What is "good show" ?
The famous playwright Cao Yu once said, The best play is not when the audience sheds tears with you, nor is it when the audience gives you the warmest applause after the performance.
Rather, the audience can leave the theater with a heavy thought .
What are you thinking about?
He said: "Think about the future, think about life, and even mankind."
Cao Yu's answer was said decades ago.
However, in today's entertainment industry, it has a different flavor.
Today's movie market is becoming more and more popular, and there are endless movies with high box office and record breaking.
Really good movies are on the way to "withering".
"Remakes are the trend", "formula movies"... are popular nowadays.
On the contrary, we began to miss those classic old movies from twenty or thirty years ago even more.
At that time, although the film production level was limited, they always had sincerity and the courage to explore and innovate.
Compared with the current hit movies that create standards and follow hot topics, they are more concerned about the deep expression of movies and the inner thoughts they can bring to the audience.
is like " Butterfly Lovers " released in 1994. This movie, like Stephen Chow's "Westward Journey", has been underestimated for decades.
1,
There are four major folk love stories in China, namely "The Legend of the White Snake", "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl", "The Legend of Meng Jiangnu" and "The Butterfly Lovers".
In the 1990s, Tsui Hark, who had always been good at shooting martial arts films, was so artistic that he made two of the four major love stories into movies.
In 1993, he filmed "The Legend of White Snake" into "Green Snake" based on Li Bihua's novel;
In 1994, he became the screenwriter himself and reinterpreted "Butterfly Lovers". The movie was also called "Butterfly Lovers" .
If "青丝" can rely on the actor's fame and erotic scenes to attract audiences.
What does "Butterfly Lovers" rely on?
This story is not only a Taiwanese tragedy, but also tells the ending in advance. You can imagine how difficult it is to impress the audience.
Compared with the bold deconstruction and reconstruction of "Green Snake", Tsui Hark's adaptation of "Butterfly Lovers" focuses on "moistening things quietly". It seems that there is no adaptation, but in fact it is all about details.
The story of "Butterfly Lovers" took place in 337 AD.
Zhu Yingtai disguised herself as a man and sneaked into the academy to study, so she met Liang Shanbo (played by Wu Qilong ) who was born in a poor family.
While getting along day and night, Liang Shanbo's daughter's identity was discovered, and the two fell in love.
Liang Shanbo studied hard, and after winning fame, he went to the Zhu family to propose marriage. Unfortunately, the family barrier could not be eliminated.
I wish my mother beat the mandarin ducks with a stick, and Liang Shanbo will die in depression.
Zhu Yingtai passed the tomb of her lover on her way to marry the prefect Ma's family. She went to cry at the grave. Then a strong wind blew, and the couple turned into butterflies and flew to the end of the world.
and above are the classic versions we are familiar with.
Tsui Hark's adaptation lies in filling in the details to make the story richer.
At the beginning of the video, there is a butterfly that cannot spread its wings in Zhu Yingtai's jar. She is learning to walk with a rope tied to her feet.
A butterfly and a rope explained her subsequent fate.
When Zhu's father first appeared, he was applying makeup and powder, and muttered: "The Ouyang family has such a prosperous official career because of its red face!"
Later, Zhu's mother chatted with the monk and talked about the gentry who migrated south after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty.
The two idle strokes explain the background of the times. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, male lust was common, and men wore makeup and powder to represent social status.
A mother-in-law teaches her daughter to learn to walk, but her daughter runs rampant and does not know how to turn, so she crosses the threshold and walks out of the house;
The two protagonists meet in a quiet valley, where the mountain uncle plays the harp, and spends the night in Yingtai, where he vaguely hears a scholar reciting poetry.
Tsui Hark chose "Moonrise" from "The Book of Songs·Chen Feng". Zhu Xi once commented that "this is also a poem about men and women who are happy and miss each other."
Once you leave home, there is no turning back;
Once you meet a lover, you will be entangled in love for the rest of your life.
