1982 Started from Hong Kong

Chapter 286: Mainland Premiere of "Huang Feihong"

1985, April 9.

The 91 Entertainment logo, which symbolizes everything returning to one, officially appeared in mainland movie theaters for the first time.

The lights dim.

The screen lights up.

Accompanied by a magnificent drum beat.

Nine flames lit up on the screen, and finally gathered together to form black and yellow text.

"This title is interesting, a bit like Toyo Eiga Co., Ltd."

"Which company is Jiuyi Entertainment? It doesn't sound like a state-owned company."

"It's from Hong Kong. The poster says the actors are Hong Kong superstars, but the main character is Jet Li. I guess it's a co-production..."

The audience in the theater were talking in low voices, mixed with the rustling sounds of cracking melon seeds and chewing popcorn.

Zhai Yuan was also holding a bag of popcorn. The large plastic bag was bulging with popcorn, which attracted surprised glances from many spectators around him.

There was nothing he could do. The old man running the popcorn stove at the door was very honest. After he gave him five dollars, he poured all the remaining corn kernels into the stove. There was a loud bang. When Zhai Yuan wanted to say he couldn't eat it anymore, the old man was afraid that he would return the money, so he carried the stove and disappeared.

"Want some? It's all natural."

Zhai Yuan held up the plastic bag and tried to sell it to the people around him. Everyone was very polite and grabbed a handful of it in their hands.

Guan Zhilin also reached out to take it, her slender fingers inadvertently brushed across the back of Zhai Yuan's hand, then she retracted her hand as if she had been electrocuted, and raised her face to smile embarrassedly at Zhai Yuan.

Wang Xiaofeng in the back row saw this scene and sneered.

Weng Meiling put on a mask and asked, "What's wrong?"

Wang Xiaofeng shook her head and muttered, "No, I saw a golden rooster pretending to be innocent."

……

After the opening credits of 91 Entertainment ended, the screen went black for two seconds, and the noisy sounds of gongs and drums were heard.

Soon the screen lit up and a lion dance ceremony was being performed on a large ship. A hydrangea bundle of green vegetables was hung on the top of the mast, representing the "cai qing" (picking green) part of the lion dance.

There is no seaport in Yanjing City, so the filming of the opening sea sailing scene of this movie was actually the last scene when the movie was about to be completed.

Xu Qi and Jet Li rode on a green train with the crew, stopping and starting many times, and it took two hours before they arrived at the Tianjin Port.

The Tianjin Shipyard still retains many old-style ferries. The sense of the times is immediately highlighted when the dragon flag is hung. However, it is unlikely to find the cannon barrels on the ship these days. The props team finally got some cardboard and plastic foam, rolled them up, and then painted them with black paint. The effect is quite realistic.

in the screen.

Jet Li's Wong Fei Hung is dressed in white.

The leader of the Black Flag Army, Liu Yongfu, who sits in the middle, is played by director Xu Kui himself.

In fact, Xu Ke is also a professional guest actor in Hong Kong films, and was even nominated for the Best Supporting Actor in the movie "Last Victory".

It's just that he is so famous as a director that people tend to overlook his identity as an actor.

Liu Yongfu, played by Xu Qi, wore an official hat with a peacock feather on the back: "Huang Feihong, look! Now all the Western warships are parked in our port. Hong Kong was given to Britain, Ma was given to Portugal, and Russia occupied the Heilongjiang River. They can't even protect their own ancestors, and they sent me, Liu Yongfu, to Annan to fight with France in their place..."

The film was re-dubbed by a voice actor invited by the Shanghai Film Translation Studio. The voice-over tone was mastered to perfection when delivering the lines, so that Xu Qi's originally somewhat cold and even fierce appearance was also brought out by the dubbing to make him look righteous and concerned about the country and the people.

There were many intellectuals in the audience, some were showing off or talking about science, and some were whispering to the people around them about the historical figure Liu Yongfu.

Huang Feihong cupped his hands and said, "Lord Liu, the imperial court changes its orders every day now. Maybe you will be transferred back soon."

Liu Yongfu sighed: "The court sent me to fight but was afraid that I would have too many troops, so this navy would definitely be disbanded. Huang Feihong, you are the coach of our Black Flag Army, you recruit them as a militia and continue to train them, so that when a strong enemy comes, they can defend our country!"

