In 1982, "Shaolin Temple" starring Jet Li became a hit at the box office after its release, with an average ticket price of 10 cents and a box office of 160 million. "Shaolin Temple" became popular throughout Asia, driving the kung fu craze and allowing Hong Kong film compan

In 1982, "Shaolin Temple" starring Jet Li was a box office hit after it was released. The average ticket price was 1 cent, and it actually earned 160 million in box office.

"Shaolin Temple" became popular throughout Asia, driving the kung fu craze and allowing Hong Kong film companies at the time to smell the huge market for martial arts and kung fu films in the mainland.

Immediately afterwards, a group of Hong Kong directors began to come to the mainland to shoot movies, which started the road of "going north" for Hong Kong directors.

Chang Cheh, a great master of martial arts movies, is one of them.

As a former mainstay of Shaw Brothers, Chang Cheh directed many acclaimed and popular martial arts films, such as "The One-Armed Sword", "Thirteen Taibo" and "Horse".

In 1986, after Chang Cheh came to the mainland, he handed over "Great Shanghai 1937", a "violent aesthetic blockbuster".

The movie is adapted from the "Assassination of Zhang Xiaolin by Lin Huaibu" during the Anti-Japanese War. It tells the story of Du Yuesheng's disciple Lin Huaibu joining the anti-traitor organization and planning to eradicate the traitor Zhang Xiaolin.

After the film was released, the hot fighting scenes were an eye-opener for mainland audiences, and it became the most copied movie in the mainland that year.

.41 billion moviegoers and 30.1 million distribution revenue are enough to illustrate the popularity of the film.

Today, let’s talk about the stories behind this “hit” film of the year.

1. Zhang Che moved to the mainland, and the sixth generation of disciples emerged.

In 1986, Zhang Che came to Shanghai for an on-site inspection to do landscape work for "Great Shanghai 1937".

Although the setting went smoothly, Chang Cheh and the company had differences in the selection of actors.

Taking into account the cost of filming, the crew and company executives suggested selecting several members from Chang Cheh's "Zhang Family Class" to serve as the protagonists of the film.

When the staff informed Zhang Che of this decision, he was rejected.

It turns out that Chang Cheh decided to use a new cast in consideration of changes in the market environment and the preferences of mainland audiences.

In that era when stand-ins were rarely used, there were a large number of martial arts scenes in the film, which required the actor's real talent and learning.

Therefore, in the selection process of actors, Zhang Che has always tended to select talents from "Liyuan disciples", especially martial arts students.

For a period of time thereafter, Chang Cheh visited almost all the Peking Opera troupes in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, looking for the leading actor in the movie.

Later, someone introduced Zhang Che to the Experimental Peking Opera Troupe of the Chinese Academy of Opera. A group of young students had just been recruited here, and their skills in singing, chanting, and fighting were very solid.

visited the Opera Academy and watched the students’ performances. Zhang Che picked Du Yuming, Xu Xiaojian and Dong Zhihua.

The handsome appearance and excellent professional ability of the three of them made Zhang Che very satisfied. Especially Xu Xiaojian's handsome appearance, he was simply the chosen "male number one".

Zhang Che immediately decided to let the three of them go to Shanghai to shoot a movie together, and it was logical that the three of them became Zhang Che's sixth generation disciples.

2, Dong Zhihua refused the invitation, and the director added a scene for him

Just when the director thought everything was ready, Dong Zhihua rejected the director's invitation.

It turned out that Dong Zhihua was preparing to follow Peking Opera master Li Huiliang to Hong Kong for performance exchanges, and there was a conflict with the filming schedule of the crew.

Faced with Chang Cheh's invitation and the opportunity to perform with the master in Hong Kong, Dong Zhihua fell into a dilemma.

After careful consideration, Dong Zhihua planned to refuse the film invitation and go to Hong Kong for performance exchange.

In Dong Zhihua’s view, movies are another kind of business, while Peking opera is his career and his job.

After Zhang Che learned about Dong Zhihua's decision, although he understood his decision, he still wanted to fight for it again.

Therefore, the director and the film’s producer Zhu Mu and his wife went to Dong Zhihua’s residence for final discussions and fights.

This was completely beyond Dong Zhihua’s expectation. Seeing the sincerity of director Zhang Che and the producer in front of him, he decided to go to Shanghai to participate in the filming of the movie.

For this reason, Chang Cheh also specially added a role for Dong Zhihua. Originally, the role of "Little Knife Yang Pan" was only a small supporting role in the movie, with only a few scenes.

In order to fully demonstrate Dong Zhihua’s short-fight martial arts skills, the director added several exciting martial arts scenes with one stroke of his pen, making "Little Knife Yang Pan", who is cold on the outside and hot on the inside, become the highlight of the movie.

Faced with the director’s love, Dong Zhihua’s performance was even more impressive.

