Yesterday we said that Tian Han was suddenly arrested after writing the synopsis of the movie "Heroes and Children", which suddenly disrupted the production rhythm of the movie. Fortunately, after reading the story written by Tian Han, everyone agreed that the first draft of the script was very good, and it should be filmed no matter what.
So the story synopsis was taken over by Xia Yan, who created and adapted it into a movie script, and changed Tian Han's original title from "Phoenix Nirvana Map" to "Children of the Wind and Clouds". Before going to prison, Tian Han also composed two interludes for the film, one was the later March of the Volunteer Army, who was arrested just after writing a paragraph on cigarette paper, and the lyrics of the other song "The Singer Under the Iron Hoof" were completed by director Xu Xingzhi.
Xia Yan
At that time, when movies entered the theater, there was also a censorship system. At that time, the Nationalist government and the concession authorities explicitly prohibited propaganda against Japan, and the words "anti-Japanese" were not allowed to appear in all publications. In order to bypass censorship and make the film smoothly released, Tian Han highly condensed the anti-Japanese spirit and finally integrated it into the image of the "Great Wall", using the phrase "build our flesh and blood into our new Great Wall" to show the determination of the Chinese people to resolutely resist foreign enemies.
Nie Er and Tian Han
After learning that Tian Han wrote a song for the movie "Children of the Wind and Clouds", Nie Er took the initiative to find Xia Yan and wanted to compose music for the "March of the Volunteer Army". Maybe it was because he and Tian Han had previous experience of cooperation, or it could be that the cries of the nation, the call of the motherland, and the roar of the warriors in the lyrics made people's blood surge, and Nie Er only took two days to complete the first draft of the score.
It is said that Nie Er was almost sleepy and forgot to eat for the creation of the March of the Volunteer Army at that time. He shut himself in the room, slapping on the table, playing the piano in front of the piano, walking on the floor, and singing again. For this reason, the landlord felt that the tenant was too noisy, and even ran upstairs to count him down.
Fresnel
After discussing with the director, Nie Er changed the last sentence of the song," "Advancing in the face of enemy fire," to end with 3 "advances," which highlighted Chinese's resolute, brave, and forward-looking emotions.
Just as Nie Er was preparing to make the next revision and improvement of the song, a bad news came, and the agents targeted Nie Er and prepared to arrest him at any time. After the CHINESE Communists learned of this news, in order to protect this energetic young fighter, they arranged for Nie Er to go through Japan to study and inspect Europe and the Soviet Union, and only then did they escape the disaster.
On April 15, 1935, Nie Er left Shanghai to travel east to Japan. At this time, although the score of the "Volunteer March" was completed in the first draft, after the audition, the comrades put forward some good suggestions for revision. Nie Er had to bring the score to Japan for revision because of the imminent period. When parting, he told Xia Yan and other people who sent them off that the song would be sent back as soon as possible after it was finalized, and the filming of the film would not be delayed. Half a month later, Xu Xingzhi and others received the final draft sent back by Nie Er from Tokyo.
In early May 1935, Nie Er sent the score of the March back to Dentsu. By this time, the filming of the film was nearing its end. After Dentsu received the manuscript, it immediately arranged for the actors to record the group.
The song that Tian Han composed the lyrics was called "Military Song", and the song of Nie Er's score was called "March", and the lyrics and the song score were combined to complement each other. But the title of the song, whether it is called "Military Song" or "March", is not prominent enough. So some people proposed to change the name of the song to "Volunteer March".
How popular was the "Volunteer March" of that year? For more exciting content, please pay attention to the headline number of "Hubei Satellite TV Big Reveal"!