1972, in Hong Kong, in Shaw Brothers Film Company, the founder, Mr. Run Run Shaw , was sitting in the office thinking hard, his mind was messy.
It turned out that his Shaw Brothers company accepted a "tough" business: picking some high-quality Hong Kong film video tapes and sending them to Beijing via Guangzhou.
However, after hearing this, Run Run Shaw was shocked and sweated.
In response to this, Run Run Shaw's lawyer friend specially comforted him: "What are you afraid of? Nixon has arrived in Beijing. Why don't we use movies as a link to bring in the relationship with Beijing?"
After hearing the persuasion of his lawyer friend, Run Run Shaw made up his mind and agreed to lend the movie produced by the company to the mainland.
So, a batch of carefully selected image tapes were sorted and packaged, and they were successfully transported to Beijing through the transfer of the mainland cultural department.
So, why did Beijing borrow a movie from Mr. Run Run Shaw at that time? What unknown story is behind this?
The Way to Seek Shadow
After the 1970s, Chairman Mao, who was healthy in the past, began to develop various diseases under the erosion of time!
Years of work at the desk have caused his vision to decline seriously. As long as it is a long-term activity of using his eyes, such as reading and reading newspapers, it will be a huge pain for the Chairman.
But Mao Zedong was addicted to books as he was. If he could not read books, it would be another great torture for him.
In order to meet the Chairman's reading needs and to take care of the Chairman's daily life more conveniently, the Party Central Committee has specially established an action group to provide the Chairman with convenience in life.
First of all, the action group started from the printing department and formed a "big character group" with the comrades of the publishing house.
"Big Characters Group", as the name suggests, means that after special comments, the books Mao Zedong wanted to read were arranged into "Big Characters" before editing and publishing. The "large-size" version of books, such as
, effectively solved Chairman Mao's reading problem, and the printing factory also specially copied a batch of new font models for Chairman Mao.
However, as time goes by, the Chairman's eye disease becomes more and more serious, especially after suffering from cataract , the doctor repeatedly instructed Chairman Mao not to use his eyes too much and to appropriately reduce the time for reading books and newspapers.
But Chairman Mao was in his 80s at that time and had no other hobbies except reading books and newspapers on weekdays! In order to liberate the Chairman's eyes, the Action Group decided to start from another direction and find other pastimes suitable for the Chairman.
As we all know, Chairman Mao has always loved the art of film and has also been very knowledgeable about camera language. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in order to expand his horizons and understand the overseas entertainment industry, Mao Zedong watched a group of excellent movies from overseas, such as "The Revenge of Monte Cristo" and "Suez".
At that time, it was the peak period of Hong Kong film development!
The rise and development of martial arts novels have provided good opportunities and soil for the development of films. Hong Kong kung fu films represented by Bruce Lee were very popular. Martial arts novels created by Jin Yong , Gu Long , Liang Yusheng , Huang Yi and others have become excellent scripts for costume movies.
Among the companies that produced movies, Shaw Brothers Company founded by Run Run Shaw is one of the best, and the production of Shaw also became a golden signboard in the Hong Kong film industry at that time.
Therefore, the action team considers that Chairman Mao has watched many foreign movies, it is time to change his taste. So, Hua Guofeng found Liu Qingtang, who was in charge of films in the Ministry of Culture, and asked him to think of a way to get some Hong Kong movies to Beijing.
But at that time, the cultural exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong were almost zero. Not to mention movies, I had never seen even a comic strip produced in Hong Kong.
It is really difficult to find Hong Kong movies in such a special environment. So Liu Qingtang set out for Guangdong, hoping to try his luck in this place closest to Hong Kong.
After coming to Guangdong, Liu Qingtang immediately went to the Guangzhou Military Region 's station and found his old friend, Wei Guoqing, who was the first secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and the political commissar of the Guangzhou Military Region at that time.
Wei Guoqing saw that his old friend came from Beijing from thousands of miles away, there must be something important.
After learning about Liu Qingtang's purpose, Wei Guoqing was also stunned: "Old Liu, I am in charge of military and political affairs and know nothing about the cultural industry. You are looking for me but you are looking for the wrong person. Forget it, don't rush to leave first, let's think of a solution together."
Suddenly, Liu Qingtang's inspiration flashed: "By the way! Movies are cultural industries, and cultural people must have exchanges with cultural people. Guoqing, please bring me some people from the cultural circle in Guangzhou. They used to go out for cultural exchanges. There must be some suitable way. "
" cultural circle! Is the comrades of Xinhua News Agency possible? After all, they all use pens. It just so happens that our Xinhua News Agency has a branch in Hong Kong. Just ask a comrade to come back and ask. "
At that time, the president of Xinhua News Agency's Hong Kong branch was Liang Weilin. He has worked in Hong Kong for 14 years and has a deep understanding of the local customs and cultural development level.
does what he said, Wei Guoqing called the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency and asked Liang Weilin to come back and have a "important task" to be issued to him.
After receiving the call from Wei Guoqing, Liang Weilin immediately set off. After returning to Guangdong from Hong Kong, he rushed to the military district where Wei Guoqing was located to discuss the matter of several Hong Kong movies.
When Liang Weilin heard this, he patted his thigh and said, "You have said it earlier. Run Run Shaw's lawyer is a friend I know, I can just find him."
Without further ado, Liang Weilin hurried back to Hong Kong and found the lawyer friend he knew, and asked him to ask Mr. Run Run Shaw to borrow several movies from him.
Run Run Shaw was in a hurry to learn that Beijing was going to borrow the movie produced by his company.
