China News Weekly reporter/Xu Pengyuan
Issued at 2021.11.1 Issue 1018 of "China News Weekly"
"Zhang Ailing's novels cannot be filmed. That is a trap because her sense of writing is too strong. Xu Feng once asked me to shoot "The First Incense", and I said it was a pity that I couldn't shoot it. Because that went around, The feeling of that secluded committee is too difficult for me, and I must speak Shanghainese. It must be the atmosphere of Shanghai at that time. It is very, very rare."
In November 2007, in a lecture at Hong Kong Baptist University, director Hou Xiaoxian talked about his views on adapting Zhang Ailing's novels.
He said that he can only shoot simple things like a countryman, and it takes a lot of effort to shoot Zhang Ailing. Just looking for an actor will kill him.
He also suggested that Xu Feng go to Wang Jiawei.
It is said that Xu Feng has not considered Wong Kar Wai, and even thought about finding Chen Chong and Zun Long as the starring roles, but the copyright issue was not resolved at that time.
In 2003, Xu Feng bought the film adaptation rights of "The First Burning Incense" as he wished, and expressed his intention to invite Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi to play the role of Nephew Ge.
However, after more than ten years, there was no more information on this matter.
In 2021, when "The First Incense" finally hits the big screen, Xu Feng and her Tomson Film Company have nothing to do with the film. In the end, Ge Weilong is not Chen Chong or Zhang Ziyi.
Of course, Wong Kar Wai's name was not written in the director's position either.
The person who really challenged this problem is Xu Anhua.
Following "Love in the Fallen City" in 1984 and "Half Life" in 1997, this is the third time she has adapted Zhang Ailing's works. This has also made her the director who has adapted Zhang Ailing the most times.
Although she had vowed to say before, "Even if there is a chance, she will not shoot Zhang Ailing."
The ethereal connection with Zhang Ailing
At first, Xu Anhua did not prepare to shoot this story by himself.
According to the filming and production filing of the Film Bureau of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, the establishment of the "First Incense" project began in 2016.
The registration unit on the public notice is registered as Jade Bird Pictures (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., whose predecessor was "Jade Bird Film Production Co., Ltd." founded in 1979 by the well-known Hong Kong left-wing filmmaker Xia Meng.
In 1982, Jade Bird Film Company invested in the first film "To the Wrathful Sea", which won the box office of more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars, set a record for local literary films, and won the second Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Picture and Best Film in one fell swoop. Director and best screenwriter.
It was Xu Anhua, who was 35 years old, who directed this film.
Three years ago, she made a blockbuster with her debut novel "Mad Tribulation" and became a powerful force in the new wave of Hong Kong movies.
As the fourth work on the resume, the highly successful "To the Wrath Sea" became the first peak of her career.
Xia Meng had long thought of making "The First Incense" into a movie. In the 1990s, she contacted Lie Fu, Lu Yan and others for this, but unfortunately, she never got her wish.
Around 2014, Liu Ren, the executive director of Jade Bird Pictures, obtained the copyright of "The First Incense", and went round and round to finally realize Xia Meng’s wish, so when he decided to invite Xu Anhua as the producer of the film, he had already retired. Xia Meng also appeared together.
"We met at an art center in Hong Kong. I didn't expect Xia Meng to come. I was surprised because Xia Meng was basically out at that time. I was also very happy to see her." In an interview not long ago, Xu Anhua Mentioned this long-awaited reunion meeting.
It is a pity that Xia Meng passed away in 2016 and failed to see Zhang Ailing's text into an image with her own eyes.
By the end of 2017, Xu Anhua had made the decision to be the director of "The First Incense". There may be many reasons for the changes in the middle, but it is unknown.
Xu Anhua has never met Zhang Ailing in person, but there is always a vague connection with Zhang Ailing.
When she was 5 years old, she moved from Macau to Hong Kong and lived in North Point, the northernmost point of Hong Kong Island-because of the influx of immigrants from Shanghai after World War II, this area is also known as "Little Shanghai".
