In 1996, director He Ping launched "Sunshine Canyon" after "Double Flag Town KnifeMan". As a sequel to "Double Flags Town KnifeMan", the film was dismal at the box office after its release, earning only 83,000 Hong Kong dollars.
As the second part of the knife knife series, this film is far more than "Double Flag Town KnifeMan" in terms of connotation and investment production, but the box office is far less than "Double Flag Town Knifeman". There are two reasons for the box office failure, one is the decline of martial arts films, and the other is that it is too non-mainstream.
In fact, this movie is a rare masterpiece, people who understand it naturally think it is very good, and people who can't understand it will never be difficult to understand. This is a story about the redemption of the knifeman, the whole film looks depressed and low, but under the melancholy, it is full of many philosophies.
The story takes place in a place called Nikko Canyon in the western and inland trade, because of the special geographical conditions, this is the only way for trade, so it is particularly lively, and merchants of all ethnic groups trade here. Sister-in-law Hongliu opened an inn here to make ends meet.
On this day, a stranger came to the inn. This man is wearing a sheepskin jacket, holding a knife in his hand, unkempt, bearded, and a knifeman at first glance.
The knifeman said he would stay in the guest house for a few days and wait for a friend. But there is no money on him, so he can only take the jade wrench as shop money. Although the boss lady, Hongliu Sister-in-law, thought that this person was strange, she still let the knifeman live.
The knifeman's strange behavior made Hongliu sister-in-law very curious, so he found an experienced crazy uncle to inquire, and after listening to Hongliu's description, the crazy uncle concluded that this person was a knifeman seeking revenge, and persuaded Hongliu sister-in-law to let him go quickly.
After staying in the guest house at night, the knifeman sorted himself out with a dagger, cut off his beard, straightened his hair, and was full of energy, and he could not see anything abnormal. But after lying on the bed and pulling out the long knife he had carried with him, the knifeman's expression began to become strange. Nervousness, panting, sweating, pain, all kinds of complex emotions appear on the face.
After getting up the next day, the knifeman found the mad uncle and said that he wanted to borrow a whetstone to sharpen the knife. After touching the knifeman's knife with his eyes closed, the mad master said that it was a "blade of a thousand armies", and his whetstone was not worthy of such a famous knife.
The knifeman saw that the mad uncle was an expert and said that he wanted to ask for advice. The mad uncle said that the rust on this knife was blood rust, and this knife killed a lot of people. Persuade the knifeman to put down the butcher's knife and let go of the hatred. The knifeman was vengeful and did not listen.
Red Willow's old friend, the black bull trader, returned, and after a warm deposit with Red Willow Sister-in-law, he chatted with the knifeman for a few words. In the process of chatting, the knifeman learned from Black Bull that the mad uncle used to be a famous knifeman in the jianghu, known as the fast knife madman. Because he failed to find his enemies and killed many people, he entered Lamaism here and became a Buddhist believer.
The knifeman was bent on finding revenge on the enemy, so he went to the market to look for the enemy, but did not find the enemy, but was stimulated by the blood of the sheep spilled out, and killed and injured many people. It turned out that the knifeman could not see blood, and when he saw blood, his head would be strongly stimulated, and in a mental trance, the people he saw in his eyes became his enemies. This was the root cause of his illness when he was a child, when he witnessed a family being killed.
In order to protect him, his mother put him in a basket and protected him with her body. The blood from his mother's body flowed down the basket of clothes to his mouth and face, and it became a shadow that he could not erase.
It was precisely because he witnessed the tragic death of a family, dying at the hands of a murderous demon wrapped in a red turban and holding a sapphire ghost knife, so he was bent on revenge. He once learned martial arts from a swordsman, who knew that he was learning martial arts for revenge, so he refused to teach him true kung fu, and sent him down the mountain when he was eighteen. His kung fu was honed after hundreds of knife battles after going down the mountain, and he only used one move to kill people.
In order to find the enemy, he wandered outside for 20 years, but he never saw the shadow of the enemy, and he could not even find any news. So he came to the Nikko Gorge to wait for him, and he felt that as long as the enemy appeared here, he would definitely come to this inn. Because he thinks day and night, he often dreams of enemies when he dreams. This time he dreamed that the enemy met him at the inn, and he drew his sword and struck hard, but it was not as fast as the enemy's knife, and he died under the enemy's knife. Suddenly frightened, he broke out in a cold sweat.
