Chapter 5: Starting Out as a Corpse

“Hurry up, we’re going to be late!” Uncle Wu Chenggang strode out in a rush, briefcase in hand.

Kang Jianfei finished the half bowl of thin congee at an unhurried pace before following him out. From behind, his cousin Wu Ruiqing shouted, “Cousin, where’s the copy of The Legend of Qin you wrote last night?”

“It’s on the cabinet beside the sofa.” Kang Jianfei’s voice floated back from the stairwell.

Shek Kip Mei wasn’t far from Broadcast Drive, only about two kilometers in a straight line.

What left Kang Jianfei speechless was that after going downstairs, Uncle Wu actually wheeled out a bicycle and slapped the rear rack with smug confidence. “Get on!”

Kang Jianfei could only sit on the bicycle in resignation, and before long they had reached the base of TVB’s building on Broadcast Drive.

After Wu Chenggang parked the bicycle for safekeeping, he took Kang Jianfei onto TVB’s shuttle bus and headed for Shaw Brothers’ Clear Water Bay studio.

They had arrived early and found good seats by the window. More people boarded one after another, and before long the bus was packed tight.

“Excuse me, excuse me...” A young man squeezed in, pushing through the crowd toward the back. Seeing there were no seats left, he stood beside Kang Jianfei.

Kang Jianfei looked up. Well, wasn’t this Tony Leung Chiu-wai?

“Hello, my name is Kang Jianfei.”

Kang Jianfei held out his hand in a very friendly way.

Having clawed his way up from the very bottom, he would never pass up any chance to build connections.

In his eyes, whether it was a high official or a beggar, everyone had value. The only question was whether they could be useful to him.

Just after stopping, Tony Leung Chiu-wai saw Kang Jianfei greeting him.

Before he even made sense of what was happening, he instinctively shook Kang Jianfei’s hand. “Hello, I’m Tony Leung Chiu-wai. I just graduated from TVB’s training class. Are you also an actor at TVB? I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

Seen each other before, my ass!

Kang Jianfei ignored the polite pleasantries and smiled. “Everyone who gets into the training class must be pretty impressive, right? Formally trained students are so much better at acting than ordinary people.”

Tony Leung Chiu-wai was only twenty at the time and still very green.

Because his family was poor, he had dropped out of school to work. Last year he had finally managed to get into TVB’s training class, and he had only just graduated. He had played a few bit parts at most.

Kang Jianfei’s flattery went straight to Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s head, though he still said modestly, “Not at all, not at all. I haven’t played any important roles.”

Kang Jianfei said in an old hand’s tone, “I think your looks are excellent. As long as you seize the chance, you’re bound to become a star.”

The naive Tony Leung Chiu-wai felt delighted and immediately had a great impression of Kang Jianfei. On top of that, Kang Jianfei’s seasoned manner made him feel Kang Jianfei really knew his stuff.

The two of them quickly fell into conversation, and Kang Jianfei controlled the direction of the topic the whole time.

Before the bus even reached Clear Water Bay, Tony Leung Chiu-wai had volunteered his entire family tree and also told Kang Jianfei a lot about TVB.

As for Kang Jianfei, aside from his name, Tony Leung Chiu-wai knew nothing about him.

At last they reached the Clear Water Bay studio, and the crowd surged off the bus. Only then did Tony Leung Chiu-wai wave goodbye with a smile. “Ah Fei, let’s go for tea together another day!”

“My treat if Ah Yau buys, I’ll definitely be there.” Kang Jianfei waved back.

At this time, the Clear Water Bay studio was not the later TV City. Its main purpose was to serve Shaw Brothers Film for movie production. The entire lot consisted of an administration building, a cinema, a post-production center, an exhibition hall, and five recording studios. There were no staff dormitories or anything like that.

What Wu Chenggang brought Kang Jianfei to was Studio Two, where the bald Boss Ding was fiddling with two horses.

Seeing them approach, Boss Ding said to Wu Chenggang, “Ah Cheng, go ahead and get on with your work. I’ll take good care of this kid.”

Wu Chenggang patted Kang Jianfei on the back and smiled at Boss Ding. “Then I’m leaving him in your hands, Ah Ding.”

