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In 1996, Du Qifeng, Wei Jiahui and You Naihai formed galaxy image film company, injecting a clear stream into the then weak Hong Kong film market.
For more than 20 years, Galaxy Image has followed the creative mode of "raising films with a commercial film with an author's film", creating a brilliant era of Du Qifeng-style films.
Movies such as "The Birth of a Word", "Dark War", "Dark Flower", "Gunfire", "PTU", and "Big Guy" are all classic galactic images that are praised by fans.
With the launch of the "Underworld" two-part series, the three words "Du Qifeng" have also become synonymous with Hong Kong's dark style gangster movies.
But in Du Qifeng is not all the way to the highlight, in fact, he also has a dark time.
Du Qifeng, who entered the industry in 1972, spent nearly half a century in the Hong Kong film and television circle, and he had been in this circle for more than 20 years before the galaxy image was established.
During this period, he once made a double harvest at the box office such as "The Story of Ah Lang", "Ji Xing Gong Zhao" and "The Judge"; there were also 4 consecutive box office failures in 1993, which once made him doubt his life.
Among the many films directed by him, the one recognized by fans as the worst quality is "Clear Water cold mountain kills gold" released in 1980.
Du Qifeng was in his early 24s when the film was made, which was his directorial film debut and a work shot at the invitation of his friend Liu Songren.
The male protagonist of this film is naturally Liu Songren, and the female protagonist is the future red girl Zhong Chuhong who is red throughout Hong Kong.
01、
Let's look at the story first -
During the Ming Dynasty, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian controlled the imperial program, arbitrarily ruled state affairs, and covered the sky with his hands, and was known as "nine thousand nine hundred years old".
Wei Zhongxian snatched the people's fat and people's ointment in the people, and made up 30,000 taels of gold to build an ancestral hall for himself, but he was robbed on the way to the Beijing Division, and the whereabouts of the 30,000 taels of gold were unknown.
In order to recover the lost gold, Wei Zhongxian ordered his subordinates Jinyi Wei Xiong to personally interrogate Lu Tianjun in prison.
Xiong Yan tortured Lu Tianjun severely, but Lu Tianjun was determined and never wanted to reveal the whereabouts of the gold.
A new master named Jiang Fenglou arrives in prison, and with his assistance, Lu Tianjun (played by Liu Songren) successfully escapes from prison.
In order to avoid the pursuit of Jinyiwei and clear his grievances, after Lu Tianjun and Jiang Fenglou separated, they came to Pingshi Town, which they passed through when the gold was robbed that day, to track down the truth.
It turned out that the gold was escorted by You Yiru, an entourage of Li Shirong, the governor of Huguang, and when he passed through the town of Pingshi, he encountered the mountain robber He Biao and two of his men.
You Yiru was outnumbered and committed suicide in front of the three people, but the body was lost, and the gold fell into He Biao's hands.
Lu Tianjun, who happened to pass by, was a friend of He Biao's, and was invited by He Biao to go up the mountain to drink, but was unconscious by a sneak attack by an unidentified master.
After waking up, Lu Tianjun found that two of He Biao's men had been killed, but He Biao was missing, and the gold had disappeared, and at this time, Jinyi Wei arrived and arrested Lu Tianjun, which was the context of the past.
At this time, Lu Tianjun returned to Pingshi Town to find the mysterious person who attacked him that night.
Halfway through, he meets You Peipei (played by Zhong Chuhong), the daughter of You Yiru, who came to collect the body for her father. The two came to Pingshi Town, quickly found He Biao's fake grave, and then followed the vine to touch the melon, and found He Biao, who had been hiding.
He Biao told Lu Tianjun about the experience of that night, the mysterious man was highly skilled in martial arts, he and his two brothers were difficult to stop him, He Biao escaped in defeat, and his two brothers and wife were killed.
Later, He Biao's aunt Wang Bao used the body of He Biao's wife to make a fake grave and hid him in the cellar of her own home.
He Biao thought that he could escape the scourge of killing himself in this way, but he did not expect to be found by Lu Tianjun, and the mysterious person also appeared again and ended up with his life.
The mysterious man took Yu Peipei away again, and it turned out that he was Yu Peipei's father, You Yiru, who had been hiding in the mountains of Pingshi Town since the crime.
On the same day, You Yiru escorted the gold through Pingshi Town, and after encountering robbery, he pretended to be defeated and committed suicide, letting He Biao rob the gold.
In the evening, he killed He Biao's cottage again, and after wiping out all the people in the cottage, he took away the gold, and the reason why he let Lu Tianjun go was only to let him carry this pot for the dead ghost.
Now the gold is still in the hands of You Yiru, who is the subordinate of Li Shirong, the inspector of Huguang, and they came up with this plan, that is, they wanted to take Wei Zhongxian's gold to relieve the disaster. But after the incident, the wind was too tight, and he could only take the gold with him and hide in a cave in the mountain of Pingshi Town.
Speaking of Lu Tianjun, who had been hunted by The Jinyi Guard Xiong Que, he was helped by Jiang Fenglou's reappearance and finally defeated Xiong Que.
