In 1963, Jin Yong began serializing the novel "Tianlong Babu" in Both Ming Pao and Singapore's Nanyang Shang Bao, which ended in May 1966, and the novel was serialized for four years, with a total of 1.5 million words, which is the largest number of words in Jin Yong's novels.
Jin Yong took the Buddhist concept of the "Eight Heavenly Dragons" (Heaven, Dragon, Night Fork, Gandharva, Asura, Yingloula, Chennara, Andara Ying), although it is a non-human god and monster, it constitutes the sentient beings of the world together with people, so as to use it as the title of the book, using it to metaphorically refer to the many characters of different personalities, different sutras, and different destinies in the novel.
The original work of "Tianlong Babu" is huge, the novel has a large number of characters, and the creation is profound, and the story pattern is grand, mainly based on the legendary experience of xiao Feng, the former gang leader of the Gang, Duan Yu of Dali Guoshizi, and the Shaolin monk XuZhu, which is the main line, and then leads to the martial feuds and ethnic contradictions between the kingdoms of Song, Liao, Dali, Xixia, Tubo and Jurchen, depicting a magnificent picture of classical rivers and lakes.
In 1977, Shaw filmed the first version of the film "Tianlong Babu", written by Ni Kuang, a writer who has focused on the magic reform of Jin Yong for 20 years, and Li Xiuxian played the protagonist Duan Yu. The film is only 77 minutes short, and it is a version of "Tianlong Eight Parts" without Qiao Feng and Virtual Bamboo.
Because of the limited duration of the film, the screenwriter only adapted less than one-tenth of the plot of the original novel, mainly to get acquainted with Zhong Ling and Mu Wanqing's "recognized sister" adventure at the beginning of the novel, and at the same time interspersed with the family dog blood ethics drama caused by his father Duan Zhengchun due to the debt of the wind, not only the plot is embarrassing, the special effects are also very thunderous.
In 1982, it was the "Year of tianlong" in the history of film, and three "Tianlong Eight" film and television dramas were launched in this year.
The most influential, of course, is that TVB launched a 50-episode drama version of "Tianlong Babu", which also has the problem of plot changes, such as: the screenwriter made Murong Bo the most powerful villain, and finally it was up to Duan Yu, Xuan Zhu and Xiao Yuanshan to work together and even sacrifice two of them to defeat it.
But there is no harm in comparison, compared to the 77 movie version, the 82 drama version is already very faithful to the original in the story.
In the same year, Shaw also produced a movie "Gang Rules". But perhaps because of the failure of the 77 version of the film, Shaw simply removed the name of the original book this time, completely changed the characters and the background of the times, and only took the plot of Qiao Feng in the novel from helping to being accused of being a descendant of the enemy country as the main line, and made a martial arts version of the jianghu gangster film.
In addition to the above two film and television dramas, in the same year, there was also a movie "New Tianlong Eight Parts" released.
The drama is starred by the original team of the TVB drama version, Chen Yulian, Tang Zhenye, Huang Rihua returned to star in the movie, the director is also the director of the drama version of Xiao Sheng, but the actor of Qiao Feng in the film was replaced by Xu Shaoqiang, although the lineup is also good, but the influence is far less than the drama version of the same year, so it has become an unpopular work in the remake of "Tianlong".
In this issue of "Forgotten Hong Kong Films", let's talk about this movie version of "Tianlong Babu" -
"New Tianlong Babu"
Demi-Gods and Demi-Devils
As is customary, let's start with casting.
Because the director, screenwriter and producer of this film are all the director of the drama version of Xiao Sheng, so the film version also invited several leading actors in the drama version, Huang Rihua played by Xuan Zhu, Tang Zhenye played by Duan Yu, Chen Yulian played by Wang Yuyan, in the 82 drama version is very popular with the audience, so they all returned to play their respective roles, and even the shape of the characters in the film is basically copied from the drama version.
