The closing ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games has just ended, and everyone is still happy for the Olympic athletes and proud of the grand scene directed by Zhang Yimou. I didn't expect a bad thing to happen at this time, which is really regrettable.
Chu Yuan, known as one of Hong Kong's "Four Great Marshals", died at the age of 87. If you just say the name Chu Yuan, I believe many people have not heard of it. 87-year-old Hong Kong director Chu Yuan, his audience should be in the 70s and 80s, 90s and 00s have not heard of this old predecessor, but it is also very normal.
Chu Yuan is recognized as the ancestor of martial arts movies, and I believe that there is no one in this world who loves Gu Long's martial arts novels more than Chu Yuan. In his lifetime, he directed 18 films adapted from Gu Long's novels, each of which was a classic of the 70s and 80s.
These films include "Meteor Butterfly Sword", "Heaven end Bright Moon Knife", "White Jade Tiger", "The Sword of the Three Young Masters", "Chu Liuxiang", "Amorous Swordsman Ruthless Sword", "Xiao Shiyilang", "Bat Legend", "Full Moon Curved Knife", "Magic Sword Hero Love", "Book Sword Enmity" and so on.
Er Dongsheng and Dillon both came out of Chu Yuan's martial arts films, and they and Chu Yuan were really iron partners, and the three artists jointly created Chinese martial arts movies. Although from the current point of view, these movies are slightly rough in terms of costumes and scenes, it is undeniable that they are classics.
In particular, movies such as "Tianya Mingyue Knife", "Meteor Butterfly Sword", "Three Young Masters' Sword" and so on have been remade many times by later filmmakers. But if you let the post-70s and 80s choose later, they will still think that the version shot by Chu Yuan is the best.
Chu Yuan, who has devoted his life to shooting Hong Kong martial arts films, does not love Ni Ni and does not love Li, he is a person who has truly witnessed the decline of the Hong Kong film industry from glory to today. In 2018, Chu Yuan won the Hong Kong Film Awards Lifetime Achievement Award for a number of outstanding film works, which is the most important award he has won in his life.
He pioneered martial arts films many years ago, and later became a "box office poison" due to the decline of the Hong Kong film industry. According to Chu Yuan's recollection, after several consecutive films with poor box office results, he originally planned to shoot "Tianlong Eight Parts", but the top level resolutely opposed it, and bluntly said: Chu Yuan, you will not make movies at all!
So much so that in the end, lying on the hospital bed, Chu Yuan still remembered the "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon" that he had not been able to shoot. In the heyday of Hong Kong cinema, Chu Yuan, together with Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan and Zhang Che, was called the "Four Great Marshals", and his films never sucked, but the audience and the Hong Kong film market changed.
Finally, I wish a generation of film masters Chu Yuan a good luck, and I also hope that Hong Kong martial arts films can return to the peak and make Chu Yuan's most regrettable "Tianlong Eight Parts" again.