"The Wandering Earth", released two years ago, is the most successful domestic science fiction film in recent years, some people say that this movie is a new era of domestic science fiction films, and some people say that this movie is China's first space science fiction film.
In fact, as early as the 1950s, Hong Kong had made a science fiction movie called "Two Fools in Space". Rockets, vast space, desolate Venus, developed Mars, Martians, flying saucers, spaceships, these elements that are now common in science fiction films all appeared in that early Hong Kong film.
Hong Kong's first science fiction film "Two Fools In Space"
Regarding this old Hong Kong film, Xiao Ge has done a lot of "film archaeology" work. Today, Xiaoge Film will talk to you about some of the situations about this film, friends who like Hong Kong films in the 50s and 60s and like early science fiction films can check out my article.
First, the movie story
"Two Fools in Space" is a science fiction comedy film produced by International Film Mao Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Denmao), which was released in Hong Kong, Xingma, Taiwan and other places in 1959.
The film is directed by Wang Tianlin, the heroine of the film is played by Ding Hao, a young Hong Kong actress in the 1950s and 1960s, and the "two fools" in the film are starred by comedians Liu Enjia and Jiang Guangchao.
Stills: The beautiful nurse Lin Xiaozhu (played by Ding Hao)
The film tells the story of firecracker factory workers Zhang Sanyuan (Liu Enjia) and Wang Dingxi (Jiang Guangchao), who are obsessed with developing "Thor Rocket" firecrackers, and the two good brothers also have a crush on a hospital nurse Lin Xiaozhu (Ding Hao) after work.
Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi tried to release the "Thor Rocket" in front of the boss, and mistakenly threw the cigar into the firecracker pile in a hurry, and the two were injured and sent to the hospital. Amid the shaking of the ambulance, Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi boarded a rocket in a trance.
The rocket landed on the desolate Venus, where Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi encountered a giant monster, the two were frightened and woke up, but found themselves in the hospital operating room, in the hospital they met the nurse Lin Xiaozhu, Xiaozhu injected anesthetics for the scarred duo, and the two returned to the rocket in their dreams.
Stills: Martians line up to welcome the arrival of the two fools
The rocket flew to Mars again, and the Martians lined up to welcome the arrival of Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi, and the two were arranged to stay at the Mars Guest House, which was hosted by Miss Mars, who looked like Lin Xiaozhu codenamed 554031 (Ding Hao).
The technology on Mars is very advanced, and there are robots there to help take care of zhang sanyuan and Wang Dingxi's life, but the food on Mars is difficult to swallow. Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi were thrown by the robot because of their lust for beauty, and after they woke up, they found themselves in a hospital bed.
Electric Mao movie star "Little Lover" Ding Hao
It happened that Xiaozhu came to the ward, Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi were obsessed with her, saying that they had known her for a long time, and Xiaozhu smiled. After that, the doctor injected Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi with sedatives, and under the action of the sedatives, the two returned to Mars in confusion.
On Mars, Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi show their love to 554031, and then the three of them plan to escape back to Earth. Unexpectedly, the rocket flew halfway and was attacked by flying saucers and spacecraft with dead light (laser weapons), 554031 fell to the ground.
Ding Hao and Liu Enjia
Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi slowly woke up in the sound of shouting 554031, only to realize that they were still in the hospital bed, the two asked the doctor to call Xiaozhu, at this time the foreman of the firecracker factory and the boss also came together, frightening the two to hide under the bed.
It turned out that the foreman and the boss were informing Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi of the good news that their "Thor Rocket" firecrackers had been successfully tested, and now they were only waiting for their injuries to heal, hiring the two as engineers, officially holding a press conference, and then publicly testing.
Stills: Little Pearl and Two Fools Covered in Scars
On the day of the public test, Zhang Sanyuan and Wang Dingxi wore dresses and smoked cigars, and Lin Xiaozhu also dressed up to attend the trial release ceremony. After igniting the lead, unexpectedly, another explosion occurred, the factory collapsed, the guests scattered and fled, and the two fools were injured again and were taken to the hospital by ambulance.
