Have you ever had an experience like this:
When I went to school, I hid martial arts novels under textbooks and peeked at them with fear;
Taking advantage of the holidays, my parents went to work and watched a day's martial arts TV series at home;
Play "The Legend of the Paladin Sword" and "Meteor Butterfly Sword" with friends until you forget to eat...
It can be said that almost every generation of Chinese young people has had a martial arts dream in their hearts.
Jin Gu Liang Wen Huang, Martial Arts Long.
At that time, Mingyue was there, and several people had returned.
Why is the world of martial arts so fascinating?
The reason is that it is an adult fairy tale, in the martial arts world, full of fantasy, fascinating.
As director Ang Lee said:
I have always had a love-hate entanglement with the genre of martial arts films and popular literature such as martial arts novels. I love it because it is a fantasy that we suppress society, a subconscious expression, an emotional escape.
In the 1980s, with the east wind of reform and opening up, Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts novels began to enter the mainland. Coupled with the kung fu boom driven by martial arts films such as "Shaolin Temple" and the Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts dramas of the same period, the mainland film industry quickly ushered in the first wave of martial arts boom.
At that time, major domestic film studios followed the example of Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts films and rushed to shoot various martial arts films, including many blockbuster films that caused sensations. The North Film Studio began to shoot the first three-dimensional martial arts film in China, "Thirteen Sisters of the Heroic Girl", and at the same time, there were also classic martial arts films such as "Golden Dart Yellow Tianba", "Invincible Mandarin Duck Legs", "Eight Hundred Arhats", "Yue Family Young General" and so on.
When it comes to martial arts classics in the 1980s, one of the recognized divine works "Sinister Rivers and Lakes Escape Sword" must not be mentioned.
Although the film is a model of the Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts films at that time, it is deeply rooted in the charm of the ancient dragon novel, the plot twists and turns are interlocked, and it is regarded by many people as a classic childhood memory, and even the great director Jia Zhangke was fascinated by this film when he was young.
In this issue of "Forgotten Domestic Genre Films", let's relive this masterpiece in the history of mainland martial arts films!
"Sinister Jianghu Escape Sword"
The film was produced by Pearl River Film Studios and filmed in 1987.
Written and directed by the famous director Deng Yuan, the film is also the first batch of 70mm giant screen films in China.
After its release, it was quite popular and ranked among the top ten high-grossing films in the country in 1989.
Even from today's perspective, the plot and story of this old thirty-year-old movie is still outdated.
The film opens with a strong sense of suspense, starting with a dart murder case.
The famous Golden Lion Dart Bureau on the jianghu recently received a large order:
Escorted a rare treasure night pearl for the powerful King of Nanyang.
The Golden Lion Dart Bureau sent the most powerful dart master Song Dang to lead the escort, all the way to the dangerous land of Centipede Ridge.
At night, Song Dangtou and his men slept in Centipede Ridge, but they did not want to bump into a gang of gangsters who robbed the road.
The other person's name: Yunling Sijun, although the name is good, but it specializes in killing people and robbing goods.
After all, Song Dangtou has been wandering the rivers and lakes for many years, and he is not afraid of the other party, so he immediately reported the name of the Golden Lion Dart Bureau, which scared the other party away.
Seeing that the four juns of Yunling had retreated, Song Dangtou immediately decided to rush away overnight and leave this centipede ridge.
As a result, at this moment, a group of masked people actually rushed out on the road and forced Song Dangtou to hand over the Night Pearl in his hand.
Seeing that the other side was full of people, Song Dangtou had planned to continue to rely on the name of the Golden Lion Dart Bureau to scare the other party, but he did not expect that the other party was fierce, and even the four Juns of Yunling had been eliminated, making it clear that they wanted to kill people and seize treasures, and they also had to cover up the truth.
Song Dang's head was defeated by the masked man, and he was brutally killed, and the Night Pearl was also taken away.
Soon after, Xu Dang, the owner of the Golden Lion Dart Bureau, was shocked to learn that the Night Pearl had been robbed.
So he hurried up the mountain and found Ye Lingyu, the former chief dart head of the Guiyin River and Lake, hoping to invite him out of the mountain to investigate.
