[Text/Observer.com columnist Xinzhi]
On November 15, the movie "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" directed by the famous Hong Kong director Tsui Hark released a final trailer - in the Spring Festival of 2025, " The Legend of the Condor Heroes" "Legend of Heroes: The Greatest " will compete with "Feng Shen 2: War of Xiqi" on the same stage. "Chinese people's martial arts dream of family and country" and "Chinese civilization's creation myth" will light up the Spring Festival together.
Tsui Hark's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" is scheduled to be released during the Spring Festival. Video screenshots will mainly depict the grand scenes in the final chapters of the novel.
There is no doubt that Tsui Hark is one of the most colorful figures in the history of Chinese films. He always gives people the impression of being a pioneer: participating in the "New Wave Movement" of Hong Kong films, creating "new martial arts movies", and pioneering small-scale films. A series of classic series of movies and IPs such as Ma Ge, The Undefeated East, Once Upon a Time, Detective Dee, etc., with "ht The success of "ML5 Outsmarts Tiger Mountain " has opened up new ideas for the main theme movies of the new century, always exploring the technological frontiers of the film industry... and this time, the long-dormant Jin Yong novel's largest IP "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" has been re-opened 》is put on the big screen, is it a "bold new development" by Mr. Xu or a "nostalgic work" by an aging director? Everything remains to be seen.
But I can feel Tsui Hark's anxiety from the names of the male and female protagonists who occupy the entire screen at the end of the trailer: Xiao Zhan (playing Guo Jing) and Zhuang Dafei (playing Huang Rong).
Although the movie has not yet been released, we cannot make any comments on whether the two young leading actors are "similar" or "good", but objectively speaking, if it were placed 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, such a The two actors will basically not become the male and female protagonists of Tsui Hark's martial arts movies.
Zhuang Dafei, who plays Huang Rong, was most famous for his role as the "outsourced employee" Penny in "The Annual Party Can't Stop". As China's most influential and controversial traffic star, Xiao Zhan's most classic role is 2019 The male protagonist Wei Wuxian in the 2010 costume fairy tale " Chen Qingling ". No matter what the final effect is, at least for now, it seems that "Huang Rong" and "Guo Jing" are not in their "comfort zone". Why did the great director Tsui Hark use these two young actors to achieve "self-breakthrough" in his Spring Festival masterpiece?
option 1, the highlight of this movie is the big scene and the new plot setting, the actors' room for performance is not risky, so we boldly use two actors with great potential to try;
option 2, Xiao Zhan and Zhuang Duffy's image and acting skills are outstanding in themselves The best candidates to play Guo Jing and Huang Rong, directors are searching Baidu for him;
option 3, the fan flow and spending power behind Xiao Zhan, Zhuang Dafei's resources are a front-end insurance for the investment income of this project. The director needs to sacrifice the position of the hero and heroine to maintain the "basic base".
I think different people will have different opinions on casting.
But one thing is undeniable, that is, Jin Yong’s martial arts, as the film and television IP that once had the most market appeal, and as the “cultural common sense of global Chinese”, is constantly slipping: from the masterpieces of the TVB era to becoming classics in the hearts of generations, When it was first introduced to the mainland, Jin Yong attached great importance to it. CCTV promoted the filming of " Swordsman " as a national project. Then to the majestic and star-studded " Tianlong Babu ", "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" (when it comes to " The Deer and the Cauldron " and " The Heaven Slaying the Dragon ", the reputation and quality have declined) , when Zhang Jizhong gradually left the IP, Yu Zheng took over with his eye-catching color matching and "outrageous" storyline. If Yu Zheng is still a big shot, and his Jin Yong series still has a few highlights, then the Jin Yong dramas after Yu Zheng are terrible from director to actor to production, and the quality is almost as good as online dramas. Some even didn't even get a few splashes of scolding.
