Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy

Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (Chinese: 智取威虎山; pinyin: zhì qǔ wēi hǔ shān) is a Peking opera play and one of the eight model plays allowed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The plot is based on parts of the popular novel Tracks in the Snowy Forest (Chinese: 林海雪原; pinyin: lín hǎi xuě yuán) by Qu Bo, which in turn, is based on the real-life story of an incident in 1946 during the communist campaign to suppress bandits in northeast China in the Chinese Civil War, involving a PLA reconnaissance soldier Yang Zirong (杨子荣) who disguised himself as a bandit to infiltrate a local gang of bandits, eventually helping the main communist force destroy the bandits. Unlike other characters depicted in the opera and novel, most of the names of both the protagonists and the bandits are real.

A booklet Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy was published in English by the Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1971. Described as "revised collectively by the Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy group of the Peking Opera Troupe of Shanghai (1970 script)", it contains 16 colour photo reproductions, a list of persons in the cast, the script of the ten scenes, and the words and vocal music of nine selected songs. Also are explanatory notes and sketches about the Chinese percussion instruments played in the orchestra.[1]

Cast

Yang Tzu-jung, scout platoon leader of the Chinese People's Liberatrion Army (PLA)

Chief of Staff, PLA regimental chief of staff

Li Yung-chi, railway worker

Chang Pao, hunter's daughter

Shen Teh-hua, PLA scout platoon deputy leader

Medical Orderly, PLA girl medical orderly

Young Kuo, PLA soldier

Chung Chih-cheng, PLA soldier

Lu Hung-yeh, PLA soldier

Lo Chang-chiang, PLA soldier

Other soldiers

Hunter Chang, Chang Pao's father

Mother Li, Li Yung-chi's mother

Chang Ta-shan, railway worker

Li Yung-chi's wife

Other villagers

Vulture, bandit chieftain of Tiger Mountain, leader of Kuomintang's "Fifth Peace Preservation Brigade of the Eastern Heilungkiang Region"

Luan Ping, liaison adjutant under Horse Cudgel Hsu, bandit chieftain of Breast Mountain

Bandit Chief of Staff

Bandit Chief Adjutant

Bandit Captain

"Terribles" and other bandits

Scenes

  1. Advancing in Victory – Winter, 1946
  2. Chiapi Valley Pillaged – Dusk
  3. Asking About Bitterness – Afternoon
  4. Drawing Up a Plan – Early morning
  5. Up the Mountain – A few days later
  6. Into the Bandits' Lair – Immediately after the previous scene
  7. Arousing the Masses – Chiapi Valley
  8. Sending out Information – Dawn
  9. Off to the Attack – Morning
  10. Converging on Hundred Chickens Feast – Lunar New Year's Eve[2]

Adaptations

gollark: *Technically*, that's not wrong.
gollark: Climate change will cause mass migration and sea level rising and things eventually. Those are bad.
gollark: Apparently in a few billion years various feedback loops and an increasingly warm sun will cause the oceans to boil, and a few billion after that the Sun will swell into a red giant and destroy anything remaining.
gollark: At worst it would probably severely damage it.
gollark: A giant space rock would be very hard-pressed to destroy the Earth.

References

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