If you want to say that this year's Pingyao International Film Festival's hit movie is "Tropical Rain". Counting the media field, there were three games in total, and it was hard to get a vote. The final three awards of Fei Mu Honor·Best Film Award, Fei Mu Honor·Best Actress, and Fan Movie Selection Honor proved that "Tropical Rain" did not disappoint everyone's expectations. Chen Zheyi, the director from Singapore, won the "Golden Camera Award" at the 66th Cannes Film Festival for his debut "Parents Are Not Home" and became the first person in Singapore film history.
Chen Zheyi won an award at the Pingyao International Film Festival. This year his new work was shortlisted for the "Crouching Tiger Unit" of the Pingyao International Film Festival. "Tropical Rain", like "Parents Are Not Home", once again focused the lens on ordinary families in Singapore. Developed from the perspective of a female teacher in Malaysia, A Ling.
Yang Yanyan This film is the second collaboration between director Chen Zheyi, heroine Yang Yanyan and protagonist Xu Jiale after "Parents Are Not Home". This time, Yang Yanyan and Xu Jiale are no longer mothers and children, and have a forbidden love between teachers and students. . Yang Yanyan's Aling in "Tropical Rain" is very different from the mother in "Parents Are Not Home". In the filming of "Parents Are Not Home", Yang Yanyan was pregnant for six months. The image of the pregnant mother in the film was Yang Yanyan's true state. The scene of Yang Yanyan giving birth at the end of the film was shot by Chen Zheyi holding a machine to the delivery room. In "Tropical Rain", A Ling and her husband have been unable to get pregnant after years of hard work, and the relationship between husband and wife is gradually falling apart. As a Chinese teacher, A Ling has a relationship with the student Guo Weilun (played by Xu Jiale) in the class. In the end, after several twists and turns, A Ling found herself again. Six years have passed since the last "Parents Are Not Home". Chen Zheyi once again chose to describe the situation of business women in Singaporean society and the issue of women's identity in society. During the Pingyao International Film Festival, the author chatted with the director Chen Zheyi and the heroine Yang Yanyan about the story behind "Tropical Rain". In the past 6 years, I have grown up. In fact, for a director who has made a very successful debut, the blank period of 6 years is a bit long. In fact, Chen Zheyi has done a lot of things in these six years. In 2014, he and Huang Wenhong established the "Changjinglu Studio" to help young directors from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Southeast Asia make films. When the studio was first established, there were only three staff. Chen Zheyi didn't want to do too much of the company's work. He hoped that the funds would not interfere with the creation and maintain the purity of creation.
"Goodbye, Nor See" and "Changjinglu Studio" have produced "Goodbye, Nor Seen", and his sister's debut "Big Elephant", which won the world at the Sundance Film Festival Feature film screenwriter award in the film unit. During this period, he spent 3 years polishing the script of "Tropical Rain". Talking about these six years, Chen Zheyi said that he has grown up, whether as a director, filmmaker, or life level. Now he has been upgraded to a "daddy", often posting baby on his social media. He was 28 years old when he was filming "Parents Are Not Home," and now he is 35 years old. He just celebrated the 10th anniversary of his marriage. The accumulation of life experience, marriage, life, and family experience made him more mature. My movie has my own experience. Chen Zheyi’s movie is very personal. The story of the maid and the child in "Parents Are Not Home" reflects the relationship between himself and the Filipino maid when he was a child; "Tropical Rain" Seeking a child also originated from the original experience of "seeking a child" between Chen Zheyi and his wife.
Chen Zheyi originally wrote the story of the heroine A Ling. During the creation of the scene, he integrated things from his own life into the script. He said that his movies have a lot of his own personal emotions and life experience. Speaking of the original intention of creating "Tropical Rain", Chen Zheyi has always wanted to write about a woman who has experienced marriage, and then at the age of 40, she began to encounter various crises, both family and career have encountered bottlenecks. Chen Zheyi said that he was fascinated by such a role. When writing about A Ling, he was understanding and exploring A Ling's past, present and future. Yang Yanyan said that the role of Aling is a big challenge for her. The first is from the styling, compared with the previous one. From short hair in "Parents Are Not Home" to long hair, the production team spent a long time styling. The long hair in the film is actually a wig, and it took a long time to find it. Secondly, in terms of character, she in "Tropical Rain" is reduced to a "receptive bag" looking around. In school, her Chinese classes are not taken seriously; when she comes home, she encounters cold violence from her husband and even cheats; and in "Parents Are Not Home", she is a "real power" with a hot personality.
