< Mo Yan >
In 1984, Mo Yan was just admitted to the Literature Department of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, and he was still a freshman in the literary world, although he did not write too many articles of great achievement, he also read a large number of works, and there were not many articles that could be read by him at that time.
Until one day he accidentally saw Ah Cheng's "Chess King", he was completely conquered by the 30,000-word novella.
Ah Cheng, the author of "The King of Chess", became a huge idol in his heart.
In the years that followed, including after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, he would praise his former idol on different occasions.
He repeated over and over again, "I can't write such a thing, Zhong Acheng is my idol."
Mo Yan did not lie, Ah Cheng's "King of Chess" did set off a huge storm in the literary circle at that time.
Not only Mo Yan, but even Wang Zengqi said the same thing after reading "The King of Chess": "After reading Ah Cheng's novel, I feel that I can't write such a novel." I believe that not only me, but many people can't write it."
< Acheng >
Acheng?
Acheng is a native of Beijing, and before he finished middle school, the Revolution began, and at the age of 19, he was sent to Shanxi to join the team. In order to get out of the predicament, he taught himself to paint, but good luck has always been against him.
He traveled from Shanxi to Inner Mongolia to Yunnan, and finally settled in Yunnan, staying for ten years.
In the days of Yunnan, I began to be uncomfortable, the local people were not very friendly to them, according to the people, "these big cities are not good people, only to get here."
There are many young people from all over the world, and over time, everyone has become a good friend. Among these intellectuals, Acheng reads the most books. To pass the time, he brought a few boxes of books from Beijing.
The famous stories in "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Les Misérables", "The Tall Old Man", "Resurrection", he is like a stream. The more I read, the more I love to tell stories to others.
Many nights, the intellectuals who have worked for a day will huddle in the thatched hut where Ah Cheng lives and listen to his stories.
< Acheng The second from the right > in the first row
Ah Cheng told the story for ten years, but did not write a word. In the ten years he stayed in Yunnan, his biggest gain was to let the local farmers regard him as his own person, and he himself had no consciousness of "plugging" and had long since become an authentic farmer.
At the end of 1978, the "Yunnan Zhiqing Great Return to the City Movement" broke out, and in 1979, Acheng returned to Beijing, ending a decade-long career of Zhiqing.
< Ah Cheng > with his friends
After returning to Beijing, Acheng was very busy, he engaged in photography, held painting exhibitions, and assisted his father Zhong Yitang in editing the big project "Film Aesthetics", and also made up many films for this purpose. As if to speed up the time that was once missing.
In the fifth year after returning to Beijing, Ah Cheng began to write his debut work "The King of Chess". The opportunity to write "The King of Chess" is also thanks to several editors.
Once he and a few editors got together to eat shabu lamb. After eating the lamb, wiping his mouth, and lighting a cigarette, he told a story of playing chess to help everyone.
After the story was told, everyone clapped their hands and said that if it was written as a story, it would look good.
Ah Cheng listened to the suggestion, went back to close the door, nestled in the desk to write, wrote for three days, a novella of 30,000 words in one go. After writing it, it was published in Shanghai Literature, No. 7, 1984.
After the birth of "The King of Chess", it immediately set off a huge wave in the literary world. For a time, Acheng became famous and became the most capable of writing stories.
After Xu Ke finished reading "The King of Chess," he praised him one after another, saying, "We can also understand this novel on the outside and read it very devotedly, because it is very real, very special, very dramatic, and very lifelike." So the idea was to contact Ah Cheng to adapt it into a movie.
Good things grind more.
In 1991, the movie of the same name", "The King of Chess", was released with great success. The film was selected as the closing film of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, for which Leung Ka Fai won the Best Actor at the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards. Mr. Leung said it was one of his most satisfying films.
"The King of Chess"?
The theme of "The King of Chess" depends on the life of Ah Cheng's zhiqing. The style is rustic, even ordinary, but the specific environment is in the countryside, and all the languages must be born for them.
The protagonist Wang Shengsheng is a young intellectual who has gone to the countryside and is also a chess nerd, who only loves to do two things in his life: eating and playing chess.
Wang played chess very well in his lifetime, and the campus master swung the ring, and every time the champion was him. After the local chess player was defeated, he thought of going to the provinces to find an opponent.
After wandering around in the field and finding no opponent, Wang asked someone to find a famous family in his lifetime. But what he encountered was not as good as he expected.
But later, the nerd king still encountered an opponent. This opponent is an old man who picks up rotten paper. The old man is a master, and he and the old man have only won one set for three consecutive days.
Wang Zhizi Ganbai followed the old man to learn to play chess, and his chess skills became more and more refined.
< King of Chess Stills >
Later, he forgot to start a nine-player series with others and stood out in the competition.
It is not so much that Wang's life pursues chess, but rather that he pursues the freedom of life and the detachment of self.
The whole article can be summarized into one sentence: people still have something to live.
Throughout his life, he "desperately" played chess. At that time, materials were very scarce, even if Wang did not have enough food and material conditions were very poor, Wang still frantically pursued spiritual satisfaction throughout his life.
Many people think that Wang was a strange person all his life, but in fact he is not. He was just a simple layman. Although he loves to eat, he never wastes a grain, nor is he exquisite, and he can eat enough. He played chess, did not care about the fame of the so-called chess player, and even more categorically rejected the intention of the famous player to accept apprentices.
He does not seek to become a god, but wants to live "something" in this world.
< stills > the chess king
Inside and outside the book, Ah Cheng is always concerned with the cheesy problem of "earning money to eat". If you have money or no money, you can't lose that little thing in your spirit, otherwise people will walk numbly and lifelessly like they have lost their souls.
"The King of Chess" is a story of ordinary people, and it is not easy to write the story of ordinary people interestingly. But Ah Cheng did it, and this is where he shines.
Ah Cheng, who wrote "The King of Chess", actually does not play chess. What Acheng is fascinated by may be the realm of blind chess.
< Leung Ka Fai plays Wang Shengsheng >
After the success of "Chess King", Ah Cheng successively created "Child King" and "Tree King", which caused quite a stir and further confirmed his position in the literary world.
At the height of his fame, Ah Cheng retreated. He went to the United States, painted walls during the day, delivered takeaways, and wrote at home at night. Enjoy it.
Most of his income comes from physical strength, he doesn't rely on writing, he says he just doesn't want to use his brain.
Others do not understand him, but he has already done the answer in the book: "In the lifetime of life, you may as well look around and do it hard, in fact, it is a waste of life." Business competition is often blind, and we might as well have the courage to sit idle."
After "idle", he returned to China to hand over masterpieces such as "Furong Town" and "Assassin Nie Yinniang", and even gave guidance to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Mo Yan said that Ah Cheng lived to understand.
Yeah, inside and outside the city. How can people who can see life so clearly not write a good story? And how not to be admired.
A work can often reflect a person's heart. Ah Cheng's "King of Chess" must be the truest portrayal of his heart - people live to have something.