In the movie "Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore's Mystery" being released, the ancient Chinese mythical beast, the unicorn, appears as an important role.
In the past two years, both Chinese and Western film and television creations have begun to focus on the rare beasts in Eastern mythology. These beasts with magical appearances and magical abilities have added too much fantasy interest and aesthetic value to film and television works.
"Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore's Mystery" is not the first time that the "Harry Potter universe" has portrayed Chinese mythical beasts. From the phoenix to the Zouwu to the unicorn, the original author, screenwriter JK Rowling and the film creators have made Chinese mythical beasts. The magical ability of the magician is subtly integrated into its magical world, making the mythical beasts come alive on the screen.
Regarding the appearance of the auspicious beast unicorn, "Rui Ying Tu" records: "The head of the sheep, the hooves of the wolf, the dome, the body is colorful, and the height is one zhang and two feet." , ox tail, wolf forehead, horse hooves, colorful, yellow under the belly, two feet high." In some unearthed utensils, some unicorns have wings, feet on auspicious clouds, and in some text and image records, the unicorn sheep head has been changed. Became a lion head, a dragon head, etc.
The unicorn in "Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore's Mystery" did not adopt the imagination of different versions of the unicorn in our ancient books. The film visual effects team added their own understanding when designing this mythical beast, hoping that the unicorn can "look like detached from the A being of any human reality".
The unicorn in the film is not big enough, with thin legs and weak like a deer. It is difficult for the audience to associate it with our majestic unicorn image from its appearance, but from the name of this mythical beast and its unique abilities, it can be seen that it is indeed a Created with reference to Kirin.
In "Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore's Mystery", Professor Dumbledore realizes that the powerful dark wizard Grindelwald is trying to seize the control of the magical world, the International Magical Union assembles, elects a new chairman, and maintains justice in the magical world .
Who can choose the ideal chairman? Kirin.
The unicorn can see through the good and evil of people's hearts. "Is there a pure and kind heart" has become an important criterion for governing the magical world. Whoever is such a person, the unicorn bows to.
This plot setting is obviously based on the legend of the Kylin, "the appearance of the unicorn is the Jiarui of the holy king" and "the unicorn is pure in heart".
In Western movies, the auspicious beast unicorn is not a stereotyped appearance, but is subtly integrated into the plot, which not only shapes the screen image, but also pays attention to the cultural connotation of the mythical beast.
In the last "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald", the mythical beast Zou Wu from "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" also played a huge role.
Zouwu is a rare beast in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas": "It is as big as a tiger, full of five colors, with a long tail, and it can travel thousands of miles on a day." The Zouwu in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" is completely in line with us. The image recorded in the ancient book, with a big physique, a tiger-headed head and a tiger-headed head, with a colorful long tail behind it, elegant and agile, fast crawling speed, fierce and cute, carried the righteous magicians who were in predicament and defeated the evil forces.
This "big cat" is very vivid and cute, and the interaction with the protagonist is warm and healing. Such a successful "Shan Hai Jing" rare animal appeared in a Western movie, which made many audiences happy and a little regretful.
The first Chinese mythical beast to appear in the "Harry Potter" universe is the phoenix, and the phoenix in the film also combines the legend of the Indian phoenix.
However, in the magical world, the summoning of the phoenix, the singing of the phoenix can add courage to pure people, and the tears of the phoenix have healing functions, which are also the characteristics of the legendary beasts.
In films such as "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" and "Maleficent 2", the image of the phoenix has also appeared.
In addition, in a Marvel movie, there is an oriental mysterious fairyland village, which is home to Shenlong, Dijiang, Bifang, nine-tailed fox, water unicorn, scorpion and other ancient oriental beasts, which is a fantastic scene.
The film shapes the images of these mythical beasts, but most of the mythical beasts do not play a big role in the plot.
Huang Yue, a professor at Beijing Language and Culture University, said in an interview with the Movie Channel that the animals going to sea are of course the export of Chinese culture, or the most obvious evidence that Chinese culture is understood by the world.
"Other countries in the world have always maintained a high enthusiasm for Chinese traditional culture. Everyone's understanding of Chinese mythical animals or Chinese culture has gradually increased from shallow to deep, from the outside to the inside, and they are paying more and more attention to our connotation."
In the past two years, domestic film and television dramas have also created many images related to ancient mythical beasts.
The nine-tailed fox appears the most, and has appeared in costume dramas such as "Acquaintance with Jun Chu" and "Three Lives Three Worlds Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms".
In addition, the Divine Beast Emperor Jiang in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" has appeared in many film and television works.
"Shan Hai Jing" records: "There is a spirit, whose shape is like a yellow sac, red like a red fire, six feet and four wings, chaotic and faceless. Ba's inspiration comes from Dijiang. Huba has six legs, can sing and dance, and has magical abilities, all of which are in line with Dijiang's characteristics. However, Huba's design is too cartoony and loses the sense of fantasy, mystery and simplicity of the mythical beast.
In "Big Fish and Begonia", there is a group of chubby, cute and long-winged animals, that is the divine beast Emperor Jiang.
The little white cat-like mythical beast with antlers in the film is the famous Bai Ze.
In "Big Fish and Begonia", there are also divine beasts such as Phoenix and Pixiu, as well as gods such as Zhu Rong, Jumang, Leshou and Houtu.
The three protagonists Chun, Kun and Qiu in "Big Fish and Begonia" are from Zhuangzi's "Xiaoyaoyou". The supporting characters in the film are all cute and interesting, but they lack a little sense of texture and heaviness.
The painting style of "Big Fish and Begonia" is too beautiful. If the creative team produces another cartoon with the beast as the protagonist, it will be even more worth looking forward to.
In addition, gluttonous food appeared in the movie "The Great Wall" and the animated film "The Curse of the Wind", and the beast Chaos appeared in "The Return of the Great Sage".
It's just that in these works, the mythical beasts appear in the form of fierce beasts.
In "The Great Wall", gluttonous gluttons are like locusts in transit, and they are destroyed by them wherever they go, and their fighting power is very strong and fierce.
In "The Spell of Wind", gluttonous is the incarnation of evil, which can be awakened and sealed.
"The Raising of the Green Snake" is a recent high-quality action movie. It combines traditional watercolor with oil painting realistic, and has a cultural charm.
In the film, when the four calamities of wind, fire, water, and air are shown, the images of the four ancient beasts, Fei Lian, Bi Fang, Xuan turtle, and mandarin fish, appear, but there are no more images. 's characterization.
In the past two years, books related to ancient mythical beasts have gradually increased, and the ancient mythical beasts have begun to be portrayed as quirky positive images, such as "The Forbidden City Monster Talk" and so on.
It is believed that this kind of creative idea of diversifying the creation of divine beasts will gradually extend to the creation of domestic film and television works.
Just like the monsters in "Journey to the West" and the gods in Greek mythology, many children like various imaginative images of mythical beasts, and these myths and legends are attractive to children.
Whether it is auspicious beasts or monsters, when their ancestors created them, they carried rich cultural connotations and emotional sustenance.
Shi Wenjing