xinmin art review | is there only one dream of the red chamber in the world?
2024-09-05
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hu mei's version of "dream of red mansions: golden marriage" was released for only ten days, with poor box office and a lot of negative reviews. in sharp contrast, the national trend online game "black myth: wukong" based on the content of "journey to the west" has been a huge success, and tickets for the play "war and peace" directed by lithuanian drama master rimas tuminas are hard to get. why are audiences not interested in going to the cinema to watch the new version of "dream of red mansions", which is also a famous work?
first of all, i must admit that i was a little disappointed after watching this version of dream of the red chamber, or at least it was not as expected. i thought it was a serious drama as the director said, but when i saw the big blue words "a good marriage" i was shocked. i was puzzled as to how this blue color appeared in the vast world of red-dressed youth, horse and white. from the perspective of aesthetics and intention, this opening was not a good omen. the whole film is indeed very short-video-like as many reviews mentioned. for example, the clips of daiyu burying the three lives, three worlds, ten miles of peach blossoms had to be shot in linzhi, but the pictures looked like cheap special effects, which were all in a state of seeking traffic at all costs. the characters in the film are all stereotyped, and their faces are full of scheming. love, power, palace fighting, family and national changes are all there. if it weren't for the change that the jia family took the money from the lin family to build the grand view garden, it could almost be regarded as a quick-watch version of dream of the red chamber.
a survey data shows that among the four great classical masterpieces, the one that young people dislike to read and cannot read the most is "dream of red mansions". there are reasons for disliking and not being able to read it. first, in the information age, short videos are rampant, and fragmented network time has fundamentally changed the form and habits of reading. second, the purpose of reading for readers today is often more utilitarian. the fast-paced life and pragmatic tendencies of modern readers make it easy for them to choose content that is easy, interesting, and can give quick feedback. compared with other reading materials that fit the current situation, "dream of red mansions" seems too serious and complicated. the classical poems and couplets in the novel require a high level of language literacy, and many cultural details require deep historical knowledge to fully understand. the huge cast of characters and complex relationships in the book also make it difficult for people to master and remember all the key networks in a short period of time, which increases the difficulty of reading.
compared with romance of the three kingdoms, water margin and journey to the west, dream of red mansions has relatively few film and television adaptations, and the reading promotion derived from it is also the weakest. the mythological elements in journey to the west give adapters free creative space - as long as there is enough imagination and creativity, they can create fantasy and adventure scenes at will, and then the personalized narratives compete with each other, and the magic changes under modern technical conditions can also get the highest audience acceptance. water margin focuses on martial arts elements. the 108 generals of liangshan marsh have both grand era group portraits and abundant single-player branches or small team segments. film and television dramas and many games based on the book have been widely successful and circulated. as for romance of the three kingdoms, it brings together historical scenes, strategies and intrigues, as well as biographies of the three kingdoms. there is always an adaptation that can be performed, and the battle scenes of all sizes in the book are also easy to be visualized in film and television and multimedia.
on the other hand, the most well-known version of the dream of the red chamber is the 1987 tv series by china central television, and the earlier yue opera version of the dream of the red chamber in the 1950s. it can be said that the dream of the red chamber was popularized twice. after that, xie tieli's movie was just average, and then there was the new tv series directed by li shaohong in 2010, and this time the movie version by hu mei, which received more criticism.
the original dream of the red chamber is particularly authoritative for its literary value. at the same time, it is highly restricted by the cumbersome redology research. all adaptations seem to require rigorous research. in fact, it greatly restricts the freedom of creation, let alone the magic change. on the one hand, due to the depth and complexity of the work, the audience group is relatively narrow and the market acceptance is low; on the other hand, there are many shackles in the adaptation process, making it difficult to balance commercial value and artistic expression. the two contradictions make the re-creation of dream of the red chamber even more difficult.
take hu mei's version of the new dream of red mansions for example. bao, dai and chai still convey a youthful atmosphere. the director's intention is to pursue the image and dialogue in line with the current adolescent boys and girls. but the biggest dilemma is the generation gap of readers. those who go to the cinema are not the young generation or two generations that the director wants to cater to. they are still audiences like me who have a certain cognitive foundation and emotions for the original work or the 1987 tv series, and have fixed expectations for the film. it is bold to imagine that if this film was first performed on campus, it might not be so one-sided. in fact, li shaohong's version of the tv series also has modern and fashionable innovations, although the results are not satisfactory. the expectations of the original party have always been a double-edged sword-there were polarized reviews when the 1987 version was first screened. if self-media was developed at that time, it might not survive for a while in the criticism.
there are magical adaptations of journey to the west, water margin and romance of the three kingdoms, and hamlet for each person, but can everyone really only have the same "dream of red mansions"? from this point of view, whether it is hu mei today or li shaohong in the past, even if the effect is not in line with their wishes, they have accumulated experience in adapting "dream of red mansions", and even: what's wrong with fragmentation? the root cause of the failure to succeed may be that the creators want to break away from the framework too much and focus on the form - simplifying the plot or adding fast and exciting elements, which has led to a reduction in the depth and breadth of the original work, and even less sincerity. this sincerity is exactly the reason why the yue opera "dream of red mansions" and the 1987 version can become classics, and the popular version of the little drama bone red mansions is also seen because of sincerity. in any case, i still hope that there will be creators who are not afraid of scolding in the future. one more person and one more version of the red mansions will give people more dreams. (bu yi)
