Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

The decisive battle scene opened the eyes of the mainland actors.

They were really impressed that someone like Yang Ye, who had already achieved success, was still so hardworking while filming.

Hong Kong filmmakers of this era, especially those making action films, are truly worthy of respect. They really are playing with their lives.

In 86, Cheng Xiaodong went to mainland China to film a movie. There was a scene where he had to jump down from a high platform. The stunt double hesitated for a long time and didn't dare to jump.

Cheng Xiaodong was impatient and shouted, "I'll dance for you to see!"

He really jumped, and his leg was broken, so he stayed in the hospital for half a year.

Xu Ke asked him to film "A Chinese Ghost Story", and he filmed it while leaning on a crutch.

Later, when A Chinese Ghost Story became a huge hit, this guy often boasted: "I can take better photos of my feet than you can!"

After the filming of this decisive battle scene was completed, a large group of people took a train to Mudanjiang to continue filming!
In Mudanjiang, Yang Ye led the crew to pay tribute to Yang Zirong.

Yang Zirong is a hero, but his life is a tragedy!

According to the recollections of his comrades, on February 1947, 2, Yang Zirong and his comrades fought bandits together.

He was the first to rush in, kicked the door open, shouted "Don't move", and prepared to shoot in protest.

Unexpectedly, there was a "click" sound, and the pistol in his hand did not fire.

It turned out that the weather was too cold and frost formed on the bolt, causing it to freeze.

Before he could bend down to hide, a bullet flew over and hit him in the chest.

Yang Zirong fell on the snow and remained forever between the white mountains and black waters.

Yang Zirong was not his real name. His real name was Yang Zonggui, but the army did not know it and engraved "Yang Zirong" on his tombstone.

At the same time, in his hometown of Yantai, Shandong, his mother was struggling in poverty and missing her only son.

Because Yang Zonggu was seen by his fellow villagers while he was disguising himself as a bandit for reconnaissance, it was widely rumored in the local area that he was a bandit, so his family was not treated well.

So until he died in poverty and hunger, Yang Zonggu's mother did not know that her son was a hero.

Yang Zirong's two sisters were sold to other places, and it was not until Qu Bo found Yang Zirong's hometown that he brought them back.

……

Yang Zirong's story is a very suitable type for Hong Kong movies.

A lone hero broke into the bandit's lair alone, disguised as an undercover agent, went up the mountain to fight the tiger, argued with the fugitives, and wiped out the enemies on New Year's Eve.

These familiar plots have appeared countless times in Hong Kong movies, so Chen Long adapted it into "Project A", which makes it so good!
This version of "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" abandoned the story of the Jiapiqiao land reform and changed the "advance map" from the Kuomintang's arrangement to recruit the remaining bandits to resist our army to a treasure trove of treasures and munitions left behind by the warlord Zhang Zuolin.

This completely eliminated the confrontation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in the entire story, and turned it into the "army fighting bandits" police and gangster film model that Hong Kong films are best at.

Wang Yang asked Yang Ye why he wanted to make such a change?
Yang Ye explained: "This is a consideration for commercial distribution. Overseas audiences are not interested in knowing about the confrontation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. So we have to strip away ideology and refine heroism!"

No matter what, this movie also promotes the positive image of our army. Due to Yang Ye's strong appeal overseas, the script was successfully approved and unremitting support was given during the filming.

……

The snow hasn't fallen yet, but it's already very cold!

The crew began to work overtime to shoot the indoor scenes. He Qing had two small braids, her face was made up rosy, she wore a red scarf, and carried a small shoulder bag. She was so damn cute.

The first scene was on the train. The little white dove curled up and fell asleep. Yang Zirong, who was standing by, drew this scene.

The painting was of course drawn by Yang Ye. The lighting was used very well in this shot. He Qing's face was illuminated by the firelight. Although only a little bit of the outline was revealed, it still looked very beautiful.

This shot was completed quickly, and He Qing ran over to look at the painting Yang Ye had drawn. Although it was just a simple outline on the sketchbook, it was extremely vivid.

He Qing was surprised and said: "It turns out that you can draw so well!"

She thought Yang Ye was just pretending.

"What's the big deal? I draw all the storyboards myself!"

"Give it to me, okay?"

"sure!"

Yang Ye tore it off and gave it to He Qing.

"Sign another one!"

Yang Ye wrote his name on the painting and said with a smile, "Why? Are you going to sell it for money?"

"No, I will keep it well!" He Qing happily put the painting away.

"This is just a simple sketch. I'll draw a good one for you some time!"

"Okay!"