This Ye Lingyu Jianghu people called it the "Ruyi Runaway Sword", and with his clever sword technique, few people could fight with it.
But not long ago, he chose to wash his hands in the golden basin and take his son Ye Nianci to the countryside together, without asking about the affairs of the rivers and lakes.
In the face of the old owner's request for help, Ye Lingyu still expressed a polite refusal.
The young and vigorous son Ye Nianci did not understand his father's decision, he had never been out of the jianghu, he had lived under the protection of his father since he was a child, although the foundation of kung fu was not weak, he could not understand the sinister jianghu that his father said.
In his opinion, his father's Ruyi Runaway Sword had already been completed, and it was difficult to have an enemy in the rivers and lakes, so he should go out of the mountains to find out this bloody case.
But his father told him:
The Ruyi Runaway Sword had a total of nine weights, and he had only practiced to the eighth level after years of hard training, and he could not break through no matter what.
A few days later, someone went up the mountain to ask ye Lingyu and said that he had clues about the theft of the Night Pearl.
Ye Lingyu couldn't put down the Golden Lion Dart Bureau, so he made an appointment to see the other party.
The other party handed him a letter and a brocade box and told him: Open it and you will know.
Unexpectedly, the other party was actually an assassin, and the hidden weapon was hidden in the box in advance.
Although Ye Lingyu had been on guard, the dark weapon still cut his finger, and the poison was smeared on the letter.
Ye Lingyu killed the assassin, but the poison in his body had already occurred, and he knew that there was no medicine to save him, so he instructed his son:
Hurry up and escape, don't set foot in the rivers and lakes again, and cherish the last days of your life.
It turned out that Ye Nianci and his deceased mother were suffering from a strange disease, Ye Lingyu searched for a famous doctor but still could not be treated, and now Ye Nianci only had three months left to live, so he chose to retire to the jianghu and wanted to spend the rest of his life with his son.
The grief-stricken Ye Nianci did not want to flee, and at this time, his father's former enemy, the Nine Ghosts of Yin Mountain, came to the door to take revenge.
In order to protect his son, Ye Lingyu used his last skill to use the eighth weight of the Ruyi Escape Sword.
A sword came out of its sheath, instantly killing the nine ghosts of the Yin Mountain, and Ye Lingyu also ran out of oil.
Ye Nianci, who had experienced the tragedy of extinction, was determined to take revenge, and he took his father's sword down the mountain and ran into the rivers and lakes alone.
In order to find the murderer, Ye Nianci decided to start with the seizure of the Night Pearl.
After investigation, he learned that the scene of the murder of Song Dangtou that day had a shovel for tomb robbers.
It turned out that when the masked man killed people and seized treasure that day, there happened to be a tomb robber nearby, who happened to be an eyewitness.
According to the grave robbers:
The weapon used by the masked man turned out to be the Green Dragon Sword of the Martial Orthodox Qinglong Sect's Lonely Dao.
In order to investigate the truth, Ye Nianci broke into the Qinglong Temple at night, but in the end, the experience of the jianghu was too shallow, and he was caught by the disciples of the Qinglong Guan.
The Qinglongguan disciples claimed that Ye Nianci was the enemy who killed his master's lone daoist chief, so he was executed to avenge his master.
At the critical moment, a mysterious woman came out and rescued Ye Nianci.
The girl claimed to be Sima Yan, the dart master of the Weiyuan Dart Bureau, and was entrusted by the dart owner to come to check the jewelry and rob it.
The two of them broke into the Qinglong Temple again, and the Qinglongguan disciples saw that the other party dared to come back and was about to tie him up.
But Ye Nianci took the initiative to ask the other party, how did he conclude that he was the murderer of the lone Daoist leader.
The senior disciple of the QinglongGuan then told him:
Just before the two arrived, a mysterious person had left a letter informing them that the murderer would break into the Green Dragon Temple again tonight.
Ye Nianci asked again, how did the Lonely Daoist Commander die?
The senior disciple of the QinglongGuan said that the LoneLy Dao Commander died of a dark weapon, and the other party assassinated him with the Finger Divine Skill, and the Qinglong Sword was stolen at the same time.