Yang Yanyan said that her personality is more inclined to the mother in "Parents Are Not Home". When playing this role, she would help Aling cry almost every night. In her eyes, Aling’s role will do everything Press on yourself. She also said that even if she encounters a lot of setbacks, A-ling can be gentle and caring about others. She admires A-ling very much because Yang Yanyan herself cannot do it. There are many emotions in the tropical "rain". There are many rain scenes in "Tropical Rain". It will rain whenever A Ling's mood fluctuates. When she was ridiculed at the sister-in-law's house without a child, when she was told that her conception failed , When I ran into my husband having an affair, and "breaking up" with the student Guo Weilun.
Chen Zheyi said that the rain in the film fits the mood of the protagonist A Ling. In the penultimate scene of the film, Ling returned to Malaysia after divorcing her husband. At home, she and her mother were drying the sheets, and the two squeezed out the water. The water squeezed out at this time represents the burden in life. After the water is squeezed out, the sun will come out. This symbolizes A Ling's self-awakening, Yang Yanyan added. In the first rain scene of the film, A Ling is driving, no matter how the wipers are brushed, she still can't see the road ahead. At this moment, A Ling is already in the mist. Speaking of the rain in the film, Chen Zheyi brought a lot of trouble during the shooting. He originally planned to use CG to realize the rain, but later felt that CG was not suitable for this realistic film, and later switched to live operation. The water supply system in Singapore is actually processed after buying water from Malaysia, which is very expensive. I didn't want to find Yang Yanyan and Xu Jiale, Chen Zheyi, who had spent a year and a half in Singapore auditioning eligible 16-year-old boys. They were not satisfied after seeing hundreds of children. Occasionally, he saw a recent photo of Xu Jiale on Instagram. After the trial, he still felt that Xu Jiale was more suitable. There is a Changquan competition in the film. In fact, Xu Jiale has been practicing martial arts since he was 7 years old, but he hadn't practiced for a long time before filming "Tropical Rain". Chen Zheyi found a martial arts teacher and spent a year to retrain. Knorr. After confirming Jiale, Chen Zheyi did not want to use Yang Yanyan. Because the relationship between the two people's previous roles was mother and child, it would be strange to play "Tropical Rain" again, and since no suitable actress was found, Yang Yanyan was given the script. There is a relatively large-scale scene in the film. According to the guide, the speech has been deleted for 1 minute. That scene took half a day and was filmed five or six times. Chen Zheyi is very satisfied with Xu Jiale's performance. He said that he is not sure if Singapore can find another 17-year-old boy to perform. Chen Zheyi also laughed and said that Jia Le often asked him why he was making these movies that no one watched all day long; he also told Chen Zheyi straightforwardly that he was not proud of making his movies. But after listening to the lecture, Xu Jiale had the will to become an actor. It is precisely because the protagonists of the two films are the same boy, people have to suspect that the director made a trilogy of "Singapore Boyhood". When asked about this question, the director replied that it is possible to film a trilogy. When filming "Parents Are Not Home", Xu Jiale was 11 years old; when filming "Tropical Rain", Xu Jiale was 17 years old. If you cross domains for another 6 years, Xu Jiale will already be an adult. If you really want to shoot, it's quite exciting. The people who work with me are people who love movies. Chen Zheyi said that the companies that work with him or the companies that will invest in his films are all people who love movies. Starting from "Parents Are Not Home", all the producers and producers are people who love movies (there is a Chinese producer Fang Chek Lap in "Tropical Rain"). He thinks it is important to love movies. He can't work with an employer who doesn't love movies because they don't care about what he wants to do. Cooperation, of course, is a transactional behavior, but he still hopes that everyone can work together to complete a good work.
Now Chen Zheyi is not only a director, but also a producer. He hopes that he can use his abilities to help young directors, whether it is looking for resources or money, because many young directors have no idea about budget or implementation. Who will help you find money and who will help you get the project done is also very important. In a previous interview with the media, Chen Zheyi said that he hoped that his Changjinglu studio could shoot two fixed works every year to continuously help the director's creation, and at the same time, he could recover the cost to fund the next project. He is not interested in current superhero movies, because he doesn't like to read comics. He went on to say that if he was asked to shoot "007", he would definitely do it.
During the interview, Chen Zheyi talked freely, gentle and humble. He is very clear about his goals and can feel hisLove from the heart in the movie. Ang Lee commented on Chen Zheyi's "Parents Are Not Home", ""Parents Are Not Home" is better than fresh, unpretentious, pure, and touching. It is incomparable to a master." This year’s jury commented on "Tropical Rain", "a delicate, calm, and restrained film. It leads us into a life, succinctly showing the details and emotional throbbing of daily life, and it has the ability to cross geographical restrictions and cultural barriers. Core." Sincere and not artificial, delicate and restrained, these two sentences are the best annotations of Chen Zheyi's films. I hope that Chen Zheyi's lower works will not let us wait for another 6 years.
