Film is a modern art that combines sight and sound. In the 1960s, our mainland films also played a role in promoting and educating in the development process.
Director Xie Jin's 1962 comedy "Big Li Xiao Li and Old Li" is an entertaining and educational sports propaganda film. As soon as it was launched, it was all over the country.
Watching this movie after 59 years can't help but sigh, it is really the pinnacle of comedy. Unfortunately, today, the main creative staff, including director Xie Jin, have passed away, and only the classics are permanent.
One
Da Li (Played by Liu Xiasheng) and Xiao Li (played by Yao Debing) are both workers in the Fumin Meat Processing Factory, and Xiao Li's father, Lao Li (Fan Haha), is the director of the workshop.
Because of Da Li's good work attitude and hard work, he was elected as the chairman of the trade union. He has five children at home, and his wife Xiumei (Jiang Tianliu) works in a food store.
Da Li is usually a workaholic, basically no time to exercise, as he grows older, it is inevitable that he will accumulate fatigue and become unhealthy.
He has a nickname called "Meteorological Observatory", because Da Li has rheumatism, and every spring during the spring rainy season, he will feel back pain before it rains, which is more accurate than the Meteorological Observatory.
Xiao Li is a strong young man, loves sports, exercises regularly, and is very physically strong.
He often uses his spare time to exercise, and he can't calm down, which makes his father Lao Li very dissatisfied, he feels that this is a waste of time and not doing the right thing, but he can't control this son, he can only let it go.
Xiao Li responded to the party's call and organized workers to do radio exercises in the factory every morning during the rest of work.
But the workers were reluctant to do it, so Xiao Li thought of a good idea, and he wrote a notice on the small blackboard of the factory, saying that he was going to meet to elect a chairman of the Sports Association to lead everyone in the movement.
Old Li and Hercules (Guan Hongda), who do not love sports, are naturally very unsupportive when they see the announcement, but Old Li thinks about it, as long as he picks a person who does not love sports to be the chairman of the Sports Association, everyone will not have to exercise.
Therefore, after their discussion, they decided to elect the workaholic Da Li from the factory to be the most suitable chairman of the sports association at the meeting.
Xiao Li and the barber and several other people are sports-loving, and they also feel that it is most appropriate for Li, who is popular and enthusiastic, to be the chairman of the Sports Association.
The two groups of people who disagreed reached a high degree of agreement on the choice of the chairman of the sports association, so Da Li was elected as the chairman of the sports association without controversy, responsible for leading the workers in the factory to do sports.
Although Da Li did not pay attention to sports before, he was a serious person, and with xiao Li's encouragement, he also decided to do a good job as the chairman of the Sports Association.
In order to teach the workers to do radio exercises, he went to the bookstore to buy a radio exercise decomposition chart, and then humbly asked the salesman pigtails for advice, although at first he made some jokes, and then he gradually became familiar with them, teaching the workers to look like a model.
Xiao Li also suggested that Da Li take his co-workers to the street to run, but Da Li's lung capacity was not good enough, and he could not practice for a while and a half. Xiao Li suggested that if you can't run, you can walk, and if you walk faster, you can get exercise.
So Da Li took his co-workers to the road to race, and soon everyone's physical fitness was improved.
Now there are two diehards left in the factory, that is, Hercules and Old Lee. In order to avoid doing radio exercises, he even thought of hiding in the freezer, but the door of the freezer was closed by the workers, and the two were frozen inside into two icemen.
In response to these two diehards, Da Li and Xiao Li decided to break them one by one.
Hercules, believing that he was strong and strong, did not think he needed to exercise. In order to persuade him, Xiao Li tried to wrestle, and as a result, Hercules knocked Xiao Li down.
Xiao Li felt very humiliated, but he was not discouraged, he was a very hard worker, and then spent a lot of time practicing wrestling, and finally knocked Hercules down when he competed again, proving to him the importance of exercise.
Da Li's wife Xiu mei learned to ride a bicycle, but she could not learn, so she thought she was old and refused to learn again. Da Li posted a lot of sports propaganda pictures at home to encourage his wife not to give up.
Xiu Mei was finally persuaded by Da Li, and they waited until late at night every night, when there were few cars on the road, they came out to learn to ride a bicycle, and soon Xiu Mei learned.
