Zhou Xingchi , Liu Zhenwei and others is undoubtedly a genius work.
has already read countless articles and videos about why this film became a classic.
But among the many discussions about "Westward Journey", only few people paid attention to the narrative technique of this film. This article by
re-analyzes the magical narrative structure of "Journey to the West" from the screenwriter's point of view.
Some people say that the reason why "Journey to the West" was not understood at first, and even many people think it sucks, is because Zhou Xingchi and Liu Zhenwei handled the film too avant-garde and too postmodern. Many lines and plots in the
film are typical postmodern expressions. These classic lines and passages have been copied and imitated continuously, and gradually become a set of subcultural phenomena.
However, the lines and plot are only the superficial level of postmodern expression of "Westward Journey", and the postmodernity of the film's narrative is also very obvious.
For example, the "irrational" in postmodern expressions and the "non-heroic" treatment of the protagonist, so we see that the plot of the whole film is slanted out, and it seems that there is no pattern.
and Supreme Treasure initially refused to be heroes and did not want to wear the hoops of fate. His prototype Sun Wukong also doubted and ridiculed the so-called "learning from the scriptures" mission.
In addition, postmodern works have the characteristics of loose and complex structure, and the plot is diluted or even cancelled, which are reflected in "Westward Journey".
But no matter how weird a postmodern work is, we can always find an entry point to understand it. What this film has been overlooked is its "interlaced time and space" narrative structure.
"Journey to the West" used a relatively novel time-travel technique at that time. The overall timeline of the whole film is divided into two parts: "500 years ago" and "500 years later".
But the story "Moonlight Treasure Box" of "500 Years Later" is set as the upper part, while the "Great Sage Marrying" (Cinderella) of "500 years ago" is the lower part. The
story begins "500 years later", but its development ends "500 years ago".
For the audience, the adventures they bring into the protagonist's Supreme Treasure are moving forward.
Supreme Treasure has undergone a transformation from ordinary mortals to superheroes, but time has gone back 500 years. If
makes a schematic diagram of the narrative structure of the entire movie "Journey to the West", then the upper "Moonlight Treasure Box" is as shown in the figure. The short section of the dotted line that separates the main body from the front of
[Battle of Guanyin A] is the introduction of the first battle between Sun Wukong and Guanyin at the beginning of the movie, and Tang Seng sacrificed his life for another life.
This introduction happened 500 years ago and is very short, mainly to explain why Monkey King and Tang Seng were reincarnated.
then jumps directly from the introduction to the narrative body 500 years later.
The whole film is also a typical three-act structure, and the whole film has a total of 30 bridges, which are very neat.
Although the film "Journey to the West" is very postmodern in its expression, its narrative structure is surprisingly precise. The first act of
's "Moonlight Treasure Box" is basically exactly 10 small bridges. The core content of the first act of
is that the spider Jingchun Thirty Niang came to Wuyue Mountain to deal with all the bandits, and the leader of the bandits was the supreme treasure. There are two core messages in this scene of
, one is that Chun Sanshiniang is looking for a person with three moles on the soles of his feet, and the other is that Supreme Treasure has a dream about the water curtain hole.
reaches the second act, the story still takes place in Wuyueshan, starting with the debut of the new character Bai Jingjing , and the amount of information is much larger than the first act. The core information explained in the second act of
is that Tang Seng will be reincarnated in Wuyue Mountain, and that the previous life of Supreme Treasure had a bad relationship with Bai Jingjing. In the second act of
, the so-called "mentor" type character , the ancestor of Bodhi, and the villain, the demon king, appeared.
The next third act is the "interlaced time" narrative structure of the whole filmThe essential.
We learned from the appearance of Bai Jingjing in the last scene that Sun Wukong once failed her and ruined the engagement.
So Bai Jingjing saw the reincarnated Supreme Treasure and thought he was the former Sun Wukong, but at this time the Supreme Treasure had not been activated by the three moles.
At this time, Bai Jingjing hated Sun Wukong 500 years ago, but fell in love with the supreme treasure that comforted her 500 years later.
This love seems to be the end of Bai Jingjing and Sun Wukong, but it is actually the beginning of her love affair with Sun Wukong.
Later, Supreme Treasure was destined to meet Zixia fairy , fell in love with Zixia , and then became Monkey King; and Monkey King was destined to go to the West to learn scriptures, and finally failed Bai Jingjing.
goes on and on and on and on.
The line of bitterness between Bai Jingjing and Zhizunbao is the same as in the whole movie. The reincarnation after 500 years is the beginning, but the real body 500 years ago is the end.
Bai Jingjing thought she was in love with the hero Sun Wukong, but in fact she fell in love with the mortal supreme treasure.
At the end of the third act of "Moonlight Treasure Box", one of the many famous scenes in the film history also appeared, that is, the Supreme Treasure used the Moonlight Treasure Box to make 4 time travels, or time loops.
At that time, the use of time loops in Chinese films was still very avant-garde.
