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Years later, Kagawa Teruyuki still has a lingering feeling about the more than four months of filming "The Devil is Coming" in China, and most of the reasons are "blamed" on director Jiang Wen, whose harsh training and unscored shooting progress make him worry about the crew every day.
After returning to China, Kagawa published his own shooting diary in China, which contained many words such as "I want to quarrel with Jiang Wen", and later his predecessor Nakai Takashi was also angry after filming "Heroes of Heaven and Earth", and also published a diary to "denounce" Jiang Wen's domineering, "I don't know whether he is calm or self-righteous, and he always has the feeling of a superior to subordinates." If he continues like this, it will certainly become a fetish. ”
When a reporter asked him if he would cooperate with Jiang Wen again, Kagawa Nodding without hesitation, he used Texas Hold'em to describe his feelings in his diary, "At the beginning I had a pair of 2s in my hand, although the card was not large, I never had the courage to take it apart." At this time, Jiang Wen came, 'snatched' my pair of 2s and tore them to pieces, and then casually threw 5 cards. Four months later, I took it out on the plane home and looked at it, and it was the first time in my life that I was full of red. ”
Devil
Why to shoot "The Devil Is Coming", Jiang Wen himself can't say clearly, probably because after "Sunny Day", the audience has already regarded him as a big director.
That year, at the premiere of "Have Something to Say", Jiang Wen was holding Hua Zhengmei, and suddenly a young man came over and grabbed his clothes. "Jiang Wen, what are you doing here?" Why don't we do something serious after filming "Sunny Days"?! "Jiang Wen said that my acting is not serious?" The producer next to him was happy, saying that you should think about a story, which means that you have to be a director.
After watching You Fengwei's novel "Survival", Jiang Wen changed it with several screenwriters for more than half a year, the first half was basically the way of the novel, and the second half of it came according to Jiang Wen's way, and he gradually found his reason why he wanted to shoot "The Devil Is Coming".
Jiang Wen has loved to watch war movies since he was a child, and can memorize the lines of "Plain Guerrilla" and "Southern Expedition and Northern War". After filming the film, he re-watched these old films, and he found that there were few highlights that were rarely mentioned, such as the ghost sweeping at the beginning of "Tunnel War", the beautiful scheduling of the big scenes of the Eighth Route Army with the transfer of ordinary people, the movement shots of "Little Soldier Zhang Ga" were very clever, and the musical connection of "Heroes and Children" dwarfed many MTV.
< stills from "Tunnel Warfare" >
But he also knew in his heart that these films did not meet his artistic standards, and he wanted to recreate the state of the forties in the old films, and then tell a story that was closer to the historical truth. In this story, rural China is no longer "all soldiers", and Japanese soldiers are no longer the "eight-grid tooth road" with facial features.
After watching a large number of anti-war materials and documentaries made by the Japanese, Jiang Wen had a specific image of Hanaya Kosaburo in his heart: a Japanese who is not tall, not very old, ugly looking, and temperamental either a farmer or a fisherman. He felt that Yamada and Matsui, who Chinese played in the old anti-war films, really beautified them too much.
In order to find the right person, Jiang Wen went to Japan several times, and once he went to the military uniform store to buy a set of Japanese military uniforms of that year, the boss saw that he was Chinese, so he casually took a set of imitation fools. Jiang Wen let the translator say that the version and size were wrong, the boss took out the real goods in the inventory while losing money, where did he know, jiang Wen, who wanted to completely restore the real in the movie, even studied the width and narrowness of the crotch cloth.
In June 1998, with the help of a local acting company in Japan, 35-year-old Jiang Wen met 33-year-old Teruyuki Kagawa, and he was very satisfied with Kagawa's image, which simply came out of his head. Kagawa had seen "Red Sorghum", and he thought that Jiang Wen's appearance was much more cheerful than in the movie, but hidden behind the fine gold-rimmed glasses was a pair of eyes that were both likable and cold.
