Wu Bai sang two songs for a movie before he became famous, which accidentally became a classic

2024年9月19日 | admin | A1

In the history of Chinese-language gangster movies, which one is most like the gangster classic "Once Upon a Time in America"? Is it John To’s "Gunfire" or "The Underworld"? Or John Woo’s "The True Color of Heroes"?

If you want to talk about the character setting and growth experience, the master director Hou Hsiao-hsien, directed by Xu Xiaoming, the Taiwanese film "Youth, Peace!" The charm and context can be called the Chinese version of "American Past"!

The latest good news is that this movie, which is "legendary" to many fans, is finally going to be digitally restored and re-released. This should be a big event worth telling among Chinese fans!

This film, released in 1992, was produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien and produced by Zhang Huakun, so almost all the actors in the film were related to Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Starring as Big Brother Gao Jie, Hou Hsiao Xian’s royal actor, he was born with a magical power to play the underworld big brother. Gao Jie was only 34 years old at the time.

The actress Wei Xiaohui made her mark in the Taiwanese film industry from this film, and then starred in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s "Good Men and Good Women" and "South Country, Goodbye South Country", but after her role in "Flowers on the Sea", she stopped being an actress.

One of the male protagonists, Yan Zhengguo, Hou Xiaoxian’s royal child star, turned 18 after the film was filmed, but disappeared from the film industry.

It turned out that Yan Zhengguo later fell into drug abuse and committed a felony and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. After his release from prison, he reformed, re-entered the film industry as an actor, and became a director with a box office of over 100 million in 2018 with "Corner 2: The King Rises Again".

And Big Brother Gao Jie happens to be an important figure in the universe of "Corner Head".

"Young Man, Calm Down!" was the last film of actor Tan Zhigang’s life, and he was only 17 when he made it.

Speaking of Tan Zhigang, it really makes people feel sorry.

At the age of 13, when "Guling Street Youth Murder" recruited young actors, Tan Zhigang, who had experience in children’s programming on TV, went to audition for the role of Kitten King. Yang Dechang preferred him to play Kitten King. But the preparation period for the movie was too long, so Tan Zhigang went to shoot other movies first.

"Middle School Girls"

The winter vacation is long enough.

At the age of 15, his family was going to take Tan Zhigang to immigrate to the United States, but he still thought about "Guling Street", so he stayed in Taiwan to shoot "Guling Street" and run a karaoke bar. When he came to Yang Dechang again, because it had been more than two years and he had grown a lot taller, Yang Dechang had to replace Wang Qizan to play Kitten King, and Tan Zhigang played another very important role – Pony.

Tan Zhigang performed with Zhang Zhen that year.

In 1991, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s production of "Youth, Peace!" was looking for actors. Hou Hsiao-hsien and director Xu Xiaoming met Tan Zhigang with a mixed-race face at the test film of "Guling Street", and customized the role of "Youth, Peace!" for Tan Zhigang "Adou Zai".

Tan Zhigang and Aunt Chen Shufang played opposite each other in "Youth, Peace!" at that time, Aunt Shufang was only in her early 50s.

Chen Shufang became a box office actress in Taiwan last year at the age of more than 80 with "Lonely Flavor" and "Dear Tenant". "Lonely Flavor" is the box office champion in Taiwan.

In 1992, "Youth, Peace!" was released, and Tan Zhigang was about to leave for the United States. However, "Youth, Peace!" was planning a sequel, and Tan Zhigang stayed in Taiwan to wait for the filming to start. On September 4, 1993, Tan Zhigang and his friends went camping in the mountains and encountered a car with a flat tire. Tan Zhigang and his friend Liu Zhimin drove a car down the mountain to ask for help, but when they turned the corner, the car fell into a 100-meter deep valley. Tan Zhigang died on the spot. When he died, he was just 18 years old and a month old.

If there are so many "ifs" in the world, what would happen if Tan Zhigang didn’t die and went to the United States to study movies?

Unfortunately, there are not so many ifs in the world. The restoration of "Young Man, Peace!" is the best memorial to Tan Zhigang.

In addition to the movie classic, the original sound of the music is also a milestone. It is the first film in Taiwan to use rock music as the soundtrack of the whole film.

That year, 24-year-old Wu Junlin (Wu Bai) sang the theme song of the same name and "Lighting Cigarettes" in "Youth, Peace!"

This is Wu Bai’s first time in the original sound of the film, even before his first solo album "Falling in love with others is a happy thing".

Wu Bai was also invited to participate in the ceremony of the restoration and launch of "Youth, Peace!".

