In 1991, "Raise the Red Lantern" directed by Zhang Yimou won the Silver Lion Award at the 48th Venice International Film Festival. The following year, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and subsequently won the Italian Film David Award for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first Chinese film to win the award. In 1993, won the British Film Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film "Raise the Red Lantern" has won numerous awards, and Zhang Yimou has also become a "shenzhen" in the film industry. However, this film made a group of people "unhappy", who? The descendants of the Qiao family.
The filming location in the poster movie of the movie "Hanging the Red Lantern" is the Qiao Family Courtyard in Shanxi. Because of this movie, the Qiao Family Courtyard has become a famous attraction. But in fact, Zhang Yimou just borrowed the scenery from the Qiao family compound. The story is based on Su Tong's novel and has nothing to do with the Qiao family. However, the film was so influential that many viewers could not help but mistakenly believe that the story of groups of wives and concubines in the play was a portrayal of the Qiao family, which caused a lot of trouble to the descendants of Qiao family.
Qiao Yanhe, the seventh-generation successor of Qiao's compound, originally had the idea of making the legend of Qiao's family into a TV series. After "Raise the Red Lantern", this idea of pursuing the original roots became even stronger. However, what Qiao Yanhe did not expect was that the process from having this idea to his realization took 15 years.
Qiao Yanhe and Qiao Yanhe experienced various ups and downs during this period, from not being able to find a screenwriter to finding investment, Qiao Yan and Qiao Yanhe repeatedly hit a wall. Later, who was almost giving up, met Zhu Xiuhai, the creative director of the Navy Political Department. Zhu Xiuhai finally completed the script creation after visiting Shanxi and communicating with historians of Shanxi merchants and Qiao family descendants.
Zhu Xiuhai, however, was unable to start shooting for a long time due to funding problems after the script was completed. Later, it happened that CCTV was going to be a TV series promoting integrity. I immediately took a fancy to this work and bought the premiere rights of "Qiao Family Courtyard" in one fell swoop. Before the TV series started filming, CCTV had already purchased the first broadcast rights, which was a good start for Qiao Yanhe. However, who should be directed to direct the play next has become the top issue.
At that time, the fifth generation of directors represented by Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, etc., had become the leading directors in the Chinese film industry. When selecting directors, many people believe that such a historical drama on Shanxi merchants must of course be selected from these well-known and well-known directors. However, Qiao Yanhe chose a female director-Hu Mei.
Hu Mei In fact, director Hu Mei, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and others are both graduates of the Beijing Film Academy's Directing Department of 1978. Although she also filmed several movies after graduation, it did not bring her box office and fame. While the others in the fifth generation of directors have won numerous international and domestic awards, Hu Mei is still unknown. So why did Hu Mei become the best candidate for Qiao Yan and Identified?
Hu Mei's first film road was not smooth. Because she has been silent for a long time, she can only get involved in commercial TV dramas in order to survive. It was not until the spring of 1997 that Liu Wenwu, the chief producer of the TV series "Yongzheng Dynasty", suddenly found Hu Mei and handed over the script of "Yongzheng Dynasty" to Hu Mei. The first time he received such a large-scale script, Hu Mei was very excited. .
TV series "Yongzheng Dynasty" However, there were already 11 people competing for the director of this play at that time, and there were many famous directors among them. However, Liu Wenwu finally decided to give this opportunity to Hu Mei, who had no reputation at the time. This is only because of Hu Mei's very crucial sentence: I fully understand what is written in the book. It doesn't matter if you don't let me shoot, but I want to tell you that such works are rare, and I hope you must be cautious.
The "Yongzheng Dynasty" filming highlights are Hu Mei's remarks, which made Liu Wenwu admire him, and decided to give the "Yongzheng Dynasty" this man drama to the female director who was the first leader. In the end, Hu Mei did not disappoint Liu Wenwu. In 1999, after the "Yongzheng Dynasty" was broadcast on the Central TV set that year, it set a peak in CCTV ratings and won all the TV drama awards that year.
