1982 Started from Hong Kong

Chapter 287 On the Eve of Returning to Hong Kong
Huang Feihong's role change occurs in a scene where he teaches a lesson to the members of the Shahe Gang who collect protection fees, and protects the people but no one is willing to come forward to testify.

When the audience saw this, they couldn't help but sigh and accuse the people of being cowardly, and stood up for Huang Feihong in the play.

Who would have thought.

The audience who are heartbroken at this moment may become so afraid to even help an old lady in a few years.

Wong Fei-hung was walking on the street in the night with mixed feelings, and saw foreigners who were going to America to mine gold but actually wanted to sell the Chinese like pigs.

"In America, everyone has to be very careful when walking, because if they're not careful, they could step on gold. When you wash your face in the river, the water you scoop up is filled with golden sand, so America is called the Gold Mountain! When you go to America, you must wear sunglasses, because the gold is too dazzling, and you'll be blinded if you don't wear sunglasses..."

At the same time, the Shahe Gang retaliated late at night and a fire burned down Baozhilin.

In order to take a picture of the burning Bao Zhilin, Thirteenth Aunt accidentally dropped Huang Feihong's folding fan into the fire while moving her camera.

After the fire, Huang Feihong picked up the burnt folding fan from the ruins.

The irony of this scene is that only the word "no" from the unequal treaty was burned off the fan, turning it into an equal treaty.

The government came and the government left.

The Shahe Gang was afraid of being hunted down by Wong Fei-hung, so they colluded with foreigners. While selling piglets, they also helped foreigners sell Chinese women overseas, in exchange for the foreigners' help in killing Wong Fei-hung.

The foreigners set up a Hongmen Banquet, invited Huang Feihong to watch the show, and secretly set an ambush.

The plot becomes tense at this point, and the audience stares at the screen intently, wanting to know how Master Huang will break the deadlock.

The result is regrettable.

After a melee in the opera troupe, the militia and innocent civilians suffered heavy casualties.

Huang Feihong had just escaped from the jaws of death, but was stabbed in the back by the government. Admiral Man believed that he was undermining the Westernization Movement and directly sealed off the Baozhilin, which was already in ruins.

When treating the wounded, Huang Feihong asked Ya Ca Su to get first aid powder, but Ya Ca Su, who had studied abroad, could not understand Chinese and failed to find it in time, resulting in the death of the wounded.

Another wounded soldier who escaped from a foreign ship also told Huang Feihong about the experience of Chinese workers being sold as piglets.

"We were all sailing across the ocean. We fell ill and had no medicine to treat them. Many people were thrown into the sea. When we arrived at Jinshan, they were marked like pigs..."

At this point in the movie, an hour has passed.

The protagonists were tortured throughout the whole process, and even the audience couldn't help but complain.

"Is it almost over? It's supposed to be a martial arts movie, but there's no fighting in it."

"It's been playing for about an hour, and the more I watch it, the more frustrated I feel."

"Didn't Chen Zhen just come out? Will he fight the foreigners?"

The audiences who came to watch the kung fu movies starring Hong Kong and Taiwan superstars wanted the thrill of the flesh-and-flesh punches of Huo Yuanjia and Chen Zhen, but this "Once Upon a Time in China" obviously did not satisfy everyone.

Is it bad? Not really, the story is well told and many of the lines resonate with the audience.

Not to mention the 1980s, even for many years after the millennium, foreign countries were still the ideal utopia in the hearts of many people. Many people would rather be put into containers by human traffickers and smuggled abroad than not breathe the air of freedom.

Called upon.

Chen Zhen appears again, but this time he plays Yan Zhendong, who joins the villain camp.

Because of his iron shirt and kung fu skills, Yan Zhendong, a street performer, was noticed by the Shahe Gang. The entire gang worshipped him as their master, but in fact they wanted him to deal with Huang Feihong.

The audience's three views were completely destroyed.

Chen Zhen is actually a bad guy?
This was an era when actors who played villains in TV dramas would be spat on while walking on the street, and their bicycle valves would be pulled out if they parked their bicycles at the door.

The audience's simple values make it impossible for them to accept the change of identity from Chen Zhen to Yan Zhendong.

Fortunately, Yan Zhendong's next few lines lifted everyone's spirits a little.

"In the martial arts world, nothing is unsatisfactory. As the saying goes, those who are righteous are often butchers. The most important thing now is to make a name for ourselves in Foshan. Then we can stand up and uphold justice for the people of the world. The martial arts world..."

The audience is full of anticipation: "Chen Zhen is trying to preserve his strength, and he will definitely be a good guy in the end."

The Wong Fei-hung in the screen also experienced a gradual change in his state of mind after repeated setbacks. He realized that the martial arts he was proud of could only barely catch up with the power of foreign guns. However, foreigners could easily make countless oxygen guns, but China did not have countless Wong Fei-hungs.

