Chapter 223 Innuendo

Looking at old Hong Kong films from the 1980s and 1990s, there are countless plot designs that use homophonic allusions. Perhaps "My Three Dead Ex-Husbands" is not the one that has the most allusions, but among so many films of the same period, the allusions are so spicy and bold that it must have a place in the list.

It is probably because of the combination of Su Yun, a freak who can stay out of the fight between the three giants, that these three names that can make people laugh and cry when they hear the original Cantonese voices are created: the first ex-husband "Zhou Jiahe" is obviously an allusion to the fact that the first film company Su Yun joined was Zou Yunhua's Jiahe, and the second ex-husband "Shao Sanshi" is obviously a play on the folk name "Sansetai" after the Zhao family and TBB logo were redesigned into color. As for the third ex-husband "Shen Yicheng"... there is no doubt that it is Zhen Yicheng who joined in the end to make money by filming together.

Of course, the person chosen by the three ex-husbands to replace them, "Warner", didn't even bother to change his name and went straight into battle. And in the play, when the three ex-husbands discussed "We three have to quickly find a water fish (Kai Zi) to replace our wives and property", the nickname of Warner's character "Kai Zi Hua" was introduced...

Therefore, some people later connected the homonyms of these four characters and used it as a little anecdote in their comments: In Su Yun's career, she first joined Jiahe and then moved to Zhao's. Later, due to the cooperative relationship between Jiahe and Zhao's, Zhen Yicheng wanted to get a piece of the pie - but unfortunately, in the end, it was still Warner, the leader who had many confusing operations but always managed to turn danger into safety. No matter which film company Su Yun cooperated with in Hong Kong, in the overseas market, most of the Hong Kong film companies cooperated with Warner on overseas distribution matters, and were firmly occupied by it.

Therefore, some people think that this movie can be regarded as a portrait of Su Yun’s life: although this movie treats the major film companies that Su Yun has cooperated with as "ex-husbands", using anthropomorphic methods to present a comedy of laughter, anger and scolding - but this is not an isolated example. After all, in the days that followed, Su Yun also released a series of three "Jiuzhou Past" movies, which also used anthropomorphic methods to personify countries as characters in the story, and let the past history and the predicted future merge into a fantasy mainland worldview...

However, that is all for later.

Currently, Su Yun is in the monitoring room, reading the lyrics written by her former elementary school teacher, Zheng Guoguang.

Over the years, Cheng Kuo-kwong has secured a firm place in the circle by virtue of his high-quality and high-quantity lyric writing works, and has vaguely become one of the "Three Masters of Hong Kong Lyrics" in Su Yun's memory: among the three big lyricists in the circle, Huang Zhan is passionate and has a changeable style, but unfortunately he is a procrastinator; Lu Hezhan prefers non-love songs and easily refuses to work on them; only Cheng Kuo-kwong accepts all offers and guarantees high quality and quantity, but because his personal style of fresh and poetic style is more obvious, he also has to choose his collaborators when he wants to come up with a hit song.

Every lyricist has a favorite singer. It’s not that they want to be partial, but for some reason, they just get along best with this singer when working together.

For example, Yang Qianxia to Lin Xi, and Chen Baiyang to Zheng Guoguang.

It has to be said that although Chen Baiyang's acting skills are not that good, he is truly gifted in music. Some time ago, he said that he wanted to find some old songs and re-arrange them. It is said that he wanted to create a retro and fashionable feeling of new wine in old bottles, so that the good songs of the old times will not be buried by time.

After getting his new song, Zheng Guoguang quickly gave him a version of the lyrics titled "Take Care Tonight".

"I am sad to see the withered petals dancing around, and remember the first time I met them under the flowers..." Chen Boyang took the lyrics paper and went to the recording studio next door to try singing and practice singing. Su Yun looked at the lyrics paper from left to right, but always felt that something was wrong.

It was not until Chen Boyang had practiced a little and started to sing a complete verse that Su Yun began to understand what was wrong.

In addition to the lack of simple and convenient video post-production packages, Hong Kong also lacks audio post-production packages these days.

If you want to record a good song that suits your taste, you can't sing it sentence by sentence or even word by word like in later generations, and wait for the post-production staff to do the post-production bit by bit, and then mix it into a finished product that can be presented to the public; instead, the singer needs to sing the entire song in full paragraphs or even in one go and record it into audio, and then the post-production staff will make various adjustments and finally mix it into a song for delivery.

Therefore, the skills of singers of this era are acquired through hard practice, song by song. As a result, when they sing live, due to the richness of emotions and high spirits, they can often create extended versions that are more moving than recorded versions.

Most of those studio contestants who fail after leaving the recording studio and post-production have not laid a good foundation and their skills are not good enough, which is why they fail so badly during live performances that even their own mothers would not recognize them...

