In the early 1980s, "Shaolin Temple" came out, which opened the trend of co-production between Hong Kong filmmakers and the mainland. After the film was released, it set off a "Shaolin fever" and a "martial arts fever" across the country, resulting in major film studios successively shooting martial arts commercial films.
It is in this boom of martial arts films that many classics that are still fresh in the memory of 70 and 80 audiences were born.
In those years, there were several Shaolin-themed films derived from Jet Li's "Shaolin Temple" alone, such as "North and South Shaolin" and "Kapok Robes", and Shaolin later gave birth to classics such as "Wudang" and the kung fu film "Wulin Zhi" about the Martial Arts of the Republic of China.
Wudang
In addition, it has also spawned martial arts films such as "Heroes from Ancient Times to Teenagers", which is suitable for young and old children of children's audiences.
"From ancient heroes to teenagers"
In addition to "Heroes from Ancient Times out of Youth", there is another classic martial arts film that focuses on young audiences in the same period.
Filmed in 1982, the film is still regarded as a childhood classic and has been talked about by many veteran film fans.
In this issue of "Forgotten Domestic Genre Films", let's relive this childhood martial arts god work from 38 years ago!
"The Young General of the Yue Family"
Yao's Young Warriors
Co-produced by The Hong Kong Variety Film Company and the Mainland, the film is based on the Qing Dynasty novel The Complete Biography of Yue Yue.
Released in 1984, the film was the first widescreen color martial arts film shot in mainland China at the time.
The film caused a sensation after its release and became the annual box office champion of the mainland film market in 1984.
1127 AD, the first year of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The traitors were in charge, the dynasty was corrupt, and the Great Song Dynasty at this time was in a state of turmoil.
In this year, Jin Wushu, the Grand Marshal of the Southern Sweeping South of the Jurchen Kingdom of JinBang, invaded the Central Plains and captured Hui and the Second Emperor of Qin, according to history:
Shame on Jing Kang.
It was in this context that The Southern Song Dynasty Marshal Yue Fei was determined to serve the country loyally and lead the army to resist Jin.
Although the situation of the Song army being passively beaten for a long time was once reversed, unfortunately, under the encirclement of the Five Roads Army of Jin Wushu, the south was repeatedly lost, Song Gaozong fled from Jinling in a panic, Yue Fei desperately escorted, in order to protect Song Gaozong and others, and finally besieged Niutou Mountain by a 700,000-strong army of Jin soldiers.
Niutou Mountain was trapped, and the news quickly spread throughout the Central Plains, shaking Yuejiazhuang.
Jin Wushu attacked the mountain without success, and he had a plan——
Decided to send the second prince Jin Pinzi, the third princess Yin Suzuzi and the general Zhang Zhaonu to disguise themselves as Yue Jiajun,
Prepare to sneak up on Yue Jiazhuang to kidnap his mother-in-law and force Yue Fei to surrender.
The story of the film begins.
At this time, yue fei's eldest son, Yue Yun, was practicing martial arts.
From an early age, this Yue Yun had become a talented person, with a majestic style and a brilliant talent, especially a love of martial arts.
Since childhood, he served under his father's command, joined the Yue family army, studied martial arts assiduously, was good at making double hammers, and bravely championed the three armies.
Under Yue Yun, there were still four younger brothers, named Yue Lei, Yue Ting, Yue Lin, and Yue Zhen, each of whom had extraordinary martial arts.
This night, taking advantage of the night, the eldest son Yue Yun slipped out of Yue Jiazhuang over the wall.
It turned out that he learned that Niutou Mountain was in a hurry, so he decided to hide from his grandmother and quietly ran to Niutou Mountain at night.
Unexpectedly, not far from the manor, he was stopped by his four younger brothers.
The four younger brothers insisted on walking with the elder brother, and Yue Yun had planned to leave the four of them first.
The result alarmed the grandmother, and in the end no one made it.
On the other side, the golden prince Jin Marbles and the princess Silver Bellzi dressed up as Yue Jiajun and went straight to Yue Jiazhuang.
Halfway through, Jin Pinzi and his party encountered a dark-skinned Song Army general.
This person was Niu Tong, the son of Niu Gao, the general of the Yue family army, and was about to go to Yue Jiazhuang.
Like his father Niu Gao, he was rude and open-minded, and although he was brave and martial, he was full of drama.
When Jin Pinzi learned of the other party's origin, he naturally did not want to accompany him.
But this bull pass is a self-made, coupled with the lack of truth, so he forcibly invited peers.
On the way, Niu Tong accidentally discovered that silver bells were actually a girl dressed as a man.
Later, it was found that the other party was not Song Jun at all, but a disguised Golden Soldier.
