"Chivalrous Girl" is Hu Jinquan's representative work. It was shortlisted for the Cannes Film Festival in 1975 and won the Technical Award. It is the first award-winning Chinese film in the three major European film festivals. Because of the age, the quality of the version that can be seen on the Internet is very touching.
Shi Jun and Xu Feng are not only the male and female protagonists of the film, but also the key figures in promoting the restoration of "Chivalrous Girl". In 2014, it was hosted by the male protagonist Shi Jun, and the female protagonist Xu Feng completed the 4K restoration work of the film, which was re-screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015.
In Hu Dao's works, he is not stingy with the scenes such as letters and letters. Such details related to history are all sorted out and restored by this sophisticated madman. This is also one of the reasons why his works are full of charm. Watching Director Hu's films, my favorite thing to do is to take the trouble of taking pictures of this kind. However, a wise man will make a mistake. The eunuch of the Middle East Factory falsely passed the imperial decree to earn Yang Lian's imprisonment. When the edict was announced, the sentence "Fengtian carries the emperor's edict" was read incorrectly.
The most talked about segment in this film is the battle of the bamboo forest to annihilate the enemy. The scene of Yang Huizhen swooping down from the top of the forest is recognized as a classic in film and television. , I personally feel that only Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon can be compared to it, but what Ang Lee sees is another kind of beauty. Hu Jinquan doesn't have many martial arts routines. He is born out of Peking Opera stage steps, and he does not have fancy dazzling skills, but the sense of oppression cannot be created by contemporary fighting scenes supported by special effects.
The story of the chivalrous girl was adapted from the novel of the same name in Liaozhai. Pu Songling did not set a background for the story, and the heroine didn't even have a name. But Pu gave the heroine the character of "being a man without speaking or laughing, as beautiful as peach and plum, and as cold as frost and snow, and a strange person", which Hu Jinquan did not change, and Xu Feng's performance was also very good.
Hu Dao put the story into the dispute between the eunuchs of Donglin in the late Ming Dynasty, and performed an overhead interpretation on the existing history. The combination of reality and reality is embarrassing. In history, Yang Lian was deceived into prison because he insisted on reporting on Wei Zhongxian. At Wei's order, Xu Xianchun executed it and was tortured to death. Yang's sons were not silenced. After Chongzhen ascended the throne, the sons wrote to the emperor, and Yang Lian was rehabilitated. What's interesting is that Yang Lian's children are not as heroic as the heroines in the movie after being famous. The eldest son, Yang Zhiyin, became an official and has no name since then; the third son, Yang Zhifu, was the magistrate of Jiading in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. He surrendered to the Qing Dynasty during the Shunzhi period. The fourth son, Yang Zhicai, was frightened to death when he was imprisoned. Director Hu named the heroine Yang Zhiyun, which is in line with the generation of Yang Lian's children. This detail appears in other people's movies is very valuable, in him it is easy.
There are no supporting characters such as General Shi and the county magistrate in the original work, and there is no explanation for the villains and villains. Hu Dao added these original characters to make the story more full. The adapted storyline makes sense and the details are intriguing. The descendants of loyal ministers who were hunted down, the desolate and dilapidated border castles, the unruly talents who escaped from the world, the noble monks who pursued all living beings, and the vicious Dongchang Fanzi. The eternal dream of literati and knighthood, the humanistic core under the martial arts coat is the soul of Hu Jinquan's works, and it is also something that is scarce in the works of Xu Ke, Cheng Xiaodong, Xu Haofeng and others. The reason for this is probably that the directors of martial arts films since Hu, all focus on martial arts and underestimate the martial arts, blindly pursuing visual impact, but can't tell a thing that can be remembered, and it's just on the surface. What's interesting is that the two literary film directors Ang Lee and Wong Kar Wai played martial arts, which made people admired and intoxicated.
Watching old movies will sigh that aesthetics are really in constant reincarnation. The protagonist of the film Gu Xingzhai, the scholar, and the supporting role of Beizhen Fusi Xu Xianchun, can be found in different eras, such as Zhang Guangbei and Wang Qianyuan, who are similar in honey juice. The flexible and dead fat man Sammo Hung is really an evergreen in the film industry. He played soy sauce at the end of this film, and played the villain Bo Duojin in another film of my favorite director Hu, "Zhong Li Tu".
When it comes to Zhonglie Tu, we have to talk about Qiao Hong, who plays Yu Dayou, the protagonist of Zhonglie Tu, who plays the eminent monk Huiyuan in this film. Although Huiyuan had attained the Tao, she couldn't let go of the affairs of the rivers and lakes. She rescued Yang Huizhen and others several times, and she was merciful to all the people in Dongchang. At the end of the film, Huiyuan was stabbed by Xu Xianchun's envoy and bleeds out golden blood. During the passage of life, she did not forget to point out Yang Huizhen's future path. His silhouette was reflected in the sunlight like a Buddha in person. This scene is both fantasy and real. When I see it, I can't help but think of the miracles related to Jesus in the Oscar-winning Hollywood masterpiece "Ben-Hur". Showing the philosophy believed by the oriental people in front of the camera with the way of thinking of the western people is a magical stroke.
Recently, I was fortunate to get the 4k repaired version of Guan Xia Girl. After 180 minutes, I felt a little bit emotional. I wanted to post a Weibo when I was repairing the computer today, but I didn't expect to write a film review in three or two sentences...
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