Inspired by Da Li, Xiao Li felt that it was a trick to paste propaganda posters, so he also bought a lot of propaganda posters to be pasted in places where Old Li could see at home to encourage Old Li to also participate in the movement.
Lao Li was unmoved at first, but later he was attracted by a character playing Tai Chi in a propaganda poster and felt that he could learn Tai Chi.
In order to mobilize Both Hercules and Old Li to participate in the sport, Da Li decided to enlarge the recruitment, and he gave the two tickets for the two sports evenings to let them go to the scene to study.
The sports party was very lively, all kinds of sports were available, and Hercules and Old Li were finally infected. Hercules fell in love with weightlifting; and Old Li learned tai chi with Prince Ping of the Divine Power King.
The film ends with a sports event in which all the employees of Fumin Meat Processing Factory participate in a tug-of-war event.
Old Li was the team leader, Big Li was the referee, Xiu Mei participated in the bicycle race and won the championship in the end, and everyone fell in love with sports ever since.
Two
Director Xie Jin is a godfather figure in the Chinese film industry, and his films focus on the fate of the nation, known as the national soul of Chinese films.
"Big Li Xiao Li and Old Li" is the only comedy film in his directorial career, and it is also a positive energy work full of sunshine and blood, which are the characteristics of that era.
In order to publicize and encourage the people of the whole country to do more sports, The Pegasus Film Studio decided to make a film that promotes the importance of physical exercise.
In order to achieve the effect of edutainment, the film especially added a lot of life jokes.
For example: the opening paragraph of Xiao Li playing with the ball; the jokes made by Da Li learning to do radio exercises; the plot of Old Li and Hercules being frozen into icemen in the freezer, these are all references to many foreign comedy movies, and also greatly improve the viewing of movies.
Although the characters in the film do not spend much ink on emotional communication, they reflect a kind of comradely affection between workers everywhere in detail.
From the rich people's meat processing plant to the whole society, everyone is a member of the collective, and everyone participates in the collective. A person's power in the whole is not prominent, but it can play its own role.
This is precisely the characteristic of that era, and it is also the collectivist spirit emphasized by that era. Big Li and Little Li care about everyone in the factory like brothers who care about themselves, they not only have cooperative relations in work, but also promote each other in life and achieve common progress.
This simple comradely relationship between people seems to be nowhere to be found now. In modern society, even friends who have been close for many years are difficult to be as close as in the movie.
When I saw this movie, I couldn't help but wonder, what has the progress of society brought us, and whether we have lost more than we have gained?
Three
In the film critics circle, some people think that this film is the lightest weight in director Xie Jin's film works, without too many political views, and is a sports-themed sketch-style light comedy.
But the film also really shows director Xie Jin's ability to deal with comedy films, as well as the sense of humor in his film works.
In fact, Director Xie poured a lot of attention into the movie, and he was always striving for excellence, and he was even dissatisfied with the figure of the male protagonist Liu Xiasheng.
Because Liu Xiasheng, who has not eaten a few full meals since he was a child, is too thin, it does not meet the full effect of the character's body becoming strong after exercise.
Xie Dao decided to let Liu Xiasheng gain weight, but at that time, he ate less, and in order to help Liu Xiasheng gain weight, Xie Jin even gave Liu Xiasheng a few of his own "literary and art hall meal coupons". And Liu Xiasheng also actively cooperated, he spent money to buy food in order to increase fat, and even sold the only set of mahogany farm tools in his family.
In addition to Liu Xiasheng, Director Xie also invited many comedians from Shanghai to join.
For example, fanhaha, Guan Hongda and Nen Niang, these excellent actors are all comedy stars who have long become famous. The biggest cameo in the film was Wang Ziping, an 81-year-old taijiquan master at the time, who performed a set of taijiquan in the film.
Four
As a film shot by Shanghai Tianma Film Studio, the lines of the characters in the film were originally spoken in Shanghainese. However, due to the lack of live recording at that time, the finished film also needed to be dubbed in the later stage, and the later dubbing became Mandarin.
Until 2018, in order to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of director Xie Jin, Shanghai Film Group and the Organizing Committee of shanghai film international film festival decided to restore the film. In the process of restoration, the film was also re-dubbed, the original Mandarin was re-dubbed into Shanghainese, and the viewing of the film was greatly improved.
For today's young people, this movie may not have much appreciation value, but it is really an uplifting inspirational film.
(Rotten Tomatoes Movie Editorial Department: Blood Dan Heart)