Trilogy Maverick
In Wong Jing’s film career, 1996 had the last entry of what I like to call the M.J. trilogy. Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Star makes fun of Michael Jackson in a verbal context. The first entry of the trilogy, Perfect Exchange, was made in 1993. Michael was made fun of in a visual context. As for the in-between entry, The Saint of Gamblers (1995) made fun of Michael Jackson in both ways. I don’t want to give away how he was made fun of, because part of the charm in watching a Wong Jing movie is the unexpected. What I will say is that Jing had more courage in literally calling out Michael Jackson than the creators of South Park (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) did in their 2004 episode titled The Jeffersons.
Wong Jing is such a big fan of Dragon Ball that he infused characteristics into three of his 1993 movies - Future Cops (a woefully overlooked satire), Perfect Exchange (a misunderstood parody) and Kung Fu Cult Master (an underrated masterpiece). The latter is part of another trilogy where Jet Li starred in period films written and directed by Wong Jing, the first being Last Hero in China while the last was The New Legend of Shaolin (1994). Wong Jing claimed that he didn’t do a sequel to Kung Fu Cult Master because of a UFO movie that was released in the same month, but he still made the Wuxia-tinged The New Legend of Shaolin, and that made more money than his past collaborations with Jet Li. The movie produced by UFO was Michael Hui’s Always on My Mind (co-starring Josephine Siao), and it earned HK$18,739,620.
From 1994 to 1995, Wong Jing made what I call the biennial trilogy i.e. each movie features a protagonist who exacts vengeance two years after an incident which had lead to his humiliating downfall. These movies are Return to a Better Tomorrow (1994), High Risk (1995) and Sixty Million Dollar Man (1995). The first was the most serious yet the least profitable, the third was the most silly yet the most profitable whereas the second was in-between on both counts. When you think about it, this is exactly the same structure in tonal shifts as Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. Sixty Million Dollar Man was a very big hit at the Hong Kong box office. Not only that, it roped in more money than the movie that it was inspired by - The Mask. Despite the superior special effects, Jim Carrey’s movie only earned HK$18,068,058 during its release from October 27 to December 28 in 1994. Stephen Chow’s movie, on the other hand, earned almost twice as much in half the time i.e. HK$35,234,481 from August 19 to September 27 in 1995.
Wong Jing had this to say about the concept of the movie (which probably has more in common with Inspector Gadget): “I was meant to direct two of the three parts in the movie - the first act in Hawaii and the final act where Stephen is basically like Jim Carrey in The Mask. Raymond Yip Wai-Man was supposed to only direct the middle section where Stephen is the underdog. The contrast in directorial styles would have helped show how Stephen goes from happy to sad and back again. The peaks can only stand out with a valley. I spent the first month filming in Hawaii. By the time that I got back to Hong Kong, I learned that Charles Heung was so impatient that he got Raymond Yip to direct many scenes. When one third of a movie is filmed, the director knows whether the movie will be a success or a failure. I filmed the first act whereas Raymond had filmed most of the rest.”
Charles Heung felt confident about Raymond Yip being the main director because he worked as an assistant director on many of Wong Jing’s movies. Most of the movies that they did together were for the companies of Heung’s brother: Jimmy. Raymond had even directed some scenes on Return to a Better Tomorrow, and he was responsible for a fair portion of Whatever You Want (1994), so Charles Heung got the wrong idea. Wong Jing was very angry that Charles didn’t discuss this with him nor did anyone else in his company, so Jing left the company after doing one more film with Stephen: Forbidden City Cop (1996). However, Wong Jing was only the producer of that one. He then joined Golden Harvest, for whom he directed Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Star (for which Raymond Yip was ironically hired as the executive director).
Back to Sixty Million Dollar Man, there is a reason why Wong Jing was supplanted by Raymond Yip, and it relates to the star - Stephen Chow (one of Jing’s regular collaborators): “In 1995, we already had to cooperate reluctantly. We didn’t try to force anyone to do it. I don’t want to force anyone to force someone else to do it, but I have different opinions. I asked him Is this good? He said No. I said What’s the point? He said It’s up to you. Let’s forget about resistance, it’s reached this point. Why be so stiff? There’s no spark between us. In the subsequent cooperations, it is purely commercial use of each other. My attitude towards him is that you can do whatever you like. In short, it doesn’t matter if it’s not too good or too outrageous.”
Return to a Better Tomorrow is worth singling out for how it’s fairly overlooked. True to form, Wong Jing borrowed one particular sight gag from a 1986 episode of The Equalizer. In an episode titled Breakpoint, the protagonist (Robert McCall played by Edward Woodward) dresses up as a terrorist who he killed in the men’s room so that he can enter the ballroom under the illusion of the terrorist pulling his corpse. In Wong Jing’s film, Ekin Cheng dresses up as a Triad but plays dead in the men’s room. Return to a Better Tomorrow is a part of another Wong Jing trilogy - movies where the camera tricks the audience into thinking the movie is over when it’s not i.e. God of Gamblers (1989), City Hunter (1993) and Return to a Better Tomorrow feature shots where the camera is being pulled further into the distance away from the action and into an aerial shot prior to concluding with an additional scene. Jing does this as a way of strengthening the audience’s attention and making things less predictable.
Despite being often compared to Roger Corman for marketing purposes (i.e. advertising Hong Kong movies to the uninitiated), the most accurate comparison to Wong Jing is an overlooked one in that both men had directed trilogies which contained quirky plots based on somewhat gruesome premises, unconventional characters who are well-sketched, fluid camera-work, fast editing and in-depth composition. In Wong Jing’s case, this was the 1990 trilogy i.e. Pantyhose Hero, The Big Score and The Last Blood (the above photo). In Corman’s case, it was A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961).