After saying that, Wu Chenggang went off to handle the lighting equipment, while Boss Ding waved Kang Jianfei over and said, “Go bring over the stunt props and put them behind the set over there.”

“Okay, Boss Ding.” Kang Jianfei obediently went to move the props.

Kang Jianfei knew this was Boss Ding testing him. If he tried to cut corners now, he could forget about taking Boss Ding as his master.

But Kang Jianfei had never really planned to apprentice under him anyway. He wasn’t lazy when moving the props, but he wasn’t especially diligent either. He just did the bare minimum, and that made Boss Ding, who was secretly watching him from the side, very dissatisfied.

Kang Jianfei didn’t care what Boss Ding thought. He had come to the Clear Water Bay studio to see whether he could meet some people from the industry.

After all, if he wanted to make a film, he would have to build a production team. A movie couldn’t be made by him alone.

Before that, the only thing to do was honestly write novels and wait until he became famous before thinking about anything else.

Maybe some people would say Kang Jianfei should just write a good screenplay and sell it to a film company or TV station. He could make money and gain fame at the same time.

It wasn’t that simple.

In later years, a music company could receive countless demo songs every day. The overwhelming majority would be tossed straight into the trash, and nobody would even look at them.

Screenplays were the same. Film and television companies dealt with huge numbers of scripts every year, and plenty of them were genuinely good works.

A production got the green light for all kinds of reasons, and a good script was only a small part of it.

Even if you mailed the screenplay for Titanic to a Hollywood studio right now, there was more than a ninety percent chance it would end up in the trash.

Especially in Hong Kong at the moment, films and TV dramas were all aimed at box office and ratings. Before a work was actually shot, no one dared say they could tell from one glance at the script whether it would make money.

To guarantee sales, Hong Kong film and TV people basically had three options:

First, adapt works by famous novelists, such as Jin Yong and Gu Long.

Second, let the director and producer provide the concept and framework, then hire a screenwriter to tailor the script.

Third, pay a famous screenwriter to write the script.

For ordinary people, trying to make money directly by selling scripts was almost impossible. You had to become famous first.

Or you had to earn the favor of a producer or director, then bring out your script and let them take a look.

Even if the script Kang Jianfei wrote right now were noticed, given his complete lack of fame, it would still be bought at an absurdly low price. The money from screenwriting wouldn’t even be as much as what he could make from novels.

Another point was that Hong Kong films at the time, especially kung fu films, were often made without even a proper written screenplay, let alone storyboards.

Usually someone would come up with a few ideas in his head, then use talk and personal connections to raise the money, call over the assistant director, action choreographer, cinematographer, and art staff to discuss it for a while, and immediately decide to slaughter a pig’s head, burn incense, and start filming.

That was how many of the classic fight scenes in the Wong Fei-hung series more than a decade later came about.

There were no action storyboards prepared in advance. When the action choreographer and the actors arrived on set, they designed the moves and the dialogue according to the actual environment and their experience.

……

Kang Jianfei had just finished moving a pile of swords and sabers when Tony Leung Chiu-wai, already dressed in costume, came over and said in surprise, “Huh, Ah Fei, you’re here too?”

“Yeah.” Kang Jianfei dusted off his hands and smiled. “Nice, you’ve got a scene right away this early.”

Tony Leung Chiu-wai picked up a sword from the props pile and said with a slightly forced smile, “I’m just playing an Emei disciple with no lines.”

As they were talking, a few more people came over. It was Zheng Shaoqiu, Zhao Yazhi, and Wang Mingquan, all in costume.

The handsome Zheng Shaoqiu needed no introduction. Zhao Yazhi and Wang Mingquan were both dressed as martial heroines, carrying a charm different from modern beauties. Every smile and glance seemed full of life.

Especially Zhao Yazhi, whose classical elegance was fully brought out by the costume.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai had just joined this crew today, and the moment he saw Zhao Yazhi and Wang Mingquan, he stood there dumbfounded.

Kang Jianfei asked with a smile, “What props do you need?”

Zheng Shaoqiu yawned sleepily and said, “A sword.”

Zhao Yazhi held up three fingers. “Three swords.”

