Endless Climb: This is the real climber

Two years ago, the movie "The Climber" was released, and Yang Guang, played by Hu Ge, lost his legs in the process of rushing to the summit of Mount Everest, which made people sigh. In fact, the story of Yang Guang's prototype Xia Boyu is more inspirational and legendary than the movie. With 43 years of unremitting efforts, he has climbed Mount Everest five times, and finally successfully reached the summit at the age of 69, becoming the first person in China to climb Everest without legs. The documentary film "Endless Climbing", which is being released, uses real footage to record Xia Boyu's road of never giving up on pursuing his dreams.

In 1975, Boyu joined the Chinese mountaineering team, and on the first climb of Mount Everest, he gave his sleeping bag to a teammate who had lost his sleeping bag, resulting in frostbite and amputation of his lower legs. At the time, the 26-year-old thought of spending his life in a wheelchair, and his eyes were gray. Later, a prosthetic expert told him that he could not only get back on his feet with the help of the prosthesis, but also continue to climb the mountain. This sentence illuminated Xia Boyu's life. Since then, he has insisted on getting up at five o'clock every day and completing six hours of exercise a day, preparing for the summit of Mount Everest. However, cancer and blood clots followed, and the three summits failed due to natural factors such as avalanches, earthquakes, and blizzards, and the most recent one was only 94 meters away from the summit of Mount Everest. Do you let go of your dreams and enjoy your old age, or do you risk your climb? That's when the story of the movie really begins.

Climbing Everest is tough and thrilling. The film "Endless Climb" does not use a single special effects shot, three experienced alpine cameramen follow Xia Boyu to climb Mount Everest throughout the whole process, and the camera faces his nine deaths in the process of reaching the summit: kneeling on a steel ladder and crossing a glacier crack, climbing in the dark in bad weather, severed limbs being ground and bleeding bubbles are in danger at any time... These real-life pictures make the audience feel as if they are immersed in the scene, feeling the cold, lack of oxygen, and exhaustion with Xia Boyu, and walking to the top with him in a nervous heartbeat. Being able to experience the magnificence and sacredness of Mount Everest up close on the big screen and witness the professionalism and team spirit of mountaineering is also a rare movie experience.

When the movie "The Climber" was released, it caused controversy because of the emotional drama that ran through it, and that way of handling it was obviously for the sake of commercial films. There are also emotional scenes in "Endless Climbing", but they touch people's hearts because of their sincerity. Xia Boyu only shed tears in front of the camera twice, one was to talk about his family's worries and support for his mountaineering for many years, deeply guilty, and could not help but cover his face and cry; the other time was the moment of reaching the summit, his first thought was not to celebrate and take pictures, but to call his lover to report safety. The phrase "climbing to the top is not the end, going home is", is even more defensive.

Xia Boyu's unremitting persistence and tenacious struggle perfectly interpret the spirit of sportsmanship and the power of life, and the documentary film "Endless Climb" uses real images to convey this spirit to more audiences. "Why climb a mountain?" "Because I like it." At the end of the film, Xia Boyu's answer is so simple, but it is worth recalling. Not everyone has the opportunity to climb for the country like "The Climber", but in the long journey of life, each of us is also a "climber". Perhaps this road will encounter all kinds of twists and turns, or lost, and Xia Boyu's story has already told us: endless climbing, can finally meet the peak!

(Original title: "Endless Climbing": This is the real climber)

Source: Beijing Evening News reporter Li Li

Process Edit: U022