Watching "Color, Ring" is actually a very thrilling process.
The thrilling thing is not because of the three 7-minute bedchambers that are very shaky in Chinese films, but from the story behind the story: real life, far inferior to drama; youth revolutionary ideals, and no carnal desires; noble souls, all collapsed under dazzling substances...
This is the best thing about "Color, Ring".
Zhang Ailing transcended her time and wrote ideas that resonate everywhere in modern people called the 21st century.
Ang Lee made a more complete and modern interpretation of the whole story, officially making "Color, Ring" a modern fable story.
Let's answer a simple question: In China in the 1940s, how did women come out?
"Color, Ring" answers this question with Wang Jiazhi's encounter.
Wang Jiazhi first chose to study, studying at the famous Lingnan University, and later, the seduction plan was unsustainable, and she returned to Shanghai after being lost, but still insisted on further study.
In the society at that time, women went out of the boudoir to study, trying to get rid of the inferior social status.
However, whether it's for national salvation or self-actualization, the journey to study seems too long.
Wang Jiazhi was born at the right time, and in the era when everyone was eager to do something, she first chose to study, and then found a greater sense of satisfaction on the stage.
Drama has become a stepping stone for women to become the focus of the masses.
So, she chose to act on stage.
"Color, Ring" first emphasizes Wang Jiazhi's "dramatic life".
She is a movie fan, often crying alone in the theater, she likes to act, enjoy the satisfaction of being a heroine.
In that era, when real life was too painful, too bitter and too depressing, Wang Jiazhi chose the stage.
First it was the drama troupe, and then it was the "play" that incarnated Mrs. Mai to seduce Mr. Yi.
Being a drama heroine is still relatively small for her.
So she found a third way—revolution, and bait with hue.
However, although the status of women at that time was constantly improving, she was eventually able to do great things with the most "primitive" capital.
Wang Jiazhi's fate trilogy of "studying, acting, and betraying hue" is completely a portrayal of women's survival at that time.
To get rid of the oppression of feudal society, these are their three main ways out.
Therefore, one of the reasons why Wang Jiazhi insists on studying, why she loves the stage, and why she is willing to sacrifice hue is about to come out here: it is a woman's attempt to break through her weak predicament.
From this point of view, Ang Lee's casting was very successful.
Because Tang Wei is not a big beauty at all, and Wang Jiazhi is also a bit inconspicuous in her daily life.
An ordinary woman, living in an era of black smoke and miasma, making people powerless.
She longs to appear on the stage, to become the heroine, and to have a play of her own.
This is where the film is very subtle: Ang Lee depicts Wang Jiazhi "off the scene", that is, she takes off Mrs. Mai's dress, but she rarely depicts her.
The Wang Jiazhi we see has been acting, and in the end, she has been acting too deeply and missed Qingqing's life.
In the first half of the film, when she learned that Mr. Yi had suddenly left Hong Kong, her play might not be able to continue, and she was disappointed and lost.
When she returned to Shanghai to live an ordinary life, she was more like a lonely soul without a master, so she had to hide in the theater to cry for the people in the play.
Without the play, she would hardly survive.
Zhang Ailing's pen, and then through Ang Lee's fuller interpretation, the significance is not shallow.
First of all, put it in the context of art history, "Color, Ring" on the one hand has the exuberance of anti-Japanese drama, that is a kind of "art to save the country" can be described.
On the other hand, it was also the glorious era of Chinese cinema, the era of producing classic works such as "Road Angel" and "Spring in a Small Town".
At the same time, foreign language films have also been introduced in large quantities, and a film culture has swept the Chinese market.
As for Zhang Ailing herself, she was also a film fan, and later she devoted herself to film screenwriting and wrote many wonderful scripts.
The story of Wang Jiazhi is the story of an ordinary woman who forgets herself in the fictional world of drama and movies, and finally can't even save her life.
She is too deep into the play, and the false and the real are no longer indistinguishable.
Ang Lee deeply dissects female lust in "Color, Ring", filling in the sensitive topics that are avoided in the novel.
