Zombie-master was the first Hua Xia horror film to be released in North America, or rather, it was the first Hua Xia film to be released in North America.
In Luo Nan's previous life, "Hero" had achieved impressive box office results in North America, but that was mostly due to Harvey's operation and Quentin's name. Moreover, in this life, "Hero" didn't borrow Quentin's power, so its box office performance was very average.
However, "Zombie-Master", or "Mr. Zombie", was different from "Hero". Although it didn't have as grand a scene or as exquisite visual effects as "Hero", it was still a classic Chinese film. The director didn't place any hopes on it to win an overseas award, nor did he want to use this film to become a god. The director, the actors, and the people behind the scenes just wanted to do something different in the context of the booming Hong Kong film industry. You have to say, they succeeded on this point.
"Mr. Zombie" had a complete character setting, a complete storyline, and a complete monster fighting system. While ensuring the completeness of these aspects, the film was still humorous and humorous. What was even rarer was Lin Zhengying's perfect interpretation of the character in the film. His expression, his voice, and his every move gave the audience a great deal of trust, making them believe that he really knew how to kill zombies, and making them believe that he really was a zombie Taoist priest.
This film had created many miracles in the Chinese film industry. It had single-handedly created a new sect in the fiercely competitive Hong Kong film industry. Now, this film was ready to make a splash in the North American market!
Since it was an old film, and there weren't any actors that North American audiences were familiar with, there was no premiere for "Zombie-master". It was only scheduled to premiere at midnight in New York. North American audiences had been looking forward to this film for a long time, so the attendance at the premiere was undoubtedly 100%.
As the distributor of the film in the North American market, Lukas personally came to the premiere. He and several of his partners bought tickets through the Shadow Leopard ticketing system, hoping to see what the North American audience thought of the film. He needed to observe the audience to determine the potential of the film.
Many movie premieres were guaranteed to have a full house, but this was not a sign of a box office hit. Many movies had very poor staying power, and the box office and attendance rate would start to plummet after a few days of screening. Therefore, Lucas did not have much confidence in this movie. Although he had a certain level of confidence, he also wanted to know how much potential this movie had.
As for how much potential a movie had, it mainly depended on the audience's reputation. If the live audience showed great love for the movie, then the movie would definitely become popular. If the live audience did not buy into the plot and many of the jokes in the movie, then there was no doubt that the movie would soon fail.
At midnight sharp, the lights went off in the cinema. The audience in the cinema was looking forward to this old film from Hua Xia Hong Kong, produced in 1985.
The moment the screen lit up, the classic title of Jiahe Company appeared on the big screen. For most North American audiences in the cinema, this was the first time they had seen the title of this company.
After Jiahe was Bao He, and after Bao He, there were four big green characters: Mr. Zombie.
Below these four Chinese characters was the English title, "Zombie-master", written in the same green color.
The ghastly green text created a creepy atmosphere for the audience, making them all nervous and quickly entering the state of watching a horror movie.
After the title and the introduction of the cast and crew, the opening scene of the film was in a unique place in ancient and modern Hua Xia society – the morgue.
In the scene, there were a large number of coffins in a dilapidated room. The apprentice played by Xu Guanying pushed open the door and walked into the morgue. He lit a stick of incense and called the ghosts in the morgue to eat.
Then, he said, "Those who come here are guests, you can eat first."
As soon as his voice fell, he reached out and lifted a white gauze curtain. As he opened the white curtain, a row of zombies dressed in Qing Dynasty official uniforms with yellow talismans on their foreheads appeared on the big screen in an instant.
If it was the first time the audience saw this scene, they would definitely be shocked by the row of zombies. However, the North American audiences who were watching this movie for the first time immediately cheered in surprise when they saw this scene!
“China-Zombie！” It was unknown which excited audience member suddenly exclaimed, but there was a burst of applause and whistles in the cinema!
Everyone was used to seeing the cartoon version of Hua Xia zombies in Plants vs. Zombies Online. Now that they saw the movie version of Hua Xia zombies on the big screen, not only did they not feel scared, but they felt especially close to it!
In fact, among the audience that walked into this cinema, except for a very small number of Chinese people who were here to review the classic, the rest of the North American audiences were here for the unique Hua Xia zombies. When they played the game, they had always been very curious about and interested in these unique zombies. Later on, they saw some screenshots from the movie on the internet, and they became even more interested in these zombies and zombie movies. Therefore, a minute after the movie started, rows of Hua Xia zombies appeared. To them, this was really satisfying!
After that, in the plot, Xu Guanying's arm was grabbed by a "zombie" in a coffin. Then, a "zombie" jumped out of the coffin. Xu Guanying was so scared that she quickly picked up the Demon Revealing Mirror and counted the number of zombies. At this time, the "zombie" suddenly came back. Xu Guanying hastily tried to deal with it, but because she was careless, she was forced into a corner by the zombie. At this time, the "zombie" opened its mouth and was about to bite Xu Guanying. Seeing that Xu Guanying was about to be bitten by the zombie, the audience became nervous.
