"He used to be the head of the Beijing Film Studio Actors Troupe and was very caring towards us younger generations. He acted in The Bridge, the first film produced in New China, and the film Heroic Courage, in which he starred, was watched 226 times by an audience in Tianjin. He had a long-standing and affectionate nickname, 'Yu Dachuan'. No matter at which stage of his life, he could rely on his extraordinary talent and diligence to continuously cut through the waves in the ocean of art..." During the 19th China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival in 2010, the 80-year-old actor Yu Yang was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award", and the award speech is still fresh in our minds.
Yu Yang
It is early spring, but the weather is still cold. At 8:30 pm on March 1, Yu Yang, an acting and directing artist from Beijing Film Studio, passed away in Beijing at the age of 95. As one of the "22 Great Movie Stars" of New China, his acting career of more than half a century is like a "youth song" full of vitality and blood.
“You are a big ship”
On October 4, 1930, Yu Yang was born in a poor peasant family in Huangxian County, Shandong Province. His original name was Yu Yanjiang. When he was 6 years old, his father died of illness outside the Great Wall. His hometown was hit by a disaster, so his mother had to take him to Changchun in Northeast China. Yu Yang experienced the ups and downs of life in his childhood. He was able to go to school with the hard-earned money his mother saved as a servant. At the age of 12, in order to supplement the family income, he played a role in a children's film produced by "Man Ying", which was his first "electric" experience in his life.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Yu Yanquan, the second brother who had worked in the Eighth Route Army for many years, came to Changchun with the troops. Considering his younger brother's background of working in the Northeast Film Company, he developed him to do underground work. The 15-year-old Yu Yang embarked on the revolutionary road and became an investigator on the public security front. He participated in the land reform movement, and later as a cultural officer of the People's Liberation Army, he participated in battles such as the Siping Defense War and the Changchun Encirclement and Annihilation War.
In 1946, Yu Yang was on his way to the liberated areas according to the organization's arrangement. When he passed the Kuomintang blockade line, he was frantically blocked by the enemy and his ferry was overturned in the Songhua River. He was only 16 years old at the time, but he tactfully dodged the enemy's bullets and calmly swam to the other side, escaping the disaster... The extraordinary courage and willpower tempered in the smoke of war also accumulated a rich source of vitality for his future acting career.
In late autumn of 1948, victory in the Liaoshen Campaign was in sight. Yu Yang received the task of filming the first feature film in New China, The Bridge. In order to play the role of Wu Yizhu, a young steel worker in the film, he came from the front line to Harbin Sanshiliupeng Railway Vehicle Factory to experience life. Under the scorching heat of molten steel at a thousand degrees, he mingled with the workers from cleaning the furnace to adding materials, and slept on the same bed with 30 people at night. Unable to bear the infestation of lice, he took off his clothes and dried them over a campfire, then lay down to continue summarizing the gains and problems of the day.
The Bridge poster
This epoch-making work marked the first time in Chinese film history that the working class appeared on the big screen as the protagonist. Yu Yang once recalled, "We were the same in food and clothing. I also had lice on my body, and everyone called them 'revolutionary bugs.' I developed a strong bond with them, and (on the set) I couldn't tell who was an actor and who was a worker."
In May 1949, the crew brought a sample of The Bridge to Shuangqing Villa in Xiangshan, Beijing, to screen it for the central leaders. After the screening, director Wang Bin said nervously that the film was immature and "still very rough." Premier Zhou, who was present, consoled him, saying, "After all, it is ours. We have a movie, and the Communist Party has a movie."
Yu Yang's image in The Bridge
Praising the workers, peasants and soldiers, and praising the new life have been the main axis of the film industry since the founding of New China. In 1949, Yu Yang also participated in the filming of "Daughter of China", the first anti-Japanese war film in New China. He played the role of Zhang Yong, a fighter of the Anti-Japanese Allied Forces, and had many thrilling scenes, almost paying the price of his life. One shot was to blow up a river bridge. Yu Yang needed to place real explosives on the bridge piers and then quickly jump into the Songhua River. "At that time, filming a movie was called the reproduction of life," he once recalled. Fortunately, director Ling Zifeng asked the stunt team to explore the hydrology in advance and found a large number of abandoned Japanese military vehicles and ship hulls in the seemingly calm water. "If I really jumped in, I would be finished."
The bridge jumping scene was filmed at the bridge pier rebuilt by the set workers. A large pit filled with weeds was dug below to cushion the stress of Yu Yang jumping from a height of ten meters. In view of the danger of the action, there was only one chance to shoot. "At that time, the director specially called an ambulance to be on standby at the scene. I didn't expect that after a night of freezing, the weeds were full of ice. After I jumped, my knees hit my head and I fainted. At that time, I was really shooting a movie with my life."
