Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (Chinese: 智取威虎山; pinyin: zhì qǔ wēihǔ shān) is a Peking opera, and one of the eight model plays allowed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The story is based on the novel Lin hai xue yuan (林海雪原) by Qu Bo, which in turn, is based on the real-life story of an incident in 1946 during the Chinese Civil War, involving a communist reconnaissance team 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 to 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 film version directed by Xie Tieli was released in 1970. A modern remake, The Taking of Tiger Mountain, directed by Hong Kong film director Tsui Hark was released on December 23, 2014.
Popular culture
Brian Eno, who found a book of postcards from the opera in San Francisco, later used the title on his second solo album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).