Playing Qiao Feng in the film is Xu Shaoqiang, who became popular in the year because he starred in the classic martial arts drama "Heavenly Silkworm Change" filmed by Xiao Sheng, and later starred in many martial arts dramas, which is the representative of the heroes on the screen, so although there is no Liang Jiaren in the drama version, Qiao Feng, played by Xu Shaoqiang, is even better than the drama version in terms of image temperament.
Who would have thought that 12 years later, the "Qiao Gang Lord" would become the main villain Ding Chunqiu in the movie "Tianshan Tongmao"?
The actor who plays Aju in the movie is Taiwanese actress Lin Zhenqi, who played the role of Zhong Ling as early as the 1977 Shaw version of "Tianlong Babu".
It is worth mentioning that Hui Tianci just finished playing the gang leader Qiao Feng in the Shaw movie "Gang Rules", turned around and played Murong Fu in "New Tianlong Eight Parts", and many years later he played Qiao Feng in the 1990 Taiwanese drama version of "Tianlong Eight Parts", becoming the only actor who spanned the two roles of Qiao Feng and Murong Fu.
And the supporting cast in the movie version is also excellent, Kaohsiung plays the Tubo guoshi Jiumozhi, Liu Jiang plays Yelü Hongji, at least from the casting point of view, this film version of "Tianlong Babu" is still in line with the original work.
Tell the story again.
The film opens at the Tianlong Temple in Dali, where Duan Zhengchun and the senior monks of the Tianlong Temple have an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with the Tubo master Jiu Mozhi, who came to ask for the secret of the Six-Pulse Excalibur.
A major feature of this film is that because of the limited duration, the screenwriter has to retain some conflicts and main plots in the original work, so it adopts the adaptation method of the very tou machine (lan), many background settings and stories are explained through the character lines, and the actors are often allowed to read out the motivation of the role.
Duan Zhengchun was worried that he would not be able to defeat Jiu Mozhi, so the senior monks of the Tianlong Temple asked Duan Zhengchun to also go out of his home to practice the Six-Pulse Excalibur and deal with strong enemies together, but in this film, Zhong Zhengchun was the Emperor of Dali, and the senior monk of the Tianlong Temple let Duan Zhengchun pass the throne to the prince Duan Yu first.
As a result, Duan Zhengchun told the senior monk that his son Duan Yuxiwen was tired of martial arts, and in order to evade discipline, he had recently sneaked out of the palace again.
Immediately the picture cut to Duan Yu's side, at this time Duan Yu was being chased and killed by a group of people, it turned out that it was because Duan Yu had privately broken into the forbidden land of the Infinite Sword Sect, so he was hunted down.
Duan Yu, who was on the run, accidentally swallowed the Mang zhu clam, and accidentally crashed into the cave and met the immortal sister.
In order to save the cost of props, the crew directly let the actors themselves play the statue.
Duan Yu found the secret of "Ling Bo Microstep" in the cave without kowtowing, and as a result, he turned two pages and easily learned it.
At this time, the Infinite Sword Sect found Duan Yu who had walked out of the cave, and at the critical moment, the palace guards found Duan Yu and escorted him back to the palace. However, at this time, Yu Yu was poisoned by the clams, and Duan Zhengchun quickly asked the senior monks of the Tianlong Temple to join hands to rescue him.
Just at this time, Hatsuma Zhi came to kick the pavilion, and the abbot of Tianlong Temple handed over the secret of the Six-Pulse Excalibur to Duan Yu.
This plot basically restores the original novel, although the senior monks of The TenryuJi Temple joined forces to fight, they still could not defeat Hatsuma Zhi. At a critical juncture, Duan Yu taught himself to be a self-taught man, and used a six-veined Excalibur to successfully repel Hatsuma Zhi.
Ji Mo zhi saw that Duan Yu had been abducted and planned to take him hostage to Murong Fu and hand him over to Murong Fu.