After its release in 1950, Daughter of China won the "Freedom Struggle Award" at the 5th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, becoming the first film in New China to win an award in the international film arena. After that, Yu Yang also participated in the filming of Defending the Country and the Family, Towards New China, The Horse Gang Arrives at the Ringing of Bells in the Mountains, and Riders on the Raging Sea.
In the 1950s, Yu Yang studied in the acting class of Beijing Film Academy, focusing on the realistic acting theory based on the Stanislavsky system. The Soviet expert Kazansky, who taught him, wrote to him: "You are a big ship. A big ship should sail in the sea." This is also the origin of his nickname "Yu Dachuan" in the industry.
Dancing with the Enemy, a "Chinese Spy Film Textbook"
In 1959, the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was also a year of great films in the film industry. Yu Yang starred in five films released that year, including "Food", "Mine Lamp", and "Song of Youth", ushering in the golden period of his personal creative career. In "Heroic Courage" released a year earlier, he left a classic tough guy image on the big screen with his outstanding portrayal of Zeng Tai, the chief of the reconnaissance section of our army. After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", the film was re-screened and still ranked first among the "re-screened films" distributed nationwide.
Poster of "Heroic Bravery"
The film tells the story of Zeng Tai, the chief of reconnaissance of a certain division of the People's Liberation Army's bandit suppression force, who, at the beginning of the liberation of Guangxi, pretended to be the captured enemy spy leader Lei Zhenting and sneaked into the bandit's nest in the Shiwandashan area alone. He fought wits and courage with the bandit leader Li Hanguang and his wife Li Yuegui, and finally gained the full trust of the Li couple, obtained the military command of the bandit group, led the bandits into our army's ambush circle, and finally wiped out the enemy in one fell swoop.
When selecting actors, Yan Jizhou, director of the Bayi Film Studio, followed the principle of "not looking at what kind of roles an actor has played before, but what kind of roles he can play", and repeatedly considered and selected the actors who played the positive and negative roles. In his opinion, Yu Yang, who had always played positive roles before, not only has a sincere and simple temperament, but also has a "thief's light" in his bright eyes, and can fully perform the feigned compromise and cunningness with the enemy in the lurking scenes.
Stills from "Heroic Bravery"
In fact, there have been many anti-espionage films released in China before, such as "The Invisible Front", "Silent Forest", and "The Secret Post in Guangzhou". "Heroic Courage" breaks through the formulaic, stereotyped, and labeled treatment style of such thrillers in character portrayal, and is hailed as the "textbook of domestic spy films". In the film, Yu Yang, who is nearly 1.8 meters tall, wears an American military coat, a Luzon cool helmet and a cocker hat on his head, and casually carries a "Sideke" (civilized stick) with a gold-plated rod head. He makes a good first impression as soon as he appears on the stage.
The suspicious bandit leader Li Yuegui did not give up his suspicion of the deputy commander who was "airdropped" from Taiwan. At the welcome banquet, he instructed the maid Alan played by Wang Xiaotang (this was also the only villain role in her film career) to "dance like a snake" and dance a rumba with Zeng Tai. It is said that the two big stars did not know how to dance this erotic dance. The crew invited a sound engineer from the Bayi Film Studio and his lover to teach them on the spot, but they did not expect it to become a groundbreaking scene on the big screen at that time. After the movie was released, it even triggered a craze for dancing rumba in society. Yu Yang received forty or fifty letters from audiences all over the country in one day, all expressing their admiration for Zeng Tai.
Stills from "Heroic Bravery"
Yu Yang once recalled, "The background at that time was the 'Great Leap Forward' in 1958, and the literary and art circles were 'raising red flags and pulling out white flags'. It was not easy to show such a movie at that time. The director was very bold to handle it this way, and the actors dared to act this way, all based on the needs of the plot. So many audiences liked it very much, especially after the film was shown in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. I received letters from some students in East Germany and Bulgaria, and the letters also included my photos. The impact at that time was quite large."
In "Heroic Courage", the bandit leader tested Zeng Tai five times, all of which were unforgettable. In the film, our army's reconnaissance staff officer Geng Hao was tortured after breaking into the bandit's nest and his identity was exposed, but Li Yuegui deliberately handed her over to Zeng Tai for personal interrogation. When filming this scene, Yu Yang was in a state of high concentration and tension. Zeng Tai's sweaty forehead and the smoking shots that could not light a cigarette were not pre-designed.
"When judging his own comrades, what kind of inner conflict and pain must he have? You can see from the screen that my hands were shaking when I lit a cigarette, which was completely true. Actors should use real emotions to infect the audience, to truly experience and embody, and to truly feel that I am this person." Yu Yang said. It is also worth mentioning that Zhang Yongshou, who played Geng Hao at that time, had just been transferred to the actor troupe of the Bayi Film Studio. His original name was "Yongshou", and it was the director who changed "Yongshou" to "Yongshou" in line with the temperament of a soldier when writing the cast list.
