The lonely shadow of the cold river and the old friend of the rivers and lakes are the poetic yearning for that world by many martial arts fans. Martial arts films that can truly reflect Chinese cultural traditions are gradually marginalized by the mainstream film market due to f

The lonely shadow of the cold river, an old friend in the rivers and lakes, is the poetic yearning for that world by many martial arts fans. However, in many martial arts movies, the directors of the movie like to point the cameras and stories at some weapons with strange styles, various characters with strange personalities, and various legendary "strange skills and tricks" about kung fu. In addition, the structure and intention of the story are mostly entangled in the secular perspective of victory or defeat, honor and disgrace, love and hate, and love and hatred. Martial arts movies with these characteristics have occupied the market for martial arts movies for a long time because they know how to adapt to the tastes of a larger audience. This characteristic martial arts movie seems to have pushed martial arts movies to a commercial prosperity, but it also made martial arts movies quickly lose the image artistic conception it should have pursued. So after experiencing the prosperity of the 1960s and 1980s, martial arts movies were soon replaced by kung fu movies represented by Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the late 1980s.

From the perspective of movies, martial arts movies and kung fu movies only have different focuss of the subject matter, and there is no obvious boundary in essence. Martial arts movies focus on the humanistic spirit and artistic conception of the martial arts, while kung fu movies focus on the display of martial arts itself. But obviously, kung fu films with kung fu fighting scenes as the main highlight are easier to gain the audience's love. As the saying goes, laymen watch the excitement, and experts watch the tricks. This type of kung fu movie is very suitable for commercial movies with the selling point of "watching the excitement". Martial arts films that can truly reflect Chinese cultural traditions are gradually marginalized by the mainstream film market due to factors such as slow pace, obscure stories, huge production costs, and long shooting cycles. Looking at the Chinese film industry over the past 20 years, only Ang Lee showed the beautiful artistic conception of the world and the unique humanistic feelings of the oriental people in this "Jianghu".

To talk about what exactly does the "jianghu" in the world of martial arts contain in this Chinese traditional culture ? This is a very big proposition. Jin Yong As the last generation of masters in the martial arts literary world, his 14 martial arts novels and the complex words contain the words of many schools such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism in Chinese traditional culture. Jin Yong himself defined martial arts as: "The greatest hero is to serve the country and the people." Jin Yong's "chival spirit" full of preaching obviously cannot cover the martial arts world from a full perspective. In the Chinese film industry, there is also a martial arts master like Jin Yong. When talking about his martial arts movies, he clearly said: "My movie has no theme, I think the movie itself is the theme" . This person is named Hu Jinquan , and he is a "martial arts master" in the Chinese film industry.

Someone said: "At the highest point of the temple of the movie, Stanley. Kubrick is sitting under God" to highlight Kubrick's contribution to the movie. Then in the "Jianghu" of martial arts movies, the person sitting in the same position is Hu Jinquan. , a mainland-born Hong Kong director, became famous in Shaw Brothers films, which occupied most of the Hong Kong films back then. In the late 1960s, Hu Jinquan opened a new chapter in Chinese martial arts movies with his new martial arts film " Big Drunken Hero " and Zhang Che, who is also the "Four Great Directors of Shaw Brothers", together. However, unlike Zhang Che's martial arts movies that aim to be box office, after directing top-notch martial arts movies such as "The Drunken Hero" and " New Dragon Inn ", Hu quickly changed his creative direction to an author movie in his personal mode.

Unlike Zhang Che's films, which focus more on displaying the "bloody and storm" and the dangerous world, Hu Jinquan pays more attention to the exploration of the inner humanistic spirit in martial arts culture and the distant artistic conception in the world on the screen. Especially in the later stages of film creation, Hu Jinquan almost broke away from the constraints of his business model on his film creation. In his pursuit of the ultimate movie, Hu Jinquan was out of control. In addition to being a martial arts master, Hu Jinquan is also a traditional culture enthusiast. During the Shaw Brothers period, he and Li Hanxiang, who are also good at expressing traditional culture on the big screen, were brothers. They were both literary and military, and they jointly built traditional culture on the big screen.But relatively speaking, Hu Jinquan is more particular about details. In order to truly restore a certain historical period on the big screen, Hu Jinquan will read a large number of historical materials to search and verify.

In 1979, the martial arts film "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" directed by Hu Jinquan was released in Hong Kong. As a later work by Hu Jinquan, this film is a culmination of 13 works in Hu Jinquan's entire film career. This is a movie written and directed by Hu Jinquan, which tells a story full of "Zen's" style. In order to truly restore the background of the temple story of the Ming Dynasty in the film, Hu Jinquan and his team completed the outdoor shooting in South Korea. Because South Korea preserves a large number of temple buildings similar to the style of the Ming Dynasty in my country. The story of the whole film was not completed in a temple. In order to find a suitable outdoor scene, Hu Jinquan led the entire team to almost all the temples in South Korea, from south to north.

Although the length of the whole film is nearly two hours, the story of the film is handled very simply by Hu Jinquan. Due to his skill in Buddhist culture, Hu Jinquan tells the whole story similar to a Buddhist case. The story of the film takes place in the Sanbao Temple made by Hu Jinquan. Thanks to the traditional painting foundation that Hu Jinquan has, the pictures of the whole film are like traditional landscape paintings flowing on the big screen. Hu Jinquan's masterpiece makes the characters completely integrated into the artistic conception when they are embedded in it, without any trace of deliberate carving. and even at the beginning of the film, several empty scenes that were completely unrelated to the plot were often criticized by Hu Jinquan's opponents.