"Youth, Peace!" is also the first film that the famous Taiwanese film composer Lin Qiang collaborated with Hou Hsiao-hsien, even a year earlier than his first appearance in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film "Dream Life".

Lin Qiang sang three songs in the original soundtrack, including "The Silent Place" with Hou Xiaoxian. This song composed by Wu Bai later became a famous song when Wu Bai took it and sang it.

Lin Qiang’s first album "Going Forward" in 1990 is a landmark work in the history of Hokkien rock.

Lin Qiang met Hou Xiaoxian, who came to visit the class, when he was shooting the MV of the "Go Forward" album. The two hit it off and began their cooperation for many years.

It is well known that director Hou Hsiao-hsien can sing two voices, so in "Young Man, Peace!" he also sang a song "Dream Man" by himself.

There is also a band called Baboo in the original sound, which is composed of Lin Weizhe, Li Xinyun, Li Shouxin and Jin Muyi.

Lin later became a famous rock producer and music company owner (manager). These days, Wu Qingfeng’s choking incident is caused by Lin Weizhe and Wu Qingfeng’s copyright lawsuit (Qingfeng finally won, and he can finally breathe a sigh of relief). Li Xinyun later became a pop music and film and television soundtrack, and was the winner of the Golden Melody Award and the Golden Horse Award. Li Shouxin is now the top drummer of Chinese pop music, especially jazz drums. Bass player Jin Muyi is from Japan, and later became active in the Chinese pop music circle. He and Fan Xiaoxuan Zhou Junwei formed the Fu Lushou group.

"Youth, Peace!" is the first feature-length work directed by Xu Xiaoming, who also made "Last Winter" in 1995, starring Wei Xiaohui and Xi Xiang. This Xu Xiaoming is not the Hong Kong director Xu Xiaoming.

In 1997, Director Xu Xiaoming’s "Looking Home" won several international awards.

Xu Xiaoming has since supervised the production of a number of well-known Chinese-language films, such as "Seventeen-Year-Old Bike," "Love You and Love Me," "Blue Door," and "Love in May," starring Liu Yifei and Chen Bolin in 2004, is his most recent feature film.

After "Love in May", Xu Xiaoming worked in films in mainland China, and was the producer of several Chinese business cards, such as "Second Brother", "Court on Horseback", "Rizhao Chongqing", "My Tang Dynasty Brothers", "Summer Unspeakable" and so on. In the 2020 hit documentary "Stick! Youth", Xu Xiaoming served as the editing director of the film together with Liao Qingsong and Zhou Qiang.

"Young Man, Peace!" was produced by Mr. Zhang Huakun, known as "Brother Kun," who was also the producer of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s early and mid-term films, including the most important and best-known "Sad City," "Childhood Past," "People from the Air Cabinet," "Love the Wind and Dust." Zhang Huakun died in December 2020 at the age of 67.

Zhang Huakun discovered and led Gao Jie to debut from "Daughter of the Nile".

Looking forward to the early restoration of this movie!

Some of the images in this article are from the Internet.

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When the end is already decided, what is the point of our actions？

