In 1986, the area near the Wusong Fort ruins in Baoshan District, Shanghai was quite desolate.
Not only are the areas around the fort overgrown with weeds and rarely visited, even the wide Yangtze River estuary is rarely visited by ships.
Only occasionally a number of large warships can be seen passing quickly.
As for the Pudong riverside coastline, which is separated by a river, within a radius of several miles, it is a vast wilderness.
Except for a stone pier that can barely accommodate fishing boats, there are flat beaches everywhere.
However, the natural scenery is quite beautiful.
Under the flat stall there are overgrown water plants and reeds.
There are many unknown birds hiding deep in the reeds and singing softly, and the sound of chirping is endless.
There are also some beautiful and light geese flying low and patrolling for food.
The branches and leaves are swaying, the water is rippling, and occasionally wild ducks fly out from the water plants.
Or split the water surface, plunge down with a sudden thrust, and see you again as a black dot in the distance.
When you get close to the water, if you look carefully, you will see small fish the size of grains swimming in the water in the reflection of the reeds.
If someone hadn't destroyed the tranquility here, they would have built a lot of construction here and dug trenches and built up soil.
There is a high probability that this situation will remain the same here.
As for those who suddenly broke in and changed everything, they were the crew of the movie "Li Xianglan" who went south.
The shooting plan formulated by director Yoshitaro Nomura is as follows.
Here, in addition to filming the "August 13" Incident in 1937 during the day, before the fall of Shanghai, local fishermen had to take their families and run to the city of Shanghai in panic to avoid the war. Refugee scene.
And the Japanese army brigade followed and occupied this place, outside the scene of fierce fighting with the Shanghai and Hainan defenders across the river.
At night, we still need to shoot a highlight of Keiko Matsumoto - the scene where her character Li Xianglan sings for Lao Jun.
It is worth mentioning that this plot is not fictional.
It comes from Li Xianglan's autobiography, a past event that left a deep impression on her.
In 1937, when the Japanese invaders went south to attack Shanghai, a Japanese army brigade transported from warships landed near Wusongkou and fought across the river with the Shanghai defenders to capture Wusongkou.
Since we have been fighting for two days and still can't capture it, in order to boost morale.
The person in charge of "Manying" received an order from the Japanese military headquarters and forcibly brought Li Xianglan to the front line to perform for the labor force.
In order not to expose the Japanese position, Li Xianglan sang a cappella at a suppressed voice.
The venue where she performed was also very simple, a simple stage built with sandbags in the wilderness not far from the trenches.
At that time, in addition to the natural starlight, there were only two weak lights placed at the feet to illuminate her, barely allowing the soldiers to see her.
Needless to say, according to the requirements of the Japanese military headquarters and the person in charge of "Manying", the song Li Xianglan sang must be a song to encourage the morale of the soldiers.
But Li Xianglan is also half Chinese, so when she thinks of her adoptive parents and Chinese classmates and friends, her eyes blur with tears.
Halfway through the song, I couldn’t help but sing a Japanese folk song, expressing my feelings of homesickness and war weariness.
What was even more unexpected was that by the end of the song, many Japanese soldiers started humming along with her.
But such a scene is obviously not conducive to the morale of the troops in the war.
As a result, a Japanese commander in the army brigade became furious and stood up angrily. He expressed his indignation and dissatisfaction to Li Xianglan on the spot.
But just when he was about to get into trouble with Li Xianglan with a fierce look, his whereabouts were revealed due to too much movement.
As a result, the Shanghai defenders discovered that something was wrong here, and fired several rounds of artillery shells from the other side, killing the colonel and many soldiers on the spot.
Fortunately, Li Xianglan escaped unscathed, but she was also responsible for the death of the Japanese colonel and Japanese soldiers because of this incident.
Not only was he reprimanded by the Japanese military headquarters, but he was also punished by the top management of "Manying".
So, in order to shoot these important shots here, it reflects the evil of war that destroys human nature.
The crew also invested a lot of money.
The art team not only has to spend time building a small fishing village including four or five farmhouses here.
It is also necessary for the gunsmith of the pyrotechnics team to prepare enough guns and ammunition, and the pyrotechnician will do special effects of close-range explosions of cannonballs at the performance site.
And jointly arranged the gunfire and smoke from the two warring parties across the river at night. It is expected that after burying the fuses, hundreds of them will be exploded.
In addition, the crew also spent money to hire almost two battalions of extras through their partner, Shanghai Production Company, to play the roles of Japanese soldiers and Shanghai defenders.