Carnal desire in the film can be said to be a must, in fact, as early as the relationship with Mr. Yi, the two "exercises" with male classmate Liang Runsheng were quite wonderful.
For the first time, she was dumbfounded, stiffly in a passive state;
By the second time, she was already alive and taking the initiative.
After the second time, she went to the window and looked at the flowers blooming outside the window. Women's enlightenment here is not only about the body, but also involves a self-development, a female autonomy. Although she said that she wanted to betray her hue, she had long learned to take the lead in this regard, not to be slaughtered, and the point was that everything was voluntary. Not only was she not controlled by anyone, but after she "completed her studies", she became like the eldest sister of her classmates and the protagonist of revolutionary action- she held a position of power because of her sex.
Liang Yansheng, who had a relationship with her in the original book, was a bit of a fan, while Liang in the movie version was a coward.
This aspect highlights Wang Jiazhi's calm general style.
On the other hand, it is also implicitly revealed that men are much more late and naïve than women in lust.
Sex is here, the catalyst for growth, and the wrestling field of power.
When Wang Jiazhi crosses the threshold of growth from sex, the film also cleverly uses violence to write about the growth of a group of men.
The scene where they killed Lao Cao and killed his mouth was bloody and violent.
Then after this "battle", they also became adults, and the whole operation was like a child's play of house wine from the beginning, playing with it and dying.
Before talking about "sex", we must discuss the shaping of the two characters of Kwong Yu-min and Mr. Yi.
Some people think that Wang Lihong's acting skills are muna, and he is too green and white, unlike a precarious revolutionary.
But in fact, Kwong Yumin should be like this.
Kwong Yu-min in the novel is a little bit of a small man, but in the movie he is more righteous, which is obviously comparing Mr. Yi.
Mr. Yi is a traitor, and he is a patriotic young man.
Mr. Yi represents lust, and he is like a man who has only revolutionary ideals and no selfish desires.
The wrinkles of Mr. Yi's brow are clearly visible, but he is a young and strong young man.
Kwong Yumin in the movie is actually like a statue, as soon as he appears on the scene, he declares that he will not talk about the private feelings of his children, he opens his mouth and shuts his mouth only to revolution, and his beautiful beauty is destined to make him not eat fireworks in the world.
As for Mr. Yi played by Liang Chaowei, it is even more exciting.
The novel repeatedly emphasizes Mr. Yi's thin, decadent head, and rat appearance, and at that time, it was also rumored that Ge You would play this role.
However, Ang Lee's final decision was to star liang Chaowei, who seemed too pretty, and then made a taste of lust that the novel did not have.
Yes, no one can deny that Ge You will not have any attraction of the opposite sex.
And Liang Chaowei played Mr. Yi has an unexpected effect, and his eye demeanor makes Wang Jiazhi's fall reasonable.
Especially in a scene in a private house in Hong Kong, it is more like Mr. Yi seducing Wang Jiazhi, and later in Shanghai, Wang Jiazhi gradually fell into a strong carnal desire with Mr. Yi.
Liang Chaowei fills in the novel's lack of persuasiveness.
As for the passionate scenes that are gently avoided in the novel, they are all played by Liang Chaowei's performance.
If Ge You had changed to act, I really couldn't imagine how those scenes would be filmed.
Of course, this is a joke.
Liang Chaowei's Mr. Yi contrasts with Wang Lihong's Kwong Yumin, leading to the rationality of this ending: in the end, Wang Jiazhi chooses Kwong Yumin, who is not perfect but ice-cold, but also "de-sexualized" Kwong Yumin, but Mr. Yi, who will make evil and evil, but also has flesh and blood.
The former seems to be a statue, while the latter is a living person.
The side that represents carnal desire actually defeats the side that represents the revolutionary ideal, which is a problem that Zhang Ailing has somewhat evaded.
Ang Lee carried it forward.
The novel "Color, Ring" was written in 1950, and when zhang Ailing talked about this issue in that era, Zhang Ailing was just deviant! She was at least half a century ahead of her contemporaries.
Of course, there is also the diamond ring the size of a pigeon's egg, which Mr. Yi bought with eleven gold bars in the novel, which is shiny money and naked material ostentation.