As a result, Halfway Yu used Ling Bo to sneak away, accidentally hit and bumped into Mantuo Mountain Villa, and became acquainted with Wang Yuyan and Murong Family's maid Aju. Duan Yu thought that The Wang girl was the fairy he had seen in the cave, and he immediately fell in love.
However, Wang Yuyan was concerned about his cousin Murong Fu, but Murong Fu was full of martial arts training and restoring the country, and at this time, although he had a cousin who was familiar with the martial arts of the world, he could only get the supreme mastery of the Eighteen Palms of the Descending Dragon and the Six-Pulse Excalibur, so he was very distressed.
At this time, Murong Fu saw Duan Yu, who was about to be executed as a flower fertilizer, in Mantuo Mountain Villa, and took the initiative to save him, but in fact, he saw Duan Yu's dog-licking nature and planned to use Duan Yu's unrequited love for Wang Girl to trick Duan Yu into writing a secret.
Duan Yu licked and licked, but still had a principled bottom line, and refused to write out the secret of the Six Pulse Excalibur.
Murong Fu saw that the beauty plan did not work, so he planned to come hard and threaten Duan Yu to hand over the secret.
As a result, the kind Lady Wang stopped Murong Fu and quietly let Duan Yu go.
Coming out of mantuo mountain villa, Duan Yu actually came to the apricot forest and encountered the identity crisis incident of Qiao Feng, the leader of the gang.
The conflict of this story is explained by a large line of dialogue, which is summarized as having an anti-bone boy Quan Guanqing in the beggar gang, who knows the secret of Qiao Feng's life, so he frantically brings rhythm to make the gang suspect that the original horse deputy gang leader was killed by Qiao Feng.
This plot was greatly simplified, there was no Lady Ma, no tan gong Tan Po, Zhao Qiansun and other characters, in the absence of witnesses, Quan Guanqing only relied on a letter that did not even have a signature, let Qiao Feng believe the fact that he was a Liao.
Qiao Feng broke away from the gang, duan Yu witnessed the whole process, and offered to marry Qiao Feng as a brother.
Qiao Feng did not resign and directly agreed to come down, but the two worshipped verbally, and did not even kneel down.
The next plot is also very confusing, Qiao Feng, without knowing the identity of the leading big brother, actually broke into the Shaolin Temple at night and met Arjun who went to the Shaolin Temple in disguise to steal the "Yi Jian Jing".
At this time, Arjun was injured by the Palm of Hercules and his life was hanging in the balance. Although Qiao Feng and Aju met for the first time, in order to save Aju, Qiao Feng decided to return to the Central Plains and asked Xue Shen doctor of Juxian Mountain Villa to heal him.
The Juxian Mountain Villa had already ordered the same people in the jianghu to kill Qiao Feng, but they did not expect that Qiao Feng's side would take the initiative to send it to the door, so Qiao Feng made a big fuss about Juxian Zhuang and completely broke with the Central Plains Wulin.
No one expected that Qiao Gang Lord would not actually use the Eighteen Palms of the Dragon, but would use a knife instead!
Qiao Feng, who took the knife, was indeed halved in combat effectiveness, and was injured by the people of Juxian Zhuang, and a generation of heroes fell to the point where they could only seize the door and flee.
On the way to escape, Qiao Feng actually encountered the help of the owner of the Spirit Vulture Palace, The Virtual Bamboo, who was already a top master at this time, that is to say, the contents of the Tianshan Tong Yao, Wuyazi, and Li Qiushui in the original work were all skipped.
Xuan Zhu claimed to admire Qiao Feng very much, so the two married Jinlan for a while. However, while Qiao Feng was recuperating from his injuries in the Ling Vulture Palace, he learned that the Central Plains martial arts masters who pursued and killed Qiao Feng had all been killed, and that they were killed by the Murong family's "returning the other body with the other way".
In order to track down the real culprit, Qiao Feng took The False Bamboo with him to find Murong Fu to question the truth, so he met Aju, who had recovered from his injuries.