The crew of CCTV version of "The Swordsman" took a group photo with Mr. Jin Yong
I remember that the only one I had watched was Zhang Yishan's version of "The Deer and the Cauldron". Looking back now, I still think it was a spoof: the plot changed Jian Ning into the heroine, and Zhang Yishan's exaggerated acting skills almost ruined his career path. The cost is too low to afford a martial arts instructor. The moves are just for fun. There is no money for special effects. "Magic Movement" is just a combination of two different characters. Scenes shot in the same place are cut together to form a "teleport". We are too poor to hire extras. There is no one on the street or in the palace except for the protagonist. Even the eunuchs can't afford to wear patterned white clothes all year round. It seems like every day "Dai Xiao" for the Emperor... There are also some little-known Jin Yong dramas that even the film and television complaining bloggers are too lazy to watch. The ridiculous casting makes me think that the producer is Jin Yong's little black man.
Zhang Yishan's version of "Wei Xiaobao"
After 20 years, the tragic comparison between "Duan Yu"
All this will inevitably make the generations who were obsessed with the world of Jin Yong’s martial arts feel disappointed, sad and even angry. However, the reason behind this trend is not so much that contemporary people are unable to make good Jin Yong’s martial arts. Talents and funds are no longer tilted toward this IP." The explanation may be more reasonable.
Is Jin Yong's world of "shooting white deer in the snow, laughing and writing magic heroes leaning on the blue mandarin duck" outdated? Not really, but we must admit that we have passed the "love period" for it.
The "new martial arts" genre represented by Jin Yong and Gu Long has experienced a gradual upward process since the 1960s. The new martial arts novels are different from the traditional martial arts novels of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. What is new is that they are far away from the real world and very close to the turbulent times and modern popular culture. The creators are out-and-out intellectuals who have received modern education. They have never traveled around the world, and have almost no contact with real people who are "running around the world." However, the temperament and feelings of typical Chinese literati are trapped in a cramped and realistic world like Hong Kong and Taiwan. The fast-paced and bizarre "semi-Western" world naturally bursts out with strong creative needs and impulses.
The streets of Hong Kong in the 1960s
So the arena described by the new martial arts masters is more of a campus, a workplace, a political arena, and even a romantic field, but it is not the arena in traditional martial arts. And the multicultural environment and their educational background have mixed modern pop culture elements and cultural imports in a very wonderful way into the martial arts legend set in ancient China: you can read it in the book "The Eight Parts of the Dragon". There are also strong shadows of Greek tragedy in this masterpiece with a strong "Buddha" character. "The Secret of the City" can be said to be a "Chinese version" of "The Legend of Monte Cristo", and Gu Long's "Chu Liuxiang" The series is deeply influenced by mystery novels and the contemporary Japanese classic IP "Sleeping Maniac Shiro"... The general public in the Chinese-speaking area may not be exposed to the above delicious multiculturalism due to the relative isolation at the time, or there are some languages and cultures There are many obstacles, but martial arts novels can use Chinese values, historical resonance and "refreshing points" to stew these into a pot of delicious food and serve it in the popular culture market.
The "Sleeping Maniac Shiro" series, which is regarded as one of the inspiration sources of Gulong's "Chu Liuxiang" series
This creative form is naturally suitable for being made into movies and TV series that are also popular culture carriers, and the rise of new martial arts novels in the 1960s and 1970s is exactly the same Coupled with the booming Hong Kong film market, we have achieved mutual success. As the hottest IP at the time, Jin Yong's novels not only made Ming Pao a success, but also became the most sought-after source of scripts for Hong Kong movies. Often, the newspaper serialization has not ended, or the physical book has just finished and the physical book has not been released, and the movie of the same name has been released. (Zhao Min was still called "Zhao Ming" in the earliest version of the movie "Eternal Dragon Sword"). In the 1980s, Run Run Shaw turned to television. Young boys and girls on TVB became rising stars through Jin Yong's martial arts, which promoted a new wave of movies and the new martial arts movies. And Tsui Hark is the brightest ray of light.
