At the highly anticipated 34th Golden Rooster Awards Ceremony of Chinese Film, the Cantonese opera film "Nanyue Palace Words" won the "Best Opera Film". This is another Cantonese opera boutique film jointly created by Guangzhou Radio and Television Station, China Film Co., Ltd. and Guangzhou Cantonese Theatre after "Wedding on the Execution Ground" was nominated for the "Best Opera Film Nomination" at the Golden Rooster Awards in 2019. The films produced in Guangzhou have won the highest awards of Chinese cinema, which is one of the series of achievements of guangzhou's implementation of the "Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Film Quality Project", and is also the result of Guangzhou's strengthening of the protection and innovative development of Lingnan traditional arts over the years.
Adhere to the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional art
Cantonese opera, known as the "Red Bean of the Southern Kingdom", has a long history and profound heritage, and was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009. On October 24, 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping walked into the Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Art Museum and instructed that Cantonese opera should be passed on well and carried forward.
Promoting the prosperity and development of Cantonese opera is an important measure for the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government to implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of important speeches, implement the requirements of the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and adhere to cultural self-confidence. In May 2019, Guangzhou formulated the "Guangzhou Further Revitalization of Cantonese Opera Work Plan (2019-2021)", built a pattern of Cantonese opera revitalization, planned in detail 7 major projects and 15 key tasks for the revitalization and development of Cantonese opera, and strived to form a Chinese Cantonese opera cultural center with Guangzhou as the core in the Pearl River Delta region in 2022, and took the lead in building a national opera inheritance and development demonstration area. In the past three years, Guangzhou has scientifically planned the development of Cantonese opera, promoted the integration and innovation of Cantonese opera art, created a cultural tourism brand that benefits the people, optimized the supply of Cantonese opera art products, stimulated the new vitality of Cantonese opera development, and achieved a series of gratifying results at the height of the central city of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Among them, the Yangcheng Cantonese Opera Festival, which has been held for 8 consecutive years, has become an important international cultural business card in Guangzhou, and has invested more than 800 million yuan to build a Cantonese Opera Art Museum and a new site of Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Theatre, spent 20 million yuan to start, and the compilation project of "Cantonese Opera Performing Arts", which is known as "a cultural feat of inheriting living artistic heritage", has received great attention, and the Chinese Cantonese Opera Cultural Center is about to come out.
Innovation is the life of literature and art. One of the important projects to revitalize Cantonese opera is to promote the integration and innovation of Cantonese opera art. In 2018, sponsored by the Propaganda Department of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee and the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Television News and Publications, the "Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Film Quality Project" was launched, which inherits and carries forward the innovative project of Cantonese opera to expand the development space of Cantonese opera art and expand the influence of Cantonese opera in the country and even the world in new forms such as "Cantonese opera + film" and "literature and art + technology". The project plans to shoot 10 large-scale Cantonese operas into Cantonese opera films and distribute them worldwide. The 10 plays cover a number of traditional classic plays and excellent new screenwriting, and have completed the filming of "Wedding on the Execution Ground", "Nanyue Palace Words", "Rui Wang and Zhuang Concubine", "Fan Li Xian Xi Shi", among them, "Nanyue Palace Words" won the "Best Opera Film" at the 34th Chinese Film Golden Rooster Awards, and "Wedding on the Execution Ground" won the "Best Opera Film Nomination Award" at the 33rd Chinese Film Golden Rooster Awards. "Wedding on the Execution Ground" also won the Best Opera Film Award of the 16th Sino-US Film and Television Festival "Golden Angel Award", the "Excellent Opera Film" Award of the 3rd China Opera Film Exhibition, and was listed as a theme education and learning film of "Not Forgetting the Original Heart and Keeping the Mission in Mind" in Guangzhou and Foshan. The total box office of the first round of screening of the film was 2.21 million yuan, and the number of moviegoers, screenings and box office were the highest records for drama films in 2018-2020, ranking among the best in the number of chinese theater movies and box office records.
