Twenty years ago, the ancestor of ghost animals became a Douban drama. Is Cao Rong's The Journey to the West almost destroyed?

Tang priest knows martial arts? The Monkey King became facial paralysis? Is Bajie not lazy? Buddha reincarnated in love? Bodhisattva is Buddha's past girlfriend? Have the Buddha and Heaven been taken away by a pot? ……

These deviant people's designs and plots are put together to form a biography of The Journey to the West.

In 2000, when the audience was still immersed in the 83rd edition of The Journey to the West, The Journey to the West was born, which gave countless audiences a loud slap in the face: this is a TV series that subverts tradition.

Coupled with the operation of ghost animals, the sequel to The Journey to the West caused great controversy as soon as it was broadcast. According to the mainstream view at that time, this deviant adaptation should be nailed to the shame column.

At the same time, Cao Rong was badly scolded.

Cao Rong was born in Hongkong, 1963. In that era when the whole world worshipped Bruce Lee, young Cao Rong was also his little fan:

"After seeing Bruce Lee's play, I decided that I must make a movie and be an action actor.".

In order to follow his idol, Cao Rong began to practice martial arts at the age of 12. He is a martial artist with good martial arts. He entered the entertainment circle without training.

1988, Cao Rong played a fighter with no lines and only a flash lens in "Flying Dragon", which did not bring him popularity.

However, this movie made him know Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. He won the appreciation of the two bosses, mixed into adult classes and Hongjia classes, and became a martial arts instructor.

In the star-studded Hong Kong film industry, Cao Rong has only two bright spots.

On one occasion, in "The Dragon Slayer by Eternal Adversity", Yuan Yin and Jet Li, the monks he played, had a wonderful fight.

The play was designed by himself, and the fierce African player and the classic line left a deep impression on the audience: "My fighting capacity is only 6000, and he is at least 10000".

The other time was the film A Good Man, for which Cao Rong won the Best Action Director Award in the 34th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Award and became one of the most famous action directors in Hong Kong.

For many unknown behind-the-scenes workers, it is lucky to be able to reach such a height as Cao Rong.

Fortunately, Cao Rong also acted as an action director in the sequel to The Journey to the West, and also played Prince Meng of the Dragon Palace in the West Sea.

Therefore, he and Journey to the West forged an indissoluble bond.

Second, "The Fighter in the Bad Film"

Before filming The Journey to the West, Cao Rong was full of ambition and confidence.

Under Yang Jie, the director of The Journey to the West, Cao Rong is only an executor and has no decision-making power. Yang Jie does whatever she says. And The Journey to the West gave him a chance to try.

After reading the script of Journey to the West, Cao Rong immediately called the director: I must make the Monkey King, Zhu Bajie, Nezha, Wu Tian and Heipao have distinct personalities, and everyone's fighting has their own style, which conforms to the personality characteristics of the characters.

He is also confident in his role in the Monkey King. During the filming, the crew found many actors to audition, and the directors were not satisfied.

Cao Rong, a martial arts coach, personally attended the ceremony. When he put on makeup, dressed as a monkey and played with a golden hoop, the effect was surprisingly good.

As a result, Cao Rong has become another classic image of the Monkey King besides six-year-old children.

Someone asked him, "The six-year version of the Monkey King has been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Are you under pressure to play this role again? "

Cao Rong replied, "I added a lot of action design and computer stunts. This is a brand-new the Monkey King, each with its own strengths. I don't think the pressure will be too great. " "The the Monkey King I played is seven points human and three points monkey, and I pay more attention to the humanization of the Monkey King."

Not only in action, he also designed a classic line for the Monkey King: "You fell down before I tried hard".

At work, Cao Rong is very serious. At the shooting scene, his phalanx was broken by a steel wire; Once I fell asleep because of heavy work, and my assistant shouted several times before waking up.

There was a kissing scene, and the actor never got into the role. Cao Rong was in a hurry and demonstrated it himself. He hugged the actress and kissed her, which shocked everyone at the scene, but the actor also entered the scene.

He said: "I have only one criterion for filming: I must look good."

Having done so much for the Monkey King, he has reason to believe that he can portray this role successfully, and he also has reason to believe that The Journey to the West can be a great success.