The most classic image of Zhang Ailing is the photo with her right hand akimbo dressed in a high-necked phoenix shirt, which was shot at the Lanxin Photo Studio in North Point.
When she was in elementary school, there was a female student named Song Yuanlin in Xu Anhua's class, and the two of them had to walk some distance to take the bus to school every day.
At that time, Xu Anhua only knew that her classmate’s mother was from Shanghai, wearing a cheongsam and holding an umbrella. She was very elegant. Later, she realized that this exquisite Shanghai woman was Kwong Wenmei. She and her husband Song Qi were Zhang Ailing’s best friends and heirs.
After graduating from high school, Xu Anhua was admitted to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Hong Kong. In 1939, Zhang Ailing was also a freshman here.
Almost from this time, Xu Anhua began to read Zhang Ailing's text.
Xu Anhua recalled to "China News Weekly" that he first read "The First Incense" in 1978, just after graduating from the London Film School and returning to work in Hong Kong: "At that time I saw a lot of pictures, I saw Weilong-now I think it’s a bit like Zhou Xun when he was young-wearing a blue cheongsam standing in front of a door with a red wall and green tiles. Because there is a Haw Par Villa in Dakeng, the feeling is not exactly the same, but it is very similar to her description. At the time, I thought It is Zhang Ailing’s most colorful novel, and I find it very confusing."
The scholar Xu Zidong wrote in the book "Xu Zidong's Modern Literature Lessons". He has always wondered why no one made "The First Incense" into a movie. He felt that this novel has many basic conditions for filming, including stories and Men and women, deep and well-known.
Xu Zidong told China News Weekly: “First, Zhang Ailing’s main artistic characteristics are very obvious in this work. For example, everyone summarizes her gorgeous and desolate. Second, from the text, it also has the most personal characteristics of Zhang Ailing. The text, specifically, her symbolism is reversed, using the real and the fictitious and the objects to write the scenery and the mood, which achieves the effect of defamiliarization, and she confuses the perspective of the narrator with the characters, and you can't tell the difference. Whether Weilong looks at the world or the narrator looks at the world; third, in this novel, Zhang Ailing consciously uses film techniques to write the novel along with it, with a lot of montage and senses."
Although Xu Anhua read the abundant picture sense of "The First Incense", her first adaptation was "Love in the Fallen City".
When she was working as a director of TVB, she made several suggestions to the station, and wanted to make the story of Fan Liuyuan and Bai Liusu into a TV series, but she was helpless and not approved.
In 1983, with the help of "To the Wrath Sea", Xu Anhua signed the Shaw Brothers.
But she soon discovered that this was an environment that was not suitable for her.
Xu Anhua, who was in the process of retreat, wanted to make a movie and leave. Unexpectedly, the originally prepared script "Evaporation of the World" fell apart because of a disagreement with the screenwriter.
"In a hurry," she picked up "Love in the Fallen City"-the content is familiar enough, as long as the actors and scenes are in place, it can be turned on.
In order to obtain the right of adaptation, Xu Anhua contacted Song Qi, the father of her old classmate, and received a Chinese fax handwritten by Zhang Ailing through him, to the effect that she was honoured to have her novel adapted and wished the play a good result.
Two months later, the screenwriter Peng Cao who finished writing the script wanted to know Zhang Ailing’s opinions on the adaptation, and Song Qi replied: Zhang Ailing had no comments, only one point, and the title could not be changed.
But in the later narrative, the filming process of this play was described by Xu Anhua sloppy and made frequent mistakes.
When the film went out of the street, it was a complete failure. The newspapers at the time called it a brave and daring failure, Xu Anhua’s Battle of Waterloo, and some critics even thought it was most likely the most disappointing work in the Hong Kong film industry in 1984.
Xu Anhua admitted that she failed this time. She knew that she had not found a film format suitable for Zhang Ailing's novel artistic conception, let alone grasped the spirit of the work-"Allure of Love" is not a lingering tragedy, but she still has the concept of a romantic novel.