Under the leadership of the Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government, the Cantonese opera circles, media circles and film circles in Guangzhou have worked together to deeply cultivate the creation and production of Cantonese opera films from the three dimensions of "inheritance", "tribute" and "innovation". As the mainstream media of Guangzhou, Guangzhou Radio and Television Station formulated the "1+1+3" action plan in 2019, taking the production of fine products as one of the "three major battles", and fully planned to launch documentaries, TV series, movies, radio dramas, street dance dramas and other forms of fine products to record, display and disseminate Guangzhou's red culture, Lingnan culture, Hai silk culture, reform and opening up and new era culture. At the same time, it actively explores and opens up new areas of the film industry, creating an innovative road of industrial integration. In 2019, Guangzhou Radio and Television Station set up a film studio, shouldering the creation and production of 10 Cantonese opera films of the "Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Film Quality Project", and taking technological innovation as the guide, using the latest 4K technology to bring new artistic expression to the film, constantly exploring the excellent traditional culture of Lingnan as an important source of literary and artistic innovation, the successful practice of two Cantonese opera films of "Wedding on the Execution Ground" and "Nanyue Palace Words", has accumulated valuable experience for promoting the comprehensive strength of Guangzhou culture.
Activate the vitality of Chinese culture with artistic creativity
On December 14, 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony of the 11th National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the 10th National Congress of the China Writers Association, stressing that the broad and profound Chinese civilization is the unique spiritual identity of the Chinese nation, the foundation of contemporary Chinese literature and art, and the treasure of literary and artistic innovation. Chinese culture has always advocated "collecting the que literature of the hundred generations and collecting the relics of a thousand years". It is necessary to excavate the ideological concepts, humanistic spirit and moral norms of China's excellent traditional culture, integrate artistic creativity and Chinese cultural values, combine the Chinese aesthetic spirit with contemporary aesthetic pursuits, and activate the vitality of Chinese culture.
In the creation of Cantonese opera films, grasping the relationship between inheritance and innovation is the primary meaning. The movie "Nanyue Palace Words" has a new expansion in the theme refinement and sublimation, excavates a distinct sense of the times from the historical story, quietly allows history to shine into reality, and embodies the principle of "double creation" of creative transformation and innovative development. The story of "Nanyue Palace Words" is based on the classic Cantonese opera of the same name, telling the story of the late Qin and early Han Dynasties, when the Qin Dynasty sent Zhao Tuo south to conquer Baiyue, zhao Tuo rebelled and sought peace, and finally fused the Hanyue people and became the king of Nanyue, creating a glorious history of harmonious development for South Vietnam. Behind this history reflects the theme of the Chinese nation forging ahead, good-neighborly development and sustainable peace. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed at the Central Ethnic Work Conference in August 2021 that to do a good job in the party's ethnic work in the new era, it is necessary to take the solid sense of the Chinese national community as the main line of the party's ethnic work. Standing at the height of the materialist view of history, this film reflects on the war, thus possessing the profound ideological nature of the Chinese national community, realizing the modernization transformation at the value level, expressing the common values of mankind with the help of historical stories, and activating the vitality of traditional Chinese culture with innovative artistic creativity.
"Insisting on integrating the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific reality and with China's excellent traditional culture", in the creation of Cantonese opera films, the main creative team has always adhered to the "two combinations" and transformed them into artistic pursuits. In the process of cinematization, the team created with a scientific and rigorous attitude, using the means of the modern film industry to enrich the records of the Kingdom of South Vietnam in the "History" and "Book of Han", and restore the original face of the history of South Vietnam as much as possible, including politics, social economy, ceremonial system, culture, art and overseas transportation and trade. From the perspective of the development and inheritance of Chinese civilization, the film further disseminates Lingnan culture and realizes the unity and transcendence of interpreting local history and carrying forward traditional arts.
General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that it is necessary to correctly use new technologies and new means to stimulate creative inspiration, enrich cultural connotations, express ideological feelings, and make literary and artistic creation present a new realm with more connotation and more potential. Cantonese opera films represented by "Wedding on the Execution Ground" and "Nanyue Palace Words" are not simply "opera plus movies", in the aesthetic sense of opera films, the aesthetic integration of the two art forms of "film + Cantonese opera" has been realized, and it is a high degree of integration of stage art and film art. These works fully apply the expression techniques and techniques of the two art forms to the shaping of the character image and the storytelling and plot promotion, including the capture of performance details and the use of lenses, forming a tension that cannot be obtained by watching performances in the theater. Whether it is lens scheduling or action editing is cinematic, it is a very cinematic opera film boutique, with the means of film as far as possible to amplify the beauty of Cantonese opera, so that the audiovisual complementarity, to achieve the "1 + 1>2" effect, so that the beauty of drama blooms on the big screen.