The camera showed the sailors on the boat, who all knelt down before Huang Feihong: "Master Huang!"

Then, Liu Yongfu took out the most important prop in the movie - a folding fan.

"Huang Feihong, written on this fan are the unequal treaties we signed with the foreigners. Seeing the fan is like seeing the person. I hope that when I come back, these treaties will have been written off!"

As Huang Feihong opened his folding fan, the words "Unequal Treaties" on the fan filled the entire screen, with a map of China printed in the middle, filled with treaty details.

The sound of drums gradually rose, from low to high, and then the sound of the guzheng was heard.

Boom! ...

As the music started, the scene changed, and the title of "Huang Feihong" appeared on the sea with the rising sun, and a line of small words "Top Gun" appeared on the side.

As the waves surged, Chen Shilong sang in his unique Peking Opera style: "I stand proudly facing the waves, my blood is as hot as the red sunlight..."

On the beach, Wong Fei-hung led a group of spirited young people to practice martial arts.

The screen shows the film's main creative staff:
Producer: Zhai Yuan
Producer: Zhai Yuan

Screenwriter: Zhai Yuan

Music: Zhai Yuan, Chen Shilong

Director: Xu Qi
Starring: Jet Li
This time, the name Yuan Biao was not listed at the front of the list of leading actors, so it became Jet Li's male lead role.

There was a murmur in the audience.

“What is a producer?”

"It seems like they are self-employed individuals who invest in movies. We are a studio system, and there is no such thing as a producer."

"This guy called Zhai Yuan is quite impressive. No wonder his name is on the long list of producer, screenwriter, and music. He must have spent a lot of money..."

Xu Qi looked at the images he had shot on the screen and nodded with satisfaction.

When she heard Chen Shilong's singing, she frowned again and whispered, "I think Chen Shilong's voice is a bit weird, not as good as Huang Zhan's. Maybe Lin Zixiang would be good too."

Zhai Yuan smiled and asked, "Chen Shilong can help your play become a hit in Japan, can anyone else do it?"

Xu Qi sighed.

The story on the screen continues.

Guan Zhilin's Thirteenth Aunt appeared on the stage, her Western-style attire standing out among a crowd of people wearing costumes and makeup from the early Republic of China period.

All the men in the audience stood up straight.

Also appearing on the same scene with Thirteenth Aunt is a foreign ghost woman best friend. The scene only lasts for more than ten seconds. The actress is a White Russian woman who was brought in from the Foreign Guest Hotel to play the guest role. She is a genuine foreign woman.

Aunt Thirteen: "Feihong, let me introduce her to you. Her name is Joanna."

Big Yang Ma: "How do you do?"

Huang Feihong: "Beep? What beep?"

Luo Jiaying's uncle reminded him, "She is greeting you, hurry up and say 'fresh braised pork with pork'."

Huang Feihong: "Oh, braised pork! Braised pork!"

There was a chuckle from the audience.

In the next shot, Thirteenth Aunt was taking a photo of Wong Fei-hung. The camera, which had too much magnesium powder in it, started to smoke and burned the canary in the cage in front of it.

The audience laughed even more cheerfully.

Zhai Yuan looked around at the smiling faces, and was glad that there was no animal protection organization at the moment, otherwise this shot would have been the subject of a cyberbullying.

"Aunt Thirteen acted very well."

Zhai Yuan took the initiative to say something to Guan Zhilin.

Guan Zhilin was the leading actress for the first time, and the corners of her mouth could not help but rise, and she said modestly: "Mr. Zhai, give me a chance."

Next in the film, it is the turn of Leung Ka Fai's Ya Ca Su and Wai Tin Chi's Liang Kuan.

To be honest, Hui Tianci's acting is less agile than Yuan Biao's, and he is still a bit dull under Xu Qi's training. Sometimes, whether an actor can become popular depends mainly on luck and resources, but it also depends on his strength.

Fortunately, in this version, Liang Kuan's role was cut a lot, which did not affect the viewing experience. Instead, Liang Jiahui's Ya Ca Su was more outstanding.

In the opera troupe, the scene where Thirteenth Aunt changes clothes is retained.

But Liang Kuan's peeking was changed to him stopping the troupe owner who wanted to peek, thus offending him, making the subsequent plot logic smoother.

Thirteenth Aunt slowly took off her clothes, leaving only a suspender on her body.

