The movie "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Marriage of Gold and Jade" was released, and the "Jiakeng Lincai" plot was refreshing
2024-08-17
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Chao News Client Reporter Lu Fang
On August 16, the film "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Golden Marriage" directed by Hu Mei was officially released. The film also released the ending song "Wang Ningmei" sung by Zhang Bichen on the same day. The soft melody and the sad ancient rhyme of the singing bring the audience into the story that makes people frown.
As one of the "Four Great Classics" and the epitome of Chinese classical culture, "Dream of Red Mansions" has always attracted the attention of the whole society every time it is adapted into a film or TV series. This film, which took 18 years to make, is no exception. Since its release date was set, it has maintained a very high level of attention.
In 1924, "Daiyu Burying Flowers" starring the drama master Mei Lanfang was released, which marked the beginning of the film and television adaptation of "Dream of Red Mansions". It will be exactly one hundred years in 2024.
Director Hu Mei spent 18 years to prepare this film. She started writing the script in 2006, from the three parts of Dream of Red Mansions to the two parts of Dream of Red Mansions, and finally simplified the story to tell the story in two hours.
From the start of filming in 2018 to the official release of the film, another six years have passed. Director Hu Mei said with emotion: "Eighteen years have passed in the blink of an eye. Thousands of people have worked with me to create the film. I have seen the children of some staff members grow from birth to over 1.7 meters tall. The hard work of many people behind the screen has prompted me to make this film!"
The behind-the-scenes team of "A Dream of Red Mansions Part Two: The Golden Marriage" includes screenwriter He Yanjiang, who is Hu Mei's old partner and has participated in the creation of works such as "Qiao Family Courtyard", "Confucius" and "Cao Cao"; art director Huo Tingxiao is also very good at historical costume themes, and movies such as "Farewell My Concubine" and "Hero" have allowed everyone to witness his profound artistic skills; styling director Chen Tongxun's representative works include "Legend of the Demon Cat" and "Empresses in the Palace", which left a deep impression on the audience; visual director Zhao Xiaoding is Zhang Yimou's "official" photographer, and "Hero", "Curse of the Golden Flower" and "House of Flying Daggers" are the best in costume blockbusters... Such a golden behind-the-scenes team has laid a solid foundation for "A Dream of Red Mansions Part Two: The Golden Marriage".
"Dream of Red Mansions" has been highly praised for more than 200 years since its publication. It can be said to be one of the most well-known novels in China. As a magnificent work of more than 700,000 words, it is all-encompassing. In addition to poetry and songs, it also involves the value of diet, medicine, architecture, textiles, folk customs and other aspects. It is an absolutely impossible task to show all of them in a movie, so Hu Mei chose to extract the main line of love between Bao, Dai and Chai, "break it apart, break it down and explain it clearly, so as to make it suitable for the narrative structure of the movie."
It was with this purpose in mind that director Hu Mei boldly chose "A Marriage of Gold and Jade" as the title of the film. In this regard, the director conducted a long period of research and found that in the modern society with rapid information development, the fragmented reception of information has resulted in everyone knowing "Dream of Red Mansions", but very few people have actually read the book, and this is precisely the largest audience for the film.
The director believes that for all those who have read "Dream of Red Mansions", of course they know that "wood and stone alliance" is freer and more beautiful. But literally speaking, for many teenagers who have not read "Dream of Red Mansions", seeing "wood and stone alliance" may be completely confusing, and "golden jade marriage" is louder and better. And from the content of the story, the director believes: "I believe that all the audiences who have watched the movie will think that this name is really worthy of the name. Because in the end, it is the golden jade marriage recognized by the feudal family that caused the love tragedy of Bao, Dai and Chai. The movie is ironic that the golden jade marriage is actually wrong and should be criticized. After watching the movie, everyone will naturally understand why the golden jade marriage is used as the title of the movie."
For a hundred years, the film and television adaptation of Dream of Red Mansions has always been performed by adult actors to interpret the characters in the novel. Director Hu Mei has her own opinion on this: "Adult actors are naturally better in acting, but they are very inconsistent with the original novel. Baoyu was 14 years old at the beginning of the story, Daiyu was only 12 and a half years old, and Xue Baochai was 14 and a half years old. If we want to find famous actors in their 20s to play young boys and girls who are just beginning to fall in love, they may not be able to do it. Their eyes and skin texture have reached maturity, which is different from the childish eyes of the children in Dream of Red Mansions. So we hope to restore these characters in the novel. The actors we are looking for are not only to complete the performance, but also to let the audience see the character and soul of these characters."
Therefore, director Hu Mei began to hold auditions around the world, and eventually selected this all-amateur cast from tens of thousands of candidates. In order to get them into the role and become qualified actors, the crew conducted intensive training for them for 9 months. First, they were required to read the original work, and each actor read "Dream of Red Mansions" more than twice, and then teachers from the Central Academy of Drama and the Beijing Film Academy were invited to train them in body shape and lines. At the same time, the director proudly said: "We also attracted some social resources, such as embroidery experts to teach girls embroidery and sewing; we invited calligraphy teachers to teach them calligraphy, and they had to complete calligraphy homework every day... Let them immerse themselves in all aspects of Chinese traditional culture and let them live in it. Until they become the characters themselves."
