What exactly is the show? Cao Yu said: A good show is not whether the audience cries with you, nor whether it gets warm applause after the performance, but whether the audience can think heavily after leaving the theater. This kind of thinking involves the future, life, and even the fate of mankind. Although Cao Yu's words were said decades ago, they are still intriguing in today's entertainment industry.
The popularity of today's film market is undeniable, with high box office arrivals, but really good movies seem to be drifting away. In the current popular way of making films, remakes and formulaic films are emerging one after another, and people are beginning to miss the classic old movies of twenty or thirty years ago. Despite the limited level of filmmaking at the time, they always maintained sincerity and courage to explore and innovate. In contrast, today's blockbuster movies pay more attention to creating scale and stepping on hot spots, but have less impact on the in-depth expression of the movie and triggering the audience's inner thinking.
Take "Liang Zhu" released in 1994 as an example, this movie, like Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West", has experienced decades of underestimation. Looking back at China's four major folk love stories, "Liang Zhu" is one of them. In the 90s of the last century, Tsui Hark has always been good at shooting martial arts films, but he showed his skills in literary and artistic creation, making two of the four major love stories into movies. In 1993, he took Li Bihua's ** as the blueprint and made "The Legend of the White Snake" into "Green Snake".
In 1994, he worked as a screenwriter again and reinterpreted "Liang Zhu", and the film is still named "Liang Zhu". Compared with "Green Snake", which relies on the fame of the actors and the best picture to attract the audience, what does this movie rely on? This story is not only a tragedy, but also informs the ending in advance, and it is difficult to impress the audience. Compared with the bold deconstruction and reshaping of "Green Snake", Tsui Hark's main focus on the adaptation of "Liang Zhu" is "moisturizing things silently", which seems to have not been adapted much, but in fact, it is shown through details.
The story takes place in 337 AD, Zhu Yingtai disguised herself as ** and infiltrated the academy to study, so she got acquainted with Liang Shanbo (played by Wu Qilong), who was born in a poor family. In getting along day and night, Liang Shanbo's daughter was recognized, and the two fell in love. Liang Shanbo studied hard, and after winning fame, he went to Zhu's family to propose marriage, but unfortunately the estrangement between the family could not be eliminated. I wish the mother stick to beat the mandarin ducks, and Liang Shanbo will end up depressed. Zhu Yingtai passed by her lover's tomb on the way to marry into the Taishou Ma family, she went to cry the grave, and then the wind blew, and a couple turned into butterflies and jumped into the world. This is the classic version we all know.
And Tsui Hark's adaptation lies in the filling of details, which makes the story richer. At the beginning of the film, in Zhu Yingtai's jar, there is a butterfly that can't spread its wings, and she has a rope tied to her feet when she learns to walk. This butterfly, this rope, foreshadowed her later fate. When Zhu's father appeared for the first time, he was applying grease and powder, and there were words in his mouth: "The Ouyang family is so prosperous because of the red face!" ”
In their later conversations, Zhu Mu and the monk involved the scholars who crossed south after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty. At the same time, they chatted about the background of the times, pointing out that during the Wei and Jin dynasties, male color was prevalent, and men dressed up in fashion, which reflected social status.
Zhu's mother taught her daughter to learn to walk, but her daughter went on a rampage, was not good at turning, and went straight over the threshold and stepped out of the house. The two protagonists meet in a secluded valley, Shanbo caress the qin, Yingtai sleeps overnight, and listens to the scholar's poetry in a hazy way. Director Tsui Hark chose "Moonrise" in "The Book of Poetry: Chen Feng", which was evaluated by Zhu Xi as "the words of men and women who are happy with each other and miss each other".
Once you get out of the house, there's no turning back; Once you meet a lover, you are destined to be entangled for a lifetime. In addition, the cheating paper balls, the football match in the college, the "38th line" sleeping on the ground, and the grimace when the bell rings give this ancient love story a more modern atmosphere.
There is a clear difference between Zhu Yingtai's portrayal in the two versions. In the traditional version, she is eager to read, so she dresses as a man**. After entering the academy, she immediately became the envy of everyone. In this version, Zhu Yingtai is talented and full of fairy spirit, but lacks real human touch.
In contrast, Zhu Yingtai in Tsui Hark's version did not love reading, and was sent to study because her father was worried that she would be rude to marry. In the academy, she was mischievous and caused all kinds of trouble. Such an adaptation makes Zhu Yingtai more vivid and easier to resonate with the audience.
In the traditional version, Zhu Yingtai's pressure mainly comes from his father, and his mother is a supporting character who goes with the flow, which reflects the typical way of narrative from a male perspective.
In Tsui Hark's version, the characteristics of the characters are contrary to conventional wisdom. 's father (played by Xu Jinjiang) is strong on the surface, but he is actually weak, just a tool man in the family; And the mother (played by Wu Jiali) is more vivid and human. She and the monk Ruoxu were once lovers, and their story is a prequel to Liang Zhu, although the ending is sad. Under secular pressure, they were forced to take very different paths in life: their mothers were forced to marry into the official family, and Ruoxu became monks. This adds a new contrast to Liang Zhu's story, making it even more layered. The mother was originally a victim, but the injustice of fate made her a defender of the old system. Although she spives, imprisons, and even punishes her daughter, she is also trying to open new doors for her daughter, and this contradiction is contagious. Eventually, she was reunited with the monk and a philosophical conversation began. The monk said indifferently: "There should be no pond in the world. The mother replied angrily: "To put it mildly, if you can let go of worldly emotions, you will not become a monk." "The father symbolizes the outer appearance, while the mother represents the inner essence. The role also earned Ng a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards.
