Tokyo Reborn: Dark Superstar

Chapter 161 "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin"

The drama "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" was extremely controversial in its previous life. Its reputation has been ups and downs along with the changes in the domestic and international environment...

At the beginning, this movie was said to have been prepared by Kaizi for 10 years. It was produced as a joint venture between China, Japan and France, with many big-name stars joining the cast, and it cost an unprecedented 7000 million yuan.

After the filming was completed, Didu Film Company carefully planned and "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" premiered in the Great Hall, and received fierce criticism.

When it was officially released in 1999, it only earned 100 million at the box office.

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In this movie, Qin Shihuang, played by Li Xuejian, is short, jumping up and down, moody, wretched, crazy, and insane.

He is a typical mad king in Shakespeare's plays.

When Kaizi was studying in the United States, he especially admired the epics of ancient Greece.

When he was filming "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin", he tried to use the core of the ancient Greek Homer epic to cover the Warring States period.

This crazy cultural and artistic offensive lasted for many years until January 2017, 1.

The criticism and denial of this film was like a war without gunpowder, and its impact lasted until around 2008.

"The characters are all mentally ill, and the plots are all contrived and illogical."

The heart of the story of Jing Ke's assassination of Qin was the core of the story of Jing Ke's assassination of Qin. The generous and tragic spirit of "the wind rustles and the water becomes cold, and the strong man will never return once he is gone" has disappeared.

"This is Director Chen's most underrated work, and I finally understand it after ten years."

In 2008, the United States returned to its Asia-Pacific strategy. At the same time, in the literary and art circles, "historical nihilism" began to spread, trying to subvert traditional historical cognition.

Under the cultural wave, some film and television works have also been affected, and historical figures in works such as "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" have been reinterpreted.

This deliberately creates a Greek dramatic conflict.

"Comparing "Hero" with "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin", I don't agree with the values ​​​​in "Hero"."

"The plot is based on the class history of a large family in the Republic of China, all kinds of smear campaigns against Qin Shihuang, and all kinds of fabricated stories."

This resulted in the entire story removing the names of people and completely replacing it with ancient Greek drama.

"The script was written by Kaizi himself, and it always pulls my hips."

"This is a magical movie. The crazy, wretched, ignorant and shameless King of Qin seems to be a bit exaggerated, but it makes people feel that King Qin should be like that."

Cutting off up to 95% of NGO funding in the Asia-Pacific region, this move was like draining fuel from the bottom of the cauldron, causing the originally stable front to fall apart in an instant, with soldiers and supplies cut off, and the situation in chaos.

"The King of Qin represented the militarism of that era and exposed the ignorant and barbaric nature of this nation. Director Chen's three views on history are very correct, which is to criticize the violent Qin, rather than praise it."

The reputation of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" has once again taken a turn for the worse.

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The whole movie is full of his wife acting as a spy to seduce him, Zhao people launching terrorist-style suicide attacks, Shakespeare-style lines, and strong fatalism...

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A man brandishes a pen and signs an order,

"Director Chen spent his whole life proving that Farewell My Concubine was not filmed by him."

"It was originally rumored that his father mobilized his connections to help him film Farewell My Concubine. This was a rumor, but Director Chen spent his entire career proving the credibility of this rumor to the people across the country."

"After all, any mainland audience who has watched Director Chen's films for decades will have an idea, how could this person film Farewell My Concubine?"

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In particular, "The Murderous Case of a Steamed Bun", which was derived from "The Promise", took away Director Chen's halo as a famous director in one fell swoop, allowing Director Chen to successfully break through the defense.

Grassroots self-media representatives began to gain the right to speak through the Internet.

At the same time, the government filmed the four-part TV series "The Qin Empire" to set the record straight.

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After learning about this movie, Takakura Bunta became interested.

He asked Keiko Kanda, the agent in charge of the Japanese business, to take the initiative to make an appointment with Yuki Iseki of the Japanese New Wave Film Company, the Japanese investor of the film.

Yuki Iseki has invested in many inland films, including "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin", "Mo Attack", etc.

His film "Pure Love" won the Independent Film Award at the 5th European Monaco International Film Festival. Kanda Keiko directly contacted Iseki Yuki and found that the situation in this drama was much more complicated than expected...

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The film is produced by Teito Film Studio, Japanese New Wave Film Company, and a French independent film financier.

When the project for this movie was approved, Kaizi was filming "Farewell My Concubine".

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At that time, Kaizi found the famous screenwriter Lu Wei.

I hope he will adapt the novel "Farewell My Concubine" by a Hong Kong writer and make it into a Peking Opera movie.

Reed maintains the rhythm of one film a year all year round, which is unstoppable. I have been working in the industry for more than 30 years and have written more than 30 movies. Less than half of them have been filmed, but many of them are remembered.

For example, "Song of Qin", "The Ballad of the Yellow River", "Tuya's Marriage", and the two "masterpieces" recorded in film history - "Farewell My Concubine" and "Alive".

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Li Bihua, the author of the novel "Farewell My Concubine" is a Hong Konger. The script needs to have a solid Beijing accent, and the spirit of the characters also needs to reshape a new spiritual core.

This is the adaptation that Kaizi asked Lu Wei to write a brand new movie script.

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"Brother Lu, can you help rewrite a script..."

Kaizi brought the original novel of "Farewell My Concubine" to visit him personally.

Lu Wei was a theater fan and was very interested when he heard the background of the story. He said to Kaizi: "You have found the right person."

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In order to prepare better, Lu Wei stayed in the guest house of the National Library, read a lot of literary and historical materials, and repeatedly listened to the recording of the play "Teahouse" by Lao She, immersing himself in the Beijing accent and creating an environment for line creation.

Regarding the script, Lu Wei only allowed Kaizi to give opinions and not write. After the first version of the script was written, it was handed over to Kaizi.

The annotations "upper", "middle" and "lower" are written next to each session, which respectively represent "satisfaction", "need exchange and discussion" and "change".

The film was ultimately shot almost entirely according to the second version of the script written by Lu Wei, with 88 scenes unchanged.

This is unique in Kaizi's career who is keen on writing scripts himself.

In fact, Lu Wei thought the script was too long and tried to change it again, but Kaizi stopped him.

He said: "Brother Lu, you are so angry."

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Kaizi was divorcing his second wife Hong Huang at the time and was pursuing TV host Ni Ping.

Kaizi works at the Imperial Film Studio, earning several hundred yuan a month, and has been unable to make ends meet.

Kaizi, who was short of money, often went to Brother Lu to complain:
"Brother Lu, Hong is too strong and Ni is too traditional. I am very distressed..."

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Lu Wei invited Kaizi to dinner. It cost 10 yuan to ride 10 kilometers, which was very cheap. The two of them got into the small carriage and bent over to drink bean juice.

It was winter at that time, the north wind was howling, and the two of them were so drunk that they were sweating and passionate on the roadside.

Except for the steaming bean juice.

There are also fried noodles made by Kaizi’s father using “Xinxinmei” radish as a topping;

Draw elaborate patterns of costumes for movie characters on the spot;

The screenwriters and producers of the show voted 4:1 to overturn Director Chen's decision to choose Zhang Guorong as the protagonist;

Lu Wei summarized his creative state at that time: "Everyone is of one mind, but there is only one piece of sincerity."

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When I was inspecting the project of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin", I saw the state of the crew of Director Chen's "Farewell My Concubine", and I was immediately moved.

The four co-producers of the joint venture crew unanimously agreed that Director Chen would be the director of this joint venture film.

However, they did not expect Director Chen's transformation speed...

(End of this chapter)