2024年9月18日 | admin | A1
Chloe Benjamin’s novel "The Immortal" tells a story that begins with a suspenseful setting: four young children who accidentally receive a witch’s prophecy and learn the exact date of their future death, thereby altering each of their life choices. It is a common topic of discussion – is there still room for our free will when the outcome is already decided?
Nowadays, in order to increase the freedom of play, many games will set up many dialogue and behavior options, and every choice of the player may affect the direction and ending of the following plot. In order to experience different plots, many players will play with other behavior choices after clearing the level, and finally after the first week, the second week, or even the third week, experience all the life possibilities of the game protagonist, or play a perfect ending. In some games with relatively delicate plot settings, this game mode allows you to fully experience what is called the "butterfly effect" in life. For example, in "Life is Strange", even a detail the size of a ball of waste paper will have a huge impact in the later stage of the game. On the other hand, the limitations of the game itself also make us understand that no matter how rich and free choices we make, the final outcome cannot be separated from the end point provided by the game developers. It seems that a game is like a simple beta version of life. But even crueler than the game is that we cannot experience the second or third week of life, yet every subtle choice we make does have unpredictable effects in reality, and no matter what life choices we make, we cannot escape the end of life: death. Many times, in reality, because death exists in unknown ways and restricts some of our behavior, we will not rush into the battlefield with weapons as easily as in the game, or to drive a motorcycle on the roof and fly across the road. We know that these actions are likely to lead to final results. But if we already know the exact moment of the end of death, then these constraints may be lifted by crazy thoughts.
The American writer Chloe Benjamin tried to use the novel "The Eternal" to tell such a story about fate and choice. This kind of story has been quite extensive in ancient Greek tragedies, but the difference is that in ancient Greek tragedies, the oracle of fate is relatively vague, it hides a lot of necessary information. For example, Oedipus received the oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother, but did not know that the parents he thought were not his biological parents. "The Eternal" as a modern novel makes the prophecy more clear.
The novel begins in 1969 – a sensitive year for human civilization, and one that reflects the author’s ambitions. The main characters in the story are four siblings in the family, Varia, the oldest, Daniel, the second, Clara, who is nine, and Simon, the youngest. After several children learn that a mysterious witch lives in Hearst Street and can predict the exact date of each person’s death, they decide to secretly try it, which inadvertently changes their lives. It also makes us wonder how death – as a necessary consequence of life – affects the course of life.
"The Immortal", Author: (US) Chloe Benjamin, Translator: Zhang Yifei, Version: Utopia | Henan Literature and Art Publishing House, October 2022
If I die tomorrow
The four siblings who receive the death prophecy present four different ways of facing life – in this novel, the difference is mainly determined by the length of the rest of their lives. The most interesting of these are Simon and Daniel.
Simon, the youngest, seemed to have his soul replaced on the way home after hearing the prophecy from the witch. Simon, who was once quiet, contradicted his family at the dinner table that night and shouted "I’m happy!", even though "he was a little uncomfortable playing this role". Because of the four siblings, Simon was the youngest, but the date of death was the latest – he could only live to 20 years old. Although several children came home and said that the witch was pure nonsense, the death prophecy still affected their survival to varying degrees.
Realizing that he only had thirteen years left to live, Simon suddenly underwent a personality change. In short, he no longer tolerated it. He used to worry that his parents would find out that he was actually gay. He knew that his brothers and sisters were going away and he needed to stay to take care of his parents and the family business. But in the face of his imminent death, Simon felt that he urgently needed to burst out of his true self in the remaining life. Therefore, he chose a long journey away from home similar to running away, and put all the concerns mentioned before behind him.
"Bucket List" stills.
Simon started his "bucket list" in San Francisco. He danced in nightclubs, studied at the San Francisco Ballet Academy, slept with other men, "In New York, he would live for them, but in San Francisco, he could live for himself. And, though he didn’t want to think about it, even though he had been pathologically avoiding the topic, he now allowed himself to think about it: What if the woman on Hearst Street was right? This thought changed the color of his life. It made everything urgent, sparkling, and precious." Eventually, after a few years of this life in San Francisco, Simon contracted AIDS, which had not been named and recognized at that time, due to promiscuity, and died on the date predicted by the witch.
Daniel, the second brother, was the third of the four to die. After the death of Simon and Clara’s relatives, Daniel was extremely remorseful and hated for the prophecy given by the witch of the year, and he must find the witch in Hearst Street. With the cooperation of a police friend, Daniel found the witch’s house and asked her if she had predicted that today was the witch’s own death. The police friend who arrived in time only wanted to shoot the thigh to stop Daniel from killing the witch. Unexpectedly, the shot through the thigh shattered the aorta in the leg, causing Daniel to bleed to death. Therefore, Daniel also died on the day the witch predicted.
Stills from the movie "Bucket List".
Daniel’s death, by contrast, is more like an oracle in an ancient Greek tragedy. Daniel, 48, did not completely forget his death prophecy. He had a regular medical examination, and each time the result proved that he was in good health – perhaps it was this that gave him overconfidence. He let go of almost all his vigilance until the night of the death prophecy date. He could hardly imagine any sudden accident that could take his life, but in the end he died in an even more unexpected situation.
