The “God of Gamblers”, which was rejected by Tony Leung, not only won the box office of Hong Kong movies in 1990 with over 41 million dollars, but also established Stephen Chow’s status as “Master Star”.
God of Gamblers”, starring Chow Yun Fat and Andy Lau, was the top box office film in Hong Kong in 1989 with 37 million Hong Kong dollars, which also started the precedent of Hong Kong-made gambling films. Among them, “The Saint of Gamblers”, written by “ghost director” Liu Zhenwei in only 5 hours, not only surpassed “God of Gamblers” in 1990 to break through the box office of $40 million, but also made Stephen Chow a star overnight, from “Starboy” to “Master Star”. The movie “The Saint of Gamblers” was positioned as the most popular movie in the world.
The movie “God of Gamblers” was a spoof of “God of Gamblers” and had a small budget. At that time, the distribution company wanted to find Tony Leung to play the male lead, because in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Tony Leung was not only a first-rate TVB star, but also made a name for himself in movies, appearing in a number of films such as “The Legend of Epilepsy”, “Underground Love” and “City of Sadness”, and Tony Leung’s also appeared on the shortlist of major award shows one after another.
However, after reading the script of “The Gambler”, Tony Leung felt that it did not suit him and decisively refused to act in it. The strange thing is that director Liu Zhenwei also thinks that this role is not suitable for Tony Leung, and in his mind, there has long been the best candidate, that person is Chow Sing Chi.
As we all know, now the same film industry superstar Stephen Chow and Tony Leung, since childhood have a good friendship. The two joined the Hong Kong Television Broadcasts (TVB) almost around the same time, but Tony Leung was always one step ahead of Stephen Chow in his career. When Tony Leung became one of the “Five Tigers of TVB”, Stephen Chow was still hosting the children’s program “430 Shuttle” at TVB. If it wasn’t for film director Lee Hsiu-hsien watching the children’s program at home with his children, there might not have been the “comedy king” Stephen Chow today.
Subsequently, “Breaking Bad”, produced by Lee Hsiu-hsien, opened the door for Stephen Chow to make movies. Later on, Liu Zhenwei was interested in Stephen Chow mainly because of his appearance and acting skills. Although at that time, Chow was a very small person and his comedy style had not yet taken shape, and the film distributors were firmly against it, Lau Chin-wai was optimistic about Chow and insisted on giving him a chance to be the male lead in “The Gambler”.
If Lee Hsiu Hsien is Chow’s bosom friend, then Liu Zhenwei is Chow’s soulmate. After confirming Stephen Chow as the male lead, Liu Zhenwei got the female lead of “God of Gamblers”, Zhang Min, and Wu Mengda, who rubbed shoulders with Stephen Chow in “He’s from Jianghu”, to co-star in the film.
At that time, the sole investor of the film, Wu Siyuan, after seeing the dailies, said to Stephen Chow in all seriousness, “After the release of ‘The God of Gamblers’, you will not only be the most popular young man, but also the most popular person in the whole of Hong Kong.”
Sure enough, this small-budget movie, which took only 5 hours to script and 37 days to shoot, became a dark horse in the Hong Kong film industry and became the annual box office champion with $41.32 million, and Chow was promoted from “Starboy” to “Master Star”. The emergence of Stephen Chow put an end to the long-term dominance of gangster hero films at the Hong Kong box office, and Stephen Chow, Wu Mengda, and Zhang Min have since formed an iron triangle, making a series of box office hits such as “The Runaway Dragon”, and Stephen Chow’s status as a comedy superstar has remained untouched.
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