Coupled with the more than 200 crew members, there are more than 1,300 people in total, which is quite a big scene.
But what needs to be explained clearly is that it is because we are working in the field, and this is a time when the economy of the Republic has not yet developed.
The shooting conditions here are quite backward and difficult, and neither material supplies nor transportation conditions are adequate.
To put it bluntly, it is to the extent that even if you have money, you can’t buy anything, so there are many shooting obstacles that should not occur.
For example, the generator originally brought by the Japanese staff broke down.
And they needed the Chinese to help provide a generator, but it was late, so they couldn't shoot night scenes and scenes on cloudy evenings.
In addition, this place is in the outer suburbs of Shanghai and is far away from the urban hotels. It takes more than two hours to drive back and forth every day. It is also a wild area, so it is not easy to transport anything here.
So all this has delayed the filming progress. Many people in China and Japan are anxious and anxious about the filming of this big scene. It can be said that morale is seriously lacking.
Like director Yoshitaro Nomura, although this old man is mainly worried about the problem of lack of electricity.
But in fact, his body is the biggest hidden danger that affects the shooting.
Since filming "Dangerous Woman" in 1985, this old man has suffered from cardiovascular disease and needs to take medicine regularly every day.
In addition, I am getting older and my body cannot withstand high-intensity work, so I need a relatively quiet environment to have a good rest. Therefore, this kind of outdoor working environment directly poses a serious threat to his health.
If he was really tired and fell down, or got sick from anger, then everything would be over, and how could this movie be made?
The Japanese gunsmiths and pyrotechnicians were also troubled by the "guns and ammunition" provided by the Shanghai Film Studio.
Although this batch of props is large in quantity, with hundreds of them, the quality and type are not satisfactory.
Many guns are wooden guns, which are simply painted with a layer of black paint.
And there are actually a batch of Soviet-made AK47s and Colt revolvers that are inconsistent with the historical background.
These things cannot appear in close shots at all, otherwise they will be misleading.
It can only be used to make up the numbers, when shooting a large panorama or when people are far away from the camera.
The only ones that can really be put to use are a few machine guns, hundreds of Type 38 carbines, dozens of Mauser shell guns and tortoise boxes, and a dozen sabers.
In the eyes of the Japanese props masters on the crew, this was just like a joke.
So the Japanese gunsmiths and pyrotechnics had a dispute with the person in charge of docking props at the Shanghai Studio.
In fact, it’s no wonder, don’t look at Japan’s short skits in which Superman fights little monsters, which have always been famous for being shoddy.
But when it comes to river dramas and war themes, the Japanese really work hard to study them and are willing to spend money.
What’s more, the film was about anti-war themes. People want to use this movie to reflect on themselves and express the evils of the war of aggression against China.
This is a very serious matter, how could you be willing to make it into a drama?
But then again, these things are indeed the bottom-line stuff of Shanghai Studio. No way, under the current domestic environment, film studios are really poor.
To put it bluntly, with half of these guns, the Shanghai Film Studio produced a movie called "Reconnaissance Crossing the River" that year.
From their perspective, of course they felt that the Japanese were deliberately looking for trouble and making things difficult for them with unreasonable demands.
As a result, the staff of Japan and China got into trouble because of this matter, and there were big differences between the two sides in terms of cooperation.
If you cannot coordinate well, it will definitely affect the smooth progress of the shooting.
There is also the issue of eating, drinking and urinating. It seems like a small matter, but in fact it has a greater impact on "military morale".
If nothing else, let’s talk about water first. In mainland China in this era, except for star-rated hotels, bottled water is rarely available.
With the economic level of the Republic, ordinary people still think that spending money to buy plain water is not worthwhile.
Water pipes are everywhere, why can’t we quench our thirst?
Not to mention that even in star-rated hotels, the only bottled water you can buy is "Laoshan" produced in Qingdao.
The ones with the red label are not breathy, the ones with the green label are breathy, and there is also a snake water with an extremely "overbearing" taste.
That’s just three choices.
And because it is not packaged in plastic bottles, it is packaged in glass bottles.
It is extremely inconvenient to carry it out, and it cannot be opened without a screwdriver.
So the problem of drinking water for these thousands of people is a huge problem.
The ten large enamel bottles of boiled water that came with the crew's car were so stuffy for a long time that they had a strange smell.
The key is that on such a hot day, everyone can only take a cup of tea.
But everyone has to shoot here from morning to night, which lasts for at least ten hours. How can people survive?
