Classic Literary Film: "Rolling Red Dust"
Huang Zihong
Since its birth, Taiwanese films have been dominated by humanistic literary and artistic genres such as local customs and civic life, and in the past ten years, influential representative works include "A Boat in the Ocean", "Happy Face", "Yuqing Sister-in-law", etc., as well as the classic literary and art film "Rolling Red Dust".
Directed by Yan Hao, written by Sanmao and Yan Hao, and starring Lin Qingxia, Qin Han, Maggie Cheung and Wu Yaohan, the film was released on November 23, 1990. The content of the film alludes to the emotional entanglement between the female writer Zhang Ailing and Hu Lancheng during the Republic of China period and the sisterly feelings of Zhang Ailing and Yan Ying. The film won eight awards at the 27th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards.
The reason why the film is regarded as a classic is because it is a rare female theme film, and everyone from the main creator of the material to the main actor is a legend. With a limited time and interspersed narrative style, "Rolling Red Dust" reborn and reproduced the amazing love of the prototype Zhang Ailing, and interpreted the only script written by the legendary classic prose writer Sanmao, which is also the golden horse award of Lin Qingxia, who was once the "first beauty of Taiwan". In addition, the song of the same name from the movie, "Rolling Red Dust", is also a rare masterpiece.
Shen Shaohua (Lin Qingxia) was locked in his home when he was young because his father did not allow him to get along with his lover, and he attempted suicide, so he had to express his depression in his heart as a text, and became a writer when he grew up. After the death of his father, Shaohua regained his freedom to live independently, and made a living writing novels, and began serializing his autobiographical novel "Magnolia" in newspapers. One day, she received a letter from a reader named Zhang Nengcai (Qin Han), and one day the two met, Zhang Nengcai poured out his admiration, and Shaohua fell in love with him at first sight. However, Zhang Nengcai served the Imperial Japanese Army and did traitorous things, which made Shaohua uneasy. At the same time, Shaohua's girlfriend Yuefeng (Maggie Cheung) came to talk to her because of gambling with her boyfriend (Yan Hao), and Shaohua sweetly introduced her lover Zhang Nengcai while advising. One day, the three of them traveled together, but happened to encounter the Japanese army setting up obstacles to censorship, when the street insulted Chinese, Zhang Nengcai's identity was immediately exposed, Yue Feng suddenly felt that his face was abominable, and the three of them broke up unhappily.
The situation changed, Japan was defeated, the Nationalist government went around arresting traitors, and Zhang Neng hid in the remote countryside. Shaohua found him in the farmhouse after several twists and turns, but saw that he was living with the widow to cover his life, and Shaohuaton felt sad and indignant. Shaohua returns to his girlfriend Yuefeng's residence in despair, and the former neighbors know about it and bring people to raid the house, and Yuefeng is injured for defending Shaohua. At this time, the Yu boss next door has been in love with Shaohua for a long time and hastened to help. Soon after, Yue Feng was killed by attending an anti-government rally with her revolutionary boyfriend. Shaohua lived on the relief of Boss Yu, and then met the impoverished Zhang Nengcai. On the eve of liberation, Boss Yu exchanged gold bars for two tickets to Taiwan for the last shift, and wanted to leave the mainland with Shaohua, but Shaohua sent Zhang Nengcai to the ship, and Boss Yu also gave up the opportunity to leave and stay and take care of Shaohua. Forty years later, Zhang Neng returned to the mainland to find his lover, only to see Shao Hua's novel "Magnolia".
In the film, Lin Qingxia, who debuted for more than ten years, after the tempering of Taiwanese Qiongyao films from the mid-70s to the early 80s and the tuning of Hong Kong commercial films since the mid-1980s, she has significantly improved her acting skills in her early 30s. In "Rolling Red Dust", she with light makeup and elegant makeup, played shen Shaohua's simple, willful, obsessed with literature, and fell into love when she was a teenager, and then played the era of Shen Shaohua's young woman who had thick makeup, encountered love deception and became worldly and greasy in real life, but was still full of hope and fantasy about love, all of which were well interpreted, and after many years, she met the sloppy Zhang Nengcai, the scene before covering Zhang Nengcai, and the scene before boarding the ship, which was a big leap in her acting skills, so, That Golden Horse Shadow Queen really deserved it.
Following a series of Qiong Yao films from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, Qin Han and Lin Qingxia once again "fell in love" in the film, and the duplicity, cynicism and helplessness of this role were properly controlled.
As for the biggest surprise in the film, it is Maggie Cheung, whose acting skills have improved rapidly, playing the progressive young Yue Feng, Hui Huang is agile, love and hate, and has properly become an acting school: walking hand in hand in the woods, questioning Shen Shaohua in the car, feeding Shen in the disease
Shaohua eating chestnuts, summoning the soul of Shen Shaohua, and the monologue before the righteousness all killed Lin Qingxia in a second, which was even more eye-catching. "He gave his heart to his career; I gave him all my heart." This monologue is still so direct to people's hearts!
Today, it has been 31 years since the birth of "Rolling Red Dust", the original script and screenwriter Sanmao have long been ancient, Lin Qingxia, Maggie Cheung, and Qin Han have also faded out of the film world, the melody of "Rolling Red Dust" is still familiar, and the classic story of "Rolling Red Dust" is still circulating.