Ye Nianci then explained the truth:
The murderer of the Lonely Elder was someone else, most likely his own father's enemy.
The other party deliberately left a letter pointing at himself, with the purpose of borrowing the hand of the Green Dragon Guan to get rid of himself again.
The key to the case now is to find a master who understands the skill of finger magic.
Therefore, Ye Nianci went to Biyan Temple to consult his father's former friend, the high monk Master Dahun.
After the guidance of master DaHun, Ye Nianci analyzed that the most likely suspect was Murong Jian, the owner of Murong Mountain Villa.
First, Murong Jian would point fingers at Shen Gong,
Second, Murong Jian's father was defeated at the hands of the Dugu Daoist commander, causing Murong Shanzhuang to decline from then on.
With the above inference, Ye Nianci and Sima Yan decided to go to Murong Mountain Villa immediately.
Before leaving, Master Dahun told Ye Nianci that although Murong Mountain Villa had decayed, there were still many traps left.
If he wanted to avoid the organs, he entered Murong Zhuang and walked alone.
Ye Nianci and Sima Yan came to Murong Mountain Villa and followed the instructions of Master Dahun, and as a result, they had just entered the village and triggered the organ.
Murong Jian, who was hiding in the shadows, then appeared and was about to kill Ye Nianci, but fortunately Ye Nianci learned the Ruyi Sword from an early age, and although his skill was inferior to that of his father, Murong Jian was unable to subdue him for a while with his sharp sword skills.
At the critical moment, Sima Yan held a long whip to kill, and the two joined forces to finally defeat Murong Jian.
When they were about to ask each other the truth, a hidden weapon suddenly shot from outside the house, and the two immediately went outside the house to track down the murderer
As a result, the other side's plan to move the tiger away from the mountain, when the two rushed back to the house, Murong Jian had been cut off by someone and died.
At this point, the only clue was also broken.
Just when the two were in a stalemate, Ye Nianci thought of a plan to lure the snake out of the hole.
Based on the law of the masked men's crimes, Ye Nianci deduced that their main purpose was to rob the jewels.
So he decided to split up with Sima Yanbing and pretended to be a jewelry merchant to lure the killer into the bait.
Came to a suburban wild shop to sleep, and sure enough, a villain took the initiative to send it to the door, and also reported the door;
The other party belongs to a gang of cults and plans to kill Ye Nianci to ask the sect leader for credit.
Sima Yan had already laid an ambush on the side, and killed at a critical moment, catching the other party off guard.
Ye Nianci fought the price of almost being poisoned to death, and took a new clue from the other party's mouth——
The masked man is from the Demon Sect, and the leader is the leader of the cult.
At the same time, Ye Nianci became suspicious of Sima Yan around him.
Because every enemy seems to know his every move in advance, he must have an infidelity around him.
And the nickname of Sima Yan beside him: Wearing the Cloud Sword, but he had never seen her use a sword.
Sima Yan could not explain Ye Nianci's suspicions, so he had to take the initiative to confess his identity:
She is not a dart master Sima Yan, but a disciple of Ouyang Hongying, a lover of her father Ye Lingyu when he was young.
After learning that the Ye family had been destroyed, he went down the mountain to help Ye Nianci on the orders of his master.
The misunderstanding was finally eliminated, and the two gradually developed feelings for each other in the process of this period of wandering.
That night, the two were assassinated by a mysterious killer in the inn, but fortunately Ouyang Hongying intervened to defeat the killer.
From the broken arm left by the killer, the two found the spider's tattoo.
After that, Ye Nianci entered the Biyan Temple again, and was instructed by Master DaHun:
The killer was most likely the Flying Spider, the lord of the Spider Castle.
The two then tracked down an ancient tower, where flying spiders were rumored to practice.
However, when the two arrived,
However, the body of the flying spider was hung upside down on the spider tower, and the tower was also set with gunpowder.
In a critical moment, Ye Nianci put down the body of the flying spider and escaped before the tower was destroyed.
Ouyang Hongying did not understand why Ye Nianci had to take away the body of the flying spider in a critical moment, and Ye Nianci actually had other plans.