In addition, cheating with paper balls, football matches in school, sleeping on the floor at the "38th Parallel", and making faces when the bell rings, all make this ancient love extremely modern.
The small details are embellishments, but the drastic changes in the plot are the key.
There are three characters in the two versions of Zhu Yingtai, and they are very different.
In the traditional version, Zhu Yingtai disguised herself as a woman because of her desire to study. After she entered the academy, she immediately became the academic master that everyone envied.
Zhu Yingtai is talented and enlightened, with a fairy spirit but lacks human touch.
In Tsui Hark's version, Zhu Yingtai doesn't like studying. Her father is afraid that she will be disrespectful if she gets married, so he lets her study. When she enters the academy, Zhu Yingtai is naughty and causes all kinds of troubles.
Such an adaptation makes Zhu Yingtai a lively person, making it easier to arouse empathy.
In the traditional version, Zhu Yingtai's pressure mainly comes from her father. Her mother is a tool who plays the role of a husband and a wife. This is also a common way of telling stories from a male perspective.
In Tsui Hark's version, it's the other way around.
The father played by Xu Jinjiang is strong on the outside but weak on the inside. He is a tool man who only knows how to make noises.
The mother played by Jiali Wu is flesh and blood.
She and Monk Ruoxu were former lovers, and their story is the prequel to Butterfly Lovers.
But the ending is very sad.
Under secular pressure, one was forced to marry into an official's family, and the other became a monk and became a monk.
The story of Butterfly Lovers suddenly has a control group, and the layering is richer.
My mother was originally a victim, but after suffering an unfair fate, she became a defender of the old system.
On the one hand, she monitors her daughter, imprisons her, and even beats the couple, but on the other hand, she personally opens the road to enlightenment for her daughter. This sense of contradiction is particularly touching.
In the end, she reunited with the monk, and their conversation was a philosophical reflection.
The monk said lightly: "There should be no ponds in the world."
Zhu's mother responded bitterly: "That's cool, if you can let it go, you won't become a monk."
Father is the outside, mother is the inside, this The role also led to Wu Jiali being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
2,
If another actress had played Zhu Yingtai instead of Yang Caini, would this movie still have been successful?
Yang Caini is the head of Jade Girl after Zhou Huimin, but her appearance is not that of Xiaojiabiyu, but has a rough look.
Her wild eyebrows are long and slender, and she has a kind of chaotic heroic spirit. She is the perfect choice to play Zhu Yingtai.
Zhu Yingtai, played by Yang Caini, has a silly temperament that is out of state.
This kind of cuteness is gender-neutral, which is in sharp contrast with her final awakening and sacrifice for love.
His partner Wu Qilong is the captain of the Little Tigers and an idol.
has clear and bright eyes, a bookish air, and his facial features are more delicate than hers.
When the two of us are together, it feels like "two rabbits walking next to each other, An Neng can tell whether I am a male or female".
Tsui Hark also made good use of this pair of CPs.
Zhu Yingtai enters school and Liang Shanbo goes to take the exam. The two scenes echo each other. One person walks at a high place and the other sits at a low place. Movement and stillness are combined, and the heights are staggered.
Later, school bell ringing and back-to-back reading also mostly adopted this composition structure. Beautiful love can break through the shackles of the times, and Tsui Hark used pictures to express it.
Yang Caini's women's clothing is affectionate and her men's clothing is heroic. The change in mentality is most vividly reflected in the part where she is forced to stand while throwing the piano.
The story happened one evening. Zhu Yingtai got into trouble and was fined to stand. She was in a very embarrassed state.
After the incident, Liang Shanbo sat on the ground under the tree with his harp. He strummed the strings to comfort his "good brother".
Unexpectedly, each other's heartstrings were also teased out of proportion.
At night, the wind dives into the jungle, the water flows, and the breeze and the bright moon accompany it. The guqin tones of "Butterfly Lovers" come out vigorously, which is so beautiful that it makes people enchanted.
Where does the sound of the piano come from? It comes from the mountains, from the flowing water, from Liang Shanbo's emotion, and even from Zhu Yingtai's silence.
