The competition among various companies for the Spring Festival stalls has come to an end, and I noticed a special film in the film list rankings.
There is no traffic blessing or overwhelming publicity, but it has carved its own path among the Spring Festival stalls.
This movie is "The Night King", and Huang Zihua and Sammi Cheng are here with his new movie!
That man is here again!
At the beginning of 2026, this 65-year-old boy wore a night-show shirt and used only 3% of the film schedule to gross a box office of 100 million in 6 days.
Of course, this is not the first time this man has appeared in the audience's sight recently.
The popular picture of social animals, cows and horses working overtime all over the Internet
In 2023, Huang Zihua rekindled the audience's enthusiasm for Hong Kong films with "The Vengeful Lawyer". 32 days after its release in Hong Kong, the film officially exceeded 100 million, with a box office of 115 million, becoming the box office champion of Chinese-language films in Hong Kong film history.
In 2024, another "Broken Hell" broke the record again with 152 million!
So how did this man named Huang Zihua go from being unknown to being a hit now, and is known as the "box office elixir" in the Hong Kong film market.
Today, Tao will take you through the chronicle of this man’s side. , let’s see how he used thirty years to counterattack from the “King of Bad Movies” to the “Savior of Hong Kong Movies” and live the most inspiring life.
First of all, let’s give a good introduction to this Zihuashen.
In 1984, Huang Zihua, who graduated from the Department of Philosophy in Canada, returned to Hong Kong and wanted to be an actor and enter the film and television industry.
But reality gave him a blow. The TVB artist training class at that time happened to be closed, so he had to settle for the next best thing and enter the industry as a screenwriter, writing scripts, and at the same time running stage plays and playing small roles in a drama troupe.
After that, in order to increase his exposure, he also worked as a program host, but because his image was not "handsome" enough, he never got a decent acting role.
It can only be said that Hua Zishen really looks younger as he gets older.
The top TVB executives at the time took one look at him and said coldly: "You are not made for acting." (You are not made for acting)
After 8 years in the industry, he still had not realized his dream of becoming an actor. Originally, Huang Zihua decided to give up on his dream.
But the turning point of fate began at this point. In order to withdraw from the entertainment industry, Huang Zihua retreated to his desk to create for 9 months and planned a farewell performance.
Fu Hang, who looks like the god of passion
After this period of time, he created a 90-minute monologue-style stand-up comedy (talk show), "The Flesh and Blood History of the Entertainment Industry", which unexpectedly became a hit and sold out the show.
Who would have known that it was 1990, which was 30 years ahead of the domestic entertainment industry. We started to hold our own special shows 30 years ago.
Stand-up comedy made him famous and opened the door to the film and television industry for him.
But this door is also the door to the title of "King of Bad Movies".
Hong Kong films also ushered in a golden age in the 1990s, with Stephen Chow's nonsensical comedies, Jackie Chan's martial arts action films, and Chow Yun-fat's God of Gamblers films all flourishing.
Hong Kong films have taken off, but Huang Zihua, who is about to enter his hard-working years, has not been able to ride on this wave.
In 2002, he began to try to write, direct and act. "The Bodyguard" was his first answer. Unfortunately, it was a low point for Hong Kong movies, and the box office was only 200,000 Hong Kong dollars.
It was probably one of the most tragic Waterloos in the history of Hong Kong movies, but because he directed, wrote, and acted, he was also labeled as a "box office poison". It was rumored that "investors would avoid Huang Zihua when they saw the three words "Huang Zihua."
One after another, the film titles were lying in the corner gathering dust, such as "Sardine Murder", which also tells the story of a supermarket clerk struggling to live at the bottom.
The good-lookingness of these movies is absolutely inversely proportional to their box office, and they are still very watchable comedy movies today.
Film critics at the time commented: "Huang Zihua's acting is too stage-like and not suitable for the big screen."
Then why did he not starve to death, but live as a "god"? The next period is the stage of accumulating internal strength. The stand-up joke is his "infuriating energy".
The door of the film industry was closed to him, but fortunately there was still theater. When the movie director disliked him, he laughed in front of thousands of people at the Coliseum.
From a small theater with 300 people to the Coliseum, he turned his resentment towards movies and dissatisfaction with society into jokes.
Although the movie was not a hit, the TV series "The Love of a Boy" and "Tung Tuk Detective" made him a "good medicine for TV series ratings".
It was also the speeches made by various social beasts and horses in the TV series "Love Between Men and Women" that made him an emoticon that became popular all over the Internet.
The two roles of Yu Letian and Mok Chok Tong implanted the social animal spirit of "going to work means sacrificing love" into the hearts of the people, which accumulated the most valuable mass base for his future big screen counterattacks.