He let out the sound of the wind, and the flying spider was not actually dead,
Deliberately lead the villain to the bait to assassinate, so that he can ambush on the spot.
Sure enough, the villain is worried that the flying spider will reveal his identity, so he sends a killer to assassinate.
As a result, Ye Nianci and Ouyang Hongying, who had already prepared, stood by and captured the assassin on the spot.
The Assassin Confesses the Inside Story:
It turned out that he was the Demon Sect Protector Nangong Wu, and he was secretly plotting against them on the orders of the Demon Sect Leader.
The reason why the Demon Sect Leader committed so many bloody crimes was entirely to rob the Night Pearl of the Golden Lion Dart Bureau.
Everything was due to the fact that the Demon Sect Leader had to take a large amount of pearl powder when he practiced.
Nangong wu assassination failed and was captured, so the Demon Sect Leader took the risk and led the disciples to surround the two.
Unexpectedly, Ye Nianci had already made preparations and had already informed the Qinglong Guan Daoist in advance to ambush here.
Under the large-scale encirclement and suppression of the Qinglong Guan Daoists, the Demon Sect sect members suffered heavy casualties, and the mysterious Demon Sect Leader was also killed.
However, when he took off the mask, he found that the other party was actually a woman, and Nangong Wu said before he died that it was the false sect leader who was killed.
After a massacre, Ye Nianci and Ouyang Hongying escaped from death.
However, Ouyang Hongying's casual words woke up Ye Nianci.
Maybe he was wrong from the beginning, but the murderer was indeed hidden from himself from the beginning.
Therefore, Ye Nianci returned to Biyan Temple alone and exposed the truth to his face:
It turned out that all the conspiracies were committed by the Great Humble Master, who was the Demon Sect Leader.
In order to practice magic skills, he snatched the Night Pearl, and worried that his friend Ye Lingyu would find out the truth, he killed him.
After that, he repeatedly patted the protector under the seat to conspire against Ye Nianci, and guided the other party all the way into the trap he had arranged.
At this time, the great clumsy magic was accomplished, so he boldly confessed his identity and prepared to kill Ye Nianci to extinguish his mouth.
Although Ye Nianci's martial arts were inferior to Da's, he used his ingenuity to skillfully use a dark weapon to blind Da's eyes.
The pearl was then sprinkled on the ground, making the blind Man stand unsteadily, and killed him with a sword.
At this point, the evil desires of the Demon Sect have been purged, the Night Pearl has been recaptured, and all the storms seem to have ended.
That night, Ye Nianci and Ouyang Hongying said goodbye to the wine.
Ye Nianci was grateful that her time was short, and she had a lot of words in her heart for a while, but she didn't know how to confide in Hongying.
Unexpectedly, Ouyang Hongying had already poisoned the wine.
While Ye Nianci was dying, the other party told him the truth:
In fact, her name was not Sima Yan, nor was she Ouyang Hongying, but the bodyguard of Prince Yaxian of the State of Vala.
The Pearl of the Night was secretly given to the King of Nanyang as a gift to the Kingdom of Vala, but was robbed halfway through and he was ordered to regain the jewelry.
It just happened to meet Ye Nianci to track down the truth, so she pretended to deceive the trust of the other party, but in fact she used Ye Nianci to investigate the case to seize the treasure.
Ye Nianci could never have imagined that the girl she admired would actually have to deceive herself again and again, and even kill herself.
Looking at the dying Ye Nianci, the demuhua left a deep kiss and left with sadness and regret.
Then, she went to the dock and handed the orb to her brother.
Demuhua completed the task, but at this time, she was unwilling to leave, it turned out that she had already fallen in love with Ye Nianci.
After killing her beloved with her own hands, she also chose to drink poisonous wine and be martyred, at this time the poison had entered the five internal organs.
However, the story reversal is here again!
Not only was Ye Nianci not poisoned, but that strange poison actually cured Ye Nianci of her terminal illness and made his skills soar.
Ye Nianci chased his horse to the dock, only to see the poisoned and dead deplanting flower, which made him grief.
