Ａｎｏｔｈｅｒ Ｌｏｖｅ Ｓｔｏｒｙ ｏｎ Ｌｕｓｈａｎ Ｍｏｕｎｔａｉｎ

People of today probably can hardly imagine how “Love on Lushan Mountain”， a 1980 romance film by Shanghai Film Studio， won the heartthrob Zhang Yu two top film prizes in 1981. She grabbed 12.6 million votes to win “Best Actress” One Hundred Flowers Award， the Chinese equivalent to an Oscar in those years. If you think the number means little in a nation of more than 1.3 billion people， think again: No Chinese film actress has been able to break this record even though some beautiful female Chinese film stars have won international recognition since then.

The 12.6 million votes is not the only record created by the film. Another record created by the cinematic romance is that a movie theater on Lushan Mountain has been entertaining visitors to Lushan with the film since 1980. The movie theater will definitely keep the Guinness world record of operating the longest uninterrupted run of a single movie at one venue in the foreseeable future， for the movie is still screened four times a day every day and there is every reason to believe the screening will continue.

Wu Hui and her husband Yang Lin are part of a team that has been screening the film in the same movie theater over the past 27 years. Their love story is also a touching version of “Love on Lushan Mountain”.

An enthusiastic amateur photographer， Wu Hui came to Lushan in 1981 after her graduation from a teachers’ college and began to work as a projectionist at East Valley Movie Theater. Her former classmates felt the job was a waste of her talent and beneath her， but Wu did not feel that way. Shortly after she began to work at the movie theater， she had a new colleague. Yang Lin was a native of Lushan Mountain. The tall handsome young man had played basketball in his middle school days.

For Wu， it was love at first sight. She felt the same way as the heroine in the movie spotted her Mr. Right reading an English textbook loud at a scenic spot. Wu fantasized that she was the woman in the movie and that Yang Lin was the young man in the movie. Gradually there was a spark between the two. One day， Wu was asked to notify Yang of a meeting. On the spur of the moment， she applied the girl’s romantic trick in the movie. She got out a small mirror and deflected the sunlight into the Yang’s dorm. Noticing the dancing sunlight on the ceiling， Yang came to the window to investigate and found Wu smiling broadly and waving. Yang later asked Wu why she had used the mirror instead of calling his name loudly. Wu replied that she wanted to play the same trick as it was played in the movie. Her face reddened. Yang felt happy.

Another day， Wu asked if Yang was willing to act as her boyfriend to visit her parents so that the parents would stop acting as enthusiastic matchmakers for her. Yang was willing. The plot unfolded this way: like daughter， like parents. Wu’s father and mother liked the young man at the first sight. So Yang decided to make the best of the situation. He gave up the pretending and acted for real.

Wu and Yang began dating and got married in 1985. In 1986 they had a baby son. They continued to screen the movie at the little movie theater in the mountain. To break the work-induced monotony， they have committed all the lines in the movie to memory. Sometimes they just use these lines in their shared life to solve problems.If the couple’s work is uneventful， their marriage is not without twists and turns.

The film inspires them to seek their own non-stop romance in the famous paradise-like mountain. Once， the couple had a fight over a trifle matter and the wife did not speak to the husband for days. A relative came to visit them during the couple’s cold-war period. The couple took the relative around the scenic spots. At the famous Five-Old-Men Peak， Yang tugged his wife’s sleeve， asking her to examine a brand-new lock on a chain on the edge of the cliff. Wu Hui took a look and to her surprise， the lock had their names carved on it and a love oath from the husband. So touched， the wife burst into tears and the couple made up.

The movie house celebrated the 20th anniversary of the creation of “Love on Lushan Mountain” in May 1998 and its uninterrupted screening at the movie house. Zhang Yu and Guo Kaimin， the two artists who starred as the famous girl and her boyfriend in the movie， came to Lushan to attend the celebrating activities. The East Valley movie theater was renamed Lushan Movie Theater to mark the record. The actors expressed their appreciation of the romance and work of Yang Lin and Wu Hui， saying that their love story was truly a touching version of “Love on Lushan Mountain”.

One spring day in 1999， a tall old foreigner came to the projection room where Yang and Wu were putting everything in order after a screening. The old man was a teacher from a university in Glasgow， Britain. In broken Chinese， he told them that he appreciated the movie and he wondered if it was true that the movie theater had been screening the movie since 1980. After receiving the affirmative answer， the scholar suggested that the movie theater apply for a Guinness record. Realizing the importance of the suggestion， the couple reported the information to the leaders. The initiative was taken to apply for recognition of the Guinness record. The application and verification procedure took about two years. In December 2002， the Guinness headquarters in Britain officially issued a certificate to recognize the record.

A lot of changes have taken place since 1981. A ticket for the movie cost 30 cents in 1981 and costs 30 yuan today; the couple is no longer young; their son is in college. But something has not changed: Wu and Yang are still in love and they are still screening a love story on the mountain together in the same movie theater. Their love is not in the Guinness book， but they are keeping it blooming.