On September 24, 1979, "Hoe Rape" was released nationwide as a National Day gift film. Now there are not many ways to promote the release of the movie, and the only publicity is the movie poster. A week before the release of "The Rape", cinemas across the country, especially the 2,650 professional cinemas, all hung large posters of "The Rape".

The poster of "Hoe Rape", like all posters, is a hand-painted poster, with a large avatar of Zhao Dan in the middle, Fang Shu and Zhou Lijin on both sides, and Zhao Dan starring next to it. Zhao Shan is a Chinese superstar who has influenced generations of Chinese audiences. The name "Hoe Rape" and the starring Zhao Dan have a huge attraction for the audience.

Early in the morning of September 24, there were long queues in front of the ticket windows of movie theaters across the country. The audience wants to walk into the cinema for the first time and see Zhao Dan's new work. The 25 professional cinemas in Peking are even more overcrowded. Before the release of "Hoe Rape", the film industry in Beiping, as well as the major universities in the capital, had spread that Nortel had made a feature film that looked better than "Manhunt" and was more exciting than "Bridge", and many people wanted to see it.

Two friends in the queue were chatting, and one of them said to his friend: "I didn't expect that "Hoe Rape" was just released today, and so many people bought tickets. It's been queuing for more than ten minutes, why are there still so many people, they can't buy tickets, right?"

"There are more than 1,000 seats, and there are only two or three hundred people in front of us, so we won't be unable to buy tickets. I really didn't expect so many people to be released on the first day of the release today!"

"Maybe everyone has heard of it, my classmates watched this film during the summer vacation, and said that this film is even better than "Manhunt" and "Bridge". He also said that the fighting part was particularly intense, and you could see bullets blowing people's heads. ”

Due to the long queue time, the audience waiting to buy tickets is chatting about literature, movies, and other politics. Some viewers found a foreigner lined up not far in front, stabbed his friend's arm, and said with a smile: "Do you see a foreigner queuing? You said that "Hoe Rape" is a Chinese movie, can a foreigner understand it?"

Unexpectedly, before his friend could answer, the foreigner turned around and said in Chinese, which was not very fluent: "Dude, I can understand Chinese, I like Chinese movies, and I like Xie Jin's movies the most." ”

The man who spoke did not expect the foreigner to know Chinese, and was suddenly stunned.

The people around erupted into schadenfreude laughter, thinking that foreigners could not understand, but they did not expect that people spoke Chinese well.

The foreigner's name is Marco Müller, an Italian, Marxist. He has always wanted to come to socialist China to see, and in the 60s of the last century, Chinese Buddhism and Zen Buddhism were very popular in the West. In 1974, he went to Liaoning University to study mass literature and art, and since then he has watched movies from many socialist countries such as North Korea and Albania, but he does not like it very much.

In the spring of 1977, Marco Müller transferred from Liaoning University to Nanjing University. He watched an open-air movie on a basketball court in Nanjing, directed by Xie Jin in 1962's "Red Detachment of Women." Marco Müller thought it was fantastic, and he thought that Xie Jin combined the Chinese film tradition with Soviet and Western films.

This year, Marco Müller returned to Italy to hold an exhibition about Chinese films, which did not have much impact due to the limited number and quality of the films. However, this only fueled Marco Müller's fighting spirit, and he decided to collect high-quality Chinese films and hold a Chinese film festival in Italy.

When Marco Muller went to Peking this time and communicated with people in the film industry, many people told him that if you want to hold a Chinese film festival, you should bring "Hoe Rape", which is the highest level of China's current films. Some people also say that "Hoe Rape" is a vulgar work that pursues sensory stimulation and lacks ideological connotation. But one way or another, Marco Müller's curiosity was hung up and he wanted to see the film. Now just in time for the movie to be released, he decided to see how "The Hoe Rape" goes.

After waiting in line for more than 20 minutes, Marco Müller and his friends walked into the cinema smoothly. After another twenty or so minutes, the lights in the screening room went out and the movie was officially played.

Marco Muller only watched it for more than ten points and realized that it was an extraordinary film, with a lot of Hollywood filmmaking techniques, a lot of New Wave stuff, but at the same time a lot of innovation. The whole movie is a moving shot, but the movement of the camera is extremely smooth, and I don't know how it was made.

Marco Müller has been in China for several years and watched a lot of Chinese films, and he has always believed that Xie Jin is the best director in China, and now he finds that the director of "The Rape" is not weaker than Xie Jin in storytelling, but stronger in audiovisual language.

Marco Müller was looking at it when the curtain suddenly turned white, and then the lights in the screening room came on, and a line appeared on the screen: "Please understand that the film has not arrived". Marco Mueller almost didn't die of depression and threw up a few "FUCKS" in a row.

The reaction of the rest of the audience was similar, the hoe team was already scouting the terrain and was about to fight the enemy, and now it was broken. The audience was extremely unhappy, and all kinds of scolding, shouting, and whistles rang out.

