For his own "greatness", Guoman master Cai Zhizhong has a "modest" statement: "I am 10 times stronger than I look." "And what if you're not humble? Cai Zhizhong replied: "Actually, it is 100 times." ”
Those visible powers had already made Cai Zhizhong unbelievable. He knew at the age of four and a half that he was going to make a living with a paintbrush, and at the age of 9 he established that he would make comics his "specialty"; At the age of 15, he produced his first comic book; his first time as a director, he broke the Box Office record of Taiwanese films with the animation film "Colorful Cartoon Old Master", winning the 1981 Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Film. So far, he has published more than 100 works of Sinology comics, from "Shi Ji" to "Han Feizi" to "ShiShu Xinyu", from "Zhuangzi", "Lao Tzu" to "Analects", and then from "Heart Sutra", "Diamond Sutra" to "Six Ancestral Tantra", Cai Zhizhong used extraordinary comprehension to transform invisible wisdom into flexible and witty paintings, and distributed to 45 countries and regions, with global sales of more than 40 million copies.
In addition to comics, Cai Zhizhong is also a master of bridge, 9 times shortlisted for the Asian Cup, 1 Time World Cup, and home with 125 champions and runners-up trophies. He is also a master in the field of quantum mechanics, and once created a legend of 10 years and 40 days of retreat to study physics.
"Victory is my habit", Cai Zhizhong has a kind of pride in his bones, but such a powerful person, there are also things that are difficult, that is, to do animation, "So far, more than 8,000 animation companies have gone out of business, but I still insist on doing it, this is a dream, choose your favorite thing, do it to the extreme, is the greatest joy in life." ”
On January 11, Cai Zhizhong's animation film "Wusheng Guan Gong" was released in the mainland, and on the poster of the movie, you can see the classic charm of traditional Chinese landscapes, and the legendary figure of "Guan Gong" is one with the god. I saw Guan Gong's beard in his hands and standing majestically in the center, and the Green Dragon Crescent Moon Knife standing obliquely next to him reflected a "righteousness" character. On the other side of the sword, the postures of Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang, and Cao Cao became a representative of the three kingdoms. Under the dusk full of clouds in the background, a green dragon hovers overhead. The overall vermilion tone shows the Chinese style temperament at the same time, but also shows a tragic sense of blood.
The universality of traditional Chinese culture once cited Cai Zhizhong's confused period like lightning, and his cartoons such as "Zhuangzi Says - The Sound of Nature", "Lao Tzu Says - The Whisper of the Wise Man" and "Confucius Says - The Ding-Da of the Benevolent" are all in the same vein, so he also hopes to use his works to feed this nourishment as much as possible and carry forward China's IP, "Water Margin" has 108 IPs, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", each side has so many IP characters, but we still discover too few, as Chinese With Chinese blood flowing, the ideas of the ancient sages and their lives should be spread. ”
After the age of 36, I earned it every day
Cai Zhizhong painted quickly, and in a few strokes, a beautiful Guanyin or a Zen Dharma figure jumped on the paper, in contrast, Cai Zhizhong spent five years to create "Wusheng Guan Gong", which is a time-consuming, laborious, and extremely risky thing.
Cai Zhizhong also sighed that it is not easy for the current film market to make an animated film, and many of the reasons for it cannot be said, "In short, there are few people who make money, that is, "The Return of the Great Sage" and "Nezha" must have earned, but that is all, too much loss. ”
However, Cai Zhizhong felt that "Wusheng Guangong" was worth fighting, "Wensheng Confucius, Wusheng Guangong." This is China's superhero. In the past, I drew a lot of comics of Zhuangzi, Laozi, Confucius, Mencius and Journey to the West, Fengshen List, Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. And now that I've made the wusheng guangong animated film, I can say with certainty that it's the same thing I've been doing for decades. ”
Cai Zhizhong has a clear and profound understanding of the wisdom of ancient sages, injecting humor into philosophy, walking in a fluttering and surprising sentence. As an "old naughty boy", Cai Zhizhong laughed and said that he originally wanted to conceive a plot of Guan Gong vs Sun Wukong in the cartoon, "but then gave up, or take the main drama route." ”
"Wusheng Guan Gong" will not only reproduce the legendary story of Guan Gong strung together in classic historical passages such as Taoyuan Sanjieyi, Wenjiu Chopping Huaxiong, Passing Five Levels and Cutting Six Generals, and Going to the Meeting with a Single Knife, but also presents the mythological plots of the folklore such as the incarnation of the apparitions, the war clams you rescue Cangsheng and other mythological plots, in order to restore the mythological color of Guan Gong as comprehensively and from multiple angles as possible.
