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One day in June 1974, Jet Li, who had just won the junior group of the National Wushu Competition, officially embarked on a visit to the United States with the Chinese wushu delegation. After watching Jet Li's performance, Kissinger, who was then the US secretary of state, took the initiative to come to him to shake hands and greet him and asked cordially:
Your martial arts practice is really good, the fight must be very strong, right?
Jet Li, who is only 11 years old, replied after listening: We Chinese learn martial arts not to fight, but to exercise and strengthen our physique to defend the motherland!
This year's Sino-US relations are experiencing unprecedented icebreaking, and Jet Li's childlike and polite answer not only surprised Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, but also made the arrogant AMERICAN media admire. The next day's newspaper headlines praised:
"Jet Li is a Chinese martial arts prodigy with a very diplomatic demeanor!"
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Perhaps, jet Li at that time would not have thought that his performance in the United States not only touched Kissinger, but also made another person think about him for 6 years.
This person is no one else, it is Fu Qi, the owner of the Hong Kong Great Wall Film Company at that time. When the Chinese martial arts delegation returned from a visit to the United States and passed through Hong Kong, Fu Qi specifically approached Jet Li and said to him:
Performing a martial art affects tens of thousands of spectators at best. But if you make a movie to introduce Chinese martial arts, the impact will be great, and when you grow up, you can make martial arts films!
The dream of introducing traditional Chinese martial arts to the world with a movie was planted in the heart of an 11-year-old teenager in 1974.
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Eight years later, in 1982, a sensational kung fu film scene at home and abroad was officially released in the mainland. The lively practical kung fu, the image of the martial monk who supports justice, and the suspenseful script conception make this film set a box office myth of 160 million yuan with a ticket price of 1 cent.
In many places, the audience will not feel tired of watching it more than a dozen times, and even in the countryside, 1 brick can be exchanged for a movie ticket, and the people have picked up the toilets in the village in order to watch this movie.
Since then, the country has set off an unprecedented martial arts fever. The Shaolin Temple has become a well-known martial arts shrine, Jet Li has become the spiritual idol of thousands of teenagers, and the shepherd song has become a singing song in the streets and alleys. Many overseas audiences agreed that the authentic kung fu of martial arts is in China.
See here, perhaps everyone has guessed that this movie that has captivated hundreds of millions of people and made Chinese martial arts go to the world is exactly the "Shaolin Temple" that Dousha wants to talk about today!
Behind the scenes of The Interpretation of Hong Kong Films, tribute to the classics passed down from generation to generation, hello everyone, I am Dousha!
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In March 1972, Jiahe Pictures' "Jingwumen" was screened in Hong Kong. When they saw the notice that Chen Zhen, played by Bruce Lee, punched the Japanese martial artist and kicked the "Chinese and dogs are not allowed to enter", the fans instantly wet their eyes and gave themselves a standing ovation.
Amid the incessant applause, a 64-year-old man was unusually excited. He said this to the comrades who accompanied him to watch the film:
Isn't this a good patriotic film? Since Hong Kong and overseas audiences love to watch martial arts films, then Shaolin Temple and Tai Chi Chuan are not ready-made good themes!
Therefore, a film plan to carry forward the spirit of traditional Chinese martial arts and awaken the patriotic feelings of Hong Kong people was finalized. Seeing this, perhaps everyone will wonder who this 64-year-old man really is?
Yes, he was the head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office at the time, known as Liao Chengzhi of Liao Gong!
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Seven years later, in 1979, hong Kong Great Wall and Phoenix jointly formed Zhongyuan Film Company. After discussion, the script concept of the thirteen-stick monk to save the King of Qin was finally determined. After reading the script, Liao Gong was very satisfied, and he put forward a 10-word instruction to the Hong Kong filmmakers in charge of shooting, that is:
"Ten million miles, up and down five thousand years!"
In just ten words, it has the potential to swallow mountains and rivers.
I thought that the script was excellent, and the support of the superiors would make the film successfully completed, but what happened to the crew next made everyone involved in the shooting feel cold and half cut...