That year, "Love in the Fallen City" was also released in Los Angeles. At that time, scholar Zheng Shusen, who was still studying at the University of California in San Diego, received a task: leave a movie ticket to Zhang Ailing and invite her to watch it.
Zheng Shusen, who knows Zhang Ailing, feels that this is a completely impossible task.
But no one knows whether Zhang Ailing has seen it quietly by herself, let alone what she will comment on.
The cost of failure is painful in reality.
Entering the 1980s, Hong Kong films ushered in a golden decade. Selling films, seven days of fresh food, and flying papers were confusing. The massive presence of commercial capital created a boom, and it also sharply reduced the tolerance and trial and error space of the market. .
The rush of "Love in the Fallen City" took away Xu Anhua's opportunity to continue filming according to her own ideas.
In order to survive, Xu Anhua successively made martial arts films, gangster films, romance films, and family films in the following ten years.
As long as there is a scene for her, she feels like she can do it and picks it up. With a "gamble" mentality, she finished filming one after another.
Later, she described her whole being in chaos during that time, like walking corpses.
"At that time, I didn't feel very happy because everyone was making movies indiscriminately, but there was no way, very helpless." Xu Anhua told China News Weekly.
It was not until 1995 that "Women, Forty" hit the Golden Horse Awards, the Golden Horse Awards and the Berlin Film Festival, which allowed Xu Anhua to regain her confidence and regain her recognition.
As a result, she remembered Zhang Ailing again, and decided to turn "Half Life" into her own work.
This is a novel that she never forgets in her heart, or the Zhang Ailing she really wants to shoot—she thinks Ailing Zhang’s philosophy and views on life are reflected in the most detailed here.
Ma Jiahui also feels that as far as "Half Life" is concerned, Xu Anhua is a good reader or good student of Zhang Ailing, who is like a fake replacement: "Manzhen and Shi Jun obviously love each other, why can't they move left and right to get close. There is a mystery in the old age. No one can understand it. The only thing that can be said is the old saying, "We can't go back." So stunned, it seems that no matter what story is being told, it is actually just telling an eternal story about regret." And because of this love, Xu Anhua insisted that this story must be shot back in Shanghai.
It's a pity that this was almost impossible at the beginning. If you could go north to view the scene from the beginning, maybe there would be no "Love in the Allure", and maybe the trajectory of her filmmaker's career would be completely different.
This time, Xu Anhua’s filming ideas are much more specific than "Love in the Fallen City". He not only dared to adapt the original work drastically, but also clearly knows the time, rhythm and atmosphere of the film.
After more than three months, the film was successfully completed and then released. The Tokyo Film Festival nominated it as the best film of the year, and the Golden Rooster Award in the Mainland awarded it the honor of best co-produced film.
To this day, it is still regarded as Xu Anhua's most successful adaptation of Zhang Ailing.
Except, the Hong Kong box office was not good at the time.
Making a movie always has to compromise
In fact, there have always been controversial voices about whether Xu Anhua is suitable for Zhang Ailing.
The views of film critic Mei Xuefeng in an article are quite representative.
He believes that Xu Anhua's outstanding reputation in her films determines that she is one of the directors who are least good at filming Zhang Ailing.
Dai Jinhua once said to Xu Anhua in person at an event: "You have a certain kind of love in your heart that you can't give up, and with Zhang Ailing, I can't say that she doesn't have love, but she doesn't have yours."
But in Xu Zidong's view, Xu Anhua's honesty may be a good thing for the adaptation of Zhang Ailing. He even suggested Xu Anhua to add a little warmth after watching the rough cut samples of "First Burning Incense".
"I don't think it would be inappropriate to add a little warm color to the writer's calm script. Ang Lee's "Lust Caution" is warmer than Zhang Ailing's novel, but the adaptation of "Lust Caution" is very successful. Not even under the novel." Xu Zidong told China News Weekly.
In this regard, Xu Anhua's mentality is open.
She has always avoided over-binding with Zhang Ailing and always emphasized that she is not an expert on Zhang Ailing.
