1985 was an extraordinary year for Hong Jinbao.
This year's "HongJia Class" has successively launched four works: "Fuxing Gaozhao", "Summer Fuxing", "Dragon's Heart" and "Mr. Zombie". These four works became the first, second, fourth and fifth places in the Hong Kong film box office rankings that year.
As a result, Hong Jinbao also became the "most box office appeal" filmmaker above the Hong Kong film market at that time.
After the highlight of 1985, Hong Jinbao in 1986 also riveted and launched a large-scale action comedy film work, "Rich Train".
This "Rich Train" is based on a "strange case of the Republic of China". When the film was released, it was abruptly cut, but with a luxurious cast, the film still achieved good box office results. The box office era of "Hong Jiaban" also turned after the film.
In this issue, we will talk about this "Rich Train" and talk about the anecdotes in front of and behind the scenes of the film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > adapted from the action comedy "Strange Case of the Republic of China" </h1>
On a train, the passengers are either rich or expensive, and in the process of traveling, the train is hijacked by a group of bandits, and these passengers who are not rich and expensive have fallen into the hands of bandits. The plot design of "Rich Train" may make many viewers feel absurd. How can it be so coincidental, so many "rich and noble gentry", but all appeared on the same train.
In fact, our lives are more absurd than movies. This absurd film story is adapted from a real "case", which is one of the "Ten Strange Cases of the Republic of China", the "Lincheng Train Robbery".
On May 5, 1923, a train from Nanjing Pukou to Tianjin was hijacked in Lincheng, Shandong. Most of the passengers on this train are from prominent backgrounds, including Yang Qishan, the son-in-law of Yuan Shikai, Powell, editor-in-chief of the Miller's Review, Andison's adviser to the US General Affairs Department, and Ru Ann, counselor of the French Legation.
The train was hijacked by a group of bandits led by Sun Meiyao. In 1923, the Beiyang warlords carried out a campaign to eliminate bandits in the Shandong region.
In order to protect herself, Sun Meiyao led the men and horses, hijacked the train, and negotiated with the Beiyang warlords at that time. He hoped that the Beiyang warlords would stop the "suppression of bandits" plan and integrate their own ranks.
After the "carjacking incident", Britain, the United States, France, Italy, and Belgium successively put pressure on the "Beiyang government" at that time. Under "international pressure", the Beiyang warlords agreed to negotiate with Sun Meiyao.
On June 12, 1923, after the two sides reached a final negotiating consensus, Sun Meiyao's men and horses were incorporated into the "Eleventh Brigade of the New Formation of Shandong". The passengers who were abducted were also safely rescued.
However, the Beiyang warlords are not good stubble. In December 1923, Zhang Peirong, the town guard of Yanzhou, was "ordered" to entertain Sun Meiyao, but at the banquet, Zhang Peirong killed Sun Meiyao, and the "Eleventh Brigade of the New Shandong Organization" disappeared after that.
The "Lincheng Train Robbery" was extremely sensational at the time, and the Republic of China novelist Yao Min'ai also wrote the novel "The Legend of Shandong Xiangma" based on this case, which became one of the "Five Legends of Kaishan" of modern martial arts novels (the other four are: Pingjiang Buxiaosheng's "Legend of jianghu qixia", "modern chivalrous hero biography", "jianghu weird biography" and Zhao Huanting's "Qixia Jingzhong's complete biography").
In the early 1980s, Hong Jinbao was widely acclaimed on the big screen of Hong Kong films with his works such as "Ghost Fighting Ghosts", "Beware of Small Hands" and "Five Lucky Stars" trilogy.
However, these works are mainly based on small indoor scenes, and lack the scheduling and performance of large scenes. In order to break through himself, Hong Jinbao decided to make a creative attempt on the film story of the big scene.
As a result, the story of the "Lincheng Train Robbery" has become the focus of Hong Jinbao's attention. "Robbing the train" on the railway, this scene is very grand just thinking about it.