When Supreme Treasure crossed for the fifth time, the Moonlight Treasure Box did not go back to just before Bai Jingjing committed suicide as he expected, but went back to 500 years ago, and met Zixia, the woman in his destiny, and started the next story. The lower part of
also has a small introduction at the beginning, which shows the appearance of Fairy Zixia, which also makes the classic scene of Zhu Yin and rowing in the reeds.
's next narrative starts from the fifth time of the Supreme Treasure's crossing. This time, he made a deviation, or this time was his real destiny. The first act of the
great sage's marriage is mainly through the communication between Zhizunbao and Zixia, explaining the origin of Zixia, such as the love vow of pulling out the sword of Ziqing, Zixia's dual personality Qingxia and so on.
has another very avant-garde setting here, that is, dual personalities. The
film's explanation of Zixia's dual personalities is also very reasonable, because the two sisters were originally wicks entwined together, like two personalities in one body.
It can also be seen from the following plots that Qingxia's personality appears at night, so it is guessed that her two sisters divide labor like this when they make wicks. Zixia is on duty during the day, while Qingxia is on duty at night.
In the second act, the second key segment of the "interlaced time and space" narrative structure of the whole film appeared, that is, the scene of Monkey King vs. Guanyin appeared again.
But this time is different from the introduction above. This time, the Supreme Treasure who crossed over joined the crowd, and finally interfered with the outcome of this battle. The original reincarnation of
is that after a few rounds of Sun Wukong and Guanyin, they will be subdued by Guanyin, and then Tang Seng commits suicide with a Zen staff in exchange for Sun Wukong's life and reincarnation.
But at this time, the Supreme Treasure that Monkey King had reincarnated in the previous round was on the scene, and he had no intention but necessity to intervene in this process.
Because only the main body of the previous round perishes, the main body of the next round can continue.
This also conforms to the iron law of time travel works, that is, the same subject cannot exist in the same time and space at the same time. After the
Supreme Treasure interfered with Tang Seng's suicide, he actually opened a new space-time line, which is the blue line shown in the picture.
This blue line runs through the second half of the second half of the Dasheng's marriage to the end of the third act, which includes the famous scene where the Supreme Treasure confessed to Zixia, and the Supreme Treasure's determination to convert, and the parties at the marriage scene. The big melee and other scenes.
When the melee was about to end, the entire city was fanned to the sun by the Bull Demon King, and the fully reincarnated Monkey King had to use the Moonlight Treasure Box again, leading the four masters and apprentices to escape. This last time
crossed into a new time and space, which is the green line in the illustration.
In this time and space, Pansi Cave, and Shuilian Cave have also become Bodhi Caves, and Tang Seng has also changed from long-winded.become succinct. The reincarnation of the second master of
became the champion, and the two ladies were obviously the reincarnations of Chunsanshiniang and Bai Jingjing. The sunset warrior and Zixia reincarnation on the
tower are also entangled in love, and at this time the sunset warrior still retains the dignity and face of a man and refuses to take the initiative.
From these changes at the end, as well as the Tang monks who traveled through several times in the middle, sometimes they became Romans, sometimes Indians, and sometimes Egyptians. It can be seen that the crossing mechanism of the Moonlight Treasure Box is not only time travel, but also space. Change.
It will allow travelers to travel in different universes, not just on a timeline.
In conclusion, "Journey to the West" is actually about a man's difficult choice when facing "mission" and "love".
If you choose the mission of "purifying all sentient beings", you must let go of all worldly relationships.
is like a supreme treasure. He has an ambiguous relationship with almost all women in the film and is a "scumbag". The two most important relationships are Zixia and Bai Jingjing. The extent of
's affection for the two of them can be seen from the number of times he called the names of these two people in his dreams.
Others include Qingxia, Xiangxiang and Princess Tiefan, and even blind people like Supreme Treasures.
These incomprehensible love relationships are like Zhou Xingchi's love affair with Zhu Yin, Karen Mok, and others at that time.
But in the end, Zhou Xingchi, like Supreme Treasure, chose "mission" instead of "love".
In addition, the narrative model of "Journey to the West" is a typical "Hero's Journey" model.
's so-called "Hero's Journey" model is a movie story template summed up by some American filmmakers based on the theory of comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell. The
template is divided into 12 parts as shown in the figure, and these 12 parts are the abstract summary of each paragraph of the movie storyline.
Joseph Campbell's mythological theory is the underlying logic of many superhero movies
For example, the "meeting the mentor" link is present in many movies, "Harry Potter" is Dumbledore , " The Lord of the Rings" In "", it is Gandalf , in "The Matrix" it is Morpheus, and in "Journey to the West", it is obviously the role of Bodhi Patriarch. If
uses the "Journey of Heroes" template to correspond to the bridges in "Journey to the West", you will find that they fit perfectly. Stephen Chow and Liu Zhenwei created the script according to this theory.
's only advantage is that instead of rigidly applying this template, they use the "interlaced time and space" structure, disrupting the linear sequence of the narrative.
It can also be seen from this complex and delicate structure that there are deep reasons why "Journey to the West" was later regarded as a classic.
not only shines with genius in every single scene and every line in the film, but also because the chain that connects these genius passages is also a genius structure.
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