At the same time, she feels that the spirit of the so-called original works is actually very subjective. Everyone is looking for things they are obsessed with in the book. "If we project some of our true feelings into it, it will make this work angry, because it is not only the work of Zhang Ailing." It’s also my work. If you don’t have any opinions at all, then don’t be a director." What's more, she who is never stingy in self-criticism, how can she be afraid of other people’s criticism: "If you can make the audience believe what you say after watching it, In fact, it’s OK. If you think it’s not good, it’s not good. According to your own standards, I won’t quarrel with you. I’m totally open. I don’t want to always defend my own scenes. This is not my job."
Having said that, Xu Anhua, who likes to raise her head and laugh a few times after speaking, put her smile away, and said to China News Weekly: "The basic spirit of literature and film is to let people feel freely. , Express opinions freely."
Xu Anhua indeed projected his thoughts in "The First Incense".
For example, she concealed many calculations in Weilong's heart, and added a sum of her married life in the original work, thereby strengthening Weilong's desire for love and humble pain; another example, she added a sum of Qiao Qiqiao The relationship with his father is out of balance, and a snake is used to hook out the involuntary fragility behind his wandering skin.
These changes are not just changes in the plot. They are essentially unified under Xu Anhua's concept of "all movies point to salvation". They are not careless and imprecise.
Of course, it is precisely because of the key role that these changes play in the subtleties that inevitably there is a shift in the charm between the film and Zhang Ailing.
Obviously this kind of displacement has not been recognized by the audience.
After the movie was released, Douban scored only 5.9, and even set the lowest score in Xu Anhua's own sequence of works.
However, unlike the comprehensive "self-denial" of "Love in the Fallen City", Xu Anhua himself always believes that "The First Incense" is a successful work.
When "China News Weekly" asked how much she would give herself this time, she said: "To be honest, this one is more successful than those two. The last two novels are more pleasing, but this one is actually not one. The story is pleasing, but I think it’s better to master than the last two."
But as Hong Kong film critic Li Zhuotao wrote in an article in 2005: “She is not the kind of director who consciously is an artist and pursues perfectionism in her work. Instead, she has the investment of taking care of the boss and the welfare of the staff. As well as "non-artistic" considerations such as interpersonal relations, it is easy to make artistic compromises, which will affect the performance of the work. She criticizes her completed works very harshly, but the requirements for the creation of the work are not strict enough. "At the current stage, Xu Anhua's self-interpretation of "The First Incense" may be difficult to tell how many sincere words and how many expedient words.
She talked about China News Weekly's attitude when making movies.
"Film making always has to compromise, because to do this thing well, there are too many people involved, its interests, relationships, money, etc.. If you don’t compromise, you can write novels, but if you do Movies must be compromised. If you don’t compromise, don’t do it. I can’t say that this is a compromise, maybe it’s a negotiation and mutual coordination.” She said honestly, “I’ll look for investment or start from scratch. People want to look at the supporting facilities, the script, the actors, and the market instead of looking at me. I am one of them. Even if I didn’t say it, it’s definitely not in this situation, and I don’t think it should be in this situation. Who am I."
The best movies are not based on literary works
In the movie "The First Incense", there is a part of a garden tea party.
Xu Zidong and Song Yilang acted as guest appearances, starring two anonymous wealthy businessmen sitting on the balcony on the second floor.
Xu Zidong revealed to China News Weekly that the scene was originally intended to invite people like Li Oufan and Dong Qiao who had contributed to Zhang Ailing's research, but later the filming location was not in Hong Kong, and many people could not come.
"In a movie adapted from Zhang Ailing's novel, wouldn't it be fun if a group of people studying Zhang Xue appeared?"
In a similar sense, Xu Zidong believes that Xu Anhua is respectable regardless of the evaluation of "The First Incense".
"Whether it is Chinese films, Asian films, or even world films, they are now moving towards a more and more vulgar stage. Therefore, some people's efforts to strengthen the blood and blood connection between literature and film are very worthy of support."