He then grabbed a Jin soldier and after questioning him, he learned of Jin Bing's plan to raid Yue Jiazhuang and capture his mother-in-law.
So he stole a horse and fled, and rushed to Yuejiazhuang to report the news.
At this time, in the Yue Family Village, Yue Yun was practicing the Yue Family Return Horse Gun with his three younger brothers.
Niu Tong, on the other hand, accidentally bumped into the youngest Yue Zhen outside Yue Jiazhuang and was treated as a horse thief.
After a bit of not fighting and not knowing each other, Niu General cai finally explained the reason for the matter.
After Yue Yun learned the news, he thought that the Jin soldiers were only two hundred horses, and the strength of the young general of the Yue family was enough to deal with it.
He divided the young generals of the Yue family into three ways to meet the enemy:
Yue Yun, along with his younger brothers Yue Lin, Yue Zhen and Niu Tong, led Yue Jiazhuang's baby soldiers to meet the enemy head-on
Secondly, let Yue Lei and Yue Ting be responsible for encircling from the rear road, intercepting the enemy and serving as support.
The other team was led by the housekeeper of the Yue family to guard the old and weak women and children in the village.
Jin Bing launched a charge and launched a frontal charge with the Young General of the Yue Family.
The two armies faced each other, and according to the custom, the two generals had to compete with each other.
Niu Tong and Yue Zhen fought against the enemy one after another, and both of them were extraordinary, and they successively greatly demoralized the morale of the Jin soldiers.
Princess Silver Bell, who was watching the battle, saw that the young generals of the Yue family were all extraordinary and admired.
In addition, her nursing mother is a Song person, deeply influenced by Han culture, so she is even more dissatisfied with her brother's sneak attack.
At this time, Yue Yun was about to call out, but princess Yinling revealed her identity and took the initiative to single out Yue Yun.
Princess Silver Bell was extraordinary in martial arts, the two fought for several rounds, Yue Yun had been unable to defeat each other,
As a result, he was led into the woods by the other party, strayed into a trap, and was caught alive on the spot.
Yue Yun was not convinced, believing that the other party was sneaking up on the plot.
So Princess Yinling took the initiative to release each other, and the two began a fair contest, and yue Yun was still invincible.
Yue Yun was convinced, but Princess Yinling did not hurt Yue Yun, but let him go again.
The first day of the battle ended with a small victory for the Yue family's army.
However, on the same night, Jin Marblehead led his men to attack Yuejiazhuang again at night,
Although Yue Yun made sufficient preparations, he was ultimately disparity in strength and weakness, and was finally killed by Jin Bing into the backyard of Yue Jiazhuang.
Fortunately, her mother-in-law, who knew the great righteousness, forced herself to kill herself, preferring to die rather than be caught by Jin Bing and use it to threaten her son Yue Fei.
At the critical moment, Yue Yun led the others back to kill back, only to repel the Jin soldiers.
But unexpectedly, he let Jin Bing kidnap the old Fifth Yue Zhen of the Yue family.
On this side, the Silver Bell Princess was also entangled by the cattle, resulting in being captured.
After experiencing this defeat, Yue Lei and Niu Tong were bent on saving old Wu Yue Zhen, and did not hesitate to disobey Yue Yun's orders.
Fortunately, Yue Yun caught up with the two in time and forced his men to tie them back to Yue Jiazhuang, which caused the ambush plan of jin bing to fail.
Niu Tong, who returned to Yue Jiazhuang, wanted to teach Princess Yinling of the Golden Kingdom a lesson, but was stopped by Old Lady Yue.
Old Lady Yue said that the Yue family army was a benevolent and righteous teacher, and did not kill or dishonor the captives.
And took the initiative to put back the Silver Bell Princess, which greatly moved the princess.
In order to avoid the reckless Niu Tong from bothering the princess halfway through, Yue Yun rode out of the village alone and escorted the princess all the way.
This made the two feel good about each other, and on the occasion of parting, the princess revealed her heart:
I will never forget you and the Yue family.
However, it is said that Princess Yinling returned to the Golden Camp and begged the second brother to release Yue Zhen back, but was rejected by Jin Marbles.
Late at night, Princess Yinling disguised herself as a prison inspector, released Yue Zhen, and covered for Yue Ting, the third son of the Yue family, who had come to rob the prison, to escape from the siege.
When Yue Ting took his fifth brother back to Zhuangzhuang, he met the three princes of Jin State who were ambushed on the way and the son of Zhang Zhaonu, the general of the Jin State.
These four people are all martial arts masters among the JinBang teenagers, the eldest prince meteor hammer makes the gods fascinating, the second prince has a sharp stick, the third prince practices hard skills to open the monument and split stones, and the son of the Jinguo general Zhang Zhaonu has practiced an eagle claw skill, which is unpredictable.
