Wen | Ah Fei said history
Edited | Ah Fei said history
In 1986, the CCTV version of "Journey to the West" became popular all over the world after it was broadcast on television.
However, director Yang Jie said sullenly in an interview in her later years: "I hate that this work is not successful, I have not seen it for ten years, I will change the stage after I see it."
What the hell is going on? Let Yang Jie hate the works he made with all his heart and blood so much?
01 The sad story behind "Journey to the West"
Everyone is familiar with "Journey to the West", but when it comes to female director Yang Jie, it may not be well understood.
No one knows that Yang Jie is as hard behind the filming of this classic mythological drama as the Western Heavens.
Yang Jie's personality is extremely paranoid and stubborn, and when she first entered the TV station at a young age, she offended many people because of her upright personality.
When her script and scene work are ready, there is only casting left, and in the casting process, there are many who want to go through the "back door".
Because Yang Jie has always adhered to the idea of "not fame and fortune for art", she directly rejected the requests of those who wanted to go through the back door, so she made countless enemies in the circle.
In 1982, the crew of "Journey to the West" officially began filming, and the choice of the four protagonists was very important to Yang Jie, especially the choice of the role of Sun Wukong.
In order to be able to choose Sun Wukong who was satisfied with herself, Yang Jie inquired everywhere, and finally the emperor did not pay off.
She found a Shao opera artist zhang Zongyi, known as the Monkey King, and Yang Jie was very satisfied after seeing Zhang Zongyi's vivid performance.
However, Teacher Zhang Zongyi's age is already high, which makes Yang Jie in a dilemma, who knows that at this time, Zhang Zongyi recommended his son six-year-old child to Yang Jie in disguise.
When Yang Jie met the 23-year-old six-year-old child, she was very satisfied with his appearance, but his performance was not satisfactory.
However, due to the tight time and heavy tasks, and the right personnel were not found, the six-year-old child got the role of Sun Wukong.
Ma Dehua, who plays the Eight Precepts of the Pig, took the initiative to interview for this role, and Yang Jie was quite satisfied with him after seeing him, thinking that he was very suitable for playing the Eight Precepts of the Pig.
Yan Huaili, the actor who plays the sand monk, has more than 20 years of rich experience in performing dramas before this, and Yang Jie praised him after seeing his performance on the stage.
In the end, the casting of the three Tang monks was also a twist and turn, and "Journey to the West" officially began filming after the protagonists were selected.
At that time, the crew was very poor, and the whole crew relied on a camera and a photographer to wade through the mountains and rivers for a full 6 years.
If it were not for Yang Jie's husband Wang Chongqiu, who is also a photographer, the rest of the people would rarely be able to stick to it, and Yang Jie would have been able to find a shooting scene that met the requirements of the crew.
He led everyone to tirelessly walk through more than half of China's tourist attractions, just to find a satisfactory way to learn the scriptures from the West.
Among them, the team led by Yang Jie was in danger many times on the way to find a suitable shooting location, and Yang Jie herself almost fell off a cliff.
The conditions of the crew are also very difficult, each actor, each meal can only have a budget of 5 cents.
When I came to Guangzhou to shoot in these extremely expensive places, a dumpling was already two pieces and five pieces, and there were only 6, for the male actors, they simply could not fill their stomachs.
Sometimes the crew was so poor that even the safety facilities of the actors had to be reduced, and the injuries the actors suffered while hanging Via were commonplace for them.
Especially these leading actors, they fell very badly every time they finished hanging Wea, so when they were not injured, they all applauded themselves happily.
Among them, when Sun Wukong was filming the big red child, although he had already put on the asbestos clothes sewn for him by the crew, unfortunately his face and body were still burned, and he was almost in danger of life.
And when Sun Wukong was cursed by Tang Monk, because there was no professional shooting equipment, it was necessary for Sun Wukong to lie on the ground and rotate clockwise.
Not only does Sun Wukong have to be turned around, but the cameraman also needs to be carried counterclockwise in order to shoot.
After several rounds of shooting, the photographer has long been dizzy, because the 25-episode TV series was filmed by Yang Jie for a full 6 years.
