Zhang Zongyi
As one of the four famous works in China, "Journey to the West" can be said to have a fairly high popularity in the folk, but most Chinese people know about it not through its original literary works, but through film and television works.
In particular, the 86 version of the TV series "Journey to the West" has become an indelible screen image in the minds of generations, and actor Zhang Jinlai has become popular all over the country with the role of Sun Wukong.
However, in the early stage of casting the 86 version of "Journey to the West", the first choice for director Yang Jie to play Sun Wukong was not Zhang Jinlai, but his father's six-year-old apprentice Liu Jianyang.
Later, under the strong recommendation of the six-year-old child, Zhang Jinlai replaced Liu Jianyang as the actor of Sun Wukong, and over the years, the six-year-old child's approach in this matter was often criticized.
Zhang Jinlai
Is the context of this matter really as people say, that the six-year-old has selfish intentions? Or is there any other reason that is not known? It all starts at the beginning.
Born in 1924 in a family of operas, the sixth-year-old boy was born in 1924 in a family of operas, and since his grandfather, the Zhang family has focused on the performance of Monkey Opera in Shao opera, and Zhang Zongyi has grown up in such an environment since childhood.
As a career that can be inherited, it is indispensable to the love in his heart, under the influence of his father, Zhang Zongyi has developed a strong interest in opera since the age of 4, and even hid in the background to secretly learn art.
Talent is an essential thing for successful opera actors, and at this point, fate seems to favor Zhang Zongyi from the beginning.
6 years old, for an opera seedling, is the age to learn the basic skills, but for Zhang Zongyi, at the age of 6, he can already try to perform on stage.
The talented Zhang Zongyi is undoubtedly the best person to inherit the family business in the eyes of the elders, so his father specially named him "Six-year-old Boy", and since then he has begun his monkey play life.
In order to have a more refined performance on the stage, the Zhang family raised dozens of monkeys in the courtyard of the family, and Zhang Zongyi has personally observed and imitated monkeys since he was a child.
Because of this, the monkey played by Zhang Zongyi has more spirituality than his father's generation, and it can be said that from Zhang Zongyi's generation, people have a new understanding of this art that originates from imitation and creation.
Kung Fu pays off, Zhang Zongyi also did not live up to the expectations of the family, after years of hard study, he quickly gained a foothold in the theater circle and became a generation of monkey kings on the stage.
This also laid the foundation for the later birth of "six-year-old child" Zhang Jinlai.
In fact, as the youngest child in the family, Zhang Jinlai was not the heir of the monkey play chosen by Zhang Zongyi at first, and it was Zhang Jinlai's second brother Zhang Jinxing who was selected to inherit the mantle.
Zhang Zongyi's favor for Zhang Jinxing is not only because he is the earlier child born in the family, but also because Zhang Jinxing has the same monkey play talent as himself.
Zhang Jinxing and Premier Zhou
Like his father, Zhang Jinxing also appeared on stage since he was a child, and every performance was full of confidence and never feared the stage, compared with his father's study of monkey plays, it was even worse.
Even Premier Zhou, who had seen the performance of the young Zhang Jinxing, deliberately came to the backstage to hold him in his arms after the show, and his eyes showed full of love.
I have to say that each generation of the Zhang family can have such a gifted child, it is difficult to believe that it is not the arrangement of fate, and the later Zhang Jinxing perfectly inherited the title of "Monkey King" from his father.
Chapter Venus
However, when people believe in one thing, fate changes its direction in the dark, unexpectedly, at the age of 17, Zhang Jinxing unfortunately died of illness, when Zhang Jinlai was only 7 years old.
Zhang Jinxing's untimely death caused the family to fall into great grief, and after that, in order to pass on the art of monkey opera, Zhang Zongyi pinned his hopes on Zhang Jinlai's body.
At that time, Zhang Jinxing's name of "Little Six-Year-Old Child" had already begun, and in order to be auspicious, his father made a small change to this stage name and gave Zhang Jinlai the stage name "Six Little Children".
For a "monkey opera heir" who has high hopes from the family, it is inevitable that it is a little late to start learning art at the age of 7, so the young Zhang Zongyi has to make more efforts and study day and night.
After Zhang Jinlai became famous, when asked when he had liked monkey show performances, he once said:
"When I first came into contact with monkey play, I didn't like it at all, it was completely out of the sense of family responsibility, and I knew from a very young age that I had to inherit my father's career and fulfill my brother's last wish."
In order to make Zhang Jinlai's stage skills grow faster, his father got up early every day to personally supervise his practice, and in the afternoon he was "shut down" with dozens of monkeys to observe the monkeys' behavior and demeanor.
Zhang Jinlai did not live up to his father's expectations, grew up to be quite successful in monkey opera, and was admitted to the Zhejiang Kun Opera Troupe at the age of 17, which made Zhang Zongyi deeply pleased.