Due to the disparity in strength, the Yue brothers were under siege.
At the moment of crisis, Yue Yun led his brothers to come to the rescue.
At the same time, a masked man killed and helped the Yue brothers fight against the Jinbang masters.
Seeing that the opponent was strong in martial arts, the five brothers of the Yue family joined hands to pose the Yue family gun array,
As soon as the rifle came out, the Jin soldiers could not hide their sharp edge, and finally the four masters of the Jin State were killed one after another.
At this time, the masked man took off the veil, and it turned out to be the Silver Bell Princess.
When Jin Pinzi learned that a traitor from Jin Ying had secretly released Yue Zhen, he was furious.
He pursued furiously, firing an arrow at the traitor.
When the body was turned over, the deceased was actually her sister Princess Yinling.
The golden marbles who killed his sister with their own hands were in pain and had to return to the camp and hastily collect the troops.
On the top of the hill in the distance, there stood a young hero holding a spear and a silver saddle and a white horse.
After sending off his sweetheart, he will be dressed in his whole body and go straight to Niutou Mountain to assist his father and defend his family and country...
In the early 1980s, because the kung fu movie "Shaolin Temple" starring all the domestic martial arts elites achieved great success, it set off a "martial arts fever" and also triggered a "martial arts film fever".
Film institutions in Hong Kong and the mainland have set their sights on the strong teams in the competitive martial arts arena, using martial arts masters and even pulling the entire martial arts team to the screen, shooting a number of films that are popular with the audience, and this "Yue Jia XiaoJun" is one of them.
The film, like the popular martial arts films on the market at that time, was the pursuit of real kung fu, so many professional martial arts athletes were selected to star in the movie, and all the martial arts masters in front of and behind the stage were from the martial arts team in Jiangsu Province at that time.
The actor who plays the male protagonist Yue Yun is named Xun Feng, also known as Shi Baohua, who once won the swordplay championship of the national martial arts competition, and as early as Jet Li's version of "Shaolin Temple", he had a part to play the role of a little monk in Daokong, thus entering the film circle.
Because of his solid kung fu foundation, coupled with the sword eyebrow star and heroic appearance, he was subsequently selected by director Wang Zhiyu to play the role of Yue Yun in "Yue Family Young General", which became a turning point in his career.
In "The Young General of the Yue Family", Yue Yun is dressed in white armor and white armor, heroic, holding an iron cone gun, charging forward, and brave and unstoppable. At that time, it was an idol in the minds of too many young boys and girls.
After that, he has starred in many Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts films, such as the absolute male number one Fang Shiyu in the 1986 version of "New Fang Shiyu", the little five in "The King of the Big Knife", but the response was mediocre, and in the 1990s, he transformed behind the scenes, and occasionally made cameo appearances in some Hong Kong and Taiwan movies, such as Master Wu in the Yuan Biao version of the movie "New Green Blood Sword", and Cameo appearances in Jackie Chan's "Super Police" as a mainland public security officer. It is worth mentioning that he also appeared in "Young Bao Qingtian" and played the blind man in the blood altar case.
The female number one in the film, Zhang Xiling, is also a martial arts athlete, born in the Yunnan martial arts team, herself a Dai ethnic group, and also participated in some martial arts films in the 1980s, such as the role of Xiaolan in "Invincible Mandarin Duck Legs".
The film was shot in 1982, from October of that year to March of the following year, with a shooting cycle of up to six months. In order to seek the best shooting scene, the director team of "Yue Jia XiaoJun" successively went to Henan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Nanjing and other places to collect wind and shoot scenes, and finally selected one of the four famous gardens in China in Yangzhou, "GeYuan", as the interior shooting location of the Yue family.
It is worth mentioning that there is also an interlude in the film, "Little Lily", sung by Zheng Xulan, who once sang "Shepherd Song", which was also sung for a while, which is a classic melody in the memory of many people.
Due to the limitations of the shooting age, from today's point of view, this "Yue Family Young General" is far inferior to the "Kapok Robes" and "Wulin Zhi" in the same period, because the script is for young audiences, so the plot is relatively thin, the character shaping is also more facial, the image of both the protagonist and the villain is relatively thin, and the technical level such as Fu HuaDao is also relatively cheap.
But even so, the influence of the film cannot be denied.
Strictly speaking, "Yue Family Young General" is not a martial arts film, but closer to the same period of "From the Ancient Hero to the Youth", is a martial arts film for young audiences, young and old, and it is indeed the most popular among young people after the film was released.
After all, in the era when black-and-white television sets were still a luxury for families, radio commentaries were magic weapons for us naughty children to quiet down, and when the characters in the commentaries were presented and restored to the big screen, it was enough to surprise the audience at that time.