In this "Rich Train", Hong Jinbao incorporated a lot of Western elements. Of course, this may also be very closely related to the theme of the story of the movie "Robbing the Train".
In 1903, american director Edwin Baut made the silent black-and-white film The Great Train Robbery. Although the work is only 12 minutes long, it is the first western to be created.
In the years that followed, "train robbery" became a classic creative routine for Westerns. In 1986's "Rich Train", Hong Jinbao also imitated the style of Westerns and filmed the film.
It is worth mentioning that in "Rich Train", Hong Jinbao also paid tribute to the 1966 Western classic "Django". The role of "Rifle" played by Zhong Zhentao in "Rich Train", whether it is style, personality, or weapon configuration, is very similar to the male protagonist in "Django".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="31" > Hong Jinbao's "Rich Train"</h1>
Compared with the real "Lincheng Train Robbery", this "Rich Train" has withdrawn from a specific era background and carried out a more comedic plot process in the creative process.
Next, let's talk about the "train robbery" under Hong Jinbao's lens.
At the beginning of the movie, the "international thief" Cheng Fangtian (played by Hong Jinbao) is hunted by "Detective" Lai Fu (played by Zhong Zhentao) and flees all the way to the Border between China and Russia to Beiping.
In Beiping, Cheng Fangtian meets his old lover "Xiaohong" (played by Zheng Wenya). Tired of the wandering life, Cheng Fangtian plans to return to his hometown "Hanshui Town" to live a peaceful life.
At this time, Xiaohong's 5 sisters suffered, and Cheng Fangtian had to take 5 people with him and rush to "Hanshui Town".
A train from Shanghai to Sichuan carries a group of high-ranking passengers. These passengers were "either rich or expensive", and this train was also known as the "rich and noble".
The bandits divided into two routes, one from Shanghai to the "Fugui", monitoring the situation on the car along the way. The other road sets up an ambush in the "Big Riverbed" near Chongqing, and when the train arrives, it will take action.
The area around the Great Riverbed is sparsely populated, with only one Hanshui town. It was this Hanshui town that disrupted the bandits' plans.
The security captain of Hanshui Town, "Ah Wei" (played by Zeng Zhiwei), led his men to take advantage of the fire and robbery, ransacked the town's "money house", and fled with the money.
In order to arrest "Ah Wei" and others, the mayor (played by Hu Feng) promoted the fire captain "Cao Zhuojian" (played by Yuan Biao) to become the new security captain, and was fully responsible for the arrest of "Ah Wei".
Cao Zhuojian had just taken office, and Cheng Fangtian led 5 Xiaohong people to Hanshui Town. Cao Zhuojian knew that Cheng Fangtian was an "international thief", so he sent people to closely monitor him to prevent accidents.
An inn in Hanshui Town is the legacy of Cheng Fangtian's mother. Cheng Fangtian planned to revitalize the hotel, but the location of Hanshui Town was remote, and there were no tourists on the way to and from.
In order to attract business, Cheng Fangtian decided to blow up the railway and forcibly left the passengers on the train in Hanshui Town.
Because the fire road was blown up, the Fugui stopped in Hanshui Town. Ah Wei, who had looted the "Qianzhuang", wanted to pick up the train and flee to Chongqing, but was captured by Cao Zhuojian in Hanshui Town.
In order to capture Cheng Fangtian, the "Divine Detective" Laifu also came to Hanshui Town. With the help of Cao Zhuojian, Cheng Fangtian was also taken down by Laifu.
The bandits were ambushed in the big riverbed, and did not wait for the train. So they searched along the railway and came to Hanshui Town.
In Hanshui Town, Cao Zhuojian, Laifu, and Cheng Fangtian, together with the passengers on the train, launched a big duel with the bandits. After the melee, the bandits were annihilated, and the story of "Rich Train" came to an end.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="60" > was abruptly cut before it was released</h1>
In this "Rich Train", Hong Jinbao designed a lot of action scenes and invited many celebrities to help. Even the theme song of the movie is sung by Su Rui, the "diva of the music world".
