"I want to become an immortal and be happy!”
I believe that all netizens who have heard this lyrics should be the youngest born in the 90s, and even now, as long as they hear these two sentences at the beginning, many people will have that memorable picture in their minds: Sun Wukong, who is holding a golden hoop stick, hit all the way to heaven and repeated a god in the crowd three times......, that's right, this is the mythological TV series "Journey to the West", which was much complained about back then
And even after many years, "Journey to the West" has changed from a thunder drama to a childhood drama, but many people still have some doubts, that is, why Cao Rong, as the director of the whole play, wanted to repeat the footage of Sun Wukong three times back then, and became the originator of the ghost animal**, whether it is Cao Rong's unique vision or another reason.
In fact, Cao Rong also mentioned this problem in an interview in the early years, and the reason for this is only three words: "make up time".
In 2000, after Cao Rong participated in the "Journey to the West Sequel" filmed by director Yang Jie, he also came up with the idea of adapting this famous work, and with the help of Qian Yanqiu, the screenwriter of "Yan Shuangying", he completed the script of "Journey to the West".
In order to increase the popularity of the whole drama, Cao Rong also specially invited Liu Xiaolingtong to play the Monkey King, and Liu Xiaolingtong also readily agreed after listening, but unfortunately, shortly before the start of filming, Liu Xiaolingtong suddenly called Cao Rong **, saying that his wife was unwilling to let him act anymore, so he rejected the drama.
It is said that there are two main reasons why Liuxiaolingtong's wife did not let her husband act at that time: the first is that Liuxiaolingtong has been filming outside for too long, and he has already had conflicts with his wife, so the other party does not want him to go out again.
The second is that Liu Xiaolingtong was not optimistic about the script of "Journey to the West", so he did not appear in the end.
But Cao Rong panicked when he heard the news, because the crew members at that time had basically been finalized, and some people had even rushed to the theater, such as Tang Seng's actor Huang Haibing, lawless actor Heizi, etc., except for the main actor Sun Wukong, everyone else was already in place.
For this reason, Cao Rong also contacted several well-known actors, but they were all told that there was no time, and in the end, Cao Rong had no choice but to go into battle in person.
In order to distinguish himself from Liu Xiaolingtong's performance, Cao Rong specially changed his role as Sun Wukong's face to a paralyzed face, with almost no extra expressions except for speaking lines, which is also very suitable for the script of Blackening Journey to the West.
And when the TV series was halfway through, Cao Rong faced a problem, that is, after learning that Liu Xiaolingtong refused to act, the investor asked Cao Rong to extend the original length of 20 episodes to 30 episodes, which made Cao Rong anxious, because the script was less than 30,000 words in total, and it was impossible to shoot so long, and finally Cao Rong and his assistant came up with a solution, that is, to pick up some martial arts scenes and repeat them three times, which can not only highlight Wukong's combat power value, but also perfectly make up the time.
In the eyes of most people, the Monkey King played by Cao Rong completely subverted the traditional image, and even added the plot of Buddha's love in this drama.
However, later, with the development of the Internet and ghost animals, everyone suddenly discovered that "Journey to the West" is a cross-era work, so that after 2020, the reputation of "Journey to the West" quickly reversed, and it became a classic comparable to the 86 version of "Journey to the West".
Journey to the West