Because of saving the piglets who had signed indentures to foreigners, Huang Feihong was thrown into prison by the Qing Dynasty governor.

The Shahe Gang took the opportunity to kidnap Thirteenth Aunt and locked her up with other Chinese women, intending to sell them to America.

Huang Feihong, who has always been law-abiding, did not continue to be rigid this time. Instead, he walked out of the cell under the private permission of the officers and soldiers and rushed to the departing ship to rescue his compatriots.

The movie finally reaches its final battle.

After seeing this, the audience is still looking forward to "Chen Zhen" joining hands with Huang Feihong to fight the enemy.

What happened instead was a battle between two people.

The design of the bamboo ladder battle between the two men in the final battle was said to be because Jet Li injured his leg during filming. So Xu Qi got inspiration from a Japanese video game and had the two men fight each other on the ladder. This scene actually became a classic shot in the Wong Fei Hung series.

Although Jet Li was not injured during the filming, Zhai Yuan still suggested the bamboo ladder battle and handed it over to the Yuan family team to implement the action and recreate this scene.

It now seems that this action design was very successful. The two masters were agile and used all the props available on the field. Every move they made ignited the enthusiasm of the audience.

This gorgeous fight scene ends with Wong Fei-hung kicking Yan Zhendong away.

A slogan is required.

Zhai Yuan had Jet Li hanging on a wire and performing several kicks in the air, his moves more exaggerated than all the actions in the first half of the movie, while he shouted out famous lines.

"Foshan Shadowless Feet!"

A kung fu movie without calling out the moves is like eating mango without dipping it in soy sauce; it has no flavor.

It's not that the protagonist is stupid enough to tell the enemy the moves, but that he wants to remind the audience the name of the moves and deepen the public's impression of this IP.

In the cinema, all the audience were shocked by this action. No one considered the rationality of it, only a chorus of exclamations of awesomeness was heard.

He even forgot that the person who was kicked away was 'Chen Zhen'.

On the screen, Yan Zhendong struggled to get up from the ground, wanting to continue to fight Huang Feihong to the death.

But as soon as they went out, they were riddled with guns and cannons from the foreigners.

"My iron shirt..."

Yan Zhendong fell to the ground with his wounds. Before dying, he said to Huang Feihong, "Master Huang, no matter how good our kung fu is, it can't defeat foreign guns..."

In the end, Yan Zhendong died, the leader of the Shahe Gang was thrown into the fire by Thirteenth Aunt and others, and even the foreigners were killed by the bullets shot by Huang Feihong's fingers.

This two-hour movie also came to an end.

The scene changes.

Huang Feihong and the admiral, who had become his friend, stood at the bow of the ship, leaning on the railing.

"Huang Feihong, is there a gold mountain in the world?"

"Admiral, if there really is a mountain of gold in this world, why are these foreign ships coming to our port? Perhaps we are already standing on it."

The film ends here.

There is no subsequent scene in the original film where Liang Kuan becomes a disciple.

The transformation of Huang Feihong's character does not require him to wear a suit at the end and take a photo as a plot clear. As the background music of "A Man Should Be Self-reliant" sounded again.

The end credits begin to roll.

The screen dimmed and the theater lights came on.

Many people in the audience were still sitting in their seats and were reluctant to get up and leave.

It seems that Wong Fei-hung won and all the villains who should be killed were killed, but why does it still feel so aggrieved?
It doesn't have the touching feeling of Japanese romance films, nor the suspense of mainland spy films, and it doesn't even have the blood-boiling feeling that a kung fu film should have.

"Why did Chen Zhen die? It would have been great if he and Huang Feihong could fight the foreign devils together."

"Yan Zhendong is bad, Chen Zhen is good."

"Did Aunt Thirteen finally marry Wong Fei-hung?"

Amidst the discussions, the audience was distracted from the plot and walked out of the theater in groups of three or four.

Outside the theater.

The movie poster of "Once Upon a Time in China" is still there. No one paid attention to the poster when we entered the venue, but now looking back at it, I have an indescribable feeling in my heart.

The poster shows a changing situation, with Wong Fei-hung standing alone, looking vast and majestic.

"It symbolizes the spirit of the Chinese nation at that time, when the people faced the crisis and turmoil and continued to forge ahead despite the difficulties."

Zhou Xuejun walked out of the cinema and looked up at the poster with emotion.

Zhai Yuan was very unhappy. You have already said everything, what else can I say?
Zhou Xuejun, old and deeply moved, patted Zhai Yuan on the shoulder and said, "The movie is really well made. In the era of Huang Feihong, the Chinese were bullied by foreigners. Now no one dares to bully us anymore. Although the economy is still not so good, I guess by the time you reach my age, we should have no problem surpassing Japan, not to mention America."