But at the same time, this is another excellent exchange opportunity in mainland China and Hong Kong, and it is very likely to open the door to cultural communication between the two places. With the concerns between the two parties, Run Run Shaw didn't know what to do.
Just when Run Run Shaw was in a dilemma and didn't know what to do, his lawyer friend came forward to give him a "heart-boosting agent".
"Look, American political masters like Kissinger Nixon have visited China, and China and the United States have broken the ice. What can you worry about? If our cultural bond is established and Shaw's movies can enter the mainland, what a big market will it be."
With the "endorsement" of a lawyer friend, Run Run Shaw firmly determined to lend the movie to the mainland, so he carefully selected several movies with box office appeal in Hong Kong from the company's warehouse. After packing them up, he handed them to Liang Weilin through a lawyer.
Chairman Mao and Bruce Lee
After getting the movie produced by Shaw Brothers, Liang Weilin immediately handed it over to Liu Qingtang, and a cultural link between the land and the port was established.
Soon, the movie was sent to Beijing. Among the selected movies, in addition to Shaw Brothers' main martial arts films, there are three kung fu films filmed by Bruce Lee during his time in Hong Kong, namely " Tangshan Big Brother ", " Jingwumen ", and " Raptors Crossing the River ".
Compared with martial arts films produced by Shaw Brothers, Chairman Mao favored Bruce Lee's movies. During that time, Chairman Mao sometimes forgot to watch the files to watch Bruce Lee's movies.
At that time, Mao Zedong usually watched borrowed Hong Kong movies for more than ten days, intermittently, and several minutes each time. For only Bruce Lee's movies, the chairman has to watch them for a whole month, and they are watched repeatedly.
Why is Chairman Mao passionate about Bruce Lee's kung fu films? Combined with the Chairman's revolutionary experience and the main plot of these movies, we can find some clues from the beginning.
"Rare Dragons Crossing the River" is a kung fu film directed and starred by Bruce Lee. The plot of this movie is actually very simple. It tells the story of a young man from a countryside in Hong Kong who was entrusted by his uncle to go to Rome, Italy to assist a restaurant manager in a Chinese restaurant.
Restaurants are often threatened by a group of Italian mafia, forcing them to sell the restaurant's land and often send gangsters to harass the restaurant.
And Bruce Lee plays a role like a savior in this film. Faced with the threat of the local mafia, he defeated the enemy with his strong martial arts and tenacious fighting spirit, and annihilated this criminal gang that harmed the side.
"Jingwumen" tells the story of his disciple Chen Zhen after his disciple Chen Zhen returned from Japan after he returned from Japan.
The difference between the play is that Chen Zhen in history is just a little-known apprentice of Huo Yuanjia. The movie combines folk legends and many well-known figures from the Republic of China period.
is a movie character composed of Chen Qimei, who is not afraid of power in character, dares to think and do; and countless masters with real skills such as Chen Gongzhe, , etc.
In the film, Chen Zhen, played by Bruce Lee, broke into the Japanese gym alone to compete with a group of Japanese masters, and finally solved the enemy who killed his master himself.
The plot of him breaking the plaque of "Sick Man in East Asia" has become a famous film plot, symbolizing the regaining of the dignity of the country and the nation.
In "Brother Tangshan", it tells the story of the labor group who went overseas to work in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Faced with the unreasonable and bloody oppression of the factory owners, they finally couldn't bear it anymore and rose up to resist and recovered their blood debts.
In fact, from the perspective of modern movies, the plots of these three movies are very simple, the shooting techniques are relatively ordinary, and there is no complicated lens language, but he can become a masterpiece in the hearts of such a great man as Chairman Mao, which is nothing more than its connotation and ideological nature.
, without exception, all of these three movies have a strong national consciousness, which is not unrelated to the general background of the international community at that time.
Since the Opium War in 1840, China has long lost its name as the "Celestial Kingdom" under internal and external troubles, and the people live in the heat of water.
The great powers used this to suppress the Chinese people's nature and tried to turn the Chinese people into spiritual walking zombies. The extremely insulting title of "Sick Man in East Asia" appeared.
With the establishment of the New China, the Chinese who were bullied finally stood up. With the outstanding performance in the Korean battlefield, the Geneva conference , and various diplomatic occasions, the Chinese who went overseas to make a living in the early years gradually lifted their heads that were once bullied.
Not only that, under the leadership of the great Mao Zedong, poor people from all over the world raised their sickles and hammers in their hands, and the momentum of the proletarian revolution was like a prairie fire.
Under such an international background, film and television works have also begun to extend downward, describing "Royals, Princes, Generals, and Prime Ministers" epics belonging to grassroots people also frequently appear on big screens around the world.
And all of the characters played by Bruce Lee are all heroes of the lower class who are skilled in martial arts and kind-hearted, and they are heroes among the masses. The ones he fights against are thugs such as gangsters and national enemies.
Therefore, Bruce Lee's movie is in line with Chairman Mao's imagination of heroes. When he was watching Bruce Lee's movie, when he saw him beat those evildoers, he couldn't help but cheer for him, applauding and shouting: "Watch well, beat well."
It can be said that watching movies is one of the few ways for Chairman Mao to relax except reading books and newspapers in his later years, which brought him a lot of laughter and joy!
Conclusion
However, after 1975, due to the successive deaths of Premier Zhou and President Zhu, Chairman Mao felt even more lonely and lonely!
When the mood is low, the disease is still invading the old man's body. On September 9, 1976, Chairman Mao passed away due to illness and left the country and people he loved forever!
