director of the millennium

At the beginning of the movie, the first shot is Liu Yifei wearing a Han-style ladies' dress, chasing butterflies in a large black and red courtyard.

There is no doubt that this is the heroine of this movie, Cai Wenji.

At this time, two lines of bilingual subtitles appeared in the blank space of the screen: Cai Wenji - 16 years old.

As the subtitles gradually fade away, the story officially begins.

Cai Wenji is a microcosm of the tragic women in the turbulent times at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

She was born into a scholarly family. Her father was Cai Yong, a great writer of the time. She received a very good education since childhood and had high attainments in calligraphy, literature, and music. She could distinguish the sound of the zither at the age of nine, and at the age of twelve she had become a famous talent known far and wide.

However, as a small blue flower bloomed on the screen, fate began to play tricks on this talented woman.

Blue represents melancholy, which represents her displaced fate. The blue flowers represent despair, which is also a metaphor for her tragic life.

When she was only 16 years old, she married Wei Zhongdao, a talented man from the Wei family, a prominent family in Hedong.

This marriage was originally a good match. Cai Wenji, who got married in a hurry, enjoyed a harmonious newlywed life.

Well, the actor who plays Wei Zhongdao is Chen Xingxu, a native actor of Guangying Times. He is a handsome guy and is indeed pleasing to the eye.

However, the good times did not last long. Less than a year after their wedding, her husband Wei Zhongdao died.

Although she was not poisoned by feudal ethics at that time, her husband's family also had suspicion that Wen Ji was a jinx.

Because she had no children, the newly widowed Wen Ji had to return to her home.

She was less than 17 years old when she became a widow.

When Wen Ji was sent back to the Cai family, the "sense of happiness" built up in the first twenty minutes of the movie came to an abrupt end, and the story began to slide into tragedy.

In the chaotic times at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, many things were beyond one's control.

A few years after Cai Wenji became a widow, her father Cai Yong was thrown into prison by Prime Minister Wang Yun because he sympathized with Dong Zhuo, who had been kind to her. He died tragically. Her mother also died not long after that, and she suddenly lost her home.

The worst thing about a widow is that she has no family to rely on.

Because Dong Zhuo's old subordinates rebelled, Emperor Xian of Han asked the Southern Xiongnu for help in suppressing the rebellion. However, in the melee, the Southern Xiongnu burned, killed and looted in the Central Plains, and the war spread to Cai Wenji's hometown. She was not spared and became a trophy of the Xiongnu. She was carried on the back of a horse and brought to the crying Xiongnu territory.

Cai Wenji was treated as a "war trophy" and traveled 3,000 miles along the way. If she was not satisfied with something, the Huns would insult her with foul language, beat her with sticks and whips, and threaten her with scimitars to save her life.

This experience was undoubtedly extremely humiliating and miserable.

In that turbulent and chaotic world, fate would never favor women, especially those who were both talented and beautiful. Instead, they would suffer humiliation. In addition, the Huns were not influenced by the ethics and morals of the Central Plains and were even more barbaric.

On the desert grassland thousands of miles away from her homeland, the humiliated Cai Wenji could not see her hometown in the endless yellow sand, and she could not speak the language, and she had no one to confide in.

She still survived, used her musical talent, taught herself to play the hujia, and played the hujia to give herself hope of survival.

Even though the war-torn life crushed the dignity and pride of a talented woman of her generation, she never really gave in.

Suffering inspired her literary and musical creations, leaving behind rare cultural treasures in history and bringing a poignant and feminine touch to the "Jian'an style"...

After waiting for a long time, she finally waited until Cao Cao stabilized his regime. When she heard that the daughter of her admired teacher Cai Yong was stranded in the Southern Xiongnu, she sent an envoy to redeem her.

Cai Wenji was reluctant to give birth to her two children after being "humiliated", but she chose to go home because of the endless yellow sand of the Huns and the bullying she suffered.

On the way back home, she wrote "Eighteen Beats of the Hujia" with tears in her eyes, putting an end to her days in the Xiongnu.

