Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 563 Applause
The movie "Aftershock" is indeed very powerful for the people of Tangshan.

Although this disaster happened more than 20 years ago, it is still deeply engraved in the minds of the people of Tangshan.

Whether it is the eyewitnesses or those who were born later, no one should forget it. Some sad things may have happened in almost every family.

Most of the plot in "Aftershock" directed by Liu Zhou is based on real stories, and then underwent certain artistic processing.

Therefore, for the people of Tangshan, this can better evoke their memories of the past.

When the original Feng Kuzi version of "Aftershock" premiered in Tangshan, it made them cry many times. The film still revolves more around the protagonist's family.

Of course, Xu Fan did give a worthy performance in the film, giving people a great sense of immersion.

The Liu Zhou version of the movie of the same name does not just revolve around one family. It has three lines: Master Zhou, Zhang Yihe, and Liu Yifei. The development of each line also portrays some passing supporting characters.

But these passing supporting characters can all bring out a story, or an experience.

The stories and experiences of these passers-by may have happened to the audience members themselves.

These passers-by often only say a few words or appear in a few scenes, but they also have a great impact on the audience, not to mention what happens in the three main lines extended by the three leading actors.

Therefore, this "Tangshan Earthquake" is even more touching to the audience's tears.

Not to mention the audience, even those leaders and bosses of film and television companies who never show their emotions, whose threshold of emotional fluctuations is very high, but most of them also had wet eyes and even shed tears.

This premiere of "Aftershock" may be the only movie that can make tens of thousands of people cry at the same time.

On the screen, after the brother and sister Zhang Yi and Liu Yifei met, they opened their hearts to each other, and it was mainly the brother who comforted his sister.

Zhang Yi is a man and a soldier after all. Even though he is very sad, he must be strong.

However, Liu Yifei was stronger than he thought. This disaster allowed her to witness too many human tragedies, and it also made her grow a lot and become more resilient overnight.

After the two chatted for a while, Zhang Yi had to return to the base.

At this time, the camera turned to Mr. Zhou. Hu Jun was still driving his car towards Tangshan with difficulty. The broken bridge, cracks, and even aftershocks could not stop everyone's desire to return home.

However, the closer to Tangshan, the slower the cars moved. Cars in the city were desperately driving outwards, while rescue vehicles had to drive in, causing traffic jams.

Most of the vehicles heading out of the city were carrying the wounded. As soon as these vehicles stopped, the people in Hu Jun's car and many people rushing back shouted the names of their family members.

Young Master Zhou also leaned on the car window and kept shouting. Now no one knew whether their family members were dead or alive, and everyone hoped to find their family members among the wounded.

But the chance of this happening is too small, and no one can meet their loved ones at this time.

Due to severe traffic congestion, Hu Jun drove until the afternoon before entering Tangshan city.

But the traffic jam in the city was even worse, with military vehicles everywhere and propaganda vehicles equipped with loudspeakers broadcasting instructions from the disaster relief headquarters and calling on citizens to gather the bodies in designated areas.

At the same time, a police car was also broadcasting:

"All police officers in the city are mobilized to be on the alert for those who are trying to rob state property and profit from the national disaster. Once discovered, they will be executed on the spot without mercy!"

Seeing that the vehicles were having difficulty passing, Mr. Zhou decided to get off and look for their families.

Young Lady Zhou looked at the ruins around her. Even though she had been working and living in Tangshan for more than ten years, she could not tell where she was at this moment. She could only ask as she walked on the rubble.

At this time, Zhang Yi and his team had just rescued a pregnant woman from the rubble. Fortunately, she was not seriously injured, with only a cut on her calf.

But the only problem was that she was about to give birth, so the soldiers immediately carried her to the medical station, and soon the loud cry of a baby was heard from the tent.

Liu Yifei brought Xiao Deng to her parents' place and handed him over to a woman to take care of him. She wanted to dig her family out.

She was digging when she suddenly heard a voice calling "Xiao Deng! Xiao Deng!" from behind. Liu Yifei turned around and saw Xiao Deng shouting "Dad!" in surprise, and then immediately rushed towards a young man.

The young man hugged Xiao Deng tightly, unable to suppress his inner excitement, and burst into tears.

Seeing this scene, Liu Yifei couldn't help but smile.