Murong Fu claimed to be innocent, but instead deliberately pointed the enemy who killed Qiao Feng's parents at Yanmen Pass thirty years earlier to Duan Zhengchun, the king of Dali.
Good fellow, Murong Fu This is Kang Min's possession!
Arjun overheard Qiao Feng's conversation with Murong Fu, and then Arjun died in place of Duan Zhengchun, and was killed by Qiao Feng's three slaps.
After Duan Zhengchun fell to the ground, Qiao Feng found that it was Aju Yirong.
Before dying, Arjun told Qiao Feng that she was Duan Zhengchun's illegitimate daughter.
After Ah Zhu's death, Qiao Feng was discouraged and decided to quit the Central Plains Wulin and return to khitans.
On the other hand, Duan Yu, who had been offline for a long time, went online again, and was actually arrested by Hatsuma Zhi and returned to Mando Mountain Villa.
Murong Fu asked his cousin to use the beauty trick again, tricking Duan Yu into writing the secret, and Murong Fu and Murong Fu were also using each other, and Murong Fu had already guessed that the martial artists who pursued and killed Qiao Feng were killed by Jiu Mozhi, in order to make Qiao Feng and Murong Fu fight each other.
Duan Yu was sad about the beauty of Guan, and actually said the secret, and as a result, Hatsumo Zhi took the opportunity to hold the Wang girl who knew the Six-Pulsed Excalibur hostage, and also instigated Murong Gongzi to go to Western Xia, participate in the Western Xia Princess Contest to recruit relatives, contact Western Xia and Khitan to complete the grand plan of restoration.
Murong Fu originally wanted to save his cousin, but the temptation to help him become a Western Xia horse was too great to resist The temptation to help him become a Western Xia horse, after all, power was more important than love, so he agreed to let Jiu Mozhi take Wang Yuyan away.
Duan Yu discovered that Wang Girl had been captured by Ji Mozhi, so he ventured to rescue Wang Yuyan. As a result, Lady Wang still did not have a dead heart for Murong Fu, and Duan Yu, as the ultimate licking dog, promised to take her to Western Xia and prevent her cousin from becoming a Western Xia horse.
The Princess of Western Xia held a contest to recruit relatives, and Duan Yu and Xuan Zhu rushed to Western Xia together to participate in the contest.
Xuan Zhu defeated Murong Fu, and as a result, Jiu Mozhi sneaked in from the side, Duan Yu saw the situation and struck, and the two competed for internal strength, and as a result, Jiu Mozhi was sucked up by Duan Yu's internal strength, and from then on he converted to Buddhism and abandoned evil and good.
In the end, Duan Yu voluntarily abstained, and Xu Zhu won the victory of the contest and became a Western Xia horse.
Murong Fu, who was defeated, suffered such a blow that he eventually lost consciousness.
Duan Yu and Wang Yuyan were also in agreement, but at this time, Xuanzhu brought news that Qiao Feng, the eldest brother who had returned to the Khitans, had suddenly become the king of the Southern Courtyard, and was suddenly imprisoned for preventing the king from entering the Song Dynasty.
Duan Yu and Xuan Zhu traveled to Khitan to rescue Qiao Feng to yanmen pass on the border between Khitan and the Great Song.
However, on the side of the Central Plains Wulin, it also received information that the Liao people would invade the Song on a large scale, so the Shaolin abbot took the lead and planned to go to Yanmen Pass to block the Liao. The Shaolin abbot was at the oath-taking meeting before the departure, and he revealed that he was the leading big brother.
As a result, the leading big brother claimed to regret it because he killed Qiao Feng's parents by mistake thirty years ago, but he also said that the Liao people wanted to invade Song, and he really did not misread them, and his heart would be different if he was not of my race.
