Sarah Pillsbury, the producer of Desperately Seeking Susan, was the producer of the film The Battle of Ono in the 1980s, and the Chinese name of this film is "A History of Chinese Workers' Blood and Tears", which is the unfinished legacy of Hu Jinquan.
The story of "The Blood and Tears of Chinese Workers" took place in the 1890s. Chinese workers were taken to the United States to build railroads and then abandoned in the United States. They had no money to live and could not go home, so they plunged into the American gold rush at that time. They found a gold mine but it was occupied by the white people. When they relocated a gold mine and faced the white people who came to occupy it again, they decided to ambush with explosives and design a trap to fight back. (For general background, please refer to the etymology of shanghai)
The Battle of Ono was originally called Igo Ono. Igo and Ono are two small towns in Shasta, California. Hu Jinquan has also traveled to California repeatedly since the 1970s. If you want to look at the source of inspiration for "The History of Chinese Workers' Blood and Tears", it may be in 1968. After completing "The Dragon Inn", Hu Jinquan came to Philadelphia to hold a lecture emphasizing the independence of film art. This year, a global revolution was set off. . In April, Martin Luther King Jr was killed, and Hu Jinquan in Berkeley saw a radical change in social movement ('I was in Berkeley in person when the students turned the town upside down'). The black power movement sweeping the United States may have given Hu Jinquan a different perspective of narrative inspiration.
In 1976, he came to the United States again and was invited to give lectures at Harvard, Columbia and other schools. This time his lecture was titled "The distorted image of Chinese people in Hollywood movies" ('The distorted image of Chinese people in Hollywood movies') . It is worth mentioning that this year Hu Jinquan met his wife Zhong Ling, who later became the screenwriter of "The Legend of the Mountain". Because of Zhong Ling's teaching at New York University, Hu Jinquan also made it easier to live in the United States.
In 1977, on the way back to Los Angeles after eating at the home of the American playwright Bai Xianyong, Hu Jinquan and director Yang Dunping were stopped by white policemen and ticketed. Rejecting Yang recalled, Hu Jinquan was very angry at the time and said loudly to the police: "If the driver was a white man, would you still do this?" Hu Jinquan was also more determined to create Ono.
In the early 1980s, Hu Jinquan was introduced to Sarah Pillsbury by his assistant, who had participated in the production of David Lynch's "Rubber Head". Sarah co-founded the Liberty Hill Foundation in 1976. Liberty Hill is committed to supporting the affirmative movement and promoting social equality. After communicating with Hu Jinquan, Sarah realized that this is not only a story that has never been told, but also an opportunity to tell Chinese Americans honestly. In August 1982, Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford officially became the producers of Ono.
Later, Sarah Pillsbury invited David Henry Hwang to serve as a screenwriter and paid him a salary in advance. The latter agreed to complete the script within three months.
Huang Zhelun is emerging on Broadway at this time. The first "Fresh off the boat" of his "Chinese-American trilogy" won the Broadway Obi Award, and the second Meihua film "Dance and "The dance and the railroad" was also a success, and "Ono" was his first screenplay job.
After reading the first draft, Hu Jinquan proposed several ideas on the theme of the film:
Against racial discrimination.
America is a promise land which has been developed into a rich and powerful country like it is now based on the contribution of all pioneers no matter their race, religion, profession and where they came from.
(The United States is the land of hope. The prosperity and development of this country relies on the power of pioneers, no matter what race, belief, specialization, and wherever these pioneers are.)
We must avoid the distorted images which appeared in Hollywoodpicture, and many other medias like books, TV […].
(We must avoid false images that have appeared in Hollywood movies or other media, such as books and television.)
Huang Zhelun also traveled to Taiwan and Hong Kong many times to discuss stories and scripts with Hu Jinquan. The two people's cooperation lasted for five or six years.
