country boy who comes to the big city to find his fortune.

His transformation is as predictable as it is entertaining. Ng takes his cues from classic cinema depictions, showing us a character whose naïveté is written all over his face.

Possessed of superhuman strength, an unshakeable sense of morality, and not much else, Ma comes to Shanghai looking for work.

Sammo Hung, Yuen Wo Ping, Fung Hak On and Chen Kuan Tai play the existing power structure of Shanghai’s underworld.

They are being displaced by Lung Chat, played by Andy On.

A young rising star of Shanghai’s underworld, he is brash, violent, and bordering on psychopathic, the devil who leads the innocent astray with entree into a dazzling world of money, power, and women.

Andy On plays the role with a remarkable dexterity, one minute dazzlingly charming and the next coldly ruthless.

Having once been just like Philip’s character, Lung Chat is now the crass, pragmatic realist who knows that you only get what you take.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t smile and look good while you’re doing it.

Andy was dubbed into Cantonese in the version I saw. He was still very impressive, and one reason I want to see the Mandarin version is so I can see his role in its original language.

These two real-life friends share more than a few Moments of Bromance as their friendship, literally forged in a fire, grows.

As Lung Chat re-discovers his humanity, Ma Yongzhen becomes more worldly.

Michelle Hu is adorable as the petulant, aggressive young woman who scolds Philip’s character for everything he does and never seems to have a nice thing to say to him.

Because she likes him and that’s what girls do.

It’s enough to make you think she’s Irish Catholic.

Jiang Luxia plays her sister, in a role too small to allow her to display her considerable martial arts skill.

But at least she’s there.

And she’s hitting someone other than me.

Let’s face it; Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰 is about martial arts. And it certainly delivers.

The majority of the cast are obviously trained martial artists, and it makes a very big difference in the fight scenes.

There is some digital undercranking employed, as well as CG, but it is obvious that these people know what they’re doing.

The crispness of their actions and the physicality they display can’t be faked; you can either do it or you can’t.

It certainly helps to have Yuen Wo Ping do your action choreography, but what helps more is having people like Philip Ng and Andy On who can execute those scenes so impressively.

What’s nice is that the slightly obscured look used in some of the fight scenes is, in this instance, a stylistic choice rather than a means of camouflaging shortcomings.

The best thing I can say about Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰 is that I was very, very grateful to see a movie that obviously took a lot of effort in front of and behind the camera.

It exceeded my expectations, and they were already pretty high. This isn’t just a great martial arts movie, it’s a great movie.

I smiled the whole way through it, and after the movie I thought to myself, “This is why I moved to the other side of the world.”

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai/惡戰 kicks more ass than an epileptic in a Weight Watchers meeting.

https://www.alivenotdead.com/seantie...e-3465639.html

[GeneChing]