In the early 90s of the last century, a movie quietly debuted called "The First Knife in China", but mainland audiences only knew its other name many years later - "One Knife Falls into the City". This movie is not an original, but a remake of the Shaw Brothers movie "Big Knife King V" in the 70s of the last century, and even completely applied the original version in the ending.
In 1993, "A Knife in the City" was released with high-profile publicity, but it was hastily removed from the shelves after only 9 days, and the box office income was only one-tenth of the investment, causing the investor Luo Wei to go bankrupt. The evaluation of this movie in the film review section was also negative. However, in recent years, some new film critics have begun to change their opinions, and the reputation of "A Knife in the City" seems to have reversed.
They praised the subtlety of the lines, the touching dialogues of the characters, and the action design. Some people even imagine that if this movie is released now, it will definitely become a box office hit. But does this assumption hold water? In my opinion, if "A Knife in the City" is really released now, maybe its box office will be even more dismal.
Why is there such a new perspective? The answer is simple, those people didn't watch the movie in its entirety, they just saw a few minutes of great clips. However, if the viewer sees the entire lengthy footage, all the flaws of the film will be exposed. In 1993, "A Knife in the City" suffered a box office fiasco, which was the main reason.
In fact, it is not difficult for audiences who have watched the entire movie to find that "A Knife in the City" is actually a bad work, and the ending of the ending is completely inconsistent with the previous plot foreshadowing. When Wang Wuzhong came out of the rivers and lakes and came to Prince Gong's mansion to participate in the martial arts competition as a bystander, the commentary of the surrounding personnel revealed two important settings: first, the four mountains of the capital will appear one after another, and Huaquan Buting and Shenshou Ao Bai have appeared in the martial arts competition.
Secondly, under the introduction of the god Ao Bai, the boxing champion Sakamoto, who is known as the first master of the small book, also appeared on the scene, preparing to start the ultimate showdown with the winner of the martial arts competition. According to this foreshadowing, the audience will naturally guess the ending of the movie, and the protagonist Dadao Wang Wu must have a life-and-death duel with Sakamoto. However, the ending of the movie confuses the audience. What about Sakamoto? Why did he, who was touted as the number one master, disappear without a trace in the finale?
What's even more ridiculous is that the movie emphasizes the existence of the four mountains of the capital at the beginning, but in the second half, except for Yu Wanshan, the third master played by Sammo Hung, the last person in the four mountains of the capital never showed up again. Since the film staked Rowe's entire net worth, and the box office failure led to Rowe's rapid bankruptcy, this raises the possibility that the crew came to a standstill in the second half of the film's shooting due to a lack of funds.
With the script already laying the background, the screenwriter reluctantly made a hasty decision and canceled Sakamoto's role, and the last person in the four mountains of the capital failed to appear. Even in order to save costs, the screenwriter directly copied the ending of the old version of "Big Knife King V", and the protagonist of the movie died again under the gun. If the script is a flaw in this movie, then in terms of casting, "A Knife in the City" has also dug a deep hole for itself.
First of all, it has been six full years since "True Colors of Heroes", and Dillon's popularity has long since disappeared. Although Kwan Zhilin and Sammo Hung appeared as cameos, they were unable to bring more audiences to the movie when their roles were limited.
Zou Zhaolong and Yang Lijing are both newcomers at this time, and the former even retains Ni Xing's original name, and the two are also unable to attract audiences. Although the film introduced some mainland actors, in 1993, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" had not yet been released, and mainland audiences did not even know the identity of the actor Yang Fan, and the image of the villain Zhao Changjun was also unattractive.
Considering the busy situation of the Hong Kong and Taiwanese film market at the time, Sammo Hung was unlikely to devote himself to the film at the peak of his career. Therefore, there is a Kombat mode in the movie, which uses the technique of fast release to speed up the actor's shot, which is considered the most fatal flaw in the field of professional action movies.
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Of course, we also have to admit that there are indeed a lot of brilliant lines in "A Knife in the City", but that doesn't save the whole movie. It is not a pity that only a few minutes of excitement supported the entire work, which ultimately led to the box office fiasco of "A Knife in the City". By digging deeper into the 1993 film, we may be able to better understand why it suffered such a dismal box office performance at the time, and why some have re-evaluated it in recent years.