Everyone now generally has a view that the sequel to "Journey to the West" directed by Yang Jie seems to be inferior to the 86th edition of the "Journey to the West" classic. In general, the overall production level of the first 11 episodes broadcast in 1986 was higher than that of the next 15 episodes (including the 13th episode of the remake), one of the important reasons was the shortage of funds and the shortening of the production cycle.
In the first 11 episodes, the most troublesome production and the highest level of production are undoubtedly the first few episodes, and some episodes even have to be filmed for a long time to complete the plan, such as the second episode of "Official Seal Bow Ma Wen" to be said today.
This episode is not only a long shooting cycle, but the set especially the Dragon Palace is also quite painstaking and financial. However, the "Journey to the West" crew is spending money while trying to save money, and many actors in this episode are "reused", such as Yan Huaili, who even played four roles in this episode, which can be called the golden oil in the actors and the king of the dragon set in the crew.
One or seven places were filmed for two years
The content of the episode of "Official Seal Bow Ma Wen" is quite rich, from sun wukong returning from learning art, to the great battle of the one-horned ghost king, and then to worship with the bull demon king and others, and then to the dragon palace to obtain the Ruyi golden hoop stick. Later, he was recruited by the Heavenly Court to serve as Bow Ma Wen, and finally resented the Heavenly Court's teasing against the Heavenly Court and establishing himself as the Great Saint of Qi Tian.
From the plot point of view, the episode involves Huaguo Mountain, Water Curtain Cave, Dragon Palace, Difu, Tianting, Imperial Horse Supervisor, Tianhe and other scenes, most of the scenes are not in the real society, must be designed and produced, so this episode has a lot of shooting locations, the shooting cycle is also very long.
Specifically, Huaguoshan was photographed in Beijing's Jietai Temple and Jiangxi's Lushan, Shui's Curtain Cave was photographed in Hunan's Lengshuijiang BoyueDong, dragon palace and Yanwang Hall were all filmed in the studio in the auditorium of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, Tiangong was filmed in the CCTV studio, Tianhe was filmed in the Xilinhot grassland of Inner Mongolia, and Yumajian was filmed in the gymnasium of Beijing Yuying School.
The episode began in June 1983 and continued to be shot until June 1985, spanning two years. For example, the Tianhe Wrangling Horse was filmed in 1983, and the Dragon Palace was filmed in 1985.
Second, there are many designs in the Dragon Palace
I believe that many viewers will be impressed by the Heavenly Court and dragon palace in the "Journey to the West" that year, before that we almost did not see what the heavenly court looked like, what the dragon palace looked like, so there was not much concept in the head. On the contrary, it is easier to imagine that darkness is it.
"Journey to the West" brings us an indelible impression of the Heavenly Court and the Dragon Palace, of which the Heavenly Palace is somewhat better to shoot, but it is built with dry ice, and the Dragon Palace is relatively much more complicated, after all, it is the underwater world.
In order to create the crystal clear appearance of the Dragon Palace, the crew of "Journey to the West" can be described as painstaking.
Those coral reef stones, of course, can't be real, but are blanched with foam boards and then brushed with color. In order to create a shiny feeling on the reef, the crew bought a special sequin from Guangdong and then matched it with broken lenses embedded in it.
The aquatic weeds are made of nylon wire, and with a fan that blows the wind, this feeling of fluttering comes out. Sun Wukong is hung up by the "Weiya" made by the native law, which the crew simply learned in Hong Kong, and just learned to use it in the Dragon Palace drama.
There are two other surprising places in the Dragon Palace in "Journey to the West", one is that the water and light are everywhere, just like people are really underwater. The other is a bubble that often bubbles up, which is quite evocative.
If you put it now, it may be easy to do it with computer stunts, but at that time you can only use soil special effects. Water light is relatively simple, in front of the camera to put several large basins, the basin put on the broken lens, and then hit the spotlight to the basin, and then use artificial shaking basin, after the water surface and lens reflection, the fluctuating water light appears.
The bubble was completed through the aquarium box, at that time, the Bayi Factory had a large aquarium, the crew borrowed it and filled it with water, used a small water pump to make bubbles, and then synthesized the shot with the bubbles and the original shot, so the bubbles appeared in the Dragon Palace all the time.
The crew used a variety of soil methods to finally complete the crystal clear dragon palace scene, and the author still believes that the dragon palace created by this soil method is more comfortable than the computer stunt vision.
In addition, the deformation of the Ruyi golden hoop stick is also a native method, and the crew prepared four golden hoop sticks of different sizes, shooting one and replacing the next one, getting smaller and smaller, and finally becoming the one in Sun Wukong's hand.