The audience stopped talking and stared at Guan Zhilin's exposed arms and the white skin on her chest on the screen. It was too revealing!
Mainland audiences have never experienced such stimulation. These days, movies with even slightly erotic scenes are considered internal reference films, and such scenes are rarely seen in serious theaters.

next second.

The shadow of a hand appeared on the screen, getting bigger and bigger, and finally covering the entire screen.

There was an immediate burst of curses from the audience.

Moon Lee asked in confusion, "What's going on?"

Zhai Yuan turned to look at Zhou Xuejun: "Explain it to me."

Zhou Xuejun smiled awkwardly: "Maybe the projectionist felt that this kind of lens was inappropriate and blocked the projector lens with his hand..."

Simple and crude physical deletion.

When the screen lit up again, Liang Kuan had already chased out of the troupe to give Guan Zhilin an umbrella, and met Yan Zhendong here.

On the long street where heavy rain was pouring.

Liang Xiaolong plays the Iron Shirt Yan Zhendong on stage.

Yan Zhendong, who was performing on the street, had his upper body naked and his muscles were knotted. Two red tasseled spears were pressed against his throat. With a sudden force, the spear shafts broke into pieces.

This is the first time martial arts action is shown in the movie.

The audience, who were just angry about the physical cuts, gasped when they saw this scene.

Most of the audiences at that time were very simple and honest. They really believed that there was real kung fu in reality. So much so that after Jet Li finished filming "Shaolin Temple", countless people, with their dreams of being martial arts heroes, boarded the green train and headed straight to Mount Shaoshi.

"Chen Zhen!"

"Fuck, it's really Chen Zhen!"

"Didn't he die together with the Oriental Sato?"

Although Liang Xiaolong wore a fake braid in the film, he was still recognized by enthusiastic audiences. The image of Chen Zhen was so deeply rooted in people's hearts that a burst of noise suddenly broke out in the theater.

Liang Xiaolong, who was sitting in the corner, pressed down the brim of his hat and straightened his back silently.

Humph! What is a real superstar?

After Yan Zhendong appeared in the movie, the narrative style was not as relaxed as before.

In Bao Zhilin's clinic, Huang Feihong treated a vegetable vendor's gunshot wound.

"There are so many foreign ships in the harbor with all kinds of flags. This vegetable vendor couldn't tell the difference between the American flag and the British flag, so he boarded the wrong ship and was beaten by foreigners. The capital is carrying out the Westernization Movement, and in disputes like this, we Chinese are the ones who suffer."

The actor who plays Zhu Rourong is Fat Cat Zheng Zeshi, who has just transformed into a director. This time, in order to establish a good relationship with 1024, he specially came to the mainland to make a guest appearance.

After listening to his master Huang Feihong's story about the vegetable vendor, Zhu Rourong got angry and picked up a trident fork: "Brothers of the militia, let's go and dismantle the foreigners' boats!"

At this point, Xu Qi leaned closer to Zhai Yuan and whispered, "I don't remember this part of the dialogue like this. Was it edited?"

Zhai Yuan hummed: "Enjoy the show."

The original film's lines were indeed not like this. It should have been Zhu Rourong cursing, "The Manchu dogs occupied our Central Plains, and now they are colluding with the red-haired devils to sell out our beautiful country" and so on.

But this is a topic that cannot be touched upon.

There are at least 400,000 Manchu compatriots in Yanjing City now. If this line is spoken, Zhai Yuan is worried that the crew will not be able to return to Hong Kong.

Besides, the dubbing artists at the Shanghai Film Translation Studio wouldn’t dub the lines like that, so it would be better for them to just be more conscientious and delete it in advance.

……

Huang Feihong stopped the furious Zhu Rourong. This character is still very idealistic and a little pedantic: "Zhu Rourong, you are not allowed to interfere. We need to find the foreigners to clarify this matter. Otherwise, how can we Tang people live in Foshan in the future?"

The scene where Huang Feihong meets the foreigners was filmed at the Yenching Hotel.

At the dinner table, the Qing admiral who was responsible for mediating Sino-British relations invited Lin Guobing, who had just played the role of Qiu Xiaochi in "God of Gamblers 2", to make a guest appearance.

Admiral: "Huang Feihong, this is General Wiggs, and this is the great businessman Mr. Jishan. They are both very generous and will not pursue the matter of the vegetable vendor boarding the wrong ship. You should stop insisting on asking him for compensation."