The film also makes a lot of use of digital technology, so that each scene has the realism of the film scene and the freehand of the dramatic stage. "Wedding on the Execution Ground" and "Nanyue Palace Words" are all filmed and produced in the Beijing Huairou Zhongying Digital Base, using the world's leading virtual technology, which not only retains the charm and classic singing of traditional Cantonese opera, but also shows the majestic and magnificent palace complex and the magical and romantic ancient National Customs of South Vietnam through the innovation of high-tech means and artistic expression techniques, and uses technological innovation and innovation to express cross-media expression, so that ancient opera is rejuvenated and more in line with the aesthetic standards of modern people.
Retaining the "memory" and "nostalgia" of Lingnan culture
General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that it is necessary to better promote Chinese culture to go out, and to explain and introduce to the world more excellent cultures with Chinese characteristics, embodying the Chinese spirit and containing Chinese wisdom with the words of the text, the voice of the text, and the people of culture.
Cantonese opera is one of the best cultural and artistic stories that Guangzhou brings to the world. With a Cantonese population of about 120 million people worldwide, Cantonese opera has a wide influence in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao and overseas Cantonese-Chinese circles, and is a link between The cultural and people-to-people and cultural identity of Cantonese, Hong Kong, Macao and overseas Cantonese-Chinese, and an important foundation for promoting the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. As an important source of literary and artistic innovation, Cantonese opera, a traditional cultural treasure, will increasingly become an important carrier and cultural business card to tell the story of the same roots and the same vein in the Greater Bay Area, and transform it into a cultural driving force for the construction of the Bay Area.
Cantonese opera films have great significance in foreign exchanges and dissemination, and have unique advantages in improving the influence of international communication, the appeal of Chinese culture, and the affinity of Chinese image. Making ancient opera into a movie is more conducive to the spread of Cantonese opera around the world, highlighting the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese nation, and attracting more young people to pay attention to Cantonese opera. Cantonese opera films have a long history, and the red line women have been practicing for more than 70 years and have starred in more than 90 Cantonese opera movies. The "Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Film Quality Project" uses multimedia means to strengthen the promotion of Cantonese opera, and uses 4K technology to shoot and produce classic Cantonese opera films, which has greatly changed the traditional impression of young people on Cantonese opera. This innovative art form has enriched the vitality of Cantonese opera and made more audiences pay attention to Cantonese opera and fall in love with Cantonese opera.
Cantonese opera films have played a unique role in protecting and inheriting Lingnan culture and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. The Cantonese opera film "Nanyue Palace Words" is one of the theatrical works that reflect the origin of Lingnan culture. Zhao Tuo, the "King of Nanyue", implemented the policy of "He Ji Baiyue", which eased the contradictions between the Han and Yue ethnic groups; advocated intermarriage between Han and Yue, and took the lead in marrying with the Yue ethnic group, so that the Han and Yue could integrate with each other through marriage. This allowed the Central Plains people who migrated south to live and work in peace and contentment after entering Lingnan, coexist with Baiyue, multiply and live, and gradually form the foundation of Lingnan culture with the Central Plains culture as the main and the integration of Han and Vietnam. The launch of the Cantonese opera film "Nanyue Palace Words" digs deep into the Lingnan humanities represented by Zhao Tuo and tells the story of his positive contributions to the development of Lingnan and the maintenance of national unity.
As the forefront of reform and opening up and the core city of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou, with a high degree of cultural self-confidence, tells the story of Guangzhou, the story of the Bay Area and the story of China to the outside world, which is not only the practical need of the national strategy, but also an important part of Guangzhou's international communication. In recent years, Guangzhou has focused on Lingnan culture to carry out international dissemination of Chinese culture and carefully cultivate cultural brands. Every year, more than 300 foreign cultural exchange activities are held, facing more than 40 countries and regions, with nearly 1 million participants. With Lingnan culture as the link, we promote the essence of Cantonese opera, Cantonese opera, martial arts, food and other Characteristic Cultures to go abroad, and the cultural dissemination of long-term achievements makes the image of Guangzhou more flexible.
With the continuous advancement of the "Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Film Quality Project", more and more traditional Cantonese opera fine repertoire will be recreated in cinematography, and then lead young audiences who are not familiar with opera into the world of Cantonese opera. This kind of cross-art fusion creation reflects the cultural self-confidence of Guangzhou literary and art workers, and through the ties of culture, let the world "read China in Guangzhou"; through Guangzhou, see the new atmosphere of Chinese culture!