At this time, the "zombie" suddenly spat out a set of fake teeth. It turned out that the "zombie" was not a real zombie, but a junior played by Qian Xiaohao.
Although it was a false alarm, among the eight zombies, the talismans on the foreheads of a few zombies were accidentally knocked off. Then, these zombies immediately regained their freedom and began to attack the two.
Immediately after that, the master of the two, Lin Zhengying, appeared and easily solved the problem of the zombies. This scene was quite comedic, and the audience was very satisfied with such a comedic treatment. In the end, all the zombies were dealt with and were once again fixed by the talismans. Lin Zhengying's junior then got up and hurried away with the eight zombies. When the eight zombies followed behind Lin Zhengying's junior out of the cinema, the theater burst into laughter again.
What was more interesting was that there was a zombie that could not jump over the threshold no matter how hard it tried. Xu Guanying hurriedly came out to help. While saying that she would help the old man, she carried the zombie out of the door.
At the end of the first unit, the audience had a very intuitive understanding of this kind of zombie. In the following plot, Lin Zhengying was invited to help the businessman move the grave. During this period, Lin Zhengying mentioned Hua Xia's unique Fengshui in front of the camera. Interestingly, the word "Fengshui" also had a certain influence in North America. North Americans knew about the "Yin and Yang" and "Fengshui" in Hua Xia's culture, but most people did not understand the details. Lin Zhengying briefly introduced some Fengshui in the plot, which also made the North American audience enjoy the plot. Although they could not understand it, they knew that Hua Xia's grave also paid great attention to Fengshui. If the Fengshui was good, it could bless the future generations and make them prosper. If the Fengshui was bad, it could bring disaster to the future generations and even cause the corpse to mutate.
This unique culture of Hua Xia, after being processed into the film, could easily show the Western audience the characteristics and the profound meaning of Hua Xia's culture. Westerners did not have the so-called Fengshui. In their culture, the most metaphysical legend was the night of the full moon. Werewolves would also mutate on the night of the full moon, and vampires would also mutate on the night of the full moon. Other than that, there were basically no other metaphysical legends.
In the following plot of "Mr. Zombie", through the corpse of Ren Baqian's father, Lin Zhengying explained in great detail how zombies came to be and how to deal with them. Lin Zhengying said that corpses were divided into zombies and corpses, and people were divided into good people and bad people. People became bad people because they failed to live up to expectations, but the reason why corpses became zombies was because they had an extra breath. Before dying, people would be angry, hold their breath, and sulk. This breath would continue to accumulate resentment after death, and eventually turn them into zombies.
The saying of good people and bad people, corpses and zombies, was very consistent with the philosophy of Hua Xia's culture. Through Lin Zhengying's words, the Western audience agreed with him and secretly praised him.
As for Lin Zhengying's method of asking his disciple to use the ink dipper to create a grid on the coffin, it was also an eye-opener for many of the audience. In their eyes, the ink dipper must have some metaphysical elements. This was the spear and shield of Hua Xia's legend.
There were also spears and shields in Western legends, but their overall level was relatively low. For example, vampires needed to be beheaded, demons were afraid of holy water, and werewolves were afraid of silver weapons.
The spear and shield in Hua Xia's legend of zombies were very complicated. Not only did it require the existence of a Taoist priest as a profession, but it also required complicated methods such as setting up formations. Even the ink dipper required special ink, which had to be cast on the materials, and then poured into the ink dipper to be effective.
Although it seemed complicated, when Lin Zhengying did these things, there was a kind of magic that made the audience feel that everything he did was very convincing.
The most interesting thing about this movie was that it created a very good comedy effect. After the senior and junior brothers dealt with the coffin of Old Master Ren's father, Qian Xiaohao met the ghost bride who admired him on his way home. As a result, the ghost bride was sitting on the back seat of his bicycle and was knocked down by a tree branch. When the ghost bride sat on the ground feeling wronged, there was a burst of laughter in the cinema.
The structure of the movie had been interspersed with a comedy-drama, comedy-drama. After the funny plot of the ghost bride was over, Old Master Ren's father started to turn into a zombie. The ink dipper that Lin Zhengying created also had a magical effect, making the zombie temporarily unable to escape.
After that, the senior and junior brothers arrived at Old Master Ren's house. However, they discovered that Old Master Ren's daughter's cousin had been coveting Xu Guanying's daughter for a long time. The senior and junior brothers joined forces and used a small spell to pluck a hair from the daughter's cousin's head. With the addition of a talisman, they turned the daughter's cousin and Xu Guanying into a pair of "dolls" that acted in unison. After that, the two of them exchanged pleasantries.
This comedic plot was particularly wonderful, and the entire cinema was already in a state of laughter. This kind of joke where "A" did something and "B" would do it was already used in Hong Kong movies. However, for the North American audience, this was the first time they saw it, so they were especially impressed.
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