Nowadays, movie copies are expensive, and in order to save costs, it is often common for three or four movie theaters that are relatively close to each other to share a set of copies. Movie copies are all small film discs, a disc can only be put for about 10 minutes, while movies are generally 90 minutes or 100 minutes, so that everyone can take turns. As soon as the first theater finished showing the first disc, they would immediately ride their bikes and send the first disc to the next theater for them to play.

To put it simply, if the same film is released at 9 p.m. in Cinema A, after 10 minutes of playback of the first film, plus the time to run the film and transport the copy, the journey will take more than 20 minutes. Therefore, the screening time of the same film in cinema B will generally be scheduled until about 9:30, and in the same way, the screening time of cinemas C and D will be postponed further.

The task of delivering copies is mainly done by film runners, and each cinema has one or two professional film runners. Like the courier boy of later generations, the film runner rode his bicycle through the streets and alleys all day long, hanging a canvas bag similar to a postman in the back seat, and specially delivered copies for the cinema.

However, in the process of running the film, sometimes it is inevitable to encounter unexpected situations, such as the bicycle tire is flat, or the chain is broken, at this time, you can only drop the bicycle and run all the way with a copy on your back. If the film does not arrive, the projectionist will generally turn on the lights and replace it with a slide that says "The film has not arrived, please understand".

For movies with a soothing rhythm like "Mom Loves Me Again", the audience's mood is often more stable when the film is broken, and they will wait patiently, and even go out to buy some snacks and wait while eating. If the film is suddenly interrupted, the audience will loudly coax and scold the mother, making the seats crackle, causing chaos in the screening hall.

After almost five minutes, the lights in the screening room went out, and the audience's irritable mood was instantly calmed, and the scene suddenly became a lot quieter: "It's coming!", "It's finally going to start!", "Don't talk, watch the movie." ”

The film was screened soon and the story continued to advance. By the time the war scene began, the audience was completely shocked. Bullets blow people's heads up, machine guns beat people into sieves, and bombs blow people away, these scenes are cruel content that has never been presented in previous domestic films. There were constantly exclamations from the audience such as "Mom" and "It's scary".

Marco Müller was also completely stunned, he didn't know if there had been a war film like this before "The Rape", but he hadn't seen it or heard of it anyway, it was definitely a groundbreaking film, and the whole film was completely close to the real scene, as if it were a color documentary shot at the time.

At the end of the 100-minute film, the subtitles flashed by, but Marco Müller sat on his stool and did not move, looking unfinished. However, the audience stood up, and as they walked out, they enthusiastically expressed their feelings.

"I like Liu Wenying too much, not only is she beautiful, but she also has marksmanship like a god, she is simply a sharpshooter like Zhang Taofang, a real sharpshooter, but unfortunately he died in the end; ”

"I haven't acted in a new movie for more than ten years, and Zhao Dan's acting skills have become more and more proficient, and he has simply brought Zhou Hanting to life. ”

"The hoe rape squad suffered heavy casualties, only Duan Haiping survived, there was no such movie before. ”

"I think the real history should be like this, after all, to carry out a revolution is to shed blood and sacrifice. ”

Seeing Marco Muller staring at the screen, the friend patted him on the shoulder: "How about it, the movie is good, right?"

Marco Muller came back to his senses and shouted at his friend with great excitement: "It's amazing! It's the first time I've seen such a great movie." Whether it is the story, the content, or the audio-visual language, it is first-class!" As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly jumped up and shouted: "I want to watch it again, I definitely want to watch it again!"

When a friend bought a ticket, he watched the screening and reminded: "The next show is "Mom Loves Me Again", and "Hoe Rape" has no shows during the day, only one more at night." ”

Marco Muller groaned in pain, "God, why don't they line up twice?"

Like Marco Muller, there are many spectators who can't wait to see the second after watching the first show, and there are all kinds of cities in them. It's just that there is only one movie hall now, and most of the screenings are 5 to 6 shows a day, plus there are more new films recently, and there are popular movies like "Mom Loves Me Again", and many movie theaters "Hoe Rape" only have one or two screenings. Many excited audiences directly asked the cinema not to show other movies, and to play "Hoe Rape" quickly.

Due to the strong response from the audience, on the 25th, "Hoe Rape" became three, and on the 28th, it became four. Seeing this, many movie theaters that did not originally show "Hoe Rape" also asked to screen "Hoe Rape". What started to be one copy for three or four movie theaters soon became five or six movie theaters sharing one copy.

The phone of the provincial film company was soon blown up by the city film company, and the phone number of the China Film company was also blown up by the provincial film company, and there was only one content: "You need to add a copy!"

In the first week of the film's release, 714 35mm film screenings were held in Beiping City, with 920,000 viewers, 878 screenings in Modu City, with 1.13 million viewers, 891 screenings in Lingnan Province with 1.16 million viewers, and 543 screenings in Xichuan Province with 720,000 viewers...... Adding up the data from all over the world, the 35mm copy of "The Rape" achieved 12.59 million viewers in the first week of its release.

After seeing the data summarized from various places, Ding Jianming let out a sigh: "Xu Wangqiu, this kid is a little crazy, but he really has the ability!"