In 1997, a TV series produced in Shanghai, with all-Shanghainese dialogue and telling the story of Shanghai, came out, and became a "hegemonic screen" and "blockbuster" for a while. It has a super high rating and Douban rating, it set a brilliant record of more than 38% of the ratings of a single episode in Shanghai, and still maintains a high score of 9.0 in Douban; it not only caused a miracle of thousands of empty alleys when it premiered, but also became "one of the must-have videotapes for Shanghainese living overseas to be homesick" after a few years of broadcasting.
This TV series that once made Shanghainese want to stop is the 10-episode Classic Series of Haipai "War of the Son".
If you have ever chased it, you may wish to turn on the TV this afternoon and relive the excitement and emotion of chasing the drama; if you only hear its name and have not yet seen it, then today you can have the honor of watching a Shanghainese TV drama textbook-level god work.
TV series "War of the Sons"
From 16 August
Daily at 13:00
News channel
Three episodes in a row
Produced by Shanghai Film Studio, the Classic Haipai TV Series "War to Seize the Son" is a representative work of Shanghai's local culture, directed by Liangshan, written by Jin Yongqin, starring Zhao Youliang, Zhu Yin, Li Jiayao, Chen Qi, Bai Mu and so on, telling the story of the family love story of the son-in-law Qiao Shuming who was betrayed by his wife's family and finally separated from his son.
Director Liang Shan said in a recent interview that he was not interested in the theme of "parent-child" when filming "War of the Son", but had a special love for the theme of "father and son". Because the relationship between father and son is very delicate and interesting. Although father and son are often in a state of "hard bar", the son grows into a father when he grows up.
Liang Shan's collaboration with screenwriter Jin Yongqin has a small episode. That day Jin Yongqin looked for Liangshan originally to talk about his other script, but after talking for half a day, he did not impress Liangshan, and just as the two shook hands to say goodbye, Jin Yongqin suddenly sighed and talked about a strange thing he had encountered.
A few words touched Liangshan's "gossip" nerves, and unconsciously listened to Jin Yongqin's story, shocked that his jaw was about to fall, there was such a strange story in the world, reversed and reversed? Liang Shan felt that this story was something he liked and wanted to shoot, and immediately asked Jin Yongqin to start writing.
Therefore, the story in this play actually comes from the screenwriter's personal experience, and after the broadcast of "The War of the Sons", the TV station also interviewed Jin Yongqin. His son was 16 years old at the time, and when the father and son separated, the son was only 10 years old. This year, Jin Yongqin can be described as a double happiness: the establishment of a new family, and the hit and wide acclaim of "The War of the Sons". He said that the tragedies and joys in the play have been experienced in my life.
When it comes to the "maternal love" in the play, Jin Yongqin believes that "that is all reasonable", everyone stands on their own point of view, there is its rationality, but when encountering a specific situation, the two "reasonable" may be conflicting with each other, and the two must be one, because there is only one child, then each person's choice will reflect the difference between the level of love.
Zhu Yin, who plays "not a good mother" in the play, has been upgraded to a mother-in-law, grandmother, and grandmother in recent hit dramas such as "Xiao Shede" and "I Really Love You", but 24 years ago, she was always put on the silver screen of "bad woman" because of her "one meter and seven two heads and lean and lean appearance".
Perhaps because of playing more such roles, playing the mother in "War to Seize the Son", for Zhu Yin, there is not much concern. Instead, "Shanghainese" became her heart disease. Her ancestral home is Shanghai, but because she grew up in Nanjing, although her parents also speak Shanghainese at home, she speaks The best is Still Nanjing, and For her, it is usually good to talk casually, and to use Shanghainese lines in TV dramas, it is more or less "restrictive".
She recalls being in the studio, and without saying a few words, someone would point out "wrong and wrong", how the word should be said, how the word should be pronounced. "When I made this scene, I felt like I was always being corrected for the lines, and I felt so hard." Zhu Yin said.
The script of "War of the Sons" is written in Mandarin, so the actor's lines must be expressed completely in authentic Shanghainese, which is difficult for actors who speak Shanghainese as their mother tongue, not to mention Zhu Yin.
"Let's say there's a line in the script that says , 'I love you so much', how do you say it? - 'My old love nong'? No, because although you change 'very' to 'old', which is in line with Shanghainese customs, Shanghainese usually use the word 'joy' when they express the word 'love' in interpersonal relationships. Therefore, the most down-to-earth way of saying it is 'I am old and happy'. Zhu Yin gave an example of the most typical Shanghainese dialogue that often encounters words and sentences that are different from Mandarin.
She also remembers that once Zhao Youliang shot 8 times for a "think of you", he said: "Ala Qila old want nong..." Then the recording engineer over there said "wrong", it should be "old remember nong". Zhao Youliang may not be able to turn a corner for a while, so this sentence was filmed 8 times, and the sweat came down.
Zhao Youliang plays the role of "door-to-door son-in-law" in the play, which is one of several typical Shanghai characters portrayed in the script. Zhu Yin thinks that Zhao Youliang is "very similar" to this role, both "old Gen", so he plays this role particularly accurately, if he plays another person, the audience may feel a little angry, but by him acting, it seems to be quite reasonable, even his inner entanglement also feels very reasonable.
"And he's very popular, with many viewers writing to say, 'His eyes are so charming.'" Liangshan added.
Anyone who shoots a scene knows that two objects are the most difficult to shoot: children and animals. Toto in "War of the Sons" is about 10 years old and has just been able to recognize the words on the script. At that time, the selection of small actors was also one of hundreds, and at that time, Ma Jiawei and Liu Tao (who played Lu Xiaoyang in the play) played a lot, and the director group debated very fiercely. Ma Jiawei is very cute, but Pi De is simply not good, and even some of the old actors in the crew directly complain to the producers and ask for his replacement.
"Everyone says he's skinny, but I think he's pretty good to me, he's pretty good to 'Mom', he likes me, maybe the child is still quite obedient when he sees 'Mom'." I said to him, 'Be a little more obedient, it's not good today.' He's still pretty buying it. In the impression of "Mother" Zhu Yin, this Pi Xiaoyuan in the eyes of everyone is still quite obedient.
"War of the Son" is in line with the "film and television confluence" policy of that year, Shanghai Film Studio into the TV drama industry a test of the water, as a film director at that time Liangshan did not know how to make a TV series, so basically it is to use the way of filming to shoot TV series, the degree of secrecy can be imagined. "We are all 10-page scripts for a day today, and at that time it was an episode that could be filmed for 10 days, 11 days, so the scripts were also cut sentence by sentence, unlike now 10 pages and 10 pages." Liang Shan said.
The film "War of the Sons" also has a film called "Learn Shanghainese with Me", you can learn Shanghainese with the TV series.
- Liangshan
Welcome to relive "The War of the Son" and listen to how Grandma Zhu Yin spoke in Shanghainese.
--Zhu Yin
It is worth mentioning that the replay of the classic TV series of Haipai was jointly arranged by the Shanghai Television Artists Association and the SMG Film and Television Drama Center, and carefully restored by the SMG Copyright Asset Center. So, if you've seen the quality of the 1990s videotape on the Internet, you can also enjoy the improved picture quality of "The War of the Sons".
Editor/American Editor· CHEN