Liu Zhou gave a close-up here. Although Liu Yifei's clothes were torn and dirty, and there was a lot of dirt on her face, her smile was blooming like a flower and was very contagious.

Her smile is the only bright spot in the movie so far, and it also eases the sad and heavy atmosphere.

Just as Liu Yifei was about to continue digging out the cement blocks from the ruins, she suddenly heard another surprised cry, but this time it was calling her.

"Xiao Qian, Xiao Qian!"

"Sister-in-law? You are finally back."

When Liu Yifei turned around and saw that it was her sister-in-law, she hurried over to them.

"Come back, come back."

After getting off the car, Mr. Zhou walked for two or three hours before finding this place, and then he saw his sister-in-law at a glance.

"Mom, where is this?" Zhang Zifeng looked around blankly, then looked up and asked.

"This is our home!"

"Where's our house?"

"I was knocked down by the earthquake."

"Then do we have no home?" Zhang Zifeng asked in a crying voice.

"If the house collapses, we can rebuild it, as long as our family is at home!" Master Zhou said firmly.

At this time, Liu Yifei also ran over. Mr. Zhou's face was a little pale, and his lips were trembling. He asked:

"Where are your parents and your brother?"

Liu Yifei sighed, looked at the ruins and said:

"They are all buried down there."

Although Mr. Zhou was mentally prepared, he felt dizzy when he heard the bad news and almost fell down.

Liu Yifei quickly stepped forward to support her sister-in-law's arm. Although Mr. Zhou's eyes were red, he did not cry:
"I had expected this result a long time ago, but luckily it didn't happen."

"Sister-in-law, let's go dig them all out."

Mr. Zhou nodded, and walked towards the ruins with Liu Yifei, asking as they walked:
"Why are you alone? Where is Jianguo?"

Liu Yifei replied calmly:

"died!"

Master Zhou fell silent.

Almost two days had passed since the earthquake. At this time, many troops had entered Tangshan, but all the rescue teams were looking for living people. If they found any living people, people would dig together. If they wanted to find dead bodies, they could only look for them on their own.

One day, two days, three days, Liu Yifei and Zhou Gongzi kept digging. Their clothes were torn, their bodies were covered in blood, and their hands were already broken.

The bodies of their parents and husband Liu Ye were also dug out, but their son Mingming was the only one that had not been dug out. However, they did not give up and continued digging.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, when Master Zhou was digging, he suddenly heard a faint sound.

She stopped immediately, then put her ear to the ruins and listened quietly.

A faint echo came from under the cement slab: "Mom!"

This time, Young Master Zhou was immediately excited, because this voice sounded very much like her son Mingming's. She shouted in disbelief:

"Xiao Qian, I heard Mingming's voice. He is not dead yet."

"Sister-in-law, are you hallucinating? It's already the fifth day."

"Really? Come here quickly." Master Zhou took a stone and knocked on the floor, shouting loudly, "Mingming! Mingming!"

Two more responses came from under the slab. Liu Yifei also heard them and immediately became excited:
"I'll call the soldiers to help, and I'll go find my second brother!"

After saying that, he ran outside.

At this time, Master Zhou cried with joy, lying on the ruins, shouting:
"Mingming, Mingming, hold on. Mom will come to rescue you soon. Mingming, hold on!"

At this time, Zhang Yi had just dug out the bodies of a family. At the moment the house collapsed, the parents must have wanted to use their bodies to protect their two children, but unfortunately the whole family died in the end.

Even though he had seen life and death in the past few days, Zhang Yi was still deeply touched when he saw such a neat and tidy family.

He and his comrades wrapped their bodies with quilts, put them on the funeral car, and continued digging.

Just as they finished clearing the rubble, a soldier suddenly shouted:
"Hey, look, there's a flower here!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yi and others couldn't help but walk forward. In the middle of the ruins there was indeed a section of white flowers that had just bloomed.

The petals of this flower are long, narrow and pointed, fresh and elegant, giving people a sense of beauty that is covered in dust yet retains its noble character.

"It's really lucky that it wasn't killed by this. Does anyone know what kind of flower this is?" asked a soldier.

"Yes, this is not only beautiful, but also very fragrant."

"This is white jasmine. My father also grows this flower." Zhang Yi said calmly.

"Squad leader, let's save this flower. The flowerpot is broken. If we don't save it, it may wither in a day or two."

