The classic film "Tunnel Warfare" was produced by the Bayi Film Studio in 1965 and quickly swept the country after its release in 1966. The film does not deliberately render the cruelty of war, but very grounded and optimistic to tell the wisdom of such a way of fighting. Since its inception, this "tactical teaching film" has been watched by more than 3 billion people, which is not only rare in the history of Chinese cinema, but also a miracle in the history of world cinema development.
"Underground warfare, hey, ambushing millions of divine soldiers..." This familiar melody can still flutter out from the depths of the mind at this moment, crossing the long river of time. I believe that many people still remember the plot of the film.
There is no danger to defend in the central Hebei region, and tunnel warfare is a very good way to fight
In the autumn of 1941, the anti-Japanese struggle in the Jizhong Plain entered a difficult stage, and the "sweeping" plan of the Japanese puppet army became increasingly cruel, often surrounding villages and towns, and creating one bloody case after another. In order to consolidate the anti-Japanese base areas in the North China Plain and the Jizhong armed forces that have developed, so as to persist in the anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare in the Jizhong Plain for a long time, the CPC Central Committee specially dispatched Cheng Zihua to the Jizhong Military Region as a political commissar, and Kuang Fuzhao was ordered to follow Cheng Zihua to Jizhong as the political commissar of the first sub-district of the Jizhong Military Region. Once, when Kuang Fuzhao was investigating in the village, the enemy suddenly attacked, and Kuang Fuzhao temporarily hid in the "toad squat" dug by his fellow villagers to avoid being hunted. After a period of investigation and study, Kuang Fuzhao concluded that the central Hebei region is located in the plain, and there is almost no danger to defend. Therefore, it is necessary to adapt the Eighth Route Army, which is accustomed to fighting guerrilla warfare in the mountains, to this unfavorable terrain as soon as possible, and it is a very good way to carry out tunnel warfare.
After the anti-"mopping-up" began in the summer of 1942, the Lixian guerrillas in Baoding county used tunnels to ambush and completely annihilate more than 30 sweeping Japanese puppet troops, and the morale of the anti-Japanese army and people was greatly boosted for a while. Cheng Zihua, political commissar of the Jizhong Military Region, sent a working group to inspect Lixian County, and then Huang Jing, secretary of the Jizhong Party Committee, and Lü Zhengcao, commander of the Jizhong Central Military Region, reported the tunnel warfare in Lixian County to Liu Shaoqi, then member of the Political Bureau, secretary of the East China Bureau, and political commissar of the New Fourth Army. Liu Shaoqi greatly appreciated it and instructed him to proceed from local realities and carry forward tunnel warfare. In March 1942, the Jizhong Military Region issued the "Letter of Instruction on Carrying Out Tunnel Struggle" to promote tunnel warfare throughout the jizhong region.
△ In 1937, in order to resist foreign insults, the villagers of Ranzhuang used their hands and shovels and pickaxes to dig out a 16-kilometer-long tunnel network. There is a large bell hanging from the old locust tree in front of Ranzhuang Village. The enemy is approaching, the bell rings, and the villagers enter the tunnels.
Real wars are often brutal, and tunnel warfare methods are gradually perfected through bloody sacrifices. On May 27, 1942, in Beiyan Village, Dingzhou City, Hebei Province, because the tunnels of nearby villages and towns had not yet formed a large-scale excavation, the tunnels in Beiyan were crowded with civilians and combatants from more than a dozen surrounding villages and towns. The Japanese invaders used poison gas, the tunnels were full of corpses, and the wells of the village were filled with corpses...
According to records, from the beginning of the "anti-sweeping" to the end of 1944, the tunnels in the Jizhong area reached more than 10,000 kilometers, covering the surrounding diameter of 130 kilometers with baoding in the center, and the tunnels were scattered in 8,000 villages in Jizhong, helping party members and cadres to gain a foothold behind enemy lines while providing a living environment for the people in the base areas, continuously resisting under the conditions of the enemy's strength and weakness, constantly containing and depleting the Japanese army's strength, and playing a huge role in combining guerrilla warfare, mine warfare, and anti-encirclement warfare.