Therefore, when Qiao Feng and them came to Yanmen Pass, the Shaolin abbot led the Central Plains Wulin to block it, and then the Khitan king led the troops to pursue and kill, so that Qiao Feng was attacked on his back.
After learning that the enemy who killed his father thirty years ago was the abbot of Shaolin, Qiao Feng did not continue to make enemies with Zhongyuan.
Instead, he grabbed Yelü Hongji and forced him to promise not to invade the Great Song again, and then cut off his own life.
This concludes the story of the film.
The film was filmed in 1982 and is funded and produced by New Century Pictures.
At that time, the TVB drama version was a fire in Hong Kong, and was introduced and broadcast by Taiwan's China Television the following year, which set a staggering rating of 70% and set off a boom in Hong Kong dramas in Taiwan in the 1980s, which led to the Taiwanese television industry began to follow the trend of shooting Jin Yong martial arts dramas.
The producer, New Century Pictures itself, is a Taiwanese film dealer, and at that time, it saw the popularity of the TVB drama version of "Tianlong Eight Parts", so in order to rub a wave of heat, it quickly found the director of the drama version, Xiao Sheng, and several leading actors in the play, and followed the trend to shoot this movie version of "New Tianlong Eight Parts".
And because the TVB version of "Tianlong" was divided into upper and lower parts at that time, the first part of "Six Pulse Excalibur" 30 episodes, the next part is "Legend of the Virtual Bamboo" 20 episodes, the interval between the upper and lower parts was four months before it was broadcast, and the broadcast cycle was very long. Therefore, this "New Tianlong Eight Parts" directly promoted the selling point as: the original TV class + TV can not see the picture.
Even when it was released in Taiwan, it was directly renamed "Tianlong Eight Finale", in order to attract audiences who had not yet had the opportunity to see the ending on TV into the theater.
This version of the movie "Tianlong Eight Parts" and the Shaw film version are completely different, the Shaw version is the main creator knows that the original work is too large, so the movie can only shoot a small part of the original content plus a large magic change, and the 82 version of "New Tianlong Eight Parts" Since the main "big ending" of the original work, so it is necessary to let the audience see the main characters and main story in the original work.
The film deleted too many supporting roles and plot lines, Qiao Feng's part, Arjun actually has only a few scenes, the love between her and Qiao Feng has become very unconvincing, and the role of Encountering A Zi is not direct, and it is also directly skipped in the Liaoguo part. Duan Yu This part, all the sisters are gone, there is only One heroine left Wang Yuyan, the virtual bamboo appearance is the master of the Spirit Vulture Palace, there is no Tianshan Tong Yao and Menggu, directly rely on Duan Yu to give him the Xixia horse.
In fact, it is not that it cannot be deleted and adapted, but the biggest problem of this film is that the plot is excessively shrunk, resulting in no conflict and climax.
Because of the lack of Lady Ma, Qiao Feng's plot to find the murderer of his parents was actually triggered by Murong Fu's words of marrying Duan Zhengchun. After that, Qiao Feng inexplicably beat Aju to death, and only a line of false bamboo was used later to explain that Qiao Feng participated in the counter-rebellion in the Liao Kingdom and became the king of the Southern Courtyard.
What is disappointing is that according to Jin Yong's original work, Qiao Feng should be a first-class master, but this film is very shabby in the martial arts design, basically all the characters are in the "low martial world", and Qiao Feng's descending dragon eighteen palms have been used once throughout the whole process.
Therefore, although the film is only 100 minutes short, under the drastic deletion of the screenwriter Xiao Sheng, the main plot of the three characters of Duan Yu, Xuan Zhu and Qiao Feng is really compressed into a movie in one movie, and the narrative rhythm is outrageous, which is simply called: more flowing than the flowing account.
In general, although this film has a good casting and the original team of the TV series, it is much inferior to the drama version of the same period, the plot is cut by more than half, it fails to present the strict pattern of the original work, and the ideology tends to be more non-existent, more like a mediocre and inferior work.