Especially in an era when the people are in dire straits.
It was that giant diamond that completely collapsed Wang Jiazhi's last defense line.
"Color, Ring" begins to emphasize this magic from the giant diamonds of the wives on the mahjong table in the prologue.
In the end, Kwong Yumin and others lost under the giant diamond.
This is the strength of Zhang Ailing's 25 years of meticulous craftsmanship.
In an era when the pen talked about saving the country and talking about feudal ideas, she went beyond her time and talked about some topics that we still have to do with the posture of a prophet.
In that short novel, she could not say it clearly (or it was not very convenient to say it clearly), and it was vividly expressed under Ang Lee's wonderful interpretation.
That's why we're so engaged when we look at Color, Ring.
These issues in the film belong to the 21st century, and we all seem to be the embodiment of Wang Jiazhi, who also wants to find a fictional world to hide from, and sometimes falls into undeserved lust, and is also sometimes dazzled by matter.
And how can Ang Lee control the themes of ancient and modern China and foreign countries and become a film myth? This seems to be a complex issue about film aesthetics, Chinese and Western culture, film marketing, and cultural globalization.
But the secret to Ang Lee's success may be simple, that is, he really cares about the inner world of his characters.
Therefore, Pat Jane Austen is not a problem, he is talking about the contradiction between rationality and sensibility that human beings share;
Shooting western themes is not a problem, he is concerned about how comrades live under the oppression of society;
Shooting martial arts novels is not a problem, his focus is that everyone has two sides, one is like the rebellion of Yu Jiaolong, and the other is like Yu Xiulian's formality.
Filming Zhang Ailing's novel is not a problem, he extends from Wang Jiazhi's inner world to talk about women's social status, talk about women's lust world, and talk more successfully than most Chinese and foreign directors.
The best movies are probably people-oriented, and then reflect the entire social culture, who can practice this truth better than Ang Lee!
I think there is probably none.
So there is also an inevitable topic when talking about "Color, Ring": Is Ang Lee successful in adapting Zhang Ailing? Does the movie make up for the novel, or does the movie go beyond the novel?
One of the reasons why this is a problem is that in the past, movies adapted from Zhang Ailing's novels were almost "completely destroyed.".
Including Xu Anhua's "Love in the City" and "Half Life", Guan Jinpeng's "Red Roses and White Roses".
These adaptations make the same mistake: in the face of Zhang Ailing's text, the director was too careful, and finally trapped by the original work, unable to shoot a personal style, and naturally could not surpass the original work.
"Allure of Love" eats the original dialogue alive and peels off, very blunt;
"Half Life" made the story outline, but could not shoot the taste;
"Red Rose White Rose" borrowed the power but hit the wrong force, and even used the attitude of sitting in a precarious position to shoot Zhang Ailing's cynicism.
However, Ang Lee said: Zhang Ailing's original book is the starting point of his film, not the end.
This attitude of adaptation is already half the battle.
Literature and film are fundamentally different media, and if you insist on reproducing the text with 100% of the images, it is a battle that must be lost.
With the experience of adapting "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Ang Lee has long since stopped asking for fish, so he always uses his images to play, not sticking to what is "faithful" and "original".
Ang Lee is not only making Zhang Ailing's novels, but also his own films.
Therefore, for the novel "Color, Ring", the film version is both a supplement and a reinterpretation, and finally even surpasses the novel.
At the beginning of the movie, the group of vicious gatekeeper dogs at mr. Yi's door render a sense of alert crisis;
A scene in which Kwong Yu-min and his students kill people uses blood to illustrate the dangers of the revolution and the cruelty of growth, and also contrasts Wang Jiazhi's enlightenment in sexuality;
Wang Jiazhi's "The Song Girl of Heaven" sung for Mr. Yi in a Japanese tavern cleverly juxtaposed the enemy country and the motherland, the traitor and the revolutionary youth.
On the other hand, it also points out the contradiction of this worldly love.
Ang Lee's re-creation of the original work has his own hand.
And, of course, those few erotic scenes that don't require words.
