In 1982, directed by Zhang Xinyan and starring Jet Li, Yu Hai, Yu Chenghui and others, the martial arts film "Shaolin Temple" turned out to be a huge box office of 160 million.
As soon as this film came out, it had a great impact and was regarded by many as the pioneering work of mainland martial arts films!
A few years later, Zhang Xinyan and the original team filmed "Shaolin Kid" again, continuing the great success of the previous film.
Coupled with "North and South Shaolin" directed by Liu Jialiang, the above three films are called the "Shaolin Trilogy".
Objectively speaking, each of the "Shaolin Trilogy" is excellent, and the box office performance is also commendable.
However, Zhang Xinyan, as the director who created this series, can see that this series vaguely shows market fatigue, and if it wants to be successful again, it must be comprehensively changed.
So, five years after the release of "Shaolin Temple", Zhang Xinyan filmed "The Yellow River Hero" in 1987.
The Yellow River, which has a special significance in domestic history, is called the "Mother River". The film is named after the protagonist of the "Yellow River", from which it can be seen that the plot will definitely be linked to history.
The background of the story of the movie is the late Tang Dynasty, when the king of the clan was divided and competed for world domination.
The film kicks off in the pursuit and killing of the brigade of soldiers and horses, and as soon as it comes up, it shows a magnificent and majestic war scene, which sets a heavy historical tone for the film.
Because Ma Yi, a great hero played by Teacher Chenghui, is good at using a two-handed sword, because of his superb martial arts, he is favored by the kings and wants to take him under his wing.
In fact, these three princes are each pregnant with a ghost fetus, each has its own characteristics, and is not a good person.
In the eyes of the three princes, it is untamed and difficult to control, so the sinister and vicious King Li takes the lead in attacking, using poison, blinding the eyes of the great hero Ma Yi, and marrying the righteous beggar Che Tian (played by Chun Yu Shanshan).
After that, Ma Yi was pregnant with a family and national vendetta, and broke off with the three vicious princes one by one...
Because the protagonist is holding a two-handed sword, the fight design of this film is different from the previous martial arts action, especially a fight on the ice, which is even more exciting and endless.
Because the actors have to complete the martial arts action on the ice, the requirements for the participants are extremely high.
The ice surface is slippery, difficult to get off the feet, and if you are not careful, you will fall, in order to solve this problem, the crew prepared spike shoes for the actors to prevent slipping.
However, everything has two sides, and it is not easy to fall down when wearing spike shoes, but it also limits the actor's activity space, which is equivalent to fixing the position of each character and making it difficult to move.
Therefore, the fight design of this section is all done by twisting the upper body, making people look quite a bit of Tai Chi sword style.
Even if the crew is well prepared, accidents are still difficult to avoid.
In the filming of this fight scene, Ji Chunhua, who played Liu Wang, accidentally fell and fell out of an extremely long wound on the spot.
Due to the remoteness of the shooting location and the incomplete medical facilities, in the absence of anesthetics and anti-inflammatory drugs, he endured the pain and accepted the suture and bandage of the wound.
In 1988, after the release of "The Yellow River Hero", it once again triggered a movie-watching frenzy in the mainland.
Whether it is a sophisticated picture or a fight design, it has been praised by countless audiences, and to this day, it is still a classic in the hearts of many people.
However, compared with the hot scenes in the mainland, the film's release in Hong Kong is a big surprise.
In major theaters in Hong Kong, the film has been tested for 13 days, and was forced to take down the shelves because of the cold box office.
For this phenomenon, a large number of domestic audiences have speculated, and finally summarized into two major reasons:
(1) The lead actor of this film, Yu Chenghui, has poor appeal in the Hong Kong market
Although the "Shaolin Trilogy" has achieved good results in the Hong Kong market, for local audiences, the only actor with real appeal is Jet Li.
It is also for this reason that Jet Li entered the development of the Hong Kong film industry in the later period, and indeed achieved great achievements.
As for other actors, such as Yu Hai, Yu Chenghui, Ji Chunhua and others, they do not have the strength to stand alone in the Hong Kong market.
(2) This film is realistic and humorous, which is inconsistent with the taste of the Hong Kong market at that time
At that time, the Hong Kong market had a relatively fast pace of life, did not like the theme of a strong sense of history, and accepted witty and funny plot design.
Whether it is the "Shaolin Trilogy" or Jackie Chan's action comedy, it is a film that integrates fighting and funny, so it is deeply loved by Hong Kong audiences.
However, the overall tone of "Yellow River Hero" is heavy, not lively enough, lack of funny elements, and it is naturally difficult to capture the hearts of local audiences.
In short, for various reasons, it has created the result that this film has different lives in the mainland and Hong Kong.
Today, let's put aside the box office, put aside the business, purely from the perspective of enjoying the film, this film is definitely worth watching!
What is your opinion on this film? Welcome to communicate together!