For him, the twenty years without filmmaking were not a matter of lying down, but a way of overcoming a catastrophe. He compiled his observations and experiments during the trough period into a big move, and waited for an opportunity to start the practice.
Everything started to turn around in 2018, when "The Agent," a spin-off of the comedy, entered the Hong Kong film market.
The film continues Huang Zihua's unique humor style. Although it has received mixed reviews and is not perfect, its box office performance of 44.7 million is like the most powerful return of the disappeared Hong Kong-style comedy.
In 2022, "I Still Think You're the Best" was just a short scene between parents at the dinner table. It relied on a strong script and Zihua's amazing acting skills to win a box office of 77 million.
There are no grand scenes and no fierce conflicts. Most of the scenes are concentrated in front of a dinner table, telling the story of the family's shortcomings, love and hatred, and Huang Zihua's poisonous tongue and tenderness.
This tells us that even if it doesn’t rely on action or special effects, just relying on Huang Zihua’s mouth can bring the audience back to the cinema. This is the Hong Kong film in our memory.
After accumulating experience from these two films, in 2023, a legendary work "The Vengeful Lawyer" was released.
You know, the Spring Festival in 2023 can be described as a competition for beauty. The two movies "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Man Jiang Hong" alone are enough to prove the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies at that time.
It can still achieve such results in mainland China after the exhaustion period of the Spring Festival. You can imagine its popularity with the audience.
While breaking box office records, Zihuashen has finally found the screen form that suits him best. He does not deliberately act cool or sensational, but only uses the most down-to-earth performance to interpret the most realistic little character.
——The "human mouth substitute" who stood in the court and screamed "Before the law, there are no equals" for all the little people. At this moment, he was not acting, he was making a large-scale stand-up comedy about justice in front of all the citizens of Hong Kong.
In 2024, Hua Zishen continued his pursuit of victory, and the box office record of "Broken Hell" broke again. He was upgraded to the "Soul Ferryman". Through the theme of funerals, he expressed Hong Kong people's long-suppressed views on life and death and emotional expressions, and burst the bubbles in the most gentle way. Many viewers cried in their seats until they couldn't breathe.
And just this year, such a prolific Zihuashen returned with a Hong Kong comedy "Night King" with a completely different background. In this film, he plays the legendary nightclub "Brother Huan", who runs to save his nightclub.
This character is simply a reflection of himself – clinging to a declining nightclub, relying on friendship and obsession to withstand the crushing pressure of capital. The speed of breaking 100 million proves that the audience has already accepted the golden sign of "Zihua Shen".
These three works that have exceeded 100 million yuan are all the victories of Huang Zihua, a philosopher in the market. Whether he is a lawyer, a funeral director, or a nightclub manager, they are all "imperfect ordinary people" without exception.
He thinks with the brain of a philosophy department and practices with the body of a street person. What he says is naturally both transparent and down-to-earth.
Those who said he was "not suitable for movies" have long since stopped making movies. Those popular stars have changed one after another, but this old boy is the only one who still insists on "not making movies if the script is not strong enough". He doesn't believe in "explosion", but only in "real ability to survive the years."
These three screen images just hit the current emotional pain point of "looking bad and carrying it hard at the same time". What the audience is watching is not a play, but themselves who have successfully overcome the tribulation in another parallel time and space.
Back to reality, in today's Hong Kong film industry, everyone calls Huang Zihua the box office elixir and hopes that he will save Hong Kong films from dire straits.
But what about Huang Zihua himself?
When asked in an interview about "The Night King" what he thought about his counterattack, he just said: "Life is about taking one step at a time. There is no need to have too much hope, and there is no need to despair. Maybe the blue sky is right in front of you."
Yes, a man who has been scolded as a "box office poison" has spent twenty years telling everyone that even if the whole world gives you a "bad movie certificate", as long as your inner core does not collapse, you will one day be able to wake up.
This is not only an actor's comeback, but also a social experiment spanning thirty years, a philosophical soldier overturning public stereotypes.
This era needs people who stand up and stand up despite being able to lie down flat.
Because they make us believe:
Even if you are sixty years old, even if you have been scolded for thirty years, even if the whole world thinks you are not good – you can still suddenly become angry at a certain moment.
Then, shut everyone up.
Finally, to borrow his words, "I have never stopped in my short life. Life is all about fighting."
I wish everyone can carve out their own part of the world in their own chronicles.
over)
References:
[Through "The Night King", Huang Zihua and I talk about life丨Exclusive interview with Ah Hui Hingshi – Bilibili] https://b23.tv/8E2sXOV
Design/Visual: Lvv
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