In "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Ang Lee has already demonstrated the use of martial arts to explain lyricism.
By the time of Color, Ring, the action on the bed is still meaningful. In this regard, I believe that Zhang Ailing can only bow to the wind if she knows that she has the spring.
However, the most powerful thing about Ang Lee's filming of "Color, Ring" is that he fully integrates this story into his creative vein. From the early "Wedding Feast" and "Eating Men and Women" to the more recent "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain", Ang Lee's creative theme has always been the conflict between the social system and human desires.
And this kind of conflict is often related to lust.
If the theme of Wang Jiazhi's story is fundamentally about sexual enlightenment and sexual liberation, then "Color, Ring" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain" can be called "three steps of lust".
The Jade Jiaolong in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" willfully seizes the Qing hao sword and challenges the patriarchy, and the "drama meat" is her fierce lust with Luo Xiaohu in the desert;
A repressed gay love in "Brokeback Mountain" is also caused by an impulsive love.
Ang Lee's interpretation of social repression often begins with sexual repression, and sexual liberation brings growth and enlightenment to his characters. In the hands of Ang Lee, "Color, Ring", which is almost sexually described in the original book, becomes another allegory about spirit and flesh—the desire you enjoy is not allowed by the world, which is not a coincidence, but a universal phenomenon in human society.
Ang Lee's "Color, Ring" is undoubtedly a success.
However, I believe that many Zhang fans, including myself, are still a little lost, because this "Color, Ring" still does not have the taste of "very Zhang Ailing". The so-called "Zhang Ailing flavor", that is, her cold tone, or the symbol given to her by literary criticism - desolation.
Zhang Ailing looks at the world, always a wide-eyed attitude, she will not have much sympathy, she is more stingy with her compassion.
The famous sentence at the end of "Love in the Fallen City" best illustrates this point: "Who knows, maybe because it is to complete her, a metropolis has collapsed." ”
She was cold to the rise and fall of a city, to the misfortune of a couple.
In "Color, Ring", a similar cold tone is not uncommon: when Mr. Yi proposed to Wang Jiazhi to send a diamond ring, Wang Jiazhi gladly agreed.
She thought, "[Mr. Yi] would never have thought that a young grandmother like her would look up to a short man of forty or fifty years old." Not for the money but for the suspicious. ”
In the end, Mr. Yi decided to execute Wang Jiazhi and others.
The novel goes like this: "'No poison is no husband. If it wasn't such a man, she wouldn't have loved him either. ”
As for the mahjong game at the beginning and end of the novel, it is even more framed by an understatement of a story that could have been very tragic. Zhang Ailing's coldness is her unique way of seeing the world, and she has also created a unique literary style, which is praised at home and abroad.
However, Ang Lee is clearly a hot-blooded person.
While Zhang Ailing always looks at her characters from a certain distance, Ang Lee always drills into their souls to care for them. The most obvious is the depiction of Mr. Yi: how ruthless, even fleshless, he is in the novel, but Ang Lee makes Mr. Yi cry at least twice.
As for Wang Jiazhi, in the novel, she let Mr. Yi go because of a momentary emotion, but her friendship with Mr. Yi in the movie is a long-term love. Both characters suddenly became affectionate in Ang Lee's film, and the concubine and tearful eyes of the scene singing "The Song girl of Tianya" are the best examples.
Ang Lee's "heat" and his overflowing humanistic care make the film version and the novel have a two-yard style.
Having said that, Ang Lee still has the ability to shoot a little bit of "very Zhang Ailing" things. That's even the most wonderful image interpretation of Zhang Ailing that I've ever seen.
In the last shot of "Color, Ring", Mr. Yi sits alone on Wang Jiazhi's bed, his eyes are wet, and then, Mrs. Yi calls him, and he leaves the room. At this time, the camera brings a little trace of the bed where Mr. Yi just sat—the clouds and rain, the love and desire, the death of the past, and finally a little crease on the white sheet.
What is the death of a beautiful person? What is a ruined relationship? What counts as a mission failure? The creases on the bed were like a mirror, reflecting a sneering smile from Zhang Ailing.
This is the end of the play...
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