Zhang Zongyi, who was born on the stage of Shao Opera, attaches great importance to the inheritance of opera skills, and after experiencing the pain of losing his son, he did not bet his hopes on Zhang Jinlai alone, but began to accept apprentices.
I have to say that Zhang Zongyi is indeed an artist with both virtue and art, and he did not concentrate the authority of monkey opera within the family, but considered the problem from the perspective of cultural inheritance, which is admirable.
Liu Jianyang is the best of Zhang Zongyi's many apprentices, in fact, before learning from Zhang Zongyi, Liu Jianyang had already studied opera under Zhang Yanqiu, Fu Machao and other famous masters.
Liu Jianyang
When he was 16 years old, liu Jianyang already had a fairly deep foundation in opera, and in the process of learning monkey opera, he could quickly understand the essence of it, so he was deeply loved by Zhang Zongyi.
In the face of such excellent apprentices, in addition to unreservedly pouring out their teachings, Zhang Zongyi also relied on his connections in the opera circle to win many performance opportunities for Liu Jianyang.
And Liu Jianyang also used excellent stage results to give back the kindness of the master, in the performance of the Shao opera stage, Liu Jianyang won the grand prize many times, for the promotion of Zhang's monkey opera, made great contributions.
In the eyes of many people, monkey play is equivalent to the performance of "Monkey King", in fact, "Sun Wukong" is just a classic role in monkey play.
Liu Jianyang (right)
In 1980, Liu Jianyang played Sun Wukong for the first time in the Shao opera "Flame Mountain", which won many opera awards in Zhejiang Province and was praised by the audience as the "Monkey King of Jiangnan".
Later, Liu Jianyang successively starred in the role of "Sun Wukong" in many operas, the field was full, the performance was a great success, it can be said that Liu Jianyang at that time has become a representative of the Monkey Opera of Shao Opera.
In 1982, the film crew of the CCTV TV series "Journey to the West" began to look for actors across the country, and for this classic masterpiece of the divine and demonic genre, the choice of actors was crucial.
For the soul character "Sun Wukong" in the whole play, the actor's performance is the most important, and even directly related to the success or failure of the whole work.
86 edition of "Journey to the West" film crew
At that time, the "Zhang's Monkey Play" had long been famous, in order to ensure the foolproof role of Sun Wukong, director Yang Jie directly found the class leader Zhang Zongyi and asked him to recommend a suitable candidate.
In fact, before meeting Zhang Zongyi, Yang Jie already had an ideal candidate in his mind, that is, Liu Jianyang, Zhang Zongyi's beloved disciple.
For Yang Jie, the Sun Wukong in her lens is a lively and active star role with many martial arts actions, and if you can find a senior monkey actor, it is naturally the most appropriate.
Especially the actor who has played Sun Wukong and has achieved some achievements in artistic achievements, and has a certain degree of popularity in the eyes of the audience, and all these near-perfect requirements are all pointed to Liu Jianyang.
However, after Zhang Zongyi thought about it again, he finally recommended his son Zhang Jinlai to Yang Jie, which was indeed an unexpected result for Yang Jie.
Compared with Liu Jianyang, although Zhang Jinlai is a descendant of the Zhang clan who is rooted in Miao Hong, and is also from monkey opera, his artistic achievements and fame cannot be compared with Liu Jianyang.
At that time, in addition to starring in the TV series "A Q Zheng biography", Zhang Jinlai did not have too much acting experience, and "A Q Zheng biography" did not bring much fame to Zhang Jinlai.
Despite this, Yang Jie did not refute the face of the old artist, agreeing to let Zhang Jinlai participate in the audition in the crew first, and if he could not meet the requirements of the crew, he would choose someone else.
Yang Jie
So, with the encouragement of his father, the 23-year-old Zhang Jinlai came to the "Journey to the West" crew that ultimately affected his life's fate.
Zhang Jinlai is worthy of being a descendant of the monkey opera family, and his first audition, his spirituality, body shape, and eyes amazed every staff member present, and director Yang Jie did not hesitate to finalize him.
What people did not expect was that although the shooting conditions of "Journey to the West" were very difficult, after the broadcast of the show, it achieved unprecedented success, and it was not too much to describe it as "ten thousand empty alleys" at that time.
With the popular broadcast of the TV series, Zhang Jinlai also quickly became popular, and the name of "Six Little Children" was well known to Tong, and it became the biggest beneficiary of the 86 version of "Journey to the West".
Later, Zhang Jinlai regarded "Sun Wukong" as his life's work, which can be described as fame and fortune, and to this day, the image of Sun Wukong played by him is still deeply rooted in people's hearts.
However, Zhang Jinlai's fame inevitably attracted a lot of criticism, especially the increasing doubts about "Zhang Zongyi hid his love for his disciples and helped his son ascend to the throne".