So someone reported that Yang Jie used the crew's funds to shoot as an excuse, and actually had a lot of fun outside.
After receiving the report, the leader of Taili asked Yang Jie and her team to forcibly suspend their funds when they filmed 14 episodes.
In order to shoot normally in the future, the arrogant Yang Jie had to look down to find the leader of the stage to ask for filming funds, and she pleaded bitterly:
"Journey to the West is like my child, I have poured all my efforts into it, it can't just die like this"!
Although Yang Jie had already spoken to this point, the leaders in the stage still had no fear, not only did not give Yang Jie money.
But also let Yang Jie himself go to find investment to pull sponsorship, and after the TV series was filmed, the copyright still belonged to the station, and the crew was very angry after listening to it, but there was nothing they could do.
Just when the crew members were ready to compromise because they had no funds, fortunately, Teacher Li Hongchang, who played the centipede spirit in the play, received 3 million yuan of funds from the 11th Engineering Bureau of the Ministry of Railways.
In the end, it was very difficult to shoot the rest of the episodes, and in addition to the four main actors and other actors, there was also a most indispensable "starring"!
02 The white dragon horse that has experienced "9981 difficulties"
The White Dragon Horse was originally a military horse, and Yang Jie bought the dismissed White Dragon Horse from the regimental commander for 800 yuan in order to shoot "Journey to the West".
Why was it disarmed? Because the troops made it clear that it could not be sold or leased, for the sake of Yang Jie's "Journey to the West", the regimental commander could only dismiss it from the military.
After the White Dragon Horse came out of the vast and boundless grassland, it began its "part-time work" road, and it followed the "Journey to the West" crew throughout most of China.
The white dragon horse has gone deep into the mountains, to the endless desert, and through the rushing river, and has worked hard for 5 years, and its business ability can be described as very strong.
Director Yang Jie is also extra attentive to this important actor who can't speak, and when he bought a horse from the head of the regiment, Yang Jie also specially found two professional horse breeding masters.
And told them to take good care of the White Dragon Horse, and the horse breeding master did not disappoint Yang Jie, they raised the White Dragon Horse to be snow-white and have a rich physique.
The crew ran all over the place in order to shoot this TV series and encountered many difficulties and obstacles, and the white dragon horse also suffered less.
When the crew filmed the episode of "Pansi Cave" in Jiuzhaigou, director Yang Jie, in order to bring the audience the most real feelings, let the four masters and apprentices lead the white dragon horse from the top of the rushing waterfall.
After years of water-washed slippery hillsides, the actors slid straight over with both feet, not to mention the white dragon horse with four hooves.
At the beginning of the shooting, the white dragon horse was very timid, but with the "professionalism", it still defeated itself and bravely took that step under the guidance of Tang Monk.
But what all the staff present did not expect was that when the white dragon horse was going uphill, its hooves suddenly slid sideways and fell into the ravine.
The water of the waterfall hit it all, making it unable to get up, and the staff panicked when they saw it, and quickly jumped into the ravine to save it.
But it was not easy to rescue a muscular horse in such a dangerous ravine, and the staff tried to rescue it, but tried and failed.
Fortunately, a herdsman who had raised horses passed by at that time, and he jumped into the ravine and unloaded the saddle three times and two times.
Then he calmed the frightened White Dragon Horse, and when it calmed down, the staff worked together to save the White Dragon Horse.
When rushing to the next shooting location, Bai Longma was forced to squeeze into the car with the shooting equipment, and the car was opened for more than ten days.
Every time it got on the truck, the white dragon horse would often accidentally step on the air, so it broke its leg several times.
And when the four of them crossed the glacier, the white dragon horse fell heavily on the cold ice because of the horse's hooves slipping many times, and every time he wanted to struggle to get up, he couldn't get up.
However, for the White Dragon Horse, whether it was on the way to shoot the Western Heavens to learn the scriptures, or the ninety-nine eighty-one difficulties it experienced, the injuries it had suffered and the dangers it encountered were far more than that.
But even after encountering countless dangers and difficulties, the White Dragon Horse is still silent and docile, very humane.