Cai Zhizhong still remembers the opportunity to connect with traditional Chinese culture, "When I was 36 years old, there were 8.6 million Taiwan dollars in the bank plus 3 houses, at that time, I realized that I had earned enough money in my life, and every day after that, I had earned it. ”
Cai Zhizhong resolutely went to Japan to study alone, wanting to become the greatest manga artist, although he only learned Japanese in three months, but he also had to admit that compared with Japanese manga artists, he did not have an advantage, "Japanese manga artists are very fine drawing, and there are assistants, I do not know so much about Japanese culture." However, Cai Zhizhong is a person who is good at using his brain, "I thought, how can I turn my disadvantages into advantages, what do I draw that Japanese publishers rush to get?" So, I thought of the Chinese pre-Qin Dynasty Hundred Families, the ancient philosophy of China, in this regard, Japanese cartoonists can't draw me, I want to win with content. ”
Cai Zhizhong believes that his works can sell well worldwide precisely because he has captured the universality of Chinese stories, which is also a fate of Cai Zhizhong, who is a Chinese, "On May 1, 1990, I immigrated to Vancouver with my daughter. We have a glass house in our house, and I look at the starry sky at the glass house and think I am so ashamed that I have abandoned the mother who raised me, the land of my hometown. So I decided to come back and leave my wife and daughter alone, and I told my wife, "If you stay here, I must go back." If I die in Vancouver, I will cry. So just come back. ”
Work 365 days a year
Work 16 to 18 hours a day
Born in Changhua, Taiwan, Cai Zhizhong, when he was a child, he was very thin and weak, and his height was not very tall, his mother once thought that he could only live by picking up cow dung when he grew up in the future, but when he was 4 and a half years old, his father gave him a small blackboard, and Cai Zhizhong became fascinated with painting, "My mother saw me painting dolls all day, and said can you paint dolls to live, I said 'definitely can't do it', just like that, then I liked to paint, and I left my hometown to develop in Taipei in the second year of junior high school, and we had a group of children like me who were 'too late to grow up'. ”
Among the children listed by Cai Zhizhong who "did not have time to grow up", Sanmao dropped out of school and began to travel the world to write, Li Ao took a leave of absence from high school in his third year of high school, and Gu Long began to write in his freshman year, "It was a happy era, and everyone could start from scratch. ”
In today's technology trend, Cai Zhizhong lives a secluded life without mobile phones, watches, and even staying at home, "I once did not open the door for 42 days, completed a job in the house, sat in a chair for 58 hours, in order to complete a TV title; last year, I only stepped out of the house 5 times." ”
Now, Mr. Cai says he still works 365 days a year, gets up around 1 a.m. every day, thinks for half an hour to an hour, and then starts working, about 16 to 18 hours a day. Someone might say he was serious, but he replied, "Seriousness is weird!" I've never worked in my life, but I'm obsessed with getting things done to the extreme. ”
Cai Zhizhong has his own set of time theory, the larger the time, the more valuable, the longer it takes to do, the greater the achievement, "others 7 days a cycle, I am 365 days a cycle, a large period of time is like 'one', interrupted is cut off, the more interrupted the more worthless, to the end of the 'broken corpse ten thousand segments', into zero, this is the fragmentation era we need to be vigilant." Therefore, Cai Zhizhong's requirement for himself is the concentration of "consistent", he usually does not paint more than ten pictures will not stand up, at most, can paint 45 pictures a day, never slack.
