Master photographer

1982 In the spring, Shaolin Temple was released in the mainland, creating a great success.

This film not only made Jeter Ali a well-known kung fu star, but also started the trend of Hong Kong filmmakers co-producing martial arts films with the mainland. Especially since Shaolin Temple, various martial arts films with Shaolin themes have emerged one after another.

In addition to the Shaolin trilogy made by Jet Li himself, there are also films such as Kapok Robe, Shaolin Disciples, Shaolin Laity Disciples and Shaolin Kid Kung Fu, which gave birth to the famous "Shaolin Kung Fu fever" in the mainland film industry in the 1980s.

But in fact, Jet Li's Shaolin Temple is not the first martial arts film co-produced by the mainland and Hong Kong.

As a behind-the-scenes investor, Phoenix Film started shooting another Shaolin-themed martial arts film "Treasure beyond the Great Wall" in Chinese mainland long before Shaolin Temple, which was shot earlier than Shaolin Temple.

Jet Li once interviewed for the casting of the film, but she was eliminated because her height was not up to standard. Wang Qun, Jet Li's brother in the Beijing Wushu Team, was finally selected, because this defeat also made Jet Li disheartened for more than a year. Later, Zhang Xinyan, the director, strongly recommended Jet Li to play Shaolin Temple, so that Jet Li could regain his movie dream.

The film "Treasure beyond the Great Wall" started shooting earlier than that of Shaolin Temple, but it was shown at night than Shaolin Temple because of the distribution problem. The original intention of the producer was to make the film enjoy the popularity of Shaolin Temple, but I didn't expect the influence of Shaolin Temple to be too successful, which led to the mediocre response of the film.

This issue of "Forgotten Domestic Genre Film" will take you back to this classic martial arts film 40 years ago-

The film was released on April 1982, and the producer Phoenix Film is also one of the investors of Shaolin Temple.

At that time, Phoenix Film was invited to film in Chinese mainland, and the two crews of Treasure beyond the Great Wall and Shaolin Temple went to the mainland at the same time. "Treasure beyond the Great Wall" took only a few months to shoot, while "Shaolin Temple" was not ideal because of the original version, and it took two years to shoot.

But even so, due to the strong support and publicity of the mainland, the influence of Shaolin Temple is even higher than that of Treasure beyond the Great Wall, and even reached the point where it was not premiered because of media propaganda. Therefore, the producer Phoenix Film decided to postpone the release of Treasure beyond the Great Wall until after Shaolin Temple.

Both films are Shaolin-themed kung fu films, and both of them were shot in the mainland, enabling martial arts athletes to participate in film performances.

Although ZhangFeng yi, the leading actor, is not a practitioner, he is a Peking Opera actor, and his dancing skills are very good, so he was chosen to star in the film. In addition, ZhangFeng yi's appearance was the national character face popular in domestic movies at that time, and his beard didn't look old in the play, but it increased his masculinity. He was only a sophomore in Nortel when he appeared in this film.

The heroine Diao Sujuan is played by Ji Wang. She was originally a dancer of the People's Liberation Army Art Troupe, but she was chosen as the heroine by the crew. This film was also Ji Wang's first film performance, and it was because of this experience that she was admitted to the humanities and became a professional actress.

Except for the hero and heroine, the supporting roles in this film are almost all real martial arts experts.

In the film, the male No.2 God Hand is played by martial arts actor Wang Qun, who eliminated Jet Li in the selection of this role, and Wang Qun later became a famous martial arts actor in the 1980s, appearing in films such as Invincible Yuanyang Leg and Golden Dart Huang Tianba.

The actress who plays ZhangFeng yi's sister in the film is Wang Xiuping who was born in Beijing Wushu Team. She was also active in the martial arts film circle in the 1980s and 1990s. What impressed her the most was the role of the fire lotus teaching jade girl in Su Gai, which was quite amazing at that time.

In the film, Wu Bin, the coach of Beijing Wushu Team, is also the teacher of Jet Li, Jason Wu and others, playing the role of the dharma monk of Kaiyuan Temple. In the film, Sun Genfa, the master of Nanquan, played the villain Luo Zhenshan, and later starred in classic martial arts films such as King of Nanquan.

After introducing the background information, let's talk about the plot of the film.

The early years of the Republic of China were in troubled times.

On the Mobei grassland, there is a group of horse thief, led by Jing. They are skilled in martial arts, roaming the grasslands, robbing the rich and helping the poor.