Yu Yang's wonderful performance in "Heroic Courage" made him famous overnight, and was well received by his colleagues in the art world and the general public, which also established a solid position in the Chinese film industry. In 1962, he was selected as one of the "22 Great Movie Stars" of New China by the Ministry of Culture based on the proposal of Premier Zhou Enlai, and won the reputation of "Tough Guy on the Screen".
Yu Yang appeared on the cover of "Popular Movies" after starring in "Heroic Courage"
Benchmarking "The Chase", "The sound of camel bells rings in my ears"
After the reform and opening up, the ice and snow in China melted, and the literary and artistic undertakings that had stagnated for many years revived. As a call of the times, the "scar literature" that first appeared in the literary world was once a grand spectacle, and the wind of reflection soon blew into the film industry, giving birth to a batch of "scar films". Among them, "The Handcuffed Passenger" released in 1980 is a representative work of the genre and is unique.
At that time, Yu Yang, who was over 50 years old, had already transformed behind the scenes and started to work as a director. There are two historical backgrounds for the release of this film: In 1978, "The Chase" starring Japanese movie star Ken Takakura was introduced to China, and the "tough guy style" was blowing all over the streets and alleys. Can Chinese filmmakers make a movie comparable to it? At the end of 1979, Yu Yang found the script "The Man in Handcuffs" in the magazine "Film Creation". The old policeman Liu Jie who suffered unfair treatment during the "Cultural Revolution" made him, who had been an investigator and was also shocked by the catastrophe, feel sympathetic. He keenly realized that he could sublimate that suffering into a strong emotional memory, "calling for true love between people."
Poster of "The Handcuffed Passenger"
"The Handcuffed Traveler" is Yu Yang's first work directed and acted by himself. He first approached Wang Yang, the director of Beijing Film Studio, to propose the filming. After receiving the latter's approval, he asked Ma Lin, a well-known screenwriter in the studio, to revise the script. During this stage, he also personally made substantial revisions to the lines to make them more down-to-earth and lifelike. For example, when the female spy Wang Li was selecting tomatoes at the market, the vegetable seller reminded her to "fight against the thought of selfishness", but she righteously retorted, "The most frightening thing in the world is the word 'seriousness'."
The film is full of reflections and questions about that era. Yu Yang once said that there was a scene in the movie where Liu Jie took refuge in the home of his comrade Wei Ziheng. When asked about it, he sadly turned over the military uniform photos of his comrades and said, "Now we look at the world with our heads held high. Everything is upside down." "This is a very important line of mine. This is my view of that era."
After the script was completed, casting became the top priority. The audience felt that the cast of "Handcuffed Passenger" was a combination of old, middle-aged and young people - Ma Shuchao, who had just graduated from the Beijing Film Academy and was a martial arts expert, played Liu Jie's apprentice, investigator Zhang Qiang; child star Cai Ming played Wei Ziheng's daughter, the sent-down female educated youth Wei Xiaoming. However, Yu Yang did not plan to play the leading role at first. He first thought of letting Yin Zhiming, a "screen police professional" who had been out of the screen for a long time, play the leading male role Liu Jie.
As early as 1958, Yu Yang and Yin Zhiming had worked together in the movie "The Waves of Life" and forged a deep friendship. As long as they could invite their old friend to appear, the film would be half successful. However, after reading the script, Yin Zhiming only agreed to play Wei Ziheng and strongly suggested that Yu Yang direct and act in the film himself - although more than 20 years apart, the voices, smiles, and behaviors of Chief Zeng in "Heroic Courage" and Liu Jie in "The Handcuffed Passenger" are so similar!
Stills from "The Handcuffed Passenger"
Another good story of the old friends joining hands to fight on the big screen again is the farewell scene, in which the theme song of the movie "Camel Bell" was played at the right time. The song was written by composer Wang Liping and sung by Wu Zenghua. Yu Yang also talked about his ideas but did not take credit for them. He hoped that the music of the film could not only create a tense and exciting atmosphere, but also have a profound and touching power.
In the year of its release, "The Handcuffed Passenger" achieved the impressive results of over 100 million viewers and over 100 million box office revenue. The commercial elements in the film, such as hiding in the upper compartment of the carriage and capturing the enemy in front of the border monument, have been used as references in many subsequent film and television dramas.
There are a lot of fighting scenes in the film. In order to make the performance more realistic, Yu Yang resolutely did not use a double. When chasing the spies in the Yungang Grottoes, Liu Jie was hit by a brick. Although the brick was made of foam, it could not withstand the actor's strong hand, and Yu Yang was dizzy. During the chase, he sprained his foot. He stayed in the hospital for two days, but insisted on being discharged on the third day and started filming the drama on crutches...
That classic song, which is still sung today, is a fitting farewell to this tough screen guy who just left:
"I send my comrades off on their journey, with tears in my eyes, and the sound of camel bells ringing in my ears. The road is long and foggy, and parting is common in revolutionary life, and each parting brings two different feelings..."