Bai Longma has participated in the filming of "Journey to the West" since he was 4 years old, and has been filming until he is 10 years old, and in this 6 years, the actors of Tang Monk have changed 3.
But the White Dragon Horse has never been absent, and it is not so much that the nine-nine eighty-one difficulties on the West Heaven Sutra Road are prepared for the main actors, but rather specially prepared for the White Dragon Horse.
03 Yang Jie would rather journey to the west "unsuccessful"
After the official broadcast of "Journey to the West" in 1986, this classic mythological work immediately became popular all over the country, and the four leading actors in the play became popular and became household names.
Unexpectedly, after the four masters and apprentices had a very high reputation, they actually did something that made director Yang Jie feel very chilled.
Because the audience response after the broadcast of "Journey to the West" was very good, Singapore invited the lead actors of the crew to perform locally.
In order to make "Journey to the West" highly recognized internationally, Yang Jie informed the four masters and apprentices to re-rehearse the program.
But what Yang Jie did not expect was that the four masters and apprentices actually performed gold in foreign businessmen, and this behavior of the four seriously touched her bottom line, so she immediately held a meeting to criticize them fiercely.
After hearing Yang Jie's criticism, the four masters and apprentices were very unconvinced, so they took her criticism to heart, and the four who were angry directly complained to the stage at that time.
Because Yang Jie had offended the leader of Taili many times before, he directly expelled Yang Jie from the Journey to the West crew, leaving only four masters and apprentices in this crew.
After Yang Jie was expelled from the stage leaders, the four masters and apprentices also threatened the other actors: "If any of you go to help Yang Jie speak, the commercial performance will not have your share."
In the years when "Journey to the West" was popular all over the country, the audience's eyes were on those starring actors and actors, and Yang Jie could be said to be nameless and unprofitable.
Because the crew ostracized her, she became a lonely person completely, and you can imagine how chilling the actions of the four masters and apprentices made her chill!
In an interview in her later years, Yang Jie also said: "The actors are all outside enjoying flowers and applause, and I am alone."
Although Yang Jie has the prestige of a director, due to her weak influence and extremely poor popularity in the circle, everyone does not interact with her.
Until 1994, after the four masters and apprentices learned that Yang Jie was going to shoot the sequel to "Journey to the West", the four masters and apprentices personally went to the door to apologize to Yang Jie for crying and crying in order to be able to star again.
In order to present the classic work to everyone again, Yang Jie chose to forgive the four masters and apprentices, and finally the sequel to "Journey to the West" became a classic again.
And like Yang Jie, he was not noticed by the White Dragon Horse in "Journey to the West", although the White Dragon Horse is also one of the great heroes in Journey to the West, but it is little known.
In 1997, after the white dragon horse left this impersonal world under harsh conditions, no one knew where it was buried.
The White Dragon Horse may have realized at the moment of his death that the most difficult challenge in this world is not the ninety-nine eighty-one difficulties on the way to the scriptures.
Instead, a friend who had regarded it as a treasure but abandoned it in the suburbs, Yang Jie cried bitterly after learning the news that the bones of the White Dragon Horse had not survived.
So she endured the pain and wrote a "White Colt Sorrow Song" for it, and she hoped that Bai Longma could be a dignified warrior in the next life.
At that time, Yang Jie spent a full 6 years to shoot 25 episodes of "Journey to the West", each episode was only 90 yuan, and the salary was pitiful.
Therefore, after the filming of "Journey to the West", she did not have extra money to buy the white dragon horse, and had to beg the staff to be nice to it, and she did not expect to end up with such a tragic end.
At the age of 85, Yang Jie published an autobiography in her later years called "Yang Jie's Self-Description: My Ninety-Nine Eighty-One Difficulties", which detailed the life of Bai Longma' ups and downs:
"When I write about the White Dragon Horse, it is actually a true portrayal of myself, when you have no use value, who will take you seriously?" People are like this, what about the White Dragon Horse? ”
Yang Jie has seen through the cold and warm of human feelings in the feud hidden by the four masters and apprentices for more than 30 years, and the ending of people and horses is not the same, in this era of weighing the pros and cons, people pay more attention to the use value of a person!