With the reputation of "talented women of the Republic of China", Zhang Ailing and her works have become the big IP of the film and television circle. Whether it is last year's "Deep Love Origin" or today's "First Incense", it has triggered countless "difficulties". Since the 1980s, there have been more than ten film and television dramas adapted from Zhang Ailing's works to meet the audience, but most of the time what is left to people is an exclamation: Why can't we always shoot "Zhang Ailing"?
"The First Burning Incense" was made into "The First Furnace steel"
From the beginning of casting, every step before the release of "First Incense" attracted the attention of countless people, but unfortunately, this kind of gaze is not entirely expectation.
In 2018, when "The First Incense" was put on the shooting schedule, Chinese films are standing at the peak of rapid development, and big IP + famous directors + popular actors can build a solid foundation for a super blockbuster. In order to match Zhang Ailing's super IP, the film invited the most well-known Chinese film director Xu Anhua to direct, "Long Hate Song" author Wang Anyi as the screenwriter, the famous photographer Du Kefeng who shot "Sweet Honey" and "Hero" in charge, the soundtrack was handed over to the internationally renowned musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, the actor invited Ma Sichun, who won the Golden Horse Award, who was in the limelight at the time, to play Ge Weilong, and Peng Yuyan, a Taiwanese student with both literary and tough temperament, played Qiao Qiqiao, everything seemed to be just right and natural.
However, when everyone was disagreeing about Ge Weilong's actor, Ma Sichun, the unofficial lead actor, could not contain his excitement and revealed to the outside world the news that he wanted to play Ge Weilong through a "post-reading feeling". This statement attracted tens of thousands of people, including "Zhang Fan", who cited the "fake Zhang Ailing Quotations" and fell into the title of "Pseudo Wenqing", and Ma Sichun collapsed. A series of stills were subsequently exposed, and "First Incense" continued to cause complaints.
Ma Sichun quoted "Fake Zhang Ailing Quotations" and won the title of "Pseudo Wenqing"
In the novel, Ge Weilong is introduced, "Her face is a plain and beautiful little convex face, her eyes are long and charming, and the deep marks of her double eyelids sweep straight into her sideburns." Slender nose, small fat mouth. Perhaps her facial expression is slightly lacking, but only because of this sluggishness, it shows the gentle and thick ancient Chinese atmosphere. Judging from this text alone, Ma Sichun, who has a round face and a large skeleton, is difficult for people to associate with her and Ge Weilong. And the description of Georgie Joe in the book - "There is no blood, even the lips are pale, like plaster." Under the black pressed eyebrows and eyelashes, the eyes were like the wind blowing through the Waseda field, sometimes revealing the blue light of the rice under the water, flashing, and then darkening. But I don't know why, the director chose a muscular, wheat-colored skin Peng Yuyan. It is no wonder that everyone complained, "This is not like "The First Furnace of Incense", but like "The First Furnace of Steel". ”
After waiting for more than two years, it was difficult to wait for the finalization, but unexpectedly the film was announced and dragged its feet, and the propaganda poster became a model of "pain literature" and "nonsense literature", and even found a sick sentence by netizens. After several tosses, "Zhang Ailing + Xu Anhua + Wang Anyi", the original target group has been exhausted, and several top female authors in Chinese literature have only come up with a work that fails to pass the Douban score. As of press time, according to the professional version of Maoyan, the box office of "The First Burning Incense" in the 11 days of release was only more than 52 million, and the number of films was crushed by "007: No Time to Die" and "Dune".
Big directors love Zhang Ailing
This is not the first time that Xu Anhua has "flipped over" in front of Zhang Ailing's works, so much so that some people have commented, "Xu Anhua can't shoot Zhang Ailing well, it is fate."
Time back to 1984, Zhang Ailing's novel "Love in the City" was made into a movie, which was also the first time Zhang Ailing's work was filmed, and the director was Xu Anhua. Zhou Runfa played Fan Liuyuan, and Miao Qianren played Bai Tassel, but the film's reputation and response were mediocre, and now it is rarely mentioned. She has introspected herself more than once, saying that she did not find a suitable way to show Zhang Ailing's spirit at that time, "The biggest lesson of "Love in the City" is that I did not grasp the spirit of the work, and the spirit of that work is actually very Western and ironic, rather than a big tragedy that lingers. But at that time, I still had the concept of a romantic novel, and I thought it should be very romantic. ”
Perhaps it was this failure that made Xu Anhua tie the knot in his heart, always wanting to make another Zhang Ailing work to justify his name. In 1997, Xu Anhua put "Half Life" on the big screen, Li Ming played Shen Shijun, Wu Qianlian played Gu Manzhen, although now this Douban score of 7.9 is regarded as a classic by many people, but it cannot be denied that this is still a highly controversial film adaptation, film critics do not evaluate the film highly, and the box office is not ideal. Since then, Xu Anhua has also directed the drama version of "The Golden Lock", and the screenwriter is also Wang Anyi.
