What is martial arts? What is the world? Jin Yong said: "The greatest hero is to serve the country and the people." Gu Long said: "Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes." Tsui Hark said: "The rivers and lakes are the places where we martial arts people come and go." More than a thousand years ago, Fan Zhongyan wrote in his "Yueyang Tower Notes" that has been passed down through the ages: "When you live in the high temple, you worry about your people, and when you live in the far away from the rivers and lakes, you worry about your king." It can be seen that people have slightly different definitions of Jianghu and martial arts, but when we combine the views of several masters, we will find that Jianghu is a kind of escape from reality and a resistance to the current society.
Someone once said that the martial arts world and martial arts are just fairy tales for adults. The knights do not need to consider their hunger, cold, food and clothing, and their behavior is not restricted by the law. There are good people and bad people here, and there are evil and justice here. Between evil and justice, between good people and bad people, they use their flesh and blood, use strange martial arts and tricky weapons to realize their emotional expression of the current world. In the pleasure of fighting violence with violence, what you feel is the world. The lonely back in the world with unique skills, family, country and world, and leaving a world alone is the knight.
The world of the world may be displayed in the corners of reality, but it is not pure. The reason why a large number of literary works on the world and martial arts have been published since ancient times is that those down-and-out literati are confronting with their ideal values established in a world they created and their real experiences. Whether it is the various schools of thought in the pre-Qin period, the "Records of the Grand Historian" and "Book of Han" in the Han Dynasty, the legends of the Tang and Song Dynasties, or the strange and martial arts novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. All of them are down-and-out literati who have encountered a wall in real life, looking for a more eternal value support in the world of their writing, and expressing it to this cold world of reality with their gorgeous literary talent.
So when someone asks what the world should look like, this is really a question that martial arts creators are difficult to answer. Because in their minds, the world is more like a feeling and a feeling. It is difficult for them to explain what kind of clothes the hero should wear, what kind of weapons he should take, how he flies over the eaves and walls, and how he shows that he can seal his throat with one sword. An excellent martial arts creator must convince readers and audiences and let the audience feel the chivalrous and hard-blooded heart in their world in a story with a sense of substitution. In this regard, in the field of literature, traditional Chinese literati have accumulated thousands of years of experience. After generations of evolution, they finally formed martial arts literature masters such as Jin Yong and Gu Long .
More than 100 years ago, the movie was born. After its birth, this art form invented by Westerners quickly replaced the mainstream status of various stage dramas and became popular all over the world with lightning speed. At the beginning of the movie, Chinese-language filmmakers were committed to presenting traditional martial arts stories on the big screen in the form of pictures, so that the world that has been passed down in Chinese tradition for thousands of years will be presented to the audience in a more vivid way. In the initial attempt, the filmmakers began to gradually image martial arts stories based on traditional Chinese dramas. However, due to the limitations of traditional dramas, the martial arts movie , which was simply created in this way, appears thin characters on the screen, fighting naively, and cannot present enough dramatic tension and artistic conception of the martial arts.
At this time, we need a director who is proficient in traditional culture and proficient in film technology to complete the construction of martial arts and martial arts in the world of light and shadow. This is an extremely difficult task, because when it breaks beyond the scope of opera, there is not much foundation for predecessors to learn from. Although foreign film technology is already well developed enough, they do not understand the connotation of the world. The Chinese have masters like Jin Yong and Gu Long, but they do not have enough film knowledge. At this time, he stood up alone. His name is Hu Jinquan . Speaking of this director, many viewers are a little unfamiliar with this director.But when it comes to the martial arts movie " New Longmen Inn ", audiences who love martial arts should know that this martial arts movie directed by Li Huimin and produced by Tsui Hark is an absolute classic in the history of Chinese martial arts movies. In the film, Jin Xiangyu played by Maggie Cheung is bone-like, and Brigitte Lin played by Qiu Moyan drunken eyes and tears.
The old version of "Longmen Inn" was written by this martial arts master Hu Jinquan. Although Tsui Hark and Hu Jinquan had an unpleasant cooperation, he still regarded Hu Jinquan as his mentor in the field of martial arts films. If Jin Yong is a master in the field of martial arts novels, then Hu Jinquan is Jin Yong in the field of martial arts films. Before Hu Jinquan, Chinese martial arts movies were unfamiliar and had no influence in the world film industry. It was almost Hu Jinquan who laid the foundation for contemporary Chinese-language martial arts films with his own strength, and it was precisely because of his efforts that martial arts films entered the world.