But Jiang Fenglou's move was also an ulterior motive, it turned out that he was the head of the Jinyi Wei guard next to Wei Zhongxian, secretly approaching Lu Tianjun, but also trying to find the whereabouts of the gold.
The two eventually found You Yiru, and You Yiru, who was forced to the end of the road, chose to commit suicide, and Yu Peipei was also killed by Jiang Fenglou.
Lu Tianjun, who was entrusted by You Yiru to protect the gold, dueled with Jiang Fenglou and killed him after a fierce life-and-death struggle.
02、
From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Hong Kong cinema entered a new wave period.
Many directors have made their own martial arts film masterpieces, such as Wu Yusen filmed "Hero", Xu Ke filmed "Butterfly Change", Cheng Xiaodong filmed "Life and Death Decision", and Tan Jiaming filmed "Famous Sword", all of which are classics with personal style characteristics.
Du Qifeng's "Bishui Cold Mountain Killing Gold" is not excellent in these films, but with the attitude of a newcomer director" "the newborn calf is not afraid of the tiger", he shot his own unique alternative style.
What surprised Pigo the most was that this "test the waters" work was actually made into a foggy suspense thriller under the packaging of martial arts.
Du Qifeng has no intention of following the trend and shooting a martial arts film with a simple story and gorgeous action, but chooses to be meticulously crafted and seriously tell the story, presenting a different look and feel from traditional martial arts films.
The whole film is shrouded in a dark and eerie atmosphere, most of the scenes are in the dark night, the atmosphere is very depressing, people breathless.
Most of the characters who appear on the scene are also obscene, they have ghost fetuses, and their actions are motivated by their own interests, they do not talk about morality and morality, and they have no feelings to speak of, which makes people feel bored.
Lu Tianjun, played by Liu Songren, as the male protagonist, has a sloppy image and sluggish eyes, and does not have the heroic style of a martial arts master.
The martial arts scenes in the film are all presented in a realistic style, using ropes on the roof instead of light work, fighting with swords without internal force, killing white knives into red knives, and no special effects have been added.
Compared with the gorgeous martial arts of previous Hong Kong-made martial arts films, the action design of this martial arts film can be described as unique.
The most wayward is the climax of the movie martial arts scene, Lu Tianjun stood with You Yiru in the cave, and even did not turn on the lights the whole time, only to see the sword light flashing, two blurred humanoids, so that people could not see the fight, nor could they guess the outcome of the victory or defeat.
Taking this kind of tiger operation of "experimenting" with climactic dramas, Du Qifeng dared to think and dare to do it.
03、
However, as a newcomer, Du Qifeng still exposed obvious shortcomings in the overall control of the film.
The grasp of the rhythm and the scheduling of the shots are a mess, the tense atmosphere cannot be created, and the progress of the plot is slow and stiff, making people uninterested.
The shaping of the character and the portrayal of the character are also superficial, Lu Tianjun and Yu Peipei have experienced the test of life and death together, and should have developed some feelings, but did not add some emotional drama to them. In the end, Yu Peipei was killed by Jiang Fenglou, and Lu Tianjun's duel with Jiang Fenglou in order to avenge her was not convincing enough.
Let's talk about Zhong Chuhong, who plays You Peipei, this is her first film work, in today's words, she is a veritable "Du Girl"
Although Honggu's acting skills are unquestionable in the Hong Kong film circle, she can't see her acting skills at all in this debut work, because she was too young at the time to play the role of a vase in the film.
Because of these obvious shortcomings, one can imagine what this work, full of personal "wayward" stylistic characteristics, would have turned out to be on the Hong Kong film market in the 1980s.
The film was released on 12 June 1980 to 25 June, and was dropped off the theater in two weeks, earning only HK$1.28 million at the box office.
This achievement made Du Qifeng see that there were still many deficiencies in his directing skills, which also led him to return to TVB and continue to give Wang Jing and his father Wang Tianlin to learn to make films.
After 6 years of study, it was not until 1986 that he was invited by Huang Baiming, the owner of New Art City, to shoot the third part of the "Happy Ghost" series, "Happy Ghost Bumping Into Ghost".
And "Bishui Cold Mountain Killing Gold" is a "failure" in Du Qifeng's directorial career. It has also become a thorn in the throat of Galaxy fans, and is often used as a negative teaching material to reflect the classics of those mature works.
To this day, this 90-minute movie, no one wants to turn it out and fix it, and the current online circulation is still a blurry version with very low pixels.
Perhaps affected by the unclear drawing, the influence of "Bishui Hanshan Killing Gold" in the fan circle is not high, and only more than 800 people on Douban scored 6.1 points, which is already a very low score in Du Qifeng's works.
However, Pi Ge feels that the movie has quite merit, 24-year-old Du Qifeng dares to challenge this suspense style of martial arts movies, this spirit is worth affirming, and the background of the real shooting, realistic martial arts, and the story of stripping away the cocoon all make Pi Ge feel that Du Qifeng has taken it carefully.
Even if there are various shortcomings because of lack of skill, as long as it is a film created with heart, it is a good movie.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Bloody Dan Heart
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