After waking up in the morning, he went to look for the mad uncle again. However, he encountered a knifeman who came to find the mad uncle to seek revenge, and out of help, he killed all three knifemen who were seeking revenge, one knife at a time, and the knife was fast and accurate. It is reasonable to say that helping the crazy uncle solve the trouble, the crazy uncle should be very happy, but the crazy uncle is in pain. Only then did the knifeman understand that the mad uncle wanted to die at the hands of these three people and end his life of sin and pain.
The mad uncle did not die at the hands of the seeker, so he tortured himself madly, kneeling and praying step by step, and finally died of exhaustion on the snowy mountain. After the knifeman found the body of the mad uncle, he howled sadly. On the way back, I was frozen by heavy snow. Fortunately, The Red Willow Sister-in-law saved it, and the Red Willow Sister-in-law rubbed the knifeman's feet and chest with the white snow, and after the knifeman was conscious, the Red Willow Sister-in-law's hand slowed down, and the hand rubbed on the knifeman's chest, and the eyes and expressions were shy and vented.
After the snow closed the mountain, only the knifeman, the red willow sister-in-law and the son of the red willow sister-in-law were left in the Nikko Gorge. The knifeman was idle, so he helped Hongliu sister-in-law to do some work, and in the day and night together, the two secretly had a relationship. During an inadvertent chat, Sister-in-law Hongliu learned that the knifeman's enemy was using a sapphire-encrusted ghost-headed knife, and people were shocked.
It turned out that the knifeman's enemy was her dead husband, who used the ghost head knife when he was alive. She knew nothing about her husband's previous affairs, and after he married her, he washed his hands and did not dry, often did good deeds, and was a very good person. She never expected that such a good man would commit a heinous crime. After knowing the truth, she was afraid that the knifeman would seek revenge, so she locked her son and herself in the room all day, fearing for herself.
Thinking about it, she decided to use the drug to charm the knifeman, and then tied it up and killed the sheep in front of him. She did this just to get the knifeman out of his fear of blood. The knifeman watched the sheep's blood, and after being frightened and uncomfortable, he finally got rid of the shadow of the blood. These days he figured it out and decided to let go of his hatred, so he handed his sabre to Red Willow and let her throw it away. Just then, Black Bull returned and bumped into the two men in the house, enraged.
In order to save the man's face, Black Bull insisted on fighting with the knifeman. Out of kindness, the knifeman gave way to the black bull, and the black bull knew that he was invincible, so he threw the red willow sister-in-law to the knifeman and found a new joy himself. At this moment, the red willow sister-in-law and the knifeman no longer hid it, the two embraced each other in a bright and upright way, and at night they slept in the same bed to quench the pain of hunger and thirst.
In the gap between finishes, the knifeman inadvertently saw the ghost head knife at the head of the bed and suddenly understood everything. Faced with hatred and love, the knifeman was embarrassed and sat outside the door all night. The red willow sister-in-law in the house also had a sleepless night, and she carefully dressed herself, dressed in a wedding dress, and prepared to die.
After struggling in pain, the knifeman finally decided to let go of everything. He handed the ghost head knife to Red Willow and asked her to throw it. He led the horse and left the Nikko Canyon, and the story ended here.
Zhang Fengyi has always shown himself as a tough guy, participated in many martial arts films, and after the murderer in "Tang Chop the Murderer", he played a knife seeker seeking revenge in "Sunshine Canyon". This knife maker is very difficult to interpret, not the kind of happy and vengeful jianghu fight, but a role with inner struggle, pain and mental stimulation, which is a great test for the actor. But Zhang Fengyi performed very well, in the limited lines, relying on body language and eye expressions to interpret the heart and emotions of the knifeman, which is really powerful.
Although Gu Feng, who plays the crazy uncle, does not have many scenes, the old drama bones have a look and an expression. How to put a deeply sinful knifeman, an experienced old man, a devout and repentant believer, precisely, is really a test of acting skills.
As for Yang Guimei, who plays The Sister-in-law of Hongliu, she is also very powerful, and watching her play the western woman, it is simply the feeling of a local woman who is alive and well. The emotional drama is also nothing to say, the love for the black bull and the knifeman, through a subtle expression, can let the audience understand her thoughts, which is really cattle.
There is no happy and vengeful fight, no heroism of smiling at the sky, no entanglement of heroes and children, this film is like an old photo under the candlelight of winter night, the picture is dark, the story is depressed, and the emotion is sad. However, the inner drama of the characters is vividly expressed, and the love and hatred that cannot be put down and cannot be put down are well interpreted.
This is a story about the revenge of the knifeman, this is the story of a widow saving the knifeman, this is a story of inner struggle, repression with human torture.