Recently, with the official opening of the curtain of the New Year's Day films, the major films have also unveiled the final mystery, officially opening the "real knife and real gun" fighting mode, and the temperature of the entire film market has risen.
It should be said that the 2024 New Year's Day films, judging from the current box office and influence, are basically dominated by comedy themes and police and bandit themes, and the two films "Sneaking" and "Goldfinger" launched by Andy Lau alone are the latter in terms of subject matter.
It can be said that from the perspective of overall word-of-mouth, the market response of "Goldfinger" created by Emperor Company is slightly better than that of "Sneak".
Goldfinger is produced by the well-known film and television company Emperor Films, written and directed by the powerful director Zhuang **, gathering stars like Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Cai Zhuoyan, Ren Dahua and other stars familiar to the audience.
Seeing this, I believe that many viewers will unconsciously think of the police and bandit-themed film "Infernal Affairs" released in 02.
At that time, "Infernal Affairs" was also written by Zhuang **, Andy Lau and Tony Leung played the core opponents, in the context of the decline in the development of Hong Kong films, the advent of "Infernal Affairs" has injected a boost into the entire Hong Kong film market.
Although, after a lapse of 22 years, the directors in this "Goldfinger" are no longer Liu Weiqiang and Mak Zhaohui, and there is no Zeng Zhiwei and Huang Qiusheng in the starring lineup, but with the "Iron Triangle" composed of Zhuang **, Andy Lau, and Tony Leung, this "Goldfinger" still makes many audiences full of infinite expectations.
Although Andy Lau and Tony Leung still play the role of opponents, especially the two of them have a 180-degree reversal in terms of character identity, but the theme of "Goldfinger" this time mainly involves the field of financial crime.
The film is based on the real commercial fraud case "Jianing Case" that occurred in Hong Kong, China, and the film-made "Goldfinger" has also undergone certain processing and refinement on the basis of maintaining the original appearance of the case to the greatest extent, and has added many new elements and in-depth philosophical reflection.
The story structure of the film is not complicated, mainly with the villain "Cheng Yiyan" relying on a coincidence, borrowing strength to build momentum, as well as shrewd minds and superb means, climbing step by step from the bottom to the top of the financial building.
And with the collapse of the financial empire he carefully built, the darkness and evil hidden behind it gradually surfaced, and in this process, it was the other core character in the film "Liu Qiyuan" who played a sharp role.
In this process, "Liu Qiyuan", who is an investigator, with a perseverance and tenacity that is incomprehensible to ordinary people, vowed to uncover the code behind "Cheng Yiyan" and bring the criminals to justice.
In all fairness, judging from the material of "Goldfinger" alone, there is still a certain novelty and attraction in focusing on the field of financial crime, and in addition, the film has spent a lot of money to create a sense of splendor, drunken and gold-obsessed atmosphere, which is also very amazing and impactful.
However, "Goldfinger" still has little effect in breaking through the shackles of unfavorable factors in Hong Kong films, one is that similar themes have a lot of distance from the real life of the audience, which is difficult to arouse the audience's empathy and sense of substitution.
Second, in terms of the core starring lineup, Andy Lau , Tony Leung , Choi Cheuk Yan , Ren Dahua and other Hong Kong star lineups somewhat make the audience a little aesthetically fatigued, especially Andy Lau and Tony Leung have passed the age of ear shun and have long passed the heyday of their personal acting careers, and there are inevitably many shortcomings and weaknesses in shaping younger characters.
Third, many voices also focus on the two core leading actors who are not exciting enough in terms of conflict and tension in the rivalry, and some voices have expressed doubts about Andy Lau's insufficient role in the film, and even whether they can be included in the core starring role, and so on.
In any case, the release of "Goldfinger" is still very good for the active film market, especially for audiences who love Hong Kong-style themes.
And Tony Leung and Andy Lau, the two major actors, are competing in the same frame and on the same stage again after many years, which not only made many people shout "Ye Qing is back", but also allowed more audiences to witness the new efforts, explorations and pursuits of Hong Kong film in the direction of development.