But when she returned home, her hometown was destroyed, her parents were dead, and she had no relatives. Cao Cao felt sorry for Cai Wenji's situation and remarried her to Dong Si of Chenliu.

If Wen Ji was ten years younger and had not been captured by the Xiongnu, she and Dong Si would have been a good match. Dong Si and Wen Ji were from the same hometown and had a lot in common. He was only in his early twenties, well-versed in literature and history, and good at poetry and prose, and his position was equivalent to that of a military officer today.

But the reality was that Wen Ji was already in her thirties and was a woman who had been married three times and had given birth to two children.

Dong Si was forced by Cao Cao's order to marry Cai Wenji. He gave her a place to stay and treated her with courtesy, but there was no emotion between them.

But fate did not stop playing tricks on Cai Wenji. A few years later, Dong Si committed a crime and was sentenced to death. Wenji did not want to lose her husband and her only home again.

She disregarded the demeanor of a lady from a noble family, and ran to the prime minister's residence barefoot and with disheveled hair in the severe snow in the winter to beg for mercy. She exchanged her husband's life by writing out her father Cai Yong's collection of books from memory.

She lost her husband and father and was taken captive by a foreign tribe. Fortunately, she was rescued and returned home twelve years later, but was separated from her son again.

After she came back and had her third husband, she still had to stand barefoot and with disheveled hair in front of all the guests and beg Cao Cao to spare her husband's life.

At this time, she was no longer the talented blue rose blooming in troubled times, but just a poor person who did not want to suffer separation and death again.

At that moment, she had disheveled hair and walked barefoot, and her tenacity and courage moved everyone.

The guests were deeply moved.

When Cao Cao witnessed this scene, he couldn't help but feel sympathy.

However, he sighed and said that Dong Si's letter of apology had already been issued, and he might not be able to catch up with it.

Cai Wenji said firmly: "You have many fine horses and strong soldiers. Just pick a fast horse and send a brave soldier, and maybe you can save the situation."

After hearing this, Cao Cao's eyes flashed with approval, and he deeply remembered this woman who had experienced many ups and downs in life.

In the end, her plea was successful and Dong Si was spared from death.

Such a selfless act of saving lives can melt even the coldest heart.

From then on, Dong Si truly understood Cai Wenji and stayed with her.

Later, the two fell in love, lived in seclusion in Lantian, and had two children.

Even though she got married before falling in love, Wen Ji, who had gone through many hardships, finally found her happy home.

Her life was full of the fate of the chaotic times at the end of the Han Dynasty when human life was worthless. She suffered from the tricks of fate and experienced misfortunes that others could only experience in several lifetimes. She had the vitality of weeds and the strength that ordinary women did not have. It was this resilience that made her live a miracle in the chaotic times.

At the end of the movie, the powerful King of Wei, Cao Cao, was lying on his bed dying, but he still had not forgotten Cai Wenji, this special and extraordinary woman. He praised her and her people for her decisiveness, talent, smooth writing, and melodious piano playing like the sound from outer space.

As Cao Cao took his last breath, the sound of Hujia music began and the camera slowly pulled up.

"Heaven is unkind and has sent chaos and separation, and earth is unkind and has made me live in this time. Wars are coming day by day and the roads are dangerous. People are fleeing and mourning together. Smoke and dust cover the fields and the barbarians are thriving. Wills are perverse and integrity is lost."

The music of "Eighteen Beats of the Hujia" composed by Cai Wenji resounded inside and outside the hall, and drifted towards the setting sun in the distance.

The lights in the Cinema Palace's screening room came on again.

After more than ten seconds of silence, the applause gradually grew louder and louder, filling the entire theater.

Wu Yuan, who was sitting in the second row, did not join in the applause. He just watched the end credits playing on the screen with a smile on his face, and his heart was calm.

Everyone in the "Cai Wenji" crew has done their best, and all they have to do now is wait for the closing ceremony to begin.

Leave everything to fate! (End of this chapter)