At the beginning of the film, it lasted more than two hours. When it was released, in order to increase the amount of film scheduling for the film, "Jiahe" made a certain deletion of the original plot and became 97 minutes.
Like in the end credits of the film, Xie Xian, Deborah, Chen You and others are mentioned, who originally played the passengers on the "Rich And Noble". Before the train departs, there is a large section of footage introducing passengers. However, with the temporary deletion before the release, many passenger scenes have been deleted.
In addition to the scenes of the passengers, the action sections in the film have also been deleted to varying degrees.
For example, at the beginning of the film, Hong Jinbao is captured by "Soviet soldiers". In the wooden house, there is first a scene of Hong Jinbao's "grabbing food" action code, and then Hong Jinbao performs and dances. However, the "food grab" drama was removed.
At the end of the film, there is also a funny section of the Little Red 5 Sisters vs Bandits, which was also deleted in the subsequent 97-minute version.
After the release of "Rich Train", "Jiahe" has released a 102-minute "international version" and a 109-minute "English Blu-ray version" for it, and those deleted clips have also appeared one by one in the following versions.
It is worth mentioning that "Rich Train" also has a 90-minute "Blu-ray Chinese Version", which is also a more mainstream version on the Internet now.
This version, the original 97-minute version, has been further modified. Deleted Qian Xiaohao's drama, also deleted Hong Jinbao's speech in the Qinglou, and also deleted the "kissing scene" between Guan Zhilin and Yuan Biao.
This "Rich Train" is a breakthrough in Hong Jinbao's creative style.
In 1985, Jackie Chan's "Police Story" allowed Hong Jinbao to see the market potential of big-scene action films. After completing the "Five Blessings Star Trilogy", Hong Jinbao also began to abandon the style of small scene fighting and experimented with large scene action movies.
In "Rich Train", Hong Jinbao designed a lot of big scene action scenes in the first half of the movie. However, with the arrival of the "Rich Gui" in Hanshui Town, the film returns to the small scene of the "Hongjiaban" fist and foot fight.
With a luxurious cast, this "Rich Train" surpassed the box office market in 1986, achieving a box office record of more than 28 million, becoming the second place in the box office that year (the champion was "The True Colors of Heroes").
After "Rich Train", Hong Jinbao filmed "Oriental Condor" in 1987, further exploring the big-scene action movie.
However, "Oriental Condor" and "Rich Train" made the same mistake, laying the groundwork for various large scenes in the early stages, but in the end it returned to small scenes to fight, relying on a fist and foot to solve all problems.
In the early 1980s, the action movie style of "Hong Jiaban" small scene fighting began to be popular on the big screen of Hong Kong films. In the mid-to-late 1980s, the audience was already somewhat aesthetically tired of this kind of "small scene style".
At this time, Hong Jinbao was also aware of the changes in the audience's tastes. However, in the two works of "Rich Train" and "Oriental Vulture", Hong Jinbao's transformation of large-scene action films was not successful.
Both works are "high open and low walking", and the atmosphere of the film is very grand by relying on large scenes in the early stage. However, in the second half, it gradually returned to the style of small scene action movies.
1986's "Rich Train", with a luxurious cast, achieved good box office results. However, 1987's "Oriental Condor" suffered market setbacks.
After "Oriental Condor", Hong Jiaban's film works began to suffer box office setbacks one after another, with profits and losses.
In 1992, Hong Jinbao's "Baohe Film" was discontinued. In 1995, Hong Jinbao's "Baoxiang Film" was completed. With the collapse of these "movie titles", the box office era of Hong Jiaban has completely ended.
And 1986's "Rich Train" also became the last box office peak of "Hongjiaban".