Although he is engaged in robbery, Jing Tianlei has a way of stealing and never hurts innocent people.

On this day, Jing Tianlei led his army through a Shui Bo and met a dying monk.

The monk was scarred, apparently being hunted, and Jing Tianlei followed the blood all the way to a nearby temple.

As soon as I entered the temple, I saw corpses everywhere, and the bodies of monks who died tragically were everywhere. Only one old monk is still breathing.

The old monk told the truth before he died. They are monks of Kaiyuan Temple and were ordered to escort the Buddha treasure "Buddhist relics". They wanted to send the relics to Shaolin Temple in Songshan, but they didn't expect to stop here on the way, but they were attacked by a group of robbers and the relics were taken away.

Jing Tianlei asked the monk: Who is the man who robbed the relic?

The result gave him a shocking answer. The man who robbed the cultural relics claimed to be the thief Jing Tianlei.

Jing Tianlei knew that someone had framed him, so he was determined to find out the truth and recapture the Buddhist treasure.

Jingtianlei has a strange sister named Jingtianfeng. After examining the monk's wound, she consulted with her brother Jing. There was a gunshot wound at the scene, and only the security team in nearby Hufei Town had guns.

According to this inference, the theft of the relic is probably related to the captain of the security team.

Jing Tianfeng wanted to follow her brother to investigate the security team, but her brother Jing Tianlei was worried about her sister's accident, so he ordered her to concentrate on practicing martial arts at home and ride alone to Hufei Town.

There is a thief in the town, and people in the Jianghu call him God's Hand Zhang. He wandered the rivers and lakes with a clever chess game.

On this day, Zhang Shen took a stolen dog skin and wanted to sell it to the boss of a fur shop, but the boss refused.

The hand of God is boring, but his glib personality is not surprising. Instead, he stole the boss's wallet.

The boss found his wallet stolen and ordered his men to chase it quickly. Zhang Shunshun, the god of escape, took a horse from the street and ran away with it.

Unexpectedly, this horse has a master. When the master whistled nearby, the horse automatically turned around and ran back.

The owner of the horse is Jing, and he and Zhang Shen are old friends.

Zhang Shenshou is very familiar with the boundary of the town, so Jing offered to let Zhang Shenshou assist in the investigation of the security team and promised to give him a large reward when it was done. Although Zhang was reluctant, Jing was so skilled that he had to accept orders.

After inquiring, they learned that Captain Mai had recently acquired a treasure and attached great importance to it, so they invited Luo Zhenshan, a Jianghu expert, to send disciples to guard it.

Following this clue, Jing found two disciples of Luo Zhenshan, Wang Deren and Li Daquan, in the teahouse in the city and subdued them. So Jing and Zhang Shenshou entered Captain Mai's residence in the name of Luo Zhenshan's disciples.

Captain Mai has no doubt about the identity of these two men, and Beijing takes this opportunity to investigate at Colonel Mai's home.

Masked men broke into the mansion at night and stole a brocade box from the attic of the headquarters.

However, when the masked men evacuated, they were discovered by Jing and Shen Zhang, and the two sides fought.

The masked man was superior in martial arts and was neck and neck with Jing for a while, but with the wonderful hand of Zhang Shen, he successfully snatched the brocade box from the masked man.

During the fight, an earring fell from the masked man, and Jing guessed that the masked man should be a woman.

Masked men fled, and Jing and Zhang Shenshou won the recognition and trust of Captain Mai for regaining the brocade box.

However, Captain Mai told them that the brocade box was simply empty and just a cover.

The next day, Captain Mai took Jing and Zhang Shenshou to the rich gentry Diao's house in the town.

He gave his treasure to Master Diao, entrusted him to sell it to foreign businessmen, and then ordered Jing and Zhang Shen to be nursing homes in Diao's home.

Jing speculates that this relic may be hidden in The Story Of Diu Sim's home, ready to investigate separately with God's hand Zhang, but she meets her sister Tianfeng in The Story Of Diu Sim's home. It turned out that she didn't listen to her brother's orders and pretended to be a servant girl of Diao's family to investigate the theft of the relic.

Jing Tianlei had a bad attack at this time, so he had to let his sister be careful. However, on the other side, his hand is disloyal. He comes to Diao's house in the inner city and wants to steal some antiques.

Just then, a dart suddenly shot out of the window, warning Zhang Shen not to steal.