Logically, both Simon and Daniel’s deaths were avoidable, but it seems that both of them ran to their own deaths more accurately in different ways of avoiding death. Simon’s choice was a responsive escape, and the date of death had taken root in his heart. No matter how much he denied it, he actually believed that he had heard the prophecy and was facing an unalterable destiny. He then spent the rest of his life counting down, and in this story, it can be said that if Simon had not run away from home and hung out with gays in San Francisco, he would have probably spent his twenty-first birthday at home unscathed from AIDS. The annual physical examination was similar to his trial process, trying to confirm the failure of the witch’s prophecy. At the same time, in 2006, at the end of Daniel’s chapter, he was also caught in the circle of the death of the first two relatives. He firmly believed that the witch’s prophecy did not come true on the last day of the day, which must mean that it has failed.
Simon finally dies in the convulsion of repeating "I love you" over and over to his lover Robert. He feels that there is nothing wrong with his life. The so-called regrets are left to the logic of fate itself. Unlike the movie "Bucket List" to fulfill the wish of life, Simon’s death is just a prophecy, not as certain as a terminal illness, and his life length is too short compared to the protagonist in the movie. In Simon, we can think of the predicted death date as an encouragement to move away from the image of a good child, to engage with the life experience that he has not dared to practice before, and to encourage a person to accept the death itself. As for Daniel, he has been inquiring about the witch’s residence, trying to find someone to be responsible for the death of his relatives. The most robust person in his body may be the one who is the least afraid to face death in his heart.
Two Ways to Accept Death
The two female characters, Clara and Varia, seem to approach death prophecies in a more natural way than the two men in the family. Clara was also told that she would die at the age of 31. She also went to San Francisco to become a magician, but performed a very dangerous "jaw of life" – but on the night of a performance in 1991, Clara chose to hang herself in her room.
In Clara’s world, "death" not only exists, but also means a real world. She does not resist death, and believes that there are things in this world that can transcend death, such as human souls and consciousness. She often dreams of Simon at night, and she thinks that if she can continue to have this connection with Simon or other deceased people, it means that consciousness can continue to exist even if the body dies, she can transcend boundaries, and death does not exist at all.
Clara’s idea is philosophical. Is there room for us humans to exercise free will when cause and effect have become inevitable? This is a philosophical question that has been debated for decades. In the seventeenth century, mechanism and determinism told almost everyone that everything has cause and effect, including freedom itself, which is part of the law of causation. Later, the philosopher David Hume, in order to overthrow causality, led people into the abyss of agnosticism – everything you see is unreliable. It’s a pity that there is no Humean thinker in the novel "The Eternal" to explain this way of life. Later, Kant and other philosophers began to discuss free will, and the final result was that philosophers succeeded in prying open a hole in the world of determinism and causal logic, proving that in some small crevices, human free will has an independent and free space. Unfortunately, the space for human exercise of free will is more like a powerful placebo most of the time. After all, the behavioral decisions we make out of free will cannot resist the laws of the physical world; the human mind can invent countless ideas that despise and transcend death, but death will come in time.
Stills from the movie "Bucket List".
Clara is such a person who stares at death. She thinks she is capable of being a bridge – crossing the living and the dead to become an "immortal". She completes what she calls the task of "communicating with the dead" in Scrabble with Simon, her star performance becomes a memory for the audience, and finally she chooses to commit suicide in the days predicted by the witches. Of the four siblings, Clara is the only one to enter death by freely choosing death.
In contrast, Varia, the eldest sister who lived to the end, was more like a person who completely ignored death. This may be related to the date she was predicted to live to 88 years old, and she looks no different from a normal person. She doesn’t need to worry about the arrival of death, she just needs to make her own life rhythm and plan, and wait quietly for that day to come. Unlike a normal person, she has one (or three) more opportunities to stare at death.
Chloe Benjamin.
"Varia and her siblings had a choice, an opportunity for self-reflection. They wanted to measure time, they wanted to plan and control time. But as they chased the future, they actually got closer to that woman’s prophecy."
Chloe Benjamin’s novel "The Immortal" involves a series of major events such as the AIDS crisis, 9/11, and racial issues in the narrative span of several decades, but these issues are all dissolved in the bond of four siblings. To his credit, he does not let death fail in the face of different attitudes towards life, but maintains the suspense element of the witch’s death prophecy. Under this premise, "The Immortal" offers us the opportunity to reflect on our attitude towards life – what matters is not whether our choices can change the outcome of life, what matters is that our choices will change the course of our journey towards the outcome, and that all choices have a price, and the acceptance of the price is often the part of the real value difference in different people’s hearts that is often overlooked.
Author/Miyako
Editor/Yuan Chunxi
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Wang Zuxian denied the rumors of becoming a monk, and relatives and friends said it was a chat joke that was taken seriously