The same goes for eating. The conditions for outdoor shooting are not very good, so meals are provided by the cafeteria of Shanghai Film Factory.
The rice is just fished rice, tasteless and tasteless.
The dish is just stir-fried green vegetables with a salted egg. The Japanese also have a little special treatment, including some extra smoked fish.
But the Chinese people in the mainland, including the extras who assisted in the filming, are all vegetarian.
The key point is that the taste is almost the same, but the quantity is still small.
Even the Japanese don’t have enough to eat. You can imagine how the Chinese staff feel.
So not only the Japanese are dissatisfied, but also the Chinese staff are complaining.
Under this situation, the person in charge of the Chinese side who was responsible for logistics support became a street rat that everyone yelled at.
But there was nothing he could do. Even such standards were far beyond the guarantee capabilities of Shanghai Studio.
In the end, he could only pretend to go back to the city and think of a solution, but in fact he ran away.
However, compared with eating and drinking, the problem of Lazarus is more fatal.
Everyone knows that there is no toilet here, so you have to relieve yourself outdoors.
It’s just a man, the “tool” is simple and the operation is not complicated.
But women are in big trouble, especially Japanese staff who are extremely private and live a delicate life.
Of course it doesn’t mean that they never had such situations when filming on location in Japan.
However, actors of Keiko Matsumoto’s level usually have RVs to use.
The crew also has a large amount of wood chips on hand so that Japanese personnel can use wood chips to cover them when they are in the field to reduce odor and help nature "purify".
But the problem is that Chinese people don’t have such a habit.
What's more, there are more than a thousand people who can't even guarantee basic food supplies, and they can't use such extravagant methods.
The actual situation that resulted was that the scene was very disorderly.
The shooting location is surrounded by plants’ good friends—natural fertilizers donated by thousands of people.
I don’t even know which ones were so incompetent that they secretly used several rooms used for filming as toilets.
Even the last few rooms of some farmhouses were sneaked into, leaving excrement behind.
The stage manager went in to get something and came out cursing with an ugly look on his face.
So don’t say no to walking around casually, otherwise you will step on it.
Let’s just talk about the smell. It’s hot and a gust of wind is about to blow. It’s really ecstatic.
This is not the Japanese invaders entering the village, but the pickling ghosts coming
So think about it, under such conditions, it would be uncomfortable for Matsumoto Keiko to stay here, waiting for filming.
Her treatment is undoubtedly the highest, but the hardware conditions cannot be changed.
At most, I only have more parasols and more water to drink than others.
She couldn't avoid the stench, so she could only rely on her own perfume to relieve it, but spraying it too much would also attract mosquitoes, so there was nothing she could do about it.
In addition, she still has a bitter summer and is a little acclimatized. She cannot eat at all in such a harsh environment.
No matter how attentive the assistant she brought was, she couldn't make her favorite lemonade.
The toilet conditions made her afraid to drink water. Occasionally she had to go to the toilet and had to drive two miles by car.
So she only worked here for two days, and she lost a lot of weight.
That’s not all. She didn’t just memorize her lines and concentrate on her performance.
I also have to worry about Nomura Yoshitaro’s health and worry about the relationship between the Japanese and Chinese crew members.
After all, she is still an investor and a producer. Compared with the past when she was just an actress, it is really not as tiring.
It is also for this reason that during the Bon Festival a few days ago, according to Japanese custom, the crew also took several days off.
But she couldn't leave. There was no way she could fly to the capital to meet Ning Weimin according to her own wishes.
I was forced to stay in Shanghai and accompany the director to meetings with people from the Shanghai Film Studio to discuss all aspects of the film.
I still have to find time to accept invitations from Shanghai-based cultural groups and deal with media interviews.
This is the price you have to pay for those with different statuses!
Frankly speaking, now is almost the time when Matsumoto Keiko is at her most psychologically fragile.
Although she could talk to Ning Weimin every night, she still missed her lover extremely.
In the irritating cicada sound, looking at the bright sea water, she couldn't help but feel aggrieved, and she felt sincerely.
China is really too big. Even though they are in the same country, they are so far apart.
And the transportation is too inconvenient.
If this were in Japan.
Even if one of them is in Tokyo and the other is in Osaka, they can meet each other in two or three hours by taking the Shinkansen.
How wonderful that is!
The result was so amazing, perhaps because the sigh in her heart was too plaintive. God seemed to have heard her wish and actually made a miracle happen... (End of Chapter)