Reading books is the thing with the highest return on investment
Cai Zhizhong knows how to sit - sitting in a chair is only 5 centimeters, the posture is very correct, so the hands will not be sore, the feet will not be sore, and the shoulders will not be sore. The only thing I could move was my fingers. You put your mind in one place, you put yourself in one place, and you can't hear everything.
And for the "loneliness" that people fear, Cai Zhizhong is enshrined as a treasure, "A person should enjoy loneliness and concentrate on doing what he wants to do, if a person is afraid of being different from others, but wants to join in the fun, then how can it be outstanding?" ”
Mr. Cai, who usually reads a lot, said he had read 30,000 books, "In the past few years, I have flown to Vancouver, about 25 flights, 50 flights, 12 hours each." It seems like you can't do anything in the 12 hours of flying, do you? That's weird. 12 hours is a very whole time and space, during which time I read 600 books and wrote 12 books. One may not be able to change the space, but one can change oneself. ”
In Cai Zhizhong's view, in this world, reading books is the thing with the highest return on investment, "to develop the habit of reading first, even if it is to watch "PLAYBOY", is it not that it is beneficial to open the book, and then you may feel that reading these books has no nourishment, and turn to other interesting books." Don't think of reading books as an examination of wisdom, to read books as fun, life needs a lot of enjoyment, in contrast, movies and music types are very few, but reading is not, thousands of years of civilization, our ancients left behind books, far more colorful than movies and music. ”
Cai Zhizhong believes that as a Chinese, you must read the classic works of the Hundred Sons and Hundreds of Families once in your life: "There are not many words spoken and left behind by the ancient sages. Lao Tzu wrote more than 5,000 words of the Tao Te Ching in his lifetime, and Zhuangzi wrote 87,000 words of the Nanhua Zhenjing in his lifetime. ”
If you decide to do something, you have to do it well
Cai Zhizhong, who is 72 years old this year, looks fairy-winded, but he is not a traditional old man with white eyebrows, he has a long red hair, and he still has a warm and frank attitude towards the world.
Before the interview, Cai Zhizhong first played a game with the author, the author casually said a year, month and day, he can calculate the day of the week in a few seconds, because he created a set of his own formula; playing cards to guess the size, he knows what his and his opponent's cards are before flopping, jokingly asking him if he has a special function, Cai Zhizhong laughed and said: "That is deceitful, everything has rules, anyone can succeed, as long as they know how to look inward." ”
The outside world marveled at Cai Zhizhong's "divinity" talent, but in fact, his accumulation and self-learning ability were beyond ordinary people. Cai Zhizhong has a book, neatly written some life insights, he will record them at any time, and use these "witty words" in later works.
From an early age, he knew that he was responsible for his own learning, and that he would find answers to his own problems. During his military service, he taught himself the university's fine arts courses, which include, but are not limited to, color studies, illusion art, western art history, Chinese art history, art design, and collections of works by Michelangelo, Raphael, and others. He called this stage the "imprint period" of his manga career.
After studying Buddhism for three years, Cai Zhizhong began to challenge physics again, the president of National Taiwan University, Mr. Li Sicheng, was his good friend, Mr. Cai once met him, said that he wanted to learn physics, asked Mr. Li to solve 10 cutting-edge questions, and then bought 300 related books to teach himself, and then closed for 10 years and 40 days.
Cai Zhizhong still thinks about physics and mathematics every day: "Because physics is the highest law of the universe, everything in our lives is covered, even if it is writing, the reason why the pen can leave ink on the paper is also because gravity is at work." 」 ”
Animation is the same, Cai Zhizhong entered the work of the Guangqi Society, want to teach himself cartoons, he found that the best cartoon in the world is Disney, so the trustee brought back two cartoon films from the United States, and then through the projection of the slides to draw the entire cartoon one by one, it took two months to restore more than 3,000 animation manuscripts of Disney, and then carefully studied. In this way, he became the most animation-aware person in Taiwan.