2024年9月17日 | admin | A1


This suspected monk picture spread all over the Internet yesterday.


　　The 42-year-old Wang Zuxian was shocked to see through the dust and shaved his hair at a Chinese Buddhist club in Vancouver, Canada. The news quickly spread all over the world. Former boyfriend Qi Qin was anxious to find her for verification. After searching for her all day yesterday, he finally contacted Wang Zuxian by text message through her fourth uncle. Wang Zuxian denied being a monk, and Wang’s father also denied the rumors through Wang Zuxian’s godfather Fu Daren. Wang Zuxian’s mother also said yesterday that she knew that Xiaoxian was practicing at home, and the reports were just rumors without Xiaoxian’s own confirmation.


　　Chatting jokes are taken seriously


　　When Qi Qin received the news last night, he said it was not very credible. He was surprised and said: "She has already converted, but it should not be a monk." Wang Zuxian’s mother said that she knew that Xiaoxian was practicing at home, but the haircut should be a rumor. In another interview yesterday, Qi Qin revealed that Wang Zuxian’s fourth uncle sent her a text message yesterday saying that everyone was concerned about whether she was a monk, and the fourth uncle called Qi Qin back yesterday and said: "There is no such thing. She said that she had chatted with friends and talked about her practicing at home. She joked that she might become a monk. This may have spread."


　　The media speculated that Wang Zuxian had escaped into the air, and it was rumored that Qi Qin was dating Xiao Qiang, and even that he was going to get married. Qi Qin denied: "Impossible, I met Xiao Qiang for business, and if she (Wang Zuxian) mind me getting a girlfriend, don’t wait until now. I haven’t heard that she has plans to become a monk. If she really wants to become a monk, she should be in the mainland or Taiwan." He said that in the first three or four years, Wang Zuxian was more cheerful and had a more leisurely life. When the two occasionally contacted, they would ask him if he had a girlfriend, but for more than a year, they also stopped hearing from him.


　　Fu Daren and Wang Zuxian’s father, Wang Yaohui, was a basketball friend of Guoguang basketball team. When Wang Zuxian was in school, he recognized her as his goddaughter. Fu Daren called Wang’s father on the 8th, "Her father said that there is no such thing as Wang Zuxian becoming a monk! Zuxian was a filial child since he was a child. Due to the death of Wang Yaohui’s father, he cannot publicly show his face to explain this matter within 49 days of his death."


　　Cha Xiaoxin refused to comment any further


　　Cha Siu-hin, a well-known Hong Kong radio host, confirmed the matter by phone last night and said that Lin Jianyue had an unshirkable responsibility. "I have not been in contact with Zuxian, but I heard one of my seniors tell me about this today. This seniors has a very good relationship with Zuxian, so I think the news should be true." In addition, Cha Xiaoxin admitted that it was precisely because of the relationship with Lin Jianyue that Wang Zuxian could not continue to stay in Hong Kong, and it eventually prompted her to go into complete seclusion in Canada. It was reported that Wang Zuxian, who has been in seclusion in Vancouver for many years and has been reclusive for many years, cut his hair as a nun at a local Chinese Buddhist club in early June this year. But yesterday afternoon, the reporter called the mainland agent of the famous Hong Kong radio host Cha Xiaoxin, Miss Jin, who told Sina Entertainment that they had also contacted Cha Xiaoxin about the matter. Cha Xiaoxin said that she did not want to give any more interviews on Wang Zuxian’s ordination. "This is someone else’s business, and it has nothing to do with her."


　　The whistleblower once said that Teresa Teng "broke her back"


　　It is understood that Du Huidong, the writer who published this "monk" news, is a famous "paper whistleblower" in the Hong Kong media circle. He has made a lot of celebrity gossip, but the authenticity has yet to be verified. Du Huidong once broke up with Zhu Yin after Zhou Xingchi broke up with Zhu Yin, in order to beg Zhu Yin to turn back, Zhou Xingchi ran to the hotel to block people; also said that Teresa Teng had a "broken back" with the female director; and even pointed out that the cause of death of kung fu superstar Bruce Lee was caused by drinking "raw beef and banana juice" every day. Although Du Huidong’s revelations will cause an uproar, the authenticity of these "rumored" revelations is negotiable. This time, Wang Zuxian’s revelation is a monk, and the credibility is naturally not high. Zhong He

　　Related links:



  • The mother confirmed that Wang Zuxian had already practiced at home, and Qi Qin cleared the relationship (picture) 2009-07-09
  • Wang Zuxian became a monk because of Qi Qin’s scandal? Qi Qin said to contact her as soon as possible 2009-07-08
  • Wang Zuxian monk whistleblower is not reliable, once said Teresa Teng "broken back" 2009-07-08
  • Wang Zuxian’s mother said he practiced at home, and Qi Qin denied that he was the trigger 2009-07-08
  • Cha Xiaoxin confirmed that Wang Zuxian has become a monk, and Lin Jianyue is also responsible for this matter 2009-07-08