2. Shoot the background
In the 1950s, Lu Yuntao, a wealthy Malaysian Chinese businessman, founded International Film Mao Company Limited in Hong Kong. At the time, Lu Yuntao's Denmao Company and Run Run Shaw's Shaw Brothers were the two most powerful film companies in Hong Kong.
Stills: Agile robots on Mars stunned the two fools
Since the 1950s, Hollywood in the United States has set off a "science fiction wave", and the classic science fiction films of that period include: "Landing on the Moon" (1950), "The Day the Earth Stopped" (1951), "Cosmic Visitor" (1953), "Forbidden Planet" (1956) and so on.
Influenced by the "science fiction wave" in Hollywood, Denmao also decided to shoot a science fiction film that Chinese themselves, so they chose the extremely challenging science fiction theme of "space adventure".
Stills: The rocket on which the two fools are riding lands on Mars
In the film magazine published by Denmao that year, "Two Fools in Space" was advertised as "China's first scientific knowledge space exploration fantasy film", in today's words, this is China's first science fiction comedy.
"Two Fools in Space" is Chinese black and white film, although the Electric Mao Company has set up two departments, "Chinese Group" and "Cantonese Group", but the Electric Mao film was still dominated by Chinese films.
Stills: Flying Saucer vs Rocket Encounter
It is said that Denmao invested millions of dollars in the production of this sci-fi film at any cost, and in order to achieve important scenes such as the desolate Venus wilderness, the developed Martian city, and the encounter between flying saucers and rockets in the film, Denmao used a lot of manpower and material resources to pursue the perfect viewing effect.
In that era when there was no computer special effects technology, the special effects in the film were achieved in the studio using art sets combined with photographic techniques, and those American science fiction films in the same period actually used similar methods for special effects production. In addition, in order to make the film conform to scientific theory, Denmao also invited famous scientific scholars to serve as directors.
Choreographer Wang Tianlin played for Ding Hao and Liu Enjia
Released in 1959, a decade before humans first landed on the moon, "Two Fools in Space" was a very advanced Chinese film, and it was really not easy for Hong Kong to make such an imaginative film in those days.
Now there are some information on the Internet that the Hong Kong black-and-white Cantonese film "Big Winter Melon", released in 1958, is the earliest science fiction film in Hong Kong, which is inaccurate.
"Two Fools in Space" movie commercial
The story told by "Big Winter Melon" is that a couple exchanged a giant winter melon for the Monkey King's gong, which can fulfill any of their wishes, and they came to modern Hong Kong from the beginning of the people on the gong, and the couple experienced many funny things in modern society.
From the content of the film, it can be seen that the story structure of the movie "Big Winter Melon" is a mixture of mythological themes and cross-genres, although this story seems to be relatively fresh and interesting at the time, but it is too far-fetched to call it a science fiction film.
Stills: The two fools saw that Xiao zhu was actually red in the face
Compared with "Big Winter Melon", "Two Fools in Space", which was released only a few months later, is obviously more in line with the standards of science fiction movies. The latter is not only the first science fiction film in Hong Kong, but also the first film in the history of Chinese cinema to deal with the concepts of space exploration and aliens.
3. Main creative personnel
In the early years of Hong Kong, the famous director Wang Tianlin served as the screenwriter and director of "Two Fools in Space", which was the first film work shot by Wang Tianlin after joining The Electric Mao.
Born in Shanghai in 1928, Wang Tianlin entered the Hong Kong film industry in 1947, from film processor, recording assistant, field note, to assistant director and director. In 1950, Wang Tianlin directed the first episodes of the film "Emei Flying Swordsman".
