It has not yet been released, because of the casting of the "First Burning Incense", which was ridiculed by the group, and the real release of the film has not been able to achieve word-of-mouth counterattack, at present, its Douban score is only 5.6.
This is the fourth time that Xu Anhua, who is recognized as the first female director of Chinese, adapted the works of his idol Zhang Ailing after the movies "Love in the City", "Half Life", and the stage play "The Golden Lock".
The first two film adaptations, Xu Anhua himself admitted that he was not very satisfied, especially "Love in the City", zhou Runfa, who found a heroic face, played the amorous Fan Liuyuan, and the Miao Qianren who was a bit wooden played the charming white tassel in his bones, and in the end, the word-of-mouth box office double loss also became Xu Anhua's regret, she said more than once, "The understanding of Zhang Ailing's work was not right. ”
And the original work of "The First Burning Incense" is actually somewhat similar to "Love in the City", perhaps 30 years later to take over this film, Xu Anhua also has the intention of making up for regrets, and even "shame before a snow". However, like her "Love in the City", casting has become a major failure of this film.
As soon as the trailer came out, netizens mocked the candidates for male and female lead actors, and even called "The First Furnace of Incense" "The First Furnace of Steel". No wonder netizens are mean, slightly plump and thick Ma Sichun and Peng Yuyan, who is full of tendon meat, and Ge Weilong, who is warm and sticky puff face in the original book, and Ge Qiqiqiao, who is plaster like a small white face with a little temperament, are indeed completely out of line.
In addition, Fan Wei, who looks very northern at first glance, is not quite like the Chaoshan man Situ Xie, and as for the stunning version of Yu Feihong's aunt in the trailer, it is actually not suitable: the immortal "goddess" with a pure heart and a high knowledge temperament incarnates as a desire woman - such an aunt really can't afford to use a young girl to help her seduce men.
Nowadays, filming Zhang Ailing's works, casting has indeed become a big problem, those beautiful women and handsome men with a strong Hong Kong style in the last century are no longer young at present, some people say that in fact, the most suitable actor for aunt is Mei Yanfang, and the most suitable for playboy Qiao Qiqiao is undoubtedly "brother" Zhang Guorong.
What few people know is that Zhang Guorong really played this role - 40 years ago, TVB filmed a 12-episode TV series "Nong Ben Amorous", which is adapted from Zhang Ailing's "First Burning Incense", and Zhang Guorong played the male protagonist, but the name in the play was changed to Zhan Shiyu, and the female protagonist was Shang Tian'e, a classmate of Liu Jialing's Hong Kong wireless artist training class.
Zhang Guorong, who was just emerging in the Hong Kong film and television circle at that time, not only played the character's charm and ruthlessness, but also played the fragility of a rich man who lacked love. The drama ended in the fall of Kowloon and the female protagonist who forced the male protagonist to drink poisoned wine to commit suicide, which also gave a reasonable external explanation for the madness and sinking of the characters in the play.
In fact, in addition to casting, the biggest failure of Xu Anhua's "First Burning Incense" may be that its story is completely divorced from the special era background.
Zhang Ailing, who has been wandering all her life, has never been a lingering love between men and women, but a greedy and joyful life in a chaotic world - Hong Kong, human nature, and those helpless and conciliatory realities, which should have been xu Anhua's good at portraying.
However, the strange Hong Kong Island scene in the novel is completely missing, and only the big red lanterns and umbrellas in the grass are used to express the combination of China and the West at that time, but the "absurd and exquisite and funny" Hong Kong, which is inevitably a bit superficial.
What is even more criticized is that many of the sentences describing psychological activities in the original work are not only read out unchanged by the characters, but also make greater play. Especially at the end, Ge Weilong's faint self-deprecation in the book: "They are unavoidable, I am voluntary", and even expanded into "Lie and lie to me, say that you love me", "If you don't say, then I will say I love you" and other rotten lines, so that the film directly becomes a "youth pain film" that embarrasses the viewer.
It cannot be said that Xu Anhua and her golden team do not care, or perhaps it can only be said that Zhang Ailing's story is too colorful and too absolute, and the word has long been branded with the symbol that belongs to her. Others, no matter who they are, are only spectators.