As mentioned above, there are no references and basis for building the martial arts world in the world of light and shadow, but Hu Jinquan is such a detailed maniac. His stubborn personality also destined to be out of place with the modern film industry system. At first, Hu Jinquan's film career started with the Shaw Group in Hong Kong. The one who recommended him to join Shaw Company was his eight-worship brother, , Li Hanxiang . Because of his excessive pursuit of details, Hu Jinquan often exceeded his budget and delayed the shooting cycle when shooting videos. In this regard, Shaw's head of the then family criticized Hu Jinquan. Similar conflicts have run through Hu Jinquan's entire film career. It is precisely because of this conflict that he has lived from reality to screen in the grudges and entanglements of the people in the martial arts world. The conflicts between him and Tsui Hark, and Run Run Shaw and others are like a hero fighting the current real world with his own ideal value system. Tsui Hark and Run Run Shaw value the commercial attributes of movies more, while Hu Jinquan pays more attention to the connotation and artistic value of movies more.
So when making the film, Hu Jinquan was very particular about every detail of the film. Due to the influence of the family environment, Hu Jinquan has loved ancient Chinese and traditional paintings since childhood. Hu Jinquan was born in Peking, and his family was a family friend of the master of Huanzhu Lou. The influence of this environment also made Hu Jinquan brand the sentiment of martial arts since he was a child. Later, when he was creating martial arts movies, he encountered some details that he couldn't understand, so Hu Jinquan would check ancient books. He himself was also a fan of Ming history, so many of his works had historical backgrounds in the Ming Dynasty, such as his famous works "Longmen Inn" and "The Knights".
"Also, it is the handover in the officialdom, titles and conversations. I dare to assure high-level audiences that there is no comprehensive performance that is more textual, more concise and dramatic. For example, when Yu Dayou went to the governor's office to report, there was a lot of loyalty, treacherous, wise, ignorant, full of mutual support and open and secret struggles, but the official rank system cannot be overwhelmed or derogatory." When talking about the martial arts movie he created, Hu Jinquan said this.
Hu Jinquan's movie is not only very exquisite for some scene dialogues, but even a simple prop in the film, Hu Jinquan has to find the basis in historical materials. He meticulously constructed a martial arts world on the big screen that convinces the audience and admires his peers on the big screen. In order to make his films more ancient and traditional artistic conception, Hu Jinquan used his once skillful traditional painting skills to cleverly create a traditional Chinese painting artistic conception. As the famous director John Woo said: "He requires that every frame of the movie be a painting. His visual effects are beautiful, traditional, and poetic."
In order to make the details in his film closer to the original historical appearance and more in line with his understanding of the atmosphere of the martial arts world, in addition to researching historical materials, Hu Jinquan will also fully combine the actual situation of the characters in the play.For example, when talking about the design of the two protagonists in the film "Loyalty and Martyrdom", Hu Jinquan said: "Another like the wife of a knight played by Xu Feng , she has a more sharp skill than her husband (played by Bai Ying), but her costume is authentic border native outfit, which is not only inconspicuous, but also inconvenient to move. The pair of loyal, heroic and chivalrous figures I made up - Wu Jiyuan, have to go deep into the bandit's nest to capture the bandits. Since I have to burn my boats and go deep into the bandit's nest to capture them. When a thief captures the king, he must first restrain his sharpness, just like the local people, so as not to alert the snake, and achieve twice the result with half the effort. Therefore, I have made this hero into a few words to show that she is one of the silent masses of the Chinese nation. "
In addition to being a master, Hu Jinquan also cultivated many outstanding juniors for Chinese films, including what he said about Xu Feng. When I first heard the name Xu Feng, many viewers may be more unfamiliar with director Hu Jinquan. She is the third actress to be famous by director Hu Jinquan. The first two are Zheng Peipei and Shangguan Lingfeng. Xu Feng's main achievement is because she starred in Hu Jinquan's representative work "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", in which Xu Feng plays the heroine hero. The film did not achieve an ideal box office when it was released, but because of the huge investment, the entire film suffered a serious loss, and Hu Jinquan almost ended his directorial career because of this film.