Kang Jianfei found three well-made prop swords and called out to Chu Liuxiang, “Hero Chu, take your sword!”

What they were filming right now was Zheng Shaoqiu and Zhao Yazhi’s version of Chu Liuxiang.

The series had already premiered on TVB half a month earlier, and from the moment it aired it drew crowds so huge it felt like the whole city had gone empty. Because the ratings were so good, the station was now preparing to revise the script and add more episodes.

Most TV dramas at TVB were shot and aired simultaneously at the time. Since the decision to add episodes had been made on the fly, Zheng Shaoqiu, as the lead, was under enormous pressure. He had already been filming at high intensity for nearly a month, and on average he could only sleep four hours a day.

At the moment Zheng Shaoqiu was running on too little sleep and feeling dazed. When he heard Kang Jianfei call him Hero Chu, he woke up on reflex and instinctively reached out to catch the sword.

Kang Jianfei’s playful act left a deep impression on Zheng Shaoqiu, Zhao Yazhi, and Wang Mingquan. The two beauties even smiled at Kang Jianfei.

But it was only a fleeting first impression. They might well forget him as soon as they turned around. After all, they were hot television and film stars, while Kang Jianfei was nothing more than a low-level nobody who had just sneaked over from the mainland.

After the three left, Tony Leung Chiu-wai excitedly slapped Kang Jianfei on the arm and said, “Ah Fei, Sister Yazhi and Sister Quan seemed to pay special attention to me just now. When they left, they even smiled at me!”

Kang Jianfei half-jokingly said, “You like them? If you do, go after them. I’ll back you.”

“They’re big stars. Why would they even look at me?”

Tony Leung Chiu-wai stared at the backs of the two beauties and said a little gloomily, “There must be so many men in all of Hong Kong who want to chase them. There’s no way it would ever be us.”

The two loser guys were chatting about their goddesses when Boss Ding suddenly tossed over a costume and barked, “Ah Fei, are you here to chat? They actually had Zheng Shaoqiu and the others come over and collect the props themselves? Why didn’t you take them over proactively? Hurry up and go get your makeup and change into your costume!”

Then Boss Ding said to Tony Leung Chiu-wai, “And you, stand over there in a bit. When Chu Liuxiang thrusts his sword at you, you’ll do this...”

Kang Jianfei hurried off to put on the costume, then had the makeup artist fit him with a wig. The glue was so sticky it nearly tore the skin at his temples off.

By the time Kang Jianfei finished changing, the set dressing was also in place. A huge fat man seated in a rattan chair shifted his ass with some effort, held a megaphone, and shouted, “Everyone in position. Get ready to roll sound!”

Kang Jianfei wouldn’t have a scene until the next shot, so he stood off to the side watching Wang Tianlin direct, and couldn’t help forming all kinds of opinions about the crew in his head:

The action scenes were terrible, in the style of 1960s wuxia films, and would be completely obsolete within ten years.

The lighting was bad too. Decades later, a medium-budget TV drama from the mainland would use two truckloads of lighting gear alone, while these four lamps in front of him were downright pathetic.

And that cameraman too. What was with the way the camera was set up? This shot would clearly have looked better from a low angle. What on earth was he standing there for...

Of course, those were Kang Jianfei’s private thoughts. He wasn’t stupid enough to say them out loud.

Even if he did, the fat director-producer Wang Tianlin wouldn’t bother changing anything.

This was a TV drama shot and aired at the same time, and there simply wasn’t that much time to carefully work on framing and lighting effects.

And from a financial standpoint, shooting it that way would only drive the budget way up.

Whether they were making films or TV dramas, Shaw Brothers Film and TVB followed the same principle: more, faster, better, cheaper.

After one scene was done, Boss Ding shouted at Kang Jianfei, “Ah Fei, come here!”

When Kang Jianfei ran over, Boss Ding instructed him, “You take a knife and charge at Chu Liuxiang, look as vicious as possible, then when he thrusts his sword at you, drop dead immediately. After you’re dead, if you don’t hear the director call ‘cut,’ you’re not allowed to get up. Keep playing the corpse on the ground. Got it?”

“Got it.” Kang Jianfei hadn’t expected his film-and-television career in this life to begin by playing a corpse.