It is true that in the eyes of people, it is normal for fathers to be partial to their sons out of human selfishness, but people are often more willing to fight for the weak in the incident.
In the eyes of the world, what should have been an opportunity for Liu Jianyang to make a name for himself was snuffed out by Zhang Zongyi out of selfishness, and people had deep doubts about this old artist who was known for his virtue and art.
In the face of gossip in society, Zhang Zongyi did not make a public response, and when the reporter threw the question to Liu Jianyang, he only said: "The choice of the master has his own reason." ”
In fact, Liu Jianyang is right, Zhang Zongyi's choice of Liu Jianyang and Zhang Jinlai is indeed not as simple as people think, but has a deeper consideration.
For Zhang Zongyi at that time, Liu Jianyang was already regarded as the successor of shao opera monkey opera, and it is necessary to know how difficult it is for a drama genre to cultivate everyone, which can be said to be a gift from heaven.
Liu Jianyang (left) and Zhang Jinlai (right)
At that time, Liu Jianyang was such a big person, and had become a golden signboard on the stage of Shao Opera, and had long been famous, zhang Zongyi naturally did not want to lose such a rare talent.
On the other hand, Although Zhang Jinlai is his son, his drama skills are far less solid than Liu Jianyang's, and if he wants to inherit the mantle of Shao opera, I am afraid it will take time, and whether he can achieve something is a gamble.
Moreover, as a new thing, no one knows what kind of future the TV series at that time has, and if Liu Jianyang's opera career is ruined by filming TV dramas, it is really not worth the loss.
Of course, if Zhang Zongyi has no selfishness at all, it is not realistic, and keeping Liu Jianyang is also out of consideration for the inheritance of Zhang's monkey play, if it is lost in his hands, it is really ashamed of his ancestors.
Zhang Zongyi (left) and Zhang Jinlai (right)
Therefore, Zhang Zongyi chose to let his son go to "adventure", in his opinion, Zhang Jinlai has experience in participating in TV dramas, has taken this step, it is better to simply let him continue to go.
The best result, of course, is the blossoming of both sides, if Zhang Jinlai can make a breakthrough in the emerging industry of TV drama, it will undoubtedly open up a new world for Zhang's monkey play.
In the case of not knowing anything about the future, Zhang Zongyi's ideas cannot be described as incomplete, on the one hand, his son and his beloved disciple, on the other hand, inheritance and development, there is no better arrangement than this.
For a young opera artist, "drama is bigger than the sky" is by no means alarmist, how can he give up one over the other for the sake of personal feelings, and abandon his career prospects?
From another point of view, people's "nepotism" of Zhang Zongyi also has a misunderstanding of the emerging industry.
As a TV series produced by CCTV, the retention of actors is still decided by the director, even if Yang Jie has specifically asked Zhang Zongyi's suggestions, it is only as a reference.
The reason why Zhang Jinlai can become the actor of Sun Wukong in the 86th edition of "Journey to the West" is entirely due to his own excellent conditions and the extraordinary vision of director Yang Jie.
It should be known that there is a huge difference between TV drama performance and stage opera performance, TV drama pays attention to natural and flexible, and opera has its own stylized standards.
If Liu Jianyang comes to audition, it will not necessarily satisfy Yang Jie, and Zhang Jinlai's success can only be said to be a true embodiment of his own strength.
Since the premiere of the 86th edition of "Journey to the West" set a record for the highest ratings, it is still the highlight of major channels in the winter and summer vacation programs, which makes people have to marvel at its exuberant vitality.
Although the plot has long been familiar to the heart, people's enthusiasm for this drama has not diminished in the slightest, not only because of the wonderful story itself, but also because of the vivid appearance of the character of Sun Wukong and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Zhang Jinlai used his incomparably successful performance to block the voices of doubt, and Liu Jianyang also went farther and farther in the inheritance of "intangible cultural heritage project Shao opera".
If we say that Xuezang loves disciples, it really tarnishes Zhang Zongyi' old artist's love for opera culture, and for the endangered "Shao opera", "Xuezang" is not a kind of "protection".
Of course, everything in this world has two sides, there are advantages and disadvantages, although Zhang Jinlai has achieved great success through "Journey to the West", but also greatly limited his own play path.
As a TV drama actor, being able to successfully play various types of roles has become an important criterion for measuring an excellent actor, but Zhang Jinlai has never been able to get out of the aura of the Monkey King.
In the eyes of the audience, no matter what kind of role Zhang Jinlai plays, there will be a shadow of "Sun Wukong", so that his acting career has been greatly affected, I don't know if this is a good thing?
In 2014, a generation of monkey king "Zhang Zongyi" completed his 89-year legendary life, if Izumi has knowledge, I don't know if he will regret his original choice.
At least with his efforts, "Shaoju Monkey Drama" and "Screen Monkey King" are passed down in an orderly manner, reflecting this treasure of Chinese culture.