Therefore, he boldly said: "Our play is completely different from Yang Jie's The Journey to the West and Stephen Chow's A Chinese Odyssey, and it is better than them."

However, after the film came out, it was madly vomited by the audience. His Monkey King was rated as "expressionless, glassy-eyed and cramped all over";

The evaluation of action drama is: "One action is repeated three times ... The story that could have been finished in three episodes is stuffed into 30 episodes with repeated martial arts actions";

There is also the Buddha who talks about love triangle, the Tang priest who can "point" and his expressionless acting skills, all of which are mercilessly ridiculed. ...

The Journey to the West became a "fighter in a bad movie".

Third, the play is underestimated.

Instead, Cao Rong completely screwed up The Journey to the West.

So after the movie, Cao Rong, who wanted to make a turnaround before the war, was very depressed, so he had to go backstage again and go back to be a martial arts instructor honestly, and few roles came out.

20 years later, when we look back at this drama that has been scolded by dogs, and when we re-evaluate it with our present eyes, is The Journey to the West really that bad?

Douban score soared seems to speak for itself.

Some people say that The Journey to the West is "third-rate editing, second-rate acting, first-rate plot, superb BGM", which is true. Editing and acting are really dragging their feet, but the plot of this movie is absolutely first-class.

The screenwriter of this play is money. Maybe not many people have heard of Qian Qiuyan, but almost everyone knows his other play, Detective Di Renjie.

Qian has read many poetry books, and his plays are all written in classical Chinese. There are not only old sayings, but also uncommon words. The crew basically has a dictionary to fully understand the script.

But the script of money is not obscure to read. His stories are basically made up by himself, which is quite innovative to read. The Journey to the West is a typical representative.

How innovative is The Journey to the West? There have been some nouns in it, such as the abyss of forgetting, the tunnel of reincarnation, Asura Palace, positive and negative cyclones and so on.

In 2000, these words refreshed the audience. There are also many brain-opening settings: Heaven, Buddhism and Taoism are reincarnated in one pot, the heads of Buddha and Tibetan Bodhisattva are rotated 180, and there are four people, fake Guanyin and fake mentoring. ...

In addition, it is worth mentioning that one of the most successful settings of this drama is that the bad guys don't have Facebook.

The villain's previous life was Bodhisattva Kinnaro, who succeeded in becoming a prostitute, but was later framed, the prostitute died and was sentenced to be close to women.

"I am not a monster, but I don't like the hypocrisy of the Buddha." Wu Tian and the Monkey King in Wukong's story are exactly the same:

"The gods say you are a demon, and you are a demon." They are demons, but this demon is not useless. The bad feeling of lawlessness is understandable.

In terms of music, The Journey to the West is also the top level: the opening song is Liu Huan's "I want to be immortal" and the ending song is Mao Amin's "Acacia".

"I want to live forever and be happy in heaven", whenever music reminds me, my memory will always be pulled back to 20 years ago.

Some people say that The Journey to the West is a superb work without the image of ghosts and animals repeated three times.

Especially compared with Xian Xia dramas that only pay attention to face value, scenery, costumes, makeup, filters, and celebrity coffee spots in recent years, The Journey to the West is a conscience drama.

Therefore, when Cao Rong revealed that he was going to re-edit The Journey to the West, netizens applauded: "This drama is really underestimated".

The character of Tang Priest in The Journey to the West is quite different from that of The Journey to the West in the 83rd edition: he not only knows martial arts, but also works resolutely and resolutely, without hesitation.

During the filming, a reporter condemned Huang Haibing, the actor of Tang Priest: "You ruined the virtue accumulated by Tang Priest all his life." .

Huang Haibing responded: "The Tang Priest in The Journey to the West is no longer a Buddhist who knows right from wrong and does not distinguish between good and evil, but a monk with great wisdom and courage. Can he not clean the door for Buddhism? "

After that, I danced the golden mord in front of the reporter, which was very domineering. The reporter was too scared to speak.

There are a thousand hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people. It is inherently biased to measure Journey to the West with the 83rd edition of The Journey to the West.

The golden mord can be used as a police sleeping tool for Tang Priest in the 83rd edition and a killing weapon for Tang Priest in the Journey to the West.