In Cai Zhizhong's view, when deciding to do something, you must do it well, be good at learning and accumulating, "Writing or painting, it is like a chef, you order an egg fried rice with the chef, he can't start from planting rice, raising chickens, picking green onions, he must have prepared a lot of materials, to fry rice in five or six minutes." This time to do the animation "WuSheng Guan Gong" is the same, kung fu must be usually accumulated, I once published a book called "Dandelion Smile", which was written in my spare time to participate in the Bridge World Cup competition, during that time, I wrote a total of 100,000 words, 40 themes. ”
Treat the mind as a mirror and things come fully reflected
Things have returned to emptiness after a while
Cai Zhizhong admired Lao Tzu, but felt that he himself was more like Zhuangzi, "alone with the spirit of heaven and earth", and lived a free and free life. And to achieve maximum spiritual freedom, there must be the least material needs. Cai Zhizhong did not eat breakfast for 48 years, only ate one steamed bun every day, went out to carry a cloth bag, bought 14 pairs of cloth shoes, and bought 30 pieces of the same clothes, so that he could no longer buy clothes for a lifetime.
However, Cai Zhizhong, who drinks coffee as water and smokes fiercely, rarely gets sick, and his mentality is very good," Zhuangzi said, the enlightened people regard their hearts as a mirror, things come to be fully reflected, things are returned to emptiness after they have passed, and they do not stand in their own position to judge the good and bad of the encounter, his heart is only a true reflection of the present, so it will not be damaged. ”
Cai Zhizhong once had a metaphor, he said that life is like oranges, some oranges are big and sour, some oranges are small and sweet, some people will complain about acid when they get big, and those who get sweet will complain about small. "And I, if I get a small orange I will be glad it is sweet, and if I get a sour orange I will be thankful that it is big." Let the heart be like a mirror, no expectation, no remorse, things come fully reflected, things have been restored to emptiness, and a million times will not crack. ”
Cai Zhizhong believes that according to such wisdom references, as long as you live every moment truthfully and invest 100%, you will find that life does not need so much. Not only can reduce the material bondage, but also reduce the burden of the spirit, "just like when we played the Bridge Asian Cup, the round robin game is easy, and when we enter the quarterfinals, we start to pay attention to it, almost perfect, we must achieve perfection in the final four, and we must surpass perfection when we are champion and runner-up." A person must distinguish between priorities and priorities, otherwise he will carry a big mountain at all times, not relax, do things in a hurry, and the more critical the time, the more abnormal. ”
Effort alone is useless
Effort is just a little better than not trying
Cai Zhizhong was never angry, "Others scold me, then he may not understand me, at this time, I don't have to listen to what he says; and if he scolds correctly, I will not be angry, people have pointed out my shortcomings, I want to thank him." ”
For young people, should they first find a job to support themselves and then fight for their dreams, or should they fight for their dreams, even if they don't have a job and can't eat? Cai Zhizhong said: "It's not right, just like chasing girls, you have to adopt roundabout tactics, you can't chase directly." If you are not this piece of material, chase after everything and run, don't, you ignore them, what money, career, don't care, choose your best hand, do it to the extreme, at that time, everything will take the initiative to find you. ”
In Cai Zhizhong's view, it is useless to rely only on hard work, hard work is only a little better than not working hard, thinking must go to the front of effort, "If I don't have a certain talent, my bridge championship trophy can't be achieved by hard work alone." First of all, you must know what you can do, what you want to do, and then set goals, work towards the goal, just like you catch a plane, you know that you must get to the airport before what time, you will strictly follow the time, and will not go to the mall on a whim. There is no natural waste in the world, but you are not in the right position, do what you are best at, favorite things, you will not feel tired, do not have to rely on perseverance to support, everyone looks at me always very elegant, in fact, I am 100 times busier than others. ”
When Cai Zhizhong was young, he got up at 1 o'clock in the morning every day, looked at the window, drank coffee, looked at the starry sky and thought, thinking about his life goals, ten-year goals, short-term goals, and today's goals, and then he set a good goal to eliminate all interference to achieve it: "A person who wants to do something wholeheartedly will naturally change a lot of habits and cut off all other unnecessary things." On the contrary, people who have no goal will take everything he thinks is useful, just like a person who learns martial arts, because he does not know which one to practice, carries all the weapons on his body, and ends up exhausting himself, and does not become more powerful. ”
Text/Xiao You Courtesy photo/Old Knife