Special feature of 1905 film network What do you think will happen if you find an antique pot and rub it? Is it the lamp god in Aladdin? Maybe not this time. In the cartoon Wish Dragon, you can summon a hairy, pink dragon!
As soon as this dragon opens its mouth, you will know that it is an old acquaintance. Jackie Chan not only voiced the pink cartoon dragon, but also worked as a film producer, trying to make China more colorful. As early as the Golden Rooster Award in 2019, he announced his four brand-new film projects in one breath, including Wish Dragon, who has been making films for many years, and some important plots were still in deep creation.
After two years, this animated film was finally released. In the traditional off-season of January, the film performed fairly well and is expected to eventually win 100 million box office. Many viewers who have seen the film also feel relaxed and humorous. It is a family movie suitable for all ages, and Jackie Chan dubbing the Dragon is definitely the biggest surprise.
It is said that it is not easy to be such a dragon. In addition to Jackie Chan’s dubbing to make this dragon come alive, the production behind it is also quite hard. As early as the Return of the Great Sage, Tian Xiaopeng revealed that the technology needed to make a complete dragon is particularly complicated. This time, for this pink dragon, the animation team equipped more than 1000 controllers on the dragon’s body, with 3 million hairs. Besides being able to move flexibly, the dragon can also change its shape into different shapes such as square, circle and so on.
Although you may have seen pictures of Jackie Chan playing Chun-Li, or all kinds of funny fighting designs in his early years, you can never imagine that he will play a cute and cute role, but Wish Dragon has realized our desire to see Jackie Chan "selling cute". In the movie, Ding Siqi, a Shanghai teenager voiced by Junfeng Niu, is the first human being in the modern world that Shenlong met. However, the dragon, which wanted to exert its divine power to deter teenagers, was dazzled by modern civilization and became a stranger, curious about TV, refrigerators and airplanes.
In the movie, we heard that Shenlong disliked the bus with Jackie Chan’s voice, and insisted on taking a taxi. Even prawn strips were called "civilian food" proudly, but after eating it, they immediately became "really fragrant" to this industrial food. It is said that Wish Dragon’s dubbing work has been done by Jackie Chan for three years, just to find the most suitable way of voice performance.
But it’s not a surprise just because Jackie Chan voiced it. With Jackie Chan’s participation, Wish Dragon looks like an animated Jackie Chan movie. Needless to say, Ding Siqi, the leading actor, has realized his desire to know kung fu, and every move is like Jackie Chan’s possession. From the appearance of one move and one style, to the street fight with the villain, and then to the improvisation of props, it is simply a one-to-one restoration of Jackie Chan’s classic movies.
For example, there is a scene in which the hero falls from the upstairs, and the audience familiar with Jackie Chan can immediately think of the classic scenes in the classic movie Plan A.. In Plan A, Jackie Chan jumped onto the bell tower along the flagpole, and then fell from the 15-meter-high bell tower. In this scene, Jackie Chan went into battle himself. In order to prevent accidents, two layers of tarpaulins were added between the ground and the bell tower. In the end, Jackie Chan fell from the bell tower, wearing two layers of tarpaulins and falling heavily on the ground. Wish Dragon restored this classic scene, and arranged for the hero to fall from the upstairs and wear several layers of tarpaulins.
Besides "Plan A", we can also see the shadow of Jackie Chan’s film "Brother Out". "Brother Out" is the first movie with a box office of over 10 million in Hong Kong, China, and it tells the story of a martial arts school that participates in the lion dance conference every year. At the beginning of the film, Jackie Chan designed a lion dance performance. In the early years, Hong Kong stuntmen were also called "Dragon and Tiger Martial Arts Masters". One of the reasons was that they would also undertake the work of dragon and lion dances in addition to martial arts. "Brother Out" is also one of the few lion dance scenes in his movies. In the Wish Dragon, the animation team paid tribute to the lion dance, but changed the yellow and white lions into a yellow lion and this pink dragon.
In the story, Wish Dragon is very similar to the film Miracle written and directed by Jackie Chan in 1989. In Wish Dragon, poor boy Ding Siqi’s childhood sweetheart Wang Lina’s father was in financial crisis, so he had the idea of Shenlong. In Miracle, Jackie Chan also had an affair with the daughter of the former boss of his hotel, and the hotel was also made difficult by the wicked. As for the story of the dragon itself? The animation gives us a lot of hints. For example, Shenlong was an emperor before his death. He transformed Ding Siqi’s army into terracotta warriors and horses, and he transformed him into an emperor’s dress, which is also very similar to the emperor’s dress in Qin and Han Dynasties. Therefore, it is not difficult to guess that the dragon is probably designed with Qin Shihuang as the prototype reference. Jackie Chan has also made films related to Qin Shihuang, which is the famous Myth. Although Jackie Chan played two roles in the film, he did not play the role of Qin Shihuang, but played a general of the Qin Dynasty. However, this will still remind the audience of these classic movies when watching Wish Dragon.
Director Xu Haofeng once asserted Jackie Chan in his own film criticism: "Jackie Chan can be a martial arts superstar at the age of 70. When he can’t make any more thrilling moves, he can still entertain people by relying on the Beijing Opera design in the film. Unlike Bruce Lee, he doesn’t fight alone. He pays great attention to the scene. The group fights in his films are the stage of Peking Opera. All the somersaults on the Peking Opera stage are walk-ons, and the real protagonist just needs to fiddle with the scorpion on his head. " This remark is actually saying that Jackie Chan is like a famous actor in Beijing Opera. As long as he appears, he will win a full house. As long as he appears, he will still stay with his audience for a long time. Maybe one day, Jackie Chan really can’t do dangerous moves anymore, but as long as he appears in action movies, he can still give the audience a reassurance.
Indeed, on New Year’s Day in 2021, when Jackie Chan appeared in Wish Dragon’s publicity activities, many viewers found him slightly unwell — — His back injury recurred and he was struggling to walk. But when it appeared in front of the audience after the screening, the cheers were still the biggest. This is the charm of filmmakers. No matter what age, they are still trying new possibilities. This curiosity and never-ending exploration of new things may be the biggest surprise for the audience.