The other soldiers also echoed. Seeing that everyone was looking at him expectantly, Zhang Yi nodded and said:

"Save!"

Zhang Yi found a porcelain pot that was not too rotten, filled most of it with soil, and then transplanted the white jasmine with its original soil into the pot.

Seeing that Zhang Yi had finished it, the soldiers hurriedly took it, held it carefully, and leaned over to smell the fragrance of the flowers from time to time.

These days, the weather in Tangshan is hot, the corpses are severely decomposing, and the whole city is filled with the stench of rotting corpses.

The soldiers all wore masks, coated them with toothpaste and white wine, but the pungent smell was still not enough to block it, and everyone was crying.

At this moment, smelling the fragrance of orchids, everyone felt like they were in heaven.

At this moment, Liu Yifei ran over and shouted excitedly:

"Second brother, second brother, he is still alive, go and save him."

"What? He's still alive?"

It was almost the sixth day, and he felt it was incredible that his nephew was still alive.

In fact, they are still digging, and they have given up hope of digging out any living people.

"Really? He's still alive. Go save him."

Zhang Yi did not hesitate any longer and immediately led his men to rush home.

At this time, the news that there was a living person, a child, who had been buried in the rubble for six days spread throughout Zhang Yi's unit, and the battalion commander personally led his men to the scene.

Not long after, the medical team arrived. A child had been buried for five days and his body must be extremely weak and could not withstand the bumps, so it was better to treat him on the spot.

They set up a medical tent next to the ruins so that people could be rescued and given first aid immediately.

The soldiers were digging with all their might. Suddenly, a concrete slab was about to fall. Zhang Yi immediately stepped forward and held it with his shoulder.

As the excavation deepened, a brick pile weighing nearly 200 kilograms on the upper left became loose and slowly fell, posing a serious threat to the safety of the people below. A soldier immediately stepped forward and carried it on his back.

Master Zhou, Liu Yifei and Zhang Zifeng stood aside, watching the soldiers digging nervously. Every little bit of the situation worried them.

More than ten minutes later, the battalion commander saw that the soldiers were digging slower and knew they were tired, so he immediately arranged for people to replace them. He himself took the lead and took over Zhang Yi's job of carrying the concrete slab.

Time passed by minute by minute, and the excavation work proceeded in an orderly manner. After more than ten minutes of excavation, the entrance of the hole had become larger and larger.

Zhang Yi squatted down and reached in with his hand, and directly touched a pair of children's legs. He immediately shouted excitedly:

"Mingming, Mingming, I'm your uncle. Can you move your legs? If you can, move them."

Then Zhang Yi clearly felt Mingming's legs move, and immediately stood up and shouted:

"It can move, it can move."

Hearing this, Mr. Zhou and Liu Yifei also seemed relieved.

The battalion commander also continued to order:

"Pay attention to the dust, add more water to the hole, and let someone else continue digging."

A hole has just been dug, and if we want to get people out safely, the excavation work has just begun.

Led by the battalion commander, the soldiers took turns to dig and rescue with their bare hands. When one group got tired, they were immediately replaced by the next group. When one group was gone, another group took over.

The soldiers dug carefully, and their hands were covered in blood when they came down.

After digging for nearly three hours, it was almost dark. Zhang Yi finally dragged Mingming out of the cave slowly, covered Mingming's eyes with a hat, and gently carried him to the stretcher.

When the stretcher carrying Guangming was carried down from the ruins, slogans and cheers rang out at the scene.

At this time, more than 10,000 people in Tangshan Sports Center breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.

Han Shanping heaved a sigh of relief and said to Liu Zhou beside him with emotion:

"Is the movie almost over?"

"Correct."

"It's a great movie. I didn't expect you to make it so touching. I think it's your best movie yet."

"It's not that my photos are touching, but the people and events during the earthquake are touching."

"Your ending is great. Seeing the child come out, everyone's emotions that had been held back for two hours are released. It's a natural release, not forced sensationalism. Most domestic directors don't have this ability."

After hearing Han Shanping's words, Liu Zhou stopped talking.

Han Shanping's level was quite good, so he figured out some of the tricks.

The movie ends with the child being rescued, which is the final intersection of the three lines and also means new hope.

Nearly thirty seconds after the movie ended, all the audience in the stadium stood up and applause resounded through the sky.

(End of this chapter)