Huang Feihong: "Admiral, how can we appease the public anger?"

Admiral: "Public outrage? Humph! Huang Feihong, you are just an ordinary citizen. What qualifications do you have to discuss decisions with the government? The capital is now carrying out the Westernization Movement. The relationship with foreigners should be calm if you can endure it for a while, and the sky will be clear if you take a step back."

Huang Feihong picked up a piece of bread and said, "This bread is made with our flour. The foreigners have set up concessions and restricted areas in our area. If we Chinese continue to give in everywhere, sooner or later we will not even have flour to make steamed buns!"

……

The audience's faces gradually became solemn, and the theater returned to the silence it had when Rosamund Kwan took off her clothes, but this time they were completely absorbed in the story.

The huge cinema was in complete silence.

At the same time, Liang Kuan, having offended the boss of an opera troupe before, was tricked into dealing with the Shahe Gang who came to collect protection fees, and was chased and killed by a group of people.

When Liang Kuan was fleeing in panic, he met Zhu Rourong who stood up for justice.

In Zhai Yuan's script, this version of the Shahe Gang was made to be more domineering. There was no plot in the original film where Yuan Biao was forced to jump out and provoke the Shahe Gang after the Shahe Gang showed weakness in order to add more scenes to the film. Instead, the militia and the Shahe Gang directly started a melee as soon as they disagreed.

The actor who played the role of the leader of the Shahe Gang was Lu Huiguang, the official third-level film actor of Jiuyi Entertainment at that time.

In the melee.

People from both sides rushed into the foreigner's restaurant, breaking the atmosphere at the negotiation table between Huang Feihong and the foreigners.

What follows is an indoor melee, and this is when we can see the Yuan family's action coordination and Xu Qi's ability to control the situation during filming.

Even though dozens of people were crowded together punching and kicking, the scene was still not chaotic and the priorities were clearly defined.

During the melee, Yacasu accidentally bumped into a foreign bodyguard and was beaten up by him.

The audience also saw Wong Fei-hung's first real fight in this scene.

Against the somewhat heavy historical background, the fighting scenes were not as fancy as in the later films. Wong Fei-hung subdued the foreign bodyguard with just three punches and two kicks, and the other party left angrily after saying "Chinese ghost".

The scene changed, and the admiral who had just left during the chaos led his troops to surround the hotel.

Admiral: "Capture the militia members, and kill anyone who resists!"

The militia members were trying to escape.

Huang Feihong: "Don't leave! Put down your weapons! The government has the right to investigate this matter..."

……

The audience felt it was too depressing to see this, and the whispering started again.

"Huang Feihong is a bit of a wimp."

"Alas! There is nothing we can do. The people in the government office have guns."

"This admiral is so annoying! He will definitely be beaten to death by Huang Feihong in the end."

The plot of the movie stirs up the audience's emotions. Although it is not as exciting as the later films with thrilling fighting scenes, the overall narrative is quite stable.

When Thirteenth Aunt found Huang Feihong late at night with an oil lamp to measure his body and make a suit for him.

Huang Feihong asked doubtfully, "Aunt Thirteen, are foreign countries really that good? Why do we have to learn everything from them?"

Thirteenth Aunt: "They invented the steam engine and many other things. Their science is more advanced than ours. If we don't learn from them, won't we fall behind?"

Huang Feihong: "Chinese people should not wear Western clothes at all, because Chinese people are Chinese and foreigners are foreigners."

Thirteenth Aunt: "A railway will be built here soon, and a telegraph office will be opened. Everything will change in the future. China will also change with the world."

Huang Feihong opened the folding fan with the words "unequal treaties" written on it and said, "You are right. Now that foreigners' guns and warships have come in, everything is changing. No one knows what will happen in the future. I appreciate your gift, but keep it. When all Chinese people wear western suits in the future, I will wear them."

The audience who were slower to react only felt that this line was unclear and powerful, and they vaguely grasped something but couldn't put it into words.

The intellectuals in the audience frowned slightly: "The lines are well written."

"Yes, times are changing. I wonder if Huang Feihong will change in the end."

Xu Qi looked at the screen, listened to the whispered discussions of the audience around him, and smiled.

It was this line that Zhai Yuan used to trick him into joining Jiuyi to film a movie. Now it seems that this was the right choice.

(End of this chapter)