Logically speaking, for a singer like Chen Baiyang who is recognized as a talented singer in the circle despite being young, his singing shouldn't sound so awkward even when he is practicing.

"Are there a few sentences missing here?" After carefully comparing the lyrics on the sheet in her hand with the lyrics of the song in her memory, Su Yun finally found the problem.

Zheng Guoguang glanced at the place Su Yun pointed at, and when he was about to explain, Chen Boyang from the recording studio next door also pushed the door and walked over: "Sir Zheng, are there a few sentences missing here?"

Zheng Guoguang looked at the two of them with interest for a while before he explained, "Yes, I originally wrote two more lines, but I thought that you, Danny, are still so young and might not be able to sing such a lingering, yet deeply emotional and sad feeling, so I took out these two lines."

The characteristic of Zheng Guoguang's lyrics writing is not only to ensure the quality and quantity, but also to make some modifications according to the characteristics of the singers. Therefore, when he saw that Su Yun and Chen Boyan both felt that the lyrics were not right after the two lines were missing, he also picked up his pen and added the two lines back.

“The lover in the arms is complaining, but the love cannot be tolerated. The lover cries silently, how can the heart not ache…” After Chen Boyang recited it softly twice, he turned around and ran to the recording studio next door and tried to sing it again.

On the other side, Su Yun and Zheng Guoguang who stayed in the monitoring room listened quietly. After listening to this part, Zheng Guoguang sighed and told Chen Boyang in the next room his thoughts through the intercom in the room: "I thought you were too young to sing this feeling, but I didn't expect that I was overthinking."

Because...even though he looks young, he has already experienced such things in real life.

In that lecture hall in Taiwan, amidst the torrential rain and merciless thunder, there was once a small figure, with its back to everyone, crying so hard that it made him feel extremely heartbroken.

At that time, they were just friends, but he couldn't bear it; now that he was secretly in love with her, the heartache of the past was even more severe, making him always think of the difficulties Su Yun had gone through.

Unfortunately, I am still too weak. Not only can I not protect the person in my heart, but I also have to let her take care of me from time to time.

In this movie, the role of her first celebrity ex-husband "Zhou Jiahe" and the theme song of the movie were both designated by Su Yun - even his agent Tan Guoxi lamented that he made the right choice in making a friend in Su Yun. If it had been someone else or someone with whom he had a shallow relationship, he would never have been able to get the opportunity to be one of the leading actors in such a production-level movie and to sing the theme song.

Even when Tan Guoxi himself received the news that this new movie was going to be filmed, he didn't consider fighting for it: Chen Baiyang's acting skills can't really be considered bad if you think about it seriously. The main reason is that there are too many talented actors in the same period, so his acting, especially when acting opposite others, has become "wooden" that is obvious to all.

Because of this, in addition to playing himself, his acting skills, which were just barely acceptable, were overshadowed by the extraordinary performances of other actors in the same drama.

However, this time, Bo-Yeung Chen and Guo-Xi Tam really misunderstood: Su Yun never forces anyone to be the best when choosing roles, especially major roles.

She chooses someone based on whether she truly believes that person is capable of playing the role. Whether she plays the role in person or slowly trains the person, in the end, she will ensure that the person is of deliverable quality and can present the role on time.

After all, in this movie, the three dead ex-husbands all tried to find ways to cheat on themselves, not only to prevent their lifelong property from being confiscated due to the heroine's death, but also because they really loved the heroine very much - even if they died directly or indirectly because of the heroine, they never blamed her. Instead, they always stayed by her side, wanting to protect her until the day they were reincarnated.

When everyone went to Venice to receive the award, Chen Baiyang showed it too obviously: he had been restrained in Hong Kong because he had too many concerns. Although Su Yun had some doubts in her heart, she was hesitant to confirm it.

After confirming Chen Baiyang's feelings for her, Su Yun chose Chen Baiyang to play her first ex-husband without a doubt, because he loved the heroine the most in the play and had a genuine affection for her outside of the play.

As for the actor who played the second ex-husband, Su Yun called Zhuang Long, who had just won a drama performance award and finally had some vacation time: the role of the gang leader he played in the bad movie "Year of the Dragon", the image of the black top hat, slicked back hair and long trench coat also influenced a generation of Hong Kong films, and many subsequent well-known gang-related movies and characters followed his style.

As for the third ex-husband, he was the pastor who presided over the wedding of the second ex-husband. He fell in love with the heroine at first sight, but unfortunately he was only a pastor and not a groom...

However, after the second ex-husband was accidentally killed by a headshot at his enemy's wedding, he took advantage of the situation and stepped in to comfort the heroine with his professional skills, and successfully rose to the top in their relationship - this is why the gangster ex-husband and the pastor ex-husband still fought each other from time to time after their deaths.

So Su Yun chose Zhang Querong to play the role of the pastor's ex-husband without hesitation: not only are their acting skills equally matched, but they are also top-notch fighters when they fight each other...