Choreographer Wang Tianlin played for Liu Enjia and Jiang Guangchao
In 1959, Wang Tianlin joined Dengmao, and during this period he directed films such as "Two Fools in Space", "Happy Affairs at Home", "Love of Wild Roses", "North and South Harmony", "Long Live the Wife", "Dueling Evil Tiger Ridge" and other films, and the Dianmao period was also the peak of Wang Tianlin's directorial career.
In 1971, the production industry ended, and Wang Tianlin transferred to the television industry to work as an executive producer at WIRELESS. During the TVB period, Wang Tianlin supervised the production of classic dramas such as "The Legend of Chu Liuxiang", "Jinghua Spring Dream", "Thousands of Rivers and Thousand Mountains Always Love", "The Legend of the Archery Hero", and "The Decisive Battle of Xuanwu Gate".
Wang Tianlin holds his four-year-old son Wang Jing and Ding Hao for a group photo
When directing the movie "Two Fools in Space", Wang Tianlin was only a 30-year-old young director. More than three decades later, his son Wang Jing also became a well-known director and producer in Hong Kong film and television. On November 16, 2010, Wang Tianlin died of illness in Hong Kong.
The heroine of "Two Fools in Space" is played by the young and lively, talented Ding Hao, who is originally from Dongguan, Guangdong Province, born in Macao on October 9, 1939, she is from a family of eunuchs, her father is the chief of staff, she has lived with her father in Shanghai and other cities since she was a child.
Ding Hao graduated from the actor training class of the International Company (the predecessor of Dianmao), and she is the second generation actress of Dianmao with Su Feng, Bai Luming and other people in the same period. Ding Hao's film fame was 1958's "Little Lover", which earned her the titles of "Little Lover" and "Little Ding Hao".
Ding Hao plays the Martian girl 554031
Ding Hao played two roles in "Two Fools in Space", playing the role of nurse Lin Xiaozhu and Martian girl 554031. Although there is not much difference in the personality of these two characters, they are somewhat different, and Ding Hao, who has a strong sense of understanding, performs the "paradoxical" realm between the two characters easily and lively.
In the movie "Two Fools in Space", Ding Hao, who loves to sing, also showed her singing voice, and she sang the interlude "Love on Mars" with Jiang Guangchao and Li Yizhi in the form of male and female duets, which was a vivid and interesting song written by Li Junqing and composed by Yao Min.
Film star Ding Hao (1959)
Ding Hao has been in Dengmao Company for eight years, starring in 20 films such as "Green Mountain Green Valley", "Little Lover", "Two Fools in Space", "Happy Encounter", "Sports Queen", "North and South Harmony", "A Love", "Lotus" and so on.
At the end of 1963, Ding Hao left Denmao, and she subsequently married a wealthy Malaysian businessman, Lightning. After marriage, Ding Hao took over the role with a free body, changed to Cantonese films, and starred in films such as "Ghost Killer", "Fishing the World to Be Eye-catching", "Four Sisters" and other films, and her films during the Cantonese film period had a mediocre response.
In 1965, Ding Hao separated from her husband and went to Los Angeles in 1966 to develop. Unexpectedly, a year later (May 23, 1967), Ding Hao committed suicide by taking medicine in the United States at the age of 27. The once-popular female movie star died in a foreign land, and the news spread back to Hong Kong, causing countless fans to sigh.
Ding Hao, Jiang Guangchao and Liu Enjia
The "two fools" in the film are played by Liu Enjia (1916-1968) and Jiang Guangchao (1924-2000), both of whom were comedians who emigrated to Hong Kong from the mainland in their early years.
Liu Enjia has participated in many classic films of Denmao, most of his roles are some fat and funny characters, and the versatile Jiang Guangchao later turned to the Taiwan television industry and achieved certain achievements.
With the passage of time, the bucket turns to the stars, "Two Fools in Space" has been released for sixty-two years, and the main creators of the film have long since passed away, and the film itself has disappeared without a trace in the long river of years.
It's unclear whether this early science fiction film has been preserved, but hopefully one day it will be seen again, giving fans a chance to see this old Hong Kong film again.