Mainland audiences and readers, in the 1980s, looked curiously at the outside world from the long-closed cultural market, and they happened to hit the "peak period" of Jin Yong's martial arts, so Jin Yong was in the 1970s. Those born in the 1980s, 1980s, and even the 1990s have a well-deserved belief that "debut is the peak, and acquaintance is a god." The aforementioned "popular culture hodgepodge" integrated into the new martial arts was even more "shocked" and "hungry" for those generations of young people. Therefore, even if the older generation of intellectuals were somewhat disapproving of Jin Yong's martial arts, they still Hong Kong is regarded as a "cultural desert", but when the love of youth made that group of young people become the main force of culture, the supreme status of Jin Yong's novels has already been formed.
"83 Version of The Condor", together with its classic music and theme song, became the most dazzling cultural symbol of that era.
In the first decade of the 2000s, the Jin Yong craze hit the first wave of the Internet boom. "Tall buildings" of folk "great gods" in BBS were built to discuss the various military forces in Jin Yong's world. Rankings, various goddess lists, various fan creations, various debates and explanations, if you want to make an analogy, this is very similar to our "eating up" and in-depth development of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" today. And this happened to be a turning point - young people in the mainland took advantage of the Internet, which was a "popular" and "lower threshold" form than newspaper serialization in the past, and started crazy creations. In less than ten years, Jin Yong's martial arts All the story modes and exciting features in the game have been overlooked by many latecomers who may not be as talented as him but are also very talented.
The market is evolving rapidly, creating more works that are more in line with the current situation, and when the elements in Jin Yong’s popular culture become “common sense” rather than “surprises”, this IP will naturally no longer be what it used to be. Just as Teacher Mao Jian once lamented that he asked his students to read Jin Yong, he did not expect that his generation was so obsessed with it that they spent sleep and food reading the text, and today's college students would regard it as the homework and burden of "reading classics".
bbs era, many Internet "rape flower" masters have comprehensively interpreted Jin Yong's works. The picture shows the works published by the famous author "Big Face Master" of Tianya Forum after sorting out his posts.
Now that it has become a "classic masterpiece", if it wants to continue to be revitalized in the pop culture market, it must either have the great charm of real historical narratives and historical figures like " Romance of the Three Kingdoms ", or it can be as popular as " Journey to the West " Uncovering the most interesting contemporary people The new conception of the novel may be like "A Dream of Red Mansions" whose literary level and concept surpass all eras; however, compared with the previous classics, Jin Yong's novels are timeless, character setting, conception and text itself. , are a bit "old", this is also an indisputable fact, unless we also create something new based on Jin Yong's classic works.
And Tsui Hark, at the peak of his career, had a masterpiece on this track - Dongfang Invincible.
We all know that "The Swordsman" is a highly political martial arts novel written by Jin Yong during a special historical period. The political reflection of the character "The Invincible" is also very obvious. In the original work, Dongfang Bubai, who mastered the "Sunflower Collection", is a disgusting and ugly hermaphrodite who was twisted by power. But Tsui Hark's adaptation completely reversed this character - Lin Qingxia's version of the Eastern Cult, not only looks like a heroic "big beauty", but also has ambitions and leadership qualities that are not understood by others, and is also a true lover The ultimate human being - so much so that after him, almost all images of the Invincible Dongfang were based on Tsui Hark's version of the "beautiful hero" rather than the "political clown" in Jin Yong's original work. Although Jin Yong himself once warned Tsui Hark "not to make things up", at least Tsui Hark's version of Dongfang Invincible was "cooler" and more acceptable to later young people.
Screenshot of Tsui Hark's " Swordsman: The Undefeated in the East "
As a master who personally created the glory of Jin Yong's martial arts on the big screen, Tsui Hark should also hope to give it a try today to see if he can be like back then. "Taking Tiger Mountain by Wisdom" created a box office miracle, once again stirring up the audience's adrenaline with a familiar story.
However, will Xiao Zhan become the "Brigitte Lin" of that year? Is Tsui Hark still the "Old Monster Xu" who smiled proudly in the world back then?
We can only find out if we wait patiently until the Spring Festival.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of Observer.com. The content of the article is purely the author's personal opinion and does not represent the platform's opinion. It may not be reproduced without authorization, otherwise legal liability will be pursued. Follow Observer.com on WeChat guanchacn and read interesting articles every day.
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