Ren Xudong found inspiration in Gaoping Village, Zhengding County
In early 1963, the Bayi Film Studio received instructions from the General Staff to make a military educational film that reflected the revolutionary traditions of the militia. The film should not only reflect Mao Zedong's people's war ideas, but also let the audience see some basic military knowledge and methods of fighting against the enemy.
A year after receiving the task, the script creation team of Bayi Factory did not write a decent script, and Chen Bo, the director of Bayi Factory, was anxious, and he called ren Xudong, who was good at shooting feature films, and said: "Write the script according to your own ideas, and shoot it as much as you want." ”
Ren Xudong took people to the countryside of Baoding and Shijiazhuang to look for materials, until he came to Gaoping Village in Zhengding County. Through talking with local veterans, Ren Xudong learned the story of Liu Duzi, secretary of the party branch and militia leader of Gaoping Village during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
At that time, the village of Gaoping was surrounded by Japanese artillery towers, and it was often surrounded and suppressed by the enemy. In order to fight the enemy, Liu Duzi organized a militia to dig tunnels in 1943 and gradually developed single-mouth tunnels into multi-mouth tunnels. Under the cover of tunnels, Liu Duzi led the militia to defeat the encircling and suppressing enemies several times, and also taught the militia to "shoot a shot to change a place, and not to release the empty gun."
Later, Gaoping Village became a model village for the anti-Japanese resistance in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, and Liu Duzi was also elected as a combat hero. But it is regrettable that Liu Fool was heroically sacrificed in a battle when he encountered the enemy's "return horse gun".
In May 1965, Ren Xudong's script based on tunnel warfare was finally completed and immediately put into filming. He changed gaoping village to Gaojiazhuang, and designed two characters based on Liu Duzi, one was Gao Laozhong, the secretary of the branch, and the other was Gao Chuanbao, the leader of the militia.
"High! It's really high! "It's play
Because the tunnels of Gaoping Village have long ceased to exist because of the flood, it cannot be used as an outdoor location, and the tunnels of Ranzhuang, Licun and Tangcun are still well preserved, and finally the location is selected in these three villages, which is also another form of Gaojiazhuang, Zhaojiazhuang and Majiahezi.
At that time, the "Tunnel Warfare" crew also wanted to dig another big pit at the original site, and then do the tunnel cross-section, but due to the large amount of engineering, it could only be abandoned. Most of the shots of tunnel interiors, tunnels dug, and battles we saw were shot in the studio.
In the film, the characters of the resourceful Gao Chuanbao, the loyal old Uncle Zhong, the disdainful Commander Tang, and the hated Captain Yamada of Japan are portrayed vividly and vividly by the dedicated actors.
Gao Chuanbao's actor Zhu Longguang, who was only 26 years old at the time, was disabled in order to create a good character image. At that time, there was a scene of Gao Chuanbao jumping from a two-story tall poplar tree, Zhu Longguang jumped less than ideally the first time, the director asked him to jump again, and he broke his right leg joint when he jumped down the second time. In order not to affect the shooting, Zhu Longguang did not go to the hospital until the end of the shooting, but he had missed the best time for treatment, and the doctor had to replace his leg joint with titanium alloy, and he was also disabled from then on.
The villain Tang Ling, played by Liu Jiang, also left a deep impression on the audience. When filming "Tunnel War", in order to make the role of Commander Tang more vivid, Liu Jiang secretly made a pair of dentures to wear on his mouth, but his mouth was swollen by dentures and was miserable. Later, he found that locals like to use a "high" word when praising others, so he deliberately added a sentence of "high!" in his performance. It's really high! "Commander Tang's appearance of patting the horse's ass is vividly expressed, and this classic line has been passed down to this day."
(YanduRong Media Synthesis)