As a treasure of traditional Chinese culture, the rich cultural heritage of Dream of Red Mansions is both a happy and painful thing for the adapter. Director Hu Mei believes that "whether it is the art set or the modeling and costumes, they must meet the requirements and standards equivalent to the historical and cultural status of Dream of Red Mansions. We created it based on this point."
In this regard, the main creative team set high standards and strict requirements. The specifications in all aspects are quite grand, and the requirements are also extremely refined. All the props and furnishings in the scene are basically real antique furniture, as well as jade carvings, kesi silk, double-sided embroidery and embroidery, including walnut carvings, etc. Many of them are our country's world intangible cultural heritage, some inherited handicrafts.
The pursuit of excellence makes the film look heavy and gorgeous in texture, but "Dream of Red Mansions" is not limited to this, but boldly innovates on the basis of classics. The director put forward an instruction: to pursue the youthful Red Mansion, and to make some innovations in aesthetic vision without losing the spirit of the original. Innovation is a must. If there is no innovation, it would be meaningless to shoot "Dream of Red Mansions" today.
Hu Mei asked Chen Tongxun, the styling director: "Be bold and let go. This time we are going to make a youth version of "Dream of Red Mansions", so we need to be innovative." The other party asked, to what extent can we innovate? She answered: We need to have the aesthetic sense of modern people. "For example, bright yellow was not allowed to be worn by ordinary people in ancient times, as it was taboo, but Wang Xifeng wore one. And Mrs. Wang's clothes were gray-blue, but there was actually no such intermediate color in ancient times." Hu Mei said that the clothes of each character in Cao Xueqin's works were carefully described. She hoped to understand the author's good intentions and record the beauty in the book with pictures to make it more in line with the aesthetics of modern people and the aesthetics of film art.
After the film was completed, director Hu Mei invited the famous writer Wang Meng to watch the film in advance. Wang Meng spoke highly of the film and the first thing he said to the director was: "The explicit description of 'Jia Tunlin's wealth' is a breakthrough and an innovation."
The so-called "Jia pit Lin wealth" is to interpret the clue that Lin Daiyu followed Jia Lian to Beijing after her father's death, and the Lin family's property also flowed into the Jia Mansion. In fact, "Jia pit Lin wealth" is not an original plot of the movie "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Golden Marriage". As early as the beginning of the publication of "A Dream of Red Mansions", Qing Dynasty readers who were contemporaries of Cao Xueqin had already put forward this view. More than 200 years have passed, and several generations of Redology scholars have discovered many details. This academic view has also been continuously improved and enriched, and the director boldly used it as a bright line, allowing the audience to see a familiar yet unfamiliar world of the Red Mansions.
Hu Mei believes that the original novel does not specify where the Lin family's property went. The Ning and Rong families, who were "a centipede that will not die but will not die in a stiff body", had reached the end of their rope. They had no money, so where did the huge expenditure for building a villa for the visit of relatives come from? The blank space in the original novel gave this interpretation rationality. Therefore, the movie used "Jia swallowed up Lin's wealth" as a line of conspiracy. The Jia family swallowed up all the Lin family's property, and confiscated Lin Ruhai's property to build the Grand View Garden. In order to maintain their status, they also set up a substitution plan to let Jia Baoyu marry Baochai and force Daiyu to death, showing the evil and sinister side of the feudal family.
Among the many adaptations of Dream of the Red Chamber, there are several classics that cannot be avoided. Hu Mei believes that whether it is the Yue Opera version of Dream of the Red Chamber, Wang Fulin's 1987 drama version of Dream of the Red Chamber, or Xie Tieli's 1989 film version of Dream of the Red Chamber, they are all classics in the minds of a generation, and the purpose of this adaptation of Dream of the Red Chamber is also: each generation has its own Dream of the Red Chamber.
With this original intention, Hu Mei tried to give a brand new interpretation of "Dream of Red Mansions" with a large format and vision, combined with modern film technology. "We want to break the pattern that "Dream of Red Mansions" is just a story in a courtyard, and not be limited to the garden. Our scenes have surpassed the previous construction specifications in terms of overall design and construction scale. Whether in terms of volume, height, or materials, we have made the best configuration."
For example, in the scene where the imperial concubine visits her parents, she used a team of 500 to 600 people, plus thousands of lights, to create a magnificent and majestic atmosphere, which is not seen in previous "Dream of Red Mansions". In addition, she used a lot of aerial and overhead shots, as well as special effects technology, the creation of the fantasy world, etc., making the classical beauty shine with new brilliance on the big screen.
For example, in the famous scene of Daiyu burying flowers, Hu Mei did not stick to the previous shooting techniques, but used a combination of virtual and real methods. She sent a small team to shoot a video of overlooking peach blossoms in Linzhi with a drone. "I felt like a door was opened all of a sudden. The rise, flight and advance of the camera were just like the poem "Song of Burying Flowers". The peach blossoms all over the mountains were weeping and bleeding... What's more amazing is that the art team designed the snow-capped mountains in the distance in the back, which reminds people of Baoyu's becoming a monk in the snow at the beginning of the film. This is a kind of fate and a kind of coincidence."
(Photo provided by the organizer)
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