The film "Xiyingmen" was filmed in 1981, and after its release that year, it was a sensation, creating an almost mythical dazzling achievement, accumulating 570 million viewers, not only setting a record for the number of copies distributed and the number of viewers, but also winning the honorary award of the 2nd Golden Rooster Awards and the best feature film award of the 5th Hundred Flowers Awards.
At the end of the 1970s, the film market picked up, but most of the films were "scar films" and "reflection films". In 1979, the People's Daily published an article mentioning the question of "why are there so few rural films", and major film studios began to plan for rural films.
Zhao Huanzhang, director of the Shanghai Film Studio, recommended to the factory a script that reflected the disputes of rural families, "Xiyingmen". Shandong screenwriter Xin Xianling was invited to the Shanghai Film Studio to revise the script, Zhao Huanzhang was worried that the film could not be filmed, the author could not explain to the local fathers and elders, so he showed the script to Wang Shizhen, secretary general of the Shanghai Film Association, and asked him if he could publish it, Wang Shizhen was very satisfied with the script and published it in the "New Film Works" edited by him.
In the film, the actor of the grandfather was originally going to invite the old actor Village of the Hebei Provincial Drama Theatre, but he did not agree, and the crew asked him to recommend several actors, among which Wang Shuqin was invited by the crew to Shanghai to audition and stayed behind to play Qiang Ying, which was her first screen role. After the sample came out, she felt that the image was not beautiful and had an opinion, and the director explained to her that this was like Qiang Ying.
Wang Yumei, who plays her mother-in-law, can be called an old drama bone, and has won the Golden Rooster Award and the Hundred Flowers Award for movies, the Golden Eagle Award and the Feitian Award for television for many times. When Xie Jin filmed "Wreath Under the Mountain" that year, the direct decision board once again enabled Wang Yumei, the actor of Liang Da Niang in the TV drama version. Whether it is the kind but cowardly mother-in-law in "Xiyingmen" or the mighty and domineering Cixi in "Tan Si Tong", she portrays her beautiful portrait.
Wang Yumei "Tan Si Tong" as Cixi
Wang Shuqin played Cixi in the TV series "The Legend of The Divine Doctor Xi Laile"
It is worth mentioning that the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in "Xiyingmen" that year once played Cixi, and Wang Yumei also won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the Fifth Chinese Film Golden Rooster Awards in 1985 for playing Cixi in "Tan Si tong". Wang Shuqin played Cixi in the TV series "The Legend of The Divine Doctor Xi Laile".
Wen Yujuan, who plays Shuilian, was born in an ordinary peasant family in Shandong, and was admitted to the County Lv Opera Troupe at the age of 17, and the Shanghai Theater Academy went to the Lv Opera Troupe to select actors, watched her performance, and prepared for targeted enrollment to admit her. However, the troupe did not release people, and after the Beijing Film Academy also admitted Wen Yujuan, the troupe still did not let go. Later, the Nanjing Military Region Air Politics Cultural and Labor Corps specially recruited her, and after a long period of debate, the regiment finally let her join the army.
Wen Yujuan is well known to the national audience for playing the beautiful, kind and filial rural daughter-in-law "Water Lotus Sister-in-law", and her simple and natural performance has been greatly praised, because of this play, Wen Yujuan was named "China's First Virtuous Daughter-in-Law". She has achieved good results in the fields of drama, sketches, film and television, and has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Army's Senior Professional and Technical Qualification Review for many years.
Hong Xuemin, who played the younger sister Renfang, played the role of "Yuxiu" in "Haixia" at the age of 16. In addition to starring in "Sweet Girl" in 1983, she mostly starred in supporting roles in movies, but she was still brilliant, and she was very famous that year, and was once named "Gold Medal Supporting Actress". At the end of the 1980s, he quit the film industry to do business in Hong Kong.
Mao Yongming, who played Long Gang, had acted in many comedies, and it was originally intended that he would play the role of Renwu, but when filming began, he found that Wen Yujuan, who played Renwu's daughter-in-law Shuilian, was too tall and stood with Mao Yongming. So the director called Ma Xiaowei, who was ready to play Long Gang, and it was quite appropriate to stand with Wen Yujuan, and decided that Mao Yongming and Ma Xiaowei would swap roles, and the lines of the role script prepared before were useless.
Cross-talk actor Yue Yunpeng originally ordered Yue Longgang, according to his own recollection, because he had five sisters above, after he was born, the family finally had a son, the whole village was happy for their family, so they pooled their money to invite a movie, which was "Xiying Gate". At that time, the child had not yet named, so he chose one from the movie, named Long Gang.
Ma Xiaowei was a famous handsome young student, on a par with Tang Guoqiang, and there was a saying that "there was Tang Guoqiang in the north and Ma Xiaowei in the south". At the end of the 1980s, he went to the sea to do business, returned to the film industry more than ten years later, played Chiang Kai-shek in many film and television dramas, and was unanimously recognized by insiders and audiences, and was known as "the first person in China to play Chiang Kai-shek".
Zhang Liang, who plays Renwen, was born in Jinan City in 1935, and in 1954, he made his debut on the screen as Xia Qi, who played "Song Jingshi", and played important roles in classic films such as "Shangganling", "Lin JiaPuzi", "Song of Youth", "Revolutionary Family" and so on.
Zhang Liang is now 84 years old. In "Xiyingmen", Zhang Liang is only one year younger than Wang Yumei, who plays his mother.
Wu Yunfang, who plays the croaking bird, was born in 1935 and entered the studio as an actor at the end of 1958. He has played major roles in films such as "Half Life", "Nie Er", "Joe Old Master On the Car", "Dead Wood Fengchun" and so on.
Yu Shaokang, who plays grandpa, has a strong temperament, open-mindedness and full of pride, and his performance is relaxed, natural and profound. The characters he plays, whether they are villains or positive characters, have distinct personalities and have their own advantages. He died on 3 May 1994 at the age of 69.
Sun Jinglu, who plays Qiang Ying's mother, was on the screen at the age of 16, she can play both positive and negative roles, and it is appropriate to be ancient and modern, and it is easy to be a generalist in drama, tragedy and comedy. More well-known is the young lady Lan Xiuying played in "Joe On the Car". He died of illness in 1989 at the age of 66.
Cao Duo, who plays Qiang Ying's father, once starred in the 86 version of the TV series "Journey to the West" in the yellow-browed monster in "Mistakenly Entering the Little Thunder". He died of illness in 2005 at the age of 76.
According to director Zhao Huanzhang's recollection, when the film was completed and screened in Thanksgiving, it was released in Shanghai, and the laughter of the audience was forty or fifty times; the laughter of the audience in Jinan was seventy or eighty times; the laughter in Yantai reached more than one hundred; when it reached the county town of Pingdu, the laughter was one hundred and twenty or thirty times; and when it really went to the countryside, the laughter was one hundred and seventy or eighty times. The closer such a film is to the countryside, the closer it is to the farmers, the closer it is to the hometown, the more applause and laughter there will be.
"Xiyingmen" was filmed in Pingdu, Shandong, and it rained on the day of the screening, but the audience insisted on watching it, and the crew held a small symposium to ask farmers to talk about their feelings. An old man from the countryside said that when he was watching, he paid attention to the little daughter-in-law and young men around him. Those who laugh are often more filial to the elderly; while those who are shy and bow their heads are often not filial piety. Therefore, people who are not filial piety feel embarrassed when they watch the movie. Director Zhao Huanzhang felt that the old farmer's comments were the best, and he was an authoritative critic.