Whenever I have free time, I start painting in the evening.

The room was warm. He Qing was lying naked on the kang with a red face, posing like Ruth. Yang Jieke began to paint with great interest.

This time I painted it very carefully and it took me two hours to finish it.

The mountains, plains, valleys, jungles and the 15th moon on August 8 are all vividly lifelike. It is truly a wonderful human body, no, a landscape painting.

Yang Ye compared them and was very satisfied.

He picked up the pen and wrote on the drawing paper: X month X day, portrait of Xiaoqing, Yang Ye.

"I'm giving it to you. Keep it well. When I die, you can auction it off. It will be worth a lot of money!"

He Qing spat, "You're going to die, how can I sell this painting?"

It was not known whether she was scolding Yang Ye, or if she meant that if Yang Ye really died she would not sell the painting. Anyway, the voice was so delicate that it made people feel itchy.

This peerless beauty lay naked in front of Yang Ye for more than two hours. It was amazing that Yang Ye could hold on until the end of the painting.

How could he bear it any longer at this moment? Like a hungry tiger, he pounced on his prey and grabbed the little white sheep and had a hearty meal.

……

In November, heavy snow fell, and the forest where they were really turned into a snowy field.

It is very difficult to film a war scene in an environment with temperatures of minus ten degrees Celsius.

But since Yang Ye himself took part in the competition, there was nothing much for others to say.

By the way, Yang Zirong actually didn't have any snow fighting scenes, just one scene where he fought a tiger.

The most important battle of Jiapiqiao Defense was fought by Shao Jianbo and his comrades, so the hardest working ones were a group of mainland actors including Tang Guoqiang.

The martial artists that Yang Ye brought from Hong Kong could not adapt to the climate of Northeast China and could not move their hands and feet.

Actors from Beijing Film Studio and Changchun Film Studio have been doing this since they were young and have long been accustomed to it. So most of the time, they fight on stage themselves, and the martial arts masters mainly play a guiding role.

As a Hong Kong director, Xu Ke has his limitations. It was clearly a battle scene in a war drama, but he shot it as a battle scene in a police and gangster drama. Although it looks exciting, it always feels a little lacking.

The writer who is best at describing war scenes in literary history is Tolstoy, and the director who is best at shooting war scenes in film history is probably Kurosawa Akira.

Therefore, those who write novels have to learn from "War and Peace", and those who shoot war dramas have to learn from Kurosawa Akira.

The four major Hollywood directors Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and domestic directors Zhang Yimou, John Woo, Xu Ke are all disciples of Kurosawa, and they are all madly imitating Kurosawa.

Kurosawa's use of camera movements, lenses, sound effects, and music in "Seven Samurai" has become a textbook example that you cannot avoid when shooting a war scene.

When Xu Ke was filming "Seven Swords", he bluntly said that he wanted to use "Seven Swords" to respond to "Seven Samurai", hoping to retrace Kurosawa's creative path through the narration of the seven knights.

Back to "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy", the Jiapiqiao defense battle in the snow has obvious traces of the rain battle choreography in "Seven Samurai".

Yang Ye has lived two lives and has cheats, so his knowledge far exceeds Xu Ke. When filming "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy", he changed the original 3D shooting back to 2D shooting, making the lens design more free.

So when filming the Battle of Jiapiqiao, although the traces of Kurosawa Akira could not be erased, the scene scheduling and lens use had their own unique charm!

Because he can draw inspiration from more movies in later generations, integrate them into his own, and before shooting, he can use his divine power to simulate in advance, so that the picture will naturally form in his mind.

In addition to the amazing action scenes, Yang Ye's films have always been praised for their scene arrangement.

During the filming of Seediq Bale, Yang Ye was able to command the massacre scene involving hundreds of people with such calmness and without any confusion. This was the reason.

The shooting method of police and gangster films is to set the camera position and watch the two sides engage in fire, but war films cannot be so simple. Yang Ye’s shooting method is more structured.

He flexibly used overhead shooting, follow-up shooting, and cross-shooting methods to make the scene even more brutal and show the audience the army's high-density firepower confrontation.

The main purpose of overhead shooting is to explain the terrain of the battlefield and the changes in the offensive and defensive situation, so that the audience can have a clearer understanding, rather than just a random fight.

In the original film, when Ximen was lost, Shao Jianbo, Gao Bo and Xiao Baige came to support. With three small pistols, they fired a few shots and all the bandits were killed.

Three small pistols can actually suppress the long gun. This is too dramatic.

Here Yang Ye adopted the follow-up shooting method, taking advantage of the terrain and the fact that human legs are more flexible than skateboards, to eliminate the enemy in mobile warfare.