When filming a close fight scene, there was a difficult front kick. In order to make the performance more realistic, Dong Zhihua shot more than 40 scenes before and after to achieve the desired effect.

Perhaps it was Dong Zhihua’s more sincere attitude that impressed Zhang Che. After that, the two collaborated on many other works such as " Dragon Crossing the River ", " Jianghu Strange Soldiers ", " Xi'an Killing ", etc., becoming Zhang Che's most proud in his later years. One of his disciples.

Dong Zhihua also became a hot kung fu star in the 1980s with the help of these works directed by Chang Cheh, and his acting career gradually became prosperous.

Many people are more familiar with his other role, which is the fried ghost in " Kung Fu ", and the skilled Wulang Bagua stick.

In the 1990s, Dong Zhihua married Wang Jinghua, the "first agent in Beijing", and their son Dong Zijian is now also a popular and powerful actor in the entertainment industry.

3, Du Yuming "painted glue" to pretend to be old, Xu Xiaojian broke his foot for filming

"Big Shanghai 1937" is known as the martial arts action film supported by "three martial arts students". Dong Zhihua and Xu Xiaojian both have wonderful martial arts scenes in the film. , in contrast, Du Yuming was mostly literary and operatic, and did not take advantage of his martial arts skills.

Du Yuming plays Du Yuesheng, one of the three tycoons in Shanghai, in the movie. He is a character who can "point the country" just by sitting at home.

sounds easy to control. In fact, the shooting difficulty for Du Yuming, who is new to the industry, is no less than that of two "thugs".

Since this is Chang Cheh's first film in the mainland, he has high requirements for details.

In order to restore the age status of the character Du Yuesheng, Du Yuming not only dyes his hair every day, but also makes special effects makeup for wrinkles at the end of his eyes.

At that time, Du Yuming was equipped with two makeup artists. Whenever it was time to put on makeup and remove makeup, it became the most uncomfortable time for Du Yuming.

Because you have to apply a lot of special glue to the end of the eye, not only can you not move when applying makeup, but it also takes a lot of time to remove makeup.

Sometimes it is not clean and causes skin allergies, which is even more unbearable for Du Yuming.

However, for Du Yuming, who was born in opera, in order to shape the role well, he gritted his teeth and persisted day by day until the role was completed.

Due to his willingness to endure hardship and his easy-going and considerate personality, Du Yuming was also deeply liked by Zhang Che.

After filming this movie, Du Yuming continued to cooperate with Chang Cheh, and later became the deputy director of Chang Cheh's movies.

Since then, Du Yuming has never left the entertainment industry. In recent years, he has played supporting roles in many popular dramas, such as Zhu Ziming, the leader of Qingfeng Village in " Snow Leopard ", and the master Eunuch Hong in " Celebrating More Than Years ".

As a pure action drama from beginning to end, the most exciting thing about "Big Shanghai 1937" is the fist-to-bone martial arts scenes.

As the male lead, Xu Xiaojian took on most of the martial arts scenes in the movie and was the "Kung Fu Responsible" among the three martial arts students.

Of course, he was the actor with the most martial arts scenes and the most injured actor. During the filming process, he suffered many injuries, big and small, every day.

In a scene where he somersaulted down from a tree, Xu Xiaojian was too involved and when he landed, the sole of his foot fell between the gap between two mats, causing a fracture in his foot.

Xu Xiaojian didn't notice it at the time. It wasn't until after the filming of the scene that he discovered a big bulge on his ankle and realized that his foot was broken.

Later, with the help of the crew, he went to the hospital for bandage treatment. However, in order not to slow down the filming progress of the crew, Xu Xiaojian only rested for two weeks before returning to the crew to continue filming.

"Great Shanghai 1937" was a great success at the box office after its release. Xu Xiaojian's acting career also became famous, and he continued to shoot many movies such as "Xi'an Killing", "The Dragon Crossing the River", "The Righteous Hero", "" and "".

After 2000, Xu Xiaojian began to turn his work behind the scenes and participated in the direction of film works such as "The Enmity of the Sea", "Ghost Girl" and "Plum Blossoms".

It has been 38 years since "Great Shanghai 1937" was released. The film caused a sensation in the mainland, but it was not successful in Hong Kong, with a box office of only more than 2 million.

After that, Chang Cheh filmed movies such as "Xi'an Killing", "Jiujiang" and "Supernatural Power" in mainland China.

However, it is difficult for Chang Cheh, who is in his twilight years, to regain his former glory in Shaw Brothers. The old-fashioned plot design and martial arts style made the following works have a mediocre response.

Even so, "Great Shanghai 1937" still contributed many classic martial arts scenes, and the national sentiments contained in it made people see the patriotic enthusiasm of the older generation of Hong Kong directors.(Written by Pipi Xia)