Zhai Yuan asked, "Old Zhou, are you forty-two this year?"

Zhou Xuejun nodded.

Zhai Yuan calculated it and said with a smile, "That's about right."

A group of people walked out of the cinema and back.

Except for Zhai Yuan who was in the editing room, everyone else was seeing the finished film for the first time and discussed the plot with each other on the way.

Zhai Yuan turned around and asked Xu Qi, "Is the filming of 'Dagger and Lady' going smoothly?"

Xu Qi said: "It has just been turned on for a few days and there are no problems at the moment."

Zhou Xuejun patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, if you have any difficulties, tell us and we will do everything possible to meet your requirements."

"Then, Lao Xu, please leave your contact information with Lao Zhou so you can discuss the filming later."

Zhai Yuan said with a smile, then paused and said, "It's September now, I should go back to Hong Kong to harvest leeks."

…………

The news that Zhai Yuan was going back to Hong Kong spread, and many people came to see him off in the past two days.

From the Federation of Literary and Art Circles, CCTV, film studios, the National Academy of Chinese Art…

Mr. Zhai focuses on being a good friend.

"Xiao Zhai, this is the expenses of the Journey to the West crew last month. Please check the account."

"As soon as you gave the money, director Xie Jin's 'Furong Town' was approved and ready to start filming. But guess what? Lead actor Jiang Wen acted like a big shot and refused to come!"

"Your Senior Brother Yu Zhanyuan and I won't be returning to Hong Kong just yet. We've told Mr. Zhang we're master and disciple, but the three of us are almost three hundred years old combined. Who knows who will go first? Every day we spend together is one less day. If you go back to Hong Kong, let Lin Zhengying, Qian Yuesheng, and the others supervise the students. We still have to run our school..."

Those who knew Zhai Yuan exchanged pleasantries and gave him instructions.

Zhou Xuejun was the last one to come.

"Have you bought a ticket yet?"

"Yes, I bought the ticket for tomorrow afternoon."

"That's fine, there's still time." Zhou Xuejun said with a smile, "Your film 'Once Upon a Time in China' is getting a lot of attention right now, especially among college students. They think it's very profound. The leaders of Peking University and Tsinghua University heard that we know each other, and asked if you could go to the school and give a speech to the students."

Zhai Yuan was stunned: "Tsinghua University or Peking University?"

"correct."

"The one that requires 700 points to read?"

"No way! A little over 500 points is about right."

Zhai Yuan nodded silently. That’s right, colleges and universities haven’t expanded their enrollment yet.

"To be honest, Old Zhou, I only went to junior high school. Besides, I'm about the same age, right? The students are older than me. What can I say to them?"

"You're being modest, aren't you? Besides, I didn't ask you to attend a class. Just go over there and talk about filmmaking or something, and inspire the young people!"

"when to go?"

"If you leave tomorrow, can we meet in the afternoon if you have nothing to do?"

……

Zhai Yuan gave Zhou Xuejun a lot of face. That afternoon, he not only went to Peking University and Tsinghua University himself, but also brought director Xu Qi with him.

The school leaders gave us a warm welcome, and they inevitably exchanged some commercial praises, and also praised the filming of "Once Upon a Time in China".

"This movie is very popular among students now. I heard that Mr. Zhai and Director Xu Qi were coming today, so everyone was waiting in the Memorial Lecture Hall in advance."

The 3000-seat Memorial Lecture Hall at Peking University and Tsinghua University was packed with people.

On the screen.

The movie "Once Upon a Time in China" is showing.

The lights suddenly came on.

The school leader's voice rang out over the loudspeaker, blowing on the microphone. "Hello, hello, students, please be quiet. Today we have invited Mr. Zhai Yuan from Hong Kong, who is also the producer and part-time director of the film 'Once Upon a Time in China.' With him is Director Xu Qi. Please welcome him with applause."

The lecture hall suddenly became lively, with waves of applause and cheers.

Everyone craned their necks to look at the door.

Amidst applause and cheers.

Zhai Yuan, dressed in casual clothes, walked into the lecture hall with Xu Qi and smiled and nodded to thousands of college students.

"Hello everyone, I'm Zhai Yuan, and this is Mr. Xu Qi, the director of Once Upon a Time in China..."

After Zhai Yuan introduced himself, the students were stunned.

His face is so young and he looks younger than his age. Is this Zhai Yuan in the list of film producers?
And the dark and thin director next to him doesn't look like a cultured person at all.

Zhai Yuan was also looking at the students in the audience.

College students in the 1980s generally had simple looks, with curiosity in their eyes. All the boys had short haircuts, and few girls had long hair. They did not dress as flamboyantly as Hong Kong students. A Dacron shirt with flared trousers was considered fashionable.

(End of this chapter)