Since the 1980s, Zhang Ailing's works have been continuously put on the screen more than ten times, and these film and television dramas with the label of "Zhang Ailing" can always be broadcast before they are broadcast, but few can really get the praise of Zhang Ailing herself or Zhang Ailing's fans. The most popular "Half Life" has been adapted three times, "Love in the City" has been adapted twice, and of all the adaptations, only two of the adaptations have scored more than 8 points on Douban. Therefore, Zhang Ailing has also become a "hot potato" in the film and television circle.
The big director favored Zhang Ailing, Hou Xiaoxian, Guan Jinpeng, Li An, Xu Anhua have shots, of which Guan Jinpeng's "Red Rose and White Rose" is recognized as a successful adaptation, but according to Guan Jinpeng, Zhang Ailing herself is not satisfied with this adaptation. In 2007, Ang Lee brought the most successful adaptation of Zhang Ailing's work in the history of film and television - "Color Ring", because of the large-scale performance in the film and Tang Wei, Liang Chaowei and other starring actors with their own talking, the film was constantly discussed before and after the release, and also won the Golden Lion Award at the 64th Venice Film Festival.
Netizens' comments on "The First Incense" are mainly bad reviews
On the small screen, the Zhang Ailing-themed TV series, which is regarded as a classic, is even more lackluster. In 2003, Lin Xinru, Jiang Qinqin, Tan Yaowen starred in "Half Life", which is one of them, especially in Yang Asia's remake of "Half Life" (later renamed "Deep Love") was compared with the 3 points of Douban by netizens, which is more classic. In 2009, Chen Shu entered the public eye because of "Love in the City", which also caused a lot of controversy at the beginning, but with the deepening of the plot, Chen Shu's version of the white tassel was also recognized by the public, making the drama the only Zhang Ailing-themed TV drama work with a Douban score of more than 8 points.
Why is Zhang Ailing's work difficult to shoot?
Many people love Zhang Ailing, some people love her gorgeous and tight words, some people love her romantic and sad Republic of China, some people love the different characters in her works, and some people love the sense of atmosphere she creates that is symbolic and metaphorical. However, it is not easy to change from words to images, and then to turn the characters depicted in the text into figurative performances, and it is even more difficult to restore the scenery, space, character psychology, and desolate meaning of her pen.
Take the "Color Ring" and "The First Incense" as two examples. Ang Lee's success in filming "Color Ring" lies in adding, so that the narrative thread of the novel becomes the narrative method of the film. Throughout the novel, there is only one scene: Wang Jiazhi, who is a female undercover, accompanies the male traitor Mr. Yi to buy jewelry, just because of an action, Wang Jiazhi came to the conclusion that Mr. Yi fell in love with himself, and when he betrayed the organization, the mission failed. The psychology behind this action, readers can have different imaginations, but in Ang Lee's lens, it has become a love story with a beginning and a tail, and also supplemented the information on Wang Jiazhi's life, so that the psychological changes of the characters have been taken care of before and after, and the beginning and end have been transferred. Xu Anhua chose a way of "reducing dimensions", and the narrative technique was changed to the form of ge Weilong and Mrs. Liang's double heroine, and the two nephews had different intentions. Ge Weilong became a "love brain", and the film became a Republic of China version of "pain youth film". Originally, it was a "three customs" story that became "dog blood" and "vulgar" through "dimensionality reduction", which made people feel that this was a movie adapted from Zhang Ailing's work, but it seemed to have nothing to do with Zhang Ailing.
Although the road to filming and television of Zhang Ailing's works is extremely difficult, it cannot stop the big directors from going forward and following, and this is also the addictive charm of Zhang's literature.
New Yellow River reporter: Ren Xiaofei
Editor: Liu Dan
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