There is a saying in Guangdong: "Salted fish turn over." It means that some things in life have become a foregone conclusion, or even a dead end, which can't be saved, just like raw fish has been salted and can't be turned into live fish. Unless things take an unexpected turn for the better and bad things turn into good things, people will be pleasantly surprised to say, "What a salted fish!" " This kind of thing really comes once in a blue moon! Unexpectedly, when I came to Guangzhou, I met the miracle of "salted fish turning over". However, people have marinated my raw fish for six or seven years before it can be turned over. It's so sad to say! This incident is also a bizarre, sad and gratifying thing in our Guangdong film industry. Please allow me to come to it slowly.

At the beginning of 1963, it was already half a century ago. At that time, Hong Kong had not returned to China. I was just filming the first episode of South China Sea Tide with my teacher Cai Chusheng, and Cai Lao was recalled to Beijing to attend an important study. I made various preparations for filming the next episode in the factory.

One day, Liao Yiyuan, who leads the film work in the underground party in Hong Kong, came to my factory and said that he had produced several traditional Chaozhou dramas in our Zhuying factory for overseas Chinese in Chaozhou to watch, which was very popular. Now he wants to make a Cantonese movie with a modern theme for all overseas Chinese to watch. The main problem is that the theme of the film can adapt to the overseas political environment. Do I have such a script? If there is, please direct the film.

I thank him for his kindness. I think we should do more work for overseas Chinese, but the theme of the films we are making now should be about class struggle. We don't have the script you want. I had a brainwave and said, yes! At present, Guangzhou is performing the Shanghai farce "Seventy-two Tenants".

Liao asked, "What kind of farce is it?"

I said, "burlesque is mainly to make the audience laugh. Its form is similar to drama, and its ideological content is low. It is good to make it into a movie and improve the ideological content of the script a little."

Liao said, "Another problem is that all the actors in this farce speak Shanghainese. Most of the overseas Chinese are Cantonese, and they don't understand Shanghai dialect. We must make it into a Cantonese movie, and this play will be performed by Cantonese opera players to ensure its great popularity. "