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The producers initially invited Hong Kong director Chen Wen as the director, but due to the winter and the scene was dark, the finished film was not very good. Coupled with the fact that there was no martial arts actor at that time, Chen Wen had to use a large number of actors from the Henan Peking Opera Troupe.
The result of this shooting is that the action filmed is purely the Peking Opera playing style in the theater garden, and it looks like it is neither an action movie nor a pear garden play.
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What made the producers feel even more devastated was that when the Zhongyuan Film Production Company announced that it would shoot "Shaolin Temple", the "Boxing Alliance" in Japan became interested in this kung fu theme. The main thing is that the other party is very financially strong, and negotiated to buy out the rights to the film for distribution in Japan.
But when the film was not even half finished, the Japanese Boxing League regretted it, because they felt that the filming was too bad to affect their reputation, and refused to acquire the copyright to the film, and when they left, they suggested that the film company disband the original crew.
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The devastated Zhongyuan Film Company decided to start all over again, and they heeded the suggestion to disband the original crew and invited director Zhang Xinyan, who was still developing in Hong Kong at the time, to direct. And it was the arrival of Director Zhang that put this on the verge of disbanding the crew back on the right track, which led to the later "Shaolin Temple" that sensationalized the Chinese and foreign film circles and touched hundreds of millions of viewers.
Forty years later, when the 84-year-old Zhang Xinyan talked about the play again in an interview, he sighed and said this sentence: "For a breath"!
In order to "fight for this breath", Zhang Xinyan put forward a new request to the producer, and he said to Fu Qi, the owner of the Great Wall Film Company:
If you want to make a blockbuster movie in the mainland, you must be real! Not only must the shooting scene be realistic, but the actors must also have real kung fu!
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So in the early morning of August 1980, the "Eighteen Elites" of the Chinese martial arts community officially assembled at the Zhongzhou Hotel in Zhengzhou. Among these people are Yu Chenghui (Wang Renze), the king of shandong drunken swords, Yu Hai (master of Tanzong), the king of mantis boxing , Ji Chunhua (vulture) of Zhejiang bald eagle claws , and the monkey stick lying nan fist three absolute Hu qiangqiang (Wukong)!
After putting together all the supporting casts, only the most important question left in front of Director Zhang is who should the protagonist "Jueyuan" little monk find to play?
When Zhang Xinyan was embarrassed to choose the male lead, Fu Qi, the boss of the Great Wall Company, recommended the only candidate to him, and he was Jet Li, who won the five-year national championship of the Beijing Wushu Team!
At this time, although Jet Li was only 17 years old, because of the reason of practicing martial arts for many years, he not only practiced a fist like meteor eyes like electricity, waist like snake-shaped feet like sticky kung fu, but also looked handsome and smart, with a little bit of thickness, which was an excellent candidate to play the young monk of Jueyuan!
Fu Qi's strong recommendation not only fulfilled his promise 6 years ago, but also found the most ideal Jueyuan for this Shaolin Temple.
But to everyone's surprise, when Zhang Dao rushed to Beijing to find Jet Li, he almost didn't even see the shadow of this martial arts prodigy, because at this time he was angry with himself because he was too short!
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It turned out that before filming "Shaolin Temple", Jet Li had just participated in the audition for the movie "Treasure Hunting Outside the Plug". But what surprised Jet Li was that he had been touring everywhere for the country since he was a child and had won the championship, and he had not even been auditioned.
After many inquiries, I learned that the reason why I failed to be selected was not because I didn't play well in kung fu, but because I wasn't tall enough. What makes Jet Li feel even more aggrieved is that the original hard standard for the height of the actors in the crew was one meter seven, but Jet Li, who just turned 17, was only one meter sixty-nine.
This centimeter gap shattered his dream of being an actor since childhood, and at the same time made him mistakenly believe that making a movie did not require real effort.
So when Zhang Xinyan rushed to Beijing to find Jet Li, he hid like a pitiful child.
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Zhang Xinyan had no choice but to find the leader of the Beijing martial arts team and forcibly call Jet Li back through an "executive order" . Perhaps in order to cope with the order, or perhaps still angry with himself, so Jet Li sloppily punched a set of punches in front of Zhang Dao's face, and the final result was that the punches were weak. After the fight, he also grumbled angrily: "I won't be chosen anyway!"