Despite this, even Xu Anhua herself has said that her best film is not based on literary works: ""Crazy Tribulation", "Running into the Angry Sea" and "Woman, Forty" are all original scripts, completeness and ideals. The scripts of "Guest Autumn Hate" and "Men Forty" are very good, but some lack of completion, and there are some problems with the photography of these two films. The completion of "Aunt's Postmodern Life" is also relatively good. Based on the novels "Love in the Fallen City", "Half Life", "Book of Sword Encounter Records", and "Jade Guanyin" are all relatively poorly completed." She thinks that everyone watching movie adaptations wants to see interpretations and opinions, but she only Want to restore.
"Like Schrondorf (famous German director), it is not only reduction, but also condensation and interpretation. I haven't reached this height in art, and I don't have this ambition."
In addition to skills and ambition, perhaps the more essential reason is that Xu Anhua always has a lingering motif in his heart—the identity of Hong Kong and Hong Kong people.
This in-depth thinking is difficult to seamlessly adapt to any text that writes the mood of others.
In 1990, Xu Anhua picked up the dying "Evaporation of the World" again.
A tune is played several times in the film. The chanting of "the cool breeze is faithful, the autumn moon is boundless" echoes the protagonist's recitation of the "weeds and flowers by the Zhuque bridge and the sunset at the entrance of Wuyi alley" when he was a child, telling the separation of the era The lonely journey is wandering.
This tune is a Dishuinan sound that has been circulated since the Jiaqing period, and the film's name was also named "Keitu Qiu Heng".
Scholar Mao Jian believes that Cool Breeze Qiuyue is the tune that runs through all Xu Anhua's films, and she uses this tune to give birth to history.
Whether it’s the Luohu Bridge at the end of "Autumn Hate", the rooftop flying pigeon at the end of "Women, Forty", the Yangtze River at the end of "Men Forty", the old Victoria Harbour with a distant shadow in "When Will There Be a Bright Moon", or " At the beginning of "Book of Swords and Enmity Records", the mother of Chen who looked at the tide of Qiantang and Xiao Hong who suddenly turned back in the "Golden Age", in Mao Jian's eyes, Xu Anhua walked from cool breeze to cool breeze, from autumn moon to autumn moon, almost The power of one person has carried out a political reconstruction of the ancient "Guest Autumn Hatred".
Because of this, Dai Jinhua said that Xu Anhua’s films are not only half of Hong Kong’s film history, but also memories of our generation, including many image galleries of historical fragments. Everyone can choose their own way to enter her films. , And then entered his own life and 20th century China.
In this sense, Dai Jinhua felt that Xu Anhua broke away from all the theoretical frameworks for her discussion, and was not captured by any coordinates. "It just happens to be the strength of realism and persistence in the simplest sense."
This coincides with Xu Anhua's rejection of the feminist label and denial of consciously carrying out humanistic care.
In a program called "Open Class in Art and Creation", Dai Jinhua also pointed out another characteristic of Xu Anhua's films: "She has always been a person with a normal heart and a true temperament. Her most charming movies actually talk about The people around her are the middle-to-lower or even the low-level people in Hong Kong. She never looks up or down."
Yes.
Regardless of the youth in the "Vietnamese Trilogy", the bitter martial arts in "A Jin", the idealist in "A Thousand Words", or the father-in-law suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, the peach sister who lives in a nursing home, The people living in Tianshuiwei and the heroes who guarded Hong Kong during the Occupation Period are all unknown people who were marginalized by society, ignored and then forgotten by history. They endured silently, but lived tenaciously.
Too much literature is written in whispers, legends, dreams, and ideals. The works that realistically record those ordinary lives have never been counted. Moreover, these people exist in daily life, separated from them by a layer of text. It would be better to get the translation through your own eyes and heart-this is probably another reason why Xu Anhua's best films are not literary adaptations.
Xu Anhua himself has a better view: "Movies are my wife or husband, and literature is my mistress. After all, mistresses are just indulgent pleasures, and wives and husbands are life."
