liu cuihu, the original author: it is more stressful to write about urban men and women after "half mature men and women"
2024-10-02
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produced by ningmeng film and television, written by wu nan, and directed by zhang xiaobo, the love fable drama "half-mature man and woman" breaks out of the "urban love fairy tale" routine and presents the true desires and humanity between urban men and women through multiple sets of dystopian love relationships - he zhinan (played by tian xiwei), qu yipeng (played by xin yunlai), gao peng (played by zhang zhehua), han su (played by zhou yutong) and other characters in the play, no one is a perfect moral person in a love relationship, but each has their own dark side. reason for existence. the experimental "small theater" interspersed with each episode to analyze the character's heart is a highlight of the show. the scripts of these "small theaters" are all written by liu cuihu, the author of the original douban reading novel "half-mature man and woman" ("there are no good men and believers here"). .
liu cuihu revealed in an exclusive interview with a reporter from the beijing news that the idea of the small theater came from the director, producer and her "brainstorming". talking about the consistency between the casting of "half-mature man and woman" and the original work, she admitted that she rarely imagined the appearance of a certain character in detail when writing, but she was very happy when she learned that he zhinan and han su would be played by tian xiwei and zhou yutong, thinking that they were very "appropriate" face" original work. two consecutive novels were successfully adapted into film and television dramas ("apocalypse of pretending" and "there are no faithful men and women here"), which put pressure on liu cuihu's next creation. she will continue to write about urban men and women in the future, but she will not ask herself to be better than the previous one. she hopes not to stick to her comfort zone and try to challenge some new areas.
tian xiwei plays he zhinan.
small theater: continuing the spiritual core of the original work and expressing avant-garde and sharp viewpoints
"half mature men and women" boldly challenges conventional narratives, often using an avant-garde small theater format at the end of each episode to reveal the emotional entanglements and conflicts between urban men and women due to their different views, in order to explore the relationship between love and values, making people refreshing. after the series was aired, netizens talked about small dramas such as "in the distance", "a good hand" and "food and water". liu cuihu revealed that the idea of the small theater came from the director, producer and her "brainstorming". two days before the filming of "half mature couple" started, she received a call from the producer, telling her that the director wanted to add a more avant-garde, sharp and humorous paragraph to each episode, and he hoped that she could try to write it.
after receiving the commission from the producer, liu cuihu was particularly enthusiastic and wrote five small theaters in one night. including "a hand of good cards" in which couples compete with each other by playing cards "985" and "211", as well as treatment methods such as handsome men and cat sucking are useless to icu patients, and "have food, drink and water" in which patients wake up immediately after receiving salary bonuses, etc. the small theater was all written by her in the initial stage. the producer and director found it very interesting after watching it. after that, the director gave the theme to each episode, and she created it according to the needs. she created a total of more than 40 small theaters throughout the play, and more than 20 of them were presented in the play.
from the preparation, location scouting, casting to later modifications of "half-mature man and woman", the creative team has maintained close communication with liu cuihu. this in-depth participation in the creation of "half-mature man and woman" also gave liu cuihu the idea of becoming a professional screenwriter. because she found that when she met excellent directors, screenwriters, and producers who knew the content well, it felt wonderful to create together. but after actually following the entire project, she hesitated. "although the creation of novels is relatively lonely, i alone am the master of all content and can decide everything. at the level of drama, it is more like a game process, requiring everyone to persuade and weigh each other, and requires very complex communication. in recognition after knowing the truth about the screenwriter, i feel more free and relaxed when writing novels.”
zhou yutong is very suitable to play an urban woman.
casting: no specific faces were imagined when writing, tian xiwei and zhou yutong are very close to the original work
the original novel "there are no faithful men and women here" has a delicate and pungent writing style, realistically and cruelly telling the truth about material, desire and love between urban men and women. the drama "half mature couple" adapted from the novel also breaks out of the urban drama routine of creating "love fairy tales". none of the characters in the drama is morally perfect in love. they all have their own calculations and the gloom of human nature. faced with real urban men and women. looking at the adaptation of the series from the perspective of the original author, liu cuihu believes that the core has not changed, and it is still about the desires of urban men and women and the multi-faceted nature of human nature. however, due to different art forms, the series has been treated more gently, and more of the difficulties behind "greed, anger, and ignorance" have been presented, so that the audience can better understand and accept it.
audiences who have read the original work commented that gao peng (played by zhang zhehua) in "half-mature man and woman" is much cuter than in the novel, and qu yipeng (played by xin yunlai) is also much less annoying. of course it has something to do with the direction of the series adaptation, but the actors themselves also give the characters a different temperament. "novel can be extremely satirical, because it is a literary creation and can be a little mean. but when we make tv series, the actors are all very good-looking." liu cuihu said with a smile, when gao peng was still a symbol in the novel , i can write without emotion that he is an ordinary-looking fat man with a voice like a male duck. "as long as i thought that he would be played by zhang zhehua, i would definitely pour more love into this character, add some romantic plots, and beautify it."
zhang zhehua plays gao peng, who is much cuter than in the novel.
in the process of writing novels, liu cuihu rarely imagines what a certain character will look like. the casting of "half-mature man and woman" gave her a lot of surprises. she thought that the casting of he zhinan and han su was very "similar" to the original work. "at that time, the producer told me that tian xiwei would play the role of he zhinan, and i thought this casting was particularly good. she (tian xiwei) has a very smart temperament, especially her eyes that tell stories, which is very suitable for a character like he zhinan who has both a complex character who is ignorant and has her own little thoughts. as for han su, zhou yutong is perfect for that kind of intellectual and cold image. i am really happy to play them!"
creation: continue to write about urban men and women. after "pretending" and "half-cooked", there is more pressure
"there are no faithful men and women here" is liu cuihu's debut novel. she joked that her legal work was boring at the time, and she often cut up documents and wrote stories while "fishing" at work. "at that time, my mentality when i wrote "half-mature man and woman" was actually similar to that of the small theater. i was just having fun and doing something interesting to make myself happy. i didn't think about publishing or filmmaking at all. i had never done this before. one line, how can i dare to think about it? "when she first started writing, she was still relatively green, and she didn't know how to describe many scenes, such as the scene where a man and a woman have a conversation while eating. so she read some online articles and read novels by zhang ailing and qian zhongshu to understand how others wrote about character communication, and then learned to write.
"there are no faithful men and women here" is also liu cuihu's second novel to be adapted into a film and television drama. her other novel "apocalypse of pretending" was adapted into a drama series of the same name and was broadcast in the summer of last year (2023), which was well received. the successful film and television adaptation of two consecutive novels also brought greater pressure to her subsequent creation, but she has become accustomed to such pressure. "a creative career is inherently ups and downs. as long as you are still writing, it will definitely be a fluctuating process, with good and bad times. i accept this and will not ask myself to be better than each other. this is unrealistic and also it will be very tiring. my requirement for myself is not to stick to my comfort zone, try to create in different directions, and try to challenge some new areas.”
liu cuihu's next novels still feature urban men and women as protagonists, but they show more diverse and complex aspects. "the stages and concepts may be different, but they all deal with some concepts of urban men and women." she said, for example, "the recycling handbook of thin lovers" explores the topic of "true love first", including thin lovers and love stories. the theme of deception, but essentially an affectionate person saving a weak lover; the fourth novel "romantic limited partnership" shows a new type of marriage, telling the story of urban men and women who dare not love and resist marriage and create a new kind of marriage. marriage model, a story about entering this marriage to challenge the traditional concept of marriage.
beijing news reporter yang lianjie
editor tong na
proofreader yang li
