“The enemy’s arsenal needs to be blown up within 48 hours”
“Go to seek our doom”
“There’re only 42 hours left”
“There’s someone under the water”
“Don’t kill me”
“We’re on the same boat”
Beyond the Skies was blessed at Beijing International Film Festival
The Best Cinematography goes to
Fu Xinjun, Beyond the Skies
The Best Actor goes to
The group of actors, Beyond the Skies
Seven actors won the Best Actor Award as a group
It’s rare in history
The Best Film goes to
Beyond the Skies
The Best Film Award was given by Gong Li and Jiang Wen
All of us were hugging each other with excitement
Beyond the Skies is about the story
Of an ignored group in Chinese history
“Qichen”
In October, 1935
3,000 soldiers of Red Army were wiped out by the Nationalist Party’s 18th Group Army in Lihui
Only several dozens of people survived
Hong Qichen got up from the ruins
Then he received the military order
To blow up the enemy’s arsenal within 48 hours
He gathered soldiers from all corners
“A military order is given to soldiers”
“And a soldier must carry out orders”
Some were wounded. Some were teenagers
Some said they wanted to go home
“Why should all of us go to seek our doom at your word of order”
This group of soldiers were under siege
They had to unite
I felt this group of soldiers were so lonely
We used to long takes to depict the cruelty of war
In a poetic way
Colors were covered by smoke and mist
To create a gloomy and dim keynote
The film cost only 3 million
All the crewmembers were from China Academy of Art
Including teachers and students
They were unpaid
Big guns such as Xu Xiaoming and Pema Tseden
They were unpaid too
A war film costs a lot
It really needs a large number of props and costumes
A piece of clothes can only be used twice
One shot cost 10 yuan
And using a machine gun could cost a few hundred yuan even if just for once
We had prepared for over half a year
We interviewed the descendants of the Red Army soldiers
Tingjin Division is rarely mentioned
In historical records
We put lots of real events in history into the script
While we were doing location searching
We went to the 2,500-mu Long March set in Hengdian
But I found the scenes looking fake
We chose the mountains at an elevation of over 2,000 meters
We moved along cliff paths
The soldiers fought there 80 years ago
It was really hot in summer
The rice leaves were thorny
The actors ran back and forth in the fields
Chen Weixin was dedicated
He fainted for several times due to sunstroke
In one scene in a karst cave
A stove blew up
Boiling water splashed onto his foot
Scalding his skin
He needed to take a scene underwater the next day
And he insisted to do it himself
The scene of crossing the river was the most dangerous
It was in a reservoir
Which could be as deep as a dozen of meters
The actors jumped into the water
Which was quite risky
Over 3,000 soldiers in Tingjin Division sacrificed
But only less than 200 people’s names were recorded
The names of the rest were unknown
A person was born. Then he participated in the revolution. And he died in the end.
But he was totally a nobody in the history
I really want to present the group of unknown heroes
To the modern society
Through a film
We should remember them and keep them in mind