< Ma Dasan (Jiang Wen) and Hanaya Kosaburo (Teruyuki Kagawa) >
After reading the script, Kagawa got goosebumps, and when he thought that he might play the role in it, he seemed to smell the smell of military uniforms, large knives and donkeys, and couldn't wait to ask Jiang Wen: "When will filming start?" Jiang Wen said that he would get military training first, and then work from the end of August to the end of the year.
Kagawa, who thought of the film's salary, was silent, and he regretted that he had just acted too excited, "If I accept the invitation, the monthly salary will definitely be lower than that of a japanese college graduate." The day after that, he received a formal invitation from Jiang Wen, and his hesitation was swept away.
On the afternoon of August 12, 1998, Kagawa and four other Japanese actors arrived in Beijing, including Kenya Sawada, who played Army Squad Leader Saftuka. Getting into the van, the group was pulled to a six-story apartment building in the northwest corner of Beijing. In the evening, Jiang Wen and the main staff of the crew set up a banquet for them, which was also the first meeting between Chinese and Japanese actors.
Acting as a translator at the scene is Yuan Ding, the actor of the traitor translator Dong Hanchen in the film, who is a Native of Changchun, who studied in Japan in 1987 and went from carrying equipment to the director of NHK Television, and the image is completely in line with Jiang Wen's imagination, "Northeast accent, authentic Japanese, full mouth running train, figure as big as me."
< The captain of the Saftuka squad (Sawada) and the translator Dong Hanchen (Yuan Ding) >
Yuan Ding narrowed the distance between the two sides with the authentic Northeast dialect and the Tokyo dialect, and Jiang Wen announced with the strength of wine, "Everyone must learn French well, and we will definitely go to Cannes in this movie, and we can also win awards." ”
Kagawa wrote in the book: "Sandwiching Chinese food that is not very tasty, I chose to believe in Jiang Wen once, when I did not feel that he was a monster." ”
Military
"The Devil Is Coming" featured more than a hundred Japanese soldiers, of whom less than twenty were Japanese, except for Kagawa, five of whom were professional actors, and the rest were international students. Born in martial arts, he fought jackie Chan in the Hong Kong action movie "Thunderbolt Fire", and Sawada, who hates soldiers, is impressed by several sincere letters from Jiang Wen and finally agrees to play the Japanese squad leader.
There are also many Chinese actors who are amateurs, playing Liu Wang is the producer Li Congxi, playing the fourth cousin's brother-in-law is the screenwriter Shi Jianquan, and playing the guojun execution captain is another screenwriter Shu Ping. So many of the supporting roles listed on the first page of the script are played by non-professional actors, kagawa feels bottomless, but he feels that Jiang Wen does not care.
< stills from "Here Comes the Devil" >
During their first three days in Beijing, Kagawa was assigned to repeatedly watch the 1950s war movie "Vacuum Zone" and the wartime documentary "Nanjing", and to learn to sing the interlude "Camping Song" from the movie. Jiang Wen used to talk to them about the movie from 9 to 12 o'clock in the evening, and the contradiction between the two sides broke out in the script when the Japanese soldier suddenly wielded a knife to slaughter the village.
Kagawa said that this plot was too abrupt, and several of them could not understand it anyway, and Jiang Wen did not get angry or give in. He knew that these people were all born after the war, had no experience with the aggressive war of their grandfather's generation, and had just flown from peaceful Japan, and had not yet been forced to that position, and when the military training was completed, they could enter the role in Hebei.
On August 15, the anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender, Kagawa and they boarded a van and headed east to an armed police training base in Miyun on the outskirts of Beijing, where Kagawa said that this week's military training had left an unprecedented impression on him, allowing him, who had not experienced war, to understand everything in the past.
Seeing the actor's schedule also evokes my memories of military training as a student.