The brother of the demuhua wanted to avenge the sister, and Ye Nianci, who was sad and angry, actually used the eighth weight of the Ruyi Escape Sword.
Under a sword, seal the throat of several people.
But even though God has accomplished great things, he can never change back to the person in front of him.
He left alone, carrying a jewel and a sword hanging from his waist, and rushed to Kyoto on horseback, vowing to expose the truth about the King of Nanyang.
Behind him were all the killers who wanted to seize the Pearl of the Night, and only then did he understand the words spoken by his father:
No one in the world can live a dashing and free life, and no one in the jianghu can cultivate the ninth level of the Ruyi Escape Sword...
Even from today's point of view, this "Sinister Jianghu Escape Sword" is a well-made martial arts movie.
The film was released in the last year of the 1980s, when the boom in martial arts films that blew up from "Shaolin Temple" has gradually subsided, and the influence of ancient costume martial arts films has been greatly reduced, but it is in this period of decline that this rare masterpiece of mainland martial arts films was born.
The crew went to Heyuan, Guangdong to shoot, the photography is extremely elaborate, and the scene is even more beautiful, showing the simple and atmospheric style.
The martial arts instructor is yu Chenghui, a famous martial arts instructor who played Wang Renze in "Shaolin Temple", and also showed his best two-handed swordplay in detail in the movie, which is impressive.
In terms of actors, Sun Chenxi, who plays the male protagonist, is a Martial Arts student of Peking Opera, and was discovered by the great director Xu Anhua at the age of 14 to star in the martial arts blockbuster "Book of Swords and Enmity", playing Chen Jialuo's book boy Xinyan.
After that, he entered the film circle, and became a famous martial arts star in the 1980s and 1990s with his athletic skills and handsome appearance, and successively starred in many martial arts films such as "Sinister Jianghu Escape Sword", "Flying God Mouse", "Pretty Luo Cheng", "Strange Hero Pretty Girl Hot River", "Crazy Dragon Hero" and so on.
However, at the peak of her career, Sun Chenxi chose to fade out of the screen. In the years since, he has not set foot in the show business circle, and has been focusing on the drama stage. Later, Sun Chenxi, who had been silent for many years, made a comeback. He has also starred in some well-known dramas, and the more well-known is the role of Xie Tianhua in "Ping Trace".
The heroine Zhao Xueqin was also a famous film actress in the 1980s, she was only 19 years old when she starred in this film, and as a result, she became famous and became a martial arts goddess in the hearts of many audiences at that time, and then participated in classic movies such as "Wisdom Cracking Strange Case".
The most outstanding part of the film is undoubtedly the script, the screenwriter is obviously influenced by the martial arts novels of Hong Kong and Taiwan at that time, especially the choreography style of the whole story, which is basically modeled on the style of gulong novels, combining suspense detectives with martial arts revenge, the plot twists and turns, the story is strange and peaked, the suspense is cloudy, while creating a martial arts world of happiness and revenge, it also reflects the greed and belly blackness of human nature through a conspiracy to stir up martial arts, which are common elements of gulong novels.
The protagonist of the story is a teenager with a deep vengeance in the sea of blood, relying on the sword techniques and swords left by his father to break into the rivers and lakes alone, but because he is not deeply involved in the world, he has been poisoned many times. At the same time, the dangers of the jianghu are beyond the imagination of teenagers, which makes his adventure path foggy.
The most impressive thing in the film is a dialogue between the male and female protagonists, which exhausts the helplessness and sadness behind the children of the jianghu.
Ye Nianci: I am envious of that eagle, sometimes animals are much happier than people.
Sima Yan: Of course, they all live for themselves.
Ye Nianci: What about us?
Sima Yan: People seem to be managed by many involuntary things when they are born.
This dialogue undoubtedly echoes the final ending of the film, it turns out that the real culprit is actually the most trusted person around him, and although the protagonist finally unlocks the truth, the price can be exchanged for the lover's yin and yang.
Exactly in response to the classic quote of the martial arts world written by Gu Long in "The Legend of Chu Liuxiang":
People in the rivers and lakes, involuntarily, love and hatred are difficult, and enmity is endless.