This is a night of awakening. Zhu Yingtai's stubbornness, childishness and stupidity disappear completely in the sound of the piano, replaced by the excitement and worry of a young girl's first love.
The movie splits in half from this moment on. The first half is so beautiful, but the other half is so desperate.
The climax appears in the scene where Zhu Yingtai cries and jumps over the grave.
Ma, who represents the powerful in the film, never appears and is shrouded like a dark cloud.
In that scene, there was a strong wind and dark clouds over the city.
Zhu Yingtai lay beside the piano, holding the blood letter and wailing in front of the grave.
There are very few heartfelt performances in the whole section, only skills, with a rough feeling, but it impresses the audience with its simplicity.
Zhu Yingtai’s tears and rain washed away the heavy makeup, revealing her original innocent face.
She died generously, and the people around her were insensitive, like pottery figurines wearing masks, but she embraced love and freedom with her last dance.
The music sounds here, it is still the tune of "Butterfly Lovers", but with new words filled in.
"Speechless, I share a glass of water with you in front of you
There is a strong meaning in the clear heart, and I am drunk from the bottom of my heart
Regardless of injustice or fate, I can't tell you the butterfly dream
Return you this life, this life, the past life
The two of you will fly through eternity and thousands of lives"
This sentence From the hand of Huang Zhan, Master Huang also continued the creative style of being generous and skillful, which is touching.
The scene where the two of them turned into butterflies was also artistically treated.
Monk Ruoxu threw a pair of paper butterflies drawn by Zhu Yingtai in his spare time into the air. Under the setting sun, the crisp yellow paper turned into butterflies like a talisman.
3,
"Butterfly Lovers" has been circulating for thousands of years, but there has always been a bug.
When Liang Shanbo fell in love with Zhu Yingtai, was it before or after he recognized her daughter?
If it were before, then Liang Shanbo would have fallen in love with his "good brother", which was a kind of same-sex love.
If it is later, then Liang Shanbo's feelings have changed from friendship to a "good brother" to love for the opposite sex.
The story of "Butterfly Lovers" took place in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, when feminine masculinity was prevalent. The fact that this story has been circulated for thousands of years shows that it is all-encompassing and has many points to explore, including this bug.
Obviously this bug is contrary to traditional Chinese culture, so the story of "Butterfly Lovers" has been circulated for thousands of years and has derived many versions.
But the process of two people falling in love is mostly blurred, and everything is left unsaid.
But Old Monster Xu made this movie just to settle this confusing account.
He praises the love between men and women, but does not shy away from same-sex love.
For this reason, he specially asked Peter Ho to play the role of a handsome scholar who flirted with Liang Shanbo, in order to imply this kind of same-sex love.
It seems that the monk's sentence "There should not be a pond in this world" is not only about family status and feudal shackles, but also about the gender of love.
Of course, when Tsui Hark made "Butterfly Lovers", he was definitely not filming gay people to create gimmicks. I think what he wanted to express more was that pure love has nothing to do with gender.
Whether Liang Shanbo fell in love with his good brother Zhu Yingtai or his good sister Zhu Yingtai is not important. Love itself is the collision between two souls.
In the video, Zhu's father claimed to be ill and asked his daughter to go home. Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai said goodbye in Changting, and Zhu Yingtai disclosed her daughter's identity.
In the original story, Liang Shanbo went to Zhu Mansion to propose marriage, and only then did he find out that Zhu Yingtai was a woman.
The movie is adapted in this way to emphasize the purity of this kind of love. This "big hole" in the original "Butterfly Lovers" of
has been filled in.
Only when you understand this level can you understand the essence of Tsui Hark's version of "Butterfly Lovers".
In short, it is no accident that "Butterfly Lovers" can be circulated for thousands of years. It explains all aspects of love. Anyone at any age can find their own shadow in this story.
Tsui Hark bravely filmed the most secret emotions of this story 30 years ago. It is still very advanced today. Such a good film should not be buried.
Text/Pippi Movie Editorial Department: Yi Li Ji
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