Writer Liu Zhixia's novel "Railway Guerrilla", one of the first red classic literary works after the founding of the People's Republic of China, was made into a movie of the same name in 1956, and has become an unforgettable memory in the hearts of several generations.
The old movie "Railway Guerrilla" was produced by Shanghai Film Studio and directed by the well-known director Zhao Ming. In the film, Cao Huiqu, a young drama actor from the military, plays Liu Hong, the captain of the railway guerrillas, and the famous actors Feng Zhe and Qin Yi play the role of Li Zheng, the political commissar of the railway guerrillas, and Fang Lin's sister-in-law, the liaison officer of the guerrilla fortress. Actor Feng Qi plays the deputy captain Wang Qiang, as well as the guerrilla Xiaopo played by Feng Xiao, Lu Han played by Deng Nan, Peng Liang played by Zhong Xinghuo, and Okamura, the captain of the Japanese military police played by Shushu.
Qin Yi, a famous film actor who enjoys the national honorary title of "People's Artist", recalled that the real prototype of the Fang Lin sister-in-law she played in the film "Railway Guerrilla" was three: Liu Guiqing, Shi sister-in-law (Hao Zhen) and Yin sister-in-law (Huang Xueying). They are all outstanding rural women in the early years of Zaozhuang and Lincheng in Shandong.
In the thrilling plot of the film, the plot of the grenade that was not pulled by the string thrown by Fang Lim's sister-in-law to the Japanese devil Okamura is not fictional. Liu Guiqing, one of the prototypes of Fang Lam's sister-in-law, did throw a grenade that did not pull the string at the devil.
When she played Fang Lin's sister-in-law, Qin Yi was 34 years old and in her prime.
The sister-in-law of Fang Lin, played by her, is beautiful and generous, witty and brave, fearless in the face of danger, and has a firm belief in the struggle against the enemy, and has a high influence and appeal among women.
Qin Yi appeared on the screen in 1939 at the age of 17 and has played many tender roles. As the only female lead in the red classic "Railway Guerrillas", she became popular among the audience for her courage and perseverance to cover the anti-Japanese guerrillas and throw a grenade that did not explode.
The love plot between Fanglin's sister-in-law and the captain Liu Hong in the film is actually fictional by the film director.
However, this fictional "flower water" can deceive and confuse many readers and fans because it caters to the psychology of the audience.
Qin Yi recalled many times before her death that there was an intimate scene of her and Captain Liu Hong hugging at the end of the film, but it was later deleted.
Despite this, the faintly visible love between Fanglin's sister-in-law and Liu Hong in the film can be seen by anyone with a discerning eye.
A circulating tidbit said: During a screening of "Railway Guerrillas", the enthusiastic audience who watched the film once surrounded Liu Jinshan, one of the prototypes of Liu Hong, the captain of the Railway Guerrilla Brigade and the commander of the Suzhou Military Division at the time, and kept asking him about the situation with Fang Lin's sister-in-law, and asked Liu Jinshan with a red face, and it was difficult to answer.
When Shanghai Film Studio filmed this film, in order to highlight the authenticity of the train scene in the film, the crew borrowed a locomotive and several carriages from the Shanghai Railway Bureau for the actors to practice.
When filming a scene of the railway guerrillas "Weishan Lake Masquerade Breakthrough", it was supposed to be filmed on location in Weishan Lake. However, after the film crew went to Weishan Lake for a field trip, they felt that the scene was too vast, lacking a reference background, and it was not ideal. So I changed to Wuxi Taihu Lake to shoot this scene.
Qin Yi recalled the past when she was filming on location in Wuxi, Jiangsu, and said that it was a hot summer, and she wanted to shoot a winter scene, so she put on a big cotton jacket and appeared in a big scarf, and her whole body was covered with prickly heat... Qin Yi said that Sister-in-law Fang Lin was a character that she was not very satisfied with, because she was in a hurry at the time and did not do enough for her life experience.
Many people may not know that there are also some behind-the-scenes stories from the crew.
In 1956, when the film started filming, director Zhao Ming specially invited the prototype of the real Captain Liu Hong to help shoot according to the suggestion of screenwriter Liu Zhixia, who was Liu Jinshan, the military consultant in the opening catalog when the movie was released.
During the filming, Liu Jinshan personally demonstrated how to teach Cao Huiqu and other actors how to climb onto a fast-moving train, and even went into battle as a stand-in.
Because the conditions of film production in the 50s were very rudimentary, stunt technology was not yet widespread. In the film, the scene of Captain Liu Hong "picking up a flying car and engaging in machine guns" is a stand-in for Commander Liu Jinshan, who was 41 years old at the time.
There is also a shot of Liu Jinshan driving the train himself, that is, at the end of the film, when Liu Hong rode a horse to save Fang Lin's sister-in-law, he had to break through a train at an intersection. Due to the lack of safety measures, in order to ensure the smooth filming, Liu Jinshan personally went into battle to serve as a train driver.
After the filming of the film was completed, the railway guerrillas that the audience saw were really vigorous and agile, and they were really "climbing on a fast train, like riding a galloping horse", which was a vivid reproduction of the combat life of the railway guerrillas back then.
Based on this, it is not difficult to understand why Marshal Luo Ronghuan said back then: You (the railway guerrillas) are like a steel knife inserted into the enemy's chest!