Jing suspects that Diao's family still has a master at home, so he wants to throw a stone at him and ask Diao's family who else needs to see.

Upon inquiry, I learned that Master Diao has no wife, only an elderly mother, who knocks on the wooden fish to chant Buddhist scripture every day and never cares about the world. In addition, there is a niece Diao Sujuan living in your family. She was brought up at an early age.

Jing found a chance to test it, took out the eardrop dropped by the masked man and asked if it was left by Miss Diao.

Miss Diao doesn't admit it, but Jing has guessed that this miss Diao is by no means a big lady on the surface.

A few days later, Miss Diao claimed that she would go to a temple in a nearby mountain area to realize her wish, so she asked Jingtianlei to accompany her.

When Miss Diao came to the deep mountain, she set an ambush in advance, and three nuns held swords to kill Jing. Fortunately, Jing successfully defeated the nun with martial arts, which made Miss Diao more convinced that Jing was a lackey invited by Captain Mai.

However, one trouble after another. Two disciples of Luo Zhenshan, who had been imprisoned by Jing, sneaked away while the guards were drunk, and came to Tiaofu, claiming to capture Jing.

Seeing that things were going to screw up, Jing had to put on a show and framed Luo Zhenshan's apprentice as Jing instead.

The two sides did not agree to fight, which led to the security team. At the critical moment, my sister Tianfeng made a noise. In order to protect her brother, she deliberately identified Luo Zhenshan's apprentice as Tian Lei, a thief, so she was arrested and imprisoned.

That night, Miss Diao learned about it. She admired Jing's chivalrous style very much, so she disguised herself as a masked man, sneaked into the cell of the security team and rescued Jing's brother and sister.

As a result, Miss Diao saved Luo Zhenshan's apprentice by the way, and they immediately ran away. Jing Tianfeng tried to stop it, but Miss Diao didn't understand why there was a fight between their brother and sister, so she stopped it and let Luo Zhenshan's apprentice escape.

Jing Tianfeng told the truth, and Miss Diao knew that the person she always wanted to get rid of was the real Jing Tianlei.

Only then did Jing know that Miss Diao was raised by Master Diao since she was a child, but she was not stained with mud, and her master had a close relationship with Shaolin Temple, so they had been secretly looking for relics.

Jing concluded that Master Diao probably hid the relic in the wooden fish in the old ancestral temple of Diao.

So, he first stole the seal of Captain Mai, forged a military order, and transferred all the security teams.

Then set fire to the Buddhist temple in Diaofu, and let God take advantage of the chaos to replace the relics.

However, Master Diao found that his nieces Diao Sujuan and Jing Tianlei had stolen the cultural relics and wanted to kill them with a gun.

Fortunately, Jing made a hidden weapons with a silver dollar and shot Master Diao on the spot.

Miss Jing and Diao intend to give this cultural relic to her teacher and ask her to return it to Shaolin Temple.

Unexpectedly, at this time, Wang Deren and Li Daquan, who escaped, took their master Luo Zhenshan to rob the relics.

At this point, the film ushered in the ultimate decisive battle, and Jing Tianlei and Luo Zhenshan confronted each other alone.

After a fierce battle, Jing tried his best to kill the culprit, returned the treasure to the original owner and took the grassland away. ...

From today's point of view, although this film was shot at the same time as Shaolin Temple, both the film production and the martial arts design are not as good as the latter, and the overall level basically stays at the level of Hong Kong Kung Fu films in the 1970s.

After all, "Treasure beyond the Great Wall" is the first time that a Hong Kong film has made a martial arts film in the Mainland. Therefore, although the mainland martial arts actors are used to star in the film and participate in the action design, it is basically dominated by the Hong Kong film team. Many plot connections and lens applications are relatively rigid, and the martial arts action settings are obvious.

However, we can't completely deny the advantages of this film. The film can be shot in the grassland, and the photography and pictures are still remarkable. The portrayal of the two characters, Zhang Shenshou and Sister Tianfeng, is quite pleasing, which adds a lot of relaxed and humorous elements to the film. ZhangFeng yi and Ji Wang in their youth can also be called handsome men and beautiful women, which is impressive.

After the film was released, the local box office in Hong Kong was 3.09 million, which was far from the box office in Shaolin Temple (1.6 1.5 million). On the contrary, Jet Li, who was unsuccessful in the interview for this film, became popular in China with Shaolin Temple, but this treasure beyond the Great Wall was forgotten in the film history.