If another actress were to play Zhu Yingtai and not choose Yang Caini, would this movie still be so successful? Although Yang Caini is not a typical small jasper, her appearance has a rough atmosphere, which is an excellent candidate to play Zhu Yingtai. There is an untamed heroism between her wild eyebrows and eyes, which allows her to perfectly interpret the role of Zhu Yingtai. Zhu Yingtai portrayed by Yang Caini has a naïve temperament that is beyond the world, and this cuteness is not limited by gender. Her final awakening and sacrifice contrasts with this, adding a deep emotional depth to the whole story.
Wu Qilong, who partnered with him, the captain of the Little Tigers, was born as an idol, his eyes were clear and bright, he was angry with his own book, and his facial features were more delicate than her. Tsui Hark also made good use of this pair of cps, wishing Yingtai to enter the school and Liang Shanbo to take the exam, the two scenes echo each other, one walks in a high place, and the other sits in a low place, combining movement and static, and the height is staggered. Later, when the school bell rings and reads back-to-back books, this compositional structure is also mostly used, and beautiful love can break through the shackles of the times, which Tsui Hark shows with pictures. Yang Caini's ** restraint, ** heroic, and the change of mentality are vividly reflected in the section of the piano wrestling and punishment station. The story takes place in a dusk, Zhu Yingtai was punished for causing trouble, very embarrassed, after the incident, Liang Shanbo sat on the ground under the tree with the piano, he plucked the strings to comfort his "good brother", who expected each other's heartstrings, was also plucked out of proportion. At night, the wind dives into the jungle, the flowing water is murmuring, accompanied by the breeze and the bright moon, the guqin tone of "Liang Zhu" is vigorous and beautiful. Where does the sound of the piano come from, from the mountains, from the flowing water, from Liang Shanbo's emotion, but also from Zhu Yingtai's silence, this is an awakening night, Zhu Yingtai's stubbornness, naivety and stupidity, disappeared in the sound of the piano, replaced by the excitement and worry of the girl's love. The movie began to split in half from this moment, how beautiful the first half was, how desperate it was in the half, and the climax appeared in the scene where Zhu Yingtai cried and jumped to the grave.
In the film, Ma, who represents the powerful, never appears, shrouded like a cloud, with a strong wind and black clouds pressing the city. Zhu Yingtai lay on the side of the piano, holding the blood letter, and wailed in front of the grave. There are very few heartfelt performances in the whole section, only skills, with a sense of roughness, but it moved the audience with a kind of simplicity, and Zhu Yingtai's tears and rain washed away the heavy makeup, revealing his original innocence. She died generously, and the people around her were insensitive, like a masked terracotta figurine, but she embraced love and freedom with her last dance. ** sounded here, it was still the tune of "Liang Zhu", but the new words were filled, "Speechless to the front and Jun to share a glass of water, clear and strong meaning flow out of the bottom of the heart, no matter the injustice or fate Don't say butterfly dreams, return you to this life in this life This life and the previous life, both fly through thousands of lives." This passage is written by Huang Zhan, and Master Huang also continues the creative style of great ingenuity, which is touching. The scene where the two of them turned into butterflies was also artistically processed. Monk Ruoxu threw a pair of paper butterflies drawn by Zhu Yingtai in his spare time into the air, and the brittle yellow painting paper like a life talisman turned into a butterfly under the sunset. "Liang Zhu" has been circulating for thousands of years, but there has always been a bug. Liang Shanbo fell in love with Zhu Yingtai, did he identify her daughter before or after? If it was before, then Liang Shanbo fell in love with his "good brother", which is a kind of same-sex love. If it is later, then Liang Shanbo's feelings have changed from friendship with "good brothers" to love of the opposite sex.
The story "Liang Zhu" takes place in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, when feminine masculinity was prevalent, and this thousand-year-old story covers a rich and colorful content, including a bug. This bug contradicts traditional Chinese culture, so the story of "Liang Zhu" has produced multiple versions in circulation. Although the process of the two falling in love in the story is often blurred, the film directed by Xu Laowei tries to clarify this. He celebrates love between men and women, but also does not shy away from same-sex love. For this reason, he deliberately asked He Rundong to play a handsome scholar in the film, and he secretly intertwined eyebrows with Liang Shanbo, intending to imply same-sex love. This shows that the phrase "there should never be a pond in this world" is not only a critique of the feudal shackles between the families and the feudal ones, but also applies to the gender restrictions of love. Tsui Hark's filming of Liang Zhu was not to hype up gay themes, but rather to express the notion that pure love has nothing to do with gender. As for whether Liang Shanbo fell in love with Zhu Yingtai, a good brother or a good sister, it doesn't matter, because love itself is the collision of two souls. In the film, Zhu's father was sick and asked his daughter to go home, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai said goodbye on the long pavilion, and Zhu Yingtai disclosed his identity as a daughter. The purpose of this plot adaptation is precisely to emphasize the purity of this love, filling in the holes in the original story. Only by understanding this layer of meaning can we truly understand the core of Tsui Hark's version of "Liang Zhu".
In short, it is no accident that "Liang Zhu" has been able to circulate for thousands of years. It is a comprehensive interpretation of all aspects of love, so that anyone, no matter when and where, can find their own shadow in it. And Tsui Hark's brave act 30 years ago vividly shows the most secret emotions of this story. To this day, this forward-looking view is still breathtaking. Such an excellent film deserves to be cherished and not forgotten.