In 1983, Hu Jinquan's film "The World First" was bleak at the box office. In the same year, he co-produced the film "The Great Reincarnation" with directors Li Xing and Bai Jingrui. At the same time, Hu Jinquan also embarked on two other film projects, a biopic by the missionary Matteo Ricci and the animated film "Zhang Yu Cooking the Sea" adapted from a traditional myth. He went to San Francisco and Los Angeles to search for information for the former. , Designed the character image and animation details for the latter. Of course, these two projects were not completed like the "History of Chinese Workers' Blood and Tears".
After that, "Ono" has been slow to advance. In 1986, translator and actor Ying Ruocheng served as deputy minister of the Ministry of Culture. During his tenure, he vigorously promoted international cooperation and exchanges in art and culture. The most classic example is Bertolucci's filming in the Forbidden City. "The Last Emperor", and he also played the role of warden in the movie. "Ono", a film about Chinese Americans in the United States, should actually be the most sheltered, and there is even a connection between Hu Jinquan and Ying Ruocheng. In 1975, Hu Jinquan gave a lecture on "Lao She" at Harvard University, and Ying Ruocheng translated "Tea House" into English in 1979 and published it. In 1985, a year before Ying Ruocheng took office, Hu Jinquan also wrote to Ying Ruocheng, who was then an art consultant for China International Television, "The History of Chinese Workers’ Blood and Tears" is about the lives of Chinese workers who came to the United States in the last century. Their contribution to the construction of the country, their suffering, their struggle for survival and victory... This is a film of great significance to Chinese people all over the world." And hope that it will get official publicity. And funding. But "Ono" obviously did not have the same luck as "The Last Emperor". The following year, "The Last Emperor" won nine Oscars including best picture awards.
While the story of the Forbidden City was being created smoothly, Hu Jinquan returned to Taiwan to participate in the scriptwriting of Lin Zhaohua's drama "Butterfly Dream". At this time, Huang Zhelun also put down "Ono" and devoted himself to the creation of another butterfly. Two years later, "Mr. Butterfly" was a great success on Broadway in New York, winning the Tony Award in one fell swoop, and Huang Zhelun became the first Asian to receive this honor.
That year, Zhang Yimou's "Red Sorghum" won the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear Award, which was the first time that an Asian film won the Golden Bear. "Chinese movies" have been seen all over the world, and Hu Jinquan felt that taking advantage of this "China Fever", if "Ono" is completed, it will be able to get the attention of the West if it is promoted. In the project summary, Hu Jinquan updated as follows:
The film is scheduled to start shooting in the spring of 1990, with a budget of approximately US$7.5 million, including an online budget of US$1.5 million and a remuneration for the cast. 90% of the film will be shot in the United States. The remaining 10% will be completed in China or Taiwan. Post-production will take place in the United States.
Compared with the 2.5 million U.S. dollar budget four years ago, this financing requires greater effort. Hong Kong producer Cen Jianxun expressed his willingness to invest 2.5 million yuan, and Hu Jinquan contacted the Japanese studio Daying, which produced "Rashomon", and revealed that Zun Long is interested in playing the main role "Lum". Before that, in Huang Zhelun's famous works "New Immigrants" and "Railway and Dance", including the later adaptation of the film "Mrs. Butterfly", Zun Long played the leading role, so this collaboration was a natural fit. In a later incident, due to Cen Jianxun’s support for the students, he was blacklisted and his career was suppressed. As a result, he withdrew that one-third of his budget, and the cooperation between Hu Jinquan and Daying also disappeared.
In 1990, Hu Jinquan was invited by Tsui Hark to direct "Swordsman and Swordsman". Due to irreconcilable contradictions, he withdrew from the film in the early stage of creation. After that, he served as the executive producer of Xu Anhua's film "The Hate of Autumn in the Fall". That year, his marriage with Zhong Ling also came to an end.
