He is the first Chinese director to win the International A-level Film Festival award. He was selected as one of the world's five major directors by the authoritative British magazine International Film Guide. He is called "Hong Kong Kurosawa Akira" by the Japanese film industry. His most famous work, the Heroine, won the Comprehensive Technology Award at the 28th Cannes International Film Festival in France, made Chinese martial arts films go to the world for the first time. He is a master of writing the Chinese martial arts world with poetry and Zen. He is Hu Jinquan.
On April 29, 1931, a cute baby boy fell to the ground in a scholarly family in Peking. Hu Jinquan's father Hu Yuanshen went to Kyoto University in Japan in his early years to study. His mother was a fine brush painter. When he was a teenager, Hu Jinquan studied at Huiwen Middle School in Peking. He has been proficient in both piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and is good at fine brushwork in Chinese painting.
When he was a teenager, Hu Jinquan was very interested in drama, especially indulging in martial arts dramas. Therefore, he often sneaked to the famous theaters in Beijing at that time, Huguang Tower or Guangde Tower to listen to the drama, and even got beaten by his family because of this.
In 1949, Hu Jinquan went south to Hong Kong alone. In order to make a living, Hu Jinquan went to a printing factory to proofread the phone book for newspapers and magazines to make a living. In 1951, 21-year-old Hu Jinquan joined Longma Film Company as an artist after being introduced by Jiang Guangchao. He then transferred to the Art Department of Great Wall Film Company, and worked as a drawing work for films such as a film, a spring and other films. Hu Jinquan's art skills since childhood have been unanimously recognized by the industry.
In 1953, after Li Hanxiang's introduction, Hu Jinquan began to be an actor. His first appearance was to play a supporting role in the movie directed by Yan Jun. In 1954, he starred in the film Road Angel.
at that time, Li Hanxiang, who had already gained fame in the Hong Kong film industry, spared no effort to help Hu Jinquan and frequently allowed him to play roles in the movies directed by himself, including the opera film Jiangshan Beauty in 1959. This film won the Golden Snail Award for Best Film at the Asian Film Festival that year, and Hu Jinquan also won the Best Supporting Actor for this. In 1963, Hu Jinquan and Li Hanxiang jointly directed the Huangmei tuned film Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. The perfect cooperation between the two made Li Hanxiang realize Hu Jinquan's directorial potential, so he vigorously promoted him to independently direct the drama film Yu Tangchun, which opened up Hu Jinquan's directorial path. In 1966, Hu Jinquan directed his first martial arts film, The Drunken Hero. After the release of the film, the Drunken Hero not only made a big box office success, but also along with Chang Cheh's one-armed sword, it is considered a symbol of the birth of the new martial arts film in Hong Kong.
In 1967, Hu Jinquan filmed the movie Longmen Inn. As soon as it was released, it broke the box office record in all parts of Asia at that time and won the 6th Taiwan Golden Horse Awards Drama Awards. A series of films starting from Longmen Inn, Hu Jinquan's films mostly use the Ming Dynasty as the narrative background, which has become a major feature of his movies. The fighting in the film is very colorful for Peking Opera martial arts. The movements in the movies are borrowed from Chinese dramas, combining dance, music and drama into one, which is richer in a traditional cultural sentiment than ordinary martial arts movies. Hu Jinquan also promoted martial arts films to the same aesthetic status as art films.
From 1970 to 1972, Hu Jinquan directed the martial arts masterpiece. This movie became the pinnacle of Hu Jinquan's martial arts movies. The shooting cycle was long and the cost was unprecedented. The film won the Comprehensive Technology Award at the 28th Cannes Film Festival in 1975.
In 1989, Tsui Hark planned to film Jin Yong's famous work, Smiling and Proud Wanderer. At that time, Hu Jinquan, who was already in a semi-retired state, came out to direct the film. But no one expected that there was a problem in the cooperation between two generations of martial arts directors, who should have been a good story in the film industry, and the two had major differences in their creative concepts, which led to Hu Jinquan's silence and renouncement from the crew halfway. However, Hu Jinquan's quaint and romantic style still affected the creation of the film to a certain extent, especially the character shapes and scenes in the film, with Hu Jinquan's shadow.
1991, Hu Jinquan filmed his last martial arts movie, the King of Yin and Yang, which became the curtain call of his film career.In early 1997, Hu Jinquan unfortunately passed away during a heart catheter balloon expansion operation. Hu Jinquan galloped across the magnificent world of martial arts movies for decades, writing his ambitions and pride in the fight between swords, guns, swords and halberds. In the historical process of Chinese films, Hu Jinquan has created an amazing historical chapter of Chinese martial arts films with his unique artistic style.