Get up at 5:30
5:40-7:00 Early training, five kilometers of hiking, and final sprinting
7:00-7:30 Washing
Breakfast is served at 7:30 a.m
8:00-10:00 queue training
10:00-11:30 Fighting training
12:00 Lunch
13:00-14:40 Nap
15:00-18:10 Tactical Maneuver Training (Creeping Forward, Climbing Over Obstacles)
18:30 Dinner
19:40-21:30 Watch video materials and war history books
21:30 Bedtime
The base dormitory is a room for six people, there are several iron bunk beds in the room, look at the bare mats on the bed board, and look at the smooth suitcase at hand, Kagawa has a feeling of entering the wrong time and space. The photographer Army beckoned them to put on the military uniforms in the play to take pictures, and several people changed their clothes and stood in a row with iron rods, and many pictures were taken in color and black and white.
Jiang Wen saw their black-and-white photos and fell in love with them, and immediately returned all the color films he bought, and the whole film was changed to black and white film, so that the start date was postponed. Jiang Wen said to Sawada, who was wearing a military uniform, "From today onwards, you are the squad leader, and your eating, drinking, and sleeping will be managed by you!" ”
That night, Kagawa and they watched a documentary on the Battle of Nomonkan, and the atmosphere in the barracks was indeed different, and everyone sang "Camping Song" much louder than the previous two days.
At night, Kagawa was so disturbed by Yuan Ding's purring that he couldn't sleep, and early the next morning, Yuan Ding complained to him first: "Kagawa, you are really a person who loves to think about things, and most of the night is laughing and sighing, which is really annoying." ”
Snoring can still be endured, yuan Ding put the laundry soap brought to him by Kagawa's wife and put it in the public bathroom after he can't stand it. In the face of the angry Kagawa, Yuan Ding's answer made him stunned: "Kagawa, anyway, the other Japanese are going to go back, then there will be two of us left, you can't do without me, or who will translate for you, so you still have to hang out a little." ”
Afterwards, it turned out that Yuan Ding was right, kagawa Teruyuki was indeed the Japanese who stayed in the crew to the end.
< Yuan Ding and Kagawa >
At eight o'clock in the morning, the training officially began, Yuan Ding ran away under the pretext of making a training documentary for NHK, and the Japanese on the side looked at his departing back with disdain.
The instructor, who was in his early 20s, issued the order, "Attention, stand upright for thirty minutes." From that moment on, the word "Tachibana" became Kagawa's nightmare, and when they stood for five minutes, Kagawa's body sounded the alarm, and could only rely on constantly counting from one silence to a hundred.
Squad Leader Sawada stood alone in front of him, his eyes staring at a certain point without blinking. On that day, I practiced "Standing Upright for Thirty Minutes" five times, and the last time was "Standing Upright for One Hour".
Thinking that when I could not stand in the military posture, countless heroes would flash in my mind, and Kagawa subconsciously thought of the spiritual sustenance of the emperor, and he swore in his heart: "Your Majesty the Emperor, Your Majesty the Empress, no matter what you encounter, I will also carry out today's establishment to the end!" ”
"Okay, the last fifteen minutes." Sawada whispered to Kagawa, and the two men looked at each other with pity. The moment of relief finally arrived, and the squad leader Sawada shouted to his team members: "Everyone is working hard, the training is over." ”
That night, despite Yuan Ding's purring in bed, Kagawa still slept like a mess of mud, too tired. At 12:00 midnight, a snoring dormitory sounded the voice of the crew: "Please get up, now we are going to temporarily transfer." The Japanese actors protested half-dreamily, "Don't play us." ”
The students who knew Chinese in Shangpu told Kagawa that during the day when they were practicing, there were military leaders who came to inspect the base, and when they saw the slogans of the Japanese people in Japanese uniforms shouting louder than the armed police, they immediately became anxious, "Where are the devils, get me out!" ”
There was no way, everyone had to pack their bags in the dark, and they didn't even know where they were going, they were stuffed into a large car that looked like it was about to be scrapped, and it was transferred overnight. At 2 o'clock in the middle of the night, they arrived at a new military training base, and Kagawa got out of the car and asked not to live in a house with Yuan Ding, and immediately threw down his luggage and went into the bed after getting consent, and he was speechless all night.