In 1992, he was awarded the "Lifetime Honor Award" by the Hong Kong Film Directors' Association and completed the shooting of the last film-"The King of Yin and Yang in Painted Skin". In September 1993, "The King of Yin and Yang in Painted Skin" was released in Hong Kong. It was only 117th in the box office of Hong Kong movies that year, and then settled in the United States. In the following three to four years, Hu Jinquan continued to raise funds for "Ono" and revised the script several times. At this time, Hu Jinquan's health also went from bad to worse.
In 1992, Zhang Yimou won the Golden Lion Award, and "Raise the Red Lantern" was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1993, Ang Lee's "Wedding Banquet" and Xie Fei's "Fragrant Soul Girl" won the Berlin Golden Bear Double Yolk Egg that year. In the same year, "Farewell My Concubine" produced by Xu Feng and directed by Chen Kaige won the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival. At the end of the year, Wu Yusen, who had run the game in Hu Jinquan's "Children of the Earth", succeeded in Hollywood's first director work "Ultimate Target", and Wu Yusen also became the hottest Chinese director in Hollywood at that time.
Hu Jinquan wrote in his memoir on December 22, 1993:
The Chinese film industry is gradually accumulating capital and has a high reputation: investment from Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas has provided new support for a few outstanding works. The film director has a bright future.
In 1996, the good news finally came. The British company Goldcrest was willing to invest half of it, and Zhang Jiazhen and Wu Yusen's American companies participated in the production and found the other half of the production fee, preparing to start shooting within a few months. In the cast preset in 1993, the actor "Lum" considered Liang Chaowei, Zun Long and others. In the revised version in August 1994, Andy Lau, Jet Li, Jiang Wen and Wu Dawei were included. Two years later, on the 1996 list, as requested by Goldcrest, only one Chow Yun-fat name remained. At this time, Chow Yun-fat has not yet agreed to join. In order to ensure the progress of the project, on November 18, 1996, Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford wrote to Chow Yun-fat, hoping that they would join "Ono".
On December 17, news came from Taiwan that Director Li Hanxiang died of a heart attack. In January 1997, Hu Jinquan went to Taiwan to attend a memorial service. On January 13th, I went to Taipei Veterans Hospital for a cardiac examination. In order to resume work as soon as possible, Hu Jinquan decided to perform a cardiac catheter balloon dilation operation under the advice of the doctor. Due to two successful operations in the same hospital in 1986 and 1993, Hu Jinquan believed that there was nothing serious and planned to return to the United States on the 19th to continue preparing for the new film. On the morning of the 14th, he was admitted to the hospital for surgery. In the afternoon, he developed arrhythmia. He died at 6:25 in the evening at the age of 65.
Sarah Pillsbury recalled that before Hu Jinquan left Los Angeles for Li Hanxiang's memorial service, he still regretted the loss of a generation of masters. Nevertheless, he still believes that he has the opportunity to direct more movies himself.
Returning to the movie "Mystery Date", as a romantic comedy, the eye-catching martial arts movie posters that appeared in it may be able to find a clue from the origin of the collaboration between Sarah Pillsbury and Hu Jinquan.
In the picture, in the depth of field is a large poster, on the left are two small posters, and the upper left corner is the Taiwanese martial arts film "Golden Dragon"
The one with "Jacky Chan" written in the lower left corner is the movie "Dragon and Tiger Leap", which is currently being translated as "Xingquan" in Japan.
The largest painting is the Taiwanese martial arts film "The Legend of Shaolin Temple" (1981).
The most eye-catching is the photo of the characters pasted behind the two doors. You can also see the words "Director Zhang Che's masterpiece" from above. Based on the words "Shaolin" that appeared above, it can be inferred that it is the movie "Shaolin Children" (1974). Pictorial.
After Hu Jinquan's death, Wu Yusen insisted on advancing "Ono", but ultimately failed.
Hu Jinquan was ahead of the world and the times, and the story against racial discrimination he tried to tell was also sealed with his departure.
Reference: King Hu in Hollywood: Making the Battle of Ono, by George Chun Han Wang
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