"I've been smoothed out"
After "Sister Tao", Xu Anhua seems to have embarked on a new path to more distant history.
Following in the footsteps of Xiao Hong, "Golden Era" went from the early years of the Republic of China to the fall of Hong Kong; and in "When Will the Moon Come", when Mao Dun and Zou Taofen boarded the ship of the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, Liu Yazi, Liang Shuming and others were already seated in it. It was Xiao Hong. The story after leaving; when it comes to "First Incense", it returns to the colonial period of Hong Kong before the war.
However, this path has not been recognized by Xu Anhua.
It was purely a coincidence, not intentional. In fact, she had a contemporary subject that she wanted to shoot. She had already found investment, but she ran away halfway.
"Actually, the subject matter that I can shoot is much less than what I can't. I have a huge stack of scripts at home, and I can’t find anyone to invest in it. But I’m fine, accept the reality. If I have this attitude, I I can continue to do it; if I don't have this attitude, I can't do it anymore." Xu Anhua's tone was calm when he said this to China News Weekly.
Xu Anhua is now 74 years old.
Hong Kong movies have long lost their former glory.
After 1993, the annual output of Hong Kong films continued to shrink. Since CEPA came into effect in 2004, "Northbound" has become the general trend of Hong Kong filmmakers.
Liu Weiqiang, Lin Chaoxian, Tsui Hark and others have participated in large-scale productions in the mainland.
But Xu Anhua had never made such a plan, even if it was a momentary heartbeat.
She said: "I might really want to shoot a scene of 10,000 people thirty years ago. Now I am afraid I can't manage it anymore. I am too old and lack energy."
"Hong Kong films are dead" is another topic that is often mentioned after Hong Kong films have fully integrated into the mainland market.
However, in fact, in films such as "Fallen Man", "Ignorance", "Mai Lu Man" and this year's "Muddy Water Drifting", the young local filmmakers in Hong Kong continue to hand in excellent answers, but they are no longer in the Mainland. The Hong Kong commercial genre that the audience is familiar with is not easy to be seen by mainland audiences.
To a certain extent, Hong Kong's literary and artistic films in recent years have a sense of locality and humanity similar to those of the new wave of the year.
In Xu Anhua’s view, this is also normal: “New directors all over the world are particularly keen on filming what they think is the state of society, because they are most familiar with it. The new wave is just a historical process, and the new directors are also filming what they think is realistic. It’s just something. This is happening forever, everywhere, not unique in Hong Kong."
When receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award in Venice, Xu Anhua said, "Go back and try to help young filmmakers."
One year later, I asked her what she had done and planned for this. Her answer was that there was no plan, because the situation is very chaotic now, and she doesn't know what to do or what to plan.
But perhaps for some young filmmakers, even if Xu Anhua, as a senior, did not give a great help, a small incident has made them feel the warmth in this circle.
Director Qiu Sheng, born in 1989, told a short story to China News Weekly: In 2018, his debut work "Birds in the Suburbs" won the best feature film of the 12th FIRST Youth Film Festival, and Xu Anhua awarded him the award. At the press conference, wearing a formal suit and a little excited, he kept sweating when answering questions from the media. Xu Anhua saw the sweat on his head and took out his own tissue to wipe his sweat.
When the filming of "The First Incense" was finished, Xu Anhua was going to make another documentary about Hong Kong poets.
Now that the documentary is finished, there is no plan for what to do next.
When she is not working, she spends her days at home, because she has bad eyesight and she sees fewer books and movies.
Recently, I watched "Occasion and Imagination" by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi-this year's Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear Film. She thinks it is the most shocking work from last year to this year.
"Is there any story or subject matter that you think would be a pity if it was not photographed in this life?" Near the end of the interview, China News Weekly asked such a question.
"I've been smoothed out. I don't have a wish. There is a subject that must be photographed. I have reached this point. I can photograph whatever I can, and I can photograph what I can. Actually this is not the case. A particularly good attitude, but I have slowly trained myself to be like this."
China News Weekly, Issue 40, 2021
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