If there is any "high technology" in the collection, it must be mentioned that the bridge section of "hooking the dead" is the bridge section. The scene of hooking the dead man to take away the soul of Sun Wukong is a shadow of the author's childhood, it looks too weird, and the two illusory and fluttering shadows in the daytime make people shudder.
The reason why this hook dead person has a perspective effect, the mystery is wrapped in a blue cloth strip on the body, they wrap the blue cloth strip in front of the blue screen to perform, after the shooting is completed, and then do special effects to eliminate the blue, so the two hook dead people become the last kind of weird perspective effect.
This is probably the most technological scene in the episode.
Third, the team of actors repeated use
There are many characters in this episode, and several of the key characters must be said.
One is the Jade Emperor, played by Zhang Yushan, an old actor of the Beijing Military Region Comrades-in-Arms Drama Troupe, the original "Zhang Yushan" written on the subtitles is wrong, and after Wang Chongqiu and Zhang Yushan himself confirmed, he is indeed the same surname as the Jade Emperor.
In this episode, director Yang Jie adapted the image of the Jade Emperor to highlight his class nature, so we see that he is sometimes like an emperor who is hesitant to enjoy himself, and he is also partial to listening.
The Jade Emperor's method of eating grapes is said to be very standard, and the author does not understand it very well, so he cut it out first.
Playing Yan Wangye is the audience is very familiar with the teacher Liu Jiang, after the baptism of Hu Hansan and Commander Tang, the image of Yan Wangye played by Teacher Liu Jiang is very deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
For the elderly, playing this role is still a bit taboo, but the dedicated teacher Liu Jiang does not care, the key is that the old man is 95 years old, and he is still tough after experiencing two cancers.
There is also a Taibai Venus who was glorified by director Yang Jie, and in the animation "The Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", Taibai Venus seems to be like a traitor, and treats Sun Wukong very carefully. In "Journey to the West", Taibai Venus is a peacemaker who also takes good care of Sun Wukong, which is in line with the image of the actor Wang Zhongxin.
Since the crew spends too much money on sets and other places, then other places to find ways to save, the most cattle way to "Journey to the West" is to reuse the cast.
The so-called team of actors, this is a feature of the "Journey to the West" crew, there are several crew actors to undertake a large number of dragon sets and supporting roles, these actors include martial arts director Lin Zhiqian, human arts actor Han Shanxu, starring Yan Huaili and Ma Dehua, as well as supporting roles Xiang Han, Li Jiancheng, Ye Yimeng and Yang Bin and other people, each of them has played several roles or even more in the play, of which the most starred in the non-Yan Huaili, Xiang Han and Li Jiancheng three people, each of them has played more than a dozen roles.
For example, in the episode "Guanfeng Bow Ma Wen", the three actors who play the Bull Demon King, the One-Horned Ghost King and the Mixed World Demon King are Yan Huaili, Han Shanxu and Lin Zhiqian.
Among them, the role of the Bull Devil King was originally requested by The voice of pig Eight Commandments, Li Po took the initiative, he had a big waist and a round tiger's back and a bear waist, coupled with excellent acting skills, playing a Bull Devil King was definitely a piece of cake.
But what he did not expect was that because the Bull Devil King wanted to enter the water curtain cave and drink with Sun Wukong, It was difficult to breathe in the cave after the slope pasted the plastic face of the Bull Devil King, and he tried twice to adapt to the lack of oxygen environment, and could only regret giving up, and finally the role was handed over to Yan Huaili. When it came to the Flame Mountain, the Bull Demon King was replaced by Wang Futang.
After Sun Wukong got the golden hoop stick, among the two clairvoyant shunfeng ears reported to the Jade Emperor, it was Yan Huaili who played the clairvoyant.
When Sun Wukong followed Taibai Venus to the Heavenly Court to see the Jade Emperor for the first time, the roller curtain general standing next to the Jade Emperor was fine, or Yan Huaili.
When Sun Wukong was assigned to work as the Imperial Horse Supervisor, the two people who served as the Imperial Horse Supervisor were Zhang Jidi, who played the dibao, and Yan Huaili, the other tall.
In addition, Ma Dehua also played a dragon set in this episode, but it was not as conspicuous as Yan Huaili.
You see, the "Journey to the West" crew is like this, the place where the money should be spent must be spent, the place where the money should be saved must be saved, and the key is that the shooting effect is still good.
The date of writing this article (April 15, 2020) coincides with the third anniversary of the death of director Yang Jie, and I would like to commemorate director Yang Jie with this article.