Not only that, the story rhythm of the entire film also seems very slow compared to the popular kung fu movies at that time, which is due to Hu Jinquan's appeal to the big screen. His seemingly slow film rhythm (which includes story rhythm, picture rhythm, action rhythm) is actually to cater to the "Zen strategy" in the film. Unlike many preaching martial arts movies, there are very few lines in Hu Jinquan's martial arts movies, and they are all dialogues that explain the plot rather than promote the plot. What he really uses to drive the rhythm of the film is the light and shadow itself in the camera. In the film, the landscape scenery is integrated into the morning and twilight by Hu Jinquan's superb film language, and at the same time, it is integrated into the more original Jianghu artistic conception and Zen philosophy in Hu Jinquan's film.

In Hu Jinquan's earlier film "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", he also interpreted Zen, but the image of "Buddha Light" in that film is more like the "wordless square stele" symbolizing the summoning of civilization in Kubrick's film "2001 Space Odyssey", leaving only one question for the audience, but there is no clear analysis. This kind of questionable film technique has a mysterious meaning for most viewers. But when we came to the film "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain", Hu Jinquan obviously became more confident about "Zen tricks" on the screen. In terms of story structure and light and shadow layout, Hu Jinquan adjusted the rhythm of the entire film to a more Buddhist epiphany. Hu Jinquan established three iconic events for the entire film. One is the establishment of the inheritor of the abbot of Master Zhiyan of Sanbao Temple, the other is the final destination of the "Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" handwritten by Master Xuanzang , and the other is the female flying thief White Fox (played by Xu Feng) who turned back.

In the advancement of the three main lines, Hu Jinquan used the free and easy artistic conception and jumpy movements on the screen to add "Zen" epiphany under the structure of a classic martial arts story. First of all, there are the quiet ancient temples and paradises. Several secular guests came. Although these people are old friends of the old abbot, they each have their own purpose when they came to Sanbao Temple. In addition to Buddhist Zen, the secular value of the "Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" and the abbot of the Sanbao Temple. Using this story structure, Hu Jinquan easily presents the world and the world to the audience on the big screen. Wen'an is greedy for money and General Wang's secular perspective of liking power, which is intertwined on the screen but is not contrary to the Buddhist perspective of Master Zhiyan and the lay Buddhist outside the world. This perspective structure is different from the classic model of good and evil confrontation in traditional martial arts movies.

The ultimate state of Buddhism is selflessness, no otherness, no form, no form, and no word. In summary, it is the word "emptiness". In Buddhism, the opposite of the word "Mahayana" in the "Awakening of Faith in Mahayana" is " Hinayana ". "Mahayana" refers to saving people, and "Haiwana" means saving oneself. The plot about "Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" in the film echoes the Buddhist theme of "saving people".

The subtlety of Hu Jinquan's handling in "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" is that he subtly hides all these Buddhist "Zen" in the Zen light and shadow in the story and film. Just like the name of the film "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain", the whole film is lively and beautiful from the action to the scenery, and what echoes all this is the intertwined secular attitude and Buddhist Zen. In the eyes of Master Zhiyan, lay Buddhists outside the world, and Huisi, the hand-copied "The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" by Xuanzang is just a piece of broken paper that causes worldly troubles. In the eyes of Wen'an and General Wang, this fragment is a priceless treasure.

What's more interesting is that Master Zhiyan's two disciples Huiwen and Huitong secretly communicated with Wen'an and General Wang because they were greedy for the position of host. This two opposing attitudes of "transcendence from the world" and "greed for the secular world" on Buddhism are intertwined in Hu Jinquan's Zen image. What they and the audience in front of the screen did not expect was that Master Zhiyan actually spread the criminal Qiu Ming, who was not in the past ordained for a while. The story setting of Hu Jinquan in the entire film is verified by historical materials. For example, Qiu Ming took over the position of hosting, which echoed the story of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng who obtained the mantle.

The whole video, from secular to outside, from layman to Buddhism, from addiction to transcendence. In Hu Jinquan's freehand and beautiful light and shadow, in the agile and elegant pursuit, the "Zen" of Buddhism emerged on the screen. In addition to a story similar to a Buddhist case, Hu Jinquan also brought the "emptiness" and "spirit" of the image language to the extreme. The bells ringing in ancient temples, meditation and enlightenment are a state of mind, not a label used to be hailed in the secular world. At the end of the film, Qiu Ming, who had inherited and presided over the prestigious treasure, burned down the handwritten fragment of the priceless treasure, "The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana", and in order to promote Buddhism, Qiu Ming gave the handwritten copy "The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" to General Wang.

The value of movies is that it can explain artistic conceptions that cannot be touched by words, and the characteristics of this film language just coincide with the Zen opportunities such as "enlightenment", "emptiness", and "transfer" in Buddhism. With his skill in film language and his understanding of Buddhism and traditional Chinese culture, Hu Jinquan showed the audience the Buddhist "Zen" that has long been integrated into Chinese culture on the screen. Under this traditional Buddhist culture, there is a long river and lake created by Hu Jinquan on the screen that is equivalent to the spiritual home of literati. And the height he has reached on the screen for martial arts movies is still admired by the film’s younger generations.

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