But Zhang Dao had already seen through the careful thinking of this adolescent teenager, and he said this to Jet Li:
Don't come with me to this, I've already chosen you!
In this way, Jet Li, who is only 17 years old, officially entered the Shaolin Temple crew.
Speaking of this, let me tell you an interesting thing, although the box office of the Shaolin Temple is as high as 160 million, but as the male protagonist, Jet Li's film remuneration is less than 300 yuan. What makes Jet Li feel even more unbalanced is that the remuneration of other Hong Kong supporting actors in the same group is as high as several thousand yuan.
Later, Jet Li angrily approached the producer and asked for compensation, and the producer made a compensation plan after consulting with director Zhang Xinyan: that is, after performing his original role, Jet Li could lie on the ground and pretend to be a dead body, and the remuneration was 50 yuan.
Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that Jet Li finally decided to leave the Hong Kong film industry!
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Writing this, Dou Sha suddenly remembered such a picture in the film, when JueYuan was ordained, Master once asked:
If you don't lust after all your life, can you hold on to it now?
And Jue Yuan seemed to be difficult to give up in his heart for his children's love, and after a moment of silence, he reluctantly said: I can hold it.
Perhaps this is a vivid sense of distance, but also Jet Li's difficulty in maintaining his love for fame and fortune, such a contradiction is like every us in reality. If it were you, how would you answer the old abbot's "can you hold on"?
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There is an old Chinese saying that goes: Young people are determined to win and run into the rivers and lakes! After experiencing the glorious "Shaolin Temple" boom, a kung fu teenager with extraordinary skills officially came out of the mountain, and the first jianghu he was about to break into was the Hong Kong film industry.
From the martial arts prodigy of the Beijing Martial Arts Team, to the "Mainland Boy" who broke into the Xiangjiang River alone, to the well-known "Kung Fu Emperor", Jet Li used his unique skills and superb acting skills to become the golden sign of Chinese kung fu movies of that era.
Just as the so-called freshly dressed angry horse teenager, he always saw all the Chang'an flowers. But no matter how beautiful the heroes, there is a day of twilight. When we revisit this classic kung fu film again, see the Jueyuan of the meiqingmu show on the screen, and think of Jet Li's dying old age today, will you regret it as much as Dousha?
After Jet Li's generation of kung fu superstars gradually retreated, when will the next superstar who can represent Chinese kung fu come? And where will Chinese kung fu films go after several ups and downs?
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After putting together the "Eighteen Arhats" in his mind, director Zhang Xinyan also asked for a martial arts guide for the practitioners.
This person was ordained in the Shaolin Temple to learn martial arts for eight years, and later participated in the revolutionary battlefield and made countless military achievements, and became a famous monk general in New China. Bean paste is sold here, you can guess who this person really is?
More than 40 years have passed, and now looking back at Jet Li's legendary experience, Dousha suddenly feels that this play is actually his true life. That Shaolin disciple Jue Yuan, who practiced hard in the morning light, was a microcosm of the success of a kung fu teenager.
Whether it is the scorching heat of the sun or the harsh winter of the cold wind, superb martial arts can never be practiced overnight. Just as everyone's life does not succeed casually.
Jet Li used his own experience in the film to tell us a simple but profound truth, which is also the essence of Chinese martial arts. That is: a thousand hammers and a hundred exercises can work to achieve natural success.
This situation is as sung in the Shepherd's Song:
Waist strong and courageous, often practice martial arts and diligent work, ploughing the field and grazing and fighting jackals, wind and rain shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to shoulder to pick...
fifteen
In August 1980, after gathering all the people and horses, the crew of "Shaolin Temple" finally officially started in the light and shadow of this thousand-year-old temple.
And then Zhang Xinyan and his disciples will go through those tribulations, why can "Shaolin Temple" become a martial arts classic that sensationalizes the world? Bean Paste will be explained in detail in the next work...
I'm Dousha, follow me, take you to know more about the behind-the-scenes stories of classic film and television works...