However, this almost "failed" film made him a blessing in disguise and became the first person to promote Chinese martial arts films to the world. At the Cannes Film Festival in 1974, Hu Jinquan brought the re-edited "The Legend of the Goddess", which caused a sensation in the world's film industry. This is also the first time that Chinese martial arts films have stood on the stage of the world. With the implicit and artistic expression of the East, the world has seen the most charming violent aesthetics in Chinese traditional culture. During his time in Cannes, Xu Feng once asked a French movie star Alanderon to sign, but was stopped by Director Hu. He told Xu Feng that you are also a superstar. This shows Hu Jinquan's traditional integrity as a Chinese-speaking filmmaker.
As the disciple who participated in Hu Jinquan's films the most, Xu Feng finally achieved the greatest achievements in the film industry, but her achievements were not in the age of an actor. Instead, she later transformed into a producer. In this process, Xu Feng facilitated filmmakers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the Three Lands to complete the pinnacle of Chinese-language film "Farewell My Concubine", which also made up for the shortcomings of director Hu Jinquan's failure to win the highest award of the Cannes Film Festival for "The Legend of the Concubine".
And the film "The Legend of the Goddess" has been regarded by the Chinese film industry as an insurmountable classic of Chinese martial arts movies for many years. Later, in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" filmed by Ang Lee , "Hidden Dragon" filmed by Zhang Yimou , "Hidden Ambush " filmed by Hou Hsiao-hyun , and in the representative work of Chinese martial arts movies in the past two years, the audience can see the scene of paying tribute to "The Legend of the Condor Heroes". The reason why director Hu Jinquan's films have such authoritative influence in the field of martial arts films is entirely because of his rigorous attitude and his unique temperament.
Hu Jinquan's ex-wife Zhong Ling said when talking about Hu Jinquan: "The joy of Jinquan's life is to "not do the right job". He is not afraid of heaven and earth, and is most afraid of making movies. Because he films in a desperate way, from preparation, starting filming, to completion, every year or two, he has to fight for his life every day; he has no alcohol, no time to read idle books, and no time to brag with his friends. Isn't this not to mention this? Life in hell on earth? Therefore, every time he finished filming a movie, he always had to drag it out for a while. As long as he could, he would be able to procrastinate. During this period, he would be happy to obey his orders whenever there was a 'foreign affairs'. "
From this passage, we can see that director Hu Jinquan's attitude towards movies is like his life. Others make movies for money and box office, while Hu Jinquan makes movies and becomes a master of his reputation, but has been in a miserable life for half his life. This is entirely because of the feelings of the world and the spirit of the chivalrous people deeply embedded in his soul.Hu Jinquan's career is like a ranger in the film field, running around for his ideals. He longs to use his own movie to engrave the world of the world deep in his heart, and his family and country for thousands of years.
Before his death, Hu Jinquan was raising funds for his movie "History of Blood and Tears in China". In order to participate in the production of this film in the best state, he underwent a heart surgery at the suggestion of a doctor after attending the funeral of his brother Li Hanxiang. However, during the operation, he left the world due to his uneven heart rate, and at the same time he also dedicated his life to the film career he loves. After Hu Jinquan's death, the famous writer Acheng commented: "Hu Jinquan's death is like precious porcelain, one piece is broken and one piece is missing."
years after Hu Jinquan's death, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" directed by Ang Lee won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, once again making Chinese martial arts films famous all over the world, and this is also the best inheritance of director Hu Jinquan's light and shadow martial arts.
In the world of light and shadow martial arts, martial arts movie lovers meet Hu Jinquan early or evening, just as he himself said, "Learn immortals with wine, and learning Buddhism without wine." Hu Jinquan is like a lonely and elegant back left to the audience in the world of martial arts light and shadow. He does not flatter, flatter, or flatter, and does not secularize. He only tells the world his martial arts world with a stubborn and resolute attitude. No matter what the world thinks, in the ultimate expression of the martial arts world, we will return to the poetic light and shadow world set by Hu Jinquan, while he himself plays the huqin and drinks a little wine. In his light and shadow world, he waits for the audience to ask him and practice Zen together, so as to finally understand the sinister world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the people, the martial arts feelings that are deeply embedded in the soul of the Chinese nation.