Cross-shooting is also used to keep the scene cut apart to show a sense of sharpness, rather than the bandits lining up to attack the streets like they are playing a game of mowing the lawn.

The original film also had a fatal flaw, which was that when the battle began, our army's "heartless cannon" was extremely powerful.

But after a few shots, the gun stopped firing and a street fight started. Why? There was no explanation at all, and it was very confusing.

Halfway through the battle, when the bandits broke through the west gate, they realized that some villagers had escaped and entered the firing zone. If they used their "heartless cannons" at this time, they would accidentally injure the villagers.

The essence of Tolstoy's description of war is to intersperse small scenes in the big war, interweaving the ruthlessness and cruelty of war with the glory of humanity.

In the original film, Xiao Shuanzi said: "Last time we hid in the house like this, and they all died!"

At that time, some villagers were in a panic. Later, when the roof was collapsed by a rocket launcher, there should be more footage of some villagers who were afraid and ran out of the house without listening to the PLA's dissuasion.

After all, we have few soldiers and only two of them are responsible for protecting the villagers. If someone really wants to run away, we can't stop him at all, and you can't shoot him to death.

The villagers who run away will become a hindrance to the army, making the "heartless cannon" ineffective.

Yang Ye prepared for the Jiapiqiao defense battle for more than 20 days. He knew the terrain of the entire village by heart, and he planned and rehearsed in advance which personnel and props to deploy in each place, how to attack, and how to defend.

The actual filming took only three days.

The best effects are the falling snow, the smoking trenches, the woods with rich layers of light and shadow, and the faintly visible fog in the forest.

The war scenes are tense and bloody, making people's hormones rush and their hearts tense.

The outline of the entire war is very clear, and how the two sides fought is explained clearly, which is better than the original film!
……

Actors in the mainland have never filmed like this before. Before the heavy snow came, they rushed to shoot all the literary scenes and had to work overtime every day.

After the snow fell, it became comfortable. Every morning, Yang Ye took people to look around, study how to shoot, and then gave instructions. In the afternoon, they started rehearsing, and the day passed.

There were two meals a day, and they started on time. We cooked pork stewed with vermicelli, chicken stewed with mushrooms, and beef stewed with potatoes.

Liu Xiaoqing, He Qing and others didn't want to eat so much at first, as they wanted to maintain their figure. But later they found that it was not possible because it was too cold, so they had to eat more meat and carbohydrates to keep warm.

But you have to be serious during rehearsals and not fool around. Yang Ye is a very sharp-eyed guy. He will definitely know if you are wrong, and he will never show mercy when scolding you.

After preparation and rehearsal, the actual shooting time will not exceed three days, so it can be said to be completed in one go.

During the filming, he was in the central direction, and several executive directors operated their own operations in an orderly manner.

After a few war scenes were shot, the filming of the movie was also completed.

……

At the top of Wohu Mountain, a rising sun appeared in the distance, dyeing the mountains a gorgeous red.

Shao Jianbo and Yang Zirong stood together.

Shao Jianbo said: "It's over!"

Yang Zirong said: "I hope that Shuanzi's generation will not have wars again!"

"The headquarters has no objection to your application to leave the team, because I didn't report it at all. It seems that you and the team still have to carry out the next mission. This is an order!"

Yang Zirong saluted: "Yes, Chief!"

The camera gradually moves away, and in the final movie effect, the sunrise view on the top of Wohu Mountain will become a painting drawn by Yang Zirong.

"Watching the sunrise from the top of Tiger Mountain, 1946, the first day of the Chinese New Year!"

……

Yang Ye personally turned off the camera and said, "I declare that the filming of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy has been successfully completed!"

Everyone immediately applauded and cheered, but there was a hint of reluctance in their expressions.

The experience of filming with Yang Ye was so novel and unforgettable.

Among this group of people, several of them later became superstars of their generation. Whenever they recalled Yang Ye, they would speak of this filming experience with deep affection.

Yang Ye continued, "Take a break today, pack up your things, and go back to Beijing tomorrow. I'll invite everyone to watch... Deng Lijun's concert!"

"Wow!"

Everyone was shocked. Is Teresa Teresa coming to the mainland to hold a concert?

In the original time and space, due to various reasons, Deng Lijun encountered many difficulties in coming to the mainland.

I almost made the trip several times, but finally gave up!

This time, the mainland ignored all kinds of rumors, and Deng Lijun also overcame many obstacles.

This time, there will be real... one billion applause! (End of this chapter)