Checking the historical data, it can be seen that in February 1946 after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, according to the decision of the Lunan District Party Committee and the Lunan Military Region, the number of the Lunan Railway Brigade was revoked, and on this basis, the "Lunan Railway Bureau" was established to manage the Lunan section of the Jinpu Railway Line. Liu Jinshan, who was the second captain of the railway guerrillas at the time, was reappointed deputy director.
In August of the same year, Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang launched a civil war, focusing on attacking the liberated areas of Shandong. In order to delay the enemy's movements, the Lunan Military Region under the Shandong Military Region mobilized some of the backbone cadres of the former Railway Brigade and reorganized the Lunan Railway Brigade of more than 190 people.
At the end of this year, the Lunan Railway Brigade was reorganized into the 2nd Battalion of the Special Service Regiment of the Lunan Military Region, with Liu Jinshan as the deputy regiment commander and the commander of the 2nd Battalion.
In January 1947, he led his troops to participate in the Lunan Campaign and brilliantly completed the blocking mission. In October 1948, Liu Jinshan's unit was reorganized into the 139th Regiment of the 47th Division of the South Column of Central and Southern Lu, and later changed to the 307th Regiment of the 103rd Division.
When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, Liu Jinshan was promoted to the head of the regiment and led his troops to Jinhua, Zhejiang, to participate in the fight against bandits.
After 1950, Liu Jinshan successively served as chief of staff of the Eighth Army Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Military Region and chief of staff of a division of the Zhejiang Provincial Military Region, and led his troops to participate in the capture of Dongtou Island, where the Kuomintang army was entrenched.
Prior to this, in 1949, Xu Huihua, as a female guerrilla fighter of the Zhejiang "Jinxiao Detachment", was added to Liu Jinshan's unit as a cultural instructor. After going back and forth, the two developed feelings, and Xu Huihua, who was 25 years old at the time, and Liu Jinshan, who was 35 years old at the time, formed revolutionary partners.
(Liu Jinshan and his new wife Xu Huihua in the autumn of 1949)
In March 1953, Liu Jinshan was ordered to go to the Korean battlefield for field investigation and study, returned to China and went through study and training, and after 1957, he was appointed deputy commander of the Nantong Military Division of Jiangsu Province and was awarded the rank of colonel. In April 1968, he was appointed commander of the Suzhou Military Division, and in 1978, he was reappointed as an adviser to the Nantong Military Division. He was awarded the Medal of Independence and Freedom of the Third Class, the Order of Liberation of the Third Class and the Medal of Merit for Independence. In 1980, he left his post as deputy military officer to recuperate. On August 23, 1995, at the commemoration meeting of the 50th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Jinshan, together with the founding lieutenant general Sun Yi, the survivor of the five heroes of Langya Mountain, Ge Zhenlin, and other old heroes, were cordially received by the central leaders.
(The first from the left in the picture is Liu Jinshan and General Xu Shiyou)
There is an anecdote that after Liu Jinshan retired in 1980, coinciding with the release of the new version of the novel "Railway Guerrillas", some readers asked Liu Jinshan curiously: "Is the sister-in-law Fang Lin in the novel your current wife?"
Liu Jinshan has been disturbed by the story in the novel for decades, and at this moment, he explained with a smile again:
"My wife is also an anti-Japanese guerrilla, her name is Xu Huihua. ”
Liu Jinshan, who had made combat exploits for the establishment of New China, was still concerned about Sangzi in his later years, and he could not forget the land of Lunan where he once lived and fought.
In August 1996, this veteran anti-Japanese hero was critically ill. When he was dying, he told his family that after his death, he must strive to place his ashes near the railway guerrilla monument at the southern foot of Zaozhuang Linshan, so that he could always accompany those comrades-in-arms who had fought side by side together...
Interestingly, in the mid-80s of the last century, a feature film "Sunset on the Green Mountain" with the reputation of "Railway Guerrillas" was released. The director is still Zhao Ming (co-directed with Situ Zhaodun), and the actors are still Cao Huiqu, Qin Yi, Zhong Xinghuo, Feng Qi, Feng Xiao and others.
More than 30 years later, the original cast of the film "Railway Guerrillas" reunited to interpret the modern life of some members of the original Railway Guerrillas. Especially the protagonist of the film, Captain Liu Hong (Cao Huiqu) and Fang Lin's sister-in-law (Wang Xiu played by Qin Yi) teamed up for the second time.
The film is no longer shot by the Shanghai Film Studio, but by the Youth Film Studio of the Beijing Film Academy.
The story told in "Sunset on the Green Mountain" is actually far from the hard life of war. In the film, Liu Hong, the former captain of the railway guerrilla brigade, became the director of an office of the Ministry of Railways and continued to fight for the country on the railway line. In the early summer of 1979, his heart attack worsened, and when he went home to rest and recuperate, he decided to go back to his hometown Weishan Lake with his wife Wang Xiu......
In this film, not only the spirit of revolutionary heroism has been inherited, but also the collision of old and new concepts.
Decades have passed, and screen characters such as Fang Lin's sister-in-law (Wang Xiu), Peng Liang, Wang Qiang, and Xiaopo have returned to the audience again, making countless railway guerrilla fans feel extremely cordial.
What makes fans happy is that in the old movie "Railway Guerrilla", the seemingly nonexistent relationship between Captain Liu Hong and Sister-in-law Fang Lin was confirmed in "Sunset on the Green Mountain", and Lao Hong finally married Sister-in-law Fang Lin and achieved positive results, which can be regarded as fulfilling the "wishes" of many audiences many years ago.
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