Sawada vented his anger at being called up in the middle of the night in the subsequent training, and he gambled with the Chinese soldiers to run in circles, running to the overworked state where he could not even take a nap, and holding a copy of the "Army Soldier's Diary" with a cigarette at night.
Endless gun carrying and Standing Zheng made Kagawa feel that he had become an "imperial army", and later he was even addicted to the opposite, watching war movies at night was more and more feeling, and even took the initiative to dry clothes for the squad leader, in his heart it did not matter whether to make a movie or not, the biggest idea was that he absolutely could not lose.
Wei
When Japanese actors practiced, Chinese actors also experienced life in rural Hebei. Jiang Hongbo, who plays a fish, works in the field with the rural aunt all day, and learns the work of ordinary peasant women from morning to night, such as spinning threads, cooking, killing chickens, and feeding pigs.
The villain Lao Guo, who plays the seventh master, states that he lives in his hometown to learn to speak the Tangshan dialect, and Chen Lao, whose ancestral home is in Shanghai, has worked hard and can chat with the villagers in the half-baked Tangshan dialect in a few days. The 78-year-old Chen Lao was angry in the crew, singing foreign songs and drinking foreign wine, and the thick arms of "I strangled the two in one hand and buried the pit" made a pull-up effortlessly.
< "Seven Masters" statement (first from the right) >
On August 22, the military training ended and the crew held a press conference. Kagawa changed into a suit and stood in front of the mirror, sighing that his bearded face had reached the point where nothing was right except wearing a military uniform.
There were many reporters at the reception, all from all countries, and several translators were invited. Kagawa listened to Jiang Wen talking endlessly, but no one introduced them to the reporter, feeling lost and lonely, pessimistic about the prospect of shooting that he knew nothing.
Early the next morning, the crew was on the road, and after six hours of bumps, they arrived at the first location shooting location, Wei County, Hebei Province.
The location recreates the temples, barracks, turrets, and surrounding streets where the Japanese soldiers were stationed, and Kagawa, who saw the real scene, had a premonition that a great shot would be born here, and also had the idea that "maybe I will really win an award in Cannes, so I have to learn a foreign language."
In the morning, after stepping on the field, Jiang Wen still did not say the specific date of filming, and in the afternoon, Chen Qiang (Chen Peisi's father), who played "a knife Liu", told the Japanese actors about the experience of the war, and Kagawa they joked that Chen Laozi was China's Mori Fukuya, a National Treasure comedian in Japan.
In the evening, Jiang Wen pulled Kagawa to talk about the script, and he also had to try it out at night, because the photography wanted to try the effect of black and white film.
< "One Knife Liu" Chen Qiang >
This arrangement made Kagawa take out his diary before going to bed and write down the words "I made up my mind to make a fire against Jiang Wen", unfortunately, although the determination was made many times, the fire has not been sent out.
The long wait ended at the moment Gu Changwei appeared on set, and when Kagawa saw the zhang Yimou's royal photographer press his face to the camera for filming, he knew that the film was finally about to start. That night, the actors of the two countries gathered in the canteen, and halfway through eating, the crowd couldn't help but sing their respective national anthems.
More than a hundred Chinese sang the March of the Volunteer Army, and fifteen Japanese people began to sing "Jun's Generation". Later, when filming the scene where Japanese soldiers and Chinese farmers took turns singing at a village banquet, Kagawa remembered the dinner, which everyone drank a lot of spirits that night and was noisy in the dimly lit canteen until late at night.
On August 31, the japanese actors' scenes officially began, and Jiang Wen called them all to Kagawa's house to talk to each other. When filming the scene where the squad leader Sawada surrenders to the Nationalist officer played by Wu Dawei, Kagawa really feels the heavy heart of the Japanese at the time of the defeat. For two consecutive days, the arrogance accumulated during military training was consumed by various shots of bowing to Chinese, during which a Japanese student said a spoken word of "Baga", which provoked a big brother of the crew to pull out a knife to him.
Kagawa's first scene is the climax at the end of the film, where Hanaya Kosaburo beheads and executes Ma Dasan, a farmer played by Jiang Wen. The drama was very heavy, the crew began to prepare from four o'clock in the morning, a large number of extras came to the scene, and the villagers were arranged to stand on the high slope next to the execution venue to "watch the liveliness".
Jiang Wen instructed Kagawa, "The action of beheading should be like playing a golf swing", when the actual shooting, the person next to him reminded Kagawa in English to start shooting, "Sir, action", Kagawa roared with all his might, and cut off Ma Dasan's head. Jiang Wen was quite satisfied with the play, and others also applauded him.
A day later, Jiang Wen decided to add a shot to the scene, "the ants crawled on his neck, and Kagawa bounced the ants away before swinging the knife." The crew caught a lot of ants, in order to prevent them from crawling around, first smouldered in the bottle and half dead, and then picked one and put it on Jiang Wen's neck.
Kagawa had previously wondered what kind of movie "The Devil is Coming", and after filming this scene, he kind of understood that Jiang Wen used an ant to show the cowardice and ferocity of the Japanese to the fullest, and the power of this shot would be like a lit firecracker, exploding in the audience's heart.
gunnysack
Because of the needs of the plot, Kagawa and Yuan Ding were put into sacks and thrown on the set for a whole day, and Kagawa was afraid that others would forget him. At this time, he suddenly felt Yuan Ding's goodness, fortunately there was such a person around him who accompanied him to speak Japanese, otherwise he would have to die in a sack.
Kagawa asked Yuan Ding why you evaded military training, and Yuan Ding said with a straight face: "Lian Li is the director in order to make you defeat yourself, I have been working hard in Japan for ten years and have already defeated myself, so I don't have to practice." Kagawa was angry with him again, "Strong words! Then why don't you stand for two hours and let us, the immature Japanese, see how you defeated yourself! ”
When talking about the soap that was used, Yuan Ding expressed his "apologies", "In our place, tobacco, alcohol and soap, etc., are shared by everyone, I didn't know that it was a soap containing love, sorry." ”
Kagawa did not have time to tangle soap again, a bigger test came, that day to shoot the scene of returning to the company's flower house being beaten by comrades-in-arms, Jiang Wen felt that the tension of the picture was not enough, and said to Sawada that you also came to fight together, Kagawa was shocked, he heard that Sawada had knocked Jackie Chan unconscious when filming in Hong Kong.
When the actual shooting, Sawada's men were merciful, the most brutal beating was a few international students, they did not know the weight of the hand, you punched me and kicked Kagawa more than thirty times, half of the blood flowed down the corner of his mouth, Jiang Wen came to hug him and said in Japanese, "This is too good."
It was not enough to bleed, when filming the scene where Hua wu and Dong Hanchen fell out and beat each other, in order to brew feelings, Jiang Wen let Kagawa sit down and squat in confinement facing the wall, just five minutes later, he cried out "wow", and then fought with Yuan Ding to be particularly devoted, and vented his long-suppressed feelings.
One night, the head of the Japanese performing arts company came to visit the class, and then caught up with the rock godfather Cui Jian who created music for the movie, Jiang Wen greeted everyone to eat shabu-shabu, the guests from afar brought caviar to the crew, and Jiang Wen, who loved to eat spicy, sprinkled a lot of chili powder on it, and the staple food did not eat a large pot of caviar, giving Kagawa a stunned look.
Summer to autumn, Kagawa received a winter suit from his wife, but he was very worried about whether the crew could shut down at the end of December, because the shooting progress was too unscored, sometimes he got up at 5:30 in the morning and set out, but when he arrived on the set, he saw Jiang Wen playing football with the crew, and then riding on the horse and disappearing. Kagawa asked which part to shoot today, and the assistant director pointed to the mountain in the distance, "When the sun shines there, I will turn on." He was just about to get angry, Jiang Wen "snapped, snapped" and rode back on his horse, saying, "How about we shoot a clip first?" ”
Filming in Ulsan was extended by a month than planned, and the crew began filming Japanese actors after moving to panjiakou Reservoir. There were fewer and fewer Japanese around him, the lonely Kagawa had fully entered the role, and the peasants in the group were always making mistakes to annoy him, so that they no longer resisted the scene in the slaughter village, and all he thought was "to kill, absolutely to kill." ”
A few days later, Kagawa was taken to the hospital because of a stomach perforation, and he lay on the bed of flying flies, rolling in pain, "begging" the doctor to give him a painkiller injection, and issuing a sigh that "I and the people of this country can't compromise for the rest of my life."
In mid-December, Kagawa, who had finished filming, boarded a plane back to China, and the director, devastated by the director, wrote in his diary: If Jiang Wen sends me another invitation to make a movie together, I will definitely go to China.
Cannes
In May 2000, Jiang Wenru brought "The Devil Is Coming" to Cannes. That year, Chinese films shined in France, Yang Dechang's "Yiyi" won the best director, Liang Chaowei won the film emperor with "Fancy Years", and "The Devil Is Coming" won the Jury Prize.
Kagawa's months of "hell" experience turned into a sweet smile on the red carpet, and a 20-year-old foreign audience hugged him tightly after watching the movie and said "too touched", Kagawa was also very moved, he felt that his hard work was not in vain, whether it was military training, sacks or the "big brother and sister-in-law Happy New Year" that had been filmed more than a hundred times.
< "Here Comes the Devil" in Cannes, from left to right: Kenya Sawada, Teruyuki Kagawa, Jiang Wen, Jiang Hongbo, Yuan Ding>
Jiang Wen said that "The Devil is Coming" is his "past life", he and the forties characters in the movie, such as the fourth cousin-in-law, the fifth uncle and even the Japanese soldier Flower House have a common language, he wants to explore where the problems between our two countries, the actor who stabbed people with a bayonet in the following stills is a weak international student, usually in the crew is often praised and cute, Jiang Wen said that if it were not for the war, you can't imagine that he would kill people.
The photographer at the scene looked at the good photos and broke into a cold sweat, and said with some trepidation, "Fortunately, I am shooting a movie."
However, there were many people who could not understand what his films were saying.
After the return of Cannes, "The Devil Is Coming" received twenty censorship and revision opinions, Jiang Wen's wish to "hope for a large-scale release in China" has not yet been realized, and someone wrote an article entitled "Jiang Wen, Please Don't Pee in the Wine", imploring Jiang Wen Zhang Yimou not to make any more films that smear national dignity.
In 2002, "Here Comes the Devil" was released in Japan, and 60% of the audience hit it with five stars, some people put it alongside Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", some people said that every Japanese should see it, and the opinion of right-wingers was that "even if it can be understood, it cannot be agreed."
Critic Tadao Sato may have said the director's heart, "Jiang Wen exposed the evil of Japanese soldiers by cutting his own flesh and breaking the bones of the enemy, so that the Japanese audience who walked out of the cinema could not speak for half a day." ”
20 years later, Ma Dasan's severed head is still smiling in the sky.
Some references:
[1] "The Charm of China: < Devils Come> Photographic Diary", Teruyuki Kagawa
[2] "Me and the Old Movie", Jiang Wen
[3] "I'm Not Interested in the Japanese: Jiang Wen and < Devils Come >", Feng Mei
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Author | Few forks