At Zhang Guorong's 2000 Japan tour, the big screen played a clip of Zhang Guorong's "Red Lover", which was exactly what he gave in the film: "At this moment, there is a group of tenacious fighters who unswervingly adhere to their beliefs, their ideals, their doctrines, their names -- "The Japanese fans in the audience actually shouted out the Chinese "Red Army" in unison!
As an international superstar, Zhang Guorong expressed his love for the motherland in his own way, spared no effort to publicize his motherland, and also let the people of the world see the true colors of Chinese and Chinese communists.
In 1995, the film "Red Cherry", directed by Ye Daying, the grandson of General Ye Ting, was an unprecedented success and won a series of awards. As a descendant of the revolutionary ancestors, Ye Daying in the process of filming "Red Cherry", he also contacted the descendants of many revolutionary martyrs and listened to them tell various stories of their ancestors in the revolutionary era, so Ye Daying germinated the idea of shooting another red theme film. After the success of "Red Cherry", Ye Daying immediately began to visit the descendants of the previous revolutionary martyrs, and invited the screenwriters of "Red Cherry", Reed and Zhang Li, to complete the screenplay of "Red Lover" in about four months.
Regarding the starring role of "Red Lover", Ye Daying is cautious. After watching the film and television works of many Hong Kong actors, Ye Daying took a fancy to Zhang Guorong, who is one of the Hong Kong actors who cooperates more with the mainland. The red theme is quite serious, Hong Kong movies have always insisted on entertainment supremacy, and many people are skeptical about using Zhang Guorong to play a communist, but Ye Daying is not moved, insisting on starring Zhang Guorong.
Zhang Guorong plays the early Communist Jin in Shanghai in the film, compared with the image of the Communists in previous film and television dramas who are either tall or "mud-legged", the Communist played by Zhang Guorong is a well-educated literati, with clean and neat robes, humorous and funny with friends, and serious and full of confidence in victory when talking about ideals. Zhang Guorong used superb acting skills to shape the demeanor of the older generation of revolutionaries when they were young, which not only made the Chinese people like, but also subverted the foreign people's false imagination of the Chinese Communists, and Zhang Guorong also harvested a large number of foreign fans.
During the filming process, Zhang Guorong's professionalism and professionalism everywhere were breathtaking. For example, the end of the film needs to twist the song, for which Zhang Guorong seriously learned for a period of time; there is a scene filmed in a very cold winter, Zhang Guorong is wearing a thin shirt standing in the cold wind, and he still wears shackles on his feet, and some staff suggest that Zhang Guorong wear a pair of shackles with a light weight, but Zhang Guorong, who pursues the realism of the picture, is unwilling and has been wearing a very heavy shackle. There is a shot that no longer needs to be close-up of the footsteps, but Zhang Guorong still insists on not taking down the shackles, until finally the skin of the ankle is "blurred with flesh and blood" by the chain;
The film was released in 1998, when the aftermath of the titanic, which swept the world, was not over, but the film still earned 25 million at the box office, ranking among the top three box office movies that year. Because he liked this movie, Zhang Guorong changed the English name